“Cathy, this is not the cross you want to hang your family on,” Anna said, coming to her feet. “Your family has lost power this year already. Twice.”

Once with them, once with Charles’s foster sister, Mercy.

“Neither event involved a direct confrontation with Bran himself. You want to leave it that way.” Anna gave Ms. Hardesty a sweet smile—a match to the one the witch had been throwing around. “Trust me.”

Anna walked toward the door. The witch blocked her.

“Your people might be able to stop us leaving,” said Anna in a low voice. “But not before my mate tears your throat out.”

Charles took that as a hint and let the change from man to wolf rip through him. With the excess magic in the atmosphere, the change took even less time than usual. He smelled the witch’s sudden fear at the speed of his shift—and perhaps at the sight of the big wolf. He snarled softly and enjoyed the stink of her fear spiking.

Anna stared at the witch. “Be smart,” she said. Then she shrugged and said in a bored voice, “Or be dead.”

When she started walking again, the witch moved out of the way. Charles followed her, but he walked so he could keep his eyes on Ms. Hardesty, who seemed to be amenable to allowing them to leave, though she didn’t say as much. He wondered if her actions, like his, were hampered by her pregnancy.

When he got to the doorway, he gave the witch a careful, eyes-up-and-watchful bow. Then he resumed his human form, closed the door between them and the witch, and followed ten feet behind his mate all the way out the front door.

TAG WAS SITTING on the hood of the SUV playing games on his phone. He stayed there until Anna opened the driver’s side door, and then he hopped down. There was a bit of a depression in the metal of the hood.

“Hope what you found was worth it,” Tag murmured, passing Charles on the way to his door. “This place is a witch-hive, and they started swarming about ten minutes ago. They are giving me the creepy-crawlies for sure.”

The parking lot was certainly fuller than it had been when they’d arrived, Charles noted, though Tag was the only person visible.

As soon as everyone was belted in, Anna—in a very un-Anna-like fashion—gunned the SUV out through the open gates, which swung shut behind them. There was nothing mechanical involved in their movement.

Charles wasn’t sure of the exact message the witches intended for them to take from that. Don’t come back? We could have trapped you anytime we wished? Leave us alone?

No one said anything until they were on the highway back to Happy Camp.