Chapter 3

 

“It’s her,” Courtney said, leaping for her cell phone as if it lay across the room instead of right in front of her on the table.

Maeve stared down at her hands, careful to not move her aching head too fast, and ran her fingertip over the skin once again. No marks remained. Not even where the glass sliced open the meaty base of her thumb in an inch-long, crescent-shaped gash.

“Hello?” Courtney answered.

Maeve listened, but couldn’t make out what Barbara said on the other end. She might have had a shot if she hadn’t continued drinking when she made it home.

Something she totally blamed on Courtney, since she had refused to leave Maeve alone after what had happened.

She’d also pulled out more liquor the minute they made it through the door, not that Maeve had put up much of a fight.

She glanced toward the counter by the sink, to the empty liquor bottles there.

Or any fight, for that matter. She held her head in her hands to keep it from rolling right off her shoulders.

Not even the sun pouring through the window of the kitchen nook and the scent of fresh- sliced lemon for her ice water could break through the fog of misery.

“Yes, we’re open. You need to come by and check it out. My business partner, Maeve, designed the interior space, and it’s just stunning,” Courtney said, winking at her.

Maeve’s heart pinched. At least Courtney stayed right by her side in all of this. Without her, Maeve would be totally alone and still navigating the hangover from hell with no direction whatsoever.

So much for being the organized one.

Maeve wished her parents were still here so she could go to them with this. They’d have to know what was going on. But a semi sliding across the median on icy roads took away that option, leaving Maeve alone and wondering what the hell to do.

Her grandmother had Alzheimer’s and her aunt, uncle, and cousins were selfish pricks just waiting for her grandmother to die so they could take what was left of her money. They’d swooped in and made it increasingly difficult for Maeve to visit, leading her to believe they were trying to keep her out of the will.

Not that she needed the money now. Truth be told, she’d rather be able to say she had done it without the help of family even if it did mean two precarious years. This way it meant more. She knew she had what it took to make her dreams happen.

At least when she was sober. Right now, she was fairly sure that the scope of her abilities was making chocolate milk and changing the toilet paper roll.

Courtney wiggled in her seat as if bolstering her courage. “If you don’t mind, Maeve is here with me and we have a few questions we’re hoping you can answer. Do you mind if I put you on speaker phone?”

Courtney lay the phone on the table after raising the volume and clicked the speaker phone button. “We’re back. It’s awkward, but Barbara, meet my good friend and business partner, Maeve. Maeve, this is Barbara Wolfe.”

“Hi, Barbara. It’s nice to meet you,” Maeve said, infusing a false confidence into her voice even as her hands shook before her. Whether it was the hangover, or trepidation over the direction in which they were about to take the conversation, was anyone’s guess.

“Lovely to meet you, too, dear. What can I help you ladies with?”

Barbara’s smooth, confident voice, with the air of authority, eased Maeve’s worried mind a fraction. Last night, with copious amounts of alcohol in her system, she could laugh off what had happened. And with more drinks at home she put it out of her mind altogether, until the harsh light of day.

She hadn’t dreamed, for the first time in what felt like forever. Not that she had gotten good sleep. She had woken up feeling as though someone had stuffed her head with cotton and pried her eyelids open while running her through a carwash dryer.

Happy twenty-fifth…you lush!

Bourbon, you traitorous bitch. Never again.

“Well, something strange happened while we were out last night and—” Maeve began.

“A few strange things, actually,” Courtney added.

Maeve narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “Okay, a few strange things. Anyway, I’ve always had these visions, but last night it was so much more. Like whatever I was seeing, in whatever time, was trying to suck me back there.” Maeve winced, and rubbed her forehead. “Look, this sounds ridiculous just saying it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, dear. Although I’m not quite sure why you thought I could help you with visions,” Barbara said.

Maeve twirled the ends of her hair that fell over her shoulder. “It’s not so much the vision. It’s the tree I saw in the vision. Courtney can text you the sketch of it if you can hold on for just a sec. It’s unique, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Courtney said she heard Ellie talking about it when they were kids.”

The line went silent for a full ten seconds before Barbara cleared her throat. “I have a feeling I know what tree you’re talking about, but just for accuracy I’d like you to send that drawing.”

Courtney tapped a few keys and sent the photo of the sketch she had taken earlier in the day.

Maeve wrung her hands as the silence on the other end of the line filled the room. As the tension grew, the urge to run consumed her. Her muscles heated, much the way they did when she warmed up for field hockey in high school by running laps.

Only, she hadn’t moved more than a few inches in the past ten minutes.

She craned her neck and stretched it from side to side, desperate to resist the unexplainable urge to leap from her chair and bolt out the door.

“It’s the tree at Silver Meadow. You’ve never seen this before in person?” Barbara asked.

“No. I’ve had visions all my life of this place where the ground is covered in moss and the sun shoots through the trees, lighting the ground like tiny diamonds, but it’s nothing I’ve ever seen for real.”

