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JUNE 1816, LONDON, England
Hollis, a full-grown eel, prodded his lagging friend, Hudson, to move along. It was time to go home, yet his friend had been dawdling for days on their swim downstream along the River Thames.
Everything around Hollis was bathed in bright light, even this muddy river. His eyes had stretched to twice their normal size and he had also lost his appetite. Sure signs that it was time to spawn. Now!
He wiggled ahead and then rushed back, impatient at his friend’s slow pace. Hudson either did not notice his urgency or could not respond. “We will never reach the ocean at this rate, Hud.”
“I am unwell, Hol.” That had been his friend’s reoccurring complaint, especially since they swam by the shadow of the Tower of London. “Go on without me.”
Hollis shuddered under the grip of opposing forces. A part of him wanted to shoot to the mouth of the river where freshwater kissed salt, but a leash of affection kept him tethered to his friend’s side. “How may I help, Hud?”
“I need a healer.” The tail end of Hudson’s words faded as he sank to the river’s muddy bottom.
A healer? What did one look like? More to the point, would such a hunt delay him reaching the spawning ground? Yet, a request had been made. He was obligated to respond – yea, or nay.
He gave a defeated sigh and his top fin drooped as the fight left him. He could not forsake his friend. “As you wish, Hud, but you must hide while I am gone. There, in the gravel, beneath those rocks. Be safe.”
He scooted away upstream although this direction felt entirely wrong and might well spell his end.
* * *
CALLINGTON, CORNWALL
“Grace Elizabeth Adair, you are completely mad!” Merryn Saint-Clair shouted into the fifteen-foot deep wishing well. “Come out of there, at once.”
Standing waist-high in cold water, embracing a squirming lamb, Grace was in no position to argue that point. She lifted the bleating animal higher. “Can you reach him?”
“I do not have to, Grace, any more than you needed to climb down that ladder to get him.” A swirl of Merryn’s hand, and the heavy lamb was magically plucked out of Grace’s hold.
The animal kicked out, no doubt startled at being suddenly elevated by unseen forces, and smacked Grace’s forehead before he sailed toward a cloudy sky. As the lamb’s flailing limbs crossed over the well’s rim, Grace tenderly checked her bruised forehead.
With a final wave, Merryn released control of the animal. “Silly thing.”
Once it touched the ground, hooves struck gravel and stones scattered as the lamb made a hasty race to freedom.
Grace’s hellhounds growled, a sign that a chase would be on. Her heart skipped in fear. If they attacked the lamb, Merryn might hurt the hounds. Besides which, she had not saved that baby sheep to feed it to her hounds.
“Leave it!” Grace commanded. Her words echoed out of the well.
With protesting whines and heavy sighs, the two hellhounds slumped, their coarse fur rubbing against the well’s side.
Despite her throbbing temple, Grace breathed in relief.
“Amazing,” Merryn said. “They actually listened. Still, I am shocked your neighbors have not shot them.”
Not for want of trying. Grace kept that illicit thought silent. Merryn was not only Grace’s cousin but also the Coven Protectress of Britain. As such, one of her responsibilities was to keep the presence of witches among humans a secret.
A recent crisis had revealed that many in Cornwall already knew her people’s stealthy existence and their new Lore Keeper, a human, seemed intent on spreading the word about the existence to her people. Still, the topic of Wyhcans was rarely broached in public, only whispered among trusted friends. Humans were still unsure whom to trust and fear continued to lurk just beneath the surface. Especially once the Lore Keeper spread the news that Wyhcans were similar in appearance to humans.
The Warlock Council had already rescinded their permission to the Regent to showcase his mural of Wyhcans’ arrival on Earth at his Brighton palace to the public. Then the witch’s High Sage advised him it was best if talk of their existence remained unspoken...for now.
The last thing Grace needed was for Merryn to discover that she had used deflection spells to protect the two hellhounds from some of her more superstitious neighbors. She had never cast a mind spell on a human, of course – that was strictly forbidden to witches – but on certain occasions, she had changed her hounds into bulls or horses. Especially if a loaded blunderbuss was pointed at one.
