Claiming His Witch (10 page)

“Amber Jane.” Scarlett turned a heated glare on our sister, but to no avail. The woman was staring at me with a scowl on her face.

“They’re not hunters; they’re shapeshifters. And the Fates…”

I trailed off, suddenly afraid to share the information of my bond to Pup. The coven knew he saw me as his mate, but I was holding back the part about him being my red thread. The room no longer felt safe, the comfort I’d long expected in the space where I’d first learned string and color magick gone.
 

“Because what?” Bethesda asked. “They wanted to see if the secrets of the Weaver triplets were true? That you’re as easy to bang as a broken screen door?”

“That’s enough.” Siobhan went to stand, but Amber put a hand on her shoulder to keep her in her seat.

“No,” Amber said. “I know Sarah told them to run toward Zuri’s pull, but they should have come home as soon as they realized they were wolves in men’s bodies. Werewolf or shapeshifter, they’re all the same. Evil, out-of-control animals who want nothing more than to decimate covens like ours.”

A fog began to roll in across the floor as the rage I felt heated me from the inside out. “They’re not evil.”

Amber glanced at the fog and smirked. With a flick of her fingers, she created a draft that made the fog clear the room once more. Bethesda smiled from her place beside her before giving me a look that spoke of nothing but disgust and disdain.

“They’re animals, mindless killers of our kind. But you let them manipulate you, didn’t you?” Bethesda leaned over the table, resting her weight on her hands. “I saw you kiss that dog. Did you lay with him, too? Were you going to breed with that animal and make some kind of perverted witch-wolf babies?”

“You bitch.” I jumped at the table, but Scarlett grabbed me and held me back, her fingers burning me through my clothes.
 

“That’s enough!” Bethesda moved out from behind the table, a dark energy wrapped around her like a cloak. “Let’s get this over with now. Azurine Eugenia Weaver, you’ve betrayed your coven and disrespected the family who took you in when you were left on our doorstep. You’ve brought death and chaos to this coven with the thoughtlessness of your actions. I hereby ask the coven to initiate a shunning.”

My heart stuttered. Shunned? For following the pull of the Fates leading me to the man who held the end of my red thread? It was impossible, incomprehensible. A shunning would make me an outsider in my own coven—able to live with the witches and participate in any necessary chores, but otherwise ignored. Unable to attend magickal gatherings. Unable to research through the library or participate in training exercises. Witches were shunned for breaking the covenants of the coven or dabbling in magicks tinged with negative energy. I’d done neither.

Bethesda looked around the room at the witches scattered about. “Who here supports my call for shunning? Let the coven speak.”

As the first witch raised her hand—a woman who’d painted my nails as a child and taught me how to swirl my hot cocoa with magick instead of a spoon—my stomach fell and my heart seized in my chest.

“Wait.”

The witches ignored my plea, more of them raising their hands in support of a punishment our coven hadn’t issued in a hundred years. But the worst moment, the one that practically ripped the heart out of my chest and stomped on it, was when Amber slowly raised her hand. She stared at me as that pale hand went above her shoulder, anger on her face and burning in her eyes. She could have stabbed me with an athame and not shocked me more.

“The majority have spoken,” Bethesda said, glaring at Siobhan, who had not raised her hand against me. “Consider yourself shunned, Azurine Weaver.”
 

Clara stood from her place and shuffled toward the doors. “The circle is open yet unbroken.” She kissed her athame before thrusting it into the same dirt-filled vase in which she’d buried the iron nails. The soil grounded the powers into the earth, releasing the deities and showing respect to the elements we relied upon. It was a ritual I’d watched and participated in since I was a small child, one I knew by heart. And knowing it could be the last time I saw it performed in this room made my soul scream.

When the witches had left, Amber included, Scarlett and I stood in front of Siobhan, all of us looking shell-shocked.

“What did you do?” Siobhan whispered. I gasped as tears once again fell from my eyes, the blame she laid at my feet hurting more than the actual shunning. She came around the table and wrapped her arms around me, holding me close. “You must fix this, Zuri. I can’t go against the coven. Once my mom’s gone, there will be no one to fight for you. Prove yourself now while she can stand behind you.”

