Crystal Lake Pack: The Complete Series: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance

by Candace Wondrak

  “Let’s do some more practicing,” I said, moving to the bookcase, choosing a paperback this time. Three hundred pages, no hard spine. Surely this couldn’t do much damage. Maybe scuff the paint, but that’s it. “Then I’ll get that one down.”

  And I knew I would get no practicing done when the guys were around. They were too…well, distracting. With their muscles and their smiles, their heated looks and whispered words, not to mention the dimples. Oh, yes. If one of them walked through the front door, my concentration would be done with.

  My mom knew better than to argue. Arguing with me when my mind was set was like arguing with a bull. Just impossible. Sarah would know, because it was the same way with her. I had inherited her stubbornness, just like I’d inherited the wolf.

  One was a boon, the other, a boon only sometimes.

  We sat down, getting back to it immediately. This time, I noticed, my mom sat a few feet farther back, watching me with suspicion, as if she thought the book was going to fly toward her this time.

  Yet another reason I chose the paperback.

  Time passed in a blur as I did my best to control the levitating. I refused to look at the clock to see how much time had gone by, because I knew if I did, I would only be disappointed, because this, my training session, was not going according to plan. If anything, it just grew worse.

  A boisterous and loud set of feet pounded up the steps of the porch. Maze let himself in, since this was his house, walking into the living room and seeing me and my mom on the floor. He smiled a dimpled grin, saying, “Forest said it was A-Okay for your mom to stay…” And it was at that time he noticed.

  Nearly a dozen books, all jammed into the walls. Four in the ceiling, in various spots. The rest were in the walls. Some lodged into the wall that hugged the stairwell leading upstairs, a few of them on the wall where the mantle was. Luckily, the windows were all intact, but somehow one did wind up on the side of the nearest and lowest cabinet in the kitchen.

  I wasn’t sure how that one happened.

  “What,” Maze started, obviously at a loss for words if his quiet, ajar mouth meant anything, “what happened? Hurricane? Tornado?” He shook his head. “Dylan is going to kill you. Those were all his books, you know. Yeah, he’s so going to kill you.”

  I got to my feet, moving toward him. “It’s not what it looks like.” I wasn’t even sure why I said it, because it was exactly what it looked like. My magic was working but it was out of control.

  “Good,” Maze whispered, his dark eyes fixating on me, making me feel all sorts of things beneath the embarrassment I had about the books littering the walls, ceiling, and cabinet. “Because it looks like you decimated the living room with Dylan’s books while practicing your magic stuff.”

  Ah, so he hadn’t seen the one in the kitchen yet. I’d save that one for a surprise for later. “Okay, well, it might be what it looks like,” I muttered, refraining from the urge to correct him—because I didn’t do magic stuff. I did spells, and saying the word magic in front of it was repetitive and useless. All spells were magic. Duh.

  “Yeah, I’m getting that,” he spoke dryly.

  “But,” I continued, “I didn’t do any of it on purpose.”

  “I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse,” Maze mused, and just like that, the dimples were back, making me feel…feelings.

  Yeah, real descriptive on that one, but I found myself losing track of my thoughts, standing so close to him. My wolf was oblivious to the fact my mom was in the room; my wolf wanted Maze to lay me down and introduce every inch of my skin to those dimples.

  God. I wasn’t even sure I knew what that meant.

  “She’s powerful,” Sarah commented, crossing her arms and looking stern, very much the mother she was, “if she can fling a trade paperback through a two by four. Keep that in mind, should you get handsy.”

  I closed my eyes at her words, feeling a new wave of embarrassment sweeping through me, this one worse. When parents were involved, the embarrassment was always tenfold, somehow. The special, almost magical ability of parents.

  And then, Maze being Maze, said something that made the situation a whole lot worse: “I don’t know. I think I could get down with playing rough.”

  Oh, my God, I thought. I’m dead.

