He did this to her. He put her in danger. He was the one who sent her into that house, thinking she would be the perfect mole while he played a harmless distraction, and instead, he had nearly restarted the wars.
He looked around. Not “nearly.” He’d literally restarted the wars. Shifters and witches were trying to kill each other in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Would it spread? Was this just the beginning? What could he do? His justification seemed humiliatingly small. Hadn’t Nonna warned him? Wasn’t she always warning him?
Cat woke.
There were no outward signs. No eyelash twitched. No muscle clenched, but he knew it because their connection flowed back, and he poured everything he had into her.
She gasped, and her eyes flew open, her pupils pinpoint, her whites bloodshot. She stared into nothing above their heads.
Her sister fell back with a gasp. “What the hell did you do?”
He could only shake his head. Words were a thousand miles away.
He hadn’t shifted, but his wolf was running things, which was an objectively terrible thing to happen right now or anytime, but all the beast seemed interested in doing was keeping Cat as close as possible. Thank god it had decided that her sister was helping and not hurting her, or there would be a dead witch on the ground next to him.
Gingerly, the woman clambered close again and laid her hands on Cat.
This time, he could feel and see the magic working as the cuts that sliced her legs to ribbons sealed. As she grew lighter in his arms, she tensed.
For a timeless second, none of them moved. Cat stared above his head—eyes wide, mouth gaping—insensible.
The other witch seemed to pour the whole of her life force into her fingernails, until Cat shuddered and closed her eyes. She looked unconscious again, but he knew she wasn’t. Her sister dropped her hands.
He wrenched back control from the wolf with a lifetime of unspeakably painful practice.
“Come on, Cat, please come back to me.”
Cat tried to lift her head, and he quickly shifted to support her neck as she focused on her sister.
“Beatrice?” Cat asked.
The witch sagged, looking gray.
Cat rotated her head gingerly as if every inch hurt. The moment her eyes met his, everything was right in his world.
“Did it work?” she asked him with a dry gasp.
He laughed, although that hurt too. “That’s your first worry? You’re not dead. I don’t care at all whether it worked.”
Cat shook her head and groped his chest. It took him a moment to understand what she was trying to do as she got enough purchase on his shoulder to pull herself upright. He levered her up, though he didn’t want to.
“Any pain? Dizziness? Confusion?” Beatrice asked, and Cat whipped around with another groan.
The witch was lying on her side, looking like she had poured all her life into Cat and left none for herself.
“What about you?” Cat asked.
“Fine. Mom took a lot out of me before this started, or I could’ve done more. You’re going to have a headache for a week.”
“I don’t give a shit about that. You shouldn’t have drained yourself for me.”
“You’re my sister,” Beatrice said simply. “But as your sister, I have to ask, what the hell were you thinking? Who the hell is this? What were you trying to do? And why did we have a lightning strike from a clear sky?”
Cat did a similar flopping fish routine with her hands until Mateo could turn her and himself to face the center of the crater.
“Holy shit,” Cat said. “It didn’t touch it?”
She crawled off his lap with a burst of energy in her outrage, but he quickly had to help her reach it. He expected the crater to be warm, like after an actual blast, but the ground was as freezing as ever; it was a fireless explosion. What had knocked everyone off their feet? Pure magic? He’d stayed away from the witches, but he’d never actively feared them until this moment.
