Midnight Lies (Shifter Island Book 2)

by Raye Wagner

  She nodded, her curls bouncing. ‘Anything.’

  ‘Rage and I will be at the docks in about fifteen or twenty minutes. We need the guards gone and—’

  Bright light lanced through my skull, and I blinked as I was sucked out of the vision. Kaja was gone. Kaja’s bedroom—gone. My bestie—gone. All of it … gone. I shook my head and winced as another razor-sharp wedge of light cut through my head. With my next blink, the searing light melted into shadows.

  “Nai?” Rage called, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. “Are you okay?”

  I blinked again, and his face swam in front of me until my vision returned with a snap.

  “Oww,” I muttered, grabbing my head. “That … hurt.”

  The pain melted away through the shield bond, and as grateful as I was for the relief, I hated causing pain to my friends.

  Rage winced for a second, but then his face melted into relief.

  “Did you feel that?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Only for a second … I think Noble and Justice take the brunt of your pain.”

  Oh, mage. And they were being tortured. What an awful friend I was.

  “Did you do it?” Rage asked, his voice just above a whisper. “Were you able to get in touch with Kaja?”

  What could I say? “I think so? I hope so…”

  Because if that didn’t work, it was seriously not worth it.

  “You okay?” He helped me sit up.

  I offered my mate a small smile. “Sorry. That was like getting kicked in the head, but I think it worked. Either that, or I have a really active imagination and Noble and Justice just got stuck with my tension headache.”

  Rage quirked an eyebrow and his lips pulled up in a smirk. He threaded his hands into my hair and massaged my head and neck with a chuckle. “There are so many things I could say right now about your imagination.”

  I spat out my tongue at him, and then he got up and crossed the space, sitting in the captain’s chair. The engine ripped to life, and he drove us toward Alpha Island. After about ten minutes, he cut the engine and faced me.

  “We’re about a hundred meters out,” he said. “If we get any closer, the wolves will be able to hear and see the boat coming in to dock.”

  “So … are we rowing the rest of the way?” I asked, shaking my head as I glanced at the bottom of the boat. “Because I don’t see any oars.”

  “No,” he said, his gaze darting toward the tree-lined shore. “We’ll need to swim in.”

  I didn’t bother to remind him of the octopus monster that tried to take me out earlier. I just nodded. At least we knew the selkies would not be a problem this time.

  With a little help from Rage, we slid silently into the water.

  Immediately, I felt something dark slither around my ankles and froze, eyes wide.

  Two seal heads popped up from the surface of the water and looked at us, giving me a mild heart attack. I was about to ask them what they wanted or what was going on when their upper body shifted to human form—like a merman. “The king said if you got into the water, we were to help you get to shore safely.”

  Relief washed over me. At first, I hadn’t been sure if they were about to attack or what.

  “Thank you,” I told them, holding my hand out while I treaded water. “But it’ll be dangerous. We’re being hunted by the alpha king’s men.”

  Rage cleared his throat. “If you’d rather return to King Ozark, I’ll not think less of you or your liege—”

  “To abandon you would not only be dishonorable but a death sentence,” one said. “My name is Harp, and this is Gray. We’re at your service.”

  Gray, the other selkie, nodded from the water. “I’d suggest no more conversation until we know what awaits us on shore.”

  Okay… Did it matter that they were helping us because the king coerced them by threatening death? Maybe. But if Rage wasn’t going to protest the aid, I wouldn’t either.

  Still, in their half-human form, the selkies indicated that we hold on to their backs. Reaching around, I clasped my hands around one of their necks and held on, unsure what to expect. The selkie’s face went from human to seal in seconds and then dipped under the water a few inches.

  I looked at my mate, ‘I didn’t know they could partial shift like that.’

  Rage stared into the water at his selkie warrior.

  Rage’s eyes widened. ‘I think we still have a lot to learn about the selkies.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I quipped. ‘I guess so.’

