Entangled Secrets
Entangled Secrets
ALSO BY PAT ESDEN
The Northern Circle Coven series
His Dark Magic
Things She’s Seen
Entangled Secrets
The Dark Heart series
A Hold on Me
Beyond Your Touch
Reach for You
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
Table of Contents
ALSO BY PAT ESDEN
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Also by Pat Esden
Entangled Secrets
A Northern Circle Coven Novel
Pat Esden
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 by Patricia AR Esden
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Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. US Pat. & TM Off.
First Electronic Edition: July 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0634-9 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0634-2 (ebook)
First Print Edition: July 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0635-6
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0635-0
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For my sisters, Robin and Ruby:
because they too cast spells woven from
the power and beauty of the imagination.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I’d like to thank all the readers, reviewers, and bloggers who have supported my novels. There is no greater joy than to be cruising social media and discover a review or kind mention. Seriously, you bring joy to my heart and make future books possible.
To my first readers, Casey Griffin and Jaye Robin Brown, you rate my undying gratitude and a massive number of hugs. Both of you are pure magic. I’d also like to thank Suzanne Warr and Lily Black for your ongoing astute suggestions.
Sincerest thanks to my brilliant editor Elizabeth Trout for your support, wisdom, and for inspiring me and giving me freedom. And to Selena James; without you, the Northern Circle Coven series would be nothing more than a crazy dream.
I’d also like to thank all the wonderful people at Kensington Publishing and Lyrical Press. A special nod to Alexandra Kenney. Thank you for all the time, work, and thought you put into the Northern Circle Coven series.
Chapter 1
Burlington’s flying monkeys. The originals
were crafted out of steel decades ago.
I created mine out of car parts and garden
tools as a gift to my son on his third birthday.
Truly, if I could have made them fly, I would have.
—WPZI interview with artist Chandler Parrish
Chandler set the hand grinder aside and flipped up the visor of her welding helmet. She studied the fist-size heart on the workbench in front of her and smiled, pleased with the results. If she could just find the perfect strands of wire to use for the arteries and veins, the heart would be ready to install.
She glanced across the workshop to where her latest flying monkey sculpture crouched on a rusty oil drum. It was crafted from scrap metal like its predecessors. But this one was going to be an updated model with a trapdoor in its chest and a heart—a cross between the Tin Man and the flying monkeys of Oz fame.
“Mama?” Her son’s voice came from behind her.
“Yeah?” She turned to see what he wanted.
Peregrine stood in the workshop’s open doorway, silhouetted against the autumn-orange leaves of a maple that sheltered the entry. Dirt smeared his jeans. His wild blond hair was tangled. Her chest swelled with joy. If she could ask the Gods and Goddesses for anything, it would be for his life to remain as carefree as that of the eight-year-old he was right now.
“Devlin sent me to get you. Some guy’s waiting in the main house.”
“Who is it?” Chandler asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. The guy saw a shapeshifter turn into a loup-garou. Wish I’d seen it.”
Chandler pulled off her welding helmet and thumped it down on the workbench. Damn it. Their mystery visitor had to be the journalist. His spotting a shapeshifter transforming in public—illegally, of course—wasn’t that recent of news, but his dogged interest in the event, and his intrusion into the Northern Circle coven’s ongoing issues in general, was proving to be a major pain. Actually, she was shocked he’d showed up here at the coven’s complex. A couple of days ago, two coven members had paid him a not-so-friendly visit at the fleabag motel where he’d been staying to discover if he truly was a threat to the witching world’s anonymity, or if he’d only come across as crazy to the average person.
“Devlin thinks the guy’s lying,” Peregrine added.
“Even if Devlin did believe him, he couldn’t tell the journalist what he saw was real, right?”
“I don’t think Devlin likes him.”
“That’s because the journalist is a troublemaker.” She walked over to Peregrine and smoothed her hand down his cheek. At twenty-five, Devlin was younger than she by almost four years, but that made him no less wise. He was Ivy League smart, a powerful witch with polished good looks and a kind heart that made him perfect for the Circle’s high priest position. She gentled her
voice. “Do you know where Brooklyn is?”
Peregrine nodded. “She and Midas are making dinner.”
“I need you to go help them until the visitor leaves. Okay?”
Peregrine stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “Can’t I just listen? I wanna hear about the loup-garou. Please?”
