The Whimsy Witch Who Wasn't - Donna Augustine Page 0,110

forget about magic and evil for a little while.

Ice-cold hands circled my throat, choking the air from me. My eyes popped open, but there was nothing to see. I grabbed at air. The grip on my throat tightened to where I wasn’t sure if I’d die of strangulation or a broken neck. I thrashed about, trying to dislodge the hands, my headboard banging against the wall.

The door crashed open, Hawk barging into the room. The grip released immediately.

I rolled on my side, coughing and choking as I dragged air back into my lungs. The window blasted open, smashing glass everywhere.

Hawk ran across the room as if he could see whatever had attacked me. Hawk took one look at me. I nodded, letting him know I was fine. He leapt out of the window and was gone.

I shoved my feet into my boots, dragged the blanket around my shoulders, and left the room. Whatever that thing was, I wouldn’t wait for it to come back.

I was curled up on the couch in the back room when the door in the office opened.

“Tippi?” Zab yelled.

“I’m in here,” I called out, my voice hoarse.

He was in the back room a second later. “What the hell happened? I got an emergency flash to get over here.”

I shook my head. Like always, I wasn’t quite sure.

39

I was sipping on the cocoa Zab had made me as he tried to drop yet another throw blanket on my shoulders.

“Zab, I’m fine. I was attacked, not left out on the tundra for a week.”

He sat down on the other side of the couch, fiddling with the throw I’d just shrugged off. His eyes went to my neck again, and I could tell he wanted to throw the blanket back on, as if that would fix everything.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.” I pulled the blanket tighter so my neck wasn’t visible anymore. I wasn’t sure if I was hiding it for him or so I didn’t see his face blanch when he looked.

“I still don’t understand why your magic didn’t kick in. You’d think if you were a Protectorate, you’d be able to protect yourself.” Zab rested an elbow on the back of the couch and then perched his chin on it, as if it was going to be a nice, long stare that his neck alone wouldn’t be quite up to.

“Me neither.” It was the third time he’d brought it up since we’d been sitting here. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it the first time. But his stare continued. At least Hawk had only sent notice to Zab. I wasn’t sure I could’ve handled Musso’s blunt approach to this subject. It might’ve been worse than what Hawk was going to say, and he’d surely say something.

“Maybe I’m only a Protectorate to other people? It doesn’t work on me? I mean, there’s not a lot of Protectorates. This might be normal.” Hawk hadn’t thought so when he’d questioned me about the grouslies, but that didn’t mean my hypothesis was wrong.

“Maybe. I guess.”

Zab clearly wasn’t buying it either, but at least he’d stopped staring. There was a limit to what I could handle in one day.

Two sets of footsteps sounded in the office. My heart jumped right before Hawk and Oscar walked inside.

Hawk immediately scanned me, as if he’d thought I might’ve been stabbed twenty times in his absence. He had cause.

Oscar nodded in my direction, with a curious look, as if he were still trying to take my measure but his ruler was broken in a million pieces.

“You find it?” Zab asked.

Hawk shook his head, his gaze landing on me again. “No. And if Oscar couldn’t, nobody will. He’s the best tracker around.”

“How do you think it got in?” I asked. All I could think of was going back in that bedroom, and it made my whole body tremble. I pulled the blanket up to my neck, as if it were chilly in the room.

Hawk walked closer, his gaze still on me, like maybe he’d missed a stab wound. “I think it came in through the flue. It’s the only thing that wasn’t warded. Only way it could’ve gotten in.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Hawk said.

Oscar gave Hawk a glance, as if something wasn’t being said.

“You still don’t think it’s somehow connected to Raydam?” I was beginning to doubt it was Raydam myself. The only thing I did know was Hawk and Oscar knew something they weren’t saying.

“No, and neither does he.” Hawk tilted his head toward