Love Like War (LGBT) ✅

Chapter 2

2.

The smell was the first thing that they noticed, pungent and cloying, having had all of four months to ripen. It was a distinctive smell, the kind that was impossible to forget and made his stomach roll each and every time because, no matter how much he steeled himself to it, there was something just a little bit sick about finding a decomposing human body.

Callie nudged the body with the toe of her boot, turning her onto her back, and sighed when she saw the face, bloated as it was. "It isn't Selena."

Aiden had a feeling that it wouldn't be, their lives were never that easy. "Is she a witch?"

"I'd assume she is, there were no missing persons reports that I was made aware of."

Aiden crouched down, covering his nose with his sleeve, and inspected the woman's collarbone, "You're right. She has the mark of the Hethersett coven, it looks like they're recruiting again."

"So we're probably not just dealing with Selena," Callie sighed again, "which makes it a bit more tedious but also explains how they got the jump on Tristan. He wouldn't have gone down easily."

"Why didn't they kill him?" Aiden asked, getting back up. "He was in a vulnerable state and everyone knows that dark witches don't have any mercy."

"They'll be sadistic, if they're anything like their predecessors, and they wouldn't have been able to leave him alone if he killed one of their own. So, I'm guessing what happened is that they wanted to prolong his pain and left him to die."

"But he didn't."

She looked up at him. "I think your bond saved him."

"Well, about time it did something."

She smiled, laughing. "I guess so."

They quickly fell into routine, clearing the underbrush around the body and dousing it in petrol. It'd been a wet month so they weren't too concerned about setting the woods on fire but, out of habit, they left a ring of dirt around it anyway because there was no way it was going to help their case if the sheriff got called out to a suspected arson.

They left as soon as the match hit the body, neither of them big fans of the smell of burning flesh.

To distract them, Aiden asked, "What'd you reckon that Bonnie's around? Mary said Tristan went out for a drive in her on the last day she saw him."

"I didn't see her when I parked the rental car and there's only so many places to hide a car in town," Callie said, "so he must have drove out here when he met the witches."

"Good, we just have to find her then."

It was easier said than done, the dirt road from the town to the woods rarely used and not clearly marked out, causing the two of them to take more time than they were willing to admit to find it. When they did, though, it was fast approaching dusk and, according to the map on Callie's phone, they'd traipsed to the other side of the tree line. It figured that they'd have taken the roundabout way of getting to the woods, having spent two hours already looking for the dead witch.

"We should've bought a map at the corner shop."

"We should've brought the sheriff and his deputy."

Callie laughed. "We can go visit them at the station once we're done. It'll probably be a good idea to see their arsenal, too, because once the coven finds out Tristan's still alive, they'll come find him."

"How long do you think that'll take?"

"Well, Draco says they're based around Rhome and they've been hanging around for a while, it shouldn't take long for word to get out if they choose to visit Keeter."