Her spell was not much of a stretch considering the hounds’ alarming size. Like all witches, Grace was tall compared to a human female, but when Farfur stood to attention, the tips of his ears still reached her waist. When riled, the hounds’ eyes also manifested an eerie glow that was harder to explain away or disguise.
She smiled with warmth for having gained their companionship. Bartos and Farfur were good hounds. They heeded Grace’s orders, seemed fond of each other, and in general did not cause an uncalled-for fracas. This was why she deemed it safe to keep them and expended just a little magical effort to protect them. Also, she secretly hoped that one of these days, their brooding owner would return to claim them.
“Are you coming up?” Merryn asked.
“No.” Her response sounded hollow from within her safe haven and within her heart.
Yet, climbing up would be tantamount to relinquishing her hounds to the Coven Protectress. As well as agreeing to give up waiting for their master. Then she’d have to return to London with her mother where Grace would be expected to say yes to marriage, to having a family and living a full, if dull, life. Things she had wanted, nay, been thrilled to accede to, until she came face-to-face with the hounds’ previous owner.
“Why not?” Merryn asked in an exasperated tone. “Is there another lamb in danger?”
Grace shrugged off her cousin’s sarcasm. She did not care if she was being unreasonable.
How could she hope to explain what was inexplicable even to Grace? She especially cringed from broaching this touchy subject with Merryn, because her cousin was the witch whom the hounds’ owner once loved, and lost. For Bartos and Farfur’s master was none other than Devlin Chase Dewer.
Half fae, half warlock, Dewer was now the sworn enemy of all Callington witches. The day Grace insisted the hounds stay with her, he had howled with rage. Grace, then a young witch coming into the height of her healing powers, had empathically reverberated at his anguished cry.
She sensed his fury was not at her petty thievery, but the result of a shattered heart. For all the poetic words of love her many suitors had crooned in Grace’s ears, none had evoked her to such awe as the passion in Dewer’s soul to love a woman so fiercely, it hurt so deeply.
That same woman was currently above ground, urging Grace to climb out of this well.
“You cannot stay there all day.” Elbows resting on the well’s rim, Merryn observed Grace with a contemplative gaze. “Your mother was right to call this situation to my attention. Hellhounds are not pets, Grace. These two must either be killed or returned to the underworld. I will give you the choice.”
In no rush to concede to a decision she had avoided for most of the year, Grace traced a line of bricks that made up the well wall. In any case, she liked this well, felt safe inside it, as if she were being cradled in her mother’s arms.
Besides, how could she admit to Merryn that she was consumed with envy that Dewer had loved her? Or that Grace had decided the day she encountered Dewer to only marry a man if he held such breathtaking passion for her, and she for him. She wanted a man who would move heaven, and yes, even hell, to have her.
Even more disturbing was her continued fascination with Dewer himself. Grace could not shake her hope that perhaps one day he might evince such a love for her. That’s why she clung to Bartos. Intending to heal him, yes, but also because the hellhound bound Dewer to her. Having Farfur, too, was a bonus. He was a sweet boy. Her lips curved up with a fond smile.
Before Grace accepted any man as her husband, she wanted the answers to two intriguing questions.
Could Dewer ever feel such passion for me?
And could I feel such love for him?
If she failed to nail down those answers, this puzzle would plague her, souring whatever relationship she fostered with another man.
Of course, she could not say any of this to her cousin or her mother. Perhaps she could broach this topic tangentially. “Merryn, may I ask a personal question?”
The Coven Protectress’s chuckles tumbled down to Grace. “Will you come out of the well if I promise to answer?”
“No.”
Her cousin’s humor died. “What do you wish to know?”
“Did you love Dewer, even a little?”