  The selkie with Rage shifted into his seal form. Then, without further warning, we sped off. I had to bite down a squeal of excitement. These were dire circumstances, and we were about to fight for the Midnight brothers … but damn, this was fun.

  They were fast!

  We drew near the dock, and both Rage and I scanned the dark beach. If Kaja and her sisters were here, I couldn’t see them.

  Less than a hundred feet out, I spotted the guards—at least twenty of them: one at the head of the trail leading up to the school, one on the docks, and then the others littered in between.

  Damn. I guess Kaja never got my message.

  ‘Let me go on shore first,’ Rage said, letting go of the selkie.

  Before I could answer, the guard on the dock spoke.

  “Selkie attack! Harvest girls’ dorm!”

  Wha…? I stared at the guard and then grinned. I mean I felt bad that Kaja had pinned an attack on the selkies, what with our new alliance, but it had worked. All twenty guards pulled their swords and started running toward the dorms.

  Yes!

  We crept closer to the shore, all of us crawling up the beach, flat and low.

  For one hot second, I thought my plan had worked perfectly, but then two of the guards paused and stayed back. One of them scanned the water and then pointed into the darkness.

  “There’s a boat out there.”

  What? Looking over my shoulder, I saw the moonlight glistening off the metal speedboat. Crap!

  “Halt!” The guard on the dock drew his sword, scanning the beach. “Who’s out th—?”

  Several things happened at once.

  Rage sprang from the water, running up the beach, and shouted, “Stand down!”

  The selkie in front of me threw a small blade at the guard standing at the top of the trail leading to the dorms. The knife hit with a small thunk, lodging right in the guard’s neck. With a strangled, wet cry, the shifter toppled forward, rolling down the hill, landing in the water with a splash.

  I glanced up as the second guard slumped to his knees and then fell to the side. There, on a rock behind where the guard had been, stood my bestie, holding a mallet in her hands.

  Looking down at the guard, she grimaced. “Sorry, dude.”

  Rage pulled to a stop in front of Kaja and the fallen guard and grinned. “Well done.”

  “Kaja,” I whisper-shouted, emotion swelling in my chest.

  She jerked her head up and smiled as I strode out of the water.

  “Halle-frickin-leujah,” she said, dropping her arm to her side as she stomped past Rage and across the beach to meet me. “Pretty sure Nell and Rue thought I’d lost my mind.”

  The selkies followed me out of the water. Rage returned to them and shook their hands in thanks. I rushed to Kaja, folding her into a tight hug, not caring that I was getting her wet.

  “The alpha king is legit pissed with you,” she muttered into my hair. “Good thing you have that shield bond going for you or the orders would be shoot to kill.”

  “He’s such a douchebag,” I replied. Pulling back, I studied my friend. “I missed you.”

  “Girl, same,” she said with a chuckle. “This place is no fun without you. I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  Rage straightened, and he clapped Kaja on the shoulder before sliding his arm around my waist. “Thanks for coming to our rescue.”

  She nodded. “You’re—” Her eyes widened. “Get down!”

  Still holding the big mal
let, she raised her hand as if to throw it, her gaze fixed on—shoot!

  “No!” I cried, reaching for her wrist.

  “They’re with us,” Rage said, indicating Gray and Harp.

  Kaja froze, and the large mallet slipped from her grip. Her gaze bounced from me to Rage and back. “What the hell is happening?”

  The two selkies had hung back, and I glanced at them as one relaxed his hold on the handle of a dagger still in its sheath.

  “Uh … so this is Harp and Gray.” I faced the selkies. “Our allies.”

  Kaja nearly choked on her spit but said nothing. She was probably in too much shock.

  “Are you returning to King Ozark now?” Rage asked them.

  “We’ve been commanded to stay and help you,” Gray replied as he made his way to the dead guard. Then, the selkie warrior pulled his blade free and reach into—ummm, was that a fanny pack around his waist?

  Sure enough, the selkie pulled a cloth from the sleek pack at his waist and wiped down his blade before sheathing it.

  Kaja and I shared a look, both suppressing a grin about the fanny pack.

