by Leia Stone
Shoulders back, my mouth a firm line, I led us toward the scent of chlorine. Even from across the street, I knew exactly where to go. My kitsune gift of enhanced smell was coming in handy.
‘We’re going in,’ I told Brock, hoping I wasn’t too far away to use the pack link. ‘I’ll check in after.’ And then, because I had a really shitty feeling about all this, I added, ‘I love you.’ It couldn’t hurt to say it one more time, especially if it might be the last.
By the time we reached the outside emergency exit to the pool, Brock hadn’t responded and I couldn’t tell if he’d heard me.
While Tianna stepped forward to do some B&E magic on the door, I smiled at Cass. He smiled back, doing a good job of pretending he wasn’t terrified of something awful going wrong. ‘We’ve got this, my girl.’
‘We sure as hell do,’ I said back. ‘You’re the best BFF ever.’
‘Right back atcha, Ev. Let’s kick some siren ass.’
Just this morning I’d been hit with a vampire’s killing curse, and now I was siren bounty hunting. Baby mama needed a nap once all this shit was done.
Tianna yanked open the door. The second I stepped foot inside, Haru and Reo drew their katanas and moved in front of me.
We’d walked straight into a trap. And from the malicious smirks the three witches with Calista were wearing, they could see right through Tianna’s concealment spell.
They had us right where they wanted us.
Fuck.
Things were about to get ugly.
12 Throwdown
All three of the most wanted witches stood before us. Calista floated in the pool behind them with a grin on her face.
Fuck. Fuck. Triple fuck.
No humans were in the pool room; they’d obviously cleared it beforehand, anticipating our arrival. I hoped no one had been killed in the process. This was going to be a total shit show. Without waiting for a signal, Haru and Reo leapt into battle, swords raised.
“Throw Gran’s shit!” Jack hollered at me as he popped off two bullets at the nearest witch. They bounced against her shield spell and fell to the ground, leaving her unharmed and pissed off.
Gran’s spells! Yes.
I snapped out of my stunned daze and quickly dropped a shield spell over myself, just as Tianna had taught me. Then I pulled one of Gran’s smoke spells from my pocket and chucked it at the feet of the cluster of witches.
We needed a diversion so we could spread out and take them from behind. As the vial shattered, it sent white sage smoke billowing up from the ground, fogging up the space between the witches and us.
“The siren has a bounty, so I need her alive, but feel free to kill the witches,” I shouted to my crew. Any perp on the most wanted bounty list was allowed to be brought in dead or alive; the important thing was getting them off the streets.
Haru and Reo had formed a wall in front of me and were slashing out blindly with their swords.
Tianna slipped beside me and took hold of my hand. “Help me with a spell. Lend me your power.” Before I had the chance to answer, I experienced a pulling sensation, like someone was sucking my power through a straw.
“Water’s edge at her feet, boil the siren, bring the heat!” Tianna chanted and steam started to rise off the pool.
Cass, Kenzie, and Molly, with her shotgun cocked, branched out then, trying to circle around the witches and get behind them, but red glowing spells were starting to fly out from the smoke.
Tianna kept her hand clamped down on mine as she continued to pull power from me. I focused on the pool, on the siren still within its water, and chanted the line with my new mentor.
After our third chant, the water began to boil. Little bubbles popped up off the surface of the pool and I grinned. Calista hissed like a snake and started to rise from the pool like she was flying.
What the fuck was this freaky shit? Sirens weren’t supposed to be able to fly!
Bitch was going to burn. This was probably the woman who’d killed Gran.
I ripped my hand from Tianna’s and yanked a pair of magical cuffs from my belt. Then I was running. I wasn’t much of a thinker, I just acted on instinct. The siren was in distress, hopefully weakened, and I was going to capitalize on the opportunity before she regained her power. Consequences be damned.
The siren was just gliding across to the edge of the pool, skimming above the surface of the water, eyes on the billowing smoke that encapsulated her witch crew, when I burst from the concrete floor with no plan but to take this bitch down once and for all.
