And then she felt a touch at her throat and she forced her eyes open once more. Alberich had shifted his contact with her, cupping her neck so that the man beside him could have access to her chest. Gabriel watched her carefully over the sway of the music in her ears, the music around her. Alberich continued to speak while Gabriel curled his fingers around the neckline of her shirt. A tear in the fabric – and it kept going. He ripped the shirt from her body with slow, precise cruelty, never freeing her from his dominating gaze.
He straightened, slowly sliding his hands away, but his eyes continued to hold her captive as a drop of blood hit her chest. She felt it, not only on her flesh, but deeper. It wasn’t a pain so much as a deep, thrumming knowledge that things were changing. It scared her. It tore at her heart. Another drop fell and her lips parted. She felt Alberich brush his thumb across the pulse in her neck and a wave of his control washed over her, taking what was left of her strength.
She closed her eyes. The world seemed to stop turning. Time slowed down.
The third drop hit her chest…. And the world retreated. She could no longer smell the Earth or the mushrooms or the sea. Her body felt heavier than it had for months. Slower.
Distantly, she heard something heavy hit the ground. She couldn’t care enough to wonder what it was. Her eyes were wet behind her closed lids.
“It is done.”
Alberich removed his hand so that he was no longer touching her. At once, Charlie felt her will rush back to her, infusing her body with strength and control. But it was half of what it had once been. And the only move she made was to open her eyes, releasing the tears that had built there. They poured over her cheeks and trailed into her hair and Gabriel Phelan smiled down at her.
“Did you really think I would ever let you go, Charlie?” he asked her softly, wiping the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs as a lover would.
She didn’t answer. There was no point. He’d won. She felt Cole’s influence slip from her. She was no longer a made wolf. That magic had been taken – reversed. She didn’t know how they had done it, but they had.
“I hate you,” she whispered, meaning it as she’d never meant anything.
“I know,” Gabriel said, his smile never wavering. “But I can break you of that.”
“I suggest you turn her now,” said Alberich from where he stood beside the altar. Seth was still there as well – but the fourth man, the one she hadn’t known, was gone. On the altar to her right rested a bloodied dagger. The men around her obviously had no fear of her using it against them to any successful degree now that she was a dormant again.
“He’s right,” Seth agreed. “Cole will never stop hunting you. You’re taking too much of a chance.”
Gabriel considered Charlie in silence for several long seconds. And then his gaze hardened. “They have a point, sweetheart.” With that, he reached down and grabbed her by the throat with his right hand, jerking her up off of the altar.
All of Charlie’s instincts awoke in that moment. She may not have been Cole’s mate any longer – but she would die before she became Phelan’s. With one hand, she grabbed Phelan’s wrist and held tight, using his strength as leverage. She pulled back and raised both of her legs then, leveling a kick at his broad chest. She struck with all of her strength, knowing she would probably only have the one chance.
The impact knocked enough of the wind out of him that he loosened his grip on her throat and she was able to slip out of his hold. At the same time, she reached down and grabbed the dagger the men had left on the altar.
She raised the knife. Alberich and Seth realized a split-second too late what it was she was planning; she could see it dawn in their eyes. With a single hard thrust, Charlie plunged the dagger into her own chest, piercing it through to her heart.
*****
It was somewhat of a relief to use transportation magic, even if she was having to take a bunch of werewolves with her. It was more difficult, but it was an affirmation that she was still who she was supposed to be, despite the fact that she’d been turned into a werewolf.
However, the small victory of the sensation was grossly overshadowed by the havoc that fear was wreaking. The world felt off. Lily’s vision had thrown a shroud over them all, and the fact that Charlie had actually disappeared from Council headquarters only reinforced their overriding sense of doom. Danny had the sensation that she was moving through a nightmare. Would it ever end?
Gabriel Phelan was alive. Danny couldn’t believe that the possibility this would happen hadn’t crossed her mind before this. Jason was a warlock. He was working with Phelan. The fact that the werewolf was once more breathing meant that Jason was much more powerful than any of them had thought.
