Page 6 of A Wolf for Winter

James rolled his eyes.

“Anything I should know before I meet the Hawthornes?” Allen asked Zofia, again in that calm, casual tone. He’d spent the week ingratiating himself with the villagers and ferreting out information about the Hawthornes, but Zofia Hollyoak was someone who dealt with them face-to-face and on their turf.

“Keep your head down, do your business, and scoot,” was her reply. “They’ve ruled over this valley for longer than I’ve been alive, and you only accomplish that kind of reign one way. Tenacity.”

“Rule?” he prompted.

“Govern,” Kalina said.

Zofia tapped her fork loudly on the rim of her plate. “I said what I meant, Kalina. But they are benevolent rulers, boy. So long as you toe the line. And aren’t a shifter.” She released a caw-like cackle laugh at that last.

Kalina and James didn’t even glance at him; she sipped on her tea and he wiped up the sauce from his plate with a chunk of brown bread. They knew what trouble they could get into as Coalition allies, as hosts for a shifter, and he admired them all the more that they were willing to risk their reputations here to help him. And by extension, the Hawthornes.

“I’ve heard that the coven is not hosting the Gala this year, but other witches are, in their stead,” Allen pressed. “With the change in management, do you expect this year to be on par with the previous ones?” That had certainly been the main topic of speculation amongst the villagers for the last week.

The caretaker snorted. “Of course it will, if those youngsters want to prove themselves to their matriarch. Though, you can expect Boar to overcompensate and micromanage, Rose to shirk every duty assigned to her, and Lilac . . ..”

Allen tried not to lean forward in his seat, but the photograph in his back pocket suddenly seemed as hot as a branding iron.

“Hard to truly know what’s behind that smile,” Zofia mused. “You’ll hear conflicting stories about her. Some say she’s haughty, an ice queen. Others that she’s as conceited as she is beautiful, that she’d rather look pretty than do anything useful. Does a number on the menfolk every year, to be sure. Heard her aunt call her ‘the Destroyer of Manly Hearts, Souls, and Loins’ one time. Though, in the village, we just call her the heartbreaker.”

“Though never to her face,” Kalina added quickly.

Heartbreaker? His wolf bristled at the accusation. Someone as beautiful as her photograph portrayed her could certainly be that, but, to him, her eyes told a different story.

Remember what you learned about assumptions, a little voice warned him. You assumed one time—one time—and it cost you everything. You’re here to protect her life, not her reputation.

His wolf still snarled at that, but Allen forced himself to reserve judgment for when he actually met her. Still, it was prudent to gather all the intel he could, even if it was prejudiced.

“So you don’t think anyone will try to take advantage with three untested witches at the helm and the matriarch gone?” This was the true meat of this conversation, the real info he needed. Even the Coalition hadn’t known the identity of the threat, or if there even was one to be had. He was here to babysit and make sure one didn’t arise in retaliation for whatever the coven was doing in small-town Redbud, Indiana.

“Is that what you’re doing here?” Zofia’s eyes glittered like a dragon’s who’d just discovered a thief lurking about in her treasure horde. “Hiring on with my friends just in time for the Gala to ‘take advantage?’ Thinking to find anonymity among the influx of visitors flocking in for the festivities?”

Allen’s eyes slid to her hand as it slowly curled around her dinner knife. It was so smooth and subtle a motion that Kalina and James didn’t even notice. Not even when the opal on her finger twinkled and cast a scattering of rainbows across the tablecloth. But he did, and Zofia saw him do it. Just who was this woman?

“Well, boy?” she hissed.

CHAPTER FOUR

Allen remained calm even though the tiny woman across the table was poised to jam her knife into whatever part of him she could reach first if she didn’t like his answer. His shifter reflexes and reaction time would mitigate any severe damage, but he really hoped it wouldn’t come to that. It risked not only blowing his cover, but jeopardizing the Roots as well.

From his cushion on the windowsill, Hobbles lifted his head, his fur beginning to bristle.

Careful now. With a nonchalant expression, as if he had no idea of the danger he was in, Allen lifted another forkful of bacon and pierogi to his mouth. “Me? I’m just here for the food. Literally.”

The reference to Kalina’s delicious cooking and his employment at Homegrown Roots Grocers made his hosts chuckle. Zofia wasn’t convinced, not yet. She worked with the Hawthornes, albeit only once a year, but she maintained their property in town and had clearly seen several generations of witches grow up.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” he assured her. “Far from it, actually. But, with all the rumors flying around town like those snowflakes out there, I’d rather be prepared than ignorant. They’re not the only others here, and collateral damage is a possibility.” It was the truth, one-hundred-percent.

At the mention of others, that catch-all term for supernatural creatures and Fair Folk diaspora, Zofia smacked her lips. No doubt she was thinking of Prue Stonewell, Annesley Valley’s most prominent hedge witch. Hedge witches were solitary by definition, practicing their magic individually instead of collectively with a coven. Prue Stonewell, however, ran a chapter of hedge witches here, a kind of mastermind group where witches and practitioners could troubleshoot spells and generally learn from each other. They were one step away from declaring themselves a true coven, and there was no way Annesley Valley could support two covens. Nor would the Hawthorne matriarch ever allow it.

But she wasn’t here to defend her land, was she?

“The only trouble you’ll find here is the kind you go looking for, boy,” was Zofia’s reply, but her suspicions—at least about him—seemed forgotten as she released her hold on the dinner knife.

Allen knew it for sure when she pulled a tin from her velvet handbag and pried it open, liberating the trapped aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, and brown sugar. Zofia Hollyoak didn’t share her treats with just anyone, after all, and certainly not those who had offended her. Or were here to endanger her friends.

“Skala,” she said, offering the tin to him. As she did so, Hobbles went back to sleep. “It means ‘stone’ or ‘rock,’” she explained.