Page 21 of Werewolves and Witches AU

I find my voice. “The office of where?”

“Not where… Time.”

I scoff. “Never heard of them. Look, have you got a badge or something?”

He turns that dark gaze back my way, running it up and down my body. “A badge?”

“Yeah. ID? To show that you’re from this Office of Time?”

But something in the way he’s looking at me is making me doubt my confidence. The Witches Council is in town, Ray said so, and it’s painfully obvious that I cast a spell in here—the stuff is still on the floor between us. I knew I should have tidied that up.

“You, who trespassed in my magic, are demanding I prove myself to you?” He laughs then, but it’s a cold sound that drags an icy shiver up my spine.

“I didn’t trespass in your…” My tongue shrivels in my mouth and kills my words.

Okay, so everything to do with the Lost Colony and Sarah was real. I dry swallow my unease.

The Witches Council are very clear about the rules when it comes to one witch accessing another’s magic. It’s like copyright. All spells—and creations from those spells—belong to the original caster, unless that caster signs away access rights. And that’s a whole process. The only exception to this is when grimoires and heirlooms are passed down through Family Lines. Those have heritage rights.

This is also why witches are supposed to have caster’s insurance… “Okay, yeah. About that. I didn’t mean to. I was looking for—”

“You entered a fold in the fabric of time… accidentally?” His disbelief is obvious from his rising pitch.

“A fold in the what? Wait. Where did you say you’re from again?”

“The Office of Time.” He takes a step closer, toes on the edge of my chalked pentacle, and everything about him screams predator.

I can’t really move any further back, so I strafe sideways, keeping the pentacle between us.

If he were a witch, he wouldn’t have entered my casting circle, because then he’d be guilty of the same thing I’ve done—accessing another witch’s magic. “So, you’re not a witch, then?”

“No, not a witch,” he confirms, but his tone is strange. I can’t place it.

“Thank goddess for that.” Relief drags my shoulders away from my ears. Possibly, then, he won’t know about me needing caster’s insurance. “Allow me to apologise. I was experimenting a little with something… and it went wrong. I can guarantee it won’t happen again.”

“No.” There’s that strange tone again. He sounds like my ex. Arrogant.

“No?” I narrow my eyes.

“No, you can’t guarantee that. But I can.” The stranger in the purple cloak lunges for me, but I twirl out of the way. The jacket I’m half wearing acts like a cloak of my own and flares out wide, the leather sleeve whipping him across the cheek.

Alert, and breathing heavily, I hold my hands up. “Okay, wait. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

“I do not barter, Warlock.” He sneers that last word, like it’s an insult, but it isn’t.

I am a warlock, and despite the fact that I don’t have a coven and I’m not supposed to practice, I’m damn proud of it. Sarah called me powerful. My anger gets the better of me. “But you do trespass. You’re in my home when I didn’t invite you, so I’d say that makes us even. If you leave now, I’ll let it slide.”

The man whose clothes clash with his own skin laughs in mockery. “No. I do not think so. As you like to step inside my magic, perhaps you’d like your own fold in the fabric of time?”

“A fold in the what?” Then, as if he turned a key in the lock of my mind, everything falls into place. “It was you! You did it. That’s what you did to the settlement at Roanoke—you folded them away in time. Oh. My. Goddess. Ray’s never going to believe me.”

The more I speak, the more angry red blotches spread over the man’s cheeks, and a purple glow appears at his fingers where they curl menacingly at his sides. He might not be a witch, but he most definitely has some kind of magic. The more tense he gets, the more it condenses into sparks that wrap around his hands.

Who—or what—has the kind of magic that presents like that, almost like lightning? Not a human, that’s for sure. Too caught up in my mind, I miss when he lunges for me again, and this time he grabs my wrist.

Those purple sparks crackle and grow brighter at our contact. Erratic, they arc between us. I expect them to burn, so I scrunch my eyes shut… but they don’t. Instead, his clammy fingers pinch my shower-fresh skin, and that intense itching on my left hip—where my birthmark is—returns.

I’d forgotten about that, but it’s exactly like it was last night. Only, I’m not about to open my jeans and scratch at it right now. I try to tug my arm away, but he tightens his grip.