Page 4

Chapter Three

M arric’s mind was still foggy when he woke, but his bladder told him he had to get up in the next minute or he’d be sleeping in his own body fluids. He had to push Regan’s legs off him. The boy was all limbs.

Marric slid out of under Regan as slow as possible.

Regan didn’t stir.

Marric held on to the wall when the dizziness took over.

He thought he heard voices. At first Marric thought his dad was speaking to Miss Marie outside his bedroom door.

When he concentrated on the tone and pitch, he realized the person speaking didn’t have a deep enough voice to be his father and the other person didn’t have a high enough pitch to be Miss Marie.

Not only that, but it might have been coming from outside the house.

He glanced at his alarm clock. The time read three o’clock in the morning.

Why would he hear voices so early? None of them were night people, not that they could be on a farm.

The animals deserved to have breakfast at a decent time of the morning and tending the fields was a lot better of an experience when they weren’t in the high heat.

He stopped being able to think about it when his bladder screamed at him. When he pulled open his bedroom door, no one was there. No surprise there.

He did his thing in the bathroom and washed his hands afterward.

He’d slept long enough that he wasn’t tired anymore. As he left the bathroom, he stopped in the hall, contemplating whether he wanted to go back to bed. Instead, he headed down the stairs.

His dad was in the living room. The curtains were closed, which almost never happened, but Dad stood close to the covered window.

When he saw Marric, he held a finger up to his lips and then gestured him over.

Marric closed the distance, leaning against him.

The first thing Dad did was make Marric feel secure by holding him close. Then he pressed his cheek against Marric’s forehead. “Still fevered.”

Marric nodded. “Couldn’t sleep. I heard people talking.”

They whispered the conversation. That might have been why he heard the voices again. Whoever belonged to those voices was right outside.

Marric could feel their magic. It penetrated the siding and walls of their house. It smelled herbal, like sage and lemon grass. Not unpleasant but certainly strange coming to them in the middle of the night.

“Witches,” Marric whispered.

Dad shook his head. “Only one of them.”

Marric sniffed the air. The wolf shifter’s scent wasn’t as noticeable because he was pack.

“Do you think they know we’re here?” The person attached to that voice sounded like a male, although voices could deceive, especially sense it wasn’t a deep voice. Still, it could have come from a child or a teenager sneaking around.

Were they stupid? Sneaking around a wolf shifter’s house was dangerous enough, but sneaking around the alpha of the Timeston Pack was practically a death sentence.

His dad would confront them soon. He’d go out there half-shifted with his claws out when he finished listening to their conversation.

“How do we do this?” One of them said. Do what? What were they trying to do?

“I don’t know if we have to do anything. They aren’t keeping up with the wards.” Are they trying to put up better wards or fuck with the ones his mother had put in place?

Dad shook his head and guided Marric to the couch. Marric laid down and his dad tucked a blanket around him. “Stay here.”

Marric wasn’t in any shape to confront trespassing witches. Besides, Dad was far more capable of taking care of a couple of trespassers than anyone else. His constant scowl intimidated most people. Not to mention his size and the strength that rolled off him. Most people felt it, even witches.

Marric heard their conversation from the couch, and it was clear his dad scared the witches.

The voices came to him from a distance. He wouldn’t have been able to hear them if not for his wolf senses.

“A-alpha Ransome.”

“Are you in danger?” They sometimes had pack members and even some of the coven members come to the farm for guidance or help of some kind.

So strangers being on the farm weren’t unheard of.

But they never had anyone come so early in the morning.

The last time they had someone come around at night was when Regan stumbled into their barn.

So, their presence all by itself wasn’t odd, but the time of day was very weird.

“You better have a damn good reason for coming to my house at three o’clock in the fucking morning. ”

They sputtered, but eventually they made some noise about not being able to go to the sheriff with some sort of domestic issue, which wasn’t beyond the realm. The sheriff didn’t help anyone in Timeston unless it benefited him. Everyone knew that about Timeston’s sheriff.

His dad’s sigh was loud enough to wake Regan and Emery. “If your neighbor has a problem, bring her with you next time. Don’t leave her in a dangerous situation.”

“Right. Thank you, alpha. We’ll bring her back.”

“In the morning, when it’s daylight. Daylight. Got it?”

“Yes, alpha.”

It didn’t take long for them to leave afterward. Their explanation didn’t match the conversation they had with each other about the farm’s weak wards.

Something about the situation didn’t sit right with Marric, but he didn’t say so to his dad when he came back into the room. Dad had enough problems without Marric adding to it.