Bewitched

Bambi

I sat on my bed, absentmindedly playing with the frilly lace curtains hanging from the canopy.

The knowledge of Ekon’s curse had been eating away at me ever since he’d told me a witch took his sight.

~Who is this witch?~

~What is her name?~

~Is she even still alive?~

He hadn’t divulged any more details, but it was a new clue in my investigation anyway.

If I was going to help Ekon and prove that Matthias may still be out there, I’d have to continue to dig deeper into his past and find out everything he wasn’t telling me.

Going behind my mate’s back felt wrong, especially when we were getting closer, but if he wasn’t going to listen, I’d have to provide undeniable evidence to ~make~ him listen.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Hunter passing by my open door with a duffel bag. He stopped in the doorway and inhaled deeply through his nose. He looked at me and gave me a smirk.

“Gonna miss that scent.”

I cringed at his words but then remembered how heroically he’d come to my defense at the Northern Pack.

I shot up from my bed and ran after him. He was already down the hall.

“Hey, wait! I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” I said, catching up to him. “For defending me at the Northern Pack.”

“Don’t mention it. But if you’re really thankful, I can think of a few ways you can show it…” He grinned, leering at me with a lusty look.

I wrinkled my nose. “If you’re going to be like that…”

I turned on my heel to leave, but he grabbed my arm.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend you. Just can’t help myself around a gorgeous woman,” he said, causing me to blush. “In truth, I have something serious to discuss with you.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised.

~What could Hunter Blackwood have to discuss with me?~

“The name that Alpha Rudolph said to you before he died…”

“Matthias,” I muttered, thinking back to the haunting sight of Alpha Rudolph’s burnt flesh.

“Yes, Matthias. I have my doubts that he’s truly passed on from this life. Cockroaches like him don’t die so easily.”

“You really think he could be alive?” I gasped. “Ekon says it’s impossible.”

“I’ve had my suspicions for a while.” Hunter set his bag on the ground and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Be careful with this information, Bambi. No one wants to see another Great War, and denial is a powerful emotion. Most people aren’t ready to accept that Matthias could return.”

“What if I find proof?” I asked.

Hunter looked at me with concern, which I hadn’t thought him capable of.

“Bambi, I won’t tell you what to do. That’s not my place. But please, don’t do anything stupid. There’s darkness in this world. You saw that for yourself at the Northern Pack.”

I had seen it, and that was why I needed to do something about it.

“Where will you go now? Are you returning to your pack?”

“No, I’m going to see your brother. We have much to discuss.”

“You’re going to see Max?” My heart ached at how much I missed my brother and my home.

“If Matthias really is back, we’ll need to convince everyone that we can. I know your brother will listen.”

“Please, can you deliver a message for me? Tell him that I miss him and that…that I’m trying to be strong, just like he said.”

Hunter gave me a genuine smile for the first time, not a leering smirk or an impish grin. “Of course, my dear.”

This was a side of Hunter that I’d never seen. He was almost…~decent~.

“I’m going to give you my phone number. Please, call me if you need anything,” he said, grabbing my phone from my pocket and inputting his info. “And I do mean ~anything~.”

I rolled my eyes as he placed my phone into my hands.

I guess I’d have to settle for half-decent.

“Hunter…tell me something. Are the rumors about you really true?”

He instantly shifted back to his mischievous grin, and his eyes started twinkling. “Ah, you’ve heard about me? I must say the tales of the cunt sniffer are highly exaggerated…”

As he grabbed his bag and headed for the stairs, he turned back to me and winked.

“But there’s always a grain of truth in every rumor.”

As he disappeared down the stairs, my phone started buzzing.

I prayed it wouldn’t be a dick pic from Hunter, but thankfully, it was just the girls.

Ela

🚨🚨🚨

Bambi

Am I supposed to know what that means?

Victoria

EMERGENCY MEETING

Ela

We found something

Ela

When we started looking into witches, well…

Victoria

Just come to the library and we’ll discuss it here.

Bambi

Okay, I think Ekon will be distracted with seeing Hunter off

Bambi

I’ll ask your sister for a ride

Ela

Ew…he’s STILL THERE?

Bambi

Honestly, I don’t think he’s that bad

Victoria

Uh, what?

Ela

🚨🚨🚨

Ela

Those warning lights are for you this time, girl

Victoria

Yeah, I’m with Ela on this one.

