Page 31 of Resting Witch Face
“I will go get help.” Danika glided out without a hair out of place and gave me a stern look. “Don’t die.” The next moment she was gone, and I stared dumbly at the empty space she’d occupied a second ago.
“Can she do that?” Sounding shrill didn’t bother me one bit. “She’s gone.” Announcing it to no one in particular, I pointed too. “Can she do that?”
“Here they come,” River muttered, and I forgot all about Danika vanishing into thin air. What other secrets had she never shared with me? Why wasn’t Sissily surprised as much as I was? Did all of them have the ability to poof out of somewhere? Could I now that I had magic too?
It all swirled in my brain, making me dizzy, but three jerks the size of bulls on steroids were stomping our way. If I had to take a stab at it, I’d say shifters, but that didn’t make sense. Why would Alex send his wolves to attack me? Kill me was more like it, because they had murder written all over them.
A phone chimed in the pregnant silence.
River fished it out of his pocket like we didn’t have three psychos coming at us. Whatever he saw, it was like a dark cloud falling over his face.
“Wanna share with the rest of the group?” I chirped, swallowing the hysterical laughter trying to escape from me.
“A video of your glowing skin along with the destroyed building circulated the supernatural network.” His gaze zeroed in on my owlish stare, and I didn’t like what I saw there. “There is a price on your head. Brought in alive for a payment in full.”
“Fuck a duck,” Sissily breathed at the same time I whimpered.
I could give the magic back, right?
Right?
16
“Iseriously don’t understand why Danika didn’t just, you know”—My hand swirled, indicating the empty place where my grandmother stood moments ago— “make us all poof or something.”
The shifters took their sweet-ass time stalking in our direction from across the street where a large military-style SUV was parked on the side of the road instead of the silver Honda that was chasing us. My assumption was they were trying to keep us shaking in our boots, prolonging our impending doom. Although neither one of my companions showed an ounce of fear. If anything, River and Sissily appeared bored out of their mind, even with me shifting from foot to foot like a two-year-old who needed to pee.
“She can only transport herself, and even that is a very unusual gift for a witch.” Something in Sissily’s tone made me peel my gaze from our pursuers so I could look at her. “Sifting is a Fae trait, none of the “other” can replicate it.”
“It figures Danika can.” My petulant muttering earned me a chuckle from River.
“Your grandmother is very powerful.” It was like Blondie thought I didn’t know he was an idiot. “And has a lot of secrets.”
“Can we just not worry about Danika right now and, I don’t know, run?” The pastry I ate in the car was souring in my stomach, and I totally was ready to give it to the corn field as a liquid offering.
“We are not running from shifters.” I didn’t want to remind River that we were actually, indeed, running while pointing at my totaled Mercedes behind us with its nose in the field, but I didn’t want to bethatperson. The poor thing was like an Emu sticking its head in the soil, and for about two seconds, I debated joining it.
“Give us the witch and we will let you go,” the shifter on the left called out when they were almost close enough for me to see their eyes glowing, their animal close to the surface.
“Which one?” Sissily sassed, while I was trying to unglue the tongue from the roof of my mouth. “There are three witches here, but I’d say from the look of y’all, you can’t handle any of us.”
It took some time for my brain to quit panicking and pull some important information from things I did know about shifters. In my defense, I went from under a truck to being pushed through a grinder, my body melted from the inside out and put together, and I was now the perfect example of a glow stick, all in less than twelve hours. The fact that I could think at all was nothing short of a miracle. But I did remember the most important thing about shifters.
They had no magic.
Well, if you take into consideration their body shifting into an animal, I supposed they did, but not active magic they could use against us in a fight. Since Sissily struck a nerve with her sweet smile and snark, all three of them had their lips curled over their teeth in a snarl while they seemingly doubled in size before our eyes. My skin warmed, the sigils pulsed brighter in reaction to my emotional state, and my eyes jerked from my arms to the three shifters. None of them reacted to it, reminding me Danika had placed a glamour on me.
A wide grin stretched my mouth from ear to ear.
“Girl, you look like a psycho when you smile,” Sissily mumbled from the side of her mouth, not moving her lips.
Spreading out to corner us from three sides, the shifters were done playing. “Last chance.” Their leader, I guessed, snarled, dismissing me and my friend, his gaze locked on River. “Hand over the brunette, and you walk away unharmed.”
“Hercules called, and he wants his muscles back,” I blurted loud enough to have his peepers on me. “How about you take your big dick energy and go lift something, mm-kay? Let those of us with a brain do what we do best. Like, let’s say, use our heads for more than just an accessory.”
“Dauummnnn.” My friend was all over that like white on rice. “Burn, bitch.” Sissily had electrical currents jumping between her fingers.
All three shifters pounced, their bodies twisting and changing shape midair. It would’ve been beautiful to watch if their main focus wasn’t snatching me so they could get a paycheck. The wolves, larger than the natural animal with their heads at about shoulder level on me, landed in the flattened part of the field where we stood. Saliva dribbled from their snapping jaws, stretching nearly to their chests before splattering on the soil. What took me by surprise was the black color of their fur. If I remembered correctly, Alex once said his entire pack was known as the grey wolves, hence his family name Greywood.
