Chapter 4

Orion threw the pick-ax to the ground, picked up his cold beer from the boulder, and tipped it back for some sweet relief.

He closed his eyes, appreciating the cool bubbles sliding down his throat as hot sweat ran over his temples.

It had been pointless to try to breach the ground, but it was a hell of a great workout smacking at it mercilessly, and right now he needed to burn off some nervous energy.

He’d gone so far as to dig out the boxes of materials he’d acquired from his family over the years. Books, journals, notes, all used by the men in his family from generation to generation. Once they studied them, learned the ways, and began exploring new spells and doing new research, the books were handed down to the eldest son to continue the tradition.

Orion, after years of avoiding the ways of his family, planned to dive headfirst into the abyss.

The thought made him itchy.

He considered asking his father about the ground, but wondered if the old man would even know. He’d never said a word about Orion’s buying land and breaking ground to build a house, but then Orion hadn’t told his father exactly what ground he had purchased other than on Spear Hill.

He’d sift through it all tonight, after he burned off the tension and worked toward getting his buzz on. If he didn’t find anything, he’d tell his father what land he’d purchased specifically and see if he could gauge his father’s reaction.

He bent down to pick up the ax again, when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

Two women, women who couldn’t look much more different from one another, linked arm in arm, crossed his property, heading toward the tree. The first one, with sleek black hair that teased her chin, appeared to be almost six-feet-tall. Tight jeans hugged her long legs, and she exuded attitude with every step. While striking and sexy as hell, it was her companion who had his mouth running dry for the first time in his life.

The spring in her barefooted step had her practically prancing across his property, her sandals dangling from her fingertips. At almost a foot shorter than her friend, she held her long, flowing white skirt up off the moist ground as she made her way. Long red locks that would make even Ariel from The Little Mermaid jealous cascaded over her bare, sun-kissed shoulders. The breeze caught wisps of the flowing flames and flitted them against her pale cheek.

Her eyes glowed green in the bath of sunlight on her delicate, heart-shaped face. Her creamy skin, her pint-size, and the way she practically floated on air gave her a youthful exuberance that held him enthralled.

Had he ever been so carefree a day in his life?

And even with that playful part of her out there for the entire world to see, it was the set of her shoulders, pulled back, held high, her spine straight, which told the whole story.

For the first time in his life, he bore witness to the single most feminine woman he’d ever seen, with a foundation of solid steel.

He pulled his T-shirt over his head and wiped his brow with the towel next to him before heading over to meet them.

At the base of the tree, where the biggest root disappeared into the ground, they stopped and he joined them.

“Can I help you ladies with something?” he asked.

The brunette eyed him with keen interest. He’d seen that look before. She was trouble, and he wasn’t interested in complications.

“My friend and I—well, we had heard about this tree and wanted to come see it in person. I’m Courtney. This…” She gestured to her friend, who dropped to her knees before them and flattened her palms against the moss. “Um, this is Maeve. Maeve! Get up,” Courtney said, tugging on Maeve’s arm.

Only, Maeve lowered herself even more and pressed her face to the moss, a tear sliding down her cheek.

Orion crouched down and tried to get her to meet his eyes, but she stared off past him, gazing into the distance, as if whatever she saw in her view lay in another time, another place.

“Does she normally do this?” he asked, glancing up at Courtney.

Courtney knelt next to Maeve and smoothed a hand over her hair. “Um, well, she’s kind of been dreaming about this tree. Having visions. I imagine this is another one.”

“What is she?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Courtney said, not meeting his eyes.

He gave her a sharp look. “Don’t play with me. She’s not human. What is she?”

Courtney sighed. “She’s wolf. We think. Well, we’re pretty sure.” She rubbed her forehead and squinted. “Look, we don’t exactly know. This is all very new. She had a vision last night, cut herself, speed-healed, but she hasn’t shifted. Not yet anyway.”

Maeve sucked in a breath and her lungs froze. Reaching for her, her cool skin damp with tears, he cupped her cheek.

