“Doesn’t make sense. Why would they take kids I knew, if they read this?”

Erik took the book from me and looked at the page. “I don’t follow.”

“Why not take random kids, like Simon, that I would probably never know they took? This is more like bait than trying to make something happen.”

He frowned and stared harder at the page. “They weren’t expecting you to know this would happen. Didn’t you want this Kyle kid,” he tapped the picture in the book, “to come to you? To help with keeping an eye on things? Would you trust the spirit seeker if she came to your front door? And if a young male witch came to you for help, would you give it?”

He had a point. I wanted to scrub my hands over my face, but I didn’t want to deal with the reminder my hands were not yet up to snuff. “Yeah. Either of them I would trust and help without thinking. Both of them could have gotten close to me with ease. This is just another type of trap. Fuck, I hate Orion.”

Erik grunted. “He’s a demon and will do everything he can to fool you.”

There was no choice but to go after the three kids, even if they were bait for a trap. I Tracked India, feeling her threads steady and even in my head. I Tracked Kyle and, though he was terrified, he was physically okay. The other kid, Simon, was curious, but not hurt and not even that fearful. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It always worried me when a salvage was curious, but not afraid. Spoke of possibilities I didn’t like to imagine. Like a child being convinced they were better off with their perps.

“What would it take to make for possession of three kids at the same time? How many witches?” I took the violet book back from Erik and flipped it open to the front. Since it had taken a full coven to try and possess India that first time, I had a feeling I already knew the answer to the question, but I had to ask, to be sure I wasn’t jumping to conclusions.

“Three covens.”

I nodded as my oversensitive fingers touched the pages, the words flowing under them.

Why, oh why did I have to be right about that? A small part of me hoped it would only be one coven. One coven would be far slower in having the demons possess the kids. Which, in turn, would have given us more time to get to them.

I Tracked witches as a whole, hoping we were wrong and it really was only one coven. Nope, there they were, lighting up inside my head like a pinball machine gone wild. A massive cluster of witches wound their way around the three threads of the three kids I still held.

But for the first time, something new kicked in with my ability to Track.

More than just the general direction the kids and witches were, I knew exactly what city.

My home. Not the one I’d lived in for the last ten years in North Dakota. No, my other home, the one I was raised in with Berget.

Boston.

Shock rippled through me. I’d never been able to pinpoint a thread so accurately, down to the city. Usually, I had a pulling sensation either north or south, east or west, and a vague distance.

But this time it came through loud and clear, the place visible in my head as if I were looking at a picture. Boston. Shit on sticks, if we were going to deal with Orion’s black covens once and for all, I would have to go to my hometown.

Where my adoptive parents were, and the chance, with my luck, I would end up having to deal with the past, as well as the present. I slumped into the hay, my head swimming.

Erik touched my elbow, getting my attention. “How bad is it?”

How bad? Fuck, it couldn’t be worse.

Nope.

Wrong again.

Chapter 8

THE DARKNESS HAD swallowed him whole and there was no way back. A whimper slipped out of his muzzle and a voice rippled inside his head.

Stay with me wolf, she will peel my hide and eat me for breakfast if I let your furry ass die.

He tried to focus, to put the pieces together.

Demons, unicorns, ogres, and a dragon. Everything was so fuzzy. There was a witch, she’d tried to heal him….

Pamela tried to heal you, that’s true. But she is battling something on her own right now that is getting in the way of her ability. Witch hormones are the worst, almost as bad as Tracker tempers.

Another time, that would have elicited a laugh from him. He tried to open his eyes, gave up when they proved too heavy and the darkness curled around him. He struggled against it; not his time, it wasn’t his time yet. There was too much left to do.

Rest easy, wolf. The druids should have a way to heal you.

Rylee.

She is waiting for us in London.

Louisa was closer, though. The shamans should be able to heal him.

Excellent call, wolf. We go to Louisa first. Keeping you alive will keep us both in good standing with Rylee. Better that she sees you all put back together.

Blaz banked hard, and the world lurched around Liam. A relieved sigh rippled out of him. That would have to be enough for now.

Liam was going to be pissed when he figured out we weren’t following him. At least, not right away—we’d catch up as soon as we got the kids out of the black coven’s witchy hands.

With the violet skinned book strapped to Erik’s back under his cloak, we headed out of the barn. Sunset was only fifteen or so minutes away and I marked it in my mind. On instinct, I reached back and touched my hand to the grip of my sword. My fingers curled around it, but the pain was bad, enough that I knew I’d never hold up in a fight. Fuck, this was seriously not good.

Alex moved quietly beside me, more demure than I’d ever seen him, and it pulled me out of my own thoughts.

“Buddy, are you okay?”

“I feel funny.”

I stopped and cupped his face, looking deep into his eyes. “What do you mean by funny?”

He gave a roll of his shoulders. “Twisted up inside.”

What the hell did that mean? “Let me know if it gets worse, okay?”

“You gots it.”

Of all the people in my life, Alex was one of the few constants I could depend on no matter what. I ran my hands down his cheeks and scratched his neck.

He grinned up at me and gave me a wolfy wink. “I is good. No worries.”

Nothing I could do other than keep an eye on his behavior and hope it wasn’t anything serious.

Outside the barn, Eve stood at the edge of the burnt outhouse, her head lowered almost to the ground. A flutter of long blonde hair in the wind gave Pamela away.

Zorro, or Marco as he insisted his name was, ruffled his feathers. “Your young witch is going through a hard time.”