Chapter8
Lynx
The door opened the moment I stepped on the welcome mat, just as creepy as the first time I came here a few weeks after we’d moved into the neighborhood. Aurora had been the first one to rally the rest of the coven to my classes. Initially, I’d been grateful for the coveness’s help, wanting to fit in and find my footing after relocating to Celestial Haven.
After a few private sessions, I quickly changed my mind. What most of the neighborhood wives envied when it came to Aurora Wells was a façade. I’d seen the real power couple of Blessed Crescent. After a very awkward encounter where I learned firsthand that Fitz had a thing for watching his wife with other witches, I had made it clear that while I loved that they were such an open couple, I was not interested.
It wasn’t that I had anything against group activities or sharing. I had no interest in joiningthem. Just because you were into something, which I suspected they knew about me for whatever reason, didn’t mean you were into it with every witch. And I was not about to become the third for their sexual escapades.
Not then.
Not now.
Not ever.
I’d seen more than I wanted anyway. Their glass-encased house overlooked ours, and they rarely turned the privacy setting on for their windows, so I’d witnessed them fucking numerous times. What took place when they actually wanted to be unseen?
“I’m upstairs,” Aurora heaved, sounding like she had already started her workout without me, as usual. Sometimes I wondered if she even took a break after class before hopping on her spin bike or dreadmill.
I climbed the first staircase, heading down the hallway to the sounds of theswish, swish, swishof the dreadmill’s rubber mixed with the pounding of her feet. When I got inside the room, she was busy running, eyes glued to the large screen in front of her, an almost life-size simulation of a forest.
“Which one is this?” I asked, genuinely curious what she’d picked. It was dusk and changing directions so quickly that nausea churned my gut from watching the camera angles shift.
“10k mating moon hunt,” she heaved out at the same cadence she ran. “I normally choose the pack alpha but was a little more tired than usual, so I went with the beta.”
She began to slow, the wolf getting closer and closer until she pressed pause right as it lunged at her.
“Have you ever seen a mating moon hunt?” she asked, arching a brow before she toweled off her face. “They’re brutal beasts, but there’s nothing like it to get you in the mood.”
“I haven’t,” I replied, keeping my tone as clipped as possible, wanting a new subject.
“Their alphas scent their mates in the pack each new moon and have only that night to find them and claim them. Then they have two weeks to court their prospective mate before they choose to accept or reject the bond.” She chugged down a tube of bright-pink elixir, no doubt concocted in her Brewrig. “I would even call it beautiful to watch if it wasn’t so Goddess-damned bloody. I’ve never seen a bond-claiming ceremony on a full moon, though… I’m usually busy with…other things.”
The air thickened between us, like molasses. Lust. I grabbed my phone, swiping to my playlist and syncing it to the Bluetooth speaker so we could get to work.
“You should check it out sometime. They usually run around two in the morning.”
“Good to know,” I said, trying to ignore her as I flipped through my notebook to the page with today’s session plans. Moving to her weight rack, I set out some stations, quickly walking through each thing she would need to do for the circuit. “I’ll be right back, just need to use the restroom. I’ve set the timer for five minutes to do as many rounds as you can, so make sure to keep track.”
I flashed her a half-assed smile and then dashed out to the hallway. Heading into the bathroom, I pulled my phone out, eyes darting around to see if I was alone. With all the cameras nestled in corners, I felt like I was always being watched. Were they kinky enough to extend their top-of-the-line home system into the bathroom?
I hoped the fuck not.
Though nothing seemed off the menu for those two.
Getting down to business, I quickly scanned the message from headquarters.
Unknown
New Moon
Fuck.
Through the wall, I could hear Fitz schmoozing on the other line, unable to make out more than a scramble of words. I washed my hands and pressed my ear against the wall.
“This doesn’t look good. We’ve worked too hard for word to get out about these disappearances,” mumbled Fitz, presumably into the phone as I listened in. “Look into it but keep a low profile.”
With the Wellses’ power-couple status and Fitz being the District Attorney, coming here each week was the best shot I had to get more intel on Starry Night Lane’s coven. I’d spent a year gritting my teeth and smiling through personal training, doing what I could to see how much they knew. This finally confirmed what I’d hoped wasn’t true: that Fitz and whoever he was talking to already knew about the disappearances and were investigating it, albeit discreetly.