A grim expression spread over Merryn’s normally cheerful face, stirring an uneasy shiver in Grace. The Coven Protectress straightened and turned around, her blond braid swinging wide before she vanished entirely from view. Booted footsteps ground into gravel marking Merryn’s progress around the well. Once. The hellhounds disturbed the gravel as they scrambled out of her way. Twice. Three times.
Finally, Merryn came back into view, hands planted on the ledge. “Yes.”
Ah ha! If Merryn had cared for him, he was loveable. “How much?”
“You are never to reveal this to Braden. Or Dewer. Promise?”
A secret to be kept from both Merryn’s husband and the man who once adored her? Her answer must be salacious indeed. Pulse pattering with excitement, Grace placed her hand over her heart. “I will never speak of this to anyone.”
There was still a hesitant pause and then her cousin’s whispered words shuddered within the well. “He swept me off my feet at my come-out ball. I would have run away with him, if my aunt had not removed his mind spell.”
This time, Grace chuckled. Her mother had taught Grace how to ward against warlock mind spells when she was a child. Also, mind spells merely enhanced what was already present.
“This is not funny!” Merryn crossed her arms.
Grace trailed a thoughtful finger on the water’s surface, secretly pleased to have put this composed witch on the defensive. “Was it only his spell that made him appealing?” I doubt it. She recalled a man with midnight hair, sculpted features and magnetism that eclipsed all others. He had swept Grace off her feet without uttering a single word.
Merryn’s fingernail rapidly tapped the well’s rim as if in agitation. “I knew him first as my brother’s friend, from when we were all children. He was handsome and as a fae/warlock different from any other boys. At my come-out ball, I did not recognize him, likely because of this spell, but that night he stole my sixteen-year-old heart. Until my aunt stripped me of his mind spell and showed me the true character of the deceiving fiend. He is no different than his mother.”
Merryn sighed, as if bored with dredging up old matters. Her tapping ceased. “Grace, why ask about this ancient history?”
Far from being like his dark fae parent, Dewer had seemed as much a victim of his mother’s machinations as the rest of Grace’s family. Grace clenched her hands, anger rising at what his mother had done to all of them, especially her son. She had made him an outcast among other warlocks and hated by witches. Most devastating of all, she had ensured the woman he loved would always despise him. Grace’s heart pained at Dewer’s utter isolation. Everyone needed someone on their side.
“Have you developed a romantic interest in Dewer?” Merryn asked in a gentler tone. “If so, pray dissuade yourself. His mother is a dark fae, and a vengeful one. She is over-protective and will kill you before she allows you to have her son, as she tried to do with me.”
At her continued silence, Merryn said, “Your mother misses her husband and your sisters. Only your refusal to accompany her to London, keeps her here.”
A sweep of guilt accompanied those words. Grace’s head pounded, and not just from the strike of the lamb’s hoof. With a defeated sigh, she climbed out of the well.
“Oh, you’re hurt,” Merryn said, tenderly touching the bruise on Grace’s temple as she crested the well.
She eased away from her cousin’s gentle touch and drew on her healing energy until the magical force hummed and spread its warm caress over her forehead like a cool wet cloth. The sting eased, leaving her refreshed and tingly as she sat on the well’s rim. She then shook her favorite blue morning dress, magically drying and cleaning it. However, her guilt at causing her mother distress remained. “You are right, Merryn. It’s time my mother and I rejoined my family in London.”
“Finally, you speak sense.” Merryn clapped her hands.
“Dewer will never come for his hellhounds, will he?” Grace asked in a soft voice.
Merryn laid an arm around Grace’s waist and gave her a hug. “His mother likely has a hundred such demonic beasts at her beck and call. She would have given him any he requested.”
“More fool him then,” Grace replied with heat. “If he cannot understand how worthy Bartos and Farfur are, then he is unworthy of them and of any consideration from me.”
“So, you do have consideration for him?” Merryn said with concern. “Oh, Grace, I am sorry.”
Grace bit her lip, heart heavy at her decision to give up on Dewer, which meant giving up her hellhounds, too. It would be foolish to risk entering warlock-infested Wales to return the hounds to Dewer, which was why she had never attempted that ploy for a chance to meet him.
