Page 1 of His Whispered Witch (Witches and Shifters: Scott Pack #6)

“ O kay, guys. And girl. You’ve been training for this your entire lives. Today is the day that changes everything.”

“Heehaw,” the leading member of his team said.

Asher sighed and scratched between her eyes. “Or just do exactly what I trained you to do because you’re an ass.”

The donkey bobbed her head up and down as if she agreed with him, but Asher knew she was trying to readjust her mane.

He took a deep breath and surveyed his little herd.

He’d started with horses, but then his wolf ate one of them, and he decided to switch to a cheaper animal.

The only condition his alpha had for letting him flee the pack was that he had to pick a few animals to care for. A werewolf alone did not do well.

He knew that better than anyone.

He turned his attention inward to the wild beast and grabbed the paperclip on the bit of braided leather around his neck, an old reminder of his humanity.

Unlike his alpha had hoped, the beast had never taken to the animals Asher tried to raise. Even now, his wolf was looking at the four donkeys in front of him with a low level of hunger.

Never mind.

He turned his attention away, gripping until the paperclip dented his skin. The only reason he hadn’t eaten the entire herd was that the beast felt a small measure of respect for the hearty, stubborn creatures.

The West Virginia Scott Stables were famous for fabulous rodeo workers and racers in the quarter horse world.

They were gorgeous thoroughbreds. His new Scott Stables comprised two piebald burros of indifferent line, a jack and a jenny, plus one neutered jack with black and brown markings, and one black mini donkey.

It was the only creature in the world his wolf liked because the miniature ass wanted to do as much damage as his wolf did.

The mini one was technically a mistake. He’d thought it was a baby donkey when he’d bought it, only to panic when it didn’t get any bigger. He looked it up and realized there were two versions of donkeys. Well, there were a lot more than two, but mostly you couldn’t tell the difference.

As if it knew Asher was thinking about it, the mini started banging and ramming the horse trailer until Asher growled. It subsided with a murderous look in its eye that promised future retribution. From long experience, Asher knew they’d reached detente for another fifteen minutes.

“How do you get yours to do that?” a voice asked, and Asher spun, hauling on the reins so his wolf didn’t attack what turned out to be a young girl.

He was not good at guessing children’s ages.

He was not good at children, but she couldn’t have been out of elementary school.

She had light hair in a low ponytail and was wearing a long beige dress that reached the cuffs of battered leather boots.

It was made of rough-spun wool. In the high summer heat, he could smell the sheep it came from.

She looked like something out of a previous century.

Did this crazy race also involve cosplaying as pioneers or something?

“Well?” she demanded.

He glanced into improbably blue eyes and shook his head. “Um, what?”

“How do you get him to come out without shifting?”

His heart froze. His lungs froze. His brain froze. Even the wolf froze.

“How do you… I mean, what are you talking about?” he finally said after a full minute had gone by.

“Your wolf! He can come out without you changing!”

Asher’s heart restarted at double speed. She’d heard his wolf. She knew about wolves. There was a pack in Leadville. Dear god, how stupid could he get?

He’d tracked the covens and packs in his area to avoid both.

There was a gaggle of witches in Silver Spring, but they hadn’t tried to protect their land with wards, so he wasn’t sure how much territory they could claim.

He had smelled no wolves nearby, probably because of said witches.

Like an idiotic amateur wolf, he hadn’t thought to check the next big town over.

Of course, there were wolves in Colorado. This was their natural habitat.

“I mean you no harm,” Asher said quietly as he scanned for the rest of her pack.

The girl just cocked her head.

“I’m not here to challenge. I can go,” he insisted.

Her head nearly hit her opposite shoulder, the look of confusion deepening on her face.

“Brigit!” a rough voice shouted, and the girl whipped around.

A young man headed toward them dressed in dark trousers with a rough shirt of the same material as her dress, plus a pair of leather suspenders. He had yellow blond hair and the same eyes.

His wolf settled within him, the start of the hunt.

Asher dove into the horse trailer, which sent the donkeys heehawing and reeling.

One stepped on him, and he felt a rib pop.

He bit down on a groan and curled up in the back.

He was terrified of a fight, but not because he would lose.

