Page 8

Chapter

Seven

I spent the rest of the morning in my garden room, putting together the lucidus and sleep spells. The magic I’d absorbed from the soil flowed from my fingertips into the herbs as I assembled the charms.

My technique had been handed down by Lennox witches through the centuries, changing as ingredients became easier or more difficult to find. I chanted over a delicate assemblage of organic ingredients—usually medicinal herbs, crystals, and soil—and used my natural magic to seal them between two layers of glass, which I then soldered using lead-free foil, low-odor flux, and my mom’s old soldering iron.

Since my reconnection with the soil, my magic had been on an upswing. Before, when it was weaker, I’d had Cecil check every charm I made before using or selling it. Now, I didn’t need to. The earth here was no longer draining me. It wasn’t powering me as much as it should, but as I’d assured it and myself last night, we’d get there.

The charms finished, I placed them in velvet bags and tucked them into the pocket of my tote, which was really a classic black Kate Spade bag that I’d had tailored to add tons of inner pockets.

“Hey.” The low, growly voice floated through the open doorway. Startled, I dusted a pile of herbs off my workstation. A sprig of rosemary landed on Fennel’s furry head.

“ Ronan ?”

Some security system I had.

Fennel was snoring in his bed under the planter containing his namesake, and Cecil was nowhere to be seen. The park protection spell wouldn’t alert because I’d given the man a stone key and permission to enter, but a heads-up would have been nice.

He leaned against the door frame. He was wearing his work clothes and given the time of day and the dark circles under his eyes, I wasn’t sure if he’d changed into them before coming here or hadn’t yet slept. “Sorry I didn’t call first. I needed to talk to you, and I wanted to do it in person.”

“You’re already canceling Friday’s date? You asked yesterday. This has to be a new record.”

I patted my hair. I’d braided it to keep it out of my way while I was working, and some had come loose, forming a halo of frizz due to the humidity in the room. I was wearing shorts and an old T-shirt and my feet were bare. My face, too. My moisturizer wasn’t even tinted. I’m sure I looked glorious.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Sure.” I zipped up my black tote and set it on my worktable then took Ronan’s hand and let him to the chaise. We sat together, thigh to thigh.

“Is that ‘Still the Same’ by Bob Seger?” he asked after a long pause.

“Not what I expected you to say, but you’ve been surprising me all over the place recently.” I nudged him with my thigh. “Yes, it is, and if the radio’s too much of a distraction, I can turn it off.”

He shook his head. “It’s not loud or anything. It’s more that…”

“It’s more that you don’t want to tell me you’re bailing on our date. Is it the hair?” I pointed to my braid. “Because I think I’ve proven that I clean up pretty well.”

I’d expected him to smile, but when he just sighed and stared at our clasped hands, I knew whatever was going on was more serious than breaking a date.

“You’re always beautiful, Betty,” he said, in that growly voice that gave me goosebumps. Gold sheened his eyes for a half-second, telling me that his wolf agreed. “You take my godsdamn breath away.”

A delectable shiver went through me, and I sat up a little taller. “If you really are canceling on me, this is a fantastic way to do it. But it still sucks, and I’ll still be pissed at you for it.”

“I’m not here to cancel.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He nodded, appeared to notice he was nodding and shook his head instead. “I’m worried about your safety. My sisters. Mine, too, if I’m being honest.”

Fennel opened one eye and quickly closed it. Little spy.

“What happened?”

“The day of Sylvester Shaw’s funeral, my father called me into his office.”

“Was it after the funeral or before?”

“After.”

“And you didn’t tell me until now ? We spoke on the phone after the service.”

“He calls me into his office all the damn time. If I told you about every summons, you’d never get anything done.”

Bullshit. It was an excuse. He knew it; I knew it. The Seger song ended, and Peter Frampton’s “Show Me The Way” began. If Ronan didn’t start explaining himself, I was going to show him the way out .

“That was BS. Sorry. I’m trying to be straight with you, but my wolf sometimes overrides my good sense.” He dragged his hand through his hair again .

“Take a step back, wolf, and let Ronan speak,” I said, only half joking.