She must have seen me out of her peripheral vision, because she jerked in my direction just as I slammed into her, taking her down sideways. We crashed onto the pool decking edge and I slid, grappling with her, nearly toppling into the boiling water. I wrestled until I managed to dig my boots into the slick, wet surface, then gripped the siren with the strength of my thighs and pinned her arms beneath me. She flopped like a slick fish as I struggled to put the first cuff on her.
We were too close to the water. I hoped like hell she couldn’t draw on its power when it was boiling, that its heat interfered with her ability to use it since she’d evacuated the pool.
She bucked like a wild bronco, nearly throwing me a couple of times as I tried to get a grip on her slick arms. But finally, after pressing all my weight on her, I managed to snap the cuff on her left wrist.
The magic from the cuffs crackled up her arm like an electric shock, rendering her power somewhat inert. I didn’t rest on my laurels this close to a massive amount of water, though. Both cuffs needed to be on, and all three witches dead, before I celebrated a thing.
Speaking of witches, at that moment one of them chucked Molly across the deck and into a wall, effectively pulling my attention away from the siren. Reo, Haru, and Jack were trying to get past the other two witches to get to me, but the witches had created a magical barrier of some kind.
I was alone.
“Molly!” I screamed, as she landed on the deck with a loud smack and a rough groan that had my stomach in my throat. Molly was tough as nails, but she was only human after all. I struggled with the desire to run to her, but Cass was already flying after her on his hoverboard, Tianna right behind him.
Calista took my distraction as the opportunity she needed. When I turned my attention back to her, ready to cuff her right arm, she slammed her forehead into my nose, and the ear-splitting crack of bone filled the pool room. Pain, hot and fierce, flooded every part of my face as warm blood trickled down and into my mouth.
“I killed Belinda,” the siren purred into my ear with the smell of the sea. “The gatekeeper was in my way, but I must say, I was impressed that she didn’t beg for her life as I sucked it out of her.”
Rage like I’d never experienced before flooded every cell in my body. I no longer felt the sting of my broken nose. I didn’t feel anything beyond what I was going to do to the siren that stole my gran from me. My vision actually distorted with the rush of adrenaline that surged through my body.
I wrapped a hand around Calista’s neck and screamed in her face. I sounded like a wounded animal as scorching fury poured out of me. Small purple lightning bolts shot from my hand into the siren’s neck. Her eyes widened in shock. While I continued to squeeze her neck with a death grip and slammed the cuff over her right wrist with my free hand.
‘I have to kill her, Cass. She killed Gran,’ I said, taking in the hatred that simmered in the siren’s wild eyes.
Mack would fire me, and the human authorities would be pissed, but I didn’t care. This bitch needed to die for what she did.
‘Do it. I got your back,’ he replied from where he was still helping Molly.
“Evie!” Jack roared, and the sound of his voice right behind me startled me out of my rage-induced haze. The electric bolts that were zapping the siren’s neck fizzled to nothing, but her face was purple. She was near death. With no magic to use against me now that she had the cuffs on, I could easily end her life.
&nb
sp; Jack was a douchebag in most ways, but he was an amazing hunter and a stickler for the rules that mattered. He wouldn’t let me kill her.
Dammit.
I faltered for a second, easing my grip a little. I had her. If I let her live, then all of the human families of the victims she’d killed would get their justice. She’d rot on the Island with the rest of the delinquents of the supernatural community.
My hesitation gave her the strength she needed to fight against me. One second I was half lying on top of her, the next I was being chucked into the hot pool. I flinched, preparing myself for the scalding hot water, but when my skin slapped against the surface, it was just warm.
Thank fuck, and thank you, Tianna!
I kicked my feet, swimming for the surface, when a bolt of red magic shot through the water and wrapped around my ankles, dragging me to the bottom of the pool and pinning me there. Terror flooded my system as I struggled to free myself from the magical chains that held me. Did anyone see me go into the pool? Jack must have. Where the hell was he? Looking upward, my gaze tracked multiple red streaks of magic zipping above the water.
