Page 37 of Warrior Witch

“What?”

“About two hundred yards farther in, directly on that path, is a nasty creeper that will burn through anything it comes into contact with. My friend lost a pair of sneakers yesterday because of it. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.”

“What are you…?”

A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and I cursed my lack of attention as the dog brushed past me with a cheeky smile.

“Choose a different direction if you want to keep stomping around. You smell stressed. And turned on. What have you been up to?” His white hair hung in long, straight sheets to his pecs. I bet he never had to deal with tangles. He didn’t even seem to care about the ridiculous sequined cat t-shirt he wore.

“What are you doing here?” I asked instead of dignifying his intrusive line of questioning with an answer.

“Looking for plants with Kylen. Wanna help?”

No.

“Yes.” My mouth formed the agreement before I processed what was happening, and just like that, I found myself kneeling right alongside Kylen in the dirt.

The nature witch was calm and engaging, explaining his research with a confidence I couldn’t help but admire. In return, he was vocal in his interest in history, and while I wasn’t about to tell him I was treasure hunting, my secondary passion was something I could lose hours talking about. I had a particular interest in supes and the crossovers between reality and fiction when it came to the myths and legends, but with the abandoned spaces of the world that I’d seen treasure hunting, I’d learned about those hidden spaces, too.

“So Atlantis?” Kylen asked, feathering his fingers through the leaves of a low-lying bush.

“Real. The whole underwater thing was a hoax, though. They had a coven of sea witches take over the government when the monarchy died and left the island destitute. Gambling debts, you know. So they raised a wall of water and used a masking spell to sink into the waves. Island gone, debt cleared, and everyone went back to business as usual. It was disappointing to find out the rumors of gold were just a myth.”

Ranto snorted in his sleep, curled up at the base of a tree much like he had when he’d shared my camp the night before last, only this time he was still in human form.

I would never have admitted it out loud, but their company was…nice.

Maybe because they were both so connected to the earth that neither of them was likely to fall into the pit of empty consumerism and brainless gullibility that the masses overindulged in.

“What’s the deal with the witch?”

I glanced around, hoping to find another person who had decided to speak up and ask the question that had been plaguing my mind. Nope. Apparently, it was me. Kylen glanced up with a small smirk that made me want to curse myself for showing weakness.

“Which witch?”

“Funny.”

He shrugged, brushing dirt off on his ass as he straightened. “She’s Harlow. We all kind of fell into this quest of hers, but between you and me, there’s definitely some hinky fate thing going on here.”

“There’s no such thing as fate.”

“Yes, there is,” Ranto argued without opening his eyes.

“What would you know about it?” I’d traveled the world and never found definitive evidence of the existence of fate. Only anecdotes and starry-eyed believers whose stories seemed more serendipitous, like the discovery of penicillin, than the machinations of higher beings.

“Acts of fate guide my profession every day. An heiress’s driver misses a turn and drives past her husband and his mistress on the street. A CEO’s financial report file is corrupted, and he finds inconsistencies with his paperwork. A police officer asks a friend to help investigate an MC chapter, and he finds his mate along the way. Tangled webs, sure, but they always lead somewhere. You can’t tell me all of these connections happen out of chaos.”

That was exactly what I thought, but I’d learned a long time ago that it was useless to try to change someone’s mind.

Kylen grunted beside me. “So you’re investigating an MC, huh? Does that mean…?”

“Yeah, about that. If you could keep Bruin in the dark about it, I’d be in your debt. I didn’t exactly mean to say that bit.”

“Maybe it was fate?” I snarked.

Ranto didn’t take the bait. He just let a slow smile spread across his too-perfect face.

A scream tore through the air, causing Ranto to spring to his feet as Kylen and I shared a look.

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