Page 63 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part Two

Incredible.

For the rest of my life, I would never take such things for granted again. The ability to have a cookout. The ability to talk and laugh as loud as we wanted to while stuffing our faces. Telling old, embarrassing stories about teenage me, listening as those around me remembered more and more of their lives. Sitting with my arm around my lover, with no threat hovering over our heads.

At least that’s what I thought.

Thunder cracked over our heads out of nowhere, startling a good number of us. While storms were a fairly normal occurrence, this was no normal storm. A normal storm would not have the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

The sky grew dark, like night was rolling in, and lightning flashed a beat later. I rose to my feet, about to order everyone to get inside, when a figure emerged from the clouds and descended downward.

Who the fuck was that? All the brothers were dead, so it couldn’t be one of them. And it wasn’t like they had a lot of allies in the magical world since they’d pissed off or killed everyone they came into contact with. Who could possibly?—

A scent hit me, and I knew exactly who it was. My blood ran cold, and I had to swallow hard to prevent bile from rising in my throat. It was like the brothers’, butmore.Older. More powerful. It had a deep allure that went beyond physical appeal.

“Vanessa, I need you to run. Go to the cave.”

“What—”

“Just go!” I hissed. There was no time to explain that the raven-haired woman hovering in the air was none other than themother.

Katarina Morgana, the powerful witch who hadn’t been seen in over fifty years.

Jet-black hair, alabaster skin, eyes so green they practically glowed. Supposedly directly descended from Morgan La Fay, carrying a power all her sons had tried to emulate.

We were so fucked.

Thankfully, Ven didn’t argue with me. She took off running at full speed, but it wasn’t fast enough. A translucent wall of black shot up all around the garden and cabin, blocking everyone in.

“Now, now,” Katarina chided. “No getting away now. Not when I finally found you.”

Her voice was unlike any other I’d ever heard. Ancient but smooth. Full of honey and ash. It was the promise of total devastation while also hinting at forbidden bliss. I could understand how she’d had so many lovers in the magical community. There was something borderline eldritch and untouchable in her words.

She raised her hand, and lightning cracked down again, hitting Ven’s cabin. I heard Ven scream behind me, and I couldn’t blame her as a good quarter of her home went up in flames.

As Katarina’s feet touched the ground, she waved her hand again and the flames died out, smoke drifting through the air. She did it without even batting an eye, and fear coiled in my belly. We were facing the closest thing to a god.

Fuck.

I was only halfway through my shift when the witch sent a powerful blast of wind whipping through the gathering. Tables rose up, sending paper and cups flying, even hitting people with chairs. The debris from the cabin soon joined in, making a vortexof dangerous flying objects. I wasn’t too worried about myself or my people—we would heal if anything hit us—but Ven was so much softer and more vulnerable. Although she seemed to have incredible powers, too, she didn’t have enhanced healing, nor could she call upon her plant powers at will. They only seemed to manifest at times of great stress, or even as a survival trigger.

I braced myself as I waited for the torrent to end, knowing I stood no chance, but hopefully, I could give my family time to run.

16

VANESSA

Icrawled out from under the pile of boxes I’d been flung into, my entire body screaming. It could have been a lot worse.

One moment, we were all gathered around the tables, enjoying ourselves and having one big party, the next we were in a war zone. I had no idea what was going on or who the strange woman was who had decided to destroy half my home.

My mind couldn’t even begin to think what we were going to do about that. How did I explain that to my landlord? At least if insurance agents inspected it, they would see it was a freak lightning strike that had destroyed it.

Most importantly,where were my babies?

As I struggled to my feet, I saw the woman was now on the ground, magic crackling in her hands. There was something so intensely otherworldly about her, it made my skin crawl and intrigued me at the same time. I was caught up in her, like she had a naturally hypnotic effect on me. It took some effort, but I shook myself free, and as I did I remembered some of the stuff I’d read online in the past couple of months with all my research. It could be bupkis for all I knew, but it was all I had.

Running to my greenhouse, I grabbed all the dill I had been drying. Sprinting back out, I threw it as high in the air as I could, and it formed a wobbly circle that encompassed most of the shifters splayed about.

God, I was going to look like a complete ass if this didn’t work, but I had to do something. A sliver of hope sputtered within me when the woman stopped and tapped her fingers on the air in front of her. To my surprise, her fingertips sizzled when they tried to cross over the line of dried leaves, making little sparks that crackled through the air before disappearing into nothingness.

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