He was terrified he would win. He was a dire wolf, bigger than other wolves, with teeth that dripped venom.

He would definitely win, and then he’d have an entire pack on his back.

“You can’t wander off!” the boy shouted.

Asher peered between the donkey’s legs. The new wolf was just this side of the invisible line between boy and man. Asher’s wolf would slaughter him.

“But he—” the girl began.

“He who?”

“Where’d he go?”

“Bridge, we’re not in our territory,” the boy said. “You have to keep to the family. Always keep to the family.”

We’re not in our territory. Well, that was the best news Asher had heard all day.

They’d come into town for the day. It meant he had a prayer of getting out of this without killing someone.

He hadn’t even considered the idea that other packs would also want to race donkeys.

Did that mean witches were running around with donkeys, too?

It didn’t seem like an activity for supernaturals.

Things were just different out West.

Donkeys were unexpectedly lucrative in this part of the world.

If he showed up around West Virginia with a herd, he’d be laughed out of the state.

A few yuppie farmers kept them as livestock guardians when they were too chicken to buy a big, scary dog, even though a disobedient donkey had to be a thousand times worse than a dog who would die to defend its owner.

Beyond faux farmers, Asher had only seen them in 4H competitions—the Boy Scouts of the farming world—to teach teenagers the meaning of humility.

But here in Colorado, fitness-obsessed trail runners and the state’s mining history collided in the weirdest sports craze he’d ever encountered: racing with donkeys.

The donkeys in question had to have symbolic mining supplies strapped on their backs, and the runners had to run alongside them for absurd distances, far, far above sea level.

There was definitely a different kind of rich out here.

Most people in West Virginia either had nothing, so they couldn’t be bothered to come up with bizarre hobbies, or were so ultra-rich, they bought up vast tracks of land in the Appalachians, where they could do whatever weird hobbies they wanted away from prying eyes.

Out here, there were a lot more people with a lot more disposable income and time on their hands, but they couldn’t all construct 5000 square-foot McMansions in the trees, so they did…

This. When he’d bought the donkeys, he’d goggled at what some of them would pay for the loan of an animal to run in a giant circle.

He sniffed to make sure the wolves were gone and clicked his tongue. The first two donkeys jolted down the ramp. Predictably, the mini balked. He let the wolf into his eyes for a second, and the ass caught up with its friends quickly.

Well, you’re good for something, he muttered to his wolf.

He herded them toward the temporary corrals set up behind the starting banner strung across Main Street and took a deep breath as he caught his first sight of downtown.

Leadville had a population of 2,600, a few more than his new hometown of Silver Spring, and he thought that would be okay.

He hadn’t factored in the spectators. It looked like a genuine big city race.

Every inch of Main Street was crawling with people.

As he started toward the crowd, his nerves jangled, his wolf reared, and his donkeys panicked.

It was only the threat of extreme violence from his wolf’s growl that allowed them to continue down the street.

They ran forward, and he ran after them, ducking as he saw a flickering out of the corner of his eye. He scoffed when he realized he felt threatened by the bunting stretched high above the street, already tattered by the wind.

This was the stupidest idea. Why did he think this was a good idea?

He had to do something with his time, and something for money.

His alpha had promised to send pack funds from the money printing machine that was the family horse ranch, but Asher was doing absolutely nothing to earn it.

He’d hoped that with a good enough showing here, he could spin up another breeding business of his own.

After all, he had a secret weapon. His donkeys never shied.

Yes, his wolf was good for something.

He was shaking by the time he reached the end of the street, where several pens were set up. Runners and donkeys were crowded together. He considered it a win that he had not shifted or killed anyone, himself included.

“Name?” a girl with a clipboard shouted at him.

He blinked. “Um, Asher Scott?”

She read down the list. “No Asher.”

The wolf snarled.

Don’t even think about it.

“Um, Scott. Scott Stables.”

“Oh, right. Your pen is three, over there.”

Asher got everybody into the pen and took a deep breath.

One of his runners had been completely shocked to learn Asher did not have a portable electronic device of any kind to bring with him to the race.

Asher had told him he’d be in pen three, and he was relieved he wasn’t going to have to hunt his own customers.