and let me push it off for the moment.
That would probably end well.
22
The next few weeks went by in a blur of lots of crazy. Things didn’t chill with the whole McGrath issue and so much coming out all the time. It was the distraction of all distractions and for once, everyone was focused on something other than me.
And the hobgoblins. Neldor took that over and was getting them out everyday while I was at school, or we were both hitting places on weekends.
He was also healing huge sections of Faerie and diligently working with Dean White. He ate more than all the animals at a few zoos, but it was going well.
Things were still tense with Lucca and Darby, but they did believe I forgave them. They weren’t happy I turned to Craftsman and still didn’t have all the details on something that he did but were trying. For what, I wasn’t sure. I really had let it go.
Maybe it wasn’t even about them, I felt so meh and blah. Maybe it was the rest of my life leaking over onto my relationships. Fuck if I knew.
School was great and I was learning a ton. I was ready for the semester to end and have a break to focus where I wanted to and power up more so I could plot out what came next.
But I was very ready to close a different chapter in my life.
Ainsworth. I wanted him gone. I would have preferred dead, and painfully, given all of the crimes he’d committed, but after the wolf shifter council looked into what I’d given them… He might not be long for this world once they fought through the politics.
So it was time to spring the trap.
“Sir, I’m telling you that I’m looking at her,” the guard told Ainsworth over the phone, leaning over the unconscious wolf who currently looked like me. Well, she did to him. “I’m staring at Tamsin Vale. We got her.”
“That’s not possible. She’s not that stupid. It has to be a glamour charm,” Ainsworth snapped.
“We pulled off all the charms she had on her.”
“Is she a witch?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ainsworth growled.
The other guard took the phone from the first guy. “Sir, we picked up the witches we were supposed to and found Vale unconscious here. It looks like she tried to intercept them or made a move, but something happened. I can’t tell if she’s a witch either. She’s hurt and—something was done to her. She’s in bad shape but it’s her. We cannot go against her if she wakes up or—”
“I’ll be right there. Don’t lose her!” he bellowed before hanging up.
The guy shook his head as he handed back the phone. “This stinks. We should have just ignored her and gone on like normal.”
“If he found out we didn’t call it in, we’d both be dead, and maybe our families,” the first guy defended. “We were fucked either way.”
“We always have been,” the second grumbled. “This was the job my parents forced me towards to bring honor to our family. Yeah, I feel honorable every day.”
The first rolled his eyes. “It’s better than being the ones they step on.”
The second shot him a look like he was the stupid one. “Yeah, we’re just much closer to be kicked instead and normally that’s what happens.”
They both shut it when a temp portal opened and Ainsworth stepped through with several more guards. His gaze immediately landed on “me” and filled with glee.
“How? How did you get her?”
The first guy shrugged. “We… What the fuck?” He glanced around when the woman stopped looking like me.
Meaning, I stopped projecting that she was me into all their minds and hiding that she was a wolf.
“What did you do?” Ainsworth bellowed at them.
“It’s a trap,” one of the other guards figured out.
Duh.
Ainsworth tried to open a portal, but I hopped down from where I’d been hiding and pulled the magic right from it.
“Oh no, you’re staying right here,” I purred, smirking at him.
And lowered all the other barriers I’d had up hiding the dozens of wolf shifters who worked for the council.
“Your comeuppance is due, Ainsworth,” I confirmed when he looked around. “Caught in the act even. Naughty, naughty.”
“This was all your setup,” he roared and wrote something on his hands.
“Please, attack me and don’t come peacefully,” I taunted, smiling evilly at him. I wanted to scream in frustration when the fucker actually was smart and pulled back his magic. Fuck!