whiskey witches 02 - blood moon magick (24 page)

How would they have any kind of relationship if he became a shifter?

The treaty.

It was one thing to not tell Alma about Nederland.

But to hide Dexx’s shape-shifting abilities, as well?

What about holidays? What if she wanted to bring Dexx to see Leslie’s baby?

If she chose to help the paranormals on her own, that was one thing. But to bring it home with her?

She swallowed, the reality of the situation resettling around her. Mortality? Possibly not an issue.

Being together? With this man?

Fuck. “What’s so special about Aaron?” Paige asked, her voice quiet. “Everyone seems to be overreacting to him biting someone.”

“I’m an alpha.”

“I gathered that.”

He licked his lips and rubbed his dark beard. “My bite invites the spirits to accept another into our pack.”

Again, she’d already figured that part out. The pack thing? They’d just have to figure that out. “So?”

“He’s never chosen to bite anyone.”

“Then why are there so many shifters?”

“He is not the only alpha.” Karl held out her hand, palm down. “Let’s see if the spirits choose to heal Dexx. Okay?”

What should she wish for? That he be healed and off-limits? Or dying?

That wasn’t even worth answering. Healed. Off-limits? They
would
figure something out. She was there. In Nederland. No one had restarted the war yet.

John sat back on his heels, her shirt in his hands. “He’s healing.”

Karl raised her face to the ceiling and sighed, a mixture of relief and worry relaxing her eyes and twisting her lips.

Paige pushed Panther’s hands out of the way and peered at the wound on Dexx’s abdomen.

The skin re-stitched itself before her eyes.

Relief released her tightly held muscles. “What now?”

“Well.” Karl clasped her hands. “Now, we wait. The spirits have received Aaron’s request. Now, it’s up to Dexx. Does he accept the spirits? Does he reject them? Is he strong enough to accept them? And which one does he bond with?”

“That’s a lot of questions.”

“Yes.” Karl pushed herself to her feet. “John, take him to the clinic and keep an eye on him. Aaron, Rory, in my office.”

Aaron and Buffalo Boy—Rory—followed Karl into her office somewhat reluctantly.

Paige moved to help the doctor.

He waved her off. “You have better things to do than to watch him sleep.”

“But—”

He cut her off, his blue eyes piercing hers. “Go. Do your job. And believe me.” He glanced behind him before rearranging Dexx’s arms. “Aaron wouldn’t do this. He might be an alpha, but he’s doesn’t believe in reaching outside the natural born.”

Paige nodded slowly and rose to follow the sheriff.

Jakobs stopped Paige. She held out her hand, hovering over Paige’s arm, then retracted it. “I wasn’t in control of myself.”

Paige narrowed her eyes. “Okay. Well, why don’t you and Panther join us.”

Jakobs nodded and gestured to Panther to join her. “Fielder. Come on.”

He licked his thick lips and followed.

Karl’s office was packed with all of them.

Aaron leaned against the exterior wall, his back to the window.

Rory sat in the chair in front of the desk, his head hung in shame as he gnawed at his thumbnail.

Jakobs rubbed her arms, pacing in a two-step circle at the back of the office.

Fielder stood just inside the door.

Paige closed the door and rested against it. “Someone want to tell me what happened out there?”

Fielder shook his dark head. “I had no control. I tried fighting it. I just couldn’t.”

“What drove you?” Karl asked, folding her arms over her chest and perching against her desk.

“I—” Fielder stopped, his mouth open. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, tipping his head. He opened them looked at Paige. “I needed to bite you, Detective.”

“What?” Paige glanced at Karl, then at Jakobs. “Me specifically?”

Jakobs stopped pacing and faced Paige. “Yes. My bird pushed at me and the only thing I could think of was biting you. I had to turn you.”

“But,” Karl said, holding up a hand, “the only one who could turn her is Aaron.”