The witches are putting up one hell of a fight.
Fuck.
Forcing myself to ignore my body’s urgent messages to breathe, I reached down and held my hand over the magical red rope binding my ankles. I tried to shoot my purple magic at it, but it sputtered and fizzled, doing nothing to aid me. If anything, the red rope tightened. I reached for my katana only to realize it must have fallen off me in the struggle with the siren.
‘Cass, I can’t breathe. I’m at the bottom of the pool.’ Panic threatened to overwhelm me, and I was starting to feel dizzy. Definitely not a good sign.
Why is this bitch always trying to drown me?
‘It’s hell up here. One second,’ Cass shot back.
I wasn’t sure how many seconds I had left—Jack must have been attacked by one of the witches as well.
A crash in the water above me had me struggling to make out whatever was behind the murky disturbance. It took me a moment to recognize the shock of purple hair swimming toward me.
Molly.
Cass sent a fucking human to save me from the most powerful magical binds I’d ever encountered.
Awesome.
As she swam closer, my eyes darted to her hands for any type of spell breaking device, like one of Gran’s vials, but they were empty. Only when she grabbed both sides of my face and pressed her lips to mine did I realize what her plan was. Precious oxygen flowed into my mouth as I inhaled air from Molly’s lips.
‘I think Jack just wet himself watching you and Molly go at it,’ Cass said.
‘Shut up and get Tianna down here before I die!’ I snapped.
Molly swam to the surface and then turned right around to deliver another life-saving breath.
The plan was to keep me alive until someone could break this spell? Freaking great. How long would I be down here?
‘Jack’s got the siren pinned to the side of the pool, putting a second set of cuffs on her to be sure. Reo and Haru are cornered by one witch, Tianna is taking on the other, and I’m fighting the third with Kenzie, who’s already got a broken leg. You’re going to have to deal until we get freed up.’
Fuck.
I needed a spell-breaking incantation, stat! Why hadn’t I done more lessons with Tianna?
When Molly came down for her fourth breath, something tugged on my consciousness. For a moment, I feared I was about to black out despite the oxygen.
‘Where are you? What’s wrong?’ Brock’s voice flooded my mind.
Just what I needed. My freaked-out baby daddy causing me more anxiety. Then again, his concern sent a flutter of warmth racing through my panicked body. I wanted to see him again. I needed to feel his hot hands across my skin one more time.
He’d freak, I knew it, but I didn’t want to start our life together by lying to each other. I was going to have to raise a kid with this guy for the next eighteen years. Hopefully. Assuming I got out of this damn pool before it was too late.
I chose my words carefully—or as carefully as one could when one was in the midst of fucking drowning. ‘Technically, I’m stuck at the bottom of a pool. But it’s all good. Molly is keeping me alive…’
Rage and shock ripped through our bond. ‘We’re coming,’ he growled through our link.
We. He said we. Was Brock going to bring the pack into this? Into my mess? I couldn’t bear for him to lose another wolf on my account.
‘No, we’ve got this! I don’t want anyone else getting hurt,’ I said right away.
‘You’re pack. Pack means family. We’re three minutes away.’
I hadn’t even met the entire pack yet—something I obviously needed to change. If these people were risking their lives for me, I needed to at least know who they were. I’d only been introduced to a handful, but Brock’s pack was large.
And how were they only three minutes away? Had Brock felt something off before reaching out to me? Knowing him, he’d probably followed me here.
Red and gold streaks of magic lit up the air above the pool, firing back and forth in opposite directions. My vantage point was limited and warbled from within the water, but I hoped Tianna was giving those nasty witches hell.
Six more breaths from Molly later … a huge gray wolf crashed into the water.
Wolves hated water, they barely knew how to swim. But that didn’t stop Brock. He swam straight for me, pumping his wolf legs hard, pushing down through the water to my ankles.
‘What’s your plan here? That’s some powerful witch magic,’ I told him.
