Page 13 of His Whispered Witch (Witches and Shifters: Scott Pack #6)

A sher cursed as hot caramel seared his fingers, and he retreated from the pile of profiteroles—little pastries full of cream—that he was slowly assembling into a tower.

Without warning the night before, he’d found himself in his human body at the base of a tree, his wolf suddenly calm.

He had been bracing for weeks of this while a tiny, panicked voice in the back of his head worried about forever, pre-mourning the donkeys he would probably eat before it was over. Then, all of a sudden, he was human.

He’d thought he’d smelled her… But that was impossible.

He’d staggered back to his cabin buck naked and freezing, hopeful and terrified he would find her within, but he didn’t.

The disappointment from that almost sent him back to his fur willingly, so he pulled a French patisserie cookbook off a shelf with the most complex recipes he could find and picked the recipe with the hardest rating and the longest timeframe.

He regretted that now. Normally, the absurd creations that grew on his workbench shocked and impressed him, but this one was just ridiculous.

Who thought combining a dry, delicate pastry with wet, heavy cream into a tower of hard caramel was a good idea? In a very short amount of time, he’d have a dripping, soggy mess.

Gingerly, he poked at the bottom row where the caramel had already set and pried one off; it ripped in half as he pulled it. Truly, who would come up with this ridiculous thing?

He popped it into his mouth and closed his eyes. Okay, it was hard to go wrong with fat, burned sugar, and cream. It tasted spectacular, but not for this much work. It tasted good in a could’ve just bought a donut kind of way.

He shook his head roughly, feeling more human, and for that reason alone, knew he would keep going and have a pile full of soggy pastry for lunch.

He thought of fighting this fight every day for the rest of his life. He supposed he should be relieved, because twelve hours before, he’d thought he would have to endure life trapped in a wolf, so this was better.

It didn’t feel better.

Penn seemed to think it was an inherent problem, not something she could fix.

He hadn’t thought a lot about where the venom came from.

He’d grown up with the usual warnings about being prepared to kill anything you bite, including yourself.

He didn’t think of the snake as having any kind of consciousness or presence within him.

He’d never felt like he could converse with the snake the way he did constantly with his wolf.

He was more careful now as he dipped the next little ball into dark caramel and fixed it to its neighbors, keeping his fingertips well clear.

There was a string of thin sugar that looked like a spiderweb from the pot to the plate.

Well, he had spun sugar on his list of things to try. Why not this morning?

This wasn’t enough. He knew this wasn’t enough. He would be a Michelin-star chef in open flame cooking and still be absolutely crazy in another few months, but it was all he had.

He heard a car door slam and froze.

He hadn’t heard it approach.

Was it her? Had she come back? Was she more to him than just an animal witch?

His wolf didn’t answer.

He knew from his cousins that the wolf would know their mate. His wolf wasn’t healthy enough to even stay in control. How would it know?

He knew this wasn’t healthy, his obsession with her. He knew his desire for her was wrapped up in his desire for her to save him, but he couldn’t stop himself from hoping.

He looked down at the pathetic ring of profiteroles, three rows high, and looked around for a place to hide them. There was none. He lived in a single room. He leaned forward quickly and undid the latch of the window above the counter and threw the thing, plate and all, out the window.

Then he looked at a pile of empty choux buns and quickly tossed them. All he had left was a bowl of crème diplomat and a pot of rapidly cooling and, therefore, hardening caramel. He put the pot in the sink rather than start a forest fire as she knocked on the door.

He rushed to open it, and she looked relieved. “Thank god, you’re human.”

He grinned, bolstered by her happiness, but then faltered. Was she relieved and happy because she was afraid of the wolf or was she happy to see him?

Please don’t be insane, he told himself, because that always worked.

He opened the door wide. “Come in!” He paused. “If you want to.”

She nodded quickly and stepped through the door. “Oh my god, what smells so good?”

He examined the counter and the lone bowl of pastry cream he hadn’t thrown out the window. “Vanilla pudding?”

She blinked and looked back at him. She was wearing another sparkly top today over jeans and practical boots, and he realized her hair was a little longer and longed to run his hand over her head to see how soft and spiky it was.

Instead, he ran a hand over his hair, so long now. When did he last cut it?

He leaned over, grabbed the bowl, and handed it to her.

She perched on the bed and took a bite with the huge stirring spoon left in it.

She’d stood up to eat the curry; did she feel more comfortable now?

