The man stares at me, a compassionate expression coming over his slightly lined, middle-aged face as he absorbs the desperation I’m emanating in waves. “It’s a lot, I know. The girls around here all have their panties in a twist. Ellery’s quite a catch and they’ve been gunning for him for years. Rich, good looking, not a shit-for-brains boss like his uncle was, but you—”
My brows lift with confusion. I think this man must have mistaken me for someone else. I don’t know any Ellery…although why does that name sound unsettlingly familiar? “I need to report a crime,” I interrupt, finally dragging the words from my stone-hard vocal chords.
He stops and gapes at me with a mild sort of confusion that clearly doesn’t register the severity of this situation. But when I don’t budge and my face doesn’t crack a smile, he walks forward toward the sign-in desk. He sets down his burrito, right on top of a yellow pad of paper with zero regard for the germs probably crawling all over it.
“What kind of crime?”
His face becomes etched with concern and his brow furrows. He pulls open a drawer and grabs some kind of blank form.
I pull in a deep breath and blink back the tears that start to well in my eyes. “An assault and kidnapping.”
6
ELLERY
Sometimes, I wish I could toss people in handcuffs and leave them in cells the way humans do. Unfortunately, eeries don’t operate that way, even for a serious crime—too many magical species have issues with metals.
So even though I should rightfully be home in bed right-fucking-now, waiting for my new mate to wake up, I’ve been called in to the station. I’m stuck in a conference room the size of a child’s sandbox, with two warring factions on either side of a conference table who are making the space feel even smaller. At least they’re warring with words now, not a magical brawl in the street. Of course, the power dampening crystals in the center of the table, which resemble glowing, blood-soaked shards of glass, help ensure that.
My chair creaks as I settle back into it, crossing my arms over my chest and stretching out my legs. Getting comfortable feels like surrender—it means I’ve accepted this bullshit isn’t going to be over anytime soon. But if I have to keep listening to this bitching while my back and legs scream at me, I’m going to shift into my wolf and start ripping out throats.
I’m getting fucking old. I never used to get sore after Hunts. Of course, my den and I never claimed anyone before. Never had to fight another den for our mate.
My back throbs from a swipe the Bianchi den got in last night, and it makes me want to do some swiping of my own at these screaming eeries at the table. Luckily for them, aggravation isn’t a justifiable reason for murder in Howling Rapids. And being that I’m the town sheriff and the pack celestial, I can’t go around breaking the law, no matter how tempted I might be. Plus, the fucking crystals affect me too, so my violent daydream is just that—a dream.
I sigh and let the buzz of arguing and sniping fly around me like angry wasps. Taking a sip of my disgusting but necessary burnt coffee, I let them get it out of their system. As irritating as the squabbling is to listen to now, it’ll be better in the long run.
A fist smashes into the wooden table, creating a hairline fracture. “I’m not going to tell you again, witch! I did not kill your familiar,” Luisa Monroe snaps, the arrogant glint in her red eyes blazing.
The middle-aged vampire might look like a sleek businesswoman, but she’s the opposite of an upstanding citizen. My lips cinch in disbelief as her rant continues. I don’t know why she thinks anyone in this room is falling for her shit, but I keep my mouth shut and let her dig herself deeper into the hole her nonsense has already started excavating.
“One more accusation about it and I’ll consider it an attack on my clan’s honor.” Luisa’s tone grows smug when she glares at the witches seated across from her. “We both know your coven isn’t going to go to war because you can’t keep your animals in line.” She flips her platinum blonde hair off her shoulder and crosses one knee over the other as though this conversation is officially over.
If only.
The witch across from Luisa straightens in her seat, adjusting her patterned shawl embroidered with runes. “I was hoping you’d say that,” Shauna Beauchamp declares haughtily, a tinge of her Southern roots apparent in her voice. The eighty-year-old woman doesn’t look a day over forty. “I’m not making an accusation, vampire. I’m reporting an act of aggression committed by the Keoh Clan against the Rubenna Coven. And I’m demanding reparations.”
“Either prove it or get burnt, witch!” Luisa snarls, her fangs dropping in warning.
Shauna stares at her, utterly unfazed by the apex predator’s move. The witch stands slowly and dramatically, ensuring every eye in the room is on her before she speaks.
“Typically, familiar issues are hard to prove,” Shauna starts, a gleam in her deep brown eyes telling me Lusia just walked into a carefully laid trap and doesn’t realize it yet. “But because it’s so hard to train a familiar to channel excess magic on command, the coven values them highly. And after the last time one of us lost a familiar, we all took precautions.”
Luisa’s cocky smile dims infinitesimally.
I set down my coffee mug and slowly roll back my chair. Drawing my legs up underneath me, ready to vault forward if needed and stop the violence I feel brewing. Adrenaline slides down my spine in delicious waves, and I watch closely, just waiting for one of them to give me a reason.
“We’ve all been feeding our familiars hawthorn berries. One quick spell and I can track as little as a pin drop of his blood, even after death.” She pulls a clear chunk of quartz out of the pocket of her dress and sets it on the table. “Permission to perform a tracing spell?”
Shauna looks first to her coven leader, Erica, seated next to her. Erica is younger than Shauna but far more powerful. Unlike the older, more traditional witch, Erica has blue hair and runes branded down her cheeks and encircling her throat like a necklace. Her stare at Luisa isn’t fiery like Shauna’s, but ice cold. She gives a slow, measured nod. And then Shauna turns to me for my approval.
The law is clear. She should have a chance to prove the other woman’s guilt if she can. I nod and reach for the call button to get one of my deputies to remove the bowl of dampeners. But I pause when I notice Luisa go preternaturally still.
“Her familiar attacked me! I had no choice,” Luisa cries.
Shauna’s arm shoots out as she points an accusing finger across the table. “I knew it!”
Indignant rage turns her gaze scorching, and her wrinkled features crumple in pained anger as she tries—and fails—to cast a spell.
“Enough!” I bellow, slamming a hand down hard on the table, eliciting a loud crack that stuns the room. “Not another word out of either one of you,” I snarl as I stand, my wolf far too close to the surface.
The desire to take their necks between my teeth is hard to resist. I want them slumping and submitting to my authority. Even their utter stillness doesn’t feel like enough. Not with the wildness rolling through me even more than normal because right now every instinct in my body is pulling me home, back to my mate. And that makes my rage all the more volatile.