Page 202 of Blue Moon Mistress

Ghosts are real.

They are dangerous.

But more often than not, they are human and easily dealt with.

A witch on the other hand…

My unconscious journey left me near a familiar path, and I know that the boundary created by my wards lay another ten feet along it.

She was trying to draw me out of the protections of my home.

As I make my way back through the thick trees, the wolves keep close.

They’re what keep me from thinking too deeply about how I got here and what I can do about it. Not because Idon’tneed to worry, but because Ido.

I can feel their fur against my skin, I can hear the low rumble of their growls…

The flicker of movement in the trees makes it clear: I’m not alone out here.

The fact that the wolves haven’t taken care of the threat is what makes me certain it’s not a physical being using Aphrodite’s form… not yet, anyway.

It takes too long to get home, and when I slip through the back door into the kitchen, I don’t take the time to wash my feet before I pluck one of the saddle blankets from the back of a kitchen chair and head through to the back staircase.

The step is still unsecured from the last time I dug through my mother’s tomes on blood sorcery, and I shiver as I pull it away.

Something is very wrong.

Five

“Scarlette?”

My attention snaps from the book in my hands and I look up at Thomas, watching me with faint lines of concern creasing his brow.

“Good morning.”

He doesn’t return the greeting, instead, his gaze travels down me to my feet. “Go somewhere?”

I cringe and put the book I’d been skimming through back into its place and close up the step. “Not on purpose.”

He doesn’t like that answer, but he helps me to standing, and then, he picks me up, carrying me through the house, past the line of my muddy footprints and straight through to my bathroom. He doesn’t set me down until he starts the water in the tub, and then, he pulls the hand-held sprayer from its antique-phone-like perch.

“Lift,” he says, holding out his hand for one of my feet. When I give it to him, I can’t make out the words he mutters over the sound of the water.

He keeps muttering until he’s washed both of my feet, and soaped all the way up to my knees.

I keep my lips pressed firmly shut. The last thing I want to do is laugh when he looks this irritated.

I don’t say anything until he helps me back out of the tub and drops to his knees with a towel.

“Thank you.”

His response is a warning glance up my body. “You have cuts.”

“They’re just scratches. I’ll take care of them later, I promise.”

“You’d better.” He picks me up again, and when he takes me back to the kitchen, Joshua is putting away my mop while Johnny and Chase fuss near the oven.

“That smells delicious.” Whatever Johnny has in the oven it was definitely made with rosemary and bread.

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