At first Layla thought the loud banging she heard to be part of her dream, but as her eyes opened, the banging continued. She heard a higher pitched sound next, which she thought was the doorbell.

The pounding stopped after another moment, and Layla guessed that someone had gotten the door as she began hearing loud, worried voices, all talking over each other.

Layla leapt up and grabbed a dressing gown, tying it around her waist as she hurried downstairs. Damaris was just behind her, hastily pulling her hair into a bun.

They entered the living room just in time to see Lizeth ushering Rose to the couch. Phoenix and Fisher were there, both with weapons out, their eyes roving everywhere. Cord and Hunter were nowhere to be seen, but Layla guessed he was checking the area for any danger. Something had obviously gone wrong.

“What’s wrong?” Layla asked even as Sophie came hurrying out of the kitchen, and Hunter ran into the room. “What happened?”

For a few minutes, everyone was talking at once, and Layla couldn’t make out much. Finally, Sophie called them to order.

“Quiet, everyone! Phoenix, just tell us what happened so we all know what we’re dealing with.”

“Rose was attacked while taking the trash out,” he said, looking around at the group. “She’s not hurt, but she’s pretty shaken. I chased the attacker off. I may have wounded them, but it was too dark to be sure. I chose not to pursue them in favor of alerting Fisher and securing the area. We’ll be safer with all of you in one place for us to guard, so as soon as we were sure it was safe, we came here.”

Sophie nodded her appreciation and turned her focus to Rose, sitting beside her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I think so,” Rose said shakily. “It all happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to do a spell. If Phoenix hadn’t been there, I’d probably be dead right now.”

Hunter took a step closer to Layla, his hand on his knife.

“Damaris, make Rose some tea, would you? Hunter, are we safe here?”

“Cord is checking the area now just in case, but I don’t think anyone followed them here.”

“No, we weren’t followed,” Phoenix agreed. “Cord should be back soon.”

“I don’t want anyone leaving today,” Hunter said, looking each of the witches in the eye in turn.

“Agreed,” Sophie said. “Rose, did you get a look at them?”

Rose shook her head, frowning. “They came up behind me. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman. One thing I did sense, though, was that they were trying to put an enchanting spell on me.”

Everyone in the room seemed to tense, and Layla looked between her new sisters, hoping for an answer.

Damaris caught her question and responded. “An enchantment is a broad term for spells that affect someone’s mind in a way that makes them, in some way, connected to the caster. There are love spells, which create the illusion of love. Compulsion spells force you to do the caster’s bidding, but those can be fought off. Bliss spells put you into a peaceful state where you see a paradise and not the real world.

“There are a number of them, but all render you unable to attack or even resist whoever cast them. If the spell had been successfully cast, whoever it was could have killed Rose in any way they wanted—with another spell or simply slitting her throat. She would have been unable to resist.”

“Does that mean it’s another witch?” Layla asked.

“Unfortunately, not. We may have been able to tell if the spell was fully cast, but many immortals can cast some form of enchantment. It could be a witch, fairy, sorcerie, or even a well-trained human.”

“Humans can do magic?”

“Not in the same way witches can, but with a lot of training, they can be taught to master certain elements. It’s not a common path, as the price is much higher for them than it is for those of us born to it, but it’s a possibility,” Sophie explained quietly.

Layla looked between Sophie and Damaris. Lizeth was comforting Rose and didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the conversation.

“If whoever it is can cast an enchantment spell, what’s to stop them from doing it to Hunter or one of the other demons?”

“Enchantment spells are powerful, but because of that, they take time,” Sophie answered. “When they start, they cause a sort of haziness that leaves the subject docile, but that can be fought. It’s only when the spell is fully cast that a victim’s truly in its grip. The trick is to recognize you’re being enchanted and react before it can go too far.”

This wasn’t making Layla feel any better. She imagined Hunter being caught by an enchantment spell, unable to defend himself.

He must have read some of the panic in her expression, because he put a hand on her shoulder and spoke calmly. “I see what you’re asking, Layla, but witches have seldom fought amongst themselves or with other immortals. No one is generally stupid enough to go up against witches. This means that they have little experience recognizing an enchantment spell in time to stop it.

