Page 2 of Starting a New Life

“High Witch,” I said, dutifully lowering my head in acknowledgment of her position, before I did the curtsy that was expected.

“You took your merry time. I expected you back hours ago.” Her cold voice cut through the air like a knife.

I didn’t flinch, at least not externally. Internally, I was on high alert. Something was seriously wrong.

“Being the beginning of summer break, traffic was hell,” I explained, using all the calm I could muster to keep my voice firm and steady.

Show no weakness.

Years of bullying and torment had taught me well.

“A heads-up would’ve been nice.”

“I’ll remember next time.”

The witch next to Amanda smirked, and my body turned cold. Eloise had always been cruel, and the gleeful smirk on her face was a dead giveaway that there was something I didn’t know.

The darkness encroached on us, the nothingness drawing a tighter and tighter circle around us. No one appeared bothered by it. No one but me.

“We’ll see.”

The second the words left her mouth, I realized there wouldn’t be a next time. This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for my whole life. I’d made them enough money, so I wasn’t worth keeping around any longer.

“Why don’t we keep this short?” I said, proud that my voice didn’t falter for even a second. “No need to draw this out. I’ll just leave. Do you want the cloak back?” That was the usual symbolic gesture. Handing over the cloak meant officially leaving the coven.

I highly doubted she’d let me do it, it would signal that leaving was my choice, not something that was forced upon me. They’d probably want to rip the cloak off me as a gesture of being cast out.

“You’ve always been a mouthy one, Alexander,” Amanda said, clicking her tongue in obvious annoyance.

A thrill of satisfaction coursed through my body, and it cost me all the restraint I had left not to smile. My time with the coven was ending, but I didn’t want my life to come to an end too.

And that’s what this was, what they’d been hiding.

The darkness surrounding us? It was to keep me from running. I really should’ve turned around when I first noticed it.

“So, I guess I’m not getting paid for my last job?”

It sucked. I had a bit of money hidden away in my apartment, but my bank account was almost completely empty.

Was this the reason they hadn’t wanted me to go home? To keep me from grabbing my go-bag? The one I’d hidden beneath the floorboards under my bed, heavily warded with my personal flavour of a protective barrier, woven around the hidden compartment so tightly that not even the combined forces of the coven would be able to break through it.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to keep it as a… fee. Just look at it as compensation for having to put up with you for so long.”

I shrugged, trying to keep myself calm and my senses alert. “Worth a try. So, if our ways are to part, let me say bye. I can’t say it was a pleasure.”

Amanda cackled. “Still so mouthy, Alexander.” God, I hated that fucking name. “But I’m sure Alpha Knox will get rid of that brattiness in no time.”

Everything in me froze.

Time froze.

For a moment, the world surrounding me turned black and silent. There was nothing.

And then the glamour lifted.

Suddenly, I heard snarling. I heard growling. I heard the wolves hiding between the trees.

“What have you done?” I breathed, desperately twisting and turning, but there were wolves everywhere, emerging from the woods—at least a dozen. One of them was in human form, a giant of a man with deep scars running over his face, but I didn’t pay much attention to that. My eyes were caught by the metal gleaming in his hands.