Winter: A time for love and revenge

I awoke in Aspen’s arms, my legs tangled with his. He was awake, running his hand up and down my back in a soothing motion. My body no longer ached or showed any signs of being previously wounded.

“Feeling better?”

I lifted my head and met his gaze, becoming instantly ensnared by his churning eyes. He cupped my face, his thumb brushing over my cheek. “I’ve been worse,” I said with a hint of a grin, splaying my hand on his chest.

Aspen’s hand moved down my back to grab my ass, giving a firm squeeze as his free hand tilted my head and kissed me. I didn’t think I could ever grow tired of kissing him and how right it felt to have his lips against mine. As the kiss deepened, I shifted until I was straddling him, and his cock pressed against my soaked center.

Aspen groaned as I shifted my hips, rubbing my pussy against his cock, repeating the action several more times. I would’ve done more, but we were rudely interrupted when someone banged on the front door.

“Who the fuck is that?” I whispered as I rolled off Aspen, tension holding my body, my wolf ready to shift. Aspen shook his head before climbing to his feet, careful to make as little sound as possible.

“We’re here to kill you.” An impatient woman’s voice drifted through the door, and despite her words, we relaxed.

While I didn’t recognize the voice, I knew without a doubt anybody wanting to kill us wouldn’t have announced that, nor would they sound equal parts bored and exasperated. They also wouldn’t have knocked on the door. Aspen had the same logic, pulling on his sweatpants and heading for the door.

Unlike earlier, the door easily swung open, which shouldn’t have been possible with all the snow. Not only was a short, dark-haired girl with light brown skin standing in the cleared snow, but Leon was also standing beside her.

I’d never seen the girl before, but as she entered the cabin, shivering from the cold, I felt a buzz of magic coming from her. She was a witch and not a winter witch. Unlike the winter witches, her magic wasn’t cold but warm and vibrant.

“What are you doing here?” I directed at Leon as I continued sitting on the blankets, not bothering to cover myself.

Leon was near enough to Aspen to have smelt me on him, and with the state of the blankets, he and the witch no doubt knew what happened here. Speaking of the witch, while she didn’t seem as comfortable with nudity as werewolves were, she wasn’t squirming or looking anywhere but me like a human would.

“I was sent here as backup,” Leon said as he leaned back against the closed front door, crossing his arms and propping his foot against the door. He was dressed in jeans, boots, and a winter coat, telling me they’d managed to drive here, which wasn’t all too surprising when he had a witch with him. “We figured the best way to fight winter witches is with the help of witches.”

“Winter bitches,” the girl grumbled as she pulled off her heavy coat and took a seat at the table. She appeared to be around our age, maybe a year or so younger. Her words weren’t a shock with how witches and winter witches didn’t get along. It was like vampires and werewolves. Our kinds despised each other, and it would probably always remain that way.

“You couldn’t find someone older or more experienced?” Aspen asked, his eyebrows pulled together as he gave the girl a perusal—not in a sexual way. My wolf wouldn’t have appreciated that since she now saw Aspen as hers, even if we didn’t have a true mating.

“I could leave if you’d like—let you deal with them on your own,” she offered, pointing toward the door.

“I like her,” I said with a chuckle, which only grew when Aspen gave me an exasperated look. As someone who’d been underestimated for my age, gender, or appearance, I knew better than to ever do that.

“Selene knows what she’s doing,” Leon said before Selene could say anything else.

“We’re also all our coven could spare,” Selene said as she looked down at her nails. “Half of our coven is down in South Carolina, and we need to keep our territory secure, the same as your pack.”

South Carolina was where the North American council resided. While there were many species of supernaturals spread across the earth, we all answered to the same government and the same rules, for the most part. Not draining a human to death wasn’t a rule I needed to be told to follow.

There were six councils, each on six different continents—not including Antarctica. Each council had representatives from the largest and most prominent supernatural species. Unfortunately, not all species had members. It would’ve made everything chaotic, and decisions would never be made. But they made sure to have a good spread of the species. They didn’t have a winter witch and a witch as representatives: they had a witch—meant to be able to be the voice for all the different types of witches.

The council’s job was to enforce the rules and to punish those who broke them. If they wanted to change a law or create a species-wide rule, they’d need to confer with the other five councils and get a majority vote.

If Selene’s coven was in South Carolina, they were meeting with the council, not that she seemed willing to share details.