“I…” I choked on a sob as the thought of losing my family battled with the thought of never seeing Pup again. I’d only just met him, but I knew. I
knew
he was meant to be mine. He was important in my life, my red thread, the man made for me by the Fates. And though no witch currently a part of the Parity Coven had ever formed an attachment to a man for longer than the time it took to become pregnant, I knew my bond to Pup was something unbreakable. The Fates led me to him. They would never steer me wrong.
 

“Hush now.” Siobhan stroked my hair and gave me a dry-lipped kiss on my cheek. “Off to bed with you. When morning comes, we’ll cast a net of protection around the house for Mom since she refuses to leave. Amber’s already said she’ll stay with her until the hunter is destroyed. I wish I could stay, but I’m taking all the witchlings up to Munising to hide. Stay strong, but don’t go back into the woods. We’ll get through this hunter mess, and then we can all work together to help you end this manipulative curse.”

I stepped back, my blood like ice as her words settled in my head. She didn’t believe me. None of my coven did, not even my older sister. Only Scarlett was on my side.

“I need to get a few things in order, girls.” Siobhan let me go with a sigh, not realizing how much she’d just broken my heart. “Head on up to bed. We’ll meet in the greenhouse first thing in the morning.”

I turned for the doors, my body and mind numb with grief. Scarlett led me out of the room, neither of us speaking. The night had taken a horrible turn. From Amber’s betrayal to the loss of almost my entire support system, everything coven-related had crashed in a sea of negative energy and fetid air.
 

“This is crazy,” Scarlett said as we reached the stairs. “All the bullshit the witches in this coven have pulled, and yet you’re the one shunned. And for what? So your soul mate gets a little fuzzy now and again. At least he doesn’t pee on the floor.” Her eyes opened wide and her mouth fell open as she looked at me. “Oh, please tell me he doesn’t pee on the floor. That would just be too much to handle, even for me.”

I shook my head as we climbed to the top of the stairs, thankful in ways I’d never thought possible for my relationship with Scarlett. “I didn’t see any sign of urination when I was in the cabin,” I deadpanned.

“Well, thank fuck for that.” Scarlett headed to her bedroom door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “We’ll figure something out, Zuri. No one’s going to break up our family, not even our own sister.”

I nodded, my eyes burning. I watched as Scarlett disappeared into her room before walking into my own. And though I’d grown up in the same room, lived in it since they stopped letting Amber, Scarlett, and me sleep in a crib together, it felt altogether wrong. White walls, whitewashed floorboards, white furniture. The entire room looked as if a snowman had thrown up in it, though the intention had been to keep the energies close and pure. It was why the entire interior of the lighthouse was white. Every inch devoid of color unless needed for a particular purpose.

I’d never really thought about my space in the lighthouse before. But right then, it was absolutely the last place I wanted to be. Too pale, too bright, too…not me. I longed for warm, dark floors, for dark plywood walls and simple furnishings, for a cabin where a man slept in a quilt-covered bed. Or perhaps he didn’t sleep. Perhaps he was awake, sitting around a fire in the cool night air. Perhaps he was reading a book or staring at the ceiling. And maybe, just maybe, he was thinking of me.

I slid down the closed door and brought my knees to my chest. Focusing on reaching a place of peace and enlightenment, I slowed my breathing. The pain in my heart receded as I focused on nothing more than my next inhalation. Time rolled past without witness, allowing me my moment of calm and reflection. I opened myself to the love and guidance of the Goddess, to the energy of the element of air, Amber’s favored element. And while I had a stronger grip on water magick, air was the element of vision and voice. I needed to think, to pick my path. Needed to decide whether it was right to stay with my coven and fight for their acceptance or…something else. I needed to see a way to be rid of the hunter no matter my choice. So I breathed, and I called the air to me. And I was quiet.

The inky darkness of my mind slowly opened, revealing lights and pictures from years past. Memories I’d not thought of for over a decade trickled in, bringing me back to my witchling years. The time before my powers truly developed, when I wanted to immerse myself in magick every day and my biggest dream was to master the elemental earth power like Sarah. My memories played through a random summer day, one when I’d snuck into the ritual room to spend time alone reading the coven grimoire. I’d done it often, sometimes dragging Scarlett and Amber with me.
 

