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Chapter Twenty-Three

I t didn’t take Iven but a few minutes to find the home of Esmelyn Blackroot, who was an elder in the Timeston coven. Trees and bushes hid the driveway. He almost drove past it.

It didn’t take much to know she imprisoned people somewhere on the property. He didn’t even have to get out of the car to know it. The evidence was obvious, which meant Blackroot didn’t have a lot of visitors.

“Call it in,” he told Cass, who was already punching in the state polices phone number. But just to make sure, Iven said, “This is within the state’s jurisdiction, so don’t call the Timeston sheriff.”

Not that Iven trusted Mattson. He was a part of the coven. Iven wasn’t sure whose side he was on.

“Got it.”

Like most of Timeston, the property was in the middle of farm country, although Blackroot didn’t appear to be a farmer. Iven would bet the surrounding property belonged to a neighbor. She had just enough land for her house and barn. Corn fields isolated the property.

Kinnison, who sat in the back seat, leaned forward. “Why are we calling more cops?”

Iven rolled his eyes. “We aren’t.” Iven gestured between himself and Cass. “ We are. And it’s because this woman has people locked up on the property. This isn’t our jurisdiction, so I’m calling the state police.”

“How do you know that?” Kinnison seemed genuine about wanting to know the answer.

“Do you see the cellar door?” Iven gestured to it with his head even as he wrote details about what was happening.

“Yeah. So?”

“So the door has a lock on it. Not only that, but it’s heavily warded. Like wards on top of wards. Not even I can get into it.” Which was why he wasn’t pulling open the door and getting whoever was inside out of Blackroot’s cellar.

“More dark magic users.” Kinnison seemed to have stopped insulting him sometime in the last couple of hours.

It was after Iven talked to Marric. Maybe he was making peace for the time being because he knew Marric wouldn’t live very much longer.

While it broke Iven in two, it probably destroyed Marric’s father.

Iven would feel a similar way if it were his sons.

For that reason, Iven wouldn’t argue with Kinnison, so it’s a good thing he called a truce.

“Yeah.”

“How has this been happening right under my nose?” Kinnison sighed.

“A better question is how has Mattson not realized it? He’s the sheriff of Timeston. He should have been out here cleaning this mess up.”

“Mattson is a waste of space. Everyone in Timeston knows that. Especially me, since I’m the one people come to for support.

” If Kinnison cooled the fires around Timeston, his guilt over the victims in the house made sense.

At least on some level. Not that Iven agreed.

The woman inside and everyone who knew what she was doing to people were the guilty ones.

“Does the coven come to you, too?”

Kinnison made a sound of affirmation. “The coven and the pack are a lot more integrated in Timeston than in Fortune Falls.”

Cass shook his head. “The pack isn’t even integrated with each other at the moment.”

“It’s your voting system. People think they have a right to an opinion when they can vote.”

“They do have a right to an opinion. That’s why we vote.

” Cass turned in the seat. “Maybe we’ll have to agree to disagree here, but I’m just gonna say this once.

The alternative is creating a pack who fears their leader.

And if that’s what you want for your pack, I’m glad you turned us down when we asked for help. ”

Cass turned in his seat again.

Kinnison sighed. “I’m not a dictator.”

“It sure sounds like you want to be. That might just be why you’re in this mess to begin with.” Cass messed around with his phone. Iven got enough of a glimpse to know he was texting Riley.

Kinnison growled. “Are you blaming me for my kids getting sick?”

“About as much as you blame Iven for Marric getting sick.” Cass smirked. “It all makes a ton of sense, doesn’t it?”

“Fuck you.” To Kinnison’s credit, he didn’t make a move of violence toward Cass, and he could have since he was in the back seat while Cass rode shotgun. But his anger was evident. And Cass’s sarcasm wasn’t helping.

“We can point fingers when all this is done and Marric is safe.” Iven didn’t care about anything else but Marri’s wellbeing.

Kinnison’s opinion on his mating would never matter, Iven’s hurt feelings wouldn’t matter after a while either.

“What I know right now is no one in this car wants people to be imprisoned as though they’re criminals. ”

Iven watched Kinnison in the rearview mirror, so he saw it when his expression softened. Kinnison met his gaze. He nodded as if to say thank you.

Iven nodded back to him.

The snap of a screen door grabbed Iven’s attention. A woman in a cream-colored flowing dress descended the stairs. She chanted as she came toward them. Her body emitted a black aura.

“Shit.” Iven scrambled to create a dome.

She threw a flaming ball at them just as the dome came around them.

He breathed a sigh of relief, but he knew the feeling would be short-lived.

