She tugged at her black wig. Truth was, she’d bought it on a whim and convinced herself it might be a deterrent from Beaux spotting her in a crowd. With hundreds of people travelling the streets of New York, he might not be able to scent her right off. The black hair would make him look for someone else.
Maybe.
Where was her mate? She had run—as was the way with their kind—he should have chased by now. Unless he didn’t want to. She huffed out her frustration. She had three hours before she had to board the bus with her pack mates to get upstate before the sun went down. She still had to get to her apartment and put together a bag. The hours spent as a human during full moons still required clothing.
And she wasn’t interested in wearing one of the jumpsuits her brother kept around the cabins up there for general use. They skeeved her out big time. How many people had held those materials against their sweaty full-moon shift skin?
She’d bring her own sweatpants.
Even if it meant he had to hold the bus for ten damn minutes. Where was a taxi when she needed it? It wasn’t raining; it shouldn’t be so hard to get downtown.
A sound caught her attention, and she came to a sudden stop, nearly causing the pedestrian behind her to collide into her back.
He oomphed and stumbled before continuing on his way without apologizing. She rolled her eyes. The whole world was always in such a hurry.
“Sorry,” she called after him.
There had to be a place in the world where thing were slower. Lake shook her head. What would she do in those circumstances? She’d probably be out of her mind with boredom.
Of course, if Beaux were there with those eyes which looked right through her to her soul….
She heard it again and whirled around. Someone had said her name.
Lake….
It wasn’t like she had one of those names people said accidently. Someone called out Mary, and there could be more than one of them on the street. Yelling out Lake meant someone wanted her attention.
She sniffed the air. No recognizable scent, and, now that she’d tuned in, she’d certainly be able to tell if she knew someone. Lake grabbed her cell phone. She wasn’t an asshole. If something felt wrong, it usually was.
“Call Cyrus, and switch to speaker phone,” she told the phone, not wanting to look down to dial. Staying sharp seemed more important than anything else.
“Are you going to be late?” Cyrus’ voice sounded far away thanks to all the noise on the street.
“Think I may have a problem.” She twirled in a circle. The last thing she wanted was to get jumped from behind.
“What’s up?”
He sounded like he was doing something else. Probably some paperwork.
“Someone is saying my name, and I think I might be in trouble.”
“Because someone is saying your name?”
He’d clearly only now tuned in to listening to her. She knew his tone. The one he saved for her alone. The one that told her he didn’t believe her and maybe, worse, thought she was slightly out of her mind.
She’d heard the tone a lot when they were kids. It had stopped when she’d proven herself an okay Healer. Kyra’s death had brought the whole damn thing back again.
“I know how it sounds. I need you to believe me. Something is wrong.”
“Okay,” Cyrus finally responded. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll have someone come get you.”
“I’m—”
She never got to tell him where she was. A bag came over her head, and she dropped her phone, the world went black the second something sharp pierced her arm.
****
Present day
Lake shot upward ready to fight. She’d been in this situation too many times to let herself think she had time to adjust when she opened her eyes. The True Believers loved to poke at her when she was the most vulnerable.
As she leapt up, her weakness assaulted her, and she fell back down on the table.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you have your spirit back.”
Aaron O’Neil, the leader of the True Believers and the man who had arranged for her to be kidnapped not once but twice now, walked sluggishly over to her. He’d now also managed to kill the two most important men in her life. She growled and fought the urge to let her hands shift. She didn’t have the kind of energy required for such a change.
“I never lost my spirit, you son-of-a-bitch.”
She really wanted to tear up his face. And then not fix him. Somehow.
“You don’t look well. In fact, you seem downright sick,” she said.
“You’re one to talk.”
The asshole smiled, showing the wide gap between his front teeth. She wanted to break his nose. Not a new feeling. She’d craved the sensation every second he’d held her prisoner the last time.
“I’m sick because you’re keeping yourself sick.” She rubbed her eyes. “Not part of the deal, despite your blithering. I never agreed you could make me ill. I told you I’d come back, not that you could harm me.”
“No. Our arrangement was a simple one, wasn’t it? I’d let you go, give you the chance to save the children from me—for a whole week—and then you’d come back here willingly to allow me to do whatever I wanted to you.”
She forced herself into an upright position. It hurt but she refused to cower.
“You didn’t give me a week.”
“You didn’t follow the rules.”
He snarled as well as any wolf she had ever seen. The man had wanted to be a werewolf his whole life. Even if he claimed the opposite as truth. She’d always been good at sorting out liars.
“I couldn’t remember any of them. Your fucking experiments wiped most of my memories.” She growled at him. “And you killed my mate. I’m going to claw out your eyes, rip out your guts, and glory in your death.”
He snorted. “You and what army?” He pointed at her neck. “You’re not mated. And I was within my rights to do what I wanted. You had Arlow killed.”
“I had nothing to do with his death. I don’t have people injured, let alone killed. Although in your case, I’ll make an exception.”
