“Maybe put the dry pasta down,” she said. “I don’t want to crush it. It doesn’t taste as good if the strands are all broken. You have to be able to slurp.”
He laughed against her. At least her silly worry over the pasta had eased some of the tension building between them.
“I didn’t even know I was still holding this.” He let go of her and dropped the item on the counter.
Astra took a step away from him, but he was quick to wrap his arms around her waist.
“I think we just had our first fight,” he whispered in her ear.
She shook her head. “That wasn’t a fi—”
Blaze was wiggling his eyebrows at her, and she giggled.
“Right. Now for that make-up sex.”
And for a few more hours, Astra let herself believe that everything was okay. That she wasn’t under attack.
And for a few hours, she was happy.
Chapter Twenty
Blaze
Blaze couldn’t quite believe his luck. His mate was nestled in his arms, and her palm was firmly planted on his heart. He wasn’t a poetic man or even a very deep man, but it definitely felt like her hand had laid itself there by fate. Astra had definitely touched his heart, and now it looked like she was holding in.
“I can almost feel you thinking,” she said with her eyes still closed. Her voice was made raspy by the fact it was very late.
Not that they had gotten any sleep. By rights, Blaze should have been out there in the world to hunt down the Order of Salem with both the Marblehead and Salem packs. But what good was it to be the alpha if you couldn’t delegate some tasks to your wolves? He had waited too long to find his mate, and now that he had her, he wanted to bask in their glow for a little while.
“It’s going to be okay, right?” Astra asked as she sat up.
Blaze tucked her back down into his side. “It’ll be fine.” He took a deep breath. It had to all work out. “There are two wolf packs out there chasing the witch hunters down. Not to mention two different sheriff offices, one of which is made up of shifters. We’ll catch them all.”
“They won’t win this time,” Astra whispered.
“This time?” he asked, not fully understanding what she meant.
“Yes, the Order of Salem won last time they attacked us.”
Blaze shuffled around the bed to sit up all the while still holding Astra to his chest.
“What do you mean, the last time they attacked you? When was this?”
“In 1692, they attacked the witches.”
Oh. Shit, he had forgotten about that. “I’m sorry, Astra. It seems that the witches are always the target of bad people.”
She shrugged. “It’s because we have powers they don’t understand, you know? When we were kids, my sister, my cousins, and I, we all thought that if humans knew witches existed, it would be better. We could educate them about what we do and what we can’t do.
"Our parents thought we were crazy for wanting that. They insisted that the more humans knew about us, the more vulnerable we would be. It doesn’t matter if we tell them we can’t do magic like in the movies. The human imagination always takes it too far. And what better scapegoats to have for all of your problems? Witches who have powers.”
“So you never told anyone about being witches?"
Astra inhaled sharply. “Cerise did, my cousin. When she was a teen, she told her boyfriend, this douche nozzle Billy Dorset. He used her for her magic and they got into trouble.”
“Do you think the Dorsets could be in the Order of Salem?”
“It would make sense. Billy knows about witches, and the Dorsets were involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692.”
“Now that you mention it, the name does sound familiar. Axel mentioned there was a list of members found in one of the members’ home. They were looking into all the names.”
“They made a list? What a bunch of idiots.”
“They must have thought they were invincible, that no one would discover them until they had killed a few witches.” He coughed because those words seemed wrong. He hated thinking there were people out there who could have killed his mate before he ever got the chance to hold her, to know she existed. “One of the witch hunters’ kids is the one who reported their plans to Axel. Without it…”
“My family and I would be dead.”
“Yeah, and the Order of Salem would have moved onto the Good family.”
“They’re witches, too. They’re the descendants of Sarah Good, she died shortly after my ancestor Rebecca Bishop.”
“I know,” he whispered.
“So what does Axel plan on doing? Going door to door for these lunatics and arrest them on suspicion of murder?”
“Something like that. He was hoping that some of the ones they caught would give up more names in the hopes of a lenient punishment.”
“Huh,” Astra scoffed.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Well, this just echoes what the witches went through in 1692. They were told that if they gave the authorities the names of the other witches, they would be spared or given a quick, merciful death. Now the Order of Salem are being offered a similar deal. I just think it’s funny how karma works. I don’t wish ill on anyone, but this feels like my ancestors are being vindicated somehow. The people who killed them never faced justice because they hid behind religious conviction. They won’t get away with it this time.”
“That’s right.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“The fact that the police are investigating and arresting suspected members of the order doesn’t change anything for us, though. We need a plan, Blaze. I know you don’t want to think about that, but we do have to help somehow. We can’t just hide out in your apartment and distract ourselves with sex. We need to do something.”
He rubbed his face, making a mental note that he needed to shave soon. He was starting to be entirely too furry in his human form. His mind really didn’t want to think of Astra in a situation where she had to fight. It made his wolf rage inside of him, and he was terrified of losing her.
“I understand why you feel like that, Astra. I do. But you have to understand that we still know so little about the order and the number of people they have. They had little old ladies spying on you and your sister for months. They could be anyone.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that we need to do something.”
“What would you have us do? The two packs and sheriff departments are doing all of the research, all of the legwork.”
“Well, you could use me as bait.”
“Fuck, no!” he roared and his wolf howled. “I am not using the woman I love as bait.”
“No, listen. It would be a good plan. I could call Selene and we could both get together and do a spell. A perimeter protection spell on our location. That way, if the order can track magic, they will come to us. We’ll be protected by the spell and then you and the wolves can attack.”
“Right, and how to do we explain to the police that a bunch of humans have been mauled by wolves?”
“Oh, shit. I didn’t think of that.”