The Witch's Quest

“Fine. I’ll stop with the s word. But listen to me.”

“You have approximately thirty seconds remaining of the requested two minutes.”

So he was going to be a stickler? Again, his annoyance was well deserved.

“I can help you get back your wings,” she said. “I found a spell to open a portal to Faery. It merely requires collecting a few necessary ingredients, and then, voilà! We’re in!”

“We’re in?” He calmly pushed aside the paper cup and leaned forward so they could speak in confidence. Valor smelled his fresh grassy scent and wondered if it was a faery thing or just innately him. Never had a man smelled so appealing to her. And generally a little auto grease or exhaust fumes was all it took for her. She was glad he hadn’t stormed out of the café yet. Which he had every right to do. “Do you think I have the desire to trust you?” he asked. “To work alongside you in a fruitless quest? To...to breathe your air?”

She had expected him to hate her. So his harsh words didn’t hurt. That much. Yes, they hurt. But they could never harm her as much as she had hurt him.

“I think you should do everything in your power to bring me down,” she offered to his question regarding why he should care. “To expose me to humans, if that’s your thing. Whatever you do, you have every right to hurt me in return.”

“I don’t hurt women. I don’t take vengeance against one who has not moved to harm me in the first place. I don’t...want to believe your silly magic can do as you say.”

“My magic is not silly.”

“It got you pinned in the Darkwood.”

“Yes, well, state the obvious. That was my constant need to prove how stubborn I can be, not my magic. I know now to stay away from that place. By all that is sacred and the great Doctor Gregory House, I have learned my lesson.” She tapped the blue paper on the table and leaned in again to speak in quieter tones. “But this spell...it’s ancient. I know its source. It will work, Kelyn. Please, give me a chance to help you get back what was taken from you. I want to help you.”

“I don’t need your restitution, witch.” He stood and grabbed the cup. Turning, with a toss, he landed it in the wastebasket eight feet away near the counter display of half-price cookies.

Valor jumped up to stand before Kelyn, blocking his exit. Yet she stood as a mere blade of grass before his powerful build and height. “That kiss you gave me when I thought I was going to die?”

He tilted his head, his eyes—violet, the color of faeries—showing no emotion.

“It changed me,” Valor confessed. “I can’t say how. It won’t matter to you. But it did. And I haven’t stopped trying to find the answer for you since then.” She pressed the paper to his chest, but he didn’t take it, so she tucked it lower, in the waistband of his hip-hugging gray jeans. “Read it. It’s a list of ingredients required to conjure the portal spell. When you’re ready to give it a try, you know where to find me.”

And she turned and walked out, forcing herself not to look back. To call out to him to please make life easier for her by allowing her to try and make his life what it once was. She hadn’t told him that she hadn’t gone a single night without reliving that kiss before exhaustion silenced those wistful dreams. And that she wished everything had been different, that she’d never entered the Darkwood on her own personal yet fruitless quest. A quest that hadn’t been accomplished, and one she’d not dared to attempt since.

When the universe spoke, she listened.

Kelyn Saint-Pierre was a remarkable man. And she might have blown her chances of ever having him trust her. So she crossed her fingers and whispered a plea to the goddess that he might want to give the spell a try. For his sake.

And, okay, for her peace of mind, as well.

* * *

The witch left a trail of sweet honey perfume in her wake. Kelyn had heard she was a beekeeper and had, more than a few times, almost gotten up the courage to visit her and ask about beekeeping. Before, that was.

Before was the only way to define his relationship with Valor now. Before he’d lost his wings, and before she’d hooked up with Trouble. Before was when he’d crushed on her and had wanted to ask her out. Now was, well, now everything was After. Which was a ridiculous way to go through life.

Why couldn’t he put the witch out of his brain and move forward?

He knew the answer to that. And it was probably scrawled on the piece of paper that she’d tucked in his jeans. He tugged it out and crumpled it into a ball. Raising his arm to make a toss toward the wastebasket, he suddenly curled his fingers about the crunchy paper.

The answer as to why he couldn’t move forward was that he wasn’t done with her yet. They’d been thrown together in the Darkwood by forces beyond their control. And ever since that day, he hadn’t been able to not think about her. He thought about that desperate kiss. A lot. It had been different from any other kiss he’d taken or had been given by a woman. Weirdly claiming. And achingly right.

