Page 62 of Son of a Witch

I took a deeper sniff. Dried scales, like fish. The memory clicked into place.

Jaz. You tricky spirit, you!

Spirits spoke in riddles, their words having double meanings. He hadn’t just sent me to find the box, he sent me to unravel his mystery. The reason he framed us for a crime we didn’t commit. This was bigger than freeing my pack from the Guardians.

Heather leaned forward over her thighs. “What is it?”

“I found something.” I removed the burner cell phone Luna had gifted me with the chip in it to scramble my location. I dialed her pre-programmed number, scratching my chin, waiting for her answer.

“What is it?” Luna asked, sticking to the code we agreed on. No names. No locations. Nothing to tip off the Guardians if they listened in.

“I need you to take me someplace.” I left it mysterious. Details could be hashed out when she got here.

“Where?” Blaze, always full of questions. Always listening in. Obviously, Luna put me on speaker.

“Tell you where when you get here,” I said. “Bring the crew.”

The line went dead and I pocketed the cell.

Heather set down her half-drunken beer on the coffee table in the center of my cabin. “Sounds like you have a mystery to unravel. We’ll leave you to it.”

The creases under her eyes showed how exhausted she was assisting her mate with the build today. I still wasn’t sure if they came over tonight to keep me company or fish for information for their Alpha.

She swayed to her feet, steadied by her mate’s hands on her hips.

“Easy, love.” Steel climbed to his feet behind her, holding her close.

Love poured off him and enveloped her in a protective embrace.

I discarded my beer and saw them out, giving them a wave as they got to the bottom of my cabin’s stairs, watching them wander to her cabin three doors down.

Thick clouds hugged the night sky and minimal stars poked through the canopy. The thick cover of trees swayed in the night breeze dampening the sounds of nocturnal forest animals hunting. Smoke from the cabins clung to the chilled air, masking the scents of roasts, vegetables, stews, and soups.

Many aspects of the commune reminded me of my mother’s community, and I wanted for this to feel like home. Wanted to settle here. With so many factors at play, the vote of the commune, my mate’s and brother’s freedom, and remaining hidden from the Guardians, nothing felt concrete and I felt restless and adrift.

Back inside my abode, I paced my small cabin, waiting for Luna’s team’s arrival.

Half an hour later, their car rolled up, and they walked three hundred feet from the driveway to my cabin.

Luna took the stairs two at a time. “What have you got, big guy?”

I herded her and her three men inside to run them through what I detected. Together, we set in motion a plan to investigate the location of my team’s mission from three years ago, and took a portal to scope it.

Yep. This was the place. Disgusting. Cruel. Greedy. Back in business, judging by the cloth-covered cages carried below ground by shady looking characters with snake tattoos on their necks.

The four of us scanned the parking lot of the book printer and distributor for any movement. We weren’t interested in the forklifts shifting crates of books to trucks for shipping to stores. Or the warehouse of paper, ink, pulp, and binding. Nor the staff in the office on the second floor. Everything in the basement had us geared up for battle.

The four serpent men took their trade from the car to a door in the side of the building, which I knew from experience descended into the subterranean space where they stored trafficked gantii.

“Filthy snakes,” Talon snarled, telling me he had history with the Brotherhood of Serpents, mortal enemies of the Guild.

The Guardians didn’t have too much to do with them, but we sure as hell cleaned up their messes sometimes. Blood sacrifices, tortured gantii siphoned for power and magical spells. Heartless bastards.

Memories from fifty-two months ago came to the forefront of my mind. Knoxe, Jaz, Tor, Pascal, and me uncovering a trafficking ring run by the snakes, selling gantii to the highest bidder. Us saving fifty water sprites from captivity, dying horribly slow and painful deaths, kept away from their natural watery habitat.

Incensed by the cruelty to other animals—my kin—my wolf went wild at the scene, and I tore up five men when I broke free of my team. Evidence I had to conceal from my brothers by stuffing the bodies in barrels of wine. To this day, I didn’t know if anyone from the Guild conducted an inventory and found the corpses.

“What do you detect, Raze?” Blaze’s voice. Authoritative like an Alpha. Inquisitive like a teacher conducting a magical experiment at the Guild.

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