At first, it had made her wonder why he hadn’t fought harder in that stone chamber when Lucas had come upon them. He’d left so quickly…. Why? But now she knew. He had other obligations. He had a promise to keep.
A promise to a warlock was a binding thing. Their deals were unbreakable.
His presence and his blood were needed as the third component in the dormancy spell. She’d heard of the spell once long ago. But she had thought it no more than legend, like so much of the world’s thoughts on magic.
She was wrong – and now Charlie was a dormant.
Danny had never seen a werewolf in the kind of state that Malcolm Cole was in at that moment. It was indescribable. Even his father-in-law, the Overseer and grandfather to Charlie, was in a calmer state than Cole was, though not by much. And the Overseer might only have been better at masking his wrath. Kavanagh had responsibility to keep him sane at zero hour. He had an entire community to lead.
Cole was only thinking of Charlie, and it showed. He was uncomfortable to be anywhere near due to the kind of negative energy he was exuding. His eyes had gone from green to red. Danny knew it was possible and had seen it a few times when an alpha wasn’t able to turn his mate fast enough, but it was rare. Perhaps worst of all was Cole’s silence. It was absolute. He had turned in on himself.
Lucas was almost no better. The fact that Charlie was in danger meant that nothing was going to keep Danny from running headlong into the fray and he knew it. She could sense an indecisiveness about him. He was toying dangerously with the idea of tying her up, locking her in some room somewhere, or even knocking her out so that she couldn’t go after one of her closest friends. She could almost read the thoughts behind his eyes. But he knew none of those things would work where she was concerned.
She was a witch.
Danny doubted that this situation was going to do much to ease Lucas’s transition from magic hater. She imagined that he felt helpless. Again. Just like he had when magic had taken his brother, Byron from him all those years go. In the course of a few minutes, he’d gone from her lover and mate to the leader of the pack. The loner, the one in black, the angry, bitter wild card. Only this time it was worse because he had something to lose.
“When we get there, stay behind me,” he’d told her. It wasn’t a request, it was a command, and she had bristled under it.
“Lily said that Charlie was bleeding in her vision. She’ll need me,” she replied through clenched teeth.
“She’s a werewolf, Danny,” Lucas told her. “She can heal herself.”
“Not this time,” Danny insisted. She knew it was true. She felt it in her bones. Charlie wouldn’t be a wolf any longer. Dormants didn’t heal the way werewolves did and even though Charlie was also a female-born werewolf, the horrible unfairness of it was that female borns didn’t heal as their brothers did either. Only the males healed quickly. The females even scarred.
Lucas hadn’t said anything else. He’d simply straightened and she had watched as his black eyes flashed red. He knew that Alberich was just waiting – just waiting – for Danny to show up. They were walking right into their own ruin.
And now she was here, in this split instant between one world and the next where her magic surrounded her like a cocoon, white and yellow and
pink and shot through with pixie dust. A blink of an eye and it would be gone and she and the men she was transporting would arrive at their destination along with the other witches, wizards and werewolves who were making the journey.
Danny spoke the final words of the spell and lowered her hands. She opened her eyes as the world solidified around them, hardening into the dark greens and blacks of a night time forest. Danny had no time to gain her bearings before the other transport spells delivered council and coven members into the clearing amidst flashes of magic.
A few seconds later, the light died down and Danny blinked.
Instantly, a roar of harsh, inhuman sounds went up around her, shocking her senses into stark clarity. Every detail hit her at once: small clearing, burned out bonfire, the hooded figures of warlocks, the overwhelming smell of magic both light and dark, and Gabriel Phelan and Jason Alberich beside an altar where Charlie had just thrust a dagger through her own heart.
