Sky smiled slightly. "Wicca isn't something you can learn in a correspondence course or figure out on your own. It's experiential. You need someone who's gone through it before you as a guide. Otherwise bad things can happen. Especially with the kind of power that you've inherited."
"That's not what I was asking," I said. "Why Hunter? Doesn't he have more important things to do than worry about me?"
"He's a Seeker," Sky replied. "It's his job to make sure witches don't misuse their magick. And—" She broke off. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she added, "And you're Woodbane."
I bristled. "So he's waiting for me to turn bad?"
"You might," Sky said bluntly. "He can't ignore the possibility."
I folded my arms and pressed my back against the cushioned seat. So Hunter was acting as my watchdog, making sure I stayed on the path of righteousness. I was his assignment, just as I had been Cal's assignment.
I remembered how much I had hated both Sky and Hunter when I'd first met them. With Sky it was mostly from jealousy—her beauty and poise were intimidating to me. But, I realized now, it was also that I'd sensed their suspicion. I could feel that Sky still didn't truly trust me; even though we'd served together, she continued to scrutinize me. Apparently Hunter was doing the same thing. The thought sent a sharp pain through me.
Hunter looked up when I walked in with Sky. "Thanks," he said to her.
"Ta," Sky said. She tossed her leather jacket on the sofa, then pointed to the phone. "Feel free," she said, then disappeared up the stairs.
"How long can you stay?" Hunter asked me. "We've got a lot to talk about."
"I'm not staying," I said. "Sorry Sky went to all that trouble, but I have work to do." I crossed to his phone. "If you won't drive me, I'll call a taxi."
Hunter rubbed a hand across his chin. "What is the matter with you?" he asked mildly.
"I don't appreciate you sending your cousin to practically kidnap me off the street." I snapped. "I told you I didn't have a ride, so I couldn't make it."
"I'm sorry." To my astonishment, he actually sounded abashed. "I—well, I thought I was doing you a favor."
"No, you didn't," I retorted. "You just wanted me to stick to your plan. What gives you the right to just waltz in out of nowhere and take charge? You think just because the International Council of Witches told you to keep an eye on me that gives you the right to run my life?"
"They—" Hunter began, but I cut him off.
"You know what? I'm really sick of being somebody's assignment." Tears filled my eyes. I blinked furiously, trying to keep them from falling. "No one seems to care about who I really am, or what I want! What about me in all of this?"
"Morgan—" Hunter began, but I cut him off again.
"No!" I cried. "Don't! It's my turn." My fingers curled into fists, and I felt pressure build in my chest. "You're so self-righteous about your mission and the council and all that crap, but really you want exactly the same thing as Cal and Selene did—to control me. To use me for your own purposes." To my humiliation, my voice broke. I turned my back on Hunter and stood there, biting down hard on my lower lip as I struggled to hold myself together.
He didn't say anything at first, and silence stretched between us. At last he spoke in a curiously subdued voice.
"You're not my assignment. The council didn't tell me to keep an eye on you, actually," he said.
I fought to regain my normal pattern of breathing so that I would be able to understand what he was telling me. I wanted so much to understand, to be wrong.
I heard Hunter take a deep breath, too. "I'm here of my own choice, Morgan. I did contact them about you, that's true. I told them you were a witch of exceptional power and that I wanted to see if I could help guide you. They said I could do that as long as it didn't interfere with my primary work as a Seeker—which is to track down Cal and Selene and others like them."
He paused, and I heard him take a step toward me. Then I felt a feather light touch on my shoulder. "I don't want to control you, Morgan," he said. "That's the last thing I want."
His hand left my shoulder, his fingers lightly stroking my long hair. He was just inches behind me; I could feel the warmth of his body, and I held my breath.
"What I'm trying to do," he went on softly, "in my own clumsy way, is to give you the tools you need to understand the forces that you will inevitably come up against."
I turned to face him, searching his eyes, wondering what It was that he wanted, what I wanted. His eyes are so green, I found myself thinking, so gentle. I could feel his breath on my cheek, warm everywhere except on the wet trail of tears.
"I just want. .," he whispered, and trailed off.
We stood there, our gazes locked, and it seemed to me that once again the universe suspended its motion around us and the only warm, living things in it were the two of us.
Then Sky's voice called down from upstairs, "Hunter, did you remember to get cheese and biscuits?" and suddenly everything started moving again, and I stepped backward until the backs of my knees hit the worn ottoman and I sat down. I was trembling, and I found I couldn't look at Hunter.
"Um—yes, I got them," Hunter replied, his voice raspy and a little breathless.
"Right, then. I'm going to make a cheese-and-tomato omelet. I'm starved." I heard Sky's boots clattering down f the stairs. "Want some?"
"Sounds great," Hunter said. "Morgan, how about you?"
"Um—no thanks, my family will be expecting me for dinner at six-thirty," I said shakily. "In fact, I'd better give my mom a call right now and let her know where I am."
"Tell her I'll run you home by six," he said. Then he added, "If that's all right with you, I mean. If you want to stay."
"It's all right," I told him. I didn't feel ready to leave.
By the time I hung up, I felt more normal. Hunter led me to the back of the house, where the wood-burning stove filled the long room with warmth. The windows were fogged with condensation, but I rubbed one with my sweater and looked outside. Another rickety porch lined the back of the house, and beyond it I could see trees growing from the sides of the ravine: oak, maple, birch, hemlock, and pine. The woods around Widow's Vale tended to have a well-trod, gentle feel to them. But the land behind Hunter and Sky's house felt raw, wild, as though floodwaters had just swept through and carved out something new and highly charged.
"It feels different here," I said.
"It is. It's a place of power." Hunter lit the candle and incense stick on the altar. He gestured to the floor where we'd held the circle. A worn oriental carpet now covered the center of the floor. "Have a seat."
I settled myself on the carpet.
He didn't sit. "There's something we need to discuss," he said.
"What?" I asked, feeling wary again.
"I did some checking on David's story, yesterday and today. That's why I couldn't come pick you up myself." Hunter paced toward the woodstove, then swung around to face me. "First of all, he lied about how he hurt his hand. I asked Alyce, and she told me he'd come in with it bandaged up two days before the party. He didn't do it trimming boughs for the party."
My heart lurched. David had lied to me?
Wait. I thought back. Not so fast. He never said he cut his hand trimming boughs for the party. He could have been trimming some other boughs. Couldn't he?
"Second, Stuart Afton didn't make any money on stocks last week," Hunter said.
I frowned. "I'm not following you."
Hunter made an impatient gesture with his hand. "David said Afton forgave his debt because he'd made a killing on the stock market last week," he reminded me. "But I checked, and it never happened."
"You checked? How?"
"If you must know," Hunter said, looking uncharacteristically self-conscious, "I chatted up his secretary. No man has secrets from his secretary. She knew nothing about any sudden windfall."