Again, his touch seemed to scorch her.
He pointed to the bloody, cowering witch. “Consider her our GPS device.”
The gunfire stopped. Wolves shifted into human form, then transformed almost instantly back into beasts. They were trying to push the silver from their bodies. Trying to heal.
She glanced around, frantic, but only counted one dead—the poor wolf that Lorcan had killed when the house exploded.
Her shoulders sagged. She’d buried too many of her pack mates over the years.
Too many.
Ryan marched toward the witch. He caught the blonde’s arm and jerked her upright.
Her blood soaked her shirt.
“Don’t!” The blonde cried. “I didn’t want to help him! I didn’t have a choice.”
“Bullshit,” Ryan tossed right back at her. “We all have choices. Right now, my choice is—do I let you talk or do I just pick a vein and find the real truth through your blood?”
The vampire was fierce. Zoe had always found tough guys to be a turn-on.
Except when they were about to drink blood. Then…not so much.
Before Ryan could make his choice, Jane appeared, bursting from the woods. She was covered in blood, sporting some rather vicious claws, and her fangs were most definitely out.
This didn’t look at all like the scared, lost woman that had first arrived at the werewolf compound with Alerac.
Jane looked like she could kick serious ass—and she just had.
A dark wolf walked at her side. His body was massive, and his shining green gaze promised hell.
Jane put her hand on his head, stroking him.
Then Jane saw Ryan. She stopped. Shook her head. “R-Ryan?” In the next instant, she was running toward the vampire. Jane through her body against his and held on, tight.
The witch didn’t move.
Lucky girl, she’d just been spared a drinking. For the moment, anyway.
But Zoe knew that reprieve wouldn’t last forever. In her experience, nothing lasted forever.
Not even vampires.
***
Alerac knew something was wrong the instant that he stepped back onto his land.
The scent of blood was too heavy. Too fresh.
He rushed toward the main house. “Finn!” He threw open the door. Ran into the great-room.
Finn’s body was on the floor. The human—with his neck twisted—hung in his binds. The human’s chest had been clawed open.
“No!” Zoe shoved past them and ran to Finn. She fell to her knees beside him. “No, Finn!”
Fuck. Finn and Zoe had come to Alerac’s pack together. Not linked by blood, but by friendship. A deep and abiding friendship formed as abandoned children tossed from home to home in a foster care system that sure as hell hadn’t been made for their kind.
No one had understood their rage. Their bloodlust. And when puberty hit and the beast surged for power—the humans had tossed both Finn and Zoe into a psych ward, convinced they were going mad.
Alerac had found them. He’d gotten them out.
“Finn, don’t leave me,” Zoe begged.
He was already gone.
Jane crossed toward Zoe. She hesitated, then put her hand on Zoe’s shoulder.
Ryan dragged the witch over the threshold. His gaze immediately found Zoe. Tears tracked endlessly down her cheeks. He swore and hauled the witch to Zoe’s side. “He…matters to you?”
Zoe glanced up, staring at him as if he were crazy.
“Hell, of course, he matters.” Ryan expelled a rough breath. Then he shook the witch. “Bring him back.”
Ryan was insane. Not surprising, really. Alerac had long suspected that he was.
“Ryan,” Jane began, voice uncertain, “this can’t—”
“He’s not human, right?”
“His heart is gone,” Jane snapped to her brother. “He can’t come back!”
Ryan frowned, and shook his head. “But she wants him back.” He touched his temple. “Bring him back.”
Yes, definitely insane.
“I can’t,” the witch whispered. “He’s not here anymore.”
A choked sob came from Zoe.
The witch glanced at Alerac. “Please, let me go.”
Not likely. He still remembered what had happened when the witch used her magic on him. He’d felt as if someone were cutting out his heart.
But Zoe couldn’t keep holding Finn. Alerac motioned through the open doorway, at the two werewolves who were watching in shocked silence. “Take care of Finn. Bury the human.”
They nodded.
