Page 23 of Bait N' Witch

“It’ll take too long to explain right now. Let’s make sure they get back safely. I’ll tell you more then.”

Rowan nodded and, with a wave of his hand, Grey indicated she should continue to follow the girls. Not too far from where he’d stopped her, they found the triplets in a clearing standing in a perfect circle of aspen trees. The three stood in a column of pure light cast by the full moon, making their blonde hair appear almost silver. Arranged in a circle, hands clasped, eyes closed, they swayed together in a rhythm only they understood.

“What are they do—?”

Grey held his finger up to his lips, then turned back to the scene.

Rowan’s mouth dropped in a silent gasp as the three figures started to glow—softly at first, then brighter until the white light became blinding, painful to the point that she could hardly stand to look at them. Meanwhile, silence reigned all around. Even the sounds of the night had ceased—the animals, the breeze through the needles on the pine trees—everything still and quiet, as though the world had hit pause to watch.

Then Chloe’s voice sounded from the center of the light. “Rowan McAuliffe. She is here to help us.”

Tension seized through her, clenching every muscle hard. Was she about to be unmasked? Then the scar on Rowan’s wrist sprang to blistering life at the pronouncement. What. The. Mother Goddess?

A glance showed Grey equally stunned. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, as his expression remained neutral as ever, but his mouth appeared tighter, his dark eyes wary. What had just happened?

Before she could ask the questions that wanted to tumble off her lips, he took her by the hand and pulled her back to the boulder where he’d stopped her earlier, tugging her around the side. Moments later, as though in a trance, Chloe, Lachlyn, and Atleigh floated past, heading in the direction of the house.

Slowly, she and Grey followed. As they walked, Rowan’s mind swirling with questions, she happened to spy a pygmy owl perched in the branches of a tree, watching her. But he didn’t say anything as they walked by, so she wrote off his appearance as coincidence. Animals didn’t always talk to her.

Once inside the house, they found the three back in their beds, sound asleep. With a jerk of his head, Grey indicated Rowan should follow him. He led her to his office, a room she hadn’t revisited since the day he had caught her there.

After only two weeks, she now had trouble picturing Grey in here much, despite the fact that this was where he spent most of his time lately. His demeanor, his physicality, was too big, too vital to be trapped behind a desk. During the day she’d sometimes find him prowling restlessly through the house only to disappear again after he bumped into her. Part of her cheered, knowing his search for her continued to move slowly. But a perverse part of her twanged with guilt at being the cause for his being stuck.

“Please, take a seat,” he waved to one of the two leather chairs facing the desk and took the other.

She did so after taking off her jacket. He’d seen her in her comfy peach-colored pajamas often enough at this point. “What just happened?”

Grey ran his hands through his hair, making the dark strands stand on end and suddenly appearing ragged around the edges, not the fully-in-control warlock he usually presented to the world. This was the more human version of him that she encountered each night. Unfortunately. Because she liked this Grey, and right now she needed answers.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said. “They’ve been doing that since they could walk.”

“Sneaking out to…what?”

He shook his head. “They don’t sneak. It’s more like sleepwalking or a kind of trance. We don’t know what they do. I’ve had them tested, placed spells, and so on. I’ve brought in the Syndicate to help. All that’s been determined is my daughters have a magical connection to some power other than witchcraft. But we don’t know who, or what, or if there’s a purpose.”

Rowan’s stomach twisted inside her. In two short weeks, the blonde munchkins had burrowed into her heart like Nefti when the cat burrowed under the covers to sleep at her feet. She couldn’t imagine the worry Grey was dealing with. “Do they remember anything when it happens?”

“No.”

“Can you stop them from going outside?”

“Yes, but they struggle against the bonds. Chloe has a permanent scar on her leg because of it. I decided the safer option was to follow them, ensuring their protection.”

“I’m surprised the cold didn’t wake them up.” They’d been in pajama pants and tops with slippers on. The slippers had to be soaked by now from the snow.

Then her mind caught up to the situation, which triggered a thought, followed by a swell of anger, like a rogue wave, pushing at everything in its wake. She sat forward, pinning him with a direct look. “And you didn’t think to mention this to the woman watching over them?”

The sharp bite to her voice should’ve been unmistakable, but if he recognized her anger, he gave no indication. “We’ve shared this information with only a select few. I have a spell cast on their room, so I know when they leave and can follow.”

The wave fizzled out, and Rowan sat back in her chair. “I see.”

But he still hadn’t trusted her. Why she thought she had any right to his trust, she had no idea. Because she damn well didn’t, just the same as she could never trust him.

What she should be focused on was how to absorb this new complication? Had Delilah known? “So, you don’t know what they meant about me?”

She had yet to check the lines on her wrist. The sharp burning sensation had eased but continued to tingle. However, that could be her proximity to Grey, or the way he’d held her hand, or the false sense of intimacy generated by the small space and the fact that they huddled here together in the middle of the night in their pajamas.

He didn’t move, but the light in his eyes changed…shifted. As though he were studying her more closely, but not entirely in a clinical sense. Thanks to her red hair, men often watched her with interest, but this was different. The look struck her like a piano key striking the chord, sending her vibrating.

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