Barbara cleared her throat. “That might be where you’re wrong, dear. You might have seen this very meadow a long time ago. Twenty-five years ago to this very day.”

“That’s impossible. I was born twenty-five years ago today.”

“Were you adopted?” Barbara asked in a delicate, hushed tone.

The hair on the back of Maeve’s neck stood up. “What? No. Of course not.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” Barbara pressed.

“Well, as sure as I can be. I mean, my parents never gave me any indication I was adopted.”

“Can you ask them?”

“No. I can’t,” she mumbled.

“I wouldn’t ask you to broach the subject with them if it wasn’t important.”

Maeve swallowed the lump in her throat and rubbed at her watering eyes.

“Maeve can’t ask them because they died last year,” Courtney said quietly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t of the utmost importance. Please know that. Is there anyone else you can ask?”

Maeve hugged herself, wishing she could go back to yesterday when her life didn’t seem so foreign to her and her biggest worries were stock deliveries and their bank balance. “Not really. Not that I would trust with all of this. Why is it so important?”

“Because, if you are who you I think you are, it means the legends are real. Until now, we couldn’t be sure.”

Courtney sat up and leaned toward the phone. “Could this be why all of a sudden last night, when she fell on broken glass and was cut up, she healed in a matter of minutes?”

“So, you’re a shifter,” Barbara said.

Maeve choked back a hysterical laugh. “A what? Like a wolf shifter? No. Of course not.”

“You’re twenty-five today, which puts you at the right age. You’re having memories—”

“Visions,” Maeve interrupted.

“Fine. You’re having visions. And you’re speed-healing. What is your instinct right now? This is a high-stress moment for you. Any urges?”

“What kind of urges?” Maeve asked, glaring at the phone as if it were a snake about to strike.

“Why, that’s simple, dear. To run.” The words rolled through the electrified air.

Maeve shot to her feet, her chair scraping behind her before smacking into the wall with a hard thud.

“How do you know that?” Maeve demanded.

“Wait. Hold up. What are you saying, Barbara?”

“Brigid O’Rourke died in that meadow, at the base of that very tree, on this day twenty-five years ago after giving birth to The Tetrad. I suspect Maeve is the oldest daughter. The oldest of the four remaining members of the Moonstone Guardians Pack.”

Courtney furrowed her brow. “So, if that’s true, what would that mean for her?”

“According to the legend, Brigid knew she would die, so she cast a spell—”

“Wait, I thought you said she was a shifter. Witches cast spells,” Maeve interrupted.

“Yes, but in this case she’d enlisted some help from a local healer. She cast a protection spell for her daughters to last exactly twenty-five years. On that day, the oldest would wake up to her identity and seek her mate. Once she’s mated she finds the next sister, to spark her awakening,” Barbara explained with great patience.

“What was this spell supposed to protect The Tetrad from?”

“From the warlock, Belen, who sought to control them. He’s evil through and through. The Moonstone Guardians are an ancient and rare pack. They only mate with warlocks who bear the moonstone.”

“Okay, this is starting to sound like something out of a children’s book,” Maeve interjected.

“You’re right. This is the legend, so there can be inaccuracies; it’s going to be up to you to find out what’s real and what’s just fable, I’m afraid.”

“And if I don’t want to?” Maeve asked.

“Well, then, I imagine your destiny will catch up with you soon enough. You’d be better off finding it before it finds you, dear.”

“Where’s the damn tree?” Maeve said in a low growl.

“I thought you’d never ask…” Barbara said in a sing-song tone, as if she knew Maeve would come around.

Barbara gave them directions that Courtney jotted down while Maeve paced the kitchen.

“Call me if you need anything else. I’d be interested to find out how it all turns out.”

Maeve scrambled for the table and slapped her palms down on the wood. “Wait! The shifter thing. How would I go about doing that? I mean, shifting?”

“Follow your instincts. If you feel the need to run…run. It’ll happen.”

The line went dead. Maeve’s gaze shot to Courtney. “This is insane.”

“This is about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, you’re a freaking wolf. I can’t wait to see what you look like with fur,” Courtney said, bouncing in her seat, the ends of her bob dancing about her chin.

Maeve crossed her arms. “She could be wrong, you know.”

“Can you think of any other explanation for speed-healing and your newfound urge to head for the hills?” Courtney said, a knowing tilt to her head.

Maeve just stared at her, her mouth opening and closing, no sound coming out.

“There’s one way to find out just how right she is. We can head for Silver Meadow. It’s probably only a forty-five-minute drive from here,” Courtney pointed out, holding her cell phone up with her navigation map open.

“I feel like shit,” Maeve argued.

Courtney shrugged while she punched in the exact address. “You can feel like shit in the car. I’ll drive.”

“But—”

Courtney dropped her phone to the table and pinned Maeve with a hard look. “What are you so afraid of?”