Zoe tightened her hold on him. “You can’t do this! You can’t—” But then she stopped. She inhaled. Stared down at Finn with watery eyes. “I thought it was Lorcan. That he’d done this.”
So had Alerac. At first.
“Liam?” Zoe whispered as she inhaled. Then she screamed, “Liam!”
Yes, Alerac had caught his scent, too. Liam had come back, and he’d hunted right in Alerac’s home.
Was the bastard still close?
Alerac glanced back through the open door. You are, aren’t you? “Keep the witch here,” Alerac told Ryan. “I’m hunting.” He couldn’t kill Lorcan, not yet, but Liam was another matter. Liam had earned the death he had coming his way.
He’d betrayed the pack, turned on his own kind.
He would die.
Alerac pointed to the witch. “Find a way to break the spell that links Jane and Lorcan.”
“I can’t—”
“Find it, or you die. Because you’re no fuckin’ use to me otherwise.” Then his stare cut to Jane.
Jane.
It almost hurt to look at her. Because—I nearly killed her. He hadn’t realized it. Had never suspected that Lorcan had somehow linked their life forces.
If he’d severed Lorcan’s head from his body, Jane would have died, too. In an instant.
When he’d whirled and seen the blood flowing down her neck, horror had filled him. He hadn’t been able to get to her fast enough. Hadn’t been able to heal her soon enough.
He wanted to cross the room and take her into his arms.
But his job was to protect. To protect Jane. To protect the pack. So far, he’d failed at that job.
No longer.
No other wolves would die by Liam’s hand. Liam had been his best friend. His closest confidant for two hundred years. It was only fitting that Alerac be the one to end him.
Fitting? No, maybe just twisted.
But it had to be done.
“Sever the tie between them,” Alerac commanded the witch. He couldn’t even look at Finn’s body then.
He headed back outside, into the too bright sunlight.
“Alerac!”
Jane. She’d rushed toward him so quickly. “Let me come with you.”
There were some battles that he had to fight on his own. “Figure out a way to save your brother. Maybe the cure wasn’t total bull.”
Then he faced the sun. He inhaled the scents. And followed the trail that he knew Liam had deliberately left for him.
***
Jane grabbed the witch and pretty much dragged the woman upstairs. Zoe and Ryan followed her, though Zoe just looked shattered.
I’ve looked that way before.
Jane pushed the witch into the bedroom on the right. “Tell me your name.”
“M-Mina.”
Jane frowned at her, that name was familiar. She’d seen a movie, during her vampire research and—
“At least, that’s what he called me.” Mina’s voice was softer now. “I’ve been with him since I was five. I don’t really know…I don’t remember what I was called before that.”
“Dracula’s freaking bride.” Ryan sounded disgusted. “Guess it makes sense that he’d call you that. Asshole probably thinks that it’s funny.”
Mina’s head whipped up. “I’m not his bride.” Her index finger pointed to Jane. “She’s his bride.”
The hell she was.
“You’re a witch,” Jane said. Stating the obvious, right?
But Mina still nodded.
“Tell me about the poison in my brother.”
“I-I didn’t craft that poison.”
“Right, of course you didn’t,” the disgusted snap came from Ryan. Zoe stared at them all, her hands wrapped around her stomach. Ryan continued, “Because you weren’t Lorcan’s flavor of choice back then. That was another witch. He killed her after she locked my sister in her prison with magic and poisoned me.” He braced his legs apart as he stared at Mina. “But every poison has a cure, right?”
A timid nod.
“What cures me?”
Mina’s gaze darted to Zoe.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “What. Cures. Me?”
Mina swiped away a tear that had slid down her cheek. “I read the old book that Shonna left behind.”
Shonna. The name meant nothing to Jane. Big surprise.
“Shonna was his witch back in the day,” Ryan explained. Had he read her mind, used their link to see what she was thinking? Or had he just guessed?
“The book said that the poison could be purged if you took the blood of a caged beast.” Mina spoke quickly. “She said the beast had to be dormant, locked, and your poison would destroy that beast even as you were healed.”
