“The year before my twenty-fifth birthday, William started acting…strange. He’d always been a little controlling, but he’d started hitting me. He didn’t do it out of anger. It was as if he used his fists as a tool to remove something from me. That’s why Edward, William’s father, came to me. Brother Wolf told him that I needed to disappear. I was to leave everything behind. He said if I didn’t, then Billy Bob wouldn’t survive to see ten.” Her amber-gold eyes were pleading. “Faking my death was easy. Edward arranged for me to get a new identity. Back then, it was easier than it is now. I left Etta Marie Smith behind and became Mary Elizabeth Longbottom. Edward swore he’d watch over you. If I had known your own child would’ve been in the same position, I might have done things differently, but Edward was our spiritual leader, and I believed him when he said your life depended on me dying.”
Doc appeared a lot calmer than I felt. William’s depravity knew no bounds. He’d beat his wife. “Did Edward tell you why?”
She nodded. “Twenty-five is a symbol of new beginnings and rebirth. William was jealous of his father’s connection to Brother Wolf and jealous of the gift that had skipped him and would be passed on to his heir. I thought our meeting had been by chance, but after I found out his plans, I knew he’d forced our encounter. And then he bided his time until I turned the exact age he needed. A hedge’s power goes into chaos on her twenty-fifth birthday, and William had heard of a ritual performed by the old ones that required the heart of a witch-born wolf on the exact moment that she turns the age of renewal.”
“For what reason?” I asked.
“To consume it.” Her expression grew haunted. “He had planned to eat my heart and take my power. If that would’ve happened, William would’ve been unstoppable.” She looked at Doc again. “Edward had predicted William’s heir would become a great leader. It’s the reason he took you away from Luna Parish. The only way to keep you safe was for me to die and for you to leave. It was the hardest decision of my life, but I would do it again to stop William from growing in power and save your life.”
Doc scrubbed his face as a dozen emotions, most of them on the rage scale, played out in his expressions.
But I had bigger fish to fry. “I turn twenty-five tomorrow. Is that why he’s coming after me? To eat my heart? Am I a hedge witch?”
Bette nodded and sighed. “William must’ve thought he hit the lottery the day you were born.”
Doc’s chest rumbled with a low growl. “How did you know Etta would come to you?”
“The same way Edward knew. Brother Wolf visits my dreams sometimes. He helped me to send the message. I planned to lie to her about who I was.” Her gaze went to her son. “But your arrival has made that impossible.” She tried to smile. “You’ve grown up.”
“It’s been over fifty years. Time has a way of doing that.”
“I don’t expect you to forgive me, son.”
“I want to forgive you,” he said with great hesitation. “But it will take time for me to get there.”
She nodded her head and closed her eyes for a moment. “That's more generous than I deserve.”
“He’s very generous,” Chav said from twenty feet away. “And he’s a wonderful man.”
Bette smiled and touched her chest over her heart. “I always knew he would be.”
“Hey,” I said bluntly. “William wanted to eat your freaking heart. That’s some mitigating shit right there.” It was hard to hold her leaving Doc against her when it didn’t sound as if she had much choice. “Did Brother Wolf happen to mention how William keeps finding me? Does he have a magic connection? Did he put a mojo tracker on me?” A thought popped into my head, one that horrified me. “You don’t think he chipped me. You know, like they do with pets? And what about the conjuror who sliced and diced my wolf from me? She told me to find you. Is this all connected?”
“What conjurer?” Bette asked.
“A woman named Aurora.” I stood up and began pacing. “I had the misfortune of crashing into her shop. She did something that took my wolf away. I can’t shift, but apparently, I can astral project out of my body now and make things levitate.”
“What did she look like?”
I described the woman, down to her black eyes going stark white when she was reading me down.
“She’s a shade shifter,” Bette said. “A type of witch that can remove a person’s…shade.”
“Like a soul?”
“A shade is tied more to the physical body than the soul. Our ability to shift is magic. A shade shifter removes the magic. Your DNA remains the same, but the magic that used to manipulate it is gone.” She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “No wonder your hedge powers are coming on strong. Astral projection is one of our gifts. I can’t move objects the way you did, but I can create glow bombs.”
“Glow bombs?” Doc asked.
Chavvah chimed in again. “That sounds like something that explodes at a gender reveal.”
“And almost as useless.” Bette chuckled. “They create a flash bang. It’s defensive magic. It’s not going to take anyone down, but it’s bright enough to blind someone long enough for me to get away.”
“Cool, I guess.” I looked at Doc. “Maybe William won’t find me. I could get on the move tonight. All I have to do is make it past tomorrow, and I’m safe, right?”
“You’ll never be safe,” Bette said. “Dying was the only way to keep living. When William finds out I’m still alive, he’ll come for me too.”
“Then we both leave. “
