Page 8 of Bait N' Witch

Having satisfactorily explained away his odd behavior, Greyson decided he might as well get work done while he was in here. He’d give his nanny time to get settled before he tested her out.

He crossed the small office to sit behind the old pine desk, a wall of bookshelves at his back. Natural light poured in from a set of double doors, which led out to a small side patio. Greyson flipped open the lid of his laptop and logged in. After a couple of clicks, he brought up the file for his latest assignment.

Unfortunately, the case had come to a screeching halt before it ever got started. For the thousandth time, he reviewed the information available.

They’d had two grave abuses of magic instigated by the same creature. Kaios, an ancient werewolf, now deceased, had first employed a warlock to attack a group of nymphs not far from where Greyson lived. With the help of a demigod, the warlock had been captured and held by the nymphs.

The Covens Syndicate had dispatched a different hunter to bring the man in for questioning. But Greyson knew the warlock personally, had history with him, and knew that this wouldn’t be the last time he attacked innocents.

He’d taken it upon himself to enact a different penalty—death.

Usually, Greyson refused to mete out that kind of punishment. Banishment, removal of powers—those he could do. But death? Such an act scarred the soul. However, in this particular case, he’d disagreed strongly with the Syndicate’s decision to question first and then decide. He’d killed that warlock against their direct orders.

Nothing could have stopped him.

Not long afterward, the same werewolf had attacked Castor Dioskouri, the demigod who’d captured the warlock, as well as Lyleia Nyaid, a nymph and now Dioskouri’s wife. That time, though, Kaios had used a witch to turn off their powers. Only by luck and good planning had the Banes and Canis packs of wolf shifters been there to help. Otherwise, Greyson suspected a feud between shifters and gods would have been the result. Kaios had been killed, but his witch accomplice had survived.

Or so Greyson was led to believe.

The Covens Syndicate had dispatched him to deal with the witch in the situation, but she’d disappeared. No one was talking, including the demigod and nymph who’d been attacked, almost as though they were protecting her. Why would they do that?

At this point, all he had to go on was a physical description, a woman, long red hair, green eyes, or maybe gray, not tall but not short, either. Unfortunately, the description fit many witches. Unlike the rest of the world’s population, the red-haired gene cropped up almost 50 percent of the time in those magically inclined. Hell, the new nanny now living under his roof matched that description.

But he knew her background. After the sixth failed nanny provided by his community of mages, he’d turned to Brimstone for help. Delilah had provided a full dossier on Rowan’s background and skills. No picture, though. That might’ve been helpful to avoid his reaction today.

And how was a person of ten minutes’ acquaintance already distracting him?

With concentrated effort, he focused on the witch he was hunting. The Syndicate’s directive so far was to find her and bring her in for questioning. The impression that the witch had performed her magic unwillingly was the only thing keeping Greyson from immediately considering the same punishment he’d given Kaios’s warlock: death.

First, he had to find her.

Greyson picked up his cell phone and searched for a number he’d already tried several times. After dialing he waited through several rings, already composing his message in his head when a woman answered.

“Hello?”

“Lyleia Nyaid?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I haven’t returned your calls before now, Mr. Masters. Castor and I were on our honeymoon.”

His suspicion that all witnesses were avoiding him dulled somewhat, though he didn’t dismiss that gut instinct completely. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“Rather than take your time now, I was hoping to set up a meeting with you and your…husband next week to discuss the witch involved in the attack.”

“Of course. Let me check our calendars, and I’ll get back to you on Monday morning.”

That’s right, she was Dioskouri’s executive assistant. Idly, Greyson wondered if that would continue now that they’d married, not that it mattered to him. “Sounds good.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll include Tala and Marrok Canis-Banes? They are the alphas of the two packs of wolf shifters involved in the fight on our side and might be able to provide more information.”

Greyson sat up straighter. After several months of getting the runaround from all parties involved, suddenly this offer seemed too…accommodating. “That would be very helpful. Thank you.”

“My pleasure. I hope we can be of help.”

“I do, too.”

After hanging up with Lyleia, Greyson stared at his phone. Something about this entire situation felt off, wrong. Those involved weren’t behaving like experience had taught him to expect.

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