But this memory played out with me alone, the heavy, leather-bound book resting in my lap as I read the spells, the rituals, the hand-written notes from witches recent and centuries past. I’d spend hours carefully flipping pages and devouring information. Yet in my memory, I wasn’t turning a page. I wasn’t mouthing words or chanting under my breath. I sat, stunned and still, my eyes scanning one particular page over and over again.

“Oh, Zuri.” Sarah strolled into the remembered ritual room, and my younger self looked up at her with something like confusion on her face. “One of these days someone else is going to catch you and you’re really going to be in trouble.”

“You’d never let me get into too much trouble.”

Sarah laughed, coming to sit beside me. “Very true. There’ll never come a day that I won’t be there to save you or your sisters. I promise.” She pushed my dark hair behind my ear and gave me a watery smile. “You look so much like your mother.”

“Her name is under these notes.” I held the book out to her. “Is that her handwriting?”

Sarah seemed surprised by the question before focusing on the grimoire. “Yes, that’s her script. She always had much neater penmanship than I did.”

Younger me traced the cursive words with a single finger, brow furrowed. “I’ve never seen her writing before. It looks a lot like mine.”

Sarah smiled and pulled the book into her own lap. “Yes, it certainly does. We’ve all written notes and comments over the years, especially your mom. She had an obsession with researching obscure information and leaving notes in this book. Let’s see if we can find more from your mom.”

As the two sat closer so they could share the grimoire, the memory faded and I returned to the present. My cheeks burned from the tears streaming down my face, and my breathing was harsh. She was dying. The woman who’d stepped in without complaint when our mother died in childbirth, clinging to Sarah’s hand and begging her to take care of us. And she did; Sarah had raised us as her own. She’d fought for us and protected us for over two decades.
 

For minutes that lasted long past the point of comfort, I sobbed, quieting the sounds with my knees pressed to my face. We had so little family; losing Sarah would be a huge blow to my sisters and me. Coven be damned, their loss of a friend and mentor would never compare to what the three of us were about to have ripped away.

Without warning, a single solitary wolf howl sounded, breaking the silence of the night. A tingle raced down my spine as the lonely sound ripped through the air, a feeling of rightness and purpose. The thread tying me to Pup drew taut around my heart. Pulling me. Leading me once more. And I refused to deny it.
 

I stood on shaky legs and walked toward the single window, moving faster with each step. Throwing open the sash and screen, I hurried to crawl over the sill. My feet slipped on the tin of the overhang below, but I held on to the edge and caught my balance before letting go. Before rushing to escape.

I shuffled down the incline, careful and quiet. When I reached the edge of the little roof over the back porch, I hopped down and rolled through my landing. Relief washed over me as I felt the grass beneath me. Jumping to my feet, I looked over my shoulder. The house was dark, quiet in a way that spoke of death and not just sleep. The darkness made me shiver hard, the cold air not helping at all.

Within seconds, I was running south. Through trees, over sand, along the lake—my pace stayed steady and my feet flew. The dark and cold didn’t matter. I needed Pup, the handsome man with the missing surname. I needed the warmth his presence gave me. Needed the quiet comfort I’d found with him.
 

Everything within my soul told me I needed to be with him.

The camp was dark and quiet as I hurried through the tree line. And while I wondered briefly if I was intruding or trespassing where I didn’t belong, I also felt a sense of relief just knowing Pup and I were on the same property. And yet, I doubted. I stood and argued with myself over the best way to let him know I was there until a voice shattered the darkness.

“He’s sleeping, but I know he’d love to see you.”

Charlotte sat on the step leading to a cabin next to the one Pup was staying in. She wore a ridiculously large sweatshirt and pajama pants with what looked like dancing penguins printed on them. With her hair up in a ponytail and no makeup, she looked about sixteen.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to bother—”

She waved me off. “Sure you were, but you faltered there at the end.”

I nodded. “I’m a little…confused tonight.”