“Abigail might be dead. And I suspect Clifford will not last much longer.” Jessamyne took another step toward Tanner and paused. The beguiling scent of baked apples advanced with her. “I wanted to bring them to Mother’s healers, but…” She stopped speaking.
“Where are they now?” I asked again, clenching my hands, ready to spring myself onto the Apple Witch or go tearing in whichever direction she pointed.
“After Tanner gave me…” She stroked the upper curve of her breast before continuing, “After Tanner and I…”
“Jessamyne,” he said. “Stop. Please just tell us what you’ve done.”
“I left them at the hospital.”
“The one here on the island?” I asked, dumbfounded. I would not have thought to look there. Chalk one up for the bat-shit crazy.
Jessamyne nodded. “I put the two of them and Tanner in a truck—such a pedestrian vehicle—and my driving might have been erratic because a police officer flashed his pretty lights and made me pull over. I explained the situation,” she said, teasing her fingers along the fabric highlighting the V of her cleavage, “and he escorted me right to the hospital, didn’t even ask to see a license or what was in the back of the truck. Just, ‘Yes, ma’am, follow me.’ I left before Jack—was that his name?—could ask me for my phone number. I don’t have a phone, but I do love having a well-trained wolf to play with when mine is otherwise engaged.” Her eyes raked Tanner up and down. She shrugged. “Maybe next time.”
“Then what did you do?” I had to unclench my jaw to ask. Sure as night followed day, Officer Jack Kaukonen would be paying me another visit.
“I left Tanner at your house,” she said. Jessamyne turned her back to him and focused on me. “In case you’re as ignorant of Tanner’s background as it appears you must be, my mother is a druidess. She is the head of her Order, and she is Tanner’s teacher. As her student, he made certain promises. He has yet to fulfill them to my...” She caught herself. Her smile went sly and calculating. “To my mother’s satisfaction.”
“What is your point?”
“Your people are safe, and I have what I came for. Though I do wish my wolf was returning home with me.”
Tanner’s low growl raised the hairs on the back of my neck higher.
I spun away from Jessamyne and grabbed the front of his shirt. “I want to go to the hospital. Now. Are you coming?”
He nodded then retracted in on himself. His hands were in clear view when a bony set of fingers enfolded my waist and spun me to face Jessamyne.
Instead, I faced the darkness beyond the house’s yellowish lights. What I thought were fingers were branches. Getting up in my personal space was an old, old apple tree. Two of its most arm-like branches were ringed with Jessamyne’s gold bracelets. Its trunk had a sinuous twist, the leaves on its branches glossy and unblemished. Littered amongst those healthy leaves were hundreds of tight buds, waiting to be coaxed into blooming.
If this body bears me no fruit, I will be back for what is mine.
Chapter 10
Branches quavering, the Apple Witch made her way past the open gate and down the Pearmains’ driveway toward the road.
Her timing was impeccable. Her presence, her words, her entire demeanor had built an insta-wall between me and Tanner. I retrieved my boots, stomped over to my car, and tossed them into the passenger seat’s footwell.
“I’ll tell the others we’re going to the hospital,” I said, facing the front entrance of the farmhouse.
“I’m not going with you, Calliope,” he said. The car keys Jessamyne had dropped in the dirt when she’d shifted jangled in his twitching fingers.
“It’s your choice.” I shrugged. Put one foot then the other in front of me. Took hold of the tarnished metal handle of the screen door. Looked down at my dirtied toes.
I’d passed from exhaustion into that state where anything could make me cry, and I wished the thing pushing me over the edge had been a twee lamb or piglet, and not Tanner Marechal.
Fuck. I couldn’t do this.
“Does that mean you’re staying here?” I asked, scuffing my feet across the welcome mat.
I didn’t wait for Tanner to answer. I turned, ready to leap the stairs and wrap my arms around him and reassure him we could do this, that we had to do this. Together. That we could leave our baggage right here, right now, and never have to pick it up again.
But that was fanciful thinking, and by the time I finished turning around, mouth open to impart some conciliatory, soothing balm into the tension hovering between us, Tanner was gone. I tore down the stairs, dug my toes into the soil, and begged the ground to give me a sign, a clue, something.
Dropping to my knees, I added my palms and fingers and waited, breathing in time with the rhythm of the earth. Tanner’s mint, and Jessamyne’s baked apple scents, were completely gone from the air.
Where is he?
I connected first to the vibrations of feet hitting the ground. Running. Fast. I lifted my head in the direction of the rhythmic footfalls. The driveway melted into black ahead of whoever, whatever was running. The hard, fast pace turned into a softer loping within a handful of strides.
Paws.
Ahead of the beast, the ground split, just as it had split in my yard.
The pounding stopped.
I stayed on all fours, in disbelief, in hurt. After all that business about baggage and getting to the point where past relationships didn’t matter, I was hurt that Tanner chose to follow the Apple Witch. I sat on my heels, brushed my dirty hands down the front of my dirtier pants, and stopped caring how grungy I was or how tired I felt.
Tanner was a druid. Jessamyne was the daughter of a druidess, and that was only the start. Both of them had inhabited their magic far longer, maybe centuries longer, than