“Not this time.” She crouched, looked him in the eyes, and turned on her mama-dragon voice. “You need to stay away from this man. He’s dangerous. Understand?”
“He didn’t look dangerous to me. He just talked kinda funny.”
“No arguing. I want you to hang out with Brooklyn and Midas. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
Peregrine glanced over his shoulder toward the yard, then his gaze whipped back to her. “What do redcaps really look like?”
Chandler shook her head. Peregrine’s ability to shift seamlessly from one topic to another never ceased to amaze her. “Where in the Goddesses’ name did that question come from?”
He tucked his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Just wonderin’.” He stole another glance behind him. His voice trembled a little. “Do they really dip their hats in blood?”
Chandler straightened to her full height. Hands on her hips, she followed his gaze. There was nothing unfamiliar or strange in their yard or in the parking lot beyond it, except for an old, lime-green Volkswagen Beetle in front of the main house, undoubtedly the journalist’s ride.
A spark of fear flickered to life inside her, a fear she’d prayed she’d never have to face. “Did you see something strange?”
“There was this creepy person-thing next to that guy’s car.”
In two swift motions, she pulled him all the way inside and slammed the door shut. Heat and the thrum of protective magic blazed up the dragon and monkey tattoos on her arms and across her shoulders. She studied the yard again through the door’s window, hoping to spot a fox or a mangy racoon. Something. Anything.
Peregrine wriggled in beside her, his breath fogging the windowpane. “It kinda looked like the drawings of redcaps I’ve seen in books.”
She scrubbed her fingers over the soft bristle of her close-cropped hair. Shit. Shit. Shit. Not this. Anything but this. Peregrine was the age when most witches’ abilities manifested. And—though she rarely thought of him—Peregrine’s biological father possessed the gift of faery sight, an ability to see through the glamour faeries used to make themselves invisible; fae such as redcaps. The gift was rare nowadays because the gene pool of witches with the ability had shrunk to a handful, after eons of them being murdered or blinded by the fae, who preferred to remain concealed. It was an extraordinarily dangerous gift for the few adults who possessed it. But for an eight-year-old boy? For her boy?
She wrapped an arm around Peregrine’s shoulder, snugging him closer. “Are you a hundred percent sure you saw something?”
“Yeah. Uh—maybe.”
Maybe? Her tension eased a fraction. In truth, it could have been nothing more than wishful thinking on Peregrine’s part, combined with an imagination as active as hers. Even if he had seen a faery, it could have been a benign and unglamoured one that Brooklyn had invited into the complex to help with her herbs and concoctions.
A movement caught Chandler’s eye. Something coyote-size and hunched low to the ground was creeping out from behind the Volkswagen. It slunk along, dragging something—
Chandler shrieked. A body! A child.
She pushed Peregrine behind her, then eased the door open just far enough to get a better view. She had to have been mistaken. It couldn’t be carrying a child.
The creature swiveled to look at her. It dropped the body. Tufts of straw trailed from where the child was missing an arm.
Chandler let out a relieved breath. She recognized the child and the creature now. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said. “It’s just Henry with Brooklyn’s scarecrow.” Well, there wasn’t anything to worry about as long as Brooklyn didn’t see Henry, Devlin’s golden retriever, making off with her straw man. If she did, there’d be hell to pay.
Peregrine wiggled past her to look. “I wasn’t afraid of nothin’. And that isn’t what I saw. What I saw was bigger. A lot bigger.” He fanned his arms, indicating something twice as tall and large as the scrap-metal rhinoceros that she’d sold to a client last month, impossibly larger than a redcap.
She gave him a side-eye look. Now he was fibbing, except…
A chill traveled up her arms, prickling against the magic in her tattoos. But what if—other than the size—it wasn’t a fib? What if he did have the sight like his father?
Chapter 2
Some say the duplicity comes from demons vying for man’s soul
or the fae seeking sovereignty over this realm.
Many believe it’s witches tainted by a lust for power.
It is all these things and more.
—Rafael Mastroianni, High Chancellor
Eastern Coast High Council of Witches
“Do redcaps leave footprints?” Peregrine asked as they passed the journalist’s Volkswagen on their way to the main house.
“Can we not talk about redcaps anymore?” Chandler said.
