Page 105 of Enspelled

She shoots me a tired smile. “Something like that.”

We make the rest of the drive in silence, the tension in the car ramping up the closer we approach the town. As we do, the pungent scent of smoke becomes overpowering, even with all the windows up. Ash flutters from the sky, and from the sheer volume of it, whatever blew up was something big.

I don’t realize how big until we hit Main Street and find that half of it is just gone.

Sera slows the car as we take in fully one half of Main Street—both the witch and wolf half—is no more.

A few tourists stand around, eyes as wide as the firemen pulling up in their trucks. It’s clear they have a lot of work ahead of them to put out the smoking buildings. The lingering tourists must know it too, or at least believe there’s a chance something else could go up because, for the most part, they’re keeping their distance.

All but one.

A woman in a black hoodie and baggy pants, standing with her arms by her side.

I can’t see her face with the hood pulled up, but I know who it is. Aunt Mel.

“She destroyed all the elemental shops,” Sera whispers, as if she’s afraid of being overheard.

“Yeah.” That’s all I can think to say as I fight to tear my gaze away from the woman watching the smoking buildings.

As if she feels my attention, she angles her head my way, and I quickly tuck my head back behind Bodie’s seat so she can’t see me.

“She’s smiling,” Sera murmurs. “I don’t know how many people she just killed in that explosion, and she’s smiling.”

“Let’s go.” Keane’s voice is all growl, more wolf than man.

Is he fighting back the urge to kill her for what she did to his pack? Because right now, I know I should want her dead after what she did to me, but all I want to do is cry for everything I’ve lost. Again.

Sera turns the car around, and we continue the rest of the way in silence.

32

KEANE

Itake one look at the wolves gathered at the front of the towering Wolfe packhouse and step in front of Briar. “We’re here to see Liam.”

Silence reigns.

“I said—” A growl cuts me off before I can repeat myself, and I turn to the right, where the growl originated.

A shifter steps forward, his wolf in his eyes and every line of his body communicating his intent to end me. I’ve never seen the dark-haired shifter with the spitting gray eyes before, but clearly, he’s seen or at least heard of me.

“We heard,” he says, as he approaches.

Without taking my eyes off him, I angle my head over my shoulder. “Briar, get back in the car.”

She doesn’t move.

With a wolf who doesn’t look pleased to see me bearing down on us, I can’t afford to take my eyes off him long enough to stuff Briar in the car.

“That won’t be necessary.” A familiar male voice makes the shifter halt. Liam.

The shifters who poured out of the house moments after Sera parked up in front, part at the cool voice. Liam Wolfe, dressed in a smart white shirt and black dress pants, steps through the gap they create for him.

His expression is impossible to read. “You seem determined to die in Madden Grove, Keane Destin. Why is that?”

“My pack deserves justice. You would do the same if it was you,” I say.

He doesn’t respond as he stalks toward me, but when he’s a few feet away from us, he halts. Another long moment stretches in silence. “You won’t win.”

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