Page 6 of Wolf Hunter

Anger jabs at me. The woman still hasn’t told me her name, yet she thinks we’re close enough to be considered family? I don’t think so. Even when my parents, my sister, and I were practicing magic, we didn’t stick to the coven’s strict rules. I was too young to go to meetings or talk to anyone outside my own age. We behaved but kept our distance to avoid trouble—as my mother would say. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been enough to exclude us from the ceremony or keep Carmen safe from being chosen as the next sacrifice to the wolves.

I’ve never met this woman before, but she clearly knows me, and that only irks me more.

“I have no coven and I have no family,” I grind out. “Not anymore.”

She frowns. She’s left her lips unpainted, but her eyes are rimmed in black liner. Soft wrinkles radiate out from dove-gray eyes. Everything about her screamsinnocent.

“That’s a shame,” she says. “Maybe there’s a chance you can change your mind.”

Fat chance.

I keep my movements slow and controlled, pushing up out of my sprawled position while at the same time, I swipe my hand under my pillow to recheck for the gun.

Nope. Gone.

Turning to face her with my legs dangling over the side of the bed, I ask, “And my gun? What did you do with it?”

The woman shrugs again, wholly unbothered by the fact that I want to have a gun pointed on her. “There was really no need for firearms. This is just a friendly chat that will lead to a business proposition of sorts.”

“A friendly chat would have been finding me in the daytime or calling my room phone. Casting a silencing spell and breaking into my room seems a bit intrusive. Don’t you think so?”

I force myself to breathe slowly to try to calm my racing pulse. The headache from my blood loss hasn’t gotten any better with a few hours of sleep. If anything, it’s made things worse and kept me from thinking clearly.

Okay, so I have a weird, old witch in my room who wants something from me. And she’s gotten the jump on me because I thought I could waltz back into town without anyone the wiser.

I spare a quick glance at the clock. Yup, three a.m. I’d been passed out for, what, a couple of hours?

Rude.

“I’ll lift the spell and give you back your gun once we’ve had our chat,” the woman says. She crosses and uncrosses her legs, her hands folded neatly on her lap. Half a dozen silver rings peek out from the folds of black fabric on her skirt.

“And If I’m inclined to send you out of this room?” I ask sweetly. I refrain from mentioning the ass whooping I plan to give her.

“I wouldn’t advise it. I know what you do,” she says. “I know you’re more than capable, with or without a weapon. But I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Then whyareyou here?”

She lifts her chin. “I saw you tonight… Your narrow escape from Adair Delcaster.”

Okay, time for the blood to go cold. “You what?”

“I honestly thought he had you for a moment. He’s been alive a long time. You did well to take him out,” she replies. “The last thing we need in this area is vampires. We’ve done well keeping them from establishing a base nest, but it seems lately they’ve been able to slip through the territory lines.”

It’s as easy a conversation as if we were sharing a plate of cookies and some coffee, remembering our school years together. Except my mystery witch is old enough to be my mother and has apparently been spying on me.

“In the effort of full transparency, I want to tell you that I’m not here to threaten you or blackmail you. Nothing of the sort.” Now she’s hurrying through the words.

I gesture around the room to the strange silence that makes me want to stick a finger in my ear and wiggle. “It doesn’t exactly seem friendly. You haven’t even introduced yourself.”

The witch glances around before saying, “I needed to make sure we weren’t overheard. I’m here on behalf of our coven—mycoven,” she quickly corrects herself. Probably when she sees my face. “We need your skills. Badly.”

“How about we start with your name?” I press again. “I’d feel much better if we were on an even playing field.”

Though I’m wearing my pajamas.

She blinks those wide, expressive eyes on me before bursting out with a surprised laugh. “I’m so sorry. How rude of me.” The woman sticks out her hand for an introduction. “Mae Matthews. It really is a pleasure to meet you.”

Mae Mathews… I roll the name around in my memory, but it doesn’t stick to anything.

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