Page 13 of Bad Witch

“What about Tempest? Will anyone know she was here?”

“No,” Mags said and jogged back down the front path to the street.

What was going on here? “I need you to give me something here, Mags. I need to know she’s safe.”

She stopped, doubled back, and looked up at me. “You’re her patient, Fender, nothing more, right?”

My head jerked back again. Why did that feel like a sucker punch?

Magnolia carried on before I could answer. “She wouldn’t like you following her like this. You need to keep things between you professional, for her sake and yours.”

I growled again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You coming here, it’s blurring the lines between personal and professional.”

I frowned, still not sure what she was trying to say.

“Stop with the stalking, okay?” she said, spelling it out.

“I’m not stalking her,” I bit out, but she was right, wasn’t she? I’d been following her for weeks.

“Caught your scent outside our place when Temp was there a few weeks ago, Fen,” Bram said.

Fuck. Of course he had. “I’m looking out for her, that’s all. She’s going to get herself killed, naive as she is.” I shoved my fingers through my hair, my heart slamming in my chest. “If she hasn’t already.”

“You need to stop,” Mags said again, and her gaze was like a laser burning into me. “She can look after herself, understand me?”

Again, she was asking me to understand without giving me anything at all. “No, I don’t understand,” I snarled again.

“Well, I guess you don’t need to. And I say this with love, and as a friend…what Temp does is none of your business.”

The beast rattled in my chest, disagreeing completely.

“Just stop,” Mags said again before she and Bram strode off down the street.

I turned back, staring at the house. Tempest had walked in there and hadn’t come out. No, she’d fucking disappeared, and I was the only person who seemed to give a fuck about it.

I wasn’t stopping shit.

Chapter

Four

Tempest

* * *

When I arrived bleary eyed to the clinic for my morning shift, still recovering from a violent bout of food poisoning that had lasted through the night, I found Fender waiting in the parking lot. I frowned. I’d seen him yesterday. I knew for a fact we weren’t scheduled for another appointment today.

He started toward me, and I forced a smile in greeting. It was hard to feel cheerful after hugging the toilet bowl all night. That’s when I noticed his jaw was clenched tight, and his eyes, they weren’t amber, they were gold…and glowing. His hands hung loose at his sides. His wide shoulders were stiff, and his chest heaved with every breath as he closed in on me.

He was a hound, and they were very intense, but I’d never seen him like this before. My belly flip-flopped with unease, and the small kernel of fear that always lived inside me bloomed.

I glanced over my shoulder. I was near the main doors, but I wasn’t sure I’d make it if I ran. I spun back and his step faltered. Then, before my eyes, every part of him visibly relaxed. His eyes were still gold and glowing, but he no longer looked as if he were about to burst out of his skin.

He’d never tried to hurt me before. The odds were good he wouldn’t now, but any sudden moves probably wouldn’t be a good idea. I let my magic swirl inside me, ready for anything. I broadened my smile so he didn’t pick up on the direction of my thoughts. “Hello,” I said. “Is everything okay?”

He stopped in front of me and drew in a breath so deep that his chest expanded to what looked like its limit, then he released it even and slow, but those golden eyes still seemed more. That gaze, it was primal, gods, animal, and it was locked on me. Fender took me in from head to foot, then back again.