“Understood.” Cass spun to leave the room. “And if you don’t kill her, I will,” he called over his shoulder.
My bestie had loved Gran nearly as much as I had. Cass didn’t have any family beyond Gran and me—now just me. Demon imps weren’t usually nurturing; parents tended to dump their children to fend for themselves as soon as they could. Cass had had a rough and lonely life before meeting me at the academy.
I packed my toothbrush just in case this day trip turned into a night trip, then headed into the kitchen. Grabbing a bundle of sage and a pack of matches off the counter, I went outside.
Smoke signals were a witch’s way of texting, for those of us who could manipulate the smoke. Witches despised technology; they did everything through the earth. It made sense that this Willemena woman would only communicate this way.
Sitting cross-legged on the hard ground, I took in a few deep breaths. The sun was shining and a cool breeze whipped through the trees. It was a beautiful morning.
“Willemena Worst. Willemena Worst. Willemena Worst.” After saying the name three times, I lit the match, allowing it to set fire to the dry sage bundle. Her real name was probably something different. Witches changed their names all the time in order to retain their power. Once you had a witch’s real name, you could do all kinds of spells on them. Black is our family’s real last name, but I have no idea if Gran’s real first name was actually Belinda at birth.
The sage began to smoke heavily. Thick, gray, ashy plumes wafted up to the sky, and I relished in this small bit of magic I was capable of achieving.
My arm started to tingle and I grew excited to receive such a quick response from the witch.
‘Who the fuck is this?’crawled across my right forearm in black, then quickly disappeared.
Whoa. Cantankerous was right.
I ran my hands through the smoke, then traced words along my arm. ‘Evie Black. My Gran, Belinda, is dead.’
‘What was her favorite tea?’
Her reply arrived incredibly fast. Communication via smoke was usually slow, but not for this witch. She must be a real powerhouse to be able to bend the smoke to her will so rapidly. She also clearly didn’t trust that I was in fact Evie Black, and was now testing my knowledge of Gran.
I chuckled. ‘Tea is for pussies. She liked black coffee.’
Gran thought people who drank tea were weak. It was a running joke. I preferred rooibos myself, but rarely drank it around Gran just so I wouldn’t catch crap about it.
There was an actual pause on Willemena’s end, before letters as dark as night again tore across the inner flesh of my forearm.
‘I’m sorry to hear about Belinda. It’s time you saw me. I have answers.‘
The message was followed by an address, which I committed to memory.
‘See you soon.’I sent back, then ground the sage bundle into the earth to cease its burning.
Just in time.The sound of tires crunching on gravel directed my attention to Brock’s brand new heavy-duty truck, as it pulled into the driveway. Sabine was at the wheel, not my baby daddy.
Huh.
The pack doctor exited the truck carrying a bag of crimson blood, presumably Brock’s.
“Heading out of town, I hear?” Sabine called, staring at my belly with a concerned gaze.
“Yep.”
She chewed her lip and handed me the truck keys. “Brock doesn’t want you driving a long way in that old Jeep. He’d like you to take his truck.”
That man was controlling even when he wasn’t around! God help me.
“There’s nothing wrong with my ‘old’ Jeep,” I told her as she motioned for me to give her my arm. I sat in Gran’s rocking chair to let her hook up the blood transfusion.
She cast a suspicious glance at the sage bundle, but ultimately ignored it. “We need to do the viability scan tomorrow to make sure the baby looks good, that it will come to term.”
Viability scan? That term was fucking scary. Was she saying that right now my pregnancy wasn’t viable? No matter what I’d thought before, the reality was that I’d been on the fence about being pregnant up until that very moment. Hearing that my baby might not… wow. It was like a swift punch to the gut. Now I wanted this baby so badly it hurt.
“Why? Is everything okay?” I tried to act nonchalant. Rule #1 of bounty hunting: never look scared, even when you are. Yet, my voice shook a little as the blood began to drip into my arm and I thought about losing the baby, and what that would do to Brock and me.