  “You’ll need our help if the wolf king uses his alpha power,” Harp added.

  Rage cursed under his breath, and my stomach sank with the selkie’s reminder. As pack alpha, Declan could command his pack like a vampire could compel a blood slave. If a Midnight wolf didn’t follow Declan’s orders, they’d risk banishment, or worse.

  ‘Can your uncle force you to follow his orders?’ I asked Rage.

  Rage shook his head. ‘When I was younger, yes. He tried at the games. Didn’t work.’

  Score.

  We made our way up the path toward campus, diverging from the main path as we neared the top. I quietly recounted the past few days of events to Kaja in backward order, starting with the tenuous truce we had with the selkie king and ending with seeing Honor in the underworld.

  Rage then took us on a secret path he and his brothers had used when they’d wanted to sneak away from the castle and go off-island—this one had no guards. As we approached the stone edifice, my gut started to churn.

  ‘Do you have a plan to save Justice and Noble, or are we charging in, weapons blazing?’ I asked Rage.

  He frowned. ‘I’d hoped we’d have more than just Kaja and a pair of selkies.’

  “Where are your sisters?” I asked her. “Are they okay?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Rue, Nell, Fiona, and Mele pretended to be attacked to distract the guards. Rue wanted it to look authentic. She’s going to need a healing elixir before she walks again, but if we swing by the infirmary, we can grab the others.”

  ‘I’m sure there’ll be a bottle of mage wine in the infirmary, too. You can work your magic…’ Rage said, squeezing my hand. ‘That might have to wait, though. We need to rescue Justice and Noble first.’

  His words twisted my insides. I almost asked if his brother was okay but stopped myself. Rage wouldn’t have prioritized Justice and Noble without a reason. A very good reason. At this point, I didn’t want to know the details of their torture. Not until I could do something about it.

  “What about Surlama?” I asked Kaja. “Have you seen her around?”

  “I don’t know anything about Surlama.” Kaja swallowed, and her gaze darted to Rage. “But the rumor is the king’s trying to produce an alpha heir so he can leave Rage’s mom and kill … you know.” She dipped her head to Rage. “We haven’t seen Declan on campus since the games.”

  Rage growled low in his throat as we passed through an outcrop of thick trees. “Let him try.”

  Fur rose on the back of his neck, and I reached out and stroked him, trying to calm his wolf. I needed levelheaded human Rage right now, not his instinctual wolf. Although that part of him would come in handy later.

  We reached the castle, halfway between the entrance we’d used when I first arrived and the back entrance I knew led to the infirmary. The solid stone wall had been repaired since the selkie attack, and I watched as Rage took several steps to the left, trailing his hands over the stones.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. ‘Is there a secret entrance?’ I joked. Speaking to Rage’s mind was like second nature now.

  Rage turned and grinned at me. ‘If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret.’

  Then, he pushed on a rock, and the stones slid away silently, revealing a secret passageway, and my jaw dropped.

  “That’s so cool,” Kaja whispered.

  As soon as we were all inside, Rage released his hold on the rock and darted in as the stones slid back into place. Rustling in the darkness, Kaja muttered something about a torch.

  A spark flared, and Rage raised a small fireball in his palm, giving just enough light to illuminate the passageway.

  To our left sat a large chest, its lid propped open. Clothes, shoes, and weapons filled the container. Above it, bows and quivers of arrows hung on the stone wall as well as several broadswords. Rage waved at the cache and said, “Let’s get armed. Declan may decide an heir can wait.”

  I strapped blades to my thighs and grabbed a short sword while Kaja took several blades as well.

  Rage grabbed a torch and tipped it to the flame in his palm. With the increased light, he was able to extinguish his fireball.

  Kaja and I looked at each other, fully armed and ready to save Justice and Noble, as Rage stepped between us and waved the selkies forward.

  “Gray and Harp, if you want swords, come get them,” Rage said.

  First Gray and then Harp stepped forward and picked through the blades. It was still wild for me to think we were about to attack the alpha king with two selkies. My, my, how the tables had turned. A few minutes later, we slunk through the passageways, armed to the teeth.

