I sighed. “Well, if not one of ours, someone else is watching the house.”Dahlia.No, I dismissed that thought immediately too. She would never murder an innocent girl.
Karson rubbed at his brow roughly. “The guards have covered every square inch within miles of here and no one has been found lurking.”
“Vampires are fast,” Michael reminded him. “They could be gone before they searched the area.”
Or cloaked themselves.
Karson tracked the thought. The question as to whether he was reading my mind, answered. “At this point, very little would surprise me.”
I was too exhausted to care. My head ached and I began to feel sick. The power witches possessed was as exciting as it was terrifying. The nightmare potion had dropped every single one of the vampires.
“What did you see?” I asked Michael hesitantly. “What was gouging your arms and side?”
“I was attacked by a werewolf many years ago. I was mortally wounded. Karson found me near death and turned me.”
My mouth dropped open. “There are werewolves?”
“There was, they no longer live, or if they do, they remain well hidden.” Michael swallowed the whiskey in one gulp and poured another.
My mind spun. Was Wolf a werewolf? The way he looked at me was as if he had a knowing, an intelligence, a human intelligence … He was huge, far bigger than a normal wolf.
“Yes, to a degree, but I’m not sure he changes,” Karson answered my silent question. “He only appears when the waters are in danger.”
“He’s immortal?”
“He can die, but somehow he is resurrected when he is needed.”
There was so much I didn’t know, so much more I needed to learn. “To protect the witches that are needed to fight to protect the waters,” I murmured, staring out of the window. Orange light stained the black sky as if the night was burning.
“But why me, why not Dahlia?”
“Because you are stronger than Dahlia,” Michael answered.
“In a fight, Dahlia would kick my ass,” I scoffed. “She’s far more skilled than I am.”
Karson’s eyes drifted to the blood-stained horizon, a heaviness on his face, his voice sounding soft and far away. “The wolf doesn’t get it wrong.”
Chapter 44
Morally Gray
The next day, I sat curled into a big armchair in front of a softly glowing fire, reading. I’d spent the morning sorting the full wall-length wooden bookcase, filling it with new fiction Karson had delivered for me earlier today. I already had a lot of new books I hadn’t read yet. But staring at all those delicious new books made my heart happy. He knew I needed a reprieve from the world we lived in, a place I could get lost in without leaving the safety of the house. Or maybe he just wanted to distract me because Rodney and his crew had turned up to discuss matters with him.
“I want to go home.”
The words came out on a rushed breath of misery. I set the book down as Georgie perched on the edge of the couch. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying and from the fading bruise her dick boyfriend gave her.
I unfolded my legs and said gently, “It’s not safe.”
She toyed with the fabric of the cardigan she was wearing. “It’s not safe here either.”
After last night, it was hard to make a solid argument. “Here you have protection.”
“If Sarah wanted me dead, she would have done it when I left the bar.”
I sat upright. “She might not have known you left the bar.”
“If she had us followed, then she knew. I’ve spoken to BJ. His family is going to help me if I need it, but I can’t stay here anymore.” She let out a fluttery breath. “I can’t live like this. I can’t live in a world where everyone thinks it’s normal to kill each other. That’s not normal, Amy, it’s psychotic.”
