Page 35 of His Whispered Witch (Witches and Shifters: Scott Pack #6)

“ O kay, men… and woman… We’ve been training for this for years, and it is your day. Will there be thoroughbred stallions in the race? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean you have no chance.” Asher surveyed his motley crew of donkeys in their newly constructed stalls behind the big house and sighed.

Of course, they had absolutely no chance, but they proved surprisingly useful when training young stallions. Their smell was both foreign and familiar, which felt like a threat to a thoroughbred, so it was excellent training for the races.

It was hard in the mountains of West Virginia to recreate a horse race. Many yearling racers got to the big stage and panicked. Since they started donkey racing, they’d had that problem a lot less often.

“You know they think you’re insane, right?”

He spun around to see his love leaning against the side of the stable, the bearded dragon perched across her chest.

Why didn’t you warn me? he asked the wolf, who sent back confusion at why it would ever need a warning about their mate.

His wolf was still quiet, far less talkative than any other wolf on the land, but it was sane.

Asher thought back to that day of the massive spell when they realized the snake was gone.

It had taken a month for the wolf to believe it and another two before it sent the first tentative message about the fact that Asher, amid the first major snowstorm of the winter, thought he was heading toward the barn when he’d been heading straight toward the woods.

The wolf knew he would’ve figured that out eventually—probably the moment he hit a tree—but thought he might want to know.

Asher had nearly fallen to his knees in relief.

It was the first nonviolent communication they’d had in years.

Asher wrapped his arms around Penn. He knew logically that this swell of love and gratitude would fade, that he would eventually forget the miracle that was every day he didn’t wake up to a battle of wills he knew he was going to lose, but it hadn’t faded yet.

“First, they think there’s a major threat,” Penn said quietly.

Asher frowned. “When?”

“When you give your inspiring speeches. First, they think you’ve seen something terrible behind them because you keep pacing and looking at the walls, but then, when nothing happens, they think you’ve lost it.”

He looked down at the donkeys, who had all come to the front of their pens and were staring adoringly at Penn.

“No more inspirational speeches for donkeys? That’s what you’re saying?”

“I mean, they love you. They’re used to it. I’m just saying it’s not having the effect I think you want to have.”

Asher snickered and relented, pulling up the gate and walking behind the herd to tap their hindquarters to get them moving. “Okay, fine.”

She waited beside the door as the donkeys streamed out, then laced her hand with his as they headed down the green toward the festive balloons set up at the front of one of the racetracks.

There were four dozen people spread out on the lawn beside the track, not just his relatives, but also the Abbott coven, and even the rival pack of Dukes who were enemies fifty years ago and were now in-laws.

They were still mostly in their own groups on the hill, but his wolf acknowledged the family ties.

“I’m going to go talk down the colt,” Penn whispered, kissed his jaw, and slipped away.

She’d slipped seamlessly into the Scott Ranch horse business.

With two hundred head on the land, there was probably never going to be a lack of work, but the surrounding farms had immediately begun to send for her as well.

She’d protested that she thought West Virginia was going to be even more insular than Colorado, but he had to remind her that she was on the inside.

When word got around that the Scott stables had brought in some fancy animal psychologist, they all wanted in on it. Her days were full, and she loved it.

He got the donkeys set up on the starting line and resisted the urge to wax poetic about their new job freaking out frisky stallions a little but not too much.

Would you? he asked, and the wolf obliged by flashing in his eyes until they froze.

He always asked now and didn’t order. He knew most shifters had to play dictator in their own system, but that didn’t work for either of them.

Moira and Paul strolled by, and Moira waved something. “The best yet!”

Asher frowned until he recognized the waffle in her hand.

He’d gotten up at four in the morning to make a celebratory breakfast instead of grits for their morning meal. Kathleen had called him insane.

It was the one point of contention with the wolf who had thought that all the experimenting with disgusting food would be over now that they were home, but Asher found himself in the role of pack cook along with his aunt.

She’d protested wildly that she didn’t need the help, but the first time she got to sleep in for two days in a row, she promptly handed breakfast to him.

Nothing tasted as good as the fire-roasted dishes he made in that cabin, but he loved that he was no longer cooking for himself.

The first night he made curry, Malcolm had threatened to finally take him out, and he toned down the spice after that, shocked to realize how much his tolerance had built up.

He was slowly increasing the levels now.

He’d get them closer, though their hyper-sensitive shifter tongues would never be able to tolerate the authentic recipes.

He took his position in the starting line behind his row of donkeys as Penn led out Excalibur.

The colt was rapidly losing his knobby knees as he sprouted up, but he was still as frisky as a newborn. No one would be riding him. They wouldn’t try to break him—put a saddle on his back—for another year. This was mostly for desensitization and fun.

At the last moment, Penn swung Oz down from her shoulder where the little lizard had been perched to join the four donkeys and the stallion at the starting line.

“You’re going to get stepped on,” she said, though she didn’t sound worried about it.

“Is that everybody?” Malcolm called, and Asher half expected Moira to show up with one of her snakes.

She’d taken the viper away to her snake house.

It had taken Asher two months to visit and see the animal that had caused him such grief.

It was a regular black snake. Moira had even taken it to a vet to see what, if anything, was different about it, but the vet didn’t run screaming from the room at the thousand-year-old serpent.

