Page 39 of Hot Hex (The Raven Society 1)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Xander

I keep watch the whole night, running a perimeter around the house. Deep enough in the woods so that no one will notice me, but close enough so I can see what’s happening inside the glass atrium at the back of the house.

When it happens, I can feel it. Just before midnight, a surge of power, all the witches bringing their magic together. And then it is a physical thing, a blinding pulse of brightness as they wrap one of their own in light. I catch a brief glimpse of her: Rowan, lifted above the others, cast in a pale rose-colored glow. She’s wearing gold, and she looks in that moment like a goddess of witches, Hecate herself, dark and light and wonder and power all at once. Her smile is radiant.

In that moment I know two things. First, Rowan Stonecroft has become my sworn enemy. And second, I’ve fallen completely and irreversibly in love with her.

I stay at the manor until nearly dawn, a maelstrom of emotion raging war inside me. The horned beast never makes an appearance. All these witches in one place, and not even an attempt? I don’t get it. Rowan thought she had killed it, and I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that isn’t how it works with demons. She destroyed its physical form, but unless she performs a vanquishing spell, it can be summoned back again. And again, and again, until the summoner is satisfied, or the summoner is themselves killed.

As the sun begins to rise, I take to the sky before I lose the darkness, and my cover. My dragon has to fly or we’ll both lose our minds. Too much has happened in the last twenty-four hours. Rowan is tearing me apart at the seams. I had hoped that creature would show itself so I could put an end to this. Track down its master so I can ensure I never have to see a certain witch again. But the coward couldn’t even show its face.

I fly a big loop around the town, a stretch of thirty miles or so. My territory, the area I protect. A few stars still burn in the plum tones of first light. The rainstorms from the night before are just clearing out, and the air is thick with mist and pale gray clouds. Because of the clouds, I almost miss the smoke.

But the smell is unmistakable.

Adrenaline pumping in my veins, I dive toward the curl of dark gray coming up from the forest to the west of town. When I land, I’m too late. Far too late. The witch hanging from the stake is already dead. Burned and left for the crows.

Rage boils in my blood, and I let out a roar that shakes the countryside. I stalk back and forth for several minutes, and then I leap skyward again. A terrible feeling is forming in the pit of my stomach. I continue my loop of the town, and right before I come full-circle, I see it. Another plume of dark smoke rising from the trees.

I fly higher, looking down on Raven’s Roost from far, far above. From this height, I can see both smoke signals. What’s more, when I envision them along with the sites of the two previous murders, they form a pattern. Or, nearly form a pattern. Because the four murder sites create four points of a five-pointed star.

A pentagram.

I dive down toward the second smoke signal, hoping I’m somehow wrong. Wishing it’s merely a campfire that someone left, and that I have a really overactive imagination. But the smell of burned flesh tells me before I even land that I’m not wrong.

The sun has lightened the sky too much to risk flying again, so I shift back to human form. I approach the body to see if there are any clues left behind. A growl of rage crawls from my throat. All night I’d been guarding Raven Manor thinking the demon summoner was a big coward, but whoever it was had been out here doing this. Picking off the witches in town for the funeral. I should have known. I should have stopped this.

A branch snaps behind me and I spin.

“Hands in the air!” booms a voice over an air horn.

And just like that, I’m surrounded by a dozen armed men. They’d be nothing for me in my dragon form, but I’m not going to kill innocent men trying to do their jobs.

The sheriff strides through the crowd, walking slowly in the dim light of first dawn. I’m naked from my shift, which is not exactly good for my case. He pulls out a pair of handcuffs and slams me into a tree.

“Xander Cole, you are under arrest for multiple counts of murder.”

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