He’d never felt that way about a kiss before. Of course, that was Before. Now, if he couldn’t accept himself, how could he possibly accept another person into his life, no matter if it was to help him find something lost or for something so simple as another kiss?

He wanted to be brave like his brothers. To be looked up to and admired by women, also like his brothers. He wanted to know his place in this world and walk it with confidence. While all his life he’d found himself standing to the side watching his brothers, until his wings had been stripped away, he’d never felt this heavy weakness and lack that he now did.

Stryke and Trouble were strong, virile werewolves. His brother Blade was a vampire who had a touch of faery in him. Blade even had a set of dark wings. But he hadn’t brought them out in Kelyn’s presence since he’d lost his wings. Even his sister, Daisy Blu, possessed a strength he admired.

What was he without wings? Self-acceptance was impossible without those very necessary parts of him. They were limbs. And a man who lost a limb truly did lose a part of himself.

Walking outside the café, he uncrumpled the blue paper ball and spread it open. On the top was written in red ink To Invoke a Portal Sidhe and below that an ingredient list. Werewolf’s claw, water from an unruly lake, a kiss from a mermaid, occipital dust from the Skull of Sidon and true love’s first teardrop.

Sounded like a whole lot of bullshit to him. What, exactly, was an unruly lake? But he knew witch magic was weird and steeped in millennia of practice and tradition. And while faeries in the know could access their homeland by opening a portal in a manner to which Kelyn was not privy, there probably did exist a spell to open a portal by other means. And his mother, while she had been born in Faery, had come to this realm decades earlier and could not return, so he hadn’t bothered to ask her help. No need to worry her uselessly.

But what, then? Just wander into Faery and collect his wings from the Wicked One to whom he’d freely given them? He’d made a deal: his wings for unpinning Valor. He wouldn’t renege on a deal.

As he’d said to Valor, it wasn’t her fault. He’d made the choice to make such a sacrifice all by himself.

Eyeing the steel mesh garbage can that stood before the café on the sidewalk, Kelyn held a corner of the blue paper. A soft wind fluttered it like...a wing.

Gulping down a swallow, he shoved the paper in a back pocket and strode toward his car.

A week later

Kelyn still hadn’t contacted her. Valor set aside the tin smoking can and leaned against the cinder block wall that edged the rooftop where she kept three stacked beehives. The smoke kept the bees docile so she could check that the queens were healthy and laying eggs. This fall she would have to separate the hives because they had expanded. She’d end up with five hives, which was awesome. And while bees that lived in the city tended to create a diverse and delicious honey, she was rapidly running out of space. She needed a country home, like her beekeeping mentor, Lars Gunderson, where she could manage a larger quantity of bees.

The sun was bright and she needed to cool off, so she left the smoker on the roof and skipped down the iron stairs to her loft. It was set on the third floor of an old factory building. The lower two levels were currently being refurbished and remodeled into apartments. When she’d moved in years earlier, the place was private and vast. But with neighbors soon to occupy the lower floors and the whole neighborhood turning yuppie, her desire to start looking at country real estate increased.

Tugging the heavy corrugated steel door, which was set on a rolling track like a barn door, she shut it behind her. She pulled off the white button-up shirt she’d pulled on over her fitted gray T-shirt. Dark colors attracted bees and angered them, so she always wore white to the roof.

She whistled. Mooshi popped his head up from behind the couch, moving ever so slowly on his adventure through the wild. Cats. So independent sometimes she had to wonder who owned who.

Running her fingers through her hair, she vacillated between bending over the spell books she had to search for a possible coercion spell and calling Sunday to see if she wanted help today with modifying the ’67 Corvette Stingray engine. Valor was on a two-week vacation from the brewery, which she appreciated but also always found hard to comply with.

How to get Kelyn to pay attention to her and at least give her a chance at the spell? And why couldn’t she simply let this go?

“Restitution,” she muttered. The word he’d used so cruelly against her.

Yes, she wanted to pay him back for the horrible thing that had happened because of her. No matter what kind of spin he put on it, if she had not been in that position in the Darkwood, he would never have been faced with having to sacrifice his wings.

