Claiming His Witch (2 page)

“Don’t even think of attacking me, boy. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

I grunted and reached for the work light hanging from the ceiling. “Pretty sure I’ve heard that line before.”

His eyes met mine, a look of regret arguing with the slight smile tugging up the unscarred side of his face. “Pretty sure you’ll hear it again.” Beast pointed to the bike. “I think if we can get the wiring right, this girl’ll be ready to ride.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

We worked for hours, disassembling, investigating, and following every assembly step backward to find the problem. I’d learned how to build a work of art from nothing more than sheet metal and discarded parts long ago—over summers and school breaks when I’d spent every moment in the shop, working metal, and breathing in the fumes of mineral spirits and gasoline. Beast had taught me the basics of the combustion engine, how to tell what was wrong with one, and how to fix it to run the way it was meant to. He’d taught me to take a sheet of metal and turn it into a custom gas tank, how to take steel tubing and bend it into a frame that would eventually become a custom bike.
 

He’d also taught me about being responsible and earning your keep. He taught me what it meant to be a man, filling a void left by the parents who’d kicked me out when I was only fifteen. Beast had come to my rescue, and for seven years, he’d taught me the ways of engines and metal and life. He’d rescued me from a life of poverty and ignorance, giving me a skill in the hope that I’d have a successful future. And then he’d come to my rescue again, and my education had turned a little more lupine in nature.

“Kickstand wires.” My blurted words were met with a look of confusion. “When we got called over to Grand Haven that time, the guy’s chopper had a similar issue. It was a bad connection in the kickstand wires.”

Beast grinned as he crouched beside the bike. “Damn, boy. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“Yeah, well”—I shrugged and smiled—“you’ve been around a lot longer than me.”
 

“That I have, my friend. That I have.”

Half an hour later, Beast was riding the bagger around the building, making sure the thing handled as expected. It looked good going down the road, like an aggressive motorcycle riff on a fifties-style race car. Reb’s bike was the opposite of my bobber—all decked out and chromed up with room for luggage. My baby was as stripped as you could get. No turn signals, no fancy exhaust, or custom headlight. The only nonessential feature on my bobber was the extra seat on the back, and even that had led to a fight between Beast and me when we were building her. He called it necessary; I called it an extravagance. He won that one, but the rest of the bike was all me. My style—simple, functional, and only what was necessary.

I’d just finished putting away the welding supplies for the night when Beast rode back into the shop. I winced at the sound bouncing around the room, the noise level making me want to flee. Something I’d never experienced. Usually, the louder the exhaust, the more I liked the bike. This time, I physically recoiled from the roar.
 

After Beast quieted the engine and I took a moment to calm the anxiousness running through me, I brought the conversation to Feral Breed business. I needed to force my mind off the way my nerves were jangling in my brain.

“You been hanging out at the K-zoo den?”

Beast shrugged. “Not much, really. I’ve had a lot of custom orders keeping me busy. Why? What’s up?”

“Guess there’s a bit of trouble with one of the members. Seems some of the money from Draught sales turned up missing, and now their treasurer’s in the wind.”

The Draught, Rebel’s concoction that worked as a suppressant for our wolf instincts, was how the Feral Breed made a vast majority of our money. We brewed it, packaged it, and sold it. Nonaddictive, the drug was a boon to all the shifters trying to fit in to the human world. It also kept us Anbizen, or turned shifters, from falling completely to our wolf instincts and becoming man-eaters. Something relatively common in our world.
 

“Who’s their treasurer these days?”

“Man named Spook. You know him?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do. But he’s not your guy.” Beast grabbed the handful of tools littering our work area and walked across the room to the tool chest. “Spook’s about as honest as they come. He’s not one to steal, and he sure as hell isn’t one to run.”

I hummed in response, unsure of what to say. Beast was a great judge of character, but Spook failed to turn in a huge chunk of the monthly earn and disappeared. No calls, no notes, no sign of foul play at his home according to the enforcer of their group. Seemed like a simple grab-and-dash job to me, but I’d keep Beast’s opinion in mind. I definitely needed to do a little digging once I headed down to K-zoo in the morning.
 