“The history of witches and demons, however, is a lot more complicated. Demons are trained from a young age to constantly be alert for spells of any kind, enchantments included. Though we can’t counter most spells, we’ve become experts at attacking before the spell is even finished, thus ending a threat.”

“Most people who want to fight us come at us with physical force,” Fisher added. “It’s their best chance, since we’ve gotten pretty good at learning to deal with unfriendly magic. That’s why we train so hard with our weapons and our bodies. Being one of the most unpopular races of immortals means we have to learn to be tough enough to withstand any attack.”

That made sense, but Layla couldn’t help worrying about Hunter. It was stupid; she should probably be more worried about herself.

Everyone jumped at a knock on the door, but Hunter remained relaxed, apparently recognizing the scent, and opened it.

“Everything’s calm,” Cord said, shutting the door quickly behind him. “If we hurry, we might be able to pick up the trail back at Rose’s place.”

Layla held her breath as she waited to hear who would be going and who would be staying. The demons seemed to have it already worked out; there was no discussion. Phoenix joined Cord, and the two of them said a brief goodbye before heading out.

Hunter and Fisher got to work at once. “You have wards?” Hunter confirmed with Sophie.

“Yes, of course.”

“Now would be a good time to reinforce them.”

Sophie nodded, and Lizeth got up to join her. Meanwhile, Hunter and Fisher made their own rounds, checking every nook and cranny. Damaris sat down on the couch and gave Rose some tea. Some of Rose’s color was coming back, which was a relief.

“What can I do?” Layla asked.

“Stay away from doors and windows, and do not leave my sight,” Hunter told her.

Judging by the strange look Damaris shot him, this was probably a bit too protective to be normal, but hopefully the others would brush it off, what with everything else that was going on. Or maybe they’d chalk it up to Layla not being able to use magic yet.

Layla didn’t want to sit around all day and do nothing, but she also didn’t want to be enchanted and killed, so she resigned herself to a boring day. She felt Hunter’s eyes on her, too, as she watched the others, though she didn’t meet them. With all of them in the house, she’d have to be very careful around Hunter if she didn’t want her coven figuring them out.

Not being sure what to do, though, gave her too much time to continue her worrying from the night before. Being back in Hunter’s presence, she felt more and more guilty about running away last night. She’d felt overwhelmed, and Hunter had seemed to understand, but he couldn’t have felt very good about it—not considering the importance of finding a mate and that he’d allowed himself to be vulnerable in bringing it up so quickly. She should have stayed and talked to him. Wasn’t that what people in relationships did? Talked through their problems? She wasn’t sure if what she had with Hunter could be called a relationship yet, but it was definitely something, and she felt like she was screwing it up.

Finally, she realized she couldn’t keep berating herself and stewing over Hunter all day, or she’d go crazy. After checking with Sophie that it was all right, she got out the spell book and started perusing it again. If she was going to be stuck in here, she might as well do something productive. Despite the looming threat of what would happen to her when she used magic, she was eager to try. The sooner she figured out what her limitations were, the better.

Rose lay down to take a nap, and Layla persuaded Damaris to help her. Sophie had made it clear that, at least for now, it would be a very bad idea for Layla to practice magic without supervision.

“What spell do you want to try?” Damaris asked, joining her on the couch.

Layla reluctantly flicked back to the beginning of the book. All the spells she’d really like to do were way too advanced for her right now. She settled on a simple wind spell. When done correctly, it had enough power to blow a light object off a table from a few feet away. There were more powerful wind spells in the back of the book, but Layla knew she had to start small.

Damaris spent a few minutes coaching her through the incantation, Spiritu autaer, before allowing her to try it.

But no matter how many times Layla said the words, and no matter how hard she concentrated, nothing happened. Hunter came to sit down next to her while she worked. Damaris didn’t seem to think much of the move, but Layla was glad for his presence—even if she was still avoiding his gaze.

“Spiritu autaer.”

The tissue on the table in front of her fluttered.

“Damaris! Did you see that?”

“I did. Well done; you’re making progress. When you get the spell completely right, the tissue should blow right off the table, but that was definitely a good start.”

“What about my limitation?” Layla asked, pausing to take stock of herself. She felt nothing out of the ordinary. “Why aren’t I getting any side effects?”

