Page 53 of Wolf Tamer

So small, I think as I run my fingers along the spine. This tiny little thing with so much power locked inside of it. For those of us who know how to unlock it, anyway.

Not me. I haven’t seen my witch powers manifest in any significant way since my time in the cell, or right before I’d been about to burn to a crisp. I want to say those instances count, but I’d like to say a lot of things.

The spell only worked at half capacity and not the way it should have, allowing me to feel more pain than I’d let Reid know about, which makes me feel kind of shitty. But there might be a spell in here to help me figure out this situation.

Maybe something that will let me pick up on Emily’s long-dead trail.

Finally, I force myself to lay the book open on my lap. The spine cracks a little as I press both ends.

I burned my own. After my parents died, I decided it wasn’t worth it for me to continue along their path anymore. The coven had always been much more theirs than mine. The only reason I’d gone with them to the meetings had been because I had no choice.

No choice to make my own path outside of a blinding desire to make sure Carmen was safe.

The witches hadn’t done anything for either one of us. With the last of my ties to them six feet underground, I’d given into the overwhelming bitterness and rage and tossed the thing in the fireplace with fierce glee.

The spells were familiar, though. I’d practiced several of them alone in my room. The feather float, of course, was a classic—learning how to manipulate matter to move it from one place to another.

I’d been good at it, too. Just not as good as my invisibility powers. Although those seemed to come from a completely separate source inside me.

I shook my head to push those thoughts away.

“What do we have here?”

Talking out loud is a way to ground myself as a curious sensation begins to burn beneath my sternum the moment I notice the scribbles. Just a few doodles at first, around the corners of one of the pages.

The loops and swirls of clouds end in a little heart, which doesn’t make sense except I’ve seen it before. The design jogs a distant memory.

Carmen sitting on the grass on top of a faded red-and-white checkered blanket that mom had salvaged from a thrift store and mended. We used it as our play blanket and took it out whenever we thought ourselves more fae than witch, just like those fairy-tale creatures in the woods who were always swinging from tree branches, splashing through streams and building little cottages out of stones and sticks. We placed the blanket in whatever makeshift fort we’d created for the day. Or in the middle of a meadow where the tall grasses hid us from sight while we made up stories.

Stories of what we could be if we ever got out of Buson. Out of Maine itself.

Now I’d traveled across the state and the country. Now I’d gone overseas whenever the mood struck, and I still always returned right to this place like there was some kind of chain attached to my heart.

With my finger still pressed to the cloud, I quickly flip to the front of the book.

“Is there a name?” I mutter under my breath.

There has to be something written inside this book to tell me who it belonged to. Because I’ll be damned, but those drawings are familiar. And it couldn’t be.

It couldn’t be…

My heart contracts painfully at the scrawling script across the inside cover.

Carmen Ward.

Everything inside me stills. This book belonged to my sister. And it’s right here, inside this house.

Which means Carmen used to be a slave, or at least one of the sacrifices that had been kept around for—

NO.

I can’t even think the phrase. Can’t fathom a reality where my sweet baby girl had been used for her body.

But, very possibly, she had been involved with Reid.

I throw the book across the room before I realize what I’ve done, my body moving of its own accord. It slams into the wall with a satisfying thwack but doesn’t make a dent.

Only, I am damaged.

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