Page 34 of Coven Relics
I’d seen shifters turn into their animal plenty of times before. They did it in Halliwell Square at the academy all the time, and no one blinked. I was one of the few people in this realm who had seen a Hellhound shift, though now that Bram was here to stay and the rest of them were free, that would probably change.
Sleipnir didn’t change like any shifter I’d seen before. Usually, there was a lot of snapping as bones broke and rearranged themselves. But, then, a swirling red cloud surrounded Sleipnir, and when it cleared, there was a magnificent, eight-legged stallion with an inky black coat and glowing, red eyes.
He was beautiful. I hadn’t exactly processed that the big sexy man in my guest room wastheSleipnir because I’d never seen him as a horse before. I held my hand out and approached him slowly. He was large enough to kill me. Sleipnir was bigger than any horse I’d ever seen before.
I put my hand on his nose and stroked it. It was just so soft. Sleipnir snorted and blew fucking smoke out of his nose, but then he stepped forward and nuzzled my neck. I heard a throat clear. Bjorn was already sitting on Sleipnir’s back. How in actual fuck did he get all the way up there without a saddle?
“Your steed awaits. Are you ready to get revenge on your ex and save the world?” Bjorn asked.
“Yeah, if I can figure out how to get on Sleipnir.”
There were so many easier ways I wanted to be on top of Sleipnir when he wasn’t a horse now that I saw him naked and had gotten to know him better, but we weren’t there yet. Right now, we had other things to do.
Sleipnir went down on his front knees, and Bjorn offered me a hand. I climbed on, and Sleipnir took off. I heard the stories about him being the fastest thing alive. I’d had vampires speed run me somewhere before. However, nothing quite prepared me for exactly how quick Sleipnir was. I inhaled, and by the time I exhaled, we were already well into the forest in front of a massive garden and the cabin for the caretaker.
Balthazar and Church had a head start. They had already found it and sprayed my potion to disable any alarms. They were both on the phone trying to get the others here. Killian and Loki had their phones in my bag, but Killian was connected to me. He’d be able to feel that I found something and get Loki here.
As I suspected, Reyson appeared with my sister and the rest of her men. Bram hadn’t shifted yet, but his senses were still keen like this.
“Why isn’t anyone inside?” Reyson demanded.
Bram wrinkled his nose.
“There is a dead Seelie here buried in a shallow grave. Probably the caretaker.”
“There’s also a lot of blood on the other side of the cabin,” Balthazar said. “This is a crime scene. We need to wait for Kaine.”
“There are also no heartbeats inside,” Church said. “The wolf doesn’t have my students in there. Even if they aren’t attending class as they should, neither one is stupid. They wouldn’t have gone into Shrieking Woods with him willingly.”
“No offense, but maybe theyarethat stupid,” Bjorn said. “If Valentine had taken them by force, someone would have seen him. He also needed a very specific type of victim. It didn’t just need to be a witch and a shifter. Valentine needed someone who appeared easy prey on the surface because he doesn’t have long to complete his task. That means he spoke to them. I only just got a cell phone, but I get the alerts they are offering treasure for his location. They didn’t report him.”
I didn’t know either of these girls, and yeah, disappearing with a wanted criminal was seriously idiotic, but I felt the need to defend them. Bjorn was too old to remember being young and stupid. I wasn’t eighteen anymore, but I could still be stupid. And I was guessing now that he wasn’t one of two people in a pocket dimension, Bjorn could be, too.
“Look, Valentine has this way of convincing women he’s not a total shit. I fell for it, too, at one point. If he can convince someone to cheat on their spouse or boyfriend, I’m guessing he had a story prepared about how robbing the museum was just a misunderstanding, and when people find out the truth, he’ll be a hero.”
“I don’t give a shit if he has a magic dick and used it to convince my students to leave the school. The eclipse is starting, and all I care about is the safety of my students.”
Kaine came stomping into the clearing just as Loki and Killian flew in. Killian and Sleipnir hadn’t shifted back yet, but Loki did. We were all angry that Valentine wasn’t inside that cabin, but Loki was furious.
Plenty of gods had tried to outsmart Loki and failed. In all honestly, I think Loki was flustered. His creations had betrayed him and ended up evil. He couldn’t have known that when he made them. But then, Bjorn had his vision that they would return. They would betray him again, and many people would die if he couldn’t stop them. Loki had put so much pressure on himself to prevent this that his big, beautiful Trickster brain wasn’t looking at every scenario.
But I watched him pull himself together and try to deal with it.
“He’s not at the cabin, but he was obviously here. The Fae keep their rites a secret, so Valentine wouldn’t have known them. I do. I say we ask the caretaker's spirit and put them to rest.”
It was a good idea, but all the Fae were notoriously difficult. They said the caretaker was Seelie, and they weren’t quite as bad as the Unseelie, but they took this whole not being able to lie thing personally and always spoke in riddles. A Seelie ghost? Good luck trying to get them to cooperate. My sister poked me in the side.
“I’m dying to see if your god boyfriend can boss around the ghosts like mine does,” she whispered.
“If anyone can get a Seelie ghost to cooperate, I’m betting it’s Loki.”
Chapter26
Loki
Why couldn’t the fucking wolf be where he was supposed to be? Valentine was somewhere in this forest. He was on foot, and there were limited places he could pull this off without getting stopped by someone stronger than his chosen prey. I didn’t think Valentine knew that all of us were in Shrieking Woods to stop him. My hybrids couldn’t see the future. I only gave that gift to Bjorn.
Those girls wouldn’t have come this deep into Shrieking Woods no matter how much charm he turned on. Even if they had, his hunt would have been ruined as soon as they saw the mess he made with the caretaker and didn’t bother cleaning up. He was in these woods somewhere. I flew over the forest, but the tree line was blocking most of the hiding places he could be.
