The smile Mrs. Gellar gave her was so much more than triumphant. It was nothing short of evil.
“You go on ahead, witch. And just remember that I have a gun pointed at you. If you try to run, I can just empty this gun into you.”
Astra gulped loudly.
“I’ll behave.”
She hated that she sounded like a little girl admitting to wrongdoing, but she wasn’t going to let this psycho harm anyone else.
With Mrs. Gellar’s gun firmly propped between two of her ribs, Astra walked out of the small healing room. They walked down the long hallway to the sound of a waterfall and soft, peaceful music. Now it just seemed like the overhead speakers were taunting Astra.
Thankfully, Selene wasn’t at the reception desk. She must have gone to the coffee shop to get coffees and baked goods for their morning break. It was part of their routine. Mrs. Gellar, who had been a client of the Healsome Magic Holistic Center for quite some time, must have noticed that it was her twin’s habits.
Astra pushed the door opened and stepped onto the sidewalk. With a quick, panicked scan of her surroundings, Astra spotted the nearly empty parking lot. No one would even see her being abducted. What would her family think? That she had just vanished? Ran away? Flighty, irresponsible Astra had fled her business and her responsibilities to make another life elsewhere.
It wasn’t beyond the scope of what she would have done, either.
She couldn’t let her family believe that, though. Not after she had tried to repair her image in the eyes of the Bishop family. Sure, she still did a few questionable things. Stealing from her cousins’ store being one of the main ones.
But she was about to save a whole lot of people from the fate of being taken and tortured by a group of witch hunters. Someone should at least know what was going on. Maybe someone could send the police to rescue her.
Astra could play the hero, but that didn’t mean she was actually all right with the idea of dying.
That’s when she spotted him.
The man that fate or destiny or some guardian angel had sent to save her from the evil Mrs. Gellar.
A black-haired hunk walked toward Astra and her abductor. Astra knew she had to give it a shot. No pun intended. She focused her eyes one the sexy stranger, hoping he would feel her intense gaze.
Finally, he looked in her direction with blazing brown eyes. He frowned in confusion, as if he recognized her from somewhere. That wasn’t possible. Astra would have remembered those black curly locks and square jaw.
Whoever this stranger was, he was just her type.
“You need to help me,” she called out to him.
His frown deepened just as Mrs. Gellar pushed the gun deeper into her back.
Well, if she was going to die, at least she’d have a nice view.
Chapter Four
Blaze
The second Blaze parked his truck in front of the Healsome Magic Holistic Center, he knew something was wrong. It wasn’t pure apprehension; there was something on the air that just didn’t feel right.
There were very little cars in the small parking lot, and there was no one around. That could be a good thing if the Order of Salem decided to attack the witches at their place of business. It meant no witnesses if he had to shift.
The front door of the center blew wide opened, and Blaze immediately stopped walking. Whatever he had felt in the air earlier shifted now. It became tighter, like all of the particles around him were wound up like a tight spring about to unfurl.
He watched as a redhead in her mid-twenties exited the center. Her eyes dashed all around her in a panic. Blaze half-expected to see a huge man standing behind her with a gun.
But that wasn’t the case.
An older matronly woman who couldn’t be five feet tall trailed behind the younger woman. There was a stern, annoyed look on her wrinkled face that immediately made Blade suspicious.
It was a weird feeling for him to be so wary of an older woman. After all, his pack had taught him that the older generations had important knowledge and experience. The elders were a vital part of all pack decisions.
But there was just something about this situation that had his wolf growling low and deep. If Blaze had been in his wolf shape at that particular time, his fur would have been raised in alert. He felt his eyes on her.
“You need to help me,” she said. There was definitely an edge of panic in her voice.
The young woman was hot as hell, but he could tell she was seriously freaked out. The older lady was walking closely behind her with a hand pressed to the other woman’s back. It struck Blaze as odd. “This lady has lost it. She’s got a gun on me. You have to help me.”
Blaze, who had some seriously fast wolf instincts, wasn’t prepared for that.
It was like seeing Sophia from The Golden Girls holding a gun up at him. He chuckled, despite the fact that he could sense the danger in the air.
“What seems to be the issue here?” he asked. “Has she hurt you?”
“Not yet,” the younger one answered.
“Wasn’t talking to you,” Blaze shot back.
He knew, of course, that the hot redhead could only be one of the twins. That meant the old bitty was a witch hunter. He had pictured men with pitchforks and torches.
Not a Betty White lookalike.
Blaze chose to play it safe. He took a step closer to the two women, hands in his pocket, feigning to be disinterested.
“Ma’am,” he asked the witch hunter, “is this young woman bothering you? Do you need any help?”
“Why, yes. Please, that would just be wonderful. This is my granddaughter, and she isn’t well. I’m trying to get her the help she needs. A good cleanse of the soul, and she is refusing to cooperate. If you could just help me load her up into my car that would be greatly appreciated.”
The granddaughter bristled and argued, but Blaze also noticed she hadn’t moved away. He figured there might be a weapon involved.
“Happy to help,” he said with the biggest smile on his face.
“What the actual fuck? I am telling you I am being abducted. You are helping a kidnapping. You can be charged with aiding and abetting a crime.”
“I warned you,” the old woman griped. “Watch that mouth of yours.”
The redhead cringed as something pressed into her side.
Shit, Blaze thought. That could only mean that the old lady had a gun. He could shift, but that would bring too much attention to them. The parking lot wasn’t necessarily crowded, but it still wasn’t a good idea to shift.
“Which one is your car?” he asked, keeping up with the facade.
“That blue one.”
The car was a huge monstrosity that would have been fashionable for boring, married couples in the sixties. How the short gray-haired grandmother drove that boat was a mystery to him.
Blaze took a few more steps toward the kidnapping victim, and he tried to convey with a wiggle of his eyebrows that he was on her side. She didn’t catch his meaning. Instead, her eyes grew huge.
“Are you in on this?" she accused. "Listen, dude, I might look like I’d make a good murder victim, but I’m not.”
“Excuse me?” Blaze was genuinely confused.
“You’re going to kill me, you’re working with a nutjob.” She pointed a thumb at her fake grandma. “She’s doing this for you, isn’t she?”