She hated him with a fervor she’d never experienced before. Worse than the last time she’d been held.
“Let me repeat myself. You killed my mate. I don’t think you understand what a connection like mating means.”
“Oh, but I want to. Discovering what makes you tick constituted part of what this was. Me learning about you.” He stepped forward. “My finally understanding what makes the creatures who killed my family tick.”
She shook her head. They’d had this conversation a million times. The first time her heart had bled for him, and she had felt the emotional anguish that caused a young boy to have such a break with reality. Now? She wished the werewolves had killed him, too.
“Whoever did that to you responded to the threat your family posed to them. True Believers make themselves the enemies of werewolves. Your father and mother put themselves on their own path. The wolves didn’t kill you. They didn’t hold you responsible for the sins of your parents.”
Her mouth felt dry. She wanted water only she knew better than to trust anything Aaron gave her. It was always laced with something horrible. “You’ve declared war. There will be retribution. You can’t kill three Alpha wolves, an old woman beloved by all who really knew her, and a restaurant full of humans without the fury of the moon raining down on your head.”
He stormed forward. “I gave you a chance to save the children to see if you could. I never promised to leave your mate or your brother alone. If you didn’t want them at risk, you shouldn’t have gotten them involved.”
“He rescued me, which was what you wanted when you dumped me in Montana.”
She wouldn’t let her emotions come through. Sheer horror invaded her soul at the idea of Beaux and Cyrus dying. Travis. She blinked while she gritted her teeth. Survive. She would live long enough to save the
children. Beaux would have wanted her to.
Then she’d go down in a blaze of glory. Screw her gentle Healer nature. She’d light him up like he’d done the building with her mate in it. He’d be nothing but a pile of ash. Aaron would melt with her hands around his neck. She’d physically feel his pain since they were so connected, and she’d know how terribly he suffered. It would give her last moments joy.
“Ah.” She clutched her chest, which had painfully tightened.
Aaron rubbed at his own. “Yeah. The pains are worse when we’re this close to one another. Fascinating really.”
“You’re a sick fuck.”
His eyebrows raised. “Language, Lake. You sound so coarse.”
“Where are the children?”
He shrugged. “Alive for now. As long as they continue to be useful to me, they’ll remain so. Pups are good to experiment on. Some of them have started to turn into the wolves now. It’s sad their eternal souls are so damned.”
“You don’t believe your own crap.” She forced herself to stand. Each movement hurt worse than the one before it, yet she wouldn’t face this man flat on her back like some kind of invalid. “You sell the zealot crap to your pathetic masses. Spiritual persecution was not what you wanted.”
“Really?” A muscle ticked in his jaw, and she knew she had gotten to him. “What is it I desire?”
She walked toward him. “You want to feel better.”
“What?” He gritted his teeth.
“Your mommy and daddy were bad people. They did a stupid thing and joined a cult of people who wanted to kill monsters.”
Her tongue burned with the word. “Monsters like me. Guess what happens when itty-bitty humans tangle with us? We kill them.”
She reached out and stroked the side of his face. “And now you want to feel better. You think if you kill the monsters then you’ll feel better. You think I can make you get to a place where you don’t have so much pain. Because I’m a Healer. I fix things.”
His eyes met hers, and, for a second, she could see the little boy inside. The one who had wanted someone to explain to him what had happened and why his whole life had shattered. But she didn’t care one bit about the little guy crying for help. Aaron had destroyed her life. Pain or no pain, he needed to hurt.
“I could make you feel better. I could take your pain and make it float away into the atmosphere.”
She turned her energy to her palm. It tingled just before her claws pushed out through her fingernails. Without Beaux, she might never be able to change it back, and that was perfectly fine.
He gasped and tried to jump backwards, but she grabbed onto the back of his neck and held him close. Her sharp claws pointed at his throat.
“Where are the children Aaron?”
“I’m not telling you anything you, abomination.” He sputtered. “The children will be dead when I’m done with them. There was never anything you could have done for them. This has all been a game. I wanted to see how sick I could make you. If it was possible to control you from a distance. These things matter, don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see.”
Did he really have a plan? Did he honestly think she would understand whatever idea he had which had led to the death of the people she loved and the kidnapping of children?
He grinned. How could the fucker be smiling when she was so close to slitting his throat with nothing more than her hands?
“We’ll take the Healers and then there won’t be a thing you can do. Who will fix the werewolves when the Healers are gone? It’s brilliant. Don’t you see?”
“Are you under the impression the werewolves will crumble if you take out the Healers?”
“I’m not under the impression. Look what happened when all I did was take you. They scrambled around trying to find you. Everything came to a standstill. Then, when you reemerged, they had an actual Alpha meeting. See how much I know? I am fully aware of all going on. You’re all pawns, and, in the next five years, you’ll be gone. Erased from the earth like a plague we finally found a cure for.”