Jakobs shook her head. “I don’t know. I felt awfully sure I could do it, that all I had to do was call the great spirits and they would answer.”

“That was me.” Aaron scrunched his lips and pounded the wall behind him. “I knew it was too good to be true. It had to be.”

She needed answers, not half-spoken sentences that made no logical damned sense. “What was?”

Aaron raised his hand to the back of his neck. “The implant.”

“Yeah.” Rory rolled his head, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. “Dude said it would help us control our beast.”

“And it did.” Aaron’s dark gaze was distant as he stared at the floor. “It did.”

“Until today, man.” Rory pushed back in his chair, stretching his back. “The thing just took over.”

Paige narrowed her eyes. Anything they could tell her might lead her to Sven’s plan with the shapeshifters. She knew his ultimate goal. How did the shapeshifters tie into it? “Why was Jakobs affected? Was she chipped?”

Aaron shook his head. “I think I am the reason she shifted. I am an alpha.”

“Not
her
alpha,” Karl said.

“No, but it doesn’t always matter.”

Interesting. “What did you feel? What did you hear?”

“It’s what I saw.” Aaron gripped the windowsill behind him and bit his lip. “I saw you. I just saw you. I knew exactly where you would be. I knew exactly how to draw you out. All I had to do was get you away from Sheriff Karl.”

“Why?” Karl asked, her face folded in confusion.

“Because,” Paige said softly, “you’re a protector. You keep everyone in line with the power of your fox. It’s lovely and gorgeous. You can subdue other people’s animals.”

Aaron flicked his eyebrows. “Goodness knows you’ve done it more than once with me.”

Rory sighed. “All I got was this voice. Sounded real weird, like, not from around here.”

“Accent?” Paige asked.

“Yeah. But a weird one. Heard it on some movie. Ah! Um,
Boondock Saints.
That one. The two dudes who shot the cat.”

Of all the things to remember about that movie, it had to be the cat. Although, it was pretty funny in a morbid sort of way. “Okay. What did he say?”

“Just that I had to get to you. I told him I don’t bite. I’ve got horns, but my teeth ain’t good for much. It was all
Mission Impossible
and stuff.”

Sven had opened the demon door inside her soul for a reason. She understood that now. But why would he want her to house an animal spirit as well? Would an animal spirit even accept her? She was a witch. “You stopped and attacked Dexx instead. Why?”

Aaron cleared his throat and thought about his answer for a moment.

The room filled with waiting silence.

“My wolf showed me what would happen if the animal spirits were awakened in you through a bite. And it wasn’t good.”

Paige didn’t know how to take that. “How?”

“It just—” Aaron licked his lips and glanced at Karl.

She glared at him, like a mother pulling information from a teenaged boy.

He flattened his lips and raised an eyebrow. Tipping his head to the side, he continued. “Imagine it. A witch. Who can control us. Inside our boarders because she’s one of us. Knowing the power of the shift.”

“Yeah?” Paige said. “You’re assuming I’m evil.”

“I didn’t. My wolf did.”

“Well, your wolf is wrong.” She couldn’t believe she’d just go on a murdering spree. Unlike a lot of other people, she
had
been pushed to the point where murder—the act of it, not just the thought—was rationally acceptable. When she’d summoned that demon to kill her mother, she’d made the conscious decision. Murder, in that instance, was good.

So, she
knew
what it would take for
her
to get to a point where murdering people, random people, was rationally acceptable.

She couldn’t do it.

“Also,” Aaron said to Sheriff Karl, with a stop-looking-at-me-like-I’m-an-idiot look on his face, “if she was chosen, she wouldn’t be limited to one shape. She would have them all.”

Karl blinked and loosened her arms. “That’s not—no. That’s impossible.”

“That’s what my wolf showed me.” Aaron sighed. “But the drive to bite was too strong. Someone had to be bitten.”

Paige rubbed her temples with one hand. So, she could be bitten and survive? And she’d have the ability to shift into any shape? That seemed…impossible.