He rolled his eyes. There was magic for reading minds, but he didn’t have it. He had to stop trying.

“Holy god, this is spectacular!”

“Thank you. What is your favorite dessert?”

She blinked and thought about that. “I don’t know. Something with cheese?”

He swallowed. “You want a dessert with cheese?”

“Yeah, you know, like cheesecake.”

“Oh! Right.” Until this moment, he had forgotten that entire genre existed. He’d have to pick up some cream cheese. His wolf wanted to go right now.

Asher stopped, shocked. It was the first non-destructive human impulse he’d seen from the wolf in years.

Do you want to go get cream cheese to make cheesecake?

But it was already gone and ignoring him again. Was that a good sign?

“This is so not the conversation I was expecting to have,” Penn said with a laugh.

“What were you expecting to say?” he said, clenching against a cascade of worst-case scenarios.

She licked her lips and then licked her spoon clean, and Asher lost his breath for a moment.

“I don’t know. I thought I’d have to tramp through the wilderness and find you, or I guess, your wolf, and get him to trust me and then try to get him to shift.”

Asher shuddered. “Please don’t do that.”

She looked hurt. “Why not?”

“It took an entire pack of wolves and a really strong spell to get me human the last time. If I’m gone, just walk away. It’s not worth your life.”

“You would really attack me?”

He wanted to say it was a risk, but suddenly his wolf was there again, outraged. “I don’t know.”

His wolf reared.

You can’t guarantee anything, he told his wolf.

“Wait, you said a spell with wolves?” Penn said and slowly lowered the bowl to her lap, forgotten.

“I did,” Asher said and gripped the paperclip.

“Witches and wolves worked together?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I grew up with a witch in my pack.”

“That’s impossible. The treaty.”

“The only people Kathleen had to fear were her own family!” He gentled his tone. “She hid from them with us.”

“With a pack.”

Do not say the word fate, he told himself sternly. Whatever you do, stop there.

“Yes.”

“It’s illegal. It’s impossible.”

“I don’t think there’s a law. And has anyone seen that damn treaty that’s ruining all our lives? And anyway, it doesn’t matter. She fell in love. So I grew up with a dozen potions a week from her.”

“She made a potion to keep you human? How on earth?”

“Actually, that was a charm.”

“She has potion magic and charm magic?”

He clenched his teeth. “That was a different witch.”

“So now two witches are living with your pack? Happily?”

“There are more than that,” he said slowly.

“What the hell? How many more?”

“I lost count.” He’d met them all when they kept him human and dragged him down from the mountains. He just had never added them up. “There’s the alpha and his new, um…” Do not say mate, do not say mate. “Partner. Girlfriend? And her daughter.”

“They have children?”

“Oh no, her daughter has a different father. But Kathleen had children. The first witch. And now they’re both together with witches.”

“A witch and a wolf had a baby.”

“Four that I know of, but a couple are infants. One of them doesn’t even have a wolf yet.”

“And they’re not, you know, wrecking the world?”

He raised an eyebrow. “We’re not breeding super villains in the woods of West Virginia, if that’s what you were worried about.

Yes, they have magic and they have wolves.

” Damn strong wolves. He thought of his cousin with his out-of-control wolf.

“Okay, I mean, sometimes it can be a challenge. But often, they are the strongest of us.”

Her eyes flared. “They’re stronger .”

He nodded. “Kathleen put wards around our land all by herself. Just her and her, um, husband.”

There was a light in her eyes now that warmed Asher and made him nervous.

“There are not thirteen witches in your pack, right?”

He shook his head vehemently. “I know there’s not thirteen.” He tried to count them up. “At least five or six?”

“And you have wards and a shit ton of magic.”

“Yes.”

“And you seriously didn’t raid a coven? I’m sorry. I know that sounds terrible.”

He laughed hysterically. “No! They’re not related at all. To each other, I mean, but also not to the wolves. I mean, I know it’s West Virginia, but we don’t actually do that.”

She took a deep breath, and he was terrified to realize her hands were shaking.

She said, “But you said you needed all of them to make that collar. So they can join together, even if they’re not related?”

He frowned. Why was she so excited and upset by that?

“Yeah? I mean, I think it had to come through the wolves, ‘cause all the wolves are related. So that’s how the magic flowed. Quinn said it was insane. It nearly blew her out. Quinn is the charm witch. And the alpha’s… Friend.”