Merryn had once said his black tower was larger inside than outside. Grace would have dearly loved a tour inside his home. She shook off that tantalizing thought. Since she could not take the hounds with her to London or leave them here unguarded, that left only one option. Send the hounds back to the underworld. At least, this time they would return free to roam as they pleased instead of as slaves forced to kill on command.
“I cannot harm them,” Grace whispered. “Not after Bartos was just cured.”
“I understand a healer’s need to safeguard her patients, Grace, but...”
“I did not cure him, Merryn. The laceration from Lord Braden’s extraordinary sword proved tenaciously difficult to mend. Every time I sealed the slash, within days it would tear open. All my magic did was to keep Bartos alive, but did not appreciably lessen his pain.”
“He looks hale and hearty now.”
“He recovered this spring after I came to this wishing well to make a birthday request a couple of months ago. After I tossed in my offering, I discovered all I wanted was for the hellhound to be healed. So, that was my wish.”
Retelling the story brought the moment alive as if it were happening right now. There had been a sudden swirl in the water below. She had looked inside, hoping the sound meant her wish had been answered. Seeing no more movement, with a disappointed shrug, she turned to leave with her hellhounds when a splash sounded, as if someone had flung a rock into the well. Instantly, water sprayed high up and over, dousing all three of them.
The hellhounds yelped and scampered away.
She had flicked at her soaked morning dress with annoyance. The scrumptious cornflower-blue confection that her mother whipped out of Ackermann’s Repository of Fashion as Grace’s birthday gift had been streaked with filthy, muddy water. Rolling her eyes at the well’s rude reaction to her perfectly good offering of three heart-shaped sorrel leaves, Grace checked on the hounds.
“Bartos was no longer limping,” she continued her tale. Her heart’s aching need to see the hellhound healed had been granted. She had inched closer to examine him and found not a single sign of his wound remained. “No scar, no bloody trail, not even matted fur.”
With an overjoyed shout, Grace had ruffled the fur on Bartos’s forehead. He had stared at her with startled eyes. Affectionate gestures must be foreign to hellhounds, for both hounds then retreated a good three feet past her reach.
“How strange,” Merryn said, considering the implications of Grace’s tale. “Why did you not tell me of this when it happened?” she asked. “We should harvest this water and send it to all the covens across England.”
Grace shook her head and gave Merryn the bad news. She had used the well water on several of her other wounded patients. The water had no effect on any other injury or illness. “I even returned to make another wish, but the well refused to respond.”
“Too much to expect, I suppose,” Merryn said with a huff of disappointment. “This Laneast well is known for being miserly about granting boons. This does explain your peculiar fondness for these demonic hounds. Especially if the well splashing them means the Creator has blessed them.”
“Grace Elizabeth Adair, come home!” Even from five leagues away, her mother’s voice rang clear across the meadow, or at least it seemed that way.
“My aunt’s calling me, too,” Merryn said, suggesting the calls had been mental not auditory. “Likely coven business. sounds urgent. We shall discuss returning the hellhounds to the underworld later. For now, forget Dewer. He is naught but trouble personified.”
With that warning, Merryn transformed into a raven and flew away.
The hellhounds sat up.
Grace transformed into a white cat, her favorite form for fast travel. “Meow,” she said. Come.
In one leap, she skimmed their heads and landed on the moist grass several feet away, and then raced across the meadow toward home.
The hounds scrabbled to their feet and were hot on her trail with quiet grace for such large lethal animals. Even Bartos, the eldest, who was more gray than black, loped behind her without seeming effort.
Grace raced across the countryside, her cat form adeptly scaling fences and skirting startled bulls. She circled farmhouses and barns. However fast she ran, she could not shake Merryn’s last words of warning about Dewer.
The hounds kept pace at her back without tiring, never losing sight of her or lagging to investigate a curious scent or alarmed shout. Their single-minded pursuit mirrored her intention to reach her mother before a second frantic call was sent.
