Page 11 of A Wolf for Winter

“The shield is open, but it’s intact,” he whispered to them when they joined him.

“Only Nan can do that,” Lilac said nervously. “Maybe she fell inside and that’s why she didn’t greet us here?”

“She’s pushing a hundred and twenty, so it makes sense,” Rose agreed.

“Maybe, but what is the truck doing right here?” Boar asked. “Everyone knows to use the side road to go to the back. I don’t like it.” A second hand wreathed in green magic joined the first.

“Scouting Spell?” Lilac suggested. It worked like a magical sonar ping, revealing the location of any living thing within a certain radius. If there was indeed an intruder inside, it would find them. Except the ping would reveal the spellcaster as well, so there was no element of surprise to be had.

“Battle magic?” Rose whispered, hiking the sleeves up on her shirt to reveal a set of iron cuffs. They were cast to resemble hawthorn leaves and berry clusters, and each Hawthorne wore them. When activated, they summoned magic far stronger and fiercer than they normally wielded.

Boar shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll save our strength. Rose, you follow me. Lilac, you’re in the rear. Say when.”

A petulant sibling might’ve accused Boar of giving her the bitch assignment, but it was the smartest move. Rose was bigger than Lilac and exceptionally scrappy in a fight. She was a sledgehammer, and her more observant and deliberate sister was the scalpel. The sniper. Lilac would pick off anyone who tried to escape or alert her siblings if they were being outflanked.

Her uncle Tod, the family’s combat instructor and tracker, had done his best to drill the nerves out of her, but to this day, Lilac had shown no aptitude for fighting outside of sniping. She wanted a ranged attack where her target couldn’t hit back. At least not right away. If she’d had her druthers, she’d be in the medic tent with her potions and poultices.

How is it that in this circumstance—when I’m shaking like a leaf—I’m trusted to guard their backs and uphold the family name, but when it comes to my potions, they treat me as a laughingstock?

The begrudging thought must’ve shown on her face because Boar hissed, “Focus, Lilac.”

Before she could reply, Rose said, “Ready.” The magic clinging to her fingers resembled the glittering green light of constantly exploding fireworks, though it made no noise.

Lilac removed the little satin purse from her wrist and stuffed it down into her bodice for safekeeping, then summoned her magic. It manifested as glowing green leaves swirling soundlessly around her hands. “Ready,” she echoed.

Boar led them inside.

CHAPTER SIX

“Spirits above,” Allen groused, “how many more doors does this place have?”

Hawthorne Hall was a tactical nightmare. Too many places to hide, too much ground to secure, too many points of ingress (those little walk-out balconies along every window on the second floor were just begging for a grappling hook). Plus, the sage smoke was giving him a headache. It was all he could smell for the last ten minutes.

When he sneezed so violently he knocked his head against the door he was unlocking, Allen growled. It was partly from the pain, partly from frustration. He should not be here. Sure, this was one way to meet the Hawthornes, but he was supposed to be a shadow protector, never seen unless he was needed. He couldn’t protect three witches unless he was at a distance and able to keep his eyes on all of them at the same time. This mission called for a zoomed-out approach so he could see a threat from long off instead of right before it struck.

Growling again, he did something he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do. He opened the door he’d unlocked. This was the Hawthornes’ private property, but his head was aching from the sage smoke. He just needed the window and the fresh air it would grant him for a second. Stuffing the sage into the door handle so it wouldn’t singe the floor, he stepped inside.

Inside, the walls were painted the palest purple-gray, the trim in white. There was a bookcase trimmed in the same white built into the wall opposite the bed, a white door that presumably led to the closet, another to a joint bathroom. The bookcase indeed held a few books, but it seemed to be more of a display case than anything else. Crystals, framed photographs, other trinkets that all looked like they had more in common with a Better Homes and Gardens photo shoot than an actual person’s bedroom. Even the clear vase on the desk beside the window that held long stems of fresh lilacs seemed staged.

Fresh lilacs? It had to be a spell, for those flowers were spent for the year, yet their scent perfumed the room as if they’d been cut just this morning.

With brisk steps, Allen crossed the white carpet and unlatched the window, practically shoving his head outside like a dog does when it’s on a car ride. Three deep breaths of that blissfully cold and crisp winter air cleared his head right up. He took another three, just to be sure, marking the landscape on this side of the Hall with military efficiency: a small pond nestled in the shallow valley made between two swells of sloping lawn, a thick forest beyond stretching for as far as they eye could see. The forest was closer than he would’ve liked, but the sight lines were good.

Headache Termination Mission complete, Allen closed and relatched the window and followed his exact steps back across the carpet, making sure to scuff his feet to rouse the weave back into its proper position. Halfway across the bedroom, he noticed something strange about the bed. One section of the floral comforter was puckered, pinched right were the mattress met the boxspring. With everything else being immaculate and arranged just so, it caught his eye. Like the glimpse of a person’s true personality from behind a façade.

Allen diverted only a step to investigate and found not one, but four books shoved under the mattress. Odd, for there was plenty of room in the display bookcase beside the likes of Dickens and Tolstoy.

The Perfect Rake, by Anne Gracie. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell.

Of the titles he recognized, he realized they had two things in common: romance and women overcoming adversity. He wasn’t familiar with the book by Anne Gracie, but with a title like The Perfect Rake, it wasn’t hard to figure out that it was a bodice-ripper of a smutty Regency romance.

Seems like the village has only seen one side of Lilac, he mused, for the cut flowers on the desk had made it pretty clear whose room this was. With a gentle swipe of his hand, he smoothed down the comforter and erased any evidence of him being there. She’s more than a pretty face if these are the kinds of books she’s reading . . . and hiding.

Allen squirreled that information into his mental dossier and left the bedroom. Just as he stepped into the hallway and reached for the sage stuck in the door handle, he smelled them. Heard their heartbeats.

His wolf snarled. Strangers had been able to sneak up on them because of that thrice-cursed sage smoke.

No, not strangers. Two women, one man.