the wild magic still paced me, still encircled my wrist, and that only amplified the belief that it was here for a reason.
After a few minutes, with the main road finally in sight, the threads pacing me darted sideways and disappeared into the scrub on the left-hand side of the trail. When I didn’t follow, they returned and tugged lightly at my hand. It was then I heard a soft voice say, Follow.
Katie.
Her energy—her soul—had somehow infused the magic of the main wellspring.
Only when you are connected, came the response. Follow.
I glanced down at the bracelet of wild magic. It was obviously the connection, but the fact it had obeyed Katie suggested the spell that had been cast to make her part of the younger wellspring’s magic was now affecting the main one—something else that shouldn’t have been possible given spells normally died when the caster did.
Except this spell was cast in the presence of wild magic, came Belle’s thought. It’s also possible Gabe always intended her to be able to command both wellsprings. He did foresee she was meant to be this reservation’s guardian, remember.
It would have taken one hell of a spell to do something like that.
The spell did blow him apart, she said. And very few are capable of that.
The wisp of Katie’s energy released me and spun back toward the trees. I flexed my fingers and then followed as bid. Leaves crunched under every step, and nearby shrubs rustled as small animals skittered away. I hoped like hell none of them were snakes; they weren’t generally active at night, but the weather had been warm enough lately to stir them. I kept half an eye on the ground, just in case.
After several more minutes, we came into a small clearing. A semicircular mound of rocks and dirt taller than me dominated the area to my left; on the top of this a number of large tree branches had fallen, and in such a way that they formed a roof over the rocks to create a cave.
I had no sense of anything untoward, so why on earth had I been led here?
A little confused, I walked across to the cave—and almost immediately gagged. The emanating stench was one of dead meat combined with the sickly sweetness that sometimes came with cheap perfume. I shoved a hand over my nose and stuck to breathing through my mouth. Then, fearing what I was about to find, I squatted down and shone the flashlight’s beam in.
The cave was deeper than it looked and would have fit at least several kneeling people inside. The dry grass had been flattened, suggesting something—or someone—had been using it as a den, but the ground was too dry to hold any prints. There were a few bones scattered about, but the puffs of gray fur and dried bits of leathery-looking tail ends suggested they belonged to either rabbits or bush rats. A fox must have set up home here; it certainly wouldn’t have been a werewolf, as they didn’t hunt within the reservation—not in wolf form anyway. According to Aiden, it simply wasn’t worth the risk, given the reservation depended on tourism to survive. Rumors of wolves on hunting sprees would be the quickest way known to kill that. They might have become an accepted part of the world’s fabric a very long time ago, but old fears still ran deep in many sections of society.
And yet, despite all that, I did have to wonder if his statement was the absolute truth, given how fiercely the three packs here guarded their compound boundaries. No humans were allowed within them—not without permission from the pack’s alphas, anyway—and even then, there had to be a major crisis for ingress to be allowed.
Despite the fact I was going out with Aiden, I’d only gone inside the O’Connor compound twice—once to help Ashworth protect the wellspring, and once to save him from the dark witch who’d been determined to claim the wellspring for his own. We had crossed the boundary edges over the course of other investigations, but that was it. I’d never met Aiden’s parents or—Ciara aside—any of his siblings. I wasn’t ever likely to, either; I was a fun time, not a long time, as far as Aiden and his kin were concerned.
I ignored the ache that rose and studied the cave for a few seconds longer, looking for but not finding the source of the putrid scent.
In the end, I gave up and instead walked around