But what if that was the way to heal the door in her soul?

How? Magick, obviously, but magick was nothing more than science conducted by will. If she couldn’t figure it out, if it wasn’t logical and didn’t make sense, it likely wasn’t possible. Maybe Sven thought that giving her an animal spirit would fix the door.

The door he’d forced on her.

Because he was a demon who couldn’t get back to Hell? What was really going on there?

“And then your friend just—he glowed, Sheriff. I can’t explain it any other way. He glowed. Blue. Fire. And he just, somehow, spoke to me. It was like he had an animal spirit in him already and it just needed to come out. It was weird.” Aaron shrugged helplessly. “So, I bit him. Because it was okay.”

Karl closed her eyes, shaking her head for a long, quiet moment. Finally, she looked at Paige. “I’m not going to book them. This is a paranormal community and ‘turning’ isn’t against the law until the bitten wakes up. If the bitten wants to press charges, I will. Otherwise…” She shrugged.

This wasn’t their fault anyway. This was Sven’s and he was there because of her. “I know who’s to blame.” She pointed to Aaron. “But that chip needs to come out. Now. Because Sven is a demon, Aaron, and he’s using it to control you. Like you’re a puppet.”

He nodded once and moved to the door. He stopped, his hand on the knob. “He’ll pull through, Detective. I know it.”

Paige raised her head and eyed him. If that was the only thing she had to worry about, her day would have been brightened. “How’d you know I was a detective?”

He shrugged. “The same way I knew what you looked like before I saw you. The animal spirits see you and they know you.”

Right. But what did that mean?

J
akobs let Paige borrow a spare shirt. She sat in the conference room.

Dexx would pull through. He was tough. The animal spirits would certainly find him worthy.

Then what?

She had to be real. She hadn’t made any emotional investment in the man yet. She hadn’t promised to get pregnant and take care of him for the rest of his life. If she had to, she could cut and run.

Yeah. Her heart twisted. No. She couldn’t.

Well, if she
had
to.

She didn’t
want
to, though. She
wanted
to keep him in her life. She’d just been introduced to the way her life
could
be with him in it, and it was amazing. Normal. UNO-playing normal. Snuggling-on-the-couch normal. Dissecting-TV-shows-while-watching-them-together normal. Working-on-her-kind-of-cases normal.

She
needed
him.

Being honest with herself, her life was out of control. She’d just had her gifts reopened. They were different. More powerful. She had a door to Hell housed inside her soul. She was probably going to start another war just by helping the paranormal community with their disappearance cases.

He made all of that…easy to handle. Like eating an elephant. One bite at a time.

But he did more than that.

When she was in his arms, she felt at home.

Fuck.

She really needed him to remain alive. She just did. She would figure out a way to keep the Eastwoods at bay. She’d find a way to stop the war, but she wasn’t giving him up.

He
was
her home.

And, hey, plus. If he did change into a shifter, all the paranormal romance novels stated they were the best lovers. Never any questions asked. Furry was better.

Should she
really
be thinking of that while he lay almost dying? Probably not, but she refused to believe he’d die.

She put Sven’s name on a piece of paper and taped it in the middle of the map-covered wall.

What was he up to here?

Louisiana was the next paper, off to the left.
Demons. Trap. Possession. Spell.

She wanted to put in more detail of “spell,” but this was more for her.

Breaking the summoner.

Hmm. She bit her nail and stared at the wall, her mind racing.

Someone stepped through the open door and set something on the table before stepping quietly out.

Paige twisted to see what it was. The paper coffee cup Kris had brought her only moments before. A ball of red string. Scissors. Tape.

She took the tools and sipped the now-cold latte. Sven and Louisiana had to be connected, so she cut a string and taped it up.

Next, she wrote down Denver and taped it up on the right.
Shifters. Troubles controlling spirits. Chip. Remote control. Removing animal spirit.