He and I both.

  As much as I disliked the nosy witch, there was something about Beatrix’s coven that had my wolf curious and searching out one of her properties in town. Neither of us had understood why at first, but I was beginning to put the pieces together and wasn’t thrilled about the conclusions I was drawing.

  “We’re still searching for our mate,” I said.

  “And you think you’ll find her with the witches?” he asked with a raised brow.

  Clearly, Holden and I had come to the same conclusions. I’d just been trying to deny the thoughts growing inside my mind. It was the only thing my wolf and I agreed on—to a point.

  She might not be a witch. She could be a wolf that needs a witch’s help, like the one we heard about from Texas, my wolf said.

  I knew he wasn’t fond of a witch potentially being our mate, given that meant he wouldn’t have a she-wolf to run with, but we didn’t get a choice in the matter. We got who the Moon Goddess deemed a perfect match for us, even when we didn’t ask for anything of the sort.

  “It’s not impossible for my mate to be a witch. We’re following our instincts for now,” I finally said to Holden.

  “You know, if that’s the case, then people are going to be curious about the two of you,” he replied.

  “People like who? You?” I snarled, my mood diminishing quickly.

  He held his hands up innocently. “I’ve only tried to help you, Foster. I know what happened to you before, and I—”

  I cut him off with a deep growl. “You don’t know anything about me. I don’t need or want your help.”

  Holden was an experienced and patient alpha. He didn’t act on emotion, and I had no real reason to snap at him, but he was trying too hard to help me. He didn’t understand that I couldn’t allow that. It was already too much to let in a potential mate. I couldn’t join a pack like his. Not now or ever.

  “I’m sorry for overstepping. I don’t presume to understand how you’re feeling, but I am sincere in my offer to help. Even if you don’t want to join our pack, while you’re in my territory, consider me an ally. If you want help finding this mate of yours, just say the word.”

  I knew I was being an asshole. I believed Holden’s sincerity. I just didn’t know how to get out of my own head.

  “Thanks, but we’re good,” I said evenly.

  “The new moon is soon. If your wolf wants to run with us, you’re welcome to meet us in this forest,” Holden added as he took a step away.

  My wolf whimpered at the idea. We hadn’t run with a pack in over a decade. I’d stolen that from him in my need to keep other wolves at a distance. As much as I wanted to give my wolf this one night with a pack that wouldn’t ask for anything in return, I wasn’t sure I was capable of it.

  “We’ll think about it,” I replied.

  Holden nodded, keeping his face devoid of emotion before he leapt into the air and was on all fours in the next instant. His light-grey wolf glanced back, piercing green eyes appraising every inch of me before he lifted his head and howled, likely signaling to his pack that he was headed home, as any good alpha should do.

  I turned back to the city I hated and prayed to our creator that this mate of mine would come soon. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stay.

  The draw of the pack life was tempting. My wolf’s needs grew with every day we failed to find our mate. All while the protective walls I’d built long ago vibrated with unease.

  I hoped that finding our mate would bring a clarity I hadn’t been able to grasp since watching my family be slaughtered.

  4

  ANDIE

  The tea kettle screeched, making me jump from where I leaned against my counter. I turned to pull the pot from the stove and poured the steaming water into two waiting mugs.

  Charlie was sitting impatiently at my table. She wanted to leave right away, but I was in no hurry to leave my home with a stranger. Not until I had some answer that made me feel more comfortable.

  “We don’t really have time for tea, Andie. As soon as Beatrix gets my message and tells me where to bring you, we have to leave,” she said, but before I could respond, she read the cup I handed her and snorted. “‘I didn’t fall. I attacked the floor.’ Why in the world do you have a coffee cup that says that?”

  I shrugged, ignoring her mention of being in a hurry, and took a seat across from her. “My mom thought it was funny.” And so did I.

  Being a klutz was something to embrace instead of being embarrassed about. I often found the more I tried to fight my penchant for hurting myself, the more accidents happened.

  “I’m sorry about Aspen. When we knew she passed, our entire coven gathered to honor your mother. She might have chosen to leave, but she was still one of us.” Charlie paused, meeting my stare. “As are you.”

  Everything about the woman in front of me was familiar, but I had no memory of her. I wanted to believe what she was saying, but I wasn’t sure how to accept that the stories I’d heard as a child were true and that my mother had kept me from all of that.

  I’d had a terrific relationship with my mother. We’d been more like sisters when I’d become a teenager. There wasn’t a day that passed where I didn’t miss her and the companionship that she’d offered me. She’d been the only constant in my life, the only person who hadn’t judged me, used me, or left me. At least until she hadn’t had a choice in the matter. Until one person’s error had taken her life in a car accident.

  “How do you know me?” I asked while swirling the English breakfast tea bag around my cup and doing my best not to let the anguish drown me.

  Charlie took a sip of her tea and glanced at her phone before she answered me. “We were born on the same day, our moms were best friends, and until yours had to leave, so were we.”

  “I don’t understand why you remember me, but I can’t remember anything from before I was five.”

