Page 20 of Enspelled

“So you want her dead, and you want me to be the one to kill her?”

She nods.

“Weren’t you saying not five minutes ago that no wolf could kill a coven leader?” I arch a brow as I once again wait for the perfect answer to my question.

“Most wolves would die. Killing an elemental like Diana would be impossible if it wasn’t for a witch with an explosive power like Briar’s.” She pauses, and I know she’s waiting for an explanation about what happened in the forest.

“But a coven leader like Layla?” I ask, ignoring the question in her eyes. If this witch thinks I’m going to start treating her like a best friend because she seems to hate witches as much as I do, she has another thing coming.

“Is easier. If you have the right spell.”

“And the reason you haven’t taken this spell and killed her yourself?” I wait for the perfect answer because there will be one.

“Layla has spells she doesn’t keep in the grimoire she brings to coven meetings. We’ve all had years to rifle through the coven grimoire, but no spell in it could have killed your pack, so she must keep her powerful spells somewhere else.”

And there it is.

I think about the spell that Briar’s friend Sera threw at me. It exploded a tree. If that isn’t a powerful spell, I don’t want to think about the type of spells that Layla hides elsewhere.

An image of dead wolf bones and blood soaking the earth fills my mind. My pack was slaughtered in minutes. But how?

I shove the memory of that night to the back of my mind. “Where else?”

Mara shrugs. “Vera would know.”

“I’m guessing you want me to risk my neck so you can have this spell book for yourself?”

“No,” she says. “All you have to do is steal the grimoire, and I’ll work a spell that will kill Layla.”

“You mean to say all these years—because this vendetta you have against Layla must be years in the making—you haven’t been able to steal a book from a witch who belongs to the same coven as you?” I raise my eyebrow in disbelief.

“I tried.”

“And?”

She looks away. “Well, let's just say I’m better at eavesdropping than I am at breaking and entering.”

An all-too-vivid image of Briar hanging out of my rented cabin window thrusts itself into my mind. “You’re not the only one,” I murmur, willing my pants not to get tight, because now isnotthe time to be thinking of her sexy ass.

Mara glances over at me. “What?”

“Nothing. What if Layla and the grimoire are in the same place?”

“Then kill Layla.” She shrugs. “I just want the book.”

“To do what, if Layla is dead because I killed her?”

“Briar has wolf souls inhabiting her body, doesn’t she?” Her tone is all but mocking me, but I tamp down my need to gut the witch.

I stare at her. “You’re telling me that a spell can remove them?”

“Considering there’s no one else in town who would want Briar driven crazy by wolf souls, I don’t think it would be unreasonable to assume there’s a spell in the grimoire. In return for killing Layla, I’ll reverse the spell.”

“You’d be trusting me to bring the book to you when I was done,” I tell her. I could just as easily take it to Sera to reverse the spell, and I wouldn’t need Mara for anything.

Mara reaches for the door handle. “Then don’t bring me the book when I have decades of experience casting spells. I want Layla dead. Helping Briar is a bonus, but if you don’t want me to do that, then fine. I won’t.” She glances at me. “Since everyone in town knows how you feel about witches, and Briar is still alive, I thought you might not want her so driven mad by souls that she puts herself out of her misery.”

My eyes narrow as a growl of fury erupts in my head at the thought of such a thing happening.

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