Wolf Curves by Christa Wick Read Free Book Online Page B

tonight?"
    *****
    Seth didn't leave without a fight, but all the words exchanged were between him and Esme. Esme cautioned patience, which might have calmed him had Leah not also insisted on his removing any extra guards from around the witch's house. In the end, he capitulated to the request for time and space -- from him.
    He would not yield when it came to guards. Betas from three different packs rotated through three shifts a day, their post maintained at the far end of Esme's long drive. That lasted a week and would have gone on until reports of other latents started trickling in.
    The pattern followed Leah's discovery, shifters from other clans drawn to nearby towns with reports of Hunters in the area. By the end of the first week, three new latents had been discovered. With the clan leaders realizing that the Hunters were targeting these women as part of their crusade to make shifters extinct, resources were re-allocated.
    The guards were pulled, the clan's alpha deeming Esme's charms to cloak Leah's nature and the location of her house deep within their territory sufficient to keep Leah protected. The absence of the men from the other packs didn't mean the two women went unwatched. Sitting on the long porch around the table with Esme teaching Leah the art of witchcraft or reading together in the rocking chairs, one or the other of the women would raise her head and stare out at the tree line as she sensed her mate. Leah never remarked when Esme scanned the area for Dana -- the witch still thought her secret was intact.
    On the second week, Leah met Gordon, the only male human in the clan. Esme had been kind when she said he looked as old as Moses. She'd been kind in calling him a healer, too. Able only to attract scraps of magic, Gordon was mostly an herbalist. Only one week into her training and Leah could have run circles around him if she'd been so impolite. Instead, she fumbled when he was around, letting him teach her spells she'd already mastered.
    Ready for another hour of fooling the old man, she watched Gordon pull to a stop in front of Esme's porch. His driving no better than his witchcraft, Esme had spelled the house to make sure he stopped before he could collapse the porch a second time.
    Instead of getting out of the vehicle, Gordon blared his horn.
    "What on earth, Gordon?" Esme stepped off the porch and approached his car. He whispered something in her ear. Esme straightened and started to return to the house, but he grabbed her wrist with one bony, gnarled hand.
    "I've got all the supplies we need, there's no time!"
    Leah approached the porch railing. "What's going on?"
    "One of the team's found another latent, near your apartment building." Esme looked at the front door, started to move toward it again, but Gordon would not release her arm.
    "She's injured." He wheezed when he spoke. "They can't move her and it's bad, too bad for me to heal her."
    "I need my phone." Esme twisted her wrist, freeing herself from the old man's grip.
    "We'll use mine. The girl could die."
    "Fine!" Esme spun back toward the vehicle, her hands flapping for Gordon to move over. "Then we don't have any time for you to drive, move."
    Leah took a step off the porch. "Should I come? I can help you."
    "No, Seth would have my head if I took you off clan land." She shook her head, the strength of her dismissal setting her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. "Too risky. Even charmed, that many latents would be like sending up a flare. The Hunters would pinpoint us immediately."
    "Aye-aye, cap'n. I'll hold the fort down." Leah offered a perky salute, hoping to ease Esme's worry about leaving her alone.
    The witch frowned, the furrowed line in her forehead deepening. "Stay inside, doors locked, promise me."
    Gordon nodded. "Best do as she says, child. I'll text Seth and let him know you're out here alone."
    Faking a smile, Leah thanked the old man. He still hadn't caught on that the last shifter she wanted to see was Seth. Even