A half-hour later, Grace entered the moors that bordered her family home. She swerved around trees, climbed hills and leaped over shrubs as she sped to the far end. With no clear pathway, the hounds had a harder time keeping up. They whined at going around bushes she magically scaled. When the brambles proved too cumbersome, they barked their frustration.
She slowed to give them time to catch up, her thoughts returning to her mother’s strident call to come home. What could have upset a witch who could slam a door shut with a delicate tilt of her head or build a wall of thorny roses with a simple finger twirl?
Grace reached the edge of this stretch of the moor, and ahead stretched the long driveway that led home. She checked on the hounds’ progress and promptly stumbled and crashed. As her cheek sank into the oddly muddy ground, a vision took her into the depths of a river. Birds chirping, the hounds whining, all of it faded away as Grace entered an undulating watery world.
Someone tugged at her gown. Using her arms to wade through the water, she turned around and came face to face with an eel swimming among a school of trout. The fish scooted around the eel but one little trout stopped and asked the eel, “Do you need assistance?”
“My friend is hurt,” the eel replied. “I need a healer.”
Scales twinkling in the light, the trout said it recalled once meeting a witch who gently stroked his side where he had an angry gash. He shivered. She healed me.
Grace remembered that moment. A little fish had looked hurt in a stream behind her home where she collected medicinal herbs earlier this spring. Sensing its life slipping away, she had reached into the water to seal the tear. Surely the fish in this vision was not that same one? If not, why was she being shown this fish? Why was it important that she see this eel?
A bark brought her back to the present and she gasped for breath. Air rushed in to fill her tight lungs, as if she had been holding her breath underwater.
Her first thought was, how far back were the hellhounds? A frantic glance over her shoulder showed them sitting ten paces back, tongues lolling. Farfur was the one who had barked. His nose was raised, nostrils quivering as he sniffed the air. Then he gave a howl and tore toward her, Bartos was not far behind. She crouched, extending her claws in defense, but they streaked past her, toward her home.
Surprised, she flicked her white tail up in question, and then set off after them. They moved fast, much faster than she had ever given them credit for. So, they had been humoring her all this while, pretending they could not catch up. She hoped her mother never found out.
Past a strand of oak trees loomed her front garden bordering their circular driveway. The bushes were green but lacked colorful blooms. Flowers were rare this summer. The constant overcast skies and soggy ground from too many rainy days had devastated her mother’s pride and joy.
As she drew closer, Grace transformed back into herself. Her wet gown slapped against her legs as she sprinted. What soon riveted her attention and slowed her pace was a dark traveling carriage strapped to four matching black horses tethered before her house. The two hellhounds were circling the carriage, tails wagging.
Grace’s heart thundered faster than on her race home, for only one gentleman, one warlock, could own a vehicle that so fascinated these two hellhounds.
He was here!
Devlin Chase Dewer had returned to Callington. She sternly reminded herself that he was just a man. A warlock, to boot. Her missish behavior was unwarranted.
Farfur was at her front door now, scratching to get in. If she did not accede to his pleas, he would leave gouges in the wood and that would infuriate her mother. Yet, Grace’s limbs trembled at the idea of proceeding up her gravel drive toward the door.
What if she made no impression on Dewer? For a second time. She rubbed her hands down her gown, and discovered the material was filthy!
Dewer’s groom and footman were on the far side of the carriage. The two lads were in their early twenties and their facial similarity suggested they might be brothers or cousins. A negligent twirl of her forefinger and bushes near them bent as if struck by a brisk breeze, while dirt and leaves peppered the air. The servants swung around, raising their arms to protect their faces. While their backs were turned, Grace shook herself.
She shed dirt from her face, hair and clothes, her blue morning dress dried and a fresh floral scent imbued her skin. Satisfied she was now presentable, she lowered her arms and squared her shoulders. She stepped toward her front door, her hips’ natural swing a tad wider in anticipation of finally being introduced to the alluring Mr. Dewer.
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