Darkness Unleashed

by McKenzie Hunter

  “Are you staying here today?” I asked hopefully.

  Steven grinned. “Yeah.” He pulled away from my tight hug. “Today only. My mom will be here tomorrow.” His eyes darted in Ethan’s direction, and I knew there was something they weren’t telling me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Ethan said in a tight voice.

  I gave him a look, searching for the truth behind his words, but his stoic appearance made reading him impossible. Standing taller, expressionless, his fingers hooked casually in the pockets of his pants, he didn’t look like a man hiding anything, which meant he was hiding a lot.

  Steven inhaled. “I need a shower.”

  He did. But I had a feeling he was using it as an excuse to leave and not be part of the conversation or at least the cover-up Ethan had started.

  Steven eased away from me and went to the guest room, which was formerly his room. Once I heard the shower running, I said, “Ethan, there can’t be secrets between us.”

  “There aren’t any. I’m trying to figure things out. The bail was set exceptionally high, even for his charges, and they added two charges I didn’t expect.” He paced the floor and then rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m meeting with Quinn today. He has new information and seems a little nervous about it.” He stopped, his gaze focused outside. “And there’s a lot of activity in this neighborhood.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing. There’s more traffic in this subdivision. Unfamiliar cars are in the neighborhood more often. They don’t seem to have a destination. They’re just driving through and watching. I’m not sure if it’s us they’re watching or what.”

  I had a healthy amount of skepticism. Ethan hadn’t always been upfront with me, and he seemed to be holding something back. “And?”

  His attention was still outside. “Something is off, magic-wise. Josh feels it, too. But you don’t.”

  I shook my head. Things had been different since the Creed had blocked my magic. I didn’t feel Ethan’s magic the same way I used to. I felt the difference between him and other were-animals, but I wasn’t sure if it was because we were mated or the mark had changed how I interacted with magic. Perhaps I was just feeling its purity now that mine didn’t distort it.

  I ran my finger over the mark.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No, but it burns and tingles sometimes. It’s not painful; it just feels odd.” I hadn’t thought anything of it. An occasional uncomfortable prickle on my skin was far down on the list of things that occupied my attention.

  It wasn’t until Ethan dropped his stoic mask to display his concern that I considered them more than just peculiar but harmless sensations.

  Sebastian and Quinn were already waiting for Ethan, Steven, and me when we arrived at the pack’s house. There were stacks of paper and an iPad on Sebastian’s desk, and Quinn sat in a chair in the corner, his large laptop open as he scrolled through web pages.

  The pensive look on Sebastian’s face gave me pause. Ethan stood next to me, eyeing the stacks of paper.

  “What’s wrong?” Steven finally asked.

  Sebastian sucked in a sharp breath and then sorted through the papers on his desk, some highlighted with notes on them. His mask of confidence never broke, but it was overshadowed by the anger he was having trouble containing.

  He pushed the papers in Ethan’s direction. Ethan’s mood changed quickly as he looked over the pages and then handed them to me. I saw highlighted names, and then there were notes indicating DA, officer, judge, reporter.

  “What does this mean?”

  “It means we might be screwed,” Quinn said, rising to his feet. He walked over and turned his computer to face us. “People always suspected that supernaturals existed. They range from the true believers to those with a healthy dose of cynicism who are open to their existence but aren’t going to dedicate their lives to finding out. And we can’t forget the fanboys and fangirls, who are harmless. Then there’s a group that calls themselves the Red Blood. They’re far from the typical nut jobs chasing down the elusive werewolf or vampire. Their main goal seems to be to expose the otherworld.

  “Their group is on the dark web, and it took a lot to find it. They’re serious. This is the problem: they now have someone in the otherworld feeding them reliable information.”

  “And you suspect that person is Dexter?” I ground out. He’d become even more of a pain in the ass. Was he insinuating himself into the group, betraying us just because we’d pissed him off?

  “I’ve been at this for hours, trying to match usernames with their real-life identities.” Quinn directed his attention to Ethan. “I know they have the burden of proving it was Steven and you don’t think they have enough evidence to do that, but they only have to validate the video and prove it wasn’t altered. Your case hinges on the fact it isn’t Steven in the video. The people in this group are connected—three are judges—and I’m sure they won’t have a problem finding someone to verify that it is unaltered. Image recognition software can then confirm it’s Steven.”

  He pulled up comments and even a thread dedicated to getting Steven convicted.

  “Why are they going after Steven—after us? Why not vampires, elves, and witches?”

  Sebastian blew out a ragged breath in an effort to calm himself. It didn’t work. “We are the easiest to prove. Few of us can control our change when we are called. And we definitely can’t hold off answering the call of the moon for months. I can’t even do it. If he goes to prison, he will eventually change while in there and prove we exist. It’s just a matter of time before the others are exposed.”

  That made sense. If they outed us, people who changed to animals, then people who wielded magic, or who were immortal, or who used magic to control the weather or create hybrid animals weren’t that big of a stretch.

  “And they are so dedicated to the cause they’re willing to perjure themselves to get the conviction.” Quinn presented another group of papers, e-mails from the DA and ADA. He’d crossed a line, but I didn’t question how he’d obtained the information and didn’t really care. I instinctually wanted to protect my pack.

