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I unlocked the store and let myself in.

Sure enough, there was a stack of books in the kitchen. She often needed the books for research or different things to do with the store.

I sat at the table, and quickly found the book I was looking for. I remembered the heavily engraved cover as soon as I saw it. I ran my finger down the index, searching for the section on dwellings.

I opened to the section and scanned the thick pages, looking for information on all the cursed, enchanted, and hexed buildings in the area, past and present. Several haunted houses, an asylum, an abandoned private girl’s school…

Ortus Cottage.

I knew I’d seen the name. I quickly read the passages, and my heart beat faster, my palms growing sweaty. Where the living and the dead walk side by side.

It told the story of a dark witch who had lived in the cottage. The nameless monster had murdered a bunch of witches, and they’d never been found. She’d used them as practice, to master her reanimation spell. Once perfected, she planned to bring back the three elder crones of Shadow Falls, in one hell of a power grab.

I cursed.

The Maidens—it had to be them—the murdered witches mentioned in this book. Who else could it be?

I’d seen the cottage, and whoever was behind these new disappearances had called me there. Did this mean they wanted to reanimate the crones as well?

Pieces of the puzzle snapped together in my mind. I snatched up my phone and opened the photos I’d taken at the council building. I scrolled to the news sheets I’d read, and checked the date the last missing witch had been recorded. March 1706. I scrolled back farther to the pictures I’d taken when I first came to the council, searching coven Thornheart’s histories.

There, Selene’s entry, after they’d been forced to kill Charity.

March 1706.

“Fuck.” Charity was the witch of Ortus cottage, of course she was. She’d killed all those witches and Selene had killed her before she could reanimate the crones.

Now, somehow, Charity was trying to do it again.

Oh goddess.

This was huge, too big for just me. I was pretty sure I was about to hyperventilate. What the fuck did I do with this? How could I save those girls?

Nia whined.

Nia miss wolves. Nia miss alpha. Nia want to go home.

I patted her head, my mind in a spin. “You’re not the only one.” To her, home was with the wolves now. She wanted to go to the keep.

My hand lifted to the mark Draven had given me the night we mated, and I realized I felt the same way.

Draven had reacted badly when he’d seen what I could do. He’d let the past resurface and cloud his judgment. But so had I. I’d let my fear rule me, and I’d thrown my wall back up.

Brody might be dead, but I was still letting him win. Back then, I’d clung to him when I should have run the hell away. I’d lived with the guilt of staying with him for so long that my first instinct had been to run from Draven. God, my mate had been to hell and back.

When he’d come for me, he’d told me the spell I’d used was the same one Charity used to trap him, and still let him walk away. I covered my face with my hands and tried to breathe.

His reaction hadn’t been about me.

Goddess, seeing me do that, it must have taken him right back to that awful time, to what happened to him and his warriors.

Instead of running, I should have stayed and talked to him, I should have helped him through it. I should have fought for us. I should have held on tight.

I didn’t know what a future with Draven looked like, but I realized I wanted it, anyway.

I’d promised him I’d try, and at the first hurdle, I’d run.

I missed my mate.