He scuffed his feet against the walk. “If their hats are all bloody, why don’t they leave a gooey trail wherever they go?”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I wish I’d see someone shift into a loup-garou. I wonder if Gar can shift. His father’s a loup-garou…”
Chandler tuned out Peregrine’s chatter, focusing instead on the soothing energy wheeling off the main house. The brick building that served as the heart of the coven’s complex had been an abandoned factory before Devlin and his sister, Athena—who had served as high priestess beside him—had taken over the project of revitalizing it from their mother. Chandler had loved the place from the first moment she’d arrived, well over eight years ago now. There was something about its psychic energy. Perhaps it was the memories imprinted into its scarred floorboards by the factory workers who’d traveled over them for decades, or the emotions crackling off the graffiti that still slashed its brick-walled hallways, tags left behind by people who had claimed the factory during the years it stood forsaken. Chandler couldn’t help wondering if their current confrontation with the journalist would also fuse itself to the building’s soul.
Of course it will, she answered her own question. If the journalist hadn’t attempted to infiltrate the coven, things might not have gotten to the point where the Circle couldn’t ignore him. But he had—and, unfortunately, it had happened after a witch by the name of Rhianna had murdered Athena and used dark magic to impersonate her. Every single member of the coven felt ashamed that they had failed to realize Rhianna wasn’t Athena. However, the journalist most likely still believed that Athena, and not Rhianna, had performed the ghastly spell that left his brain scrambled.
Chandler opened the building’s front door and let Peregrine race into the foyer ahead of her. He spread his arms out as if transforming into the falcon he was named after. Then he screamed into the hallway, his birdlike shrieks echoing off the brick walls as he made for the stairwell down to the first floor.
She rushed after him. But by the time she reached the open stairwell, he was already in the living room below. He made a loop around Chloe, who was setting a bottle of wine on the coffee table, then beelined into the lounge before vanishing into the dining room hallway. Hopefully, Brooklyn and Midas would be able to keep him occupied for at least a few minutes.
Chandler hurried down the stairs. “Where is everyone? I thought the journalist was here?”
Chloe was in her early twenties, willowy, blonde and bound-for-med-school brilliant. She was one of the most recent initiates to the coven, but she and Devlin had already formed a close relationship. That was a good thing; coping with the fallout from Athena’s murder hadn’t been easy for any of them, especi
ally not for Devlin. He loved his sister deeply and needed the support—and distraction—of a vivacious witch like Chloe.
Sadness tightened Chandler’s chest. She missed Athena so much. Sure, Athena’s spirit was still present. But that wasn’t the same as having her longtime friend around, not at all the same.
“Unfortunately,” Chloe said, “the journalist is most definitely here. Devlin and Gar are giving him a tour of the teahouse right now. They should be back any second.”
Chandler frowned. “A tour seems a little friendly, all things considered.”
“I imagine they’re testing to see how much he remembers about the stuff that happened here with Rhianna. Not to mention trying to figure out if he really witnessed a loup-garou transforming.”
“That does sound smart.” Chandler eyed the wine bottle, weighed the idea of having a glass, and decided against it. “I wish I’d met the journalist that night and stopped Rhianna before she cast the spell on him. I can’t believe I missed everything.”
“Rhianna probably went out of her way to keep you in the dark.”
“I suppose.” She still felt awful about not noticing what was going on right under her nose. “How much damage do you think her magic did to him?”
“Something’s wrong with him for sure. He stumbles over his words as if he can’t get his thoughts to come together. If Brooklyn hadn’t told me that he was fine before Rhianna’s spell and worse as it went on, I’d assume he was recovering from aphasia.”
An ache pulled at the back of Chandler’s throat. A few years ago, when her adoptive mom had the stroke that put her in the High Council’s palliative care infirmary, she’d suffered from aphasia. It had been heart-wrenching to watch such a dynamic woman struggle to form even a single word.
The glass-and-steel industrial doors that formed the back wall of the living room glided open. Devlin and the journalist strolled in, shadowed by Gar’s broad-shouldered outline.
Though Chandler hadn’t met the journalist before, she had seen him on TV. It had been a rebroadcast of him ranting to a reporter that witchcraft was responsible for a club fire and a ton of crazy incidents around the city. He’d come across as irrational, but he’d been a hundred percent right about everything. At the time, she’d registered only that he was a slim, determined black man in his mid to late twenties with haphazardly chopped-off hair. Now, in real life, his loose-jointed stride and crazy hair made her think of Ichabod Crane from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The fact that he wore slightly twisted librarian-style glasses only added to the unconventional vibe.