“You meet Gates’ mate yet?” I asked, ready for a subject change.

“Yeah.” Beast closed the top of the tool chest and turned toward me, smiling. “They came out here on their way to Detroit. She’s a pretty little thing.”

“That she is.” I walked to the sink in the back corner and scrubbed the grease off my hands. The sudden anxiety was back, giving me the sense of a storm building nearby. Something new and possibly dangerous. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to dealing with, this edginess about nothing tangible. I shook it off again, trying to hide my nervousness from Beast. “She’s strong, though. Tough. I think she’ll be a good match for him.”

Beast joined me at the sink, washing his hands in the second basin. “Two men down in a matter of months. That’s got to be rough on the dens.”

I shrugged and reached for a shop towel with shaky hands. “We’re dealing, though it’s hard to keep things in check between the two dens. That’s why this Kalamazoo thing is such a bite to the ass—it’s pretty much our own fault for not watching the satellite denhouse closer.”

“You can’t be everywhere at once, kid.” His eyes dropped to where I was gripping the towel. “How’s it going at the Detroit den?”

“Been quiet for a while. Magnus is spending the winter at the Fields. His knee healed wrong and the docs keep having to rebreak it. Sucks for him, but the rest of the guys are happier without him around. Especially since we don’t have to hang at the shithole building on the southwest side anymore.”

Beast watched as I dried my hands, definitely noticing the tremors but not commenting. The man had the patience of Job.

“Half Trac still on suspension?” Beast’s voice came out with a touch of a growl to it, his anger at the backstabbing shifter apparent.
 

“From what I hear, Blaze has him in the lower level of the Fields and won’t let him out. Some kind of isolation punishment.”

Beast huffed and hung the towel on the front of the sink. “Good riddance. You don’t risk the life of another wolf’s mate.”

Once everything was back where it belonged, we walked through the shop, turning off lights as we headed for the front. Beast grabbed a set of keys off a hook by the door before shaking his head.

“My brother waited a long time to find that little girl. If anything had happened to her because Mister Big Shot thought he could come up with a better plan than the rest of the team, he’d be up for a full NALB investigation. He’s lucky Gates and the rest of you didn’t kill him where he stood.”

Beast was right—Half Trac, our National President’s second-in-command, had put Gates’ mate in some serious danger. Had all of us not been there to help, Gates may very well have lost her before they could finalize their mating. Half Trac was facing serious Feral Breed punishment, as well as possible court hearings with the overseers of the wolf shifters, the National Association of the Lycan Brotherhood.

“There wasn’t much any of us could do until Kaija’s Omega-voodoo helped overpower the guy. Fucker Alpha-ordered us.”

We walked out into the crisp late-afternoon air, waiting as the door came down so Beast could set the alarms.

“I wish I would have been there. No one’s been able to Alpha-order me since I was a kid.” He smirked as he pulled his Feral Breed cap over his dark hair. “Guess that’s a benefit of growing up the little brother of the Gatekeeper.”

“You need to teach me that skill.” I slipped on my gloves and shivered as snow began to fall. Being part wolf, I loved running through the snow-covered woods in the middle of winter, but I had a fur coat on then. Standing outside on a snowy evening meant only one thing in human form—it was damned cold.

“Hey.” Beast’s heavy hand landed on my shoulder. “Half Trac was the one who fucked up, not you. I know you feel as if you need to pay some debt by protecting the ladies mated to your Breed brothers, but that’s not the case. We all know what happened in Milwaukee wasn’t your fault.”

Milwaukee…where my bad decision had nearly cost Rebel’s mate her life, and I’d been left for dead in a freezer. Feeling a sudden need to shift into my wolf form, I clenched my jaw and stepped away from him.
 

“Maybe not, but it was still a stupid mistake.” I turned and walked toward my bike. “Forget this heavy stuff, man. Let’s head over to the lake and see if Reb’s made it up yet. I need a drink and a night around the fire pit. Something’s making my wolf twitchy.”