Victoria

Once a cunt sniffer, always a cunt sniffer.

Bambi

🙄

Bambi

He just might help our investigation, that’s all

Bambi

I’ll explain when I get there

Bambi

Let’s do this 🔎

***

This investigation had started to feel like something real, like it had a certain weight to it, like I was doing something important.

It had initially started as a means to understand my parents’ deaths in the Great War and, if I was being honest with myself, a way to avoid my new mate.

But now it had become something so much bigger than just me.

The safety of the realm was at stake.

When I first arrived at the library, we had a moment of silence for the Northern Pack.

If our investigation could stop something like that from happening again, then we’d have to do everything in our power to track down Matthias.

And we might’ve just found a new lead…

Ela took a red string and pulled it across a cork board, pinning it next to an article clipping about rogue attacks.

She’d constructed an entire map of rogue attacks from the last several decades, and her commitment to the investigation was quite astonishing—and frankly a bit terrifying.

“Did you even sleep last night?” I asked her warily, eying the dark circles under her eyes.

“Yeah, of course…like two hours.”

Victoria sighed. “I’ll put on another pot of coffee.”

Ela turned to me with a glimmer of mystery in her eyes and placed her hand under her chin, like she was a detective in a black and white film.

“What’s the defining characteristic of a rogue?” she asked me while pacing back and forth.

I wanted her to get to the point and tell me what she’d found, but she had clearly put a lot of work into this, so I’d let her have this moment.

“They usually travel alone. They have no pack,” I responded.

“Exactly,” she said, whipping around. “Prior to the Great War, the rogues were mostly harmless, committing isolated petty crimes and theft. Do you know why this was the case?”

“Is it because—”

“It’s because, inherently, rogues are weak,” she said, cutting me off. “They don’t have the support system of a pack—no shared resources, no stability, no leadership.”

“Ela, get on with it,” Victoria snapped.

“My point is”—Ela shot a dirty look at Victoria—“I’ve noticed a pattern. Rogue attacks before the Great War were unorganized, ineffective, basically amateur hour. But I was able to pinpoint the exact period where things began to change. Attacks became more strategic, ruthless… The rogues were united.”

“When Matthias took over their leadership,” I thought aloud.

“See, that’s what I thought at first too, but it doesn’t track,” she said, eyes alight, clearly eager to tell me what she’d learned. “The first year of Matthias’ reign of the rogues was just as ineffective as before. His rise to power wasn’t of his own doing.”

“Are you saying he wasn’t working alone?” I asked, starting to catch on.

“Exactly.” She smirked. “Matthias and his rogues only rose to infamy after they murdered an entire pack in cold blood, during a royal anniversary celebration. The entire place was burned to the ground, just like the Northern Pack. The pack’s alpha was a cousin of the royal family, but many other important pack alphas or officials were in attendance, including Ekon’s parents.”

I covered my mouth in shock. I knew they’d died in a rogue attack, but I didn’t know the details.

“It was this event that sparked the Great War over the next couple of years,” she continued. “Many questioned where this sudden strength and unity came from. But the rise of Matthias was tied to the rise of somebody else—a witch named Devina. A witch was spotted at many subsequent attacks, following the first massacre.”

“A witch?” I immediately remembered Ekon’s admission of his curse. “Ela, do you think this is the same witch that—”

“Way ahead of you,” Victoria said, jumping in. “We looked up Ekon’s injury report, and sure enough, she’s the one who blinded him during the Great War.”

“So, where the hell is she? What happened to her?” I said, shooting to my feet.

If Devina was still alive, then maybe there was a chance for Ekon to regain his sight.

“That’s just the thing. No one on record has seen her. Not even Ekon. She’s just a huge question mark,” Victoria replied. “But it definitely seems like Matthias’ power was tied to her.”

“We ~have~ to find out more,” I demanded. “She’s the key to this mystery. I can feel it.”

Victoria and Ela gave each other a tentative look, and Ela turned to me.

“There is something we can do, but it’s risky. We need to access the restricted files.”

My heart sank into my stomach. “Ekon will never approve that.”

“True, you need the Alpha to authorize permission…or the Luna,” Ela replied.

Victoria started nervously biting her nails. “Ela, we talked about this. We can’t ask her to do that. It’s too dangerous.”

“I’ll do it.”

They both looked back at me in shock.

“I’ll do ~whatever~ it takes to find that witch.”