What does a witch do when her witchy aunts haven’t come back from the chief’s office, and she was told to stay put?
She goes to find them, of course.
It’s not like I’d promised to stay at home. And I didn’t trust something about Adira. I didn’t know her. A little voice inside told me she wouldn’t believe Ruth’s innocence, and my gut also told me Adira had something to prove. She needed to show everyone she had the stuff to be a chief, which meant she was about to go all queen bitch.
And Ruth was her first victim.
I rushed down Shifter Lane. The sun had set an hour ago, which meant the festivities had already begun.
What looked like a giant circus had invaded Hollow Cove.
Standing torches lined the streets for a hundred yards in either direction, filling the streets with a yellow and orange glow. Leaves of orange, yellow, and red carpeted the sidewalks and streets, covering the asphalt completely, as though it never existed. Gazebos and tents were stockpiled with tables covered in food, where a few paranormals manned their grills and singed their meats. Dozens of male paranormals crowded around, talking loudly, laughing, and arguing about some football game.
Music drifted from several different locations, the beats rolling into one another. Lanterns and carved pumpkins with large, toothy grins and wide eyes decorated porches and walkways while dozens of kids—all wearing costumes from Spiderman to Olaf and of course the familiar pointy hat witch—opened their bags to accept candy and took off running to the next house with equal amounts of enthusiasm. More kids ran in packs all over the streets, excited cries and giggles propelling them faster.
I smiled. It was a mix of the traditional Samhain with a modern Halloween flare. There was something for everyone.
Paranormals crowded the streets of Hollow Cove in a blur of color and motion, talk and costume, like some Medieval painting. Most witches sported Medieval-like gowns while other half-breeds decided to go more modern in their zombie costumes and dead flesh makeup.
I scanned the crowd and spotted Ronin and Iris. Both their faces were carefully painted with blood and rot, their clothes torn and stained with dirt and more blood. Zombies. I laughed as I stared at the zombie couple. I laughed harder when I realized they were walking in a slow, zombie-like jerky manner, hands out in front of them, while some kids ran around them screaming in delight.
“You guys are really into this,” I mumbled to myself, laughing. At least they were enjoying Samhain. I thought about going over to say hi but decided against it. I needed to find Ruth.
I crossed the street to the bland, gray brick building with the sign HOLLOW COVE SECURITY AGENCY. My chest tightened as my eyes moved to the left side entrance, remembering that kiss Marcus had planted on me. It had been a hot-flash, rip-off-your-panties kind of kiss. It had been that good.
Yup, I was hot for the chief. Hot for a guy who doesn’t call you back. Yeah, that was stupid.
Pushing those thoughts away for later—because, let’s face it, I was going to think about it again—I pulled open the front glass door and made my way inside. I blinked into the harsh white lights inside the building’s entrance. The scent of freshly brewed coffee hit me as I arrived at the front desk across the lobby, where it opened up into a larger space.
“No, Grace, huh?” I said, leaning on the desk, having expected to see the old woman. Her chair sat empty.
I looked around. The place was deserted. With Adira believing in her claim that she was the new chief, I’d expected to see a few of her deputy cronies. Yet I could sense the presence of people…
That’s when I heard the sounds of erratic conversation.
I was both relieved and anxious that my aunts were still here. They’d been here for hours. Either they were having a grand conversation, or it was worse than I thought.
Voices trailed from the door to the right of the front desk—Marcus’s office.
She was using Marcus’s office?
With my heart pounding like my veins were pumping caffeine, I pushed off the desk and made for the door—and froze.
The last time I was here, the name MARCUS DURAND had been stenciled on the window of the door. Now the name read ADIRA CREEK with the words CHIEF OFFICER written under it.
Oh, hell, no.
I stared at the door, my anger triggering my magic until I felt it crawl around and over my skin like another layer.
Would you knock? No. I didn’t think so.
I burst through the door in a storm of curses, wild hair, and angry eyes. The last time I was here, I’d sneaked in with Ronin to find some info on Marvelous Myrtle. The space looked exactly the same, except for the three witches who sat across from Adira.
Dolores, Beverly, and Ruth all stared at me with their mouths hanging open in a shared expression of disbelief, like I’d just crashed their tea party. Okay, maybe I did.
My eyes found Adira and they narrowed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I growled before I could stop myself. “That’s Marcus’s chair. This is Marcus’s office. And these are his things. That’s his stapler. And his pens. That’s his mug. Don’t you go touching his mug.” I sounded insane, but it was too late.
Sitting behind Marcus’s desk, Adira gave me a cold smile. “This is my office. And my ass is sitting in my chair. And as I recall, you weren’t invited.”