‘We Alphas have our own magic,’ was all he said before clamping his jaws down on the red rope.
His teeth bit into the crimson cord holding me and he gave a ferocious whip of his head, slowed only slightly by the water. The pool exploded into a kaleidoscope of light … and the binding released. I nearly wept in relief as my body floated up through the lingering rainbow of color while I tried to pump my legs. But my body was spent, and I needed Molly’s help to break the surface. She tugged me above the water, keeping a firm grip on my arm.
The second my head left the water, I sucked in breath, sputtering and coughing as I allowed Molly to half drag, half guide me to the edge of the pool. I pumped my arms and legs even though I realized they were doing little to propel me. When I managed to take in the scene before me, my eyes widened.
Holy fucking hell.
It was like World War Three. Werewolves were leaping into the air, trying to take out the witches, only to be thrown against a far wall with a sickening sound that had my heart leaping into my throat.
Tianna appeared to have killed one witch, who lay crumpled on the deck next to her, but the fae hybrid was holding her shoulder as if she’d been injured.
Calista lay beneath Jack’s strong hold, pinned in place, but when her eyes landed on me she grinned maniacally, as if she’d expected this. She didn’t appear defeated, and that worried the shit out of me.
Brock’s head popped up out of the water as Molly and I reached the edge of the pool. Why wasn’t Calista fighting back? Even though she was cuffed, I’d expected her to resist Jack. But she wasn’t.
After Molly and I heaved Brock out of the pool, the tinkle of breaking glass drew my attention to the far wall. The remaining two witches were fleeing, leaving their dead friend behind on the deck.
One of Brock’s wolves prepared to pounce after them through the broken window, but Tianna waved her uninjured hand. “Let them go. We need to regroup.”
The wolf looked back at Brock, who nodded and shook his coat to rid it of water.
I took a deep breath—so thankful for the ability to breathe!—absorbing the scene before me. The sharp smell of chlorine, intertwined with the pungent smell of blood, assaulted my nostrils. Glass sprinkled across much of the slippery flooring, and spelled scorch marks marred the ground of the once pristine pool decking. Tianna had an apparently badly injured shoulder,
Kenzie was limping, and Reo looked a little worse for wear, but other than that we seemed to be all right. The wolves who’d been flung against walls were moving fluidly enough, thank God!
Cass whizzed to my side on his hovering skateboard. “You okay?”
I nodded, trying not to think about what would have happened if Molly hadn’t helped me.
The sound of breaking bones rang throughout the space as Brock and a few of his other wolves started to shift. I recognized Sabine’s markings on one of those wolves.
Molly blushed. “Sorry about having to get all up in your face down there.”
I waved her off. “Are you kidding me? You saved my life. Thank you.”
She nodded.
Brock was standing at his full height now, towering over my short frame. He pressed me against his side though his gaze was locked on Jack, who stood about ten feet away, clutching the siren in a lock hold. Brock radiated power, not caring one bit that he was naked and dripping water.
“And where the fuck were you when Evie was drowning?” Brock’s voice could cut steel. The apparent danger of it sent a shiver running through me.
Jack’s nostrils flared. “Keeping the perp from fleeing. Bounty hunter rule number three.”
Brock stalked toward Jack with five deadly strides, giving zero shits that his dick was hanging out in front of another dude. “Fuck your rules. What I want to know is, did you see her go in the pool?”
Oh shit.
I hurried to the alpha’s side. “Brock, he’s right. Rule number three states that if a hunter is indisposed, you secure the perp before sending help to the other hunter.”
Even though it did sting a bit that Jack hadn’t concerned himself more with my fate.
Jack’s chest was rising and falling as if he were fighting his own shift, but Calista was grinning wickedly between the two men.
“Answer me!” Brock roared, and the remaining unbroken windows shook in their frames with his alpha command.
I wasn’t aware of all the werewolf rules, but I did know that if a wolf from another pack was in the presence of an alpha, he was obligated to answer direct questions.
