Page 36 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part Two

God, that thought was mortifying.

Leo grabbed my waist and planted a firm kiss on my lips. “Don’t go to bed without me, okay?”

“Okay.” And I knew I flushed even brighter than Chiga had. Leo and I rarely got up to anything more than cuddling considering all the sensitive ears around, but it still made my stomach flip to think I was going to get to spend the night in his arms.

I hoped that never changed.

“Hey,Ven. Leo called a meeting and wants us all there.”

I looked up from the glass bottles I was filling with oil. I was finally restocking my deadnettle salve. I’d gone through it like water with patching up everyone, so I figured it would be prudent to have a fresh batch ready for after the next big scuffle. It wouldn’t do any heavy hitting, but I’d found that, with shifters, it was excellent at soothing the terrible itching that came along with rapidly healing wounds.

“Why do you seem so excited?” I asked Ricky, who was grinning from ear to ear from where he stood in the doorway of my greenhouse. It had grown warm enough that I had all the windows and doors open, which meant the cat tunnel was closed—much to Mudpie’s chagrin. With so many people in the house, she’d made it clear she preferred to hang out with me and only me, but that was something that could only happen at night time. And even then she had to deal with the Leo. Poor soul.

“Because Alicia and another scout she was working with are back, and I think they’ve got some big news.”

“Why didn’t you lead with that?”

I screwed the lid onto the jug of oil, then rushed along behind Ricky. Sure enough, my living room, the hallway, and my kitchen were full of bodies as I came in through the back door. I wasn’t surprised to see some faces peering in through the window, as most of the shifters would have no problem hearing with their enhanced senses.

“Ah, there you are,” Leo said once his eyes landed on the two of us. “Now that we’re all here, you can begin, Alicia.”

The rather nondescript woman gave a nod. “Of course. I know I basically went ghost for the past week, but I promise theresults are worth it. Vincent and I figured out where the two surviving brothers have gone.”

My stomach practically pole-vaulted with elation, and I had to tell myself to chill out. There was still a chance there was bad news, that Alicia might be wrong. It was important to keep a level head and not get too carried away with anything. Still, talk about some good news.

“They have, indeed, sussed out that someone, or multiple someones, are systematically wiping their bloodline out. From what we could tell, they’ve called in several huge favors and have holed up together in an ancient estate that was purposely built over sacred grounds. All sorts of nasty spells and security there. Basically, the gala auction was child’s play. Getting in with any sort of sizeable force without the two brothers destroying us will be a challenge.”

Leo nodded along, his face a mask of concentration I only ever saw when he was in full alpha mode. “The two remaining brothers… Do we have a profile on them? The ones I interacted with the most are dead, so I don’t remember much about these two. Other than... does one of them have a woman’s name?”

“That would be Millicent Carlisle, the second youngest. His father is Winston Carlisle, a rather traditional warlock who is rumored to have been killed and eaten by Katarina Morgana after she found him with a mistress.”

Wow, what? When did the crazy world I had been dumped into turn into an episode ofReal Housewives?

“Word has it is that he insists people call him William or Bill, however, most of his family refused this name as Bill isn’t exactly the intimidating name of a magic user, and Millicent was traditional. This is probably why he’s still alive, as it seems there was a pretty large rift between him and the rest of his siblings.”

Not large enough for him to stay out of cursing Leo’s pack and scattering them to the seven winds. Even with all of ourvictories against the brothers, we’d still only found Ricky. As far as I knew, there were at least twenty other people missing. I knew Leo felt the pain of their absence every single day. He was good at hiding it and occupying himself with the responsibilities of running a pseudo-rebel headquarters, but occasionally, I’d catch him staring out into the night sky, and I always knew exactly what he was thinking.

“He has an affinity for the weather, and while I couldn’t find any direct reports of the style he prefers to battle with, I did manage to uncover a few people who say his go-to move is summoning a particularly malevolent lightning cloud indoors. Oh, and blinding his opponents by causing thick, overcast skies, then suddenly clearing them to reveal full sunlight.”

That was a pretty neat trick. But finally, I saw a chance to ask Alicia a question that had been lingering in the back of my head for quite a while.

“These brothers have all had specialties,” I said cautiously, trying to project that I belonged and knew what I was doing. Of all the fantasies I’d had about my faraway future, none of them really involved working as a military coordinate for magical people. “Chadwicke had luck. Alric had an affinity for metal manipulation. This Bill has the weather. But they can do other stuff, too, I’ve seen. Like generate shields and throw people around.”

“Yes, because they are all warlocks. Each one of them has sworn fealty to a different spirit, god, or otherwise mystical force that has granted them special abilities as long as they remained faithful. Originally, they were all witches born to their extremely powerful mother, but one by one, they all made their different pacts to try to gain more power. Still couldn’t compare to her, however. Thankfully, there hasn’t been a single public sighting of her since her youngest came of age. Most think she’s retired back to the old world.”

I had to wonder what kind of mystical woman had birthed such a group of certifiable sociopaths. Surely, she had to be just as terrifying and monstrous as all of them. Or maybe she was just a powerful witch going about her business and living her life, only for all of her sons to end up jealous of her power and mutate themselves through magical contracts that still left them weaker than the matriarch they were trying to surpass.

I hoped I never found out.

“The remaining target is Frederick Plutus, son of the witch Dominic Plutus, who apparently broke it off amicably with Katerina and was living somewhere on the Polynesian Isles before he ran afoul of someMaeroafter trying to bewitch the heart of their forest. They crushed him under rocks and planted a tree over him.”

Well, that was one way to deal with a colonizer. Not that I knew what it meant tobewitch the heart of the forest,but it seemed pretty serious. Also, I couldn’t help but wonder at all the different types of magical entities that lived outside of America. Did every land mass have their own unique, indigenous magical folks? That would make sense, and it was awe-inspiring.

“Frederick is the third youngest and he has an affinity for plant life. From what I’ve heard, his go-to is poisons or suddenly spawning carnivorous plants that have somewhat cognitive abilities.”

Wait.

They had a plant guy?

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