The minute his skin touched hers a searing pain caught him right between the shoulder blades, across his back. He gritted his teeth against the pain, his jaw clenched so tight his molars ached. A sharp hiss escaped his lips and his back arched.

“Oh, my God! Are you okay?” Courtney asked.

He puffed out a few breaths and gave her a terse nod. It was all he could manage as he waited out the sizzle across his skin.

He didn’t know what the hell was happening to the two of them, but he was confident he had just found a piece of the puzzle as to why he couldn’t breach his land. She lay before him, skin ashen, eerily silent, locked in some kind of haze.

“She died here,” Maeve whispered from blue-tinged lips.

“Who died here?” he asked.

“My mother,” she choked out.

Courtney sniffled. “Honey, you’re scaring me.”

“Her blood is in this ground. Right here…” Maeve said as she curled her fingers into the dirt, her eyes closing as she drifted off. A shuddering breath escaped her before she went limp in the grass.

He scrambled to find the pulse in her neck, relieved to find the beat, although frail, under his fingertips. “Okay, we need to get her warm. Let’s take her inside.” He scooped her up, shocked at how light she felt in his arms as a fierce urge to protect her, the way he would protect family, swept over him.

He’d never felt anything like it. It was as if something inside of him had fused to her, refusing to let her go.

She went still in his arms, her breathing stopped, and her body tensed. “Don’t hold your breath, Maeve. Let it come,” he whispered to her as they raced across the field. “Get the door of the trailer for me,” he called to Courtney as she took the lead.

Courtney threw open the door and held it from the other side.

He pushed through to the back of the trailer, the part that hadn’t been modified into a business office, which he kept as a bedroom.

When he laid her down her head lolled to the side, sending a shiver of fear shooting through him. “Maeve?” he called to her. He brushed the hair away from her face. “Maeve, honey. Talk to us.”

“I don’t get it. Her visions before were always so…overwhelming. Not calm like this. Never calm.”

“Is this why you came here? To find out about her mother?”

“Yes, among other things,” she confirmed.

“And she’s never been out like this?”

“No. Last night she had a vision, but she was with it, breathing, crying even. She was never this still,” Courtney said, her voice heavy with worry.

“Something has her.” He pulled the knot of the leather cuff at his wrist and wrenched the moonstone from his skin.

Some of his energy slid away from him and stayed with the stone. He rolled Maeve flat onto her back and pulled her shirt down.

“Hey!” Courtney yelped, grabbing his wrist.

“For fuck’s sake, I’m not groping her. I’m a warlock and she needs help.”

She narrowed her eyes and pulled her hand away. “Fine, but I’m watching you.”

“Yeah, terrifying. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

He lay the moonstone over her heart and flattened his palms over the cloudy face of it. Closing his eyes, he focused his energy on the delicate beat of her heart. He schooled his breaths, keeping them deep and even as the visions she had seen played through his mind.

A woman with strawberry-blonde hair and Maeve’s green eyes lay bleeding as she sat propped against the very root Maeve and Courtney stopped at just minutes before.

She whimpered, but not from physical pain. Shock had handled that. It was crushing heartache.

He had no right to look, but something connected her to the land. He had an opportunity while he wound a protection spell into her heart and banished whatever clutched at her to find out what gripped the property. The information might well be just what he needed to solve his problems.

He pushed deeper into the vision, into what the woman in the vision had seen.

She lay curled up on her couch with an afghan tucked over her legs, when an ominous knock at the door shook the whole room. Her gaze darted to the various exits as she pushed off the couch and tiptoed to the peephole.

She leaned in and her eye focused as she looked through the tiny glass, meeting another eye pressed to the other side.

An eye so dark blue it verged on purple, with red starbursts streaking out from the pupil. The guy leaned back, his long, jet-black hair waving away from his face and onto his shoulders. He threw his head back and laughed, the kind of laugh that sent chills seeping into a person’s bones.