“What should I do, Mooshi?”

A rap at her door decided for her. “That’s what I’ll do.” She would answer the door.

Maybe it was Sunday. Her best friend, a cat shifter, had promised to stop by one day this week with some red velvet Bundt cakes from the new café in town and a whole lot of car chatter. Sunday was one of her few female friends. Most often Valor got along with men because...she was just one of the guys.

She slapped a hand to her chest. No, she wasn’t going to recall that awful thing that had been said to her. The words that had sent her into the Darkwood on a desperate mission.

She was over that now. For good or for ill.

“Definitely not good,” she muttered, and tugged open the sliding door.

Kelyn stood before the threshold holding the blue half sheet of paper on which she’d scrawled the spell ingredients. He raked his fingers through his messy hair and met her gaze with his piercing violet eyes. “Let’s do this.”

Chapter 4

Kelyn followed the witch into a familiar loft. She gestured for him to sit by the industrial steel kitchen counter that stretched a dozen feet and served as a divider between the cooking area and the rest of the vast, open space that made up half the upper floor of an old three-story business building. The businesses had vacated decades ago, and apartments were slowly taking over. Hipsters and yuppies and, apparently, witches, had moved in.

“This used to be my sister, Daisy Blu’s, place,” he remarked as he slid onto a wooden stool and crossed his arms. Looking over the loft, he recalled that Daisy’s decorating sense had been nil, and Valor’s wasn’t much more evident. Though she did have a motorcycle sitting in the corner before the eight-foot-high windows that overlooked the street. A street bike. Its back fender sat beside it on the floor, and a black metal toolbox sprawled tools beside that.

“Yep. When Daisy moved in with Beck a couple years ago, I grabbed this place. Love it. And the freight elevator fits my bike.”

“Nice. So you have no desire to live in Anoka, closer to the brewery?”

“Do you know that Anoka is infested with ghosts? And I have an affinity for seeing ghosts. So not cool. I prefer Tangle Lake. Just far enough away from the suburbs, but I can still get to work in half an hour.”

“What is that noise?”

“I’m vacuuming. You should see it swing around soon. It’s over behind the bed right now.”

“One of those robotic things?”

“Yes. I am allergic to housework, so I have my cat do it.”

“Uh-huh.” He wasn’t even sure where to start with that one, so decided to drop it for now. And a cat? Yeesh. Not his favorite domesticated animal.

Kelyn turned toward the counter to find Valor leaning on it with her elbows. If he were not mistaken, he should take that wide-eyed, dreamy gaze as somewhat smitten. But he probably was mistaken. Reading women was his forte. But reading witches? Not.

“So, this list.” He shoved the wrinkled blue paper he’d kept toward her. “That’s it?”

“And a few more essentials that are required for most spells. Herbs. Crystals. Rat skulls and angel dust. But I’ve got all that stuff.”

“You have angel dust?” He knew that was a precious commodity and hard to come by.

“Sure. Got some from Zen, your brother’s girlfriend. I used it for the spell in the—er...you want a beer?”

If he told the chick who worked at a brewery that beer—any kind of alcohol—wasn’t to his taste, and he much preferred water, would that annoy her?

Why was he worried about annoying her? He had no stake in whether or not she liked or hated him. All that mattered was she had a plan to help him get back his wings.

“Just water, please.”

She quirked a brow. Judging him. Whatever.

“Fine. I think we should collect the ingredients in the order I’ve written them for you.” She filled a glass of water from the tap and handed it to him. “You know of any werewolves looking to donate a claw?”

“Not willingly. But Trouble does have a beef with a nasty bastard who keeps trying to mark my brother’s territory as his own. I could ask him about it. And if you know Trouble...” And he knew she did.

“The guy likes a good fight.”

“Always.” And that was enough mention of his oldest brother. “So, once we get all these things and you invoke the spell, what, exactly, do we do in Faery?”

“Uh, find your wings?”

He stared at her for the few moments he thought it would take for her to rationalize that insane statement. But in the process, Kelyn got lost in a shimmery brown gleam. Her eyes twinkled like stars during twilight. It couldn’t be real. He’d never seen such brilliant eyes before.

