He knew a dragon, or rather Caine did, and he would bargain with him, but then place the money in an account for Lycan’s future. The witches’ bill wouldn’t be cheap, but Seath was paying for that himself.
“Do you give this to me to do as I wish, then, Lycan?” Seath asked, unfairly perhaps, but he wanted even that slight amount of Lycan’s consent for his plans.
“Of course I do, please, take it.”
“I accept then,” Seath said, with a smile at Lycan. “Thank you, and you should probably get some rest before Luke comes in here yelling at us both.”
“That’s true,” Caine said with a smile from his corner. “He’s rather fussy about you being well rested for this coven.”
“You don’t want to be late for a meeting with witches, do you?” Seath asked, and Lycan’s eyes suddenly lit up. Seath watched Lycan as he gave Caine a meaningful look.
“No,” Lycan said, putting both purpose and power behind the word. “No, Alpha, I don’t.” Lycan smiled like he won a prize as he said the words.
Caine started laughing, the bell-sound drifting around the room as Lycan spun on a heel and walked out.
Caine shook his head in amusement as he watched Lycan leave the study. The Little Wolf had managed to meet his request for the day, he had said “no” to an Alpha, the Pack Legate, actually. Not just any Alpha. Little Wolf was witty, and the mystery deepened.
“What are you laughing at, vampire?” Seath asked Caine, his eyes never leaving Lycan’s retreating form.
As much as Caine observed Lycan, he had also cataloged Seath’s reactions to the wolf as well. Caine had known Seath for years, but the way Seath’s eyes fixed to the denim of Lycan’s jeans as he walked out the door was something he had never seen from the Pack Legate. Caine didn’t need Seath’s scent to understand it.
“Today I learned that Little Wolf has opinions on Cicero, reads Nietzsche, knows the price of witches, and the exchange rate of dragons. And we haven’t even needed the coven for any of that,” Caine said with a smile, as if he hadn’t had this much fun in a few centuries and perhaps was a bit smug not to have needed witchy help to learn what he had.
“You learned all of that from a trip into town?”
“I did. And, not only that, but I also think that after this coven, we need to find Lycan a job. Let’s start figuring out what he knows and what is familiar to him.”
“You are determined to get to the bottom of this.”
“You have ensnared my interest, Alpha, and Little Wolf is important. Important to this pack. I don’t need to sniff him to know that.”
Seath’s forehead crinkled. “What makes you say that?”
“Hearth magic, or hedge magic is so easily forgotten because it is an everyday kind of magic. Makes gardens grow and protects our homes. But, everyday magic is sometimes the best kind.”
“Caine, I don’t need a lecture on magic.”
“Don’t you? Have you even realized that the threshold of your own home, your Pack’s House, lets in Little Wolf and awaits his return? He’s part of the fabric, one of the members the threshold will protect. Not only that, but it likes him. Adjusts to his temperature, to the scents he likes the most.”
Seath paused. The house had relaxed when Lycan returned, but that seemed like it was him, not the house. He hadn’t separated the two.
“Well, then, let’s start him in the kitchens and see how tightly the threshold wants to bind him. If it goes well with Min, then the library.”
Chapter nine
A Coven is Convened
Lycanworeasimplewhite robe and briefs underneath, but that was it.
At least the coven wasn’t a public spectacle. He liked the Pack and its members — most of them anyway, but he didn’t want to be on display for this. The things he could remember about his captivity were not many but they were not pleasant. He didn’t want an audience for whatever would happen as the coven searched his mind.
His lack of memory of his own self kept him in a permanent state of vulnerability he didn’t like, and he would prefer if anything were revealed during the coven, that it not be revealed to the entire Pack the same time it was revealed to him.
Lycan had ridden with Seath in one of the Pack’s SUV’s over an hour into the forest to reach their destination—a cave carved into a mountain. As he exited the vehicle, the wolves approached in their shifted form, and Caine materialized or flew — whatever it was that he did. Lycan didn’t know how the witches arrived.
Serepta gave him a nod when he entered the stone room, following a procession of what would be the coven members. Stone steps carved from the stone of the mountain itself led down, down, down, the air getting colder, the stone more damp and only lit by the flames held in the hands of the witches. When the twisting path opened up to their destination, the cavern was smooth as if carved by the flow of water, with a stream to the far end still running. High above him was a small hole that allowed in the moon.
At least it wasn’t cold. Fires along the wall kept the air warm, and the stone was cool, but not chilled.
