Page 206 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

He glared at Siobhan. ‘Thanks, Ghoul.’

She grinned up at him. ‘My pleasure. Always keen to warn others of your drooling problem.’

‘I do not have a drooling problem.’

‘Oh yeah. Steph says otherwise.’

He lifted his hands and made a squeezing motion with them as the McClune visitors snickered. ‘You’ll get yours,’ he snarled.

Siobhan jumped behind Chloe and shook in mock fear, ‘Oh no! Drooler’s coming after me. Help, Chlo. Help.’

Ivy shook her head at them as the others laughed. ‘Idiots.’

‘I thought you’d grown out of baiting each other,’ Chloe said, still chuckling.

‘Never,’ Stellan said.

‘Too much fun.’ Siobhan stopped cowering and slung her arm over Chloe’s shoulder. She glanced around. ‘Where’s Paul and the others? I thought they were coming.’

Stellan dropped his hands and said, ‘Paul’s gone with Luke and Jackson to set up and do a temperature check of the different springs.’

‘Why do they need to do that?’ Frankie—a tall, dark-haired witch with startlingly blue eyes—asked.

He smiled down at her, his smile gentle—since when did her brother smile like that?

‘The springs are all different temperatures and the temps can go up and down,’ he explained gently.

‘Is it dangerous?’ Joseline asked, gripping Tony’s arm.

‘No. You won’t get boiled or freeze,’ Stellan assured her. ‘But you just don’t want to sit in one that’s too hot for too long, so we do regular checks before we go in.’

‘Oh, okay.’

‘It sounds marvellous,’ Mariella said. ‘Should we get going?’

‘I was just waiting for the baskets of food to get here—and here they are,’ he said as Charlie and Max ran into the garage, holding two large picnic baskets, one each, and lugging a big esky between them.

Ivy went to grab a basket from Max to put it into the boot of the 4WD, but Stellan whisked it out of her hand. She would have snapped at him that she was capable of carrying a heavy basket a few paces to the car, but the big idiot was worried about her, so she just let it be and hopped into the 4WD with Chloe and Siobhan.

A few moments later, with Stellan in the McClune 4WD and Charlie and Max in theirs, they set off to the hot springs.

As they drove closer, Ivy’s nerves sparked through her and she found it harder and harder to concentrate on the conversation going on around her. She plastered a smile to her face and tried to ignore the feeling growing inside her: dread.

But why dread?

Was it because she was afraid to find out what was wrong with Paul? She didn’t think that was it. Her determination on that front hadn’t wavered. Was she afraid to see Paul after that moment on the hill with him? She didn’t think so. Nothing had happened. It wasn’t like he’d seen into her soul or anything.

But as they drove closer to the springs, she struggled against leaping out and running as far away from the springs as she possibly could get.

Which made no sense at all. She was someone who faced things, especially when she’d made a determination to do so.

So why was the idea of seeing Paul now filling her with such dread?

It wasn’t until they got to the springs and she tumbled out of the car that she realised that like the feeling of pain and grief she’d felt on the night of the mating ceremony, the feeling of dread wasn’t hers.

As Paul came up to the cars to greet Mariella, the sense of dread deepened. He greeted her, smiling all the while, kissing the petite witch’s cheek and helping her out of the car.

Ivy’s wolf whimpered and a stab of something nasty and bitter drove through her.

---