Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (21 page)

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. We both had a bounty? After the affair with Mark’s Wicked Witch of the West mother, it didn’t really surprise me that she’d pulled strings to get a bounty on me to make certain I disappeared. Killing Caroline hadn’t bothered the old woman at all, so I doubted she would’ve thought twice about disposing of me. But why Samantha? Why had the bounty been issued on Halloween?

The night of the ball, where I had been a naive, foolish, and stupid Cinderella, was still too fresh in my memories. Anguish tightened my throat at the memory.

I had told Mrs. Livingston Samantha’s first name.

“If I hadn’t seen you in the airport, and if Donnie hadn’t slipped out the fact you were an old friend, I never would’ve believed that the woman killed in the video was the same as the one driving this car,” the Brit admitted. “You’re a witch, aren’t you? That’s why they have bounty on you, isn’t it?”

My cheek twitched. “Donnie didn’t tell you?” The old veteran’s discretion pleased both me and my wolf. I could feel that wild part of me rouse, but she withdrew without my forcing her too, as though sensing something I couldn’t. “A low-grade witch and nothing more,” I acknowledged.

“You were worth five million to the Inquisition.”

“As I said, low-grade at best.” Five million was cheap change for the Inquisition. A wizard’s death could pull a hundred million from a government contract to avoid military problems. I narrowed my eyes and drew another deep breath. I meant to catch the scent of the wolf again, but all I got for my efforts was a sneeze. “Get me two pills from the bottle in the glove box,” I ordered.

He obeyed, offering me the medication in the palm of his hand. I swallowed them back.

“What’re they for?” he asked.

“Allergies.”

“Ah. To what?”

“Dogs. I’m sure half of the people at the bloody airport are dog owners and they don’t bother cleaning the bloody fur off their clothes.”

The Brit recoiled as though I’d stabbed him in the gut. I pretended I didn’t notice, instead taking a more delicate sniff of the air. My nose hadn’t lied. I
did
smell male wolf, and it wasn’t the pup in the backseat.

I wanted to slap myself for being so dense, stupid, and slow.

Donnie’s choice in alternate made a lot more sense. While I doubted the Brit could smell
my
wolf, I’d need to be really careful. My control was good, but with two wolf-descendants and a full wolf in the car with me, the chances of getting caught grew with each passing minute.

I wondered how much Mr. Bond was going to laugh at me when he discovered I was allergic to my own kind.

“Does being near a witch bother you?” I asked, covertly watching him out of the corner of my eye as I drove along the twisting, turning country roads. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“James.”

I choked on my laughter. I couldn’t resist the joke at his expense. “I’ll hazard a guess that isn’t your real name, is it, Mr. Bond?”

A boyish grin answered me. “You would be correct, ma’am.”

“Very well. What’s a werewolf like you doing with a nice man like Donnie?”

The only thing betraying his surprise was the slight widening of his eyes. “What makes you think I’m a werewolf?”

“There’s me, two kids, and you in this car, and my allergies aren’t going away.” Without taking my eyes off the road, I smiled. “I’m allergic, remember?”

“To werewolves.”

“Wolves are dogs. I told you, I’m allergic. Donnie has a way of attracting interesting people.”

“You would be a very dangerous tool if the Inquisition got a hold of you, Ms. Hanover.”

I sniffled. “I don’t intend on letting the Inquisition get a hold of me. So, what do we do?”

“We do nothing. Donnie wants me to keep an eye on you and make sure you stay out of the Inquisition’s hands. You just worry about yourself and those two kids. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“What do I owe you?”

“What do you mean? This is on the house. Donnie did have a message for you, though.”

I waited in silence, arching a brow.

James cleared his throat. “He says to give them hell, and if you decide to dance naked on their graves, he wants pictures.”

I would dance, but there wouldn’t be anyone left to take the pictures, if I had my way.

It didn’t take us long to run out of things to talk about. I suspected it was for the best. James settled into his seat, staring out the window at the trees as they whipped by. My Mustang was old, but I risked taking it up into the mountains anyway. The height and the way the rock reached for the open sky didn’t quite tame my wolf, but it did keep James glued to his window.

To my relief, both of the children slept the entire way back to my new house in Buckhead. Tossing James the keys, I twi
sted around to stare at the slumbering beasts in the back. I couldn’t smell the wolf on them until I was close, but that’d end as soon as they woke up. Unless they had undergone the change, they’d never be able to control their scent.

I sighed, got out of the car, and started with the girl. Her hazel eyes blinked open, focusing on me. Furrows creased between her brows.

Before I could say anything at all, she asked, “Are you a kidnapper?”

At least she was calm. I wondered what I’d gotten myself into this time. My throat tightened. If Samantha was around, she would’ve told me what to do, how to settle two displaced kids in a house I was still learning my way around. But Samantha was gone, forever out of my reach, and it’d been all my fault.

“My name is Vicky,” I choked out, clearing my throat in order to sound a little closer to normal. I crouched next to the opened back door of my Mustang. James headed into the house, leaving me to deal with the two children in the backseat. “I like to think I rescued you.”

Samantha had liked making weird faces to the kids she had pretended were hers, so I followed her example, wrinkling my nose and sticking out my tongue. The girl giggled.

“What’s your name?”

The girl continued to stare at me, weighing and judging me in the way only a child could. “I’m Emily.”

“Well, Emily. Your momma wanted someone nice to take care of you, and I didn’t like that bi—” I coughed, my cheeks flushing as I caught myself mid-curse. I hesitated, struggling for a word that wouldn’t get me fired on my first day of attempting to be a parent. “I didn’t like that hag. Instead of kidnapping, I’m afraid I opted for adoption, as that’s far more legal.”

Emily’s eyes lit up. “You’re the nice boss lady?”

