Page 34 of The Maestro's Mates
Justin sank into the cushions. It was heavenly. He picked up a mug of tea from the small wooden side table and held it up to his mouth. The sweet odor of apples and honey drifted up from the tea. By now, the logs in the fireplace had caught fire, and the blaze was building.
All attempts to stay aloof flew out of Justin’s head in the face of the overwhelming coziness. “Well, this is perfect.”
“What do you mean?” Linda asked pointedly, taking another sip.
Justin blushed slightly. “Your office was a lot more tech heavy than I expected. This is more…”
“Witchy?” Linda nodded. “We have all the old tomes here, the histories of our Circle, the ancient spellbooks.”
She gestured to a heavy-looking podium of ornately carved cedar. Atop it sat a thick volume, covered in dark brown leather and engraved with silver-embossed symbols. It was secured to the stand with a heavy silver chain.
“That is the grimoire of our Circle. It’s the repository of all our knowledge and holds not only spells but also the true names of every spirit we’ve ever had dealings with and their characteristics. It’s been passed down from Eldest to Eldest for almost two hundred years. Is that more suitably witchy for you?”
Justin nodded. The fireplace, the books, the tea… He was much more at ease here than among the flashing screens of the office. He glanced over at Sebastian, who was leaning casually against the book ladder, his arms crossed, observing. He smiled at Justin, and Justin’s heart rate ratcheted up at the sight.
The manwashandsome. Justin couldn’t deny it.
“Now,” Linda continued, “what do you want?”
Justin stared at her, confused. What did he want? She was the one who had reached out to them.
“I think it’s more about what you want,” he replied. “When Sebastian came to us, your daughter attacking you was theoretical. That’s not true anymore. If you want our muscle, we need to know what happened.”
Linda’s eyes narrowed, and her gaze snapped to Sebastian. He didn’t flinch.
“Justin is right. You can’t expect the vampires to go in blind. And I need to know, too. What the hell happened?”
Linda didn’t move for a long moment, and the butterflies in Justin’s stomach kicked up. From the moment they met, it had been obvious she was a shrewd manipulator. She liked to keep people off balance.
A quality she’d passed on to Sebastian.
Justin kept his face still. He was there to help, but he wouldn’t go back to Freddie without a clearer vision of what they were agreeing to.
Finally, Linda’s face softened. She sipped her tea once more.
“Veronica took advantage of the fact we were underpowered. Our Circle has always had twelve witches. Two of them are very new. They’ve been here less than five years. Delia and Savannah were replacements for Veronica and Sebastian, and they’re young. They haven’t come into their own.”
Justin breathed in, a gentle odor of smoke filling the air from the now blazing fire.
“We don’t all live here, although many do,” Linda continued. “But there are usually at least five or six of us around, including Wolf, Sebastian’s brother. Wolf isn’t a witch.”
Justin sensed Sebastian shift slightly. He wondered what the story was between Sebastian and his brother. It seemed more intense than expected from the typical sibling rivalry Sebastian had described.
“But several of our members have traveled to see family this week,” Linda said, “and the only ones in the house forthe attack were Delia, Savannah, myself, and the next senior member of the Circle, Neve. Wolf was working in the backyard, and by the time he realized something was wrong, the assault was well under way. There were three of them, other than Veronica. Newer witches, clumsy but powerful.”
“Vee is a powerhouse all on her own,” Sebastian interjected.
Linda shrugged. “She is. Delia and Savannah haven’t developed any offensive spells, and even if they had, battle will never be in their wheelhouses. Thank fuck Neve was here. She has fire affinity. She was standing there when Veronica broke through the front door. Without her flames to beat them back, I wouldn’t have had time to come down. They would have cornered me up here.”
“What is your affinity?”
Linda twitched at the question, and for a moment, Justin worried he’d offended her by asking. But ultimately, he didn’t care. They needed all the information they could get.
It didn’t look like she was going to answer, but then Sebastian stepped forward. Linda glared at him, and he ignored her.
“Her affinity is pretty unique, although it’s well-suited for the Eldest. She can communicate with the spirits of the bonds between living things.”
“That…that’s a thing?” Justin asked. A few days ago, his knowledge of witches and their magic had been at zero percent, and his head was swimming with concepts he only half-understood.