“That it’s true,” Maeve murmured. “I just got my shit together. Literally, two days ago. It’s my one day off a week, now that I can actually start taking days off that is, and I’m heading to a meadow to find out if I’m a wolf, who was raised by adoptive parents, and who needs to mate with a warlock, find her sisters, and hook them up with more warlocks. I think that’s plenty to be afraid of.”

Courtney stood and took Maeve’s arms in her hands. “I’m going to be by your side the whole way.”

Maeve dropped her forehead to Courtney’s shoulder. “You’d better or you’re the first person I bite when my fangs come in.”

“Ouch. For someone so doubtful, you seem to be making an awful lot of wolfey plans.”

“Maybe a few. Just put a stop to it if I start suggesting a line of dog collars and sweaters for the shop. This isn’t PetSmart. Now, how does one go about finding a warlock?”

“Who knows? Maybe he comes with the property,” Courtney joked. “Now, let’s go see about this piece of land.”

***

Just over an hour later, Courtney pulled her Subaru onto Spear Hill and followed the dirt road up.

“We have a half-mile. Feel anything yet?” Courtney asked.

“Nauseated.”

“Funny. Aren’t you just my little ray of sunshine today? You know, I think I’m going to start calling you Rufus. I think it fits a whole lot better than that matronly ‘Maeve’.”

“You’re getting entirely too much mileage from this,” Maeve muttered. Her stomach felt like she had swallowed one of those Jiffy pop pans, and at the pit of her stomach was a bonfire from hell setting the kernels to popping.

“Nah, I’m just trying to keep your mind off everything.” She leaned over and smiled. “And I’m trying to help. I’ve got a mind for details and I have a feeling, based on what Barbara said, that there’re going to be a lot of them to sift through and remember in the near future. Between that and your impending transformation into a shaggy allergen, your head might explode of you have to keep track of it solo.”

Courtney pulled to a stop along the side of the road, facing a short drive that spread to Silver Meadow.

“This is it!” Courtney said, jumping out of the car and crossing the drive, where she skidded to a stop.

A wave of trepidation threatened to keep Maeve’s feet planted to the floor mats before she thrust open her door and forced herself to catch up with Courtney, all the while wondering if, when she left this place, she’d be the same person as she was right now.

Stepping up next to Courtney, she took a deep breath and clasped Courtney’s hand next to her. In the next moment her gaze landed on the tree she had sketched on the napkin and her heart lurched in her chest, slamming against her ribs.

“Leaves no room for doubt, does it?” Courtney whispered.

“Yeah, no doubt. Yet all the doubts,” Maeve whispered back.

“Do you feel anything?”

“Other than the need to vomit? Nope,” Maeve said.

“Maybe if we check out the tree up close…”

“Yeah, you first.”

“We’re acting like grade school kids in a haunted house. Come on,” Courtney said, pulling Maeve along with her.

A warm breeze kicked up the minute her sandals hit the moss. Maeve dropped to the ground on her hands and knees, pressed her nose to the earth, and inhaled the clean, rich scent of damp earth, greenery, and something else. Something she had never smelled before.

It was clean air, mountain-fresh air, the salty tang of the coast, and citrus all wrapped up in one, almost as if the four corners of the U.S. had been pulled to the center and swirled together.

And it changed her.

Her skin grew sensitized, each fine hair on her arm dancing, sending tingles shooting over her skin. She’d swear her breasts grew plumper, like the blood flowed in a rush to her most sensitive spots.

She felt like she had ripened in a way one would expect a goddess of fertility and motherhood to ripen with pregnancy.

She pulled off her sandals and held her skirt up high enough to watch her toes sink into the cool dirt.

Telling herself there was nothing to worry about, that it was just the magic of the spot and the effect would be gone the minute she was back in the car, she glanced up to Courtney and smiled.

“I take it you like it here,” Courtney said with a smirk.

“I do. I can’t explain it. It’s just…untouched. Pure.”

“Until you started rubbing your foot stank all over it,” Courtney said with a laugh.

“Funny,” Maeve muttered.

Courtney linked her arm in Maeve’s and they headed for the tree.

“Do you feel a little bit like you went back in time?” Courtney asked.

“Yup.”

“Okay, so not just me,” Courtney said before sliding to a stop about twenty feet from where the roots of the tree rose out of the ground. She lifted her sunglasses and her mouth fell open.

Maeve followed the direction of her gaze and her breath whooshed out of her lungs.

He stood along the tree’s edge, his cropped, golden-brown hair shimmering in the sun as he hit the ground over and over with a pick-ax. Sweat shimmered on his bare back as the muscles bunched and flexed with his frustrated swings. Faded blue jeans hugged his muscular backside and thick thighs. And for the first time in Maeve’s life, she found it impossible to resist gawking at all well-over-six-feet-tall of absolute male perfection.

Courtney sighed. “You know, I was only kidding about your warlock coming with the property.”