Page 28 of Shadows of the Soul

Stop, Hudson said in my mind.The doubts, the worries, stop.

I stuffed a sandwich in my mouth to focus on anything else. The healing balm had done most of the work, but it was still draining on my body and I needed all my strength to face whoever held Aunt Dayna. Which meant food and rest, so I fell asleep full on sandwiches and Maggie’s lemon cookies.

***

The sun had dipped low in the sky, casting a peachy glow across the grassy land surrounding my aunt’s ranch-style house. There were no signs of life, not in the house or outside.

“You notice anything strange?” I asked the two shifters that surrounded me.

“Other than the three of us hiding out in a bush?” Dave answered.

Hudson glanced around. “There’s no noise. No birds, no insects, nothing is moving.”

“What does it mean?” Dave asked.

“Nothing good,” I answered. “The things that repel nature are intrinsically evil. They are born that way, no good exists within them, so the natural world shies away from their presence in a bid for self-preservation, because where true evil resides, death and destruction will follow.”

“You get that out of a fortune cookie?” Dave asked.

I pressed my lips together. I’d worked with Dave long enough to know he was attempting to relax me with humor in a tense situation that was undoubtedly about to get worse.

“What’s the plan?” Hudson asked.

“The plan?” I said, rising to be in full view of the house and any nasties that lurked in there. “The plan is to walk in and take my aunt. You guys stay here. I’ll holler if I need you.” I tapped my head to make sure Hudson understood the hollering would be mental.

“For the record, I hate this plan,” Hudson said.

“Noted, but in the absence of divine intervention,” I glanced at the sky, nope, “this is our only option.”

“We could storm the castle, all three of us,” Dave suggested.

“And risk my aunt’s life? Do you like your testicles attached? Because Liz will fry them for lunch if she hears that. Also, the house won’t allow any harm to come to me.”

“Is it sentient?” Dave asked.

I glanced down at him. “Think of this house as a dragon, and the Roberts women as the treasure chest that it guards.”

“Interesting,” Dave said, eyeballing the house with new-found curiosity. Built in the 1960s, Dayna’s house was a sprawling single story home, complete with open plan living space and an immense garden. But the magic that seeped into the building came from the land they had built it on. We suspected a coven of elementals had once used the wooded area to perform powerful rituals, and consequently to bury their dead, back when witches were being persecuted by idiotic power-tripping human men. Elementals weren’t witches, but we were the fuel behind the fear of the unknown that led to many innocent women being murdered.

“I’m perfectly safe unless the devil himself has come to collect me.”

“Is that a possibility?” Dave asked.

I huffed. “Demons don’t walk this earth.”

“As far as you know.”

Oh, I knew—too well. Insider knowledge.

Having this control over Dangerous Dave could be a blessing. My Aunt Liz was scary, and he was trying to be in her good books. I stepped out of the safety of our recon bush and took sure strides toward the house.

Don’t die. I just got you, Hudson projected into my mind.

Don’t worry, Principal, I just got you too and I’m nowhere near finished.

I don’t plan on being finished—ever.

My face didn’t betray the happiness that comment made me feel. But my insides were doing the best happy dance anyone had ever seen. Hudson didn’t only want me in his bed. He wanted me by his side, leading the pack. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I didn’t want that responsibility. The pack would be a problem. I wasn’t stupid. Just because he said it would be fine, didn’t make it true. There would be protesters, resistance, challengers.

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