It was a normal asp, an adult of uncertain years.

“And on your marks, get set, go!” Malcolm said.

“Go, go, go!” Asher added when the donkeys didn’t move. Immediately, they trotted forward.

Excalibur took off like a shot, overtaking them and then heading off the track into the middle of the field to run around in his own circles. The bearded dragon panicked and climbed Penn like a cloth-covered tree to perch on her head.

The assorted crowds laughed and cheered as the donkeys ran out of steam fifteen feet from the finish line and started wheeling about as well.

Asher burst out laughing and had to put his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

Malcolm clapped a hand on his back, and he stood back up.

“I haven’t heard that in fifteen years,” Malcolm whispered.

Asher grabbed him in a squeezing hug and pounded him on the back, mostly to avoid the look in his eyes. “Thank you. I know I said it before but thank you.”

Asher stepped back and took a deep, bracing breath.

“Thank you ,” Malcolm said fervently.

Penn stepped up, and he carefully put an arm around her shoulders. The bearded dragon bopped his head up and down. His wolf snarled, and Asher looked away. He didn’t think the beast would ever be a fan of reptiles.

“And thank you!” Malcolm added, his eyes on Penn. “Although it is super weird to hunt without immediately poisoning your prey. I think I was more snake than I thought.”

“You’re welcome?” Penn said, and Malcolm dashed away to corral the colt.

Penn’s back pocket buzzed, which he felt more than heard, and she stepped away.

He frowned. She had gotten in touch with her family, but they were still insisting she come back home, so contact was few and far between.

She still held out hope that more of her family would run, and Asher, Malcolm, and everyone else had assured her that any witch would be more than welcome to come to the land, but so far, it had been slow going.

He looked around. The only other people she talked to were all here.

She hung up and turned toward him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s Annie.”

“Who?”

“She was from the Griffin coven in Colorado.” A slow smile spread across her face.

“What?”

“She just ran away with a werewolf.”

“What?”

“They’ve known each other for years. They fell in love in high school or something? Only he didn’t go to high school? I didn’t understand most of what she was saying, but they’ve run away together.”

Asher burst out laughing. “We’re gonna have the whole world paired up by the end of this. We just can’t keep away from each other.”

He folded her in her arms.

“She doesn’t have anywhere to go.” She murmured into his shoulder.

“Oh. Of course. No worries. She can come here.”

She shook her head. “He won’t leave his family.”

“She’s gonna live with the pack?”

“I don’t know. I told her she always has a place, but they’re gonna try and make a go of it, I think.”

“Alone?”

“I don’t know. But she can’t go home. The twins…”

“They might come around one day.”

He thought of the crazy woman standing in the middle of the road he nearly ran over; she confronted the truck without an ounce of fear.

He gave it fifty/fifty odds, but he hoped for her sake that one day they would come around.

Penn had more family than she knew what to do with here, but he knew it had hurt to leave.

Malcolm passed them, leading Excalibur by a halter, and Penn said to the horse, “You did so good. You ran so fast.”

“Yeah, we’ll worry about insignificant things like direction later,” Malcolm said with a laugh.

“I’ve gotta go light the grill,” Asher said. The day would end with a barbecue. The Dukes had bought half a pig that a couple of wolves were guarding in front of the big house, even as multiple different teenagers in wolf form tried to steal it.

The healing witch, Becca, approached with her mate, a tall blonde dude with kind eyes. She carried one child on her hip and another clung to his hand.

A searing ache lit in Asher’s chest, and he squeezed Penn. They hadn’t talked about kids, but he had an abnormal amount of hope pinned on her offhand comment about raising kids in the house together.

“Great job,” Becca said sincerely.

“You can head up the hill, and we’ll get the pig on,” Asher said.

The blond dude shuddered.

“Dan,” Becca said to her mate.

“What?” Asher asked. His wolf did not view the strange shifter as a threat. He was the mate of Goldie’s sister, who was the mate of his cousin. They were family. It was a tangled web of connections that the wolf understood better than he did.

“You don’t have a signature cocktail, do you?” Dan asked.

Asher laughed. “Hell, somebody’s brewing moonshine I’m sure, why?”

Dan scratched his chin. “The last time I was at a barbecue with a hog, my sister made a signature cocktail, and I abandoned her to walk the Appalachian Trail.”

Becca looked up at her mate. “That’s not why.”

“No, but it sure helped.”

Becca swatted him, and the girl in her arms said, “No hitting!”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have hit. No hitting. No spells. No biting.”

Asher closed his eyes, imagining having to teach that lesson without dire consequences and threats because one wrong move would mean a dead child. He’d never lived in a world where you could let a child chew on their little brother for a while, and nothing bad would happen.

“Aren’t you glad she did serve that cocktail?” Dan asked. “I might’ve waited a day or two instead of bolting, and then none of us would be here.”

Asher frowned. There was a story there, but he didn’t think the ending was right. He rubbed his chin as he looked at his mate. “I don’t know. It seems we have a way of finding each other no matter what.”

“No matter what the cost.” Penn shuddered as she stared into the middle distance. He knew she was thinking of her friend.

Dan pulled Becca into a hug and spun her around with the kids. “They’ll have to find their own happily ever after. This one’s taken.”

The End