Page 81 of Silver Claw

I lifted my nose to the air, subtly inhaling his scent. Even my wolf appreciated the detective’s scent, though it made her hungry. It made me both hot and relaxed at the same time.

His cell rang once again, and he sighed as he pulled it from his pocket. He frowned. “Excuse me, Kait.”

He went outside through the kitchen door to talk while I cleared the few dishes and straightened the kitchen. It was already after one o’clock, and I wanted to visit my mother before I went to the mayor’s for dinner.

Rick was back in five minutes. He didn’t say who’d called him, but he was once again tense and somewhat bleak.

I wondered if it had been Beth on the phone.

He squeezed my arm, and part of me wanted to grab him and refuse to let him go. “I’ll see you at the mayor’s,” he said, and then I was alone with Ash in a quiet kitchen.

I went to my bedroom, stocked a bag with supplies, then grabbed my keys and headed outside.

Zach and Remy fell in beside me as I walked to my car. “I’m going to Shadowfield to see my mother,” I told them. “Remy, I’ll call you if I need you. Zach told you I’m having dinner with the mayor?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll drop in at the office tonight. If you need me before then, give me a call.”

“Thanks, Remy.”

When Zach and I arrived at Shadowfield, we went straight to the Shadowfield Inn, where my mother was staying. She wasn’t there, so I called her. “I’m at the Inn,” I told her. “Where are you?”

“So I’ve recently purchased a house, honey. I’m there, getting moved in.”

I stared at my phone. “What do you mean, you’ve purchased a house? When?Whathouse?”

“Chill out, man,” she said, then, “Come to the witchwolf’s former cottage. That’s where I am.”

Then she hung up.

Zach stood from one of the patio tables when he saw me coming. There were approximately seventeen female wolves gathered around him with their great gaping maws, and I was exaggerating only a little.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, falling into step beside me and leaving his disappointed fan club behind.

“My mother,” I bit out, “has moved into Lennon’s house.”

“And there are monsters in the basement?” he asked, as I hurried down the sidewalk.

“It’s Lennon’s house,” I said, not caring if I was being unreasonable. “That place will have teeth, Zach. My mother shouldn’t be living there.”

“It’s just a house,” he told me. “She can disinfect it. Light some candles or wave some sage at it or something.”

“She’s a wolf, Zach, not a witch. And Lennon would have made the house a place of punishment for whoever came after. She was the seer. She probably knew that someday my mother would live there.” I shook my head and strode toward the witchwolf’s cottage. “No. She absolutely cannot live there.”

My mother begged to differ.

The cottage was set back slightly in the woods, surrounded by nature, with a stone path leading to the front door. Lennon had planted herbs and flowers and thorny plants that had no business growing so well in the shade.

Rosemary crowded the walkway, and lavender leaned over the stones, teasingly brushing my boots with dusty purple heads. Other things I didn’t recognize grew in neat colors beneath the windows, too deliberate to be wild and too stubborn to have died just because their witch was gone.

It was gorgeous. But beneath the beauty was a darkness that maybe I couldn’t see, but I could damn sure feel. Surely my mother could feel it, too.

Which begged the question…

“Why, Mother? Why here? There are other houses in the village. Lennon’s house is dangerous. Jared should burn it down.”

She pulled me through the little cottage, so excited and pleased it was hard for me to bring her down. But I genuinely believed Lennon’s house was poison, just like the witch who’d lived in it.

“Lennon was a horrible person,” she said, “but she loved nature. Shereliedon nature. She wasn’t going to harm it. And her cottage was her sanctuary. There’s nothing bad here. The bad shit is dead.” She looked around the kitchen, smiling. “It’s only a house, and it needs someone to love it.”