Page 5 of Just a Little Wicked (Wicked Sisters #2)

Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. She felt crowded in on all sides, with bad choices followed by worse choices coming at her left and right.

Her plan to evade the summons had failed, so she was no longer running from the Shadow Council.

Now, she had to stay away from her family until the wedding because she knew her sisters would ferret out the truth and involve themselves, and the last thing she wanted was for them to incur the wrath of the Shadow Council in defense of her.

But everyone was being so damned stubborn and making it impossible for her to do the noble thing.

Her fingers tingled with what felt suspiciously like panic.

His eyes traced her face, and the easy, jostling Erikson disappeared as an expression of steel and granite took its place.

“If this ‘impossible situation’ is a threat to my brother’s safety, or that of my future sister’s, you will tell me what it is.

” He hesitated, his eyebrows furrowing as his gaze dropped to her chest, where her rapid inhalations were becoming obvious. “Are you . . . having a panic attack?”

“What?” she gasped. She didn’t think so. Yes, there was a crushing weight on her chest and her fingers felt numb, and she wasn’t sure she could think or breathe, but Winter had never had a panic attack before and she highly doubted she was starting now.

“You are.” Erikson reached for her, and before she could bat him away, he wrapped his palm around her bare wrist.

The electric contact instantly plunged her into a vision.

It was a rare, seamless blue day, and Connor cut a dashing figure in a deep gray tuxedo that matched his eyes.

The trees were bare, but the evergreens were full, and the guests seated in the white chairs didn’t seem to mind being buttoned into their jackets.

The audience was facing the apple trees, where Connor stood, waiting for his bride.

It was Holly’s wedding.

Winter recognized almost everyone in the small, intimate crowd.

There were several people from town that her aunts were good friends with.

There was Charlotte, who’d taken over as the new co-host of Grimm Reality after Connor retired, a number of people Winter vaguely recognized from the film crew, an aged woman with deep lines that must have been Connor’s mother, and an equally tired-looking man who must have been his father.

Stacy, their Witch friend, stood an awkward distance from the last line of chairs. Flanking her were her twin brothers.

A stranger appeared beside Stacy, someone Winter didn’t know.

He was a gorgeous man with tousled black hair and eyes so green they matched the firs.

The moment he appeared, her aunts paled and covered their mouths, turning to see why they were suddenly more nauseated than before.

It was a dead giveaway that the new arrival was not only a Witch, but a powerful one.

Somehow, Winter knew he was the reason for the vision.

“Atlantes, you came,” Stacy said in surprise.

The man growled with distaste. “Trust me, I’d rather be anywhere else.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I came to help.”

Winter snapped abruptly out of the vision.

There was a hard, warm chest beneath her cheek, and an equally warm arm wrapped around her back, holding her tight so she wouldn’t fall.

She breathed in the spicy and woodsy scent for one, two breaths, and then gasped and pushed away.

Erikson released her, allowing her to step back.

She pressed her palms to her hot cheeks.

“Are you all right?” He looked like he wanted to reach for her and pat her down for injuries. “You . . . went away. Blanked out.”

“I had a vision.” Her mind was racing as she recalled what she’d seen.

Atlantes . That was the man’s name, and the way Stacy had known him, the way her aunts had reacted to his presence, had told her all she needed to know: he was a Witch.

While Wickeds were always female, Witches could be either male or female.

And when in close proximity, Witches and Wickeds made each other ill.

The Witch, Atlantes, had said he was at the wedding to help. Help with what? Could he have meant he was there to help with the Shadow Council? Why else would he be at a Wicked wedding?

Winter grasped onto the thin line of hope like a desperate woman clinging to floss as she tumbled over the side of a cliff.

She had no idea who Atlantes was, or where he lived, or how he might be able to help a Wicked avoid the Shadow Council, but right now he was her only lead, no matter how improbable it was.

Besides, there was someone who might know the answers to the first two questions: Stacy.

Winter gazed up at Erikson, considering how his touch had sparked the vision.

Despite being in her mid-twenties, she still didn’t fully understand how her visions worked or what triggered them.

She spent more time suppressing them than trying to figure them out.

The visions were usually clear snippets of some impending and often violent event.

She didn’t always know what the scene was about or where it would take place, probably because the first thing she did when her visions started was try and bury them.

Occasionally touch was a catalyst, like if she touched an item related to the apple farm, it might trigger a vision involving their business.

It was possible that Erikson’s skin, for whatever reason, had triggered her vision of Atlantes.

It was equally possible it was just a coincidence.

But if Atlantes could somehow help her with this mess, then she needed to know more about him and why she’d had the vision, which meant she needed more visions.

More clues to help her learn who he was and where she could find him.

She couldn’t trust that he would just show up on Holly’s wedding day without intervention.

That meant she might need Erikson after all.

“Winter?” he asked again, and it sounded like he might have said her name more than once.

“Erikson, I have a proposal for you.”