  Ethan looked at the information, and his lips pulled into a tight line. “We need to prepare for damage control.”

  Steven and Quinn got the hint and quickly left the room. I took the seat where Quinn had sat just moments before with every intention of staying. Sebastian and Ethan stared at me; I stared back.

  “Sky,” Ethan said quietly and jerked his head at the door. I got up and closed the door to give us privacy.

  “With you on the other side of it,” Sebastian said coolly. It was every bit a command from my Alpha. I wanted to pull my Beta card but had no idea how it worked. Begrudgingly, I left, seething.

  I was torn between following Quinn to his office and staying near Sebastian’s with the unlikely hope of hearing through the door.

  Instead, I went to the library. Although there wasn’t anything in it that could help, it would give me something to do. Make me feel like I was being proactive and give me some sense of control in a situation that was slowly spiraling out of any semblance of it.

  Josh barely looked up from the notes he was slumped over when I walked in. There were several open spell books laid out on the table. I greeted him. He regarded me for a short time, then gave his typical wayward smile. His cerulean eyes were as bright as the barbell of a new piercing in his upper ear. I looked at it and him for a while, debating whether I should suggest that he talk to Claudia about the promise he’d made not to get more tattoos. He appeared to be having difficulty keeping it. A tapestry of symbols, signs, and other indelible markings ran up and down his arms, torso, and back. At the rate he was adding them, his body would soon be covered. I suspected piercings might be his loophole in his promise to his godmother.

  “Research?” I moved to the table and looked at the paper in front of him, covered wi
th his writing, and the dry-erase board next to him that had more scribbled spells. He was merging spells again.

  “Yep” was his terse, evasive response. Josh had recently been inducted as one of the pack’s secrets keepers, a responsibility he didn’t take lightly. It went against his personality, though. He preferred to be open since he’d been on the other side of the secrets, most of them between him and Ethan. He considered the position nothing more than a pack obligation he was bound to uphold.

  I watched him in intrigued silence. He looked up, his gaze traveling down the length of my arm to the binding mark on my wrist.

  “You’re trying to figure out a way to remove it?”

  He nodded. More perceptive than most, he seemed to know what I was thinking. He gave me a faint smile. “It’s just in case of emergencies,” he said.

  “Sebastian asked you to do this?”

  He nodded and slid a piece of paper toward me. “I think this might work.”

  “They said it would take as many witches and as much magic as it did to perform the spell.”

  “Just the same amount of magic.” He sighed heavily enough to rumble his lips. “We boosted your magic with the use of a spell in the Clostra and the Gem of Levage; I assume it can be done again.”

  “You don’t know for sure?”

  “The only way to know is to try it.” He didn’t seem confident.

  Again, the mark started to burn, and I wondered if Josh was trying a spell on it.

  “Have you tried to remove it yet?”

  Focusing on my wrist, which I kept rubbing, he asked, “No, why?”

  I explained to him the prickling and burning I’d been experiencing over the past couple of days, and he got the same concerned look on his face as Ethan had.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shrugged; it could be nothing. But when his fingers came to his mouth and he started to chew on his nail beds, I knew it wasn’t nothing.

  Pulled deeper into his thoughts, he relaxed back in his chair, studying me. Now that my magic was muted, I felt the variations of his and how heavily it coated the air and inundated my senses. It was a reminder of why Marcia, the former leader of the Creed, had hated him. Not as well-trained as other witches, not even his friend London, he possessed magic in droves. And when he unleashed it violently, he was a resolute force.

  “I’m going to remove it.” But since we were trying to maintain an alliance with the new leaders of the Creed, removing a magical block they’d seen fit to administer because I’d broken the rules of magic wasn’t a good idea. “I’ll make sure I can reverse it as well. I think that maintaining our relationship with the Creed is important,” he admitted softly. There was a hint of hopefulness in his voice. It was obvious he wanted more than what he’d had before with the witch community and its leaders, the Creed.

  Josh’s blood alliance with the pack had broken the fragile link he’d once had and solidified his position as an outsider in the witch community. Often, his loyalty was in question, rightfully so, because he wouldn’t choose anyone over Ethan. The pack required unyielding fealty, and I assumed the Creed did, too. He couldn’t manage both.

  I plopped down in another chair at the table, looking over the spell, as amazed as I was the first time he’d found one to undo the curse that had been inflicted on the pack.

  “You’d be dangerous if you actually finished magic school,” I teased.

  He winked. “I like to think I’m dangerous now.”

  “You do okay. Sometimes you can be impressive, but I don’t want it to go to your head.” I winked back, flashing him a grin.

  “Granted, I can’t do the things my brother does. And maybe I won’t ever reach his level. Like you, Ethan has access to very unique magic. You two are quite the anomalies.”

  I swallowed the sigh and attempted to do the same with the guilt that came along with keeping secrets. I hated them, and while Ethan didn’t have a problem with the many secrets that surrounded his very existence, and to an extent, Josh’s, I did.