  Chapter Eleven – Addie

  Sarah, since she had nowhere to sleep, was going to stay with us. Maze and Dylan had both offered her their beds, but she’d declined them, saying she’d take the couch. She didn’t want to disrupt the household further, although she also peppered in a few threats here and there, saying if anyone so much as hinted about going into my room while I slept, she would hear, and the repercussions would not be pleasant.

  We all knew better than to question her on it.

  Landon practically ignored everyone all night, didn’t say a single word when he came home and saw the books sticking out of the drywall. He went straight to bed, even though it was barely dark outside. Clearly, we hadn’t bonded in my room earlier. My fantasies about him, if one could go so far as to call them fantasies, were quashed.

  Probably better this way. My mom was in the house, after all. There would be no hanky-panky, and definitely no hanky-spanky. Was hanky-spanky a real thing? My wolf seemed to want it, but my wolf seemed like a bona fide slut—not that there was anything wrong with it, because there wasn’t.

  There were just some things that took priority over my wolf being claimed, like dealing with Clay.

  I waited until the others were out for the night before tiptoeing to the shower. I shed my clothes and ran my fingers through my hair—which reminded me, I’d have to go home and pack up some more stuff after everything settled down—before stepping into the tub. I turned the water on, turning the temperature as hot as it would go. Not good for the pink in my hair, but there was something about hot showers I loved more than life itself.

  Had a bad day? Wash it all away with a nice, steamy shower. Had a good day? What better way to end it than with the relaxation only hot water from a showerhead could bring? If I could stay in the shower for hours, I would—or at least until the hot water tank ran low and the water turned cold.

  I was about to wash with whoever’s soap sat on the ledge, but something odd stopped me. The water felt…different. Thicker. And—I glanced to my hands in the water—it wasn’t clear. It was pink. My gaze followed the water from my hands as it dripped to the floor of the tub, swirling around the metal stopper, almost like I was washing blood from my body.

  Which was stupid. I wasn’t injured. Did I get a nosebleed again? Was it from all of my magical practicing?

  As I reached up to my nose, I happened to glance up. The showerhead spewed an instant, thick spray of a dark red liquid, a hundred times darker than the pink water I’d seen. It got in my mouth, in my eyes, up my nose, coating every part of me instantly, a sheer waterfall of gore.

  My eyes were quick to close, and I clumsily reached to turn the water off. Heck, who was I kidding? This wasn’t water. This was Freddy Krueger’s come to town water, AKA a fancy title for blood.

  I stumbled out of the shower after yanking the curtain open. My feet, doused in red, stepped on the mat sitting on the floor directly outside of the tub, blood running off my skin, soaking into the fluffy mat. I grabbed for whichever towel was nearest—I’d make apologies for it later, because clearly, right now, there were other things to worry about, like the freaking blood coating my entire body. I wrapped myself up, wiping off my face to get it out of my eyes. My vision was tinted pink no matter how hard I rubbed, but it would have to do for now.

  My throat felt too wet, the taste on my tongue too metallic. I went towards the sink, leaning over to spit, to get it out of my throat, but I was only able to get out two good coughs before something came up, lodging itself in my throat, hard and thick.

  Great, so much for my plan about screaming for the guys. I wouldn’t be able to do anything with this thing in my throat.

  My gaze met my re
flection’s—God, was I a miserable, gory sight—and I spotted a lump in my neck. Whatever blocked my airway was right there, so thick I could see it.

  Feeling like I couldn’t breathe while simultaneously needing to breathe was the worst feeling in the world, on the opposite end of the spectrum from warm, steamy showers. Although, after this most recent one, I might have to rethink that one, too.

  Whatever the damned thing was, I had to get it out, and since I couldn’t inhale to cough it out, I had to go in another way…with my fingers. Hopefully my gag reflex would cool it, at least until I got it out.

  I reached my two longest fingers into my mouth, opening it as wide as I could, given the situation. My vision started to blur, my lungs practically bursting in my chest. I had to get it out, had to slide it up and out of my throat so I could finally breathe deeply once again. Breathing was an action I would never take for granted again after this, assuming I made it and didn’t choke and die right here.

