Total pages in book: 203
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
“There’s a magic block on them,” Ronnie says. “I can’t identify a single thing about them. It’s as if they’re not even registering as plants in my mind.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I ask.
Danica answers. “They’re spelled. I’m getting next to nothing from them.”
“Same,” Erica states.
“I take it they were planted through magic rather than physically planted?” Grey asks.
“Exactly,” Erica replies. “If not, because of how new they are, Ronnie in a meditative state should see who planted them or how they got here. I’ll isolate their energy, extract them from the ground, drop them in the cauldron, and we’ll go from there.”
“Where do you go from there?” Bailey asks.
Erica replies. “We’ll attempt to neutralize them so we can safely discard them.”
Ten minutes later, the Youngs as well as Grey are inside the magic circle, surrounding the cauldron by the riverbank. The rest of us are in my yard watching.
Mason has been keeping Linc and Joel informed. Linc is watching over Ivy, Stacy, and Amie. I tried to send Bailey to go sit with those girls, but she looked at me like I was out of my mind.
“I can test the ground while shifted after they pull them, silly,” she informed me.
I growled, frustrated with the notion of her being anywhere near anything remotely dangerous. Her answer to that was to wrap her arms around my waist and plaster her body to mine, filling my senses with her arousal.
But it was the right thing to do. She’s standing here against me, in the safety of my grasp, away from the danger of the riverbank.
“They took footage from the falls to the edge of the village on that drone?” she asks.
“Yes, why?” I ask.
“I’m trying to figure out the motivation here. The Starlings wanted their artifacts back. Alta said she needed that wand to do with her love, who I’m assuming is Eduardo because Anya said that name when they were on the phone. Alta told me her love was gravely ill. That house smelled like a hospital.”
“I caught that scent when I finally got out of that basement away from those flowers,” I reply. “Since we no longer have those artifacts, what’s the point of this? Revenge?”
“Make us all sick with those flowers for what happened with that other Starling witch, for what happened with the wand? Maybe Eduardo didn’t make it.”
“But what would they do after we got sick and were all laid up?” Tyson asks.
“Good question,” Mase adds.
Riley’s jaw muscles bulge. “When they’re done over there, we’ll run it down with them.”
“What about Aphra?” Mason asks. “Why don’t we get her out here?”
“She’s staying at my house,” Tyson says. “Her daughter’s been sick, so Ivy gave them a guest room.”
“Should we be concerned?” I ask. “She’s a Starling.”
“Absolutely not,” Riley says at the same time as Bailey.
“Has Ronnie ever laid hands on her?” Mase pushes.
“Don’t think so,” Rye says with hesitation.
Me and Mason look at him.
Tyson says, “We’ll make sure.”
Then Bailey gasps, “Oh!”
We all watch as what looks like fireflies float up from all along the river, lifting, then divebombing into the cauldron. They’re coming from everywhere around us now. Thousands of tiny orange sparks from this side of the river, all heading for that cast iron pot. There are red and blue sparks in the air around Grey and around Erica.
It goes on for a few minutes before there’s no longer anything floating through the air. The orange glow from the contents of the cauldron is now a bright beacon. There were way too many. And they came from beyond the riverbank. They were definitely growing elsewhere in our village.
Erica, Ronnie, Danica, and Grey surround the cauldron at close range, hands joined, heads bowed.
A couple minutes pass and the glow burns out before Grey lifts a lid from the ground and sets it on top. The group of us go back to the town hall. It’s after ten o’clock now and the party will wrap up soon as Brody’s people have a big day ahead of them tomorrow. We decide to go in to have some food and say goodnight, ending the evening on a high note to give Brody our best wishes.
But I don’t like the feeling in my gut, and I know none of my council co alphas do either.
***
“I don’t think it’s over,” Bailey whispers to me in bed a few hours later.
We connected physically when we got back, me peeling that gold dress off her. It was slow, unhurried, gentle, and fucking awesome, but both of us are restless.
“I don’t think it is, either,” I say, sifting my fingers through her hair and pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “I don’t want you out of my sight until we know it is.”
“I don’t think it’s Aphra. I’ve been thinking on what happened after Anya phoned Alta. About the things she said upstairs to those guys. They were arguing. Just before they left, I heard Alta say, arcano. She also said grotta. I also remembered the word cascata somewhere in there. I suspected they were speaking Italian and I remembered those words so looked them up on a translator on my phone tonight and those words were for sure about our village, the word waterfall, and the word cave. I knew by their tones as they were arguing that the one creepy guy was upset that their plan was thwarted, and I don’t remember the order of the words she said, but I’m thinking what she said was around her having a solution to the problem of not getting the wand.”