Season of the Witch (Claws Clause 2)

“She’s my mate.”

Kallista loo

ked down her nose at Colt, her lips pursed. She shook her head. “I didn’t ask you if you want to sleep with my granddaughter, Mr. Wolfe. I asked you if you loved her.”

He wasn’t like Maddox. Talking about his feelings didn’t come easy to him. But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel.

His upper lip curved, one part warning, one part promise. “I want nothing more than to hunt down the bastard who did this to my mate and lay his head at her feet in offering. Can’t be a queen if the king is in pieces. So if that’s what you call love, then yeah.”

Sure, it was bloodthirsty, but it was the fucking truth.

Kallista nodded, her purple eyes sparkling in approval.

“Good. That’s just what I wanted to hear.” She closed her eyes, whispered a phrase in a language that Colt had never heard before, then waved her hands. Colt didn’t know what it was she had done, but it was like the room was part of—yet separated from—the rest of the hospital. “There. The wards are set. Now, are you going to watch over my Shea?”

“They’d have to throw me in the Cage before I’d leave her side.”

“Good answer. The wards will hold even with the door open, but they won’t be as tight. She’ll be powerless when she first wakes up until she starts building up her own shields again. After that, she’ll be fine.”

Kallista gathered up an oversized tote bag, slinging it over her shoulder.

“Where are you going?” asked Colt.

As if a window suddenly opened, a rush of wind blew past them both, sending Kallista’s curls whirling around her head. It was the smallest sample of the power she kept under her own impressive shields. Magic and rage swirled together as Kallista’s eyes turned a deep, burnished purple.

Colt was a predator shifter. An alpha.

Kallista’s smile had his wolf ready to bare his throat to her.

“Why, going to check on my grandson, of course.”

21

Hudson recovered first.

He was unconscious during the ambulance ride, as they rolled him on a gurney, and got him situated in a room. Whether it was due to the damage done to him—the damage that Shea nearly killed herself to heal—or because he had one hell of a sense of self-preservation, he slept straight through Kallista’s visit, too, only waking up once she was gone.

Shea’s grandmother left around sunset the evening after the attack. It hadn’t been her choice. The hospital paged the witch with a message from Luciana. The spell that brought her from Europe to the United States so quickly was burning through diamonds at an alarming rate. She either needed to transport fully or go back. Colt didn’t really understand the magic involved, and he got a headache trying to wrap his mind around it. All he knew was that he had made a good enough impression on the Moonshadow matriarch that she willingly left Shea in Colt’s care.

Wright had put a Grayson PD officer at Hudson’s door so that he could go home for a shower and a shave, then head into the precinct to tell his superiors about this latest development. After Kallista was gone, Colt barely left Shea’s side to take a piss. The longer she slumbered, the more he had to work to convince his wolf that she really was going to wake up again.

The cop guarding Hudson buzzed Wright as soon as Shea’s brother was awake. He was their only lead and Wright was eager to get a jump on finding out something, anything about the Nightwalkers. Whatever intel he could glean from the first survivor of one of their vicious attacks seemed to be worth the four o’clock wake-up call.

Too bad Hudson wouldn’t budge.

No matter how Wright wheedled—or what he threatened him with—he refused to say a word until his sister was conscious again.

Though it frustrated the hell out of Wright, it was pointless to even try to change his mind. Hudson was way more terrified of the Nightwalker that had nearly killed him than he was of one human police officer. Colt probably could’ve gotten him to talk, but they bother agreed that wasn’t a good idea. Facing off against Hudson, Colt might forget he was supposed to be one of the good guys.

Of course, as he fantasized wringing Hudson’s neck, he would quickly remember how Shea nearly killed herself to save her brother. She was loyal to him. She loved him. If Colt let anything happen to Hudson, she’d never forgive him.

After that, there was nothing left to do but wait. So, plopping himself in the hard visitor’s chair, his eyes locked on Shea as she breathed softly while she slept, that was exactly what Colt did.

* * *

Shea hurt everywhere.

It wasn’t an exaggeration. Even her earlobes seemed to ache.