Page 32 of Wicching Hour

Once we were alone, I sat on the bench beside Carter. “So, what’s up?”

He pulled out his phone. “You know how I’m always listening to audiobooks or podcasts?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Well, I saw there was a new one about witches—or one in particular—and it’s local.”

He opened his podcast app and turned the screen to me. It was calledA Witch Burningand featured a woman who looked a lot like me, with a ton of curly hair and a pointy witch hat, who was being consumed by flames.

Unconsciously, I reared back. What the hell?

There was a crash inside and then Declan was standing in the doorway, naked, his wolf-gold eyes on me. “What happened?”

SIXTEEN

No!

“Me what happened? How aboutyouwhat happened?” I stood and pushed him back in the door.

“Did Carter do something?” he growled.

I glanced around, trying to figure out what that big noise was. A couple of bottles and jars had tipped over in the kitchen. Luckily their tops were on. “Did you jump down from the loft? That’s like thirty feet.”

“Of course I did,” he said. “Your heartbeat stopped and then raced. What happened?”

My phone buzzed, so I took out the last batch and then pushed him toward the stairs. “I’ll tell you once you lay down again.”

He threw me over his shoulder. “Fine, but you can come with me,” he said as he took the stairs two at a time.

“Don’t even think about it,” I hissed. “We’re surrounded by people who can hear you breathing. We’re not messing around. And I still need to find out what else Carter was going to tell me.”

He put me down and then went into the bathroom to move his clothes from the washer to the dryer. “There. Now the next time I have to run to your rescue, I can be wearing pants.” He sat back in bed and leaned against the headboard.

I sat on the end of the bed and explained what Carter had been telling me.

“A podcast about you? About you being a wicche?” he asked.

“Carter?” I called.

A moment later, my back door opened. I moved to the stop stair and sat down, so I could see both men.

“Can you finish what you were telling me?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He lifted his nose and zeroed in on the cookies cooling on the counter.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Just leave some for the others.”

He went to the kitchen, grabbed a handful, and then went back to stand near the door. Declan couldn’t see Carter from where he was, but I watched him physically relax as Carter moved farther away. Clearly this was a shifter thing because Carter knew to stand as far away as he could while still being in the studio.

He held up a cookie and said, “These are really good, by the way,” and then tossed one in his mouth. “There are three episodes up. They all look pretty short: maybe twenty minutes. I only listened to the first one and then came here to warn you.”

“Okay. I’m sitting down. How much can he know?” My hands were fisted in my lap. Secrecy was paramount. Without it, we had a history of dying rather badly.

Carter shook his head. “The guy comes off crazed—to me. The pitch of his voice says panic. I doubt humans will pick up on that, though. Anyway, he talked about there being real witches in the world. How they were evil and preying on good, honest people.”

He ate another cookie. “At first, I thought this would be a funny podcast. I was hoping that image of what looks like you in the graphic was a strange coincidence, but then he talked about living in a seaside town and it got far less humorous. He said he met a witch who was pretending to be an artist, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel pretended to welcome the children and invite them to dinner.”

“Oh, shit,” I said under my breath. I had to warn Mom and Gran.

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