Danny watched as the dormant’s hands slipped from the handle protruding from her chest and her light blue eyes began to close. All around her, men were flashing into wolf form, blasts of energy were heating up the night, and good and evil were meeting in battle. Gabriel Phelan wrapped his arms around Charlie, his expression one that Danny had never seen the notorious alpha wolf wear before. With slow and tender care, he pulled the dagger from her chest.
Then a massive gray wolf with red eyes was leaping on Phelan, and Gabriel was flashing into wolf form as well. He let go of Charlie when he did – and Jason caught her.
But his green eyes weren’t on the unconscious form in his arms. They were on Danny, whom he stared at across the field of chaos between them. Danny saw his lips part and heard his softly spoken words, despite the rumble of madness all around them.
“Come here and save her, Danny. I won’t stop you.”
Danny didn’t have a chance to process the words before there was another flash beside her and another giant black wolf was loping across the clearing, jumping over other struggling bodies as he made his way with supernatural speed toward Alberich.
Jason’s handsome face slowly smiled. He spoke a single word and vanished – taking Charlie with him.
“No!” Danny and another, deeper voice screamed. Danny spun to see Malcolm Cole, his human form smoking in several places, his lip bleeding, his knuckles scraped nearly to the bone. The alpha shoved what must have been the third or fourth warlock to attack him off of his prone body and tried to rise. The warlock was dead, but another quickly took his place, instantly casting up another dark spell. They were going after him with a vengeance. Either they could sense his overwhelming anger and knew him to be the greatest danger, or they were acting on Phelan’s orders.
Most likely, it was the latter. Cole’s red eyes burned as he again flashed into wolf form, dodged a bolt of power that shot from the warlock’s hand, and rushed toward him, teeth and claws wickedly bared.
Charlie’s demise hung over Danny like physical weights, making it hard to think and act. But she had somehow steeled herself to cast a spell of her own to help Cole when a hand slid over her mouth from behind, silencing her.
Her captor didn’t say a word, but she knew who he was anyway. Jason’s darkness was all around her as he pulled her back from the crowd and toward the tree line. She realized then, in that moment, that he must have been wearing a shield all his life just like she had. Hers was to hide her dormancy. His was to hide his evil.
They made it to the tree line and Jason pulled her through and into the relative quiet on the other side.
“Let her go.”
Danny felt Jason freeze behind her. She could feel every muscle in his body tense, his arms tightening around her where they held her against his chest. But an ominous, promising sound pricked the night. It was the sound of a handgun being cocked.
Jason slowly released Danny, stepping back. Danny turned around. Jason’s green eyes speared the darkness, locking onto Lucas’s tall form. The black leather clad alpha werewolf stood several yards away. His left hand was relaxed at his side, but his right hand held a shining silver automatic with steady, determined calm. It was aimed at Jason’s heart.
“You’re fast, warlock,” Lucas told him. “But I’d be willing to bet my life that a bullet is still faster.”
Jason watched him carefully. “You might be right,” he admitted softly. “But a bullet will only slow me down. I’ll simply transport away, heal, and come for you Caige.”
Lucas’s hard expression didn’t change. He wasn’t fazed. “If these were normal bullets, you probably would,” he said. And then he smiled a wholly nasty smile. “But they’re not.”
What’s going on? Danny wondered. What kind of bullets are they?
But Jason’s face had blanched. His expression was just a touch less sure and angry and a lot more frightened than it had been a second ago.
“You forget that I studied your kind for decades,” Lucas said. “I know more about you than I care to.” The sound of a bullet leaving its chamber split the night and Jason’s tall body jerked once beside Danny. She jumped as a second shot was fired.
And Jason Alberich, the warlock who had played alongside her as a child, hit the ground.
Chapter Nineteen: “The Prestige”
Lucas slowly lowered his weapon. He was a good aim; he’d had years of target practice. He had taken the warlock in the heart with silver bullets and he had no doubts that Jason Alberich was dead.