I charged forward until my thigh bumped against Marcus’s desk. “I don’t see your name on it. Ha-ha!” Yup, I was definitely losing it. What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I even care?
“Tessa, I told you to stay home.” Dolores stood from her chair, looking pale with her brows knitted together at the bridge of her nose. “We have this under control. You should go.”
“Really?” I turned to face her. “Did you see what she did to his door? She took his name down. His freaking name. Like she owns the place.”
“I do own the place,” came Adira’s voice, and I wanted to bitch slap the laughter I heard in it.
I turned back around slowly, my magic prickling at my fingertips. “What did you say?” I asked, my voice dangerously low.
Adira’s smile was truly evil, but she didn’t say anything. By the tone of her voice, I could tell she was enjoying making me angry.
“Please, Tessa,” pleaded Beverly, her usual confident smile replaced by what looked like fear. “Don’t make this worse.”
I took a breath at the sound of worry in Beverly’s voice. “What do you mean worse? What’s happened? I can tell something’s happened. What? What is it?”
My gaze found Ruth. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying—a lot. She sat in her chair, her hands hidden beneath her jacket on her lap, and wouldn’t look at me.
Dolores was still standing, watching me like she was about to tackle me at any moment. Yet I could see the fear and tension lingering at the edges of her eyes.
My aunts looked trapped. They looked like… like they’d lost. But lost what?
I turned my gaze on Adira, tension pulling me stiff. “Did you threaten them? What the hell did you do?”
“Tessa,” warned Dolores, her voice high.
Adira interlaced her long fingers on the desk. “My job.”
My magic pounded inside my core until it became a tight-knit grenade of energy, ready to explode. “What the hell does that mean?”
Adira’s posture emanated menace. Her face was an icy display of determined anger, sharp like a dagger, and her confidence annoyed me on so many levels. She believed herself above me, above us. I hated people like her. She wasn’t a witch. I was certain of that. But she was something—something dangerous, even primeval.
But it had been decided that from now on I had crazy big lady balls.
I leaned over the desk, my face twisting in a snarl. Hell, I nearly showed her my teeth. “What did you threaten them with?” Anger swept through me like a racing hot river. If she thought she could attack my law-abiding aunts and intimidate them without me getting involved, she was a moron. I didn’t care about rules, but I loved to break them. Just as I loved to ride the edge of my emotions.
It seemed the angrier I got, the wider the smile grew on Adira’s face. She wanted me to screw up. I wanted to bitch slap her. Twice. Okay, maybe three times. All right, four.
“Tessa, stop. It’s okay. I’ve already confessed,” said Ruth, and I pulled my eyes away from Adira to look at my aunt. “There’s nothing else you can do.”
“Yes. We’re almost done here,” added Beverly, though her voice shook with a small tremor. “Everyone’s out celebrating. You should be out there with them. You’re young. You should be out there having fun. We’ll join you shortly.”
Pulse fast, my eyes shifted from Beverly to Ruth to Dolores. “You’re not telling me something. It’s written all over your faces. What is it? What did she threaten you with? What are you not telling me?”
“You should go, Tessa.” Ruth shifted in her chair, and her jacket slipped to the floor. She reached down and grabbed it, and I registered the metal bracelets wrapped around her two wrists. Only those were no ordinary bracelets.
I felt the blood leave my face. The bracelets were iron cuffs.
They looked just like the cuffs used by the human police, but these were used to dull or even oppress a witch’s magic or prevent any practitioner from using magic. If you had the cuffs on, you couldn’t do magic. Yet the ones around Ruth’s wrists were different. For one thing, they weren’t tied together in the middle with a chain link. These were separate on each wrist. They may look different, by there was no mistaking the slight pulse of energy emitting from them.
Adira had banned my Aunt Ruth from using magic.
“You cuffed my aunt? You psychotic bitch!” I howled, out of my mind with anger. I felt my hair lift off my shoulders and float around my head.
Adira’s body stiffened as her eyes went black.
And then something inside me snapped.
Fury electrified me, and I tapped into the elements around me.
“Tessa! No!” screamed Dolores, but I barely heard her. All I cared about was ripping that bitch in half. Nobody treated my Aunt Ruth like that. Nobody.
A torrent of energy swarmed out to find me, and I thrust out my hands and yelled, “Inflitus!”
A burst of kinetic force shot out of my palms—
A blur of red and black moved before my eyes.
The kinetic force slammed into the wall behind the empty chair in an explosion of wood and drywall.
I stared at the gaping hole. But there was no Adira.
By the time I’d felt the presence behind me, it was already too late.
My arms were pulled back with a sudden painful thrust, just as I felt cold metal slip over my wrists.
Oh.
Shit.
Adira had cuffed me too.