Ryan had turned to stare at Zoe. “Fuck me.”
Jane’s gaze darted between them.
Zoe laughed. “It’s me? You think I’m your cure?” Her eyes were on the floor, not on Ryan. “I’m a curse. Not a cure. Trust me.”
“Don’t worry,” Ryan told her, voice thick. “I’m not about to destroy you.” He turned his glare back on the witch. “Think of another way.”
Jane heard a howl then, seeming to echo off the mountain. She headed toward the window. Stared out. She didn’t see Alerac, but she knew that he was out there. Hunting.
Preparing to kill the closest thing that he had to a brother.
“I shouldn’t have let him go alone.” He’d been so determined. She’d been—
Lost. Desperate. Because she’d wanted to find a way to sever her tie to Lorcan. She still needed to find a way to be free, but…
Another howl sounded. That howl was harder. Wilder.
Not Alerac’s. She knew his cry. Could recognize it on an instinctive level.
“Liam is luring Alerac to him,” Zoe murmured.
Yes, he was.
And she was supposed to wait there? Just wait and see who survived this battle?
No.
She spun back to face the witch. “How did Lorcan convince you to stay with him? To help him for all this time?”
Mina’s lips trembled. “I had no one else. He killed my parents when I was a child. He took my blood, over and over again. He kept me weak. So weak.”
She was weak right then. Too thin. Too frail. Trembling as she stood there.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan said.
The witch blinked.
“But I’m going to need your blood, too.” In an instant, he was at the witch’s side. He’d grabbed her hand and lifted her wrist to his mouth. “I don’t have time to find out if you’re lying or not. I need to know how to live, and I need to know how to keep my sister alive.”
He sank his fangs into her wrist.
***
The wolf stalked carefully over the stream. Jane’s blood had covered the rocks in this stream. She’d been attacked, right here, when she should have been safe on his land.
Rage twisted within Alerac.
Liam’s scent was stronger here, leading him deeper into the woods.
After your attack on Finn, you knew I’d be the one to hunt you.
Liam was sure leaving him a clear path to follow.
Liam had never challenged him for alpha status. He’d always stood at Alerac’s side.
Until now.
Now the challenge was undeniable.
Alerac’s head lowered over the water. He eased away from the stream. Liam’s scent went back to the north. Higher up the mountain.
His head lifted. Alerac looked behind him. He could just see the roof of his home.
A wolf howled from the woods.
A battle waited.
***
Mina gasped when Ryan’s teeth sank into her skin. Zoe surged forward.
But Ryan was already drinking. Mina’s eyes had gone wide and glassy, and she stood stock-still, as if caught in a nightmare.
If Lorcan had been feeding on her for years, this probably was a nightmare for her.
“Stop, Ryan,” Jane demanded.
He didn’t.
So she made him. “Stop!” Jane shoved him away.
He swiped the blood away from his mouth and frowned at her.
“Do you just drink from everyone?” Zoe snapped. “Control yourself!”
Jane touched Mina’s shoulder. “That’s not the way.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ryan’s voice was shocked. “She’s his witch. She’s not going to help us! We have to make her reveal what she knows.”
Mina’s stare was still lost. No, blank.
“It’s okay,” Jane said softly as she tried to reassure the other woman.
“The hell it is,” Ryan fired right back. “I’m dying, and you’re somehow blood linked to a sadistic SOB who won’t stop until he sees your werewolf cold in the ground. How is that ‘okay’ in any way?”
Mina’s lashes lowered. “I’m sorry that I made your werewolf hurt.”
She’d said that before. No, she’d mouthed the words as she attacked Alerac. “What did you do to him?”
“Squeezed his heart, cut it, with my magic.”
Ryan whistled. “Using black magic. But else would Lorcan’s witch use?”
Mina shook her head. “I wasn’t always like this.” Then her eyes were on Jane. “I don’t think I was, but I can’t really be sure.”