Danny remained motionless, frozen to the spot. Lucas studied her with a careful eye. She was trembling and might even be going into some kind of shock. He wanted to strip off her clothes and hold her against him beneath the hot spray of a long shower, but at the moment, she was going to have to be the tough little witch he knew she could be. Because Charlie wasn’t dead, not yet, but if Danny didn’t heal her soon, she would be.
“Danny,” he said as he strode across the space between them, jammed his gun in the back waist band of his jeans, and took her face in his hands. “You need to heal your friend.”
“Wh-where is she?” Danny asked, swallowing hard and blinking up at him.
Lucas turned and pointed to a pair of blue jeaned legs sticking out from behind a nearby bush. Danny instantly pulled away from him and raced toward Charlie’s unconscious form. That’s my girl, he thought, following on her heels.
Charlie’s skin was so pale it was nearly translucent against the strawberry blonde shock of her silken hair. Blood was just beginning to stop pumping from the open wound in her chest. Lucas could hear her heart beat, but it was so faint, so soft, even his werewolf ears barely picked up the sound. She’d done a number on herself.
She would rather have died than lived with Gabriel Phelan.
“Charlie,” Danny breathed, sobbing softly. The Healer placed her hands over the wound on her friend’s chest and closed her eyes. She spoke her words of magic and her palms began to glow, their light and warmth spreading from beneath her touch. Lucas watched as it infused Charlie’s body, lighting it from within. It had entered her heart and now moved through Charlie’s bloodstream, repairing her from the inside.
In a few seconds, Danny sat back on her heels and removed her hands. Charlie remained still where she lay. She looked like a China doll there in the grass, so terribly pale.
“She’s healed,” Danny said, her voice still quavering, “but she’s lost too much blood.” She raised her wrist to her mouth then and Lucas caught his first glimpse ever of his mate’s new, white fangs. They were beautiful. But she was planning to use them to pierce her own wrist and Lucas leapt forward, barely stopping her in time.
“No,” he told her, grasping her wrist and lowering it. “Let me.” He could already sense Danny’s weakness from having cast the transport spell on so many werewolves and having healed Charlie’s mortal wound. She was exhausted. There was no way he was going to allow her to kill herself by sharing her blood as well.
“No,” came a deep voice from behind them both. Lucas s
pun to see Malcolm Cole standing at the tree line. He was covered in blood, his clothes were torn and scorched, and even as they watched, a gash was healing across his exposed shoulder. But his red gaze was on Charlie. “I’ll do it.”
No man in their right mind would have argued with Cole’s right to give Charlie his blood in that moment. Lucas nodded at his old leader and pulled Danny up and away from Charlie’s body. Cole knelt beside his mate and raised his wrist to his lips. His fangs pierced fast and true, instantly drawing powerful blood from his veins.
“Make sure she swallows,” he said without taking his eyes off of Charlie. Lucas realized he must have been talking to Danny – who could probably manipulate Charlie’s throat with her magic.
Beside him, Danny nodded and moved forward once more. Cole lifted Charlie into his arms and rested her head on his legs. Lucas could see the pain etched into his handsome features. There were unshed tears in his red eyes. He’d been reduced to a monster – and then a crying one.
But he placed his wrist to Charlie’s lips and gently pried her mouth open. The blood pooled in Charlie’s mouth and Danny touched the woman’s neck. Charlie’s throat convulsed.
Lucas heard her heart beat once, harder than before. Another swallow and it beat again. “That’s it, luv,” whispered Malcolm as he bent and placed a gentle kiss to her forehead. Lucas noticed the sweat that beaded on the alpha’s brow, and yet Cole remained steady and still with determination. It had to be hurting him in so many ways to give up what he had left inside of him after the fights he had just been in. For a werewolf, giving blood was an incredibly intense experience. He must have been in his own private hell.
What seemed like an eternity later, Charlie moaned and then coughed, and Cole removed his wrist. Charlie’s blue eyes fluttered open, her heart beating strong once more. But she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t look relieved. She looked terrified.