Chapter 21

Emory, Washington

The queen of the McNeil Coven, Birdy Penrose, walked away from the meeting with Althea with her jaw aching with the effort to hold in the sudden rage that blossomed after Althea had revealed what she’d been up to.

The two coven leaders had known each other all their lives. They had played together as little girls. Flirted with the handsome crafter boys as teens. Gone through the thirteen harsh levels of the magic training together—but it still shocked her when each of them came to different conclusions when faced with the same information. Now, with the seers predicting the coming chaos of the Manna Surge, those differences, once tolerated, now became unbearable.

Althea was out of control. Instead of attending to her coven duties, she was freelancing in Oldtown, of all places. Her meddling was sure to attract the attention of the Sidhe.

Three months ago, the covens had barely escaped the attention of two faeries who had been playing with their emotions like some mad fiddler. They had finally convinced that mother damned Red Queen from the ruling convocation that there was nothing to see here—and now Althea started another adventure. She just didn’t seem to realize just how lucky they were to avoid the blood-witch disaster.

Birdy bitterly regretted her decision to lure Lachlan Quinn to Emory three months ago. Like Althea, she had a foolish thought that they would easily handle the boy. Unlike Althea, she soon realized that hope was a smoke dream. The covens had to deal with a novice keeper with a naïve world-view and poor impulse control. A dangerous young man who had good reason to hate and distrust the covens.

His latest request that they go against custom and train a shifter whelp in the arts was a long step too far. That could not be borne. It threatened both covens very existence. If the news got out, and it would, the witch-crafters gossiped like magpies. The Red Queens back in Salem would instantly assemble and blast them all off the face of the world.

She was still muttering to herself as she crossed the threshold of her house on Emory’s north side when she sensed that someone had tripped her security wards. after a hastily muttered cantrip, she found that the intruders who had tripped them were still in the house. She called up a combat spell, walked in and found Charming Delancy and the mother-damned alpha of the Chelan Pack calmly sitting her kitchen table. Two teacups sat on the bare wood. Birdy frowned. She was a stickler for order. Everything belonged in its proper place. Birdy’s world view was black and white. She had no patience with shades of gray. Most witch-crafters were like that. High-level magic did not forgive sloppy thinking or practices. Now, seeing her pristine white oak table stained by spilled tea caused her rage to flare anew.

“Charming, you stupid woman, why did you bring him here? You’re going to ruin everything.”

“HE demanded, I had no choice. Besides, the timing is right, Lan drove off to Oldtown a couple hours ago.”

Thomas Harmala Chelan, the alpha of the Chelan Wolf-Kin Pack, was a handsome, burly bear of a man with a distinct vulpine cast to his face. He had a mane of swept back silver hair and was wearing a black suit that fit him like a glove. As usual, he wore a supercilious smirk on his face. Birdy longed to spell it off his face every time she saw him.

As he caught the coldness in her eyes, a scowl replaced the smirk.

“Listen, witch, you are the one who contacted me, not the other way around. I need the girl for my own purposes. I have no time to waste on your indecisiveness.”

Birdy ground her teeth in frustration. “Alpha, I don’t like this. My experience tells me that hurried changes in plans lead to mistakes. But the time is right, I suppose. Very well, you may proceed. Do not harm the girl named Charlie. She is one of ours.”

The shifter abruptly stood and walked out with his cell phone in hand, muttering orders.

“I cast the dice, for good or ill,” Birdy muttered to herself. The fine hairs on her neck prickled with sudden foreboding. “Althea, you left me no choice.”