“He has All Hallows’ Eve on the brain.” Sara winks at Cinder. To Jinx, she whispers, “I think he’s a Halloween freak.”
Jinx grins mischievously, her nervousness evaporating at the prospect. “If we’re still here by All Hallows’ Eve, then you’ll be in for a treat.”
Cinder puts his hands on his hips and rocks back on his heels with a grimace. “We normal folk call it Halloween. Halloween with witches would be . . .” He trails off, then glances at me. “What about Be Deviled?”
“What about it?”
“If we’re here for that long –”
I bump my shoulder against his. “Be Deviled’s Halloween party is tradition. We’ll make Rex host it.”
“Rex?” he hisses. “You know he won’t get out the decorations. He’ll ruin the whole thing!”
I roll my eyes. Cinder’s bar has a Halloween party for every supernatural species who lives nearby. It’s been an every-year occurrence since we bought and proclaimed it neutral territory. Rex’s only complaint is that the fake spider webs cling to everything for weeks afterward.
“We’ll enlist Amelia, then.”
Cinder thinks this over for a moment, twitching his lips to the side while the wind howls unnervingly between the four of us. “Fine,” he eventually says.
I’ve never understood the fascination with this holiday, but most of the shifters love it. Once the witches finish whatever traditions they have with their covens, they take advantage of the bar’s celebrations too, adding to the decorations with their own magic. For as reserved as most witches are, they don’t appear that way on All Hallows’ Eve. I think it’s because it’s the one time of the year where being different – a pariah – is celebrated, accepted, and encouraged.
I scratch my chin and try to peer in one of the dirty windows on the first floor. I can’t see anything from where I stand, though. The sun bounces off the dust particles.
To our right is an addition to the main house: a greenhouse with equally dirty windows. I double-blink. I swear I saw a cat sitting in the window a moment before I looked at it directly.
“What exactly does the Lotus Coven do on Halloween?” I ask.
Jinx and Sara’s backs straighten and mischief twinkles in their eyes. They share a look and a sly smirk.
“It’s a witch’s sacred day,” Sara says in mock offense.
“You’ll just have to see for yourself,” Jinx adds.
“Do you boil the toe of a child?” Cinder hisses conspiratorially. “Drink the blood of a virgin? Poke every eye of your voodoo doll stash?”
The women seemingly bubble up and burst, their laughter booming off the siding. The sound is so contagious I join in with them.
Abruptly, the door flings open, and we quickly sober like teenagers caught making out in the cab of a truck. The sun beats on the back of my neck a bit hotter than it has been, and I swallow thickly at the implications of what I’m about to do – of where I’m about to enter. It hits me like a ton of bricks.
Sweat beads at the lower curve of my spine, and from the depths of the dark house, an old witch emerges.
CHAPTER SIX
Jacob Trent
An old woman with deep wrinkles shuffles from the dark folds of the inside of the house. Her skin is a few shades lighter than mine, the sun reflecting the deep aged lines squatting at the top of her cheekbones.
The smell of burning sage and firewood follows with her to the outdoors. My wolf perks to immediate attention as her scent, ripe with power, sends my skin crawling. It’s like lightning striking fresh cut grass, powerful in its own right by aroma alone.
Muddy shrewd brown eyes settle on me. One of her thinned eyebrows is half-cocked, and I fight the urge to fidget under her heavy scrutiny. Her socked feet shuffle softly against the porch’s old wood, and her long, plain skirt billows around her thin, frail ankles. She’s short, her height lessened by the noticeable hunch in her spine. Every step she takes looks painful. Every breath appears weighted and difficult. Silver hair is twisted into a neat and tidy bun, and she pats at it with boney fingers, checking her presentability while the wind threatens to disrupt it.
“Sara?” she says, cocking her head in a shaky sort of way. A thick Cajun southern drawl oozes through her tone. It’s the kind of accent so engrained it can never be gotten entirely rid of no matter how far away life takes them from their roots.
Her tone of surprise quickly morphs to chastising quality. “Jinx? What ah ya girls doin’ here? Ya mamas said ya both moved out and ah livin’ togetha’.”
Sara and Jinx stumble and trip over their words, the explanation completely unintelligible. I look to Cinder, uneasy, and watch as his throat bobs. This woman is every fairytale’s voodoo queen.
The elderly witch looks behind our women. “And who ah they?” She waddles closer, squinting. I get the feeling she’s not as fragile as she appears, nor as she’s acting. Inside me, my wolf feels as intimidated as I do.
“Marian, this is Jacob.” Jinx sweeps out her arm in introduction as brittle cornhusks rustle around our feet. “He’s the alpha of the Riva Pack. And that’s Cinderson, one of his wolves. Jacob, Cinder, this is Marian, the Lotus Coven’s high priestess.”
Marian gasps in outrage. I brace myself for rejection and a boot to my ass. Her gnarled-knuckled hand flies to her heart, and she barks, “Shiftas! Ya brought shiftas ta the coven’s home?”
Jinx defiantly crosses her arms, but Sara twists and pulls at her hot pink fingernails.
“Don’t,” I murmur to Cinder, quiet enough so only he can hear. He had started forward, either to defend Sara or comfort her. “Don’t get involved.”
His jaw flexes once before he nods.
Getting involved with coven business before a sliver of acceptance into their home is suicide. I trust Jinx. I trust she knows what she’s doing. I trust that she didn’t just escort us to our own death.
Power crackles through the air like static. Power that challenges my wolf, and I know without looking, my wolf’s eyes are glowing through my own.
“I didn’t think they’d huff and puff and blow our house down.” Jinx peeks at me, a small reassuring smile on her face. The smile is to soothe my wolf, to speak to him in a body language he understands while feeling threatened.
“Their wolves aren’t big enough for that,” Jinx adds.
“Jinx Sheree Whitethorn,” the old woman hisses, wagging her finger in Jinx’s face. “Ya know darn well witches an shiftas nev’a mingle. Who’s ta say they didn’t con ya into the invitation? Hmm? We taught ya betta than that. I taught ya betta’ than that.”
“They didn’t con us,” Sara says meekly. I blink at the witch I’ve grown to know. She’s never this quiet, nor this subdued. No wonder she didn’t want to come back.
Pulling her shoulders back and dropping her hands to her sides, Sara lifts her head to look at the woman and adds, “Jinx and I have moved in together, but not by ourselves. We’ve been staying with the shifters.”
Marian’s hard stare whips to mine with an accusing edge, and I rub the back of my arm as though I was pinched there.