Kiara stood at the threshold of her spellroom mentally reviewing her spell creation process. She began by focusing on the nature of the painful partial-shifts.
She also decided to leave the door open in case Warren wanted to watch. She didn’t understand their strange, evolving connection. But she did get how much they needed to work together right now if they were to save the wolves at Ralph’s club.
As she approached her wooden worktable, however, she realized she was scared. Not about heading to the Strip and engaging Julio’s forces or even the presence of a wizard. No, something far more personal had her adrenaline pumping.
She’d planned on leaving Savage this evening as much because of the vulnerability of her heart as for Warren’s sake. He would never want to align himself with a witch, not with the scars he bore.
When she’d awakened, her first thoughts had been all about the sex she’d enjoyed with him. It had been beyond amazing. But on the heels of these recollections, she recalled the ghostly warning she’d received that her presence in Savage was a danger to Warren.
Tears stung her eyes as she gripped the edge of the table for balance. She knew what this was going to cost her to leave him. Each minute she spent with Warren put her heart at even greater risk. The closer they worked together, the more her attachment to him would grow. It was as though fate had created a very witch-like spell to bind her to him whether she liked it or not. If she’d thought there was the smallest hope for the two of them to actually be together, she would be ecstatic.
Instead, she could feel her love for him reaching critical mass, though every instinct she possessed told her it couldn’t last. Warren was a wolf fully devoted to Savage and she wouldn’t do anything that would prevent him from fulfilling his sense of obligation to his people.
Tears splashed onto the worktable. She stared at the darker spots on the natural, unvarnished wood grain and forced herself to take deep breaths. Dammit, she was grieving for a loss she hadn’t even experienced. But she could feel the future as though it was already in front of her, as tangible as the glass jars of herbs, roots, and mushrooms lined up on the shelves in front of her.
But this wouldn’t do. She had to get to the Strip with her potion, as in now.
She forced her thoughts toward Ralph and his wolves. She straightened her shoulders. She wouldn’t turn away from the mission despite her certainty her partnership with Warren was destined to rip her heart to shreds.
She wouldn’t hold back either. It wasn’t her way. She was all in. She would join her powers and abilities with Warren in whatever way was necessary. Together, they would rescue and heal Ralph’s wolves and hopefully keep Savage out of the hands of a wizard who had no business being in wolf territory in the first place.
Maybe because she’d worked so swiftly through the difficulty in front of her, as she opened herself up to creating the spell, she felt as though a fire went through her. Her witchness came alive in an intense, surprising way.
She recalled the painful howling she’d heard. She knew it wasn’t just her normal empathy. Instead, what she felt was an emerging wolfness because of her proximity to Warren. She could now feel just how painful the partial-shift was for the wolves.
She used the sensations to build the spell within her mind. Her nostrils flared as she mentally explored the different herbs, minerals, and other organic materials she kept in the glass containers in front of her.
Every witch had a different method for spellcasting. She used a base in each spell of dried freesia flowers. She had a connection to freesias and all her spells made use of it in varying quantities.
Drawing her mortar forward, she pulled several jars from the shelves. She held the spell in her mind and committed it to memory. Later, she would write the recipe down, using spelled black ink and paper she’d made herself. The ritual of putting words to paper was a final part of the process, but not something she could do right now. That would be for later, in a meditative, respectful state.
“How do you know what to do?” Warren’s voice flowed toward her spellroom entrance.
She glanced over her shoulder. She wasn’t sure she would ever quite get used to the sheer size of him. For one thing, his shoulders spanned the doorway.
His hair was damp and combed back from his face revealing the strong lines of his cheekbones. He’d showered quickly and wore the clothes Fergus-via-Mary had provided. His left eye, which had been closed-up for so long, seemed even more open than it had been.
She reacted as she always did with a need that gripped her stomach hard and made her legs ache. She was in so much trouble with him.
She took a moment to collect herself then turned back to the spell. She addressed his question. “I focus on whatever situation I want to affect then the spell comes to me.”
“Your scent seems stronger, the freesias I mean.”
“It’s my signature. I’ve used it as a base in my spells almost from the beginning. You can come closer if you like, watch my process.”
He drew up next to her and his storm-wolf scent hit her sensitive witch palette, then the pleasure centers of her brain. Her knees buckled a little more. She used levitation to keep from falling over.
Trouble was right.
Using her pestle, she ground the ingredients into a powder. “I need to warn you about something.”
“What’s that?”
She felt his tension and how much he was torn internally. She could feel his distrust of spellcasting. If that wasn’t bad enough, he really wasn’t going to like what she had to say next. “I use emerald flame in my spells. Maeve taught me the advantage of it. I’ve resisted it all these years, but the drug enhances the spell exponentially.”
She felt the waves of his sudden anger ripple over her. “You can’t mean what you’re saying? You use emerald flame in your spells?”
“I knew it would be difficult for you to accept. But I’ve experimented with it at length during the past two months, since Maeve and Braden rescued me. But I promise you, it will speed the curative power of the potion I’ll be giving to the wolves.”