“Floyd was cagey, cryptic.” He squeezed my hand. Was it the wolf answering or the human? I wasn’t going to interrupt him to ask. “He told me some things straight out and hinted at others. The whole situation unsettled the hell out of me.”

“Sounds like a typical meeting with him. At what point in the conversation did he warn you away from me?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s usually his closer. That’s not what worried me, either.” He patted my knee with our entwined hands. “It started before that, in the hall with Mason Hartman. He’s acting strange.”

I swallowed the smart-ass comment— When isn’t he? —and rolled my hand in a “go-on” gesture.

“He told me to keep control of my wolf in Floyd’s office. To play it cool. When I asked him his angle in all this, he gave me a typical nothing response, but when I pressed him, he said he’d come talk to me at the pub if I controlled my wolf. I agreed.”

“And did he hold up his end of the bargain?”

Ronan finally cracked a grin. “You didn’t ask if I held up my end of the bargain.”

“Because I know you did. You’re smart enough to know that was a good deal. What did he say when he met with you?”

“You think he held up his end of the bargain?”

“Weirdly, yes. He seems like a ‘letter of the law’ type, so my guess is he showed up, but didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already either know or suspect.”

“Wow, you’re good. He confirmed that he sent the wolf who helped you the night you took out your stalker. The one who dumped dirt on your head.”

I shuddered when I thought about what might’ve happened to me if he hadn’t. “Why?”

“Something about how you helped him that night, and he despises being beholden to you in any way.” Ronan gave me a sideways look. “What’d you do to the guy? He really doesn’t like you. ”

“I annoy him. Mostly on purpose.”

“Me, too. It’s kind of fun.”

“Scary fun, but yeah.” I frowned at him. “Nothing else came from the Floyd meeting? I mean, it’s nice to have it confirmed, but we were already sure Mason was responsible for the soil.”

“There’s more, trust me. After making some truly repulsive comments regarding my sister and her education, Floyd gave me a list of wolves to investigate. I shrugged it off, told him it was a group of wolves playing poker down at the Moose Lodge, but he was adamant.”

“I can only imagine the comments about Aurora went along the lines of ‘girls don’t need no education to be useful to the pack.’” I rolled my eyes.

“Did I mention that you’re good? Because you are.”

“Floyd’s not hard to predict. I just imagine the dickheadiest move I could make in any given situation and assume that’s what he’s going to do. What’s up with the group of wolves? And I want you to respect how I’m resisting making a dogs playing poker joke. It isn’t easy.”

“Ass.” He kissed the back of my hand, released it, and stood. “Floyd’s suddenly investigating wolves who’ve been loyal to him for decades. Whose families have bled for the pack. He’s in panic mode.”

“And are they still loyal?”

“To the pack? Yes.”

But not to Floyd. I could read between the lines.

“Ronan, if that list was complete, would you be one of the wolves on it?”

He held my gaze for a long moment. “They meet in the back room of the pub now.”

So, yes. “I feel like you’re getting at something here. Exactly what’s going on?”

“Things are changing.”

“Oh good. You’re being oblique. Here I was concerned you’d overload me with information,” I said dryly .

“Right now, I have more questions than answers. What I can tell you is I’ve been meeting with a group of alpha wolves who are dissatisfied with the way the pack’s been run. They feel Floyd’s using them to exact revenge on anyone who crosses him. They don’t like how the senior wolves have been treated. They hate the abuses. Singly, they know they aren’t strong enough to fight any of it, so they meet, pretend to play poker, and plan.”

I reached into the lavender planter by the chaise, broke off a flower, and whispered a calming spell into it. “You’re a big part of that plan, aren’t you?”

He gave me a short, sharp nod. “Floyd knows something. He can feel the pack sliding away from his control.”

“The roof is leaking, but he can’t find the hole,” I said. “He must be desperate.”

“Now you get it.”

“Better than most.” I rose and went to him, pressed the lavender into his hand. “I’m starting to understand why you stopped by. You really are worried.”