Beast stepped in front of me; the way he could move without making a sound was something I’d never gotten used to. He peered at me for a few long seconds, his face stoic in the bright light of the moon hanging nearly full in the sky.
 

My nerves quieted as they always did when he stood this close. Staring at his jaw to keep from making eye contact, a sign of aggression in wolves and shifters, I recognized how much he’d look like his brother if it weren’t for the scar and the ink. Where Gates was clean-cut, looking more like a fashion model than a biker, Beast was more rough and damaged—the stereotypical biker badass. But they both had the same shape to their face, the same bright blue eyes. When you looked past the superficial differences, they looked so much alike, they could have been twins.
 

The brothers were also two of the most loyal people I’d ever met, whether human or shifter. I’d fight for either one of them; die for them if I had to. But because of our history together, Beast would always be the one who would come first in my mind.
 

Finally, after a proper inspection, Beast made a chuffing sound of approval. He turned and ambled toward his truck, quiet and accepting that I was just off, not losing any of the control he’d taught me. I followed him across the lot, shoving the burning, anxious feeling in my gut down as I went.

“I can come back for Reb’s bike tomorrow. Let’s throw yours in the back of the truck.” Beast dropped the tailgate on his truck. “I don’t feel like watching you freeze your balls off because you decided one more trip on your skid would be a good idea.”

“Thanks for thinking about my balls, old man.”

I was lost. Not literally, but mentally. Physically, I knew exactly where I was—standing on the shore of Lake Michigan, watching the cold waves roll in and kiss the sandy beach. We’d been enjoying a warm autumn in the region, but winter was coming. Already, the days were short and the dark of night descended long before dinner. We’d been waking up to frost on the ground lately, a reminder that the time of the harvest was long gone. It was the season of rest, a time when the earth slept and death came to the soil and many of the plants we relied on.
 

I should have been helping my coven dig up those plants and bring them inside the warmth and safety of the greenhouse for repotting, but something had captured my attention and wouldn’t let go. Something warming in the chilly November air, bright and hot like a fire on a winter night. Something that felt as strong as the magick that flowed through me.

South south south we must go south we must go now

The pull that had drawn me toward the water since my very first memory—the evidence of the water magick that lived within me—had made itself present earlier in the day. It called to me, asked me to revitalize my connection to the power of the waves. But then it had grown, bastardizing itself into something else. Something stronger. Usually, the sensation was soft and wavelike, ebbing and flowing within me until I satisfied the need by spending time at the shore or in the lake. This time it had been brutal—nearly violent in the way it insisted I get up, get moving, get to wherever it wanted me to be. And that place was not here, not at my home, not standing at the edge of the lake I was raised on. Not on the shore or in the waves.

For centuries, the coven I belonged to had owned a small lighthouse on the shore of the inland sea known as Lake Michigan. The light guarded a strait leading to the much smaller, Lake Parity. I was happily surrounded by water on three sides on this piece of land, but that wasn’t enough for the need clawing at my gut. It wanted me to go south, the only direction I could travel without crossing a waterway. The need wanted me to hurry, to run, to go immediately.

And there was no way I could have been prepared for the desperation it caused within me.

“I think we’ve finally harvested the last of the carrots,” Siobhan called, pulling me from my musings and forcing me to focus on what was going on around me instead of staring southward.

Sarah, Siobhan’s aunt and the elderly witch who’d raised my sisters and me, dug her fingers deep in the soil. Closing her eyes, she whispered a chant that made the hair on my arms stand on end. Her earth magick was strong, stronger than the rest of the coven put together. It was why we saw her as a leader and why my mother had left us with her when she died.
 

The soil darkened as Sarah chanted, my sister Amber kneeling by her side. All magick needed balance. A powerful earth witch could lose herself in the seductive pull of the life within the soil if not for the presence of an air witch to keep her grounded. Amber and Sarah worked well together, and each was more powerful in their magick because of the other. Even though Sarah was fifty years older than Amber, theirs was similar to the relationship between my sister Scarlett and me. Her fire magick balanced my water magick in a way that made us each stronger when we worked as a team.