  It had always been that way for me. My mother had had pictures of me with my father before he’d died, but I didn’t remember him, either. She’d said it was part of the grief and my mind’s way of protecting me. Up until this moment, I’d never had a reason to believe otherwise.

  Charlie checked her phone again and bit her bottom lip. “Um, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say anything helpful. Honestly, I shouldn’t have even been the one to find you. Dumb luck brought me here.”

  “What does that even mean?” I was trying to be patient, but I’d felt in the dark about a lot of things lately. Knowing someone was sitting right in front of me with plenty of answers, yet she was also unwilling to give them, wasn’t helping my frayed nerves.

  She sighed. “It means that Beatrix, our coven leader, was leading the search for you. There was a whole team assigned to find you, one I wasn’t exactly part of. Instead of asking for their permission, I came to you as soon as I overheard someone in a club talking about a lost witch being located.”

  “Why would you assume that witch was me? Am I even a witch?” My stomach roiled at asking that last question. Denial had been my friend over the last several months while something inside me had been changing. While I’d recently begun to believe it was possible, I’d yet to truly accept that whatever was happening to me could be something that was supposed to be fictional.

  “I don’t know why I thought you were the witch they were talking about, but my gut told me I needed to know for sure either way. I listened long enough to get the name of this town, then followed the magic. Those two people were going to take you to another coven that has been trying to best us for centuries. They might have succeeded if you’d been taken.”

  I took another slow drink of my tea, trying to process what Charlie was saying. I mean, I’d been there, had seen the whole thing, but now that there weren’t crazy people after me and my adrenaline had calmed, hearing what had happened was hard to believe.

  “I know this is a lot,” Charlie said solemnly. “I thought you’d have known something about who you are, but then again, from what I’ve been told, your mother never wanted this life for you. Not after how your father died.” She grimaced.

  My face pinched. I really didn’t want to ask the question, but after learning what little I had, there was a dreadful feeling in my gut that my father hadn’t died of pancreatic cancer.

  “How did he die?” I whispered and avoided her eye contact.

  Charlie’s hand reached across the table and covered mine. “There was an attack on our coven. He was trying to protect your mother and Junie, who was his only sister, in case you didn’t know that.”

  Tears pricked at my eyes, my jaw tightened, and I wanted to scream. How could this be my life and I was only just finding out? None of it made sense, and I wished like hell my mother was here to fill in the many blanks.

  “How could I not know any of this? Why did nobody tell me my father was one? How did my mother hide being a witch from me?” I asked, trying not to be hurt that she would have hidden this from me. That she left me to figure this all out on my own.

  “I don’t have all of the answers, but I wish I did if that helps. We really should be going, though. I know you’re in pain, but if we don’t go soon, things could get a lot worse,” Charlie said, once again checking her phone.

  My head shook. “Can you at least explain how my mom never showed any magic?” The thought that she betrayed me so severely had me frozen to my seat.

  “From what I heard, Aspen asked to be stripped of her magic, which would explain why there were never any slip-ups for her to explain. She gave the energy to Juniper, who had no use for it, as she was already more powerful than she cared to be after your father died. Our coven was lucky to have her, and we were fortunate she was willing to share the magic with the coven, doing whatever it took to keep our members safe.”

  Juniper. My mother used to call Aunt Junie that when they’d been fighting. It used to make me giggle, especially when Aunt Junie would snicker behind Mom’s back before apologizing for whatever had been done.

  My chest tightened at the memories. I couldn’t believe they were both gone. That there was no one else left in my family. That I was truly alone. Though, knowing my mom hadn’t completely hidden everything from me, given she’d no longer had magic, did make me feel slightly better.

  Charlie gave my hand another squeeze as a lone tear trailed down my cheek. Before I could ask anything else, her phone started to ring.

  Charlie took a deep breath, then answered. “Hello, Beatrix.”

  “Where are you?” the woman’s snippy voice bellowed from the speaker.

  “In Montana,” Charlie replied calmly.

  “Why the hell are you still there? Did Moira’s people get Andie?” Beatrix’s voice darkened when she asked the second question, making me think she wasn’t someone I wanted to piss off.

  “No. Andie is right here next to me. I just wasn’t sure where you wanted me to bring her.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t want you to keep her in the same place those idiots already found her in. Get to the coven. Now.”

  The call ended and Charlie let out another heavy sigh.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Junie was Beatrix’s best friend,” Charlie explained. “Her passing has been hard on all of us, but mostly Beatrix. She’ll be nicer to you, I promise. We really do need to go now that I know for sure where to bring you.”

  Her question made me recoil. “Where are we going? When will I be back? I have a job and rent to pay.”

  “I’m sorry, Andie. It’s not safe for you to come back. More of those witches will keep coming until they get what they want.” Her words and tone sounded sincere, but my anxiety was rising and all rationale had left me.

  I pushed away from the table, taking several steps from Charlie and trying to push past the terror choking me. “How do I even know I can trust you? Where do you want to take me? I have to be able to come back. I have a job. People who depend on me. Rent to pay.”

  Charlie’s fingers were flying over her phone when I finished my tirade of questions. Once she’d finished typing, her phone immediately dinged.

