Carrow stood in the doorway, her right eyebrow arched as she looked at me. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Eve’s familiar appeared at the woman’s side, its little masked face staring speculatively at me. The raccoon’s black eyes glittered with suspicion, and I vowed to bring it a chocolate bar next time to try to win the creature to my side.
Win it to my side?
Next time?
What the hell was I thinking? Those were ridiculous fantasies that would never come true.
“I’ve come to speak to Eve,” I said.
Carrow crossed her arms. “She’s not accepting visitors.”
“I’m not a visitor.”
“Considering that you’re standing out there and I’m standing in here, you definitely are a visitor.”
I sighed. “I appreciate that you’re being protective, but I have a message from our most revered seer. It will be important to her.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, perhaps that changes things.” She spun around. “Wait here. I’ll check with Eve.”
The door slammed in my face, but not before Ralph scurried out. He sat on the stoop, staring up at me.
“Hello, Ralph.”
Ralph frowned. I’m not sure about you.
“Neither am I.”
You’re dangerous.
“I am.”
I like dangerous. But not when it comes to Eve. Her life has been too hard.
Fates, this raccoon. “I’ll bring you a chocolate bar next time.”
I couldn’t help but try to win him to my side.
I am not so easily bought.
I gave him a skeptical look.
I just make people think I’m easily bought. So make it a big one, and I’ll pretend you’re not the worst.
I nodded.
The door finally opened, revealing Carrow. She looked down at Ralph. “Bargaining?”
He nodded.
“Take him for all he’s worth.” She looked up at me. “Eve will see you.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as I stepped over the threshold, I felt Eve. My heart clenched, and the wolf inside seemed to sigh with satisfaction.
My mate was near.
Absently, I rubbed my chest. How the hell was I supposed to resist this? Just being near her felt good. I could feel her presence like a part of me, and I craved it.
“She’s in her workshop,” Carrow said.
“Thank you.” I strode across the sitting room and took the stairs two at a time, barely restraining myself from running.
When I reached Eve’s workshop, I spotted her immediately. She stood over a small silver cauldron, stirring with a long wooden spoon. Her silver and pink hair gleamed in the light, and she looked tired. The shadows under her eyes only served to highlight her delicate beauty, and I couldn’t look away.
My palms itched to pick her up and pull her toward me. Desire surged inside me, commanding me to crush my lips to hers and taste her.
No.
It was the worst thing I could do. Especially when she looked so tired. When she might be ill.
The thought made it easy to shove the beast back down.
3
Eve
* * *
I stared at Lachlan as the potion spread through my system. I’d just made a batch of powerful pain reliever, and I’d drunk the dose as I’d heard him climbing the stairs. The medicine couldn’t make me forget the pain of my soul being torn in two, but it did make me functional.
For now.
Like all good things, it wouldn’t last forever. I’d need to be quick, solving my problems before I was in a puddle of agony on the floor.
But Lachlan was here.
I stared at him, hardly able to believe my eyes. It hadn’t been long since I’d seen him, but it had felt like an eternity.
I’d missed him.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I had.
And now that I could feel the bond between us…
It was hard not to walk up to him and press my lips to his. The mate bond didn’t make me love him, but it did draw me to him. He was magnetic enough without it. With it…all I could do was think of our explosive kiss.
It was my damned wolf.
I’d thought I hadn’t had one, but my visit to the stone circle on our ancestral grounds had proved me wrong. I still couldn’t shift, but there was definitely something inside me.
Now that I couldn’t hide as a fae, my latent wolf wanted him. I wished she would make an appearance so that I could run beneath the full moon, but instead, she only showed up to pant after the Alpha.
“You’re different,” he said, his eyes shadowed with worry.
“Of course I am. I don’t have my charm.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m fine.”
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Don’t you think we shouldn’t be doing this? Talking in a room like nothing is weird?”
“You have a point, but this is important. Are you well?”
“Your eyes aren’t black.” I’d been so swept away by the sight of him that I hadn’t realized he no longer had the black eyes of the Dark Moon curse.
“It’s temporary. A potion from Mordaca to help me fight off the effects of the curse. Similar to the one you made Garreth. It won’t last forever.”
“A bit stronger, though?”
“How’d you know?”
“Mordaca is powerful, and you’re the Alpha. You’d need a stronger potion.”
“It will work for a while.”
Could he still feel emotion? Or had the potion in his flask stopped working entirely? Did his new potion suppress emotion?
I found that I could not ask. “Why are you here?”
“Our seer visited me on the streets of Darklane.”
“Whoa, hold up. She visited you?”
He nodded. “I found it shocking as well. But she had a message that could not wait.”
“About me, I assume.”
“Whatever Garreth seeks—whatever the Maker seeks—is tied up with you. Bound to you.”
I shivered, afraid of something like that.
“It’s part of your past, according to the seer. Part of you. And the ones who have been seeking you are not finished with you yet. We have to work together.”
I frowned. “That’s dangerous.”
“And that’s what I told the seer, but she insisted. It’s the only way we can stop them.”
I leaned against the table behind me and sighed. I trusted the seer—of course I did. It would be foolish not to.
Could I work with Lachlan, though? I had no idea…but it sounded like I would have to.
“The Maker must know what’s happening to me,” I said. “He tore my charm off on purpose. The change was already starting inside me—new magic surging to the surface. A beast I thought I didn’t have. But when he ripped the necklace away, he knew that it would be the final straw.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like shit. If I don’t sort this, it won’t go well for me.” I told him what I knew, but I didn’t want to discuss it, so I finished with, “I saw Garreth this morning.”
Horror flashed on his face. “Did he come for you?”