The witch snapped her fingers before his face, rudely bringing him up from what he realized was an openmouthed gape. “Uh...”

“You don’t want to find your wings?”

“I do, but Faery is immense. It’s larger than...well, the world, I’m sure.”

“It’s another realm. I get that. But the reason I chose this spell over another that also opened a portal is that this one homes us in on the item we seek. If all goes well, we should walk in. See the wings. Grab them. And get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Sounds too easy.”

“Sounds like a fun ride on the wild side.” She pulled open the fridge door and took out a beer, twisted off the cap and tossed that in a mason jar half-filled with bottle caps. The brown beer bottle sported the Decadent Dames label on the side. “So why don’t you give Trouble a call?”

“Why don’t you?” Kelyn asked.

Valor slammed the bottle on the counter. And he immediately regretted his accusing tone. “What do you think went on between your brother and me? Because if you think anything beyond friendship happened—”

“It doesn’t matter.” He cut her off because he didn’t want to know. “You and I? We’re just working together toward a common goal. What you do with your free time is not my business.”

“You make it sound as if it bothers you. I can be friends with your family, Kelyn. I’m friends with Blade, too. And Daisy Blu. So get over yourself and don’t get your wings in such a twist.” She tilted back a swallow and then held the bottle to her chest. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. You don’t have any, uh...”

“Valor.” Kelyn reached across the counter and grasped her hand, which startled her so much she set down the beer. “We’re good.”

“How can you say that?”

“I just did. Two words. We’re. Good. You don’t owe me anything. You don’t need to apologize. What happened was a result of a choice I made. And only I can live with that. You don’t get to share that with me. And while it pretty much knocked the wind out of my sails, I’m still here. And I’m doing something about it now. So if you want to help me, then do your witchy thing and stop trying to take the credit for something you didn’t do.”

“I...” She exhaled heavily.

It had been difficult to say all that. Because really? Part of Kelyn did blame the witch. If she hadn’t been in the Darkwood in the first place... But the wise, logical part of him knew that he’d had total control over what had happened in the forest that day four months earlier. And he was no man to put the blame on anyone else.

“Fine. I can do that. I mean, I want to do that,” she said. “But please have patience with me because it’s much easier to say than to do.”

“I get that.”

“I like you, Kelyn. You’re a good guy. Faery. How are you without your wings? I need to know.”

“I’m the same as ever. Except I can’t fly, can’t shift to small shape and I’ve the strength of a regular human man now. Otherwise? Peachy.”

She began to frown, but he put up an admonishing finger. “Forward. For both of us. Okay?” He offered a hand for her to shake.

Valor shook it. “Deal. You call your brother. Let’s go kick some werewolf ass.”

“I’m cool with that—what?”

The rhythmic hum of the vacuum alerted Kelyn to the robotic disk that glided toward the kitchen. And on the back of the thing sat a plush gray cat. It cast a golden gaze up at Kelyn as it rode by, calm and regal upon its modern-day carriage.

Kelyn tugged up his leg in a protective move. “Seriously?”

“That’s Mooshi,” Valor said. “I told you the cat does the cleaning. He can ride that thing through the whole place. What’s wrong? You don’t like cats?”

“They’re not my favorite critters.” Kelyn again caught the cat’s eye, but he read its expression as more of an I’m-bored-what-else-is-there-to-do? look than anything else. “Mooshi, master and commander of the hardwood seas. Who’da thought?”

* * *

Valor had suggested Kelyn first ask his brothers Trouble and Stryke if either wanted to donate a claw, but realized the error of her ways when the faery cast her a horrified gape. Right. That would be like cutting off a man’s fingernail. But really? It was for a good cause. What was one fingernail when compared to a man’s reason for existence?

So, instead, they decided to track down the werewolf Borse Magnuson, who was known as an all-around asshole and resident idiot. A few years ago he’d been involved in blood games, pitting starving vampires against one another in death matches. Creed Saint-Pierre, Kelyn’s grandfather, had put an end to most of those illegal gaming dens. Now, lately, Borse had been trying to establish territory on Trouble’s property to the north of Tangle Lake.