  “You find there’s something familiar about me, right?” Charlie asked, and I nodded. “Like I said before, you knew me prior to your memories being blocked. I can return them to you right now to help you trust me, but the spell can be painful. I’d rather not do that when we could be interrupted at any moment, but I can promise that as soon as we’re settled at the coven, we’ll give your past back to you. Once you remember, if you don’t want to stay, we’ll find somewhere safe for you, but here isn’t that place. Not anymore.”

  The logical part of me knew Charlie was right. Those people had found me, and she hadn’t killed the man. He could come back at any time, and I wasn’t prepared to fight him off.

  “What happened to the woman who was there?” I asked.

  Charlie grimaced. “I killed her. She wouldn’t relent like the man did. Killing isn’t something we like to do, but you were in danger. It had to be done.”

  Magic and dead bodies. I wasn’t mentally prepared to process whatever was going on here.

  My legs began to ache, the sensation moving up through my stomach and across my chest. Then my hands warmed and began to glow a light pink—a rather new development that had my mouth falling open and a heaviness settling over my core.

  “I’m sorry, Andie. We’ve run out of time. I tried to be patient, but what you’re feeling right now? That’s dark magic and that means more witches are close. We have to go. Now.”

  Charlie grabbed on to my wrist and the world fell out from under me just like before. I reached back and shoved her away from me as soon as we reappeared in a park. Or maybe it was a really big backyard. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

  I pointed at her with a snarl. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

  There was no stopping my freak-out. I’d been pushed to my limits, and I needed a minute. Hell, I needed days to process not only what I’d learned, but also what I’d seen over the last hour. It didn’t matter that I’d had assumptions about what was swirling inside me all these months. Up until now, my thoughts had been speculative. That had kept my sanity in check.

  All of my assumptions were now reality, and I wasn’t okay.

  Charlie opened her mouth to reply, but I wasn’t waiting around to hear what she had to say. My fury was on the rise, and I didn’t want to say something to her that I didn’t mean. In my heart, I was certain Charlie had meant well by ripping me from my home, but that didn’t mean my mind was on the same page. Not yet.

  My feet stomped heavily, carrying me forward and toward a fence. There was something shimmering around it, but I wasn’t stopping. I had to find somewhere that I could be alone to process and figure out what I wanted to do.

  I reached for the gate, and a calming sensation caressed my skin like an old friend, sending goosebumps along my arms and legs when I stepped through. A shudder rolled along my shoulders before I looked around.

  To my left was a lone gravel road with no street signs or lights. On the right was more of the same road, but it wasn’t empty. A massive dog stood frozen in place with ebony fur and glowing, blue eyes that were currently homed in on me.

  I sucked in a breath, my legs beginning to shake uncontrollably. I rubbed my clammy palms over my eyes. Ignoring the rising hairs on the back of my neck, I lowered my hand and looked again, but the dog was gone.

  “What the shit is happening to me?” I muttered.

  “We’re going to sort that out right now,” a woman whispered from behind me just before something pinched the skin between my shoulder blades.

  I tried to turn around and see who was there, but my legs became jelly. As I felt the ground getting closer, a tiredness like I’d never known settled over me, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  5

  FOSTER

  After Holden had left, I’d stayed on the ridge for another hour before the lure to head into the forest had called to not only my wolf, but myself as well.

  It’s her. She’s here, he said excitedly.

  Yeah, he’d thought that several times before when we’d caught what only turned out to be a lingering essence of the scent we’d been given. Each time it happened was more disappointing than the last. So, I wasn’t holding my breath that this chase would be any different.

  The transformation from man to animal came over me seamlessly when I pictured my wolf’s ebony coat, sapphire eyes, and oversized paws. Warmth filled my chest and expanded throughout the rest of my body as it surged forward.

  My wolf howled into the moon before racing toward the trees. I feel her.

  There was a ball of heat growing inside my chest, making me believe maybe my wolf was right this time. Maybe this mate of ours had finally arrived.

  Hope was a bitch, though. More often than not, the emotion only let me down. So, I dashed the feeling away and focused on where my wolf was headed. He dodged around trees, paws practically flying over the forest’s dirt floor. He was sprinting his way east, farther away from the city.

  Do you know where you’re going? I asked.

  He was slow to respond, considering his answer carefully. I think so. There is something there, muddling with the beacon I’ve been following.

  Something like magic?

  My wolf’s steps faltered, then his pace was suddenly faster than before. I know where she is.

  Care to share? I asked.

  Beatrix has her. At the coven.

  We’d found the coven when we’d first arrived, but we’d stayed in the shadows, never making it known that we’d found their homes, a feat that should have been impossible knowing how strong Beatrix was, but she’d given no inclination that she was aware we knew where her coven resided.

  I should have known then that there was a good chance our mate was a witch, but I hadn’t been ready to admit anything to myself. It wasn’t until we found the witch’s house in the city that I truly allowed myself to think that way. As we got closer and closer to the magically charged stronghold, my heart confirmed what my thoughts had already assumed.