Page 44 of Enspelled

“I walked out.”

“Of the meeting?”

“Of the coven. For good.” My voice is firm, maybe firmer than it’s ever been before.

As he straightens, his amusement drifts away and a rare seriousness takes its place. “Why?”

“Because they’re venomous snakes, and I want nothing to do with them.”

“So they were plotting against your friend?” Bodie asks.

With my anger rising the longer I think about the meeting, I force myself to let my fury go before it can turn to bitterness. “It wasn’t just that. I never realized how toxic they were until now. I thought Briar was the only decent person in this town, and what I just saw in there proved it.”

He cocks his head as he studies me, an inscrutable look on his face. “I thought all witches had a coven.”

I nod. “They do. And I do.”

His raised eyebrow invites me to continue.

“I have a coven,” I tell him. “It’s small. Just two people, but it means more to me than the one I just walked out of.”

Just as he’s opening his mouth, a pink Mini hurtles into the parking lot, startling me. Bodie too, I’m guessing from the speed he spins to put himself between me and it.

“Oh no,” I breathe.

He peers over his shoulder. “What do you mean, oh no?”

I sigh. “Now that she’s seen us, there’s no escaping her.”

“Escaping who?” he asks, confusion clouding his eyes.

But there’s no need to answer, because a car door swings open and a booming voice erupts from it before the woman herself has clambered out of it. “Am I late? Did Vera notice I was missing?”

I take in the indigo velvet dress, the matching tiny hat nestled on a head of gray hair, and the heaving white breasts about an inch from spilling out of the low-cut dress. “I think she might have,” I say.

“You what, dear?” Eleanor, affectionately and often not-so-affectionately known as Bullhorn Ellie, screams practically in Bodie’s face.

When he inches back a step, I wonder what her shouting must be doing to his sharper wolf ears. I dart a glance at them. They’re not bleeding, but I know it can only be a matter of time before they will be.

“I said I don’t know, Ellie,” I shout. “But the meeting has started, so you should—” I stop shouting when Ellie slams her car door shut and plunges her hand into a hidden dress pocket, her sausage-like fingers stuffed with more rings than anyone would ever need.

She pulls a silver object free, which she sticks in her right ear before angling it toward me. “Yes, dear?”

I take in her little silver horn and tamp down my need to laugh. When I feel Bodie’s gaze on the side of my face, I glance over at him and then wish I hadn’t, because it’s clear that he’s battling just as hard as I am to control his laughter.

Once I’ve gotten myself under control, I refocus on Ellie. “I said the meeting has already started, so you should—”

“I imagine it will be about the wolf.” Ellie talks right over me, making me wonder why she bothered going for her horn at all if she wasn’t even going to listen. “Keane Destin.”

“No, actually, I think it was—”

Ellie’s eyes narrow. “Well, he’s back to kill us all, I imagine. In our sleep, like some kind of assassin.”

A choked laugh makes me glance over at Bodie, who’s studiously staring at the ground. I wish I had that option.

My gaze returns to Ellie to find her peering at me, her expression deathly serious as she waits for my response.

“I don’t think wolves are assassins, Eleanor. I think—”

---