She saw red. How could he know what he did unless there was someone on the inside? And, really, what did it matter? If she killed him right now, it would stop. Aaron was a snake, and a disgustingly brilliant one. The True Believers would replace him and whoever took over wouldn’t be this bad. They’d never again be able to hurt the werewolves the way they had.
Lake nodded. “Goodbye Aaron.”
A sharp pain hit her in the back of the head, and the room faded brown before she blacked out. What the hell? She couldn’t manage to properly kill a psychopath?
Chapter Thirteen
Beaux’s ears rang and the world moved sideways. He lay flat on his back on concrete, and his whole body felt like it had been on fire. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. The sun was too bright, and it burned his corneas. He closed his lids. If it was time for the Moon to take him, then he’d meet his maker with a clear heart. His only regret was he couldn’t scent Lake. She wasn’t nearby.
Where was she?
“Lake.”
He groaned out her name. Not that she’d be able to hear him. If he couldn’t smell her, she couldn’t hear him. Still, he wished he could conjure her out of thin air. If he was going to die, he wanted her face to be the last thing she saw.
The world faded away.
****
Beaux darted to his feet. He swung around, trying to figure out where the fuck he found himself. He’d been in horrible pain on concrete somewhere and now he was—where?—in the woods. He took a deep breath. Yes, trees surrounded him. Snow covering most of the ground and the branches. He took a deep breath. None of the smells from home greeted him. In fact, he scented nothing at all. Only a general sense of blankness, of nothing around. Even the trees he could see had no aroma at all.
He looked upward, needing the Moon. Whatever this strange place turned out to be, the Moon would be there for him. His breath caught in his throat, and he cried out before he could stop himself.
There was no moon. Although it was nighttime, and the woods were lit up like the moon had to be full, he could see no sign of the orb in the sky.
“Beaux.” He jumped. Two people he’d never seen before stood behind him. A man and a woman. Although he couldn’t scent them any more than he could the trees, he knew the man was a werewolf from size alone. He looked Beaux straight in the eye. The woman, small, dark, and petite, was lovely. Still, she didn’t hold a candle to Lake.
Simply thinking her name made him ache. He missed her, a deep gaping hole in his soul, which wasn’t going to fill up without her.
“He’s thinking of her.” The woman nodded toward the man. “The love is real. Just not the mating. Not yet.”
“The mating was the key. Without the mark, the rest of it is destroyed.” The man glanced down at the woman.
Beaux held up his hand. He knew they were talking about Lake and him. Except he had no idea what exactly they were talking about.
“Who are you and where am I? All of this feels…off.”
The two people exchanged eye contact for a moment before they each stepped forward.
“We took these forms because we assumed you would recognize us.”
“Beaux was never the sharpest guy when it came to subtlety. You have to be more specific with him.”
The voice. Beaux jumped. He’d know it anywhere, but he hadn’t thought to ever hear it again. Lucian….
In the area with him was a woman, a werewolf he didn’t know, and, moon help him, Lucian whom he had never wanted to see again.
He stared, his mouth falling open, as it occurred to him he was, in fact, seeing Lucian standing right in from of him. The man had been dead for years, and he didn’t look any different from the last time he’d seen him. Taller than Beaux by an inch, he had always kept his nearly black hair shaved all the way down to his scalp. He had sharp cheekbones and a long nose.
In life, he’d covered his perpetually cha
nged wolf eyes with sunglasses all the time. Now he stood glaring at Beaux across the clearing, his canine pupils out for full view.
“Am I dreaming?”
The woman shrugged. “Yes and no. Some things are true whether or not we’re awake to experience them.”
Her words rang in his ears. They were so similar to what he always said himself.
“Again. He won’t understand what you said.”
Beaux growled. “I’m not stupid. I never have been, and I resent the implication I can’t understand things you can.”
“Now, there’s the anger I’m so used to from you.” Lucian walked closer. “Beaux, take a good look at these two in front of you. Don’t you recognize them?”
His natural instinct was to not do whatever Lucian asked of him. He’d grown up, and this situation called for not making the man any more of an enemy than he already happened to be. Beaux scratched his head. If this turned out to be a really fucked up dream, he needed to keep his senses up.
So he turned to study the two figures Lucian wanted him to examine. Again, he was overwhelmed with the feeling of knowing them and not being sure how he did.
“I….”
“It’s okay.” The male finally spoke, and his voice boomed out like a bomb going off. His ears actually vibrated. “You shouldn’t know me. We’ve watched you your entire life. Before you were born actually. Your character, your beliefs, your soul—it is known to us.”
“That would mean….” His voice trailed off. The ramifications of what he heard made his throat close up.
“It would mean they are Lily and her Alpha wolf.” Lucian stepped forward.
He took a deep breath. What was he supposed to do in this situation? Drop to his knees? Cover his eyes? How was he supposed to handle meeting the first of his kind?
“I always knew you were real. The others, they sometimes say you’re myth, only I knew the truth. You were exactly as the stories say.” He looked down. Beaux never lowered his gaze to anyone. These, however, were new circumstances.