The flame bounced off the dome, ricocheting toward a tree that blew up in a fiery ball of fire.

Wood splinters sailed through the air. Some of it hit the dome and slid to the ground with zero fanfare.

“That was fucking close.” Cass’s eyes were wide. “What the hell are we going to do now?”

Iven was out of ideas. He’d effectively saved their lives, but in doing so, he also trapped them. And Blackroot was one of the strongest witches Iven had ever encountered.

“Let me think.”

“I know what we won’t do. Sit here and make this car our grave.” Kinnison had a point.

“I second that,” Cass said.

They were looking to Iven to come up with a good solution to the problem and in the meantime, Blackroot was coming up with some sort of plan of her own.

She stood there staring at them with an evil grin on her face.

Not saying a word. She had green eyes and mostly gray hair, but there were red streaks in it.

She was a striking woman with strong features, but there was something in her eyes.

Maybe it was narcissism. Iven would learn soon enough what made her seem dead inside and so willing to hurt them.

Iven sat there as though he were a deer in headlights. Other witches came out of the cornfield and the barn, waking him up to the fact they were at the beginning of a clusterfuck. He needed to get his shit together and figure out what to do.

“Fuck,” Kinnison whispered and opened the car door. “It’s Timeston’s entire coven.”

He stripped and shifted into his third form.

“You called Jones in the state police, right?” Jones lived in Fortune Falls. While he was human, his husband was a warlock.

“He’s bringing warlocks as backup.” There was a couple who worked for the police. But it was the federal investigators who would handle the case in the long run. Jones could say the right thing to the FBI to get the right investigators involved, who could take over a case involving witches.

“Warn him that the problem just got a lot bigger.”

“Got it. I’ll also call Morticia to help.” She headed the Fortune Falls coven. Having their help would save their lives.

“Let Riley know what’s happening here but tell him to stay with Marric.” Iven got out of the car. He watched as nine witches surrounded the dome. They were preparing to conjure up some sort of spell to take it down. “I won’t be able to hold the dome against so many.”

“Then we fight.”

“They’ll overtake us.”

“Let them try.” It was lofty words coming from Kinnison who could break someone in half while in his third form. Then there was Cass, who also had a third form and could take out several before they took him down. But that still left them with more than they could handle.

“We need a plan.”

“So let’s get one. The longer we talk about it, the less likely we are to live through it,” Kinnison said.

Cass came out of the car. “We have to hold them off for about twenty minutes.”

“We need them here faster than that.” Iven cursed.

“I hate to say this, but the only way is getting Riley here.” Cass was nothing if not a realist.

“No. Absolutely not.” Iven wanted Marric to be protected above anyone else. Riley was the best person for the job.

Kinnison growled and stepped closer to Iven as if threatening him. “So you won’t put your own son at risk by helping us while my son is dying. Am I getting that right?”

Iven stepped up, getting nose to nose with Kinnison. Or nose to Kinnison’s hairy wolfish chest. “My son can kill everyone here with just a thought.”

Cass nodded, agreeing with Iven. “He really can.”

The interruption didn’t deter Iven from making his point. “I want him with my mate because Riley can keep him safe better than anyone else.”

Kinnison took a step back. “There may be greater need for him here.”

Iven sighed and rubbed his forehead. “They were here before we pulled up, which means they knew we were coming. They were surveilling the property. They saw us leave. This compromises everyone on the farm.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Cass’s phone rang. Since Iven made sure no one outside the dome could hear, Cass put it on speaker.

“There are wolves everywhere outside. We don’t know what to do.” Fear laced through every word Riley said.

Kinnison growled. “Who are they?”

“It’s the pack, Dad. Hubie is leading. He says they’ve taken over and that we need to give up gracefully,” Emery answered. She sounded much calmer than Riley.

“Under no circumstance are you to give up. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Emery?” Kinnison wanted her to fight.

Emery sucked in a breath. “Yes, alpha.”

“I can hold them off until you get here unless you want me to kill them,” Riley said. His voice shook.

“You can’t handle killing that many people, baby,” Cass said.

“I will if I have to.” Riley sighed. “Our wards are holding them back. I can hold them off when they fail. And they will fail. They have a witch. He’s powerful. But you have to come back here right away.”

“That’s a problem.” That was putting it mildly, considering about a hundred pissed off witches surrounded them.

Cass was the one who came up with a potential solution. He met Kinnison’s gaze. “It looks like the Fortune Falls pack and Timeston pack are officially at war.”

“I’ll tell Maggie,” Riley said. Maggie would organize the pack.

But in doing so, they’d start a war they may not win.