“Not sure worried covers it.” He closed his fingers over the lavender and hugged me close, the soft curves of my body molding into the hard planes of his. “It’s not that I don’t think you can take care of yourself, it’s?—”

“It’s okay. I get it. Yes, I can take care of myself, but I’m also not a fool. You don’t have to worry that I’m not taking the threat Floyd presents seriously. I know exactly how far he’ll go to keep his power.”

“That’s just it. I’m not sure you do. I’m not sure even he knows.”

Ronan left after that.

Well, he left after I threatened him with a wolfsbane herbal bath if he canceled our Friday date. With a smile. He knew I was joking.

Mostly .

By then, it was noon, so I went home to make some lunch. Cecil mostly ate what he grew, with an occasional sweet treat mixed in, and Fennel ate kibble, but my gastronomic needs were a little more refined.

I sliced my peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich diagonally, added some sliced carrots and kettle chips on the side, and carried the plate and a glass of iced peppermint tea to a small wooden tray in the living room. I propped my tablet on a pillar candle after opening the app of an online gardening channel and watched a video as I munched on my highbrow lunch.

Halfway through the host’s tour of a pumpkin patch, the picture flickered—not buffered, flickered . I hadn’t seen anything like that since my childhood when we’d had an analog TV.

A man’s head and shoulders appeared on the screen. It wasn’t the host or the owner of the pumpkin patch—no, this was a face that had launched a thousand haunted houses. It was cadaver thin, the flesh covering it white and membranous. Arched white brows sloped downward along with the corners of his eyes and mouth, giving him the countenance of a man who’d lost the battle with gravity some time ago.

I dropped the last bite of my sandwich to my plate and glared at the screen.

“ Hello, Betty .” His voice frosted the corners of the screen. It made the tip of my nose itch, the way going from a warm room to the freezing outdoors sometimes does.

“What are you doing, Sexton?”

“You aren’t answering my cellular calls.”

He flicked his black robe over his shoulders, revealing the upper part of what was most likely his customary three-piece gray suit. He wasn’t only a graveyard demon but also the owner of Whispering Willow Cemetery, where most of the county’s paranormals were buried.

“I wasn’t ready to talk,” I said.

“You are angry. ”

“That Mom never told me you were my grandfather? Nah, I’m totally cool with that. No problemo. Everything is coming up roses?—”

“Is it the worst possible news? To know that you’re my grandchild?”

Was I losing my mind or did Sexton sound hurt? “I don’t know what it is. Mostly, it’s just one more omission lie from Mom.” I asked him the question I’d been sitting on since I found out about everything. “Did she tell you why she lied?”

It seemed like he wanted to argue with my terminology, but he didn’t. “She felt the knowledge would put you in grave peril.”

“I find it’s the lack of knowledge that tends to kill you. When I was a kid, she would’ve said the same thing. You know, I’m seriously starting to think she just didn’t want to admit that she—” I stopped talking when I realized I was dangerously close to insulting him.

Sexton wasn’t stupid. He knew what I’d been about to say. “Didn’t want to admit she fell in love with one of … my kind?”

I wasn’t sure I should’ve felt ashamed—after all, I was the one they’d lied to—but I did. “Was he like you?”

“Yes and no.”

Whatever that meant. It was as if demons were allergic to straight answers.

Sexton’s eyes glazed over as if he were deep in a memory. “Your father was better than me in all the ways that matter to your kind.”

And that was as much about the man as I was ready to hear, so I took a conversational hard left away from the subject. “The hex bags Mom planted. Should I have dug them up? Me being in great peril and all.”

“No. Though I don’t blame you for doing so, as you didn’t know what they were.” He looked thoughtful. “They were meant to keep our enemies from identifying you.”

“And yet Cousin Stalker McMurderface found me easily enough.”

“Yes. Lucien was determined.” His forehead crinkled, brows dropped. “As I said before, I am sorry about that. I had not accounted for the depths of his anger. In truth, I hadn’t seen him since he was a child, though I was aware of his hatred for me. His mother cut off all contact with his father’s side shortly after he was born, and my son asked me to respect her wishes and stay away. In hindsight, perhaps that was a mistake.”

“Is his father still alive?” I asked.

“No. He died long ago, leaving behind a cruel wife and a monstrously angry son.”

