“We need to eat something. My dad brought soup to the Counter at closing time tonight. Since my mom has been keeping him at home to avoid all the drama in town, he’s been cooking like crazy. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
She puttered around the kitchen—one of the rooms they’d remodel come spring—getting the soup heated as Aimee let out some more of her guilt and anxiety.
But now the situation in town—heightened tensions between the shifters—came into focus once more.
A different sort of anxiety.
Katie Faith’s father had suffered a heart attack that’d nearly taken his life just four months before. Her family had needed her for support and to run the soda fountain and it had brought Aimee’s best friend home, had given Katie Faith real true love and had come at a time to be a match to dry grass.
The wolves’ constant back-and-forth had dragged the witches into the fray. Which had involved Katie Faith and, in turn, had only made her father’s health more precarious, and her normally really easygoing mother actually got into a public brawl just the month before.
The town was a magical place. Literally. But the more drama and anger that was dredged up, the harder the land had to work to connect with the magic of all the witches. Everyone was at odds and it was exhausting.
“Dude, this is bananas. Like every last bit of today has been absolutely ridiculous and all this town stuff is bonkers. I stopped by to see your dad yesterday on my way home. He’s looking better, but his energy is a little frantic.”
All her life, Aimee’s magic had been the nurturing type. She wanted to make things better for people and animals. And plants too.
She was a green witch. Happy to bring life wherever she went. It meant she was able to use those gifts in dealing with clients because she was empathic. Avery, Katie Faith’s dad, was anxious for his family. Resentful that he’d been weakened and guilty because he felt he didn’t do his job.
Aimee helped relieve some of his stress, talked him into a better place where he could more easily see he was doing so much more than he’d thought to protect his family.
“My mom told me you hung out with him for an hour having tea and listening to his country music. Thanks for that.” Katie Faith had her own frantic energy, as she’d been at the center of a lot of the mess in town. Though here, in this big solid house, it was calmer. More steady.
“Your dad is great and he made hummingbird cake, so naturally I had to stay for tea.” He’d started to loosen up, let go of the negative energy he’d been clinging to. “I encouraged your mom to get him away from town more often. I talked to Wade and he told me he’s going to be traveling for work and he needs a house sitter to hang with the animals, deal with the gardens, all that stuff. I suggested he call your mom so that’ll happen soon too.”
Wade was Aimee’s brother. He’d left Diablo Lake to settle in Asheville after college. He did employee training seminars on tech support so he traveled several times a year. His place was near enough, but far enough away that Katie Faith’s parents could go and not feel guilty but be out of the drama.
“What a big old Softie Softerson you are.” Katie Faith put a bowl of mushroom soup in front of her.
“Am not. I’m heartless and cruel. Oh, and I’m a strumpet.”
Katie Faith snickered. “A strumpet? I was thinking more a floozie with loose morals.”
Aimee nodded as she thought that over while she ate her soup. “I’ll have to consider that.”
“I couldn’t talk them out of the Consort meeting though,” Katie Faith said of the group of witches in Diablo Lake and their regular meeting. “I tried but my mom said she wasn’t going anywhere until she got her say. So.”
Jace wandered in, grabbed beers and left once more, pretending he hadn’t been checking on them.
“He’s so cute to pretend we don’t know he’s listening to all this,” Katie Faith told her with an eye roll.
A while back her friend had told her of how nosy and bossy and in-your-business wolves were, and the more Aimee hung around them, the better she understood what she’d meant.
But at the heart of it with Jace was his wanting to protect Katie Faith’s well-being. And as Aimee cared about that too, she gave him some leeway.
If only the same could be said of all the wolves in town. The constant tussling over power had always been part of life. But lately it had been much more personal and hateful as some old grievances had resurfaced.
The witches had been pulled into the whole mess and they’d all had it. All that negative energy would degrade the heart of power all those who lived in Diablo Lake were protected by.
That heart of power the witches had taken an oath to protect, back in the very beginning of their peculiar little town in the middle-of-nowhere Tennessee, also happened to feed their magical power. The earth fed their magic so they were being impacted on multiple levels.
The Consort, run by the elder witches in town, had called a meeting to discuss the situation the following week.
“At least it’s not before eight in the morning.” Aimee didn’t much mind getting up early. But on a Saturday when she’d had the week she had?
Katie Faith curled her lip at the very idea of getting up that early, though she’d do it if she had to. As her friend was a nightmare of a human being before she had coffee, Aimee was relieved on that front as well.
“Why don’t you stay over? You can sleep in the spare room. We can watch something scary, even.” Katie Faith’s hopeful expression made her feel so much better.
“Thank you. But I’m feeling better now. I mean, I wasn’t bummed we weren’t together and now it makes me even more glad. I just feel dirty, and not the good way. I’ll walk home.”
“No, you won’t. There are a jillion wolves here, and one of them hasn’t been doing tequila shots so they can drive you home. But you don’t have to go just yet, right? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“You got married a week ago. I’ve seen you three days this week so far. I think we’re okay.” Aimee rolled her eyes, glad to have a friend like Katie Faith.
“Being married has been pretty cool.”
“So you two still bang and stuff? Now that the thrill is gone?” Aimee teased.
“It’s a chore, but we make it work. I mean, someone has to do Jace, it may as well be me.”
“Glad you make the sacrifice.”
Don’t miss Diablo Lake: Protected, available now wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold! And watch for the next Diablo Lake book, coming soon.
CarinaPress
© 2017 by Lauren Dane
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