  My fingers brushed the bottom of my uvula, and I gagged, though nothing came up. My mouth was open as wide as it could be, which thankfully was wide enough to shove most of my fingers in. I hoped it would be enough for two fingers to reach in and pull it out, otherwise I’d die in this bathroom, covered in blood with my own hand in my mouth. Talk about a weird way to die.

  Fingers reaching down my throat—something I never thought I would have to do—I felt the tips of my fingers brush against something cold and hard. Whatever was lodged in my throat was most definitely not food, because it was not chewed up at all. At this point, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know what it was, but the need to yank it out overcame all my yuck factors.

  My fingers moved to the sides of my throat, and I had to dig my nails against the object to get a firm hold of it. I pulled it out, feeling it tear my esophagus on its way up. I coughed as I flung it out, onto the sink, heaving over and over, trying to catch my breath and calm down.

  The object clinked in the porcelain sink, but I was too busy, too worried about the lingering pain in my throat to pay much attention to it yet.

  My throat felt as if it was on fire, burning with the flames of agony and pain. Like I’d swallowed a dozen knives without knowing, tore myself all to hell. I held a hand around my neck, putting pressure on it as if it were an open, bleeding wound. It was then, of course, my gaze fell to the thing in the sink.

  Small, now that it wasn’t lodged in my throat. Ivory in hue, though it was tinged with pink. A shape I’d maybe only seen once in my life, on the skeleton in the corner of my high school health class.

  A bone.

  And, what was even weirder, I knew it was a hand bone, right from the palm.

  How in the world did I know that? Seemed a bit of information no one would know, unless one specialized in corpses…and I knew only one person who did.

  The death priest.

  “Clay,” I shouted, my voice sounding awful. I stumbled out of the bathroom, looking down the hallway, which seemed rather long on both sides, as if someone took the house and stretched it out. My hand dropped from my throat, and as it did, I noticed something off, something different. Call it intuition, call it obvious—or call it a giant, gaping wound.

  Either way, hard to miss.

  Like someone had plucked out my bone and put it in my throat. But…how? It was something I would’ve felt, something I would’ve been aware of. I could not stop staring at my hand, at the red hole inside its palm. I could see the ligaments, the muscles and tendons. Strangely enough, the wound did not bleed, did not hurt—totally unlike my throat, which still hurt like a bitch and a half.

  I turned down the ever-long hall, moving toward the stairwell, my feet dragging. It took me far too long to reach the stairs, even longer to bring my feet down along them. Why didn’t I go to the guys’ rooms? I couldn’t say. I had the feeling, though, they weren’t in there. If they were, they would’ve come out when I’d cried Clay’s name.

  Where the heck were they? Nothing here was right.

  My feet drew me downstairs, and I rounded the corner to the living room, where my mom was camped out for the night. I knew all I would have to do was lift up my hand, show Sarah the wound—not to mention the teeny, weeny fact I was drenched in blood—and my mom would be up and about, freaking the flip out.

  But it wasn’t just my mom in the living room. Moonlight shone through the windows in the room, illuminating a large, darkly-dressed figure looming over Sarah’s sleeping form. She was motionless, utterly still on the couch. The figure above her was anything but.

  I couldn’t see what the figure was doing to her, and it didn’t matter. Whatever it was, wasn’t good. I shouted, “Mom!” I wanted to say more, but as I ran closer to the couch, I froze, no other words escaping my wounded, aching throat.

  My mom’s blonde hair was across her face. I couldn’t see her at all, but I could see the blood particles seeping through the air, traveling straight to the figure literally hovering above her like some kind of freaky alien spider. The figure was a man, though he had no skin. No nose on his face, no eyelids. Everything on him, other than his clothes, was red and veiny. Still, somehow I knew; it was Clay.

  Clay was sucking Sarah’s lifeforce dry to regain himself.

  Before I could take another step closer, an invisible force swatted me like a fly, and I flew through the air, my back colliding with the bare wall beside the mantle. I would have a front row seat to watch him finish my mom, drain her dry. Yet again, the alien spider analogy would work, as I was caught in a web I could not see.

