Eventually the flash of lights broke the deepening darkness of the night. Dust was settling around the nearest one, suggesting it hadn’t been here long.
Aiden parked near the two ranger vehicles and then climbed out. I did the same and followed him across. Ciara was just grabbing her gear out of the back.
“Bryon down at the site?” Aiden asked.
“Yeah, keeping it secure,” she said. “There’s a few foxes about in this area.”
Aiden grunted and continued on. I fell in step beside Ciara. “I wouldn’t have thought foxes dumb enough to enter a werewolf reservation.”
“They generally do keep out of pack compounds, but the reservation as a whole is fairly large, and there’s certainly plenty of them in the areas that ring the reservation’s boundaries.”
“Has Byron said anything about the kill?”
“Just that they’ve grabbed the pelt.” Her gaze came to mine. “Are you going to be okay with this kill?”
I nodded. “I know what to expect this time.”
“Good.”
We continued on in silence. Up ahead, light glowed, throwing the man who stood within its circle into shadow.
The wolf’s skinless form lay in the middle of that bright circle. A silver dart was embedded in his shoulder, the metal gleaming in the harsh light. I swallowed heavily, keeping my eyes on his front leg rather than the rest of him. The bracelet stood out starkly against the bloody muscles of his leg. Very obviously, it had been deliberately left behind. Maybe they simply figured that now that we had one of them, there was little point in them retrieving any.
It also meant they were totally sure we couldn’t identify them through either the witch or the security cameras. And that, in turn, meant the man who’d so confidently stared into the camera had to have been wearing some form of disguise, whether it was magic or not.
I took a deep breath and forced myself closer. This wolf looked smaller than the other two and, when I got around to the leg side, I saw why—it was female rather than male. Which, for some weird reason, just made me angrier.
I took another deep breath and then squatted next to her body and studied the charm bracelet. The twin spells woven through the entwined threads were strong, but certainly nothing I couldn’t undo. And though I doubted the witch had, in any way, layered in any sort of trap, caution nevertheless stirred through me. I wasn’t about to do a Chester and arrogantly assume everything was as it seemed.
The Ballan witch had received some training, because the patterns here were textbook spells and obvious even to me. There were three spells in all, one thicker than the other two. That was the control vein—and it meant one of the hunters had to be wearing the command bracelet. Given the spell on such a bracelet had to be powerful enough to compel, Ashworth should be able to sense its presence if the hunters ever came near him. Hell, even Belle and I should feel it.
I reached out and, without actually touching the woven leather itself, carefully untwined the first thread from its brethren. Once I’d deactivated it, I repeated the process with the other two. As the magic died, I pushed to my feet and said, “It’s safe.”
“Thanks.” He tossed me his keys. “Do you want to head back home? I’ll get Ciara to drop me off when we finish here.”
I hesitated, and then nodded. “I’ll park your truck around the back of the café. If we head to bed, I’ll drop the keys in the power box at the back.”
His smile was almost wistful. “It’s sure not the way I’d hoped to be spending the evening.”
“Definitely not.” I nodded at Bryon and Ciara and got out of there. Reversing his truck was a five-point maneuver as the road was narrow and lined with trees, and I didn’t want to hit either them or the two SUVs.
“Why are you home?” Belle said, the minute I walked in the back door. “What’s happened?”
“Our hunters happened.” I dumped Aiden’s and my clothes in the washing machine, filled it with powder, and turned it on. I couldn’t let them sit in the basket because they’d stink the entire café out in a matter of hours. “Aiden’s at the scene now.”
“That man’s work ethic is commendable, but there are other rangers in this place. He should try leaving them to it more often. You want a coffee?”
I nodded and followed her behind the counter to make myself a couple of ham and cheese toasted sandwiches. It certainly wasn’t steak, eggs, and chips, but it was better than nothing—and all I could be bothered cooking at this hour.
“We did at least find the witch,” I commented. “She’s currently
in RWA hands, being interrogated.”
“Did you get much out of her beforehand?”
“Only that she charged a thousand a bracelet, and that she made ten of them.”
“Which proves she’s not part of an underground gray magic ring, because she would have known that the going rate for death—which is what those bracelets actually provide—is a whole lot higher.”