She backed away and he passed through the door.

A warlock.

One hell of a powerful warlock.

And evil to the core.

Dubious intentions oozed from him, the stench like fast food sitting in the Florida humidity at the peak of summer. He lunged for her and she dodged him, ducking into the bathroom and climbing out the window just before he could get her ankle.

He could have gotten her if he wanted to, but he was toying with her, enjoying the game, feeding off of her terror.

She hit the ground with a thud, the impact knocking the wind out of her, and her water broke.

She flagged down a car and hopped in.

The vision flashed forward to her in a bed, a sheen of sweat on her brow as she pushed.

Orion recognized the younger Althea Westing as she delivered four babies, all girls, tiny, but screaming with fury as they made their way out. Two women swooped in, removing the babies while Althea reassured her.

“He can’t get you here, Brigid. Just try to stay calm while I try to get the bleeding stopped.”

“No!” Brigid grabbed Althea’s arm. “I’m not going to make it. I know I’m not. I saw it. Hide them. Hide my girls and help me cast a spell to protect them until they’re strong enough to fight him,” she begged.

Althea gulped, and nodded. “Okay, sweetheart.”

“Belen can’t know where they are. Separate them,” Brigid demanded.

Althea nodded again.

“Promise me,” Brigid said.

“I promise.” Althea kissed Brigid’s forehead. “With everything I am, I promise,” Althea assured her. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

The vision flashed back to Brigid at the base of the tree. She ripped the necklace from her chest and dropped it into a metal urn and buried it in the ground.

At the end of the biggest root.

“By the Moonstone Guardian’s light, on this fateful night, guard my heart and my eldest’s birthright,” Brigid said, her voice fading away with her last breath as she stared up at the sheer image of a wolf reaching for her.

He let the vision go as Maeve’s heartrate evened out below his stone as it healed her.

“She’s getting color back,” Courtney said, sniffling back her tears.

“Her heart is stronger. Now to protect her,” he said, taking Maeve’s hand in his and laying it over the stone. “With my stone and my strength, surround this soul. Keep her, nurture her, and render her whole.”

Maeve’s lips parted and her eyes blinked open. “My mother,” she whispered. “She was my real mother.”

Courtney took her free hand. “It’s okay, honey; we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Maeve glanced between the two of them. “My whole life—it’s a lie.”

“Are you sure?” Courtney asked.

Maeve nodded and a tear slipped from her eye. “Yes. She died protecting us. I really have sisters. Barbara was right,” Maeve murmured.

“Barbara?” Orion asked.

“We called Barbara Wolfe about where to find the tree. She suspects Maeve is one of the The Tetrad, the last of the Moonstone Guardians Pack,” Courtney said.

Orion stiffened. “That’s impossible. They’re extinct.”

“You know about them?” Courtney asked.

Not a lot, but he knew enough to know that they only mate with warlocks. And he was a warlock.

And not interested in finding a mate.

“I know a bit, but I’m not an expert.”

“Well, according to Barbara, they’re not extinct. Legend says they were protected from a dangerous warlock who’s been trying to steal their power and control them,” Courtney said.

He’d never heard of The Tetrad being specifically a part of the Moonstone Guardians Pack, but then, from what he knew of Barbara Wolfe, she wouldn’t just offer that information up to a warlock. However, it made sense that she shared it with another wolf.

A pinch of guilt nudged at him. He shouldn’t pry. They didn’t realize that they should be keeping these cards tight to their vests. He knew…and said nothing.

“What else did she say?” he asked, pulling the stone from Maeve’s chest, taking her hand and helping her sit up.

“That the Moonstone Guardians are to mate with warlocks who bear the moonstone,” Courtney said, brushing Maeve’s hair from her face.

Maeve’s gaze landed on his cuff as he was putting it back onto his wrist. His eyes shot to hers and they froze.

“That’s moonstone,” Maeve whispered.

Courtney gasped.

“Yes,” he said quietly.