  My anger grew. He would not take Sarah. He would not take another shifter. Clay’s destructive, murderous reign over this pack was over, and I was going to stop him. I had to. I was the only one who could hope to stand at his level.

  I focused on my anger, letting it build and grow as my eyes watched Clay continue to suck Sarah’s life out. Like that mummy guy, only worse because this was real and not crappy nineties’ CGI.

  Something inside of me snapped, breaking through whatever power held me against the wall. My feet fell to the floor, and I yelled with all of my might, “Get away from her!” Not the coolest thing to say, but I didn’t have time to think up a one-liner.

  As I shouted, I batted a hand through the air, sending his looming figure off Sarah. Much like what had happened to me, he landed with his back on the opposite wall. His draining of Sarah stopped the instant he was separated from her, and it was then I got a better look at him.

  It was like someone carefully peeled off his skin, leaving everything underneath. His nose had started to reform, eyelids only half there. He still had no lips, so I could see and count every single tooth.

  He was the ugliest son of a bitch I’d ever seen.

  An eerie laugh left him, and a dark red hole appeared on the wall behind him, swallowing him up. Or, rather, he fell back into it, disappearing from my sight, leaving me alone in the living room with my mom.

  God, I prayed I was not too late, and I wasn’t a praying sort.

  I darted to my mom’s side, falling to my knees as I reached the couch. “Mom,” I whispered, frantic, moving to grab Sarah’s shoulders. She wasn’t moving, not at all. And with all that hair in her face…I couldn’t tell if she was even still alive.

  No. If the bastard got her…

  “Mom,” I pleaded again, tears pricking my vision. These tears were real, genuine. My heart ached at the thought I’d been too late to save her. Sarah was the only family I had; my absentee dad didn’t count for anything, and Henry? Henry was an ass. No one could replace my mom, as overbearing as she could be sometimes.

  Sarah’s head was turned inward, facing the couch cushions. I went to turn her head, to wipe the hair from her face so I could see the damage Clay had done, but a sudden, swift movement from my mom’s neck stopped me. The sound of cracking bone echoed through the air, a haunting noise that reverberated again and again in my ears. Sarah sat up as I fell back to the floor, watching in horror.

  With s
ickening, hard sounds, my mom’s head turned…but it went the long way. Instead of turning to face me, instead of simply moving her head from the left to the right, she spun it backwards, all the way around, stopping every inch or so as another series of cracks came out. A human-shaped owl; I had never witnessed something so disjointed, something so disgusting and awful.

  “Mom?” I whimpered, unable to say more. Every word I spoke hurt like a bitch, coming up like razor blades.

  My hand, the one missing a bone, suddenly started to ache, the pain traveling up my arm, blurring my vision. I went to grip my wrist, and when I broke eye contact with my mom’s head, the pain became tenfold. I felt like passing out, but the adrenaline rushing through me would not let that happen.

  Sarah’s head had fully spun to look at me, but the cracking of bones was not over yet, because her body started to float, twisting and re-shaping itself, growing bulkier, her clothes shifting and changing. Within ten seconds, it was no longer my mom staring down at me with a half-eaten face.

  It was Clay, wearing a crisp, black suit, his face painted black, save for the single white line traveling down his forehead, over his nose and lips, to his chin, even down his neck. Clay had somehow taken over Sarah; he was completely whole, no part of him a skeleton.

  “Hello, Addie,” Clay spoke, his feet flat on the floor. Dress shoes, as ridiculous as they were. His voice seemed to seep through my ears, tingling each and every bone—and not in a good way. More of a so-royally-screwed way. He tilted his head in a dramatic fashion, his brown, nearly black eyes boring into me hard. His dark hair was slicked back as it always was, my mom’s blonde locks nowhere in sight. “Did you think I forgot about you?”

  I didn’t know what to say other than, “What did you do to my mom?” The words hurt to say, but I had to speak them.

  “How sweet,” Clay mused, kneeling over me, pushing me down to the ground with a single rough hand. “You think this is real. Perhaps your mind is not what I was hoping it was.” He swiftly grabbed my injured hand, digging his thumb through it.