Lucien Chevalier popped into my mind’s eye—nostrils flared, sneering lips peeled away from gritted teeth, spittle on his chin—and I flinched in remembrance. I’d come so close to dying that day. If my soil hadn’t responded to me, if one of my worst enemies hadn’t helped me, if Mom and Abuela Lulu hadn’t taught me the spells that saved me…

I blew out a shaky breath. No. Not now. This wasn’t the time to relive the terror. I needed to deal with the problem at hand: Grandpa Sexton.

Gods, it felt weird even thinking that.

“Lucien was my grandson, but he was far from a cousin to you. He was an angry, misguided human. I regret not stopping him sooner.”

Angry, misguided human . The condescension rankled. “Sexton, I’m grateful for what you did to save my life, but?—”

“You need not thank me for healing an injury I was responsible for inflicting.”

“Once again, you weren’t responsible for Lucien stabbing me. He had free will. I only wish you’d warned me. I wish you’d all told me the truth before it got to that.”

“It was wrong of us.”

“Yeah, it was.” I let my forehead drop into my hands. “I can’t do this with you. Not now. Not yet.”

“We must speak soon. Your father?—”

“Don’t start with that, Sexton. ”

“You still don’t have the whole story. I would like to give it to you, but I will respect your choice not to hear it. For now.”

Why did that sound like a threat?

“I appreciate it,” I said, then decided to give him a little more. “Look, I’m going to want to know about … him. Eventually. But it’s such a big thing— it’s too big . At least, right now. Please. All I’m asking for is space.”

“Understandable.”

That was something, at least.

This time, the breath I blew out was steadier. “If you promise to stop calling so much, I promise to do my best to answer when you do call.”

“I’m amenable to that arrangement.” His voice warmed, melting away some of the frost. “I do not wish you harm, Betty. You are safe with me.”

Safe ? Sexton was from an entirely alien realm of existence. He had an alternative set of personal morals and social mores, and I’d be a fool to trust him. Safe meant something different to his kind.

However, I didn’t think antagonizing him was a smart move, either. The demon had expressed a low tolerance for my sarcasm and passive-aggressive snark. He’d threatened me over it, and he’d done it knowing at the time that I was his granddaughter .

I was sure I’d find a way to infuriate him later, but for now, I’d be smart to accept his offer of peace.

“Thank you,” I said.

He shook his cape over his shoulders, the slick black fabric swishing over his bony arms and across his gaunt torso. “Considering all the damage my family secrets have done to you, I am in your debt. You may call upon me at any time.”

“I thank you for your thoughtfulness,” I replied stiffly.

“Thoughtfulness is as foreign a concept to my kind as my actions and reasonings must seem to you. You know what I am, Betty. I am demon.” Frost coated his words.

“Yes, I know. ”

“I neither apologize nor excuse my existence .” The word sat on his tongue for an extra moment. “It wasn’t my choice to become your grandfather—I warned my son and your mother from the very beginning—and yet, I carry no resentment. You are a fine witch, and I am honored to have even a drop of my blood running through your veins.”

Yeesh. Was that his creepy way of telling me he loves me?

“If you allow it, I will show you exactly who you are from my point of view. But again, it is your choice. I will not force the knowledge on you.” He gave me a curt nod. “Goodbye.”

He disappeared from my screen, and the host and pumpkin-patch owner reappeared. Sexton hadn’t shut down my tablet or closed the app; he’d paused the stream so I wouldn’t miss any of my show. It was as if he’d tried to make his interruption as unobtrusive as possible.

Why did his simple, throwaway act of consideration make me feel warm inside?

I was losing it.

I glanced at the front door where I’d found Mom three years ago. The image of her lifeless body lying there was still so real.

“Why didn’t you tell me my father was the son of a demon? Why didn’t you tell me anything about him? Anything at all?” I asked her for the hundredth time since moving in.

“You said he died, but now I don’t even know if that’s true, and I’m afraid to ask because I don’t want to deal with the answer.” My throat ached, and my eyes filled. “Maybe I wouldn’t have understood about the demon thing. Maybe I wouldn’t have responded with grace, but maybe, just maybe, I’d have been better prepared for the rest of my life without you.”