“Often, when a witch is just starting, the limitation takes some time to present. It gives her time to practice and get control of her power. It’ll make itself known eventually, but until then, you need to be very careful. There’s no knowing what could happen.”

Hunter squeezed Layla’s shoulder, and she gave him a giddy grin. After a moment, though, she broke away. She still didn’t quite know what she thought about this mate thing. As much as she liked Hunter, having it hanging over her when she was with him made her nervous. As she leaned slightly away, she noticed Hunter looking briefly hurt and knew she should at least explain to him why she was acting strangely, but the chances of having a private conversation with him while they were all cooped up in the house together were slim.

“That’s enough for now,” Damaris said firmly as Layla tried to do the spell again.

“No, I can keep going…”

“No. We must be cautious. That’s enough. Maybe you can try again in a few hours. You’ve already made good progress.”

Layla felt fine, and eager for another attempt, but Damaris wasn’t budging. In an attempt to avoid Hunter for a little longer, Layla went up to her room. Sophie had happily lent her a laptop, so she spent about an hour looking up various guides on early stages of relationships.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t exactly a guide for ‘How to cope when the guy I’m interested in thinks I’m his true mate and the only one he’ll ever want’. The closest she came was finding discussions of obsession and infatuation, but that clearly wasn’t exactly the position she’d found herself in. Putting aside the computer, she tried to just sit and sort out her confused thoughts about Hunter, but only seemed to get more tangled up about the whole thing.

In the end, she gave up on thinking about Hunter and settled for writing out the story she’d thought of during the night. Thinking of a good story before she went to sleep was always awful, because she could never quite remember it the next day. She was sure she was missing some great plot points. Fortunately, her mind usually came up with utter rubbish when she tried to make up stories as she was falling sleep, so it wasn’t a common problem, annoying as it might be.

There was a knock on her door, and Layla called “Come in!” without thinking. Hunter’s eyes were on her from the moment he entered, and Layla wondered how he’d gotten away from Sophie without arousing suspicion.

“I thought you might want to finish that drawing.”

Why did his voice have to be so damn sexy?

“Okay,” she stammered, fumbling with her bag until she could pull out her sketchpad.

“Where do you want me?”

Ideally, they would have continued the sketch where they’d started it, but there was no way Layla was going to risk getting caught sketching Hunter in the living room. Better to just change the background—she hadn’t started on any of his surroundings yet, so it wouldn’t be too difficult.

“Lie here,” she said, gesturing to her bed. She pulled up a chair and tried to replicate the distance and angle that she’d had when she’d started the drawing.

Hunter watched her as she worked, and she expected him to speak, to ask her what was going on with her, but gratefully, he kept silent. The quiet between them should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. Layla quickly got pulled into her drawing, and the rest of the world seemed to fade out.

It could have been minutes or hours later when Hunter got up, stretching. Layla was about to reprimand him for not being a better still model, but his words sidetracked her completely.

“Cord and Phoenix are back.”

Layla forced herself to wait a few minutes before following him downstairs. This subterfuge was already getting exhausting.

To her relief, Cord and Phoenix looked totally fine. They seemed to be giving Sophie a report as Layla entered, so she just stood back to listen.

“The trail went west for a ways, then just stopped. We can’t work out how, but at least we know in which direction they were heading. We could use some locator spells to go back and search the area some more.”

“You’ll have them,” Sophie promised. “Do you have any idea yet who it might be?”

“Someone good at hiding their tracks, but that could be anyone,” Phoenix said, pushing his hair back with a sigh. “Honestly, I’d expected it to be easier than this. We’ve done similar jobs before and had no problems—no offense meant, because I know you’ve been working on this for a while, but we’re trained for it. Whoever has a grudge against the witches clearly knows what they’re doing.”

“You’ll catch them, though?” Rose asked anxiously. “I mean, we can’t just stay here forever.”

“We’ll catch them,” Hunter said steadily. “No one is perfect. Everyone messes up at some point. That’s when we’ll get them.”

Though Layla knew he was talking about the crazy murderer on the loose, she couldn’t help but think of their situation. She’d already gotten a number of suspicious looks from Sophie. She didn’t think she was doing too well at hiding her feelings for Hunter, and as he said, nobody could be perfect. At some point, they would mess up, and then Layla would be in trouble.