“We?” I asked, glancing at the door, wondering where the other members were.

“They’re seeking out the other members of your groups.”

“Are the others still okay?” I directed my question at Leon since he probably had been in contact with them more recently.

He nodded as he rubbed his jaw. “They’ve all had shapeshifters attack them, but they’ve managed to kill them. Aaron caught one alive and questioned them on where the winter witches are, but it’s just a general location in the north side of their territory. It seems the winter witches don’t fully trust them. Not that I’m surprised; the shapeshifters can’t seem to keep a secret.”

“He wasted his fucking time,” Selene said with a sigh. “If you want to find those bitches, they’re easy enough to track down. They lack tact and almost never cover their trail. I don’t even need to cast a locator spell to find them. With all the snowstorms they have going on, I could simply turn on the news and find them.”

“And how are we supposed to get to them?” I asked, ruffling my hand through my messy hair.

I assumed Selene had used her magic to clear the way, but the closer we got to where the winter witches were casting their spells, the harder it would be for her to maintain it. Based on the strength of the blizzard beating at the cabin, I figured it was the whole coven and not just a few.

“We’ll lure a few of them out, weakening their power base,” Leon said as he picked up the bag he’d set near his feet and came toward me. He stopped a few feet away, dropping it next to me. “We’ll wait until we’re there to shift.”

Unzipping the bag, I found clothes for both Aspen and me, as well as some food. It was basic, but it would help give us energy since the last thing I ate was the granola bar hours ago. We could go longer without eating, but it wasn’t recommended, especially if we were shifting and healing.

A human would wrap a blanket around themselves and go to the bathroom to change, but not me. I stood and pulled on the underwear, relieved to have it since the pants were jeans, and I didn’t want to deal with chafing.

“What if they just send the shapeshifters to deal with us?” Aspen asked as he switched pants.

“If there are any still alive, we’ll kill them,” Leon said with a shrug, as if it were no problem.

“Trust me, once they feel witch’s magic, they’ll want to come themselves to deal with us.” Selene stood from the chair and flicked her hand toward the fireplace as she murmured a spell under her breath. The flickering flames extinguished with a whoosh. “We need to get in place. The more time I spend here, the more likely they’ll be able to sense my presence.”

Leon’s truck did well on the icy paths, both because it was outfitted to drive on all terrains and because Selene had a spell going to improve the weather and driving conditions around us. She sat in the front seat with a gold bowl full of herbs sitting in her lap, chanting a spell under her breath in another language as she used a dropper to drip a purple potion into it.

Smoke filled the truck when she lit a match and dropped it into the mixture, the fire burning in the bowl and remaining lit. She rolled down the window a crack, allowing the smoke to drift out. Rather than dispersing, the smoke swirled and moved like it was being controlled.

My nose wrinkled at the smell of burning herbs and the overly fragrant potion, but I didn’t complain since she was helping us. Without her help, Leon would’ve never made it to the cabin, and Aspen and I would’ve had a hell of a time leaving it.

With the window down, it allowed the frigid and whipping winds to enter the truck. A combination of snow and sleet pelted the truck, and I could only imagine how much worse it would be if Selene weren’t here.

It took us nearly an hour to get to our destination. Part of it was due to how slow we had to drive. We were still several miles from the epicenter, but the closer we came, the worse the weather grew. Selene and Leon’s plan had better work. There was no way in hell we could get any closer than this if the weather remained the same.

Aspen got out of the truck first and grabbed my hips to help me down. If anyone else had done that, I would’ve refused out of spite, just to prove I didn’t need anyone’s help. Petty and stupid? Yes, but sometimes I couldn’t help myself. With Aspen, it was like I could allow myself those small moments of weakness.

It had always been that way for us.

The snow was so deep here that it came up to my knees, slipping into my boots. While I was more than glad to be wearing clothes that were significantly better suited for the cold, it still didn’t shield me from the biting winds trying to knock me on my ass.

Selene chanted as she pulled a flower apart, dropping the vibrant petals in the snow, followed by pouring out a green potion. She paused her chanting, kneeling in the snow as she looked up at us. “Be ready.”

Before any of us could respond, she pulled out an athamé from a holster in her coat and slammed it into the snow. A rumble ran through the earth as her buzzing magic sank into the snow that soon melted as flowers sprang out of the dead grass within the small clearing. It was the biggest fuck you to winter witches I’d ever seen.