Page 46 of Wicked Witch of the Wolf

Cecil had brought one over a few minutes ago at my request. I wasn’t going to heal the woman—she could do that herself—but I could at least offer her some relief. I needed her lucid.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good. Now tell me about Bronwyn.”

“As I said, she isn’t answering my calls. I also tried to contact her through the coven bonds. She’s beyond my reach.”

“You just said you were ousted from the coven.” I stirred honey into my tea. “How can you still use the bonds?”

As with shifters, witches in a coven often shared the unique ability to “feel” one another over a distance. Unlike shifters, the ability to do this was a choice that could be retracted at any time.

“I was ousted from my position, not the coven.” She laid the spoon beside her cup and took a sip. Her hands were shaking. “However, I renounced the coven this morning before coming here. All ties have been severed.”

“Is that smart? With Bronwyn possibly missing?”

“I told you, I couldn’t reach her through the bonds. The only thing they could be used for now is tracking me to you.”

It made sense, but I also knew there had to be more to it. She could’ve found a phone and called to tell me all this. It wasn’t necessary for her to come here. In fact, I was probably the last person she’d choose to turn to in an emergency. Why hadn’t she asked one of the other witches in the coven?

“What happened at that meeting last night?”

She blotted her lip with the tissue again. “Desmond Mace challenged me to a duel.”

Whoa. Duels between coven witches were no small thing.Especially witches as powerful as Margaux and Desmond. “Wait. You lost? Againsthim?”

“No. I lost against the rest of them. Except Bronwyn and Billy Lopez. Bronwyn sided with me, and Billy remained neutral. He usually does in things like this. He hates to be the deciding vote. Lucky for him, he didn’t have to be.”

“Tell me how it went down.”

One petite shoulder rose and lowered. “Desmond challenged me for the position of coven leader. I chose the parameters of the duel to minimize the danger to beings in the community. I lost. The end.”

“What were the parameters?”

“One spell each, plus one to block.”

That was the answer I’d been expecting. Witch battles were incredibly dangerous, not only to the witches involved but to anyone around them. To mitigate the risk, challenges, or duels, tended to stick to strict boundaries. Witch A fires a spell; Witch B blocks it as best they can. Witch B fires a spell; Witch A blocks it. Battle over. The challenged witch picks the type of spell and the length of the battle. The victor is decided by a third party—in this case, the coven.

“My spell was clearly more powerful, but Gordon Lu, Carolina Foster, and that old fool Aldrich Redding sided with Desmond.” She took a gulp of tea and dropped her cup to the table with a snap. “Bastards.”

“You said something when I was at your place,” I said. “It was preceded by a threat, which is par for the course with you, but your last words bothered me. You said, ‘I won’t do a damn thing to stop them—even if it was within my power to do so.’ You were trying to tell me the coven was unstable then, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just come out and say it?”

She sighed. “It’s coven business. You aren’t in the coven—and before you get angry about my answer, part of the oath I took when I joined twenty years ago was ‘what happens in the coven stays in it.’”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you have the publicity agency for the Las Vegas tourism board draw up the oath?”

“I’m paraphrasing.” She took another, calmer sip of tea. Her shoulders relaxed, and her color looked better. I’d added a few herbs to the mint tea that I’d thought would help her feel better. Help both of us feel better.

I topped off my cup of tea and stared at the bits of herbs swirling in the clear depths. “What makes you think Bronwyn isn’t just home sleeping?”

“I drove by her house. Her car isn’t there—or at her work, in case that was your next question. She’s not there.”

“Drove? Did you come here in a car?” An urgent sort of fear came over me. “Did you park it out front where anyone could see it?”

“I’m not stupid. I parked it behind that little grocery store a half mile away and walked over.”

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