4
Ryder
I couldn’t catchany scent on the air. I’d been hoping that tearing down the damned bone chime would break the ward over the witch’s house, but I’d been wrong. The witch had been thorough in protecting her home.
“She’s got to be here somewhere,” I growled.
Ness made a small sound in her throat and backed away from me. I gave her a questioning glance, but I couldn’t figure out the reason for her sudden wariness.
“The witch can’t hurt us,” I assured her.
That wasn’t true. I’d watched the witch turn her wards against Ness before. The spells over this house were vicious and out for blood. Ness was right to be concerned, but that wasn’t going to stop me.
Whatever Alvin had done to my mate was this witch’s fault. The witch had given Alvin the tools to do this. I would make both of them pay.
Mate.
The idea still struck me. It stole my breath and left my heart racing. When I leapt over the porch railing to prowl around the back of the house, my beast warned me to go back to Ness. The dragon didn’t like letting her out of my sight. While I’d learned that taking my eyes off her could be dangerous, I knew that I had to trust her to call out to me if she needed help.
If I let my beast have its way, nothing would ever get done. I had a mission to focus on. A monster needed to be stopped, or else we would never know peace. I couldn’t let her live in danger and fear for the rest of her life.
What kind of mate would I be if I allowed that to happen?
Nothing had gone as planned since arriving in Syracuse. Lakesedge wasn’t where I expected my journey to end. I’d come here to find the Black Hound who could help me escape my brother’s wrath. A witch in Nevada had promised me that the Black Hound would have the answers to my problems, but I never expected that hound to be my mate.
Now we were trying to meet with another witch. This one wasn’t so helpful. She would give us what we wanted, but it would come at a price. I had a feeling that we wouldn’t be paying in cash today. This witch would want something else, and I was tired of bowing to others.
My beast growled, remembering how the witch had hurt Ness the last time we’d visited. I promised to do my best to protect my mate this time, but the witch made me wary. I didn’t trust her not to give us over to Alvin.
He’d clearly been paying her pretty damn well. My beast was already on high alert as I prowled around the side of the house.
There was no scent here, not even the mossy smell of the earth between the pavers below. When I lifted my gaze, I glimpsed another sigil twisting in the air like an ornament.
I leapt up the steps leading to the witch’s backdoor. More bone chimes made soft clacking noises nearby. Though it drew a tired sigh from me, I didn’t yank this one down. Instead, I grabbed the doorknob and gave it a sharp twist.
The mechanism broke in my hands. The door swung open at my touch. I caught the smell of dust first. It had settled on everything, making me think Ness was right. The witch was on the run.
“Do you believe me now?” Ness asked behind me.
She had her arms wrapped around her middle. More than an arm’s length of distance sat between us. I wanted to push deeper into the house to find the witch, but Ness’s destitute expression drew me into her. I backtracked and pulled her into my arms.
“It’s all right,” I whispered. “We’ll find her.”
Ness shook her head and stepped out of my arms. She retreated out the back door before I could think of anything to say to stop her. I watched her distance herself from me and wondered what I’d done wrong.
Though I had so much on my plate right now, all I wanted was to see her smile again. Ness bore the weight of Alvin’s wrongdoings on her shoulders. If I could have taken that from her, I would have. Instead, she was alone with those horrors.
I’d been the one to bear that weight back home. As my father’s mental health deteriorated and paranoia destroyed the man that I’d loved, I’d done my best to hide it from the others. That meant being the one to challenge him when he thought insurrection was near. I was the one who stood in the way of his anger, the one who bore the brunt of his violence.
I understood how Ness felt, to some degree. However, I would never understand how it felt to be trapped by the witch’s magic. That was why I wanted to find this witch and have her undo the binding that trapped Ness in Alvin’s grasp. That way, my mate could be free again—or, as free as she could be until Alvin was gone once and for all.
“What if we focus on finding Alvin?” I suggested as I followed Ness out.
Ness made a small sound that I couldn’t understand. She pulled her shoulders up to her ears and looked out at our surroundings. Her eyes flitted across windows, as if searching for witnesses.
I gently touched her elbow. “We can leave now. The witch isn’t here.”
Was she still caught up on my friendship with Bri? Ness had asked me why Bri and I were fighting, which I didn’t understand. I didn’t think that Bri had any quarrel with me. At least, my friend hadn’t mentioned any. Then why did Ness think that the two of us were upset with each other?