“Her alpha?” Willemena actually looked surprised, and I was pretty sure a witch like her wasn’t surprised often. “My, my. You don’t say?”
“I do say,” Brock all but growled. “And I say I’m coming with her.”
Willemena arched her dark brows, which seemed at odds with the silver of her hair beneath the glow of my porch light, and clucked. “Fine,” she said. “You, Tianna, the human, and the pink furry one can come.” But she sounded like she was agreeing for some reason of her own.
Cass looked mortally offended at “pink furry one,” but wisely decided not to argue.
I took a few nervous steps that placed me directly next to Brock. I trusted the crone because Gran had told me to, but that didn’t mean I was at ease with her.
Willemena opened the door to my house as if she owned it and started inside. “The rest of you…” She looked at the two warriors. “Watch the skies. If anything looks off, I need you to let me know immediately.”
Reo and Haru nodded as if they understood what she was talking about. I sure as heckfire didn’t.
Brock ushered Tianna, Cass, Molly, and me inside, then shut the door behind us. Willemena smiled at the space that must remind her of her friend, before wiping that smile away.
“Sit,” she said.
Tianna, who I doubted obeyed anyone, promptly sat, while Brock pulled a chair out for me before taking a seat himself. When I jumped into it, only my head appeared above the table, and I sighed heavily as I leaned my chin on the old wood. Cass chose to hover with his wings, and Molly moved to a spot in the corner of the room, where she stood silently, seemingly in awe of being in attendance at this special meeting.
“We have to move fast before the spell latches on to Evie any more than it already has.” Willemena leaned over the table to stare into my eyes. I tried not to twitch or blink, but failed on both counts. “Tianna was right in keeping you from shifting back. You would have died instantly if you had.”
Brock went rigid next to me and I urged my lungs to keep pumping air through my little fox body. I remembered all too well what it felt like to be deprived of it.
“But remaining in your kitsune form is only a temporary solution,” she added.
Well, duh. I wasn’t about to spend the rest of my life as a fox. Besides, what happened when a baby tried to pop out of me while I was this size?
“I’d recommend it wholeheartedly if it were a solution,” Willemena, the crazy old bat, continued. “Carrying out the rest of your life as a fox wouldn’t be all that bad compared to our other alternative.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Brock said, his voice too gruff for a witch as powerful as this one.
Tianna stared at her hands folded across her lap, and that worried me big time. “She means that the only way to remove the spell completely is painful as fuck.”
“And also not guaranteed to work,” Willemena added. “But it’s the only chance we have. If not, in a few hours the death spell will break through her kitsune magic and attack her anyway. It’s our only chance.”
“What is our only chance? Enough with the riddles,” Brock snapped. “This is the woman I love that you’re talking about.”
Holy fuck. He just said it again. He was angry and practically shouting, and he wasn’t addressing me, but he’d still sort of said it.
Brock loved me.
‘Damn, girl. He just dropped the L word like it was no big deal,’Cass commented through our link.
I was too shocked to respond to my bestie.
“Well, in that case,” Willemena continued. “I’ll make it extremely clear for you,Alpha.” The dangerous tone of the very powerful witch’s voice made me forget all about Brock’s love declarations. “When Evie killed the vamp lord, delivering him to his eternal death, she activated a kill spell attached to him. Tianna probably already told you this.”
Brock and Tianna nodded.
“But what Tianna didn’t realize is that the kill spell works to achieve balance. It doesn’t seek to punish, though I’m sure that’s how the seethe lord interpreted this ancient magic. But the framework of the spell is actually laced in balance. Are you following?”
“I think so,” Tianna said, though I sure as hell wasn’t, and Brock didn’t say a word. “You’re saying that the spell is satisfied whenever it determines that balance has been achieved.”
“Exactly.”
I so wished I had my vocal cords so I could ask them what the hell they were talking about!
“If the spell finds that fairness is enacted,” Willemena continued, “it will dissolve.”