Jane swallowed. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
Mina risked a glance at Ryan.
“He just wants to live,” Jane told her, trying to make Mina understand. “Is that so wrong?”
“I-I told him how…the only cure I know.”
Biting a caged beast. One that he’d in turn destroy.
Mina shook her head as her eyes flickered toward Zoe. “It’s not like you can even shift, anyway. Why not let the beast go in order to save him?”
Zoe’s lips parted in shock.
Then Mina was staring back at Jane. “If I tell you what you need to know, will you let me go?”
“Yes,” Jane said at once.
Even as Ryan bellowed, “No!”
Mina nodded. “It’s easy, really.” But her smile was sad. “If you want to sever the link with Lorcan, you just have to die.”
Ryan swore.
“The link he created with you endures until death. Your blood. Your vow. There is no way to break it.” Sadness whispered in Mina’s words. “You will be linked to him, you will share his pain as you share his life. Until death,” she said again, voice even softer.
This information was not helping.
“Shonna wrote about the bond. It was the last notation in her book.” Mina’s smile was sad. “A witch’s spell book is supposed to be sacred.”
“Why did Lorcan keep her book around?” Jane was surprised that Lorcan hadn’t destroyed the spell book when he’d killed Shonna.
“Because he wanted to make sure those spells lasted. If any of that magic started to weaken, he just made sure the new witch—”
Yeah, currently Mina was that new witch.
“—did her best to reinforce the magic.” Mina exhaled on a long sigh. “I’m telling you the truth here. If you want your wolf to be free, if you want Lorcan to die, then you must die.”
That solution sucked.
“Now I get to go.” Mina hurried for the door.
Ryan blocked her path.
“I don’t know any more than that!” Mina said, voice high and scared and angry. “Please! Let me go!”
&n
bsp; “No.” He shook his head. “You won’t—”
Zoe curled her fingers around his arm, stopping his angry words. “Did you see the scars on her neck?” Zoe’s words were quiet. “The scars that go up her arms? That probably cover her entire body?”
Jane had seen the scars. Bite marks. They’d pushed compassion through her. “Let her go,” Jane said, her voice as soft as Zoe’s. “She’s told us all that she can.” Jane believed that.
Zoe nodded. It seemed the werewolf believed Mina, too.
But still Ryan hesitated. His gaze had softened, but he wasn’t moving. “We need to know where Lorcan went.”
“You don’t have to go find him.” Mina’s smile was bitter. “He’ll be back here, the moment he thinks you’re at your weakest.”
“Sounds like him,” Ryan muttered. Then he stepped aside.
Mina’s shoulders slumped. “Thank you.”
She skirted out of the room. Jane followed her. She wanted to make sure the wolves below knew that the witch was clear.
Only…
There were no wolves below. There should have been. They should have been guarding the house.
Where are they?
Mina was running down the stairs.
Jane just jumped right over the bannister and hit the bottom floor, her knees barely buckling. The enhanced power that she’d gotten after taking Alerac’s blood was sure a nice bonus.
Finn’s body was gone. So was Heath’s.
Jane tilted her head. She’d been distracted upstairs and hadn’t noticed the silence. So complete. Too complete.
Mina yanked open the house’s front door.
Some of Alerac’s packmates should have been out there, protecting that door.
The men were on the ground, not moving.
“Wh-what’s happening?” Mina’s voice shook as she turned to glance back at Jane.
“Get away from the door!” Jane screamed as she lunged for the witch.
But it was too late. Because even as Jane rushed toward Mina, she saw Liam appear behind the witch. His claws drove right into Mina’s back.
“No!” Jane screamed.
Mina’s eyes were on hers. Shocked. Pain-filled. Terrified.
Those eyes were on Jane, and the life was slowly bleeding away from them, even as Mina’s blood soaked her clothing once more.
Then Liam tossed Mina aside, as if she were of no more consequence than garbage. To him, she probably was. He didn’t know anything about Mina or her pain, and he didn’t care.