So their path led them to the oldest Saint-Pierre brother. And everything Valor read in Kelyn’s body language as he neared his brother told her they were not right. She and Trouble, that was. Trouble told them to stop by the local gym and he met them as he was exiting the building. He wandered over to his monster Ford truck, painted in olive camo and sporting silver wolves on the mud flaps.

Valor went to bump fists with Trouble, but the man didn’t oblige her. Right. Not speaking to her since Kelyn’s wings had been taken. She caught Kelyn’s tightened expression. What? Did the guy think she’d gotten it on with his brother? And why did that matter to him? Oh.

Assuming a casual stance, Valor grabbed her thick hair and, corralling it into a ponytail, swished it over her shoulder as a distraction from what she felt was a blush riding up her neck. Did Kelyn have some kind of thing for her? He’d mentioned as much in the Darkwood that dreadful night. He couldn’t possibly. She was the witch who had changed his life for the worse.

And yet. There was something she had missed. And why hadn’t she realized that until right now?

Bad attraction vibes, girl. So terrible at picking up on that one.

“You two are after Borse?” Trouble smacked a fist into his palm. “I want in.”

“Trouble, this isn’t a matter with which we need help. I just need some info on the guy. Weaknesses. Flaws. Favorite drinking holes.”

“Wait, Kelyn.” Much as she didn’t want to pit brother against brother, Valor felt having a werewolf in the mix could help. And with Kelyn’s strength waning? “Did you tell him why we’re working together?”

Kelyn crossed his arms, lifting his chin defiantly. When he went all serious, two frown lines appeared between his eyebrows.

No, he hadn’t told his brother anything. And what kind of tension was she picking up on now? Yes, there was definitely something she had missed between herself and Kelyn.

“Can I tell him?” she asked carefully.

“Why the hell are you two even standing alongside each other?” Trouble asked. “I thought you never wanted to see her again.”

“Those are words you put into my mouth, Trouble. I hold nothing against Valor.”

“She was responsible for you losing your wings, man.”

“It was my choice.”

“I’m helping him to get his wings back.” Valor rushed in before Trouble’s bouncy stance turned into a one-two punch to the mean witch who had hurt his brother. The man had a tendency to react quickly and only ask the important questions after the pain had been delivered. “I have a spell that will open a portal into Faery. We need a few items for that spell. The first being a werewolf claw.”

Kelyn’s admonishing tilt of head was expected, but she couldn’t worry about pissing off the faery any more than she already had done.

Trouble slammed his fists to his hips. “You trust her?”

“I do. And I suspect Borse will be perfectly fine with one less claw.”

“You got that right. But you’ll have to take it when he’s shifted. He’ll tear you apart, brother.”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence.”

“No, seriously, Kelyn. I know you are the toughest and strongest of the Saint-Pierre boys. Or at least you were until...her.”

Valor caught the werewolf’s accusatory look, but she set back her shoulders and held her head high.

“You need help,” Trouble said. “And if the witch can get back your wings, I’m all in for ripping Borse’s claws out.”

“We only need one,” Valor reminded the guy, who, she had no doubt, would take off all ten of the werewolf’s claws if given the opportunity. “Kelyn and I learned he’s going out on the hunt tonight.”

“Then we are, too,” Trouble said. “But no witches allowed. This is a man’s job.”

“She’s got magic,” Kelyn said. “She’s coming along.”

* * *

They tracked Borse to the dive bar at the edge of Tangle Lake. It was a favorite watering hole for the Saint-Pierre brothers. The bartender knew Kelyn was always the designated driver and served him iced lemonade with a nod and a wink. Half a dozen humans lingered at the bar, a pair of them discussing the latest Twins game.

At the pool table, Borse commandeered a game to himself. He was drunk. And it generally took a lot of alcohol to get a werewolf drunk. The trio decided to wait and follow Borse out to his car before approaching him.

It felt wrong going after a drunkard. Even knowing what an asshole Borse was, Kelyn had problems using violence to get what he wanted. Completely the opposite of Trouble, who nursed a whiskey and eyed the dartboard. Kelyn had always won at darts against Trouble. He hadn’t attempted a game since losing his wings. He didn’t want to try now. He just didn’t.