  “Or maybe if you’d paid more attention to Mom’s teachings, I wouldn’t seem like such an anomaly for being able to perform and recall simple spells,” Ethan said at the door. I slid over to a bookshelf and pretended to look for a book because my look of incredulity was going to give things away. Ethan could detect a lie with ease by listening to physiological changes, even minor ones like changes in respiration and speech cadence. Feeling his weighted gaze on me, I looked at him, keeping my back to Josh. Tell him, I mouthed.

  Giving me a stern stare, Ethan barely moved into his answer. No.

  Now, I mouthed again.

  He continued to look at me, his obstinate appearance unchanged. I moved to him, just inches away, and then I leaned in, my lips pressed against the edge of his jaw. It looked like I was kissing him, but instead, I said, “Tell him or I will.” My voice was so low only Ethan could hear me. One of the benefits of being a were-animal.

  His dark chuckle drifted through the room. Josh squinted, and his attention bounced between the two of us, but we only held his interest for a few seconds before he returned to his notes. “There are plenty of rooms in this house. Pick one,” he suggested, exasperated. “Between you two and Kelly and Gavin, I’ve had more than an eyeful of the mating habits of were-animals. At least I haven’t caught you all in the act in my library.”

  I doubted he was the only one who’d seen Kelly, the pack’s nurse, and Gavin. They might not have mated, but since he’d changed her a couple of weeks ago, their peculiar friendship had become more intimate, and neither one was shy about displaying it.

  I leaned in closer to Ethan and whispered, “Either you tell him, or I will.”

  With a taunting half-smile, he grazed his lips against my cheek as he spoke. “No, you won’t. You made a promise, and you would never break a promise.” It was the same thing he’d reminded me of months before.

  His self-assured taunt grated at my defiance. He’s a smug bastard.

  “You’re an ass,” I said low enough for our ears only.

  Baring his teeth, he said, “I know.” He took a perverse pride in the title.

  I wanted to tell Josh everything. Pulling my hand away from Ethan’s, I was reluctant to let him lead me out of the library. A battle of wills plagued our relationship; I’d acquiesced earlier, and it was difficult to do it again.

  “Sky,” he coaxed, quietly, extending his hand to me. After several moments of consideration, I took it and let his fingers link with mine as he led me from the room.

  “I can’t tell him the truth,” he said, his voice heavy with apprehension. He’d dropped the arrogance and was genuinely concerned.

  “Ethan, I understand. You think he will be hurt. Whatever he’s speculating about you and your magical ability is probably a lot worse than what it is. You saved his life. Right now, with everything that’s going on, do you think keeping him in the dark is the best thing?”

  “My mother chose him over me.” His tone dropped, low and sorrowful. A dark shadow cast over his face, and I knew he was thinking of the awful decision his mother had had to make by choosing which son she would allow to be cursed with death on their eighteenth birthday as a penalty for her performing a forbidden spell. Her decision to choose Josh, to give them time to nullify the curse, was a hard burden to bear, but it wasn’t Ethan’s fault. He had nothing to atone for. It was the most logical decision to pick the youngest child. Guilt and logic never seemed to run in the same circles. I saw it a lot in Sebastian and Ethan. They were the fixers. They kept the pack and its members safe, and it came with a responsibility I couldn’t understand.

  When it came to the pack and how to handle its affairs, Ethan was a strategist and could be cruelly objective. When it came to Josh, he was an emotional mess, and it was difficult for him to see things clearly. I needed to be his eyes, the clarity in his clouded judgment.

  “It wasn’t because she loved him less, Ethan. It was so you could have time to find a way to block t
he curse. And you did. You saved his life. That’s not something you need to hide.” It had taken him hosting a Faerie, who could provide him with enough power to use the Vitae, a protected object, to circumvent it.

  “Tell him,” I urged. “Life will be a lot simpler without you spending so much time trying to shield him from the truth and pain. You can’t anymore.”

  I took the extended time he took to think about it as a good sign. The many times he ran his fingers through his hair was an even better one. His hair was mussed and his eyes were a clearer blue, the steely gray of his wolf absent. It was one of the few times he appeared solely man. A vulnerable man. “I have a feeling if I don’t, this topic will dominate most of our conversations.”

  “See how well you know me?” I said with a smirk.

  He had barely moved into the nod when he took my hand and started for the front door—the opposite direction from where his brother was. I dug my heels in. “Wrong way, Ethan.”

  “Not now.”

  He knew me well, and I knew him, too. My many interactions with him were at the root of my cynicism.

  “Then when? When will you do it?” He’d agreed to do it but hadn’t given a time—his defense for the next time I broached the topic.

  He shrugged, his eyes darkening with a glint of gray, a clear sign he wanted the subject dropped. “When it’s a good time,” he said, casting me a defiant look.

  The weight of our collective stubbornness thickened the air.

  “Okay.” I raised my voice to call out, “Josh!”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Eventually, he poked his head out of the library. “What do you need?” he asked.

  I kept a steady eye on Ethan, whose eyes were now drowned in deep gray, without a hint of blue. That wasn’t going to deter me. This was important. We didn’t have time for secrets, especially not this one. His secret about being a dark elf had placed a wall between him and his brother. This could destroy their relationship.