“Mrs. Peters had many nice bosses,” I replied with confidence. I knew most of the bosses of the East Coast firms, and Eval had yet to steer the company wrong in management. But Marrodin was like that, cultivating kind people rather than venomous snakes clad in human attire.

“No,” Emily corrected me, her mouth pursing in disapproval. “You’re the nice boss. You’re the one who took Mommy when no one else would. Mommy said that. Mommy doesn’t lie, because she says lying is wrong.”

What did a real mother say to something like that? I sat back on my heels and regarded the little girl. Did all six year olds sound so mature? Did they all act like little adults trapped in little bodies?

What had I gotten myself into?

Then again, Marrodin was founded on cases like Felicity Peters, taking in good people struggling to get by, teaching them what they needed to know to be a functional part of the company, and paying them what they
needed
even if it was more than what the role necessarily deserved. But how did Emily know I was at the top of the chain?

Still, it was pointless to argue with her when she was right. “That’s right, Emily. I’m the boss lady in charge of the other bosses.”

The girl continued to stare at me with eyes unclouded by the weight of the world. Then, the yellow darkened to a brown. “Mommy isn’t coming home, is she?”

It was a little like staring in a mirror. If I hadn’t known of the brutality of her mother’s death, I might not have heard the pain in her voice, the quiet and restrained grief etched into every line of her. It was something we shared.

Samantha wasn’t coming home either.

Children were so much more insightful than people gave them credit for, I decided. I reached out and smoothed her bangs. Emily reminded me of a needy cat who needed attention but too proud to ask for it. “No, Kitten, she’s not.”

“I like kitties,” Emily said, refusing to meet my eyes. After a long moment she asked, “Why?”

Despite knowing the question would come, hearing it drove daggers through my chest, more painful than any number of bullets. I managed to keep my voice calm and soft as I replied, “Let’s go inside. Then I’ll talk to you and your b
rother.”

“Alex,” she supplied.

Alex woke as quiet and calm as Emily had, and neither resisted me herding them inside. James stood at the granite counter making coffee when we entered the kitchen.

“You’ve got a really well-stocked fridge,” James commented. “Coffee? Someone left a note on the table for you.”

“Please, thanks.” I snatched the envelope, recognizing Anderson’s neat handwriting on the front. “Sit, kids. Can I get you anything?” I yanked open the fridge, resisting the urge to whistle. James was right. It was stocked with enough food to feed an army for a week. “Juice? Milk? Water?”

Emily asked for water. When Alex spoke, it took the help of my wolf-enhanced ears to catch his request. I poured his milk and Emily’s water, setting the glasses in front of them. I ripped open the envelope. An inventory of the fridge and cupboards greeted me, along with a list of businesses, including several therapists, schools, and daycares.

After handing me a mug of coffee, James cleared his throat. “I’m going to check the rest of the house.”

He made himself scarce after I nodded my acknowledgment of his words. I sank into the chair across from the kids, repacking the envelope in order to give my hands something to do. “Has anyone told you what happened?”

They shook their heads. The unreasonable desire to head back to Baltimore and wring necks kept me silent for several minutes. “I’m no good at this, kids, so I’m going to just tell you the truth. Your mom isn’t coming home because someone killed her.”

To my astonishment, neither cried. They digested the news with solemn expressions. It reminded me of the calm before a pack howled its grief over a lost wolf. In the way of the wolves, they waited for the Alpha to utter the first sad sound before adding their voices to the chorus.

“Why?” Emily’s voice wavered. “Why would anyone want to kill Mommy?”

I set my elbow on the table and propped my chin up in my palm. The kids flinched at my movement. “That’s a good question, Emily. I don’t know. Your mother was a good woman, or she wouldn’t have been working for me. People do the wrong thing for a lot of different reasons. Perhaps they feared her.”

The Inquisition didn’t have any need to fear a werewolf working and raising pups, not in a workplace that encouraged employees to take one or two days each month for private matters. Werewolves could easily vanish near the full moon when it didn’t land on a weekend without fear of reprimand. Witches could go to their covens and be among their sisters and brothers.

Even wizards could flit in and out of the system, if they were careful. Most weren’t careful enough, though.

Why had they targeted Mrs. Peters? Not all werewolves were like me, trained to kill, trained to hunt, and at risk of running wild should the lure of the full moon be answered.

I doubted Mrs. Peters had been a rogue. Rogues avoided children. If they had them, they found new, stable homes for them.

“Aunt Dorothy blamed us,” Alex mumbled.

I straightened, unable to stop the low growling noise in my throat. “And why would she do that?”

“We’re different,” Emily whispered in the broken tone of a child who’d been told the same thing far too many times.

It hurt. Werewolf pups always were different. They were a little stronger, a little faster, a lot more aggressive, and a lot smarter than other children their age. But they had to be, not that it made it right or eased their anguish. Stupid young wolves died in the wild. I didn’t know if my parents had been werewolves or not. Having werewolf parents didn’t make one a werewolf usually.

I hadn’t been born a werewolf, but I had been different enough my mother had sold me, shipping me across the ocean to my new owners, all so she could live without my existence being known.

Then I had been changed.

I shuddered, fighting against the memory of the forced ritual that’d transformed me from a little girl into something no better than a rabid beast needing put down. So long as I had anything to say about it, I wasn’t about to let that happen to the two kids in front of me, who would always be burdened with the fact their mother had been killed just for existing.

Just because I could smell wolf on them didn’t mean they had been changed into werewolves.

I couldn’t help but wonder how their mother had resisted the need to change for nine months, buying their lives with her suffering. The change from human to wolf and back again killed the unborn more often than not. I respected their mother’s dedication and love for her unborn. In an age of instant gratification and taking the easy way out, I didn’t know many people who would’ve endured such painful lengths twice.