The Crucial Shift (The Ariane Trilogy Book 3)

by Michelle Dare

  Gripping my abdomen, I think of Sienna and what he could have done to her or could still do. Ford’s eyes meet mine and he shakes his head. “He didn’t do that to her. She’s his means to an end. He doesn’t want her like that.”

  “Then why target Dante’s mate?” Why would Benedict go after a human? Especially her when there was an entire house of them?

  “Maybe that’s the allure.”

  A growl rises up my throat as my wolf calls for vengeance. Benedict needs to go. As horrible as it was killing Travis, I’ll do the same to Benedict when the time comes. I’ll live with the demons of their deaths so others can rest, knowing they’re safe.

  I clap my hands together. “Let’s go. The longer we wait, the more damage he can do.”

  “I’m coming as well,” Solomon states as he enters the room. His eyes meet Ford’s and something unspoken passes between them.

  Ford speaks up. “No matter what happens, we can’t emotionally react. Benedict will be counting on that. When we do so, we make mistakes. He’ll want us to slip up, and that’s when he’ll run. The fact that he’s been under the radar so far, only appearing when necessary, has given him confidence. He doesn’t think we realize where he is. The element of surprise is on our side. We have to get in there, secure Sienna and Wake, and kill him.”

  Aries nods. “Ford’s right. Ari, you and Rion get Sienna and Wake out of there.” Ford opens his mouth to speak up, but Aries stops him with the rise of his hand. “If you go in there and bring Sienna back here, that’s one less vampire we have in this fight. I hate to admit it, but you, Solomon, Ari, and Rion are our strongest assets here since you have multiple abilities. We need you to fight alongside Dante and me. And if you come here with Sienna, you won’t want to return to help us get rid of Benedict. Ari, Rion, teleport them back here for Desmond to take care of then return to us.” Aries leaves to brief Desmond and put him in charge while both he and Dante will be gone. My body begins to hum with energy.

  More wolves surround us wanting to help. Dante tells them they have to stay where they are and watch over those in the house. The more wolves we have around Benedict’s property, the more chance an error will be made like a sound or a rash decision. This needs to go as planned.

  When Aries returns, we go over a strategy for entering the property. There will be six of us going. We’re going to split up when we arrive, each taking a different part of the house. Dante and Aries are going to cause a commotion while the rest of us teleport inside to find Wake and Sienna. Best case scenario, they