Donatello chuckled. “My friend… For one, yes, of course, we can. For another? I would double or even triple it if it meant getting that smart-mouthed bitch off the streets.”
I blinked. Donatello had never used such foul language with me before. He was always so composed and well-bred. It showed exactly how upset he was with what was going on, that his control slipped for even a second.
“She’s the face of this war,” Donatello said. “The sooner she is taken in…. Or dealt with in another way… the sooner it’s all over. No one else in her organization carries as much weight or power as she does. End the Monroe line, and the royals fall apart.
“I’ll contact you again if anything important happens. I hope you’ll do the same for me?”
“Of course, of course, yes. Don? Can you give me an update on Abi? How is she doing?” If I told Maddy about this call, she’d want to know.
“Maddy’s little friend? Quite well so far. She doesn’t come to the main house much. She’s residing in one of the small cabins near the ocean. My staff takes her three meals a day, and we stocked the pantry there, but it’s not as luxurious as the other rooms throughout the island. I think she’s taking a hard look at herself. I see her in the distance sometimes, either strolling the beach or simply staring off toward the ocean. Tell Maddy her friend is doing fine.”
“Thank you,” I said, relieved. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I shoved my phone into my pocket. I was happy that Donatello and his friends were working on the problem, but it made me feel even more worthless. I was sitting here, under the impenetrable protection of a witch, completely safe while other packs were being attacked and killed. The heavy weight of guilt filled me like a thick stone right in my chest, weighing me down. I thought of Tiago and all the others. Some of them didn’t even have fences around their pack lands. My God, if the same thing happened to them like in Virginia… It would be a massacre. No amount of training could overcome sheer numbers. Time was ticking. A bomb was about to explode and soon.
Before I could go further down that rabbit hole, Maddy walked in. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying.
“Hey? What’s wrong? What happened?” Panic seized my heart.
She waved me off and flopped into a leather chair. “Nothing happened. I was downstairs watching another news report about that pack. They updated the death toll. Apparently, five more shifters who were in critical condition at the hospital died. Two of them were children.”
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed, pounding my fist into my desk. I beckoned her over.
Maddy shook her head. “Not now. I swear to God, if you hug me, I’ll probably break into tiny pieces. I hate this, Nico. It’s worse than it’s ever been. I really thought that once we exposed her, Viola would fall apart. I truly believed it would all be over.”
“I know. It’s not what we thought would happen.”
Crying wouldn’t solve anything. I knew that, but what else could we do? Again, I felt like my hands were tied.
“What’s the next move?” Maddy asked. “Are we gonna sit here safe and sound until the world falls down around us? I mean, it’s like your dad said. Eventually, we’ll need to resupply. We’ve got tons of food, but it won’t last forever. And Sinthy is acting pretty nonchalantly, but I’m not sure her power is never-ending. She’s been getting tired a lot more lately. Eventually, the wards she put on the pack lands might go down. Or worse, she’d be forced to keep them up for years and end up draining herself. We promised Isme we’d take care of her. Using her as a tool isn’t right.”
There was a truth to Maddy’s rant. Sinthy was strong-willed as all hell. She also hated the royals even more than Maddy, and I did. Sinthy would never tell us if she was being pulled too thin. I didn’t want to push it because Maddy was right. The problem was that I was starting to formulate a plan. One that would, most definitely, require Sinthy to push herself to the breaking point.
“You’re right, Maddy, but we need her to help us with one more big plan. Perhaps the biggest ever.”
Her brow furrowed. “You mean bigger than making a fantasy army five times a day for multiple packs and putting up an impenetrable force field around three-hundred-square acres? Do tell.”
A grim expression crossed my face. “I want Sinthy to help us get some of the other packs here?”
Her eyes widened. “You mean teleport them all onto our lands? I thought you said that wasn’t possible.”
“I know what I said. Things are different now. What we saw on the news this morning. The way those terrorists murdered shifters like they were nothing. I can’t sit by and do nothing. Not when we have Sinthy. What if Tiago’s pack was attacked next? If he and his entire clan are exterminated, could you live with yourself? Hell, could Sinthy if we all knew we could have helped and didn’t?”
“But the wards, Nico. It’s our only protection.”
I grimaced. “I know. Let’s talk to her and see what we can figure out. Maybe things aren’t as dire as we think.”
Maddy looked well past tired, but I could see she understood what was at stake. She nodded. “Okay, sure. Last I saw her, she was in the backyard. She enjoys being outside. She’s almost like a shifter that way.”
Maddy and I went downstairs and out to the back porch. Sure enough, Sinthy was right at the edge of the woods, scraping something off one of the pine trees. As we got closer, she scraped whatever she’d gotten into a small glass jar.
“Hey, guys,” she said.
“What are you doing?” I asked, curious.
“Oh, this?” She held up the glass jar. “You’ve got some great fungi on a few of these pine trees. Its scientific name isCromartie Quercuum. Humans generally call it Fusiform Rust. In Wiccan circles, it’s known as Heart Skin. Deadly to the trees but really good for attack potions. You know, like poison. If youslip it to people and you do the right spells over the potion, their hearts will literally explode in their chests. Likepop, you know?”
She swelled her cheeks out and then made a bursting sound like a balloon being stuck with a pin. Maddy and I stared at her in shock and horror.