  Rage led us through the corridors, heading east.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  “We’ll go to my mother’s room first. I don’t want Declan to use her,” Rage answered aloud so everyone could hear. “Never again.”

  “Weapons out,” Rage growled to all of us. “But be careful.” He narrowed his eyes at the selkie warriors. “Don’t you dare kill my mother by accident.”

  Then he pushed another invisible button and led us into a large bedroom.

  “Mom?” Rage said, halting just inside the room.

  I stepped to his side and scanned the room, relieved when I spotted the headmistress alive and well, sitting at a writing desk despite the lateness of the hour. Next to her sat a large gray wolf. She’d turned toward her son when he called for her, her eyes wide, but she didn’t get up from her seat. A heartbeat later, the wolf became a man.

  “Aww, Nai,” Herpes Beo said, coming to stand behind Elaine, hand on his sword. “So nice to see you. You too, Rage.”

  I froze, knowing that at one time, Rage and his brothers had considered Beo a friend.

  “The king will reward me greatly for bringing you two to him.” Beo sauntered forward, and a low growl rumbled from Rage next to me.

  “What’s the matter—?” Beo didn’t finish his sentence.

  Rage flicked his wrist, and in one fluid movement, a small dagger lodged in Beo’s neck. The Midnight Pack guard dropped to his knees.

  Grey and Harp stepped out of the corridor, and one of them grunted, but his words were lost to me because Elaine stood then and swung, twisting her body so that the entire force of her weight was channeled into a strike at Beo’s neck.

  Wait, did she even have a weapon?

  I blinked, and she stepped back, away from Beo, her lip curled in disgust. There, next to the throwing dagger lodged in his throat, was the last inch of her pen.

  Wow.

  “You chose to follow the orders of a bully,” she snarled. “I expected more of you, Beo.”

  Headmistress Elaine spun toward her son. “Courage!”

  As soon as she said his name, her door opened, and four guards marched in, weapons drawn.

  “No!” Elaine screamed.

  And at the same time, Ra
ge bellowed, “Stand down!”

  Almost as if time stood still, the guards froze, confusion washing over their features.

  I blinked, and then my jaw went slack as all four of them shook their heads.

  “Now,” Rage growled. “Weapons down.”

  Three of them put their weapons away. Just like that. But the fourth one trembled, his entire body shaking with a seeming battle of wills.

  Holy mage, what was happening?

  His sword tightened in his hand as he raised his head and howled as if in pain.

  Rage stepped forward and ran the guard through with his knife—his wail cut off with a wet gurgle.

  “He was trying to signal the king,” Rage growled. He looked sadly at the wolf he’d just killed as the limp body slid to the floor.

  “Your commanding power is getting stronger,” Elaine said, voice filled with shock as she stared at her son, then her eyes widened and her gaze darted from the selkies to Rage. “Are you making friends?”

  I giggle-snorted.

  “Trying,” he said, with a crooked smile. “Harp, Gray, this is my mother, Elaine.”

  The selkies bowed, and Harp said, “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  Elaine nodded her head. “You as well.” She then pulled Rage into a fierce hug. “I was so worried.”

  I watched their reunion with a newfound respect for my future mother-in-law. She’d raised four alpha heirs, so of course, she was badass.

  “Mom,” he said, his words coming in a rush. “Will you go to the infirmary and then bring the Harvest girls to the basement of the south tower. I have a feeling we’ll need all the help we can get.”

  She nodded and then pulled his forehead down for a kiss. “I’ll do what I can to lead our guards the other way. Most don’t want to attack you, but…”

  Rage swallowed hard. “But the pack link makes it hard to refuse the king.”

  As we’d all just witnessed … but apparently, Rage had commanding power as well—a trait of an alpha king.

  Maybe Rage was ready to take over for his uncle.

  “I’ll see you soon,” she said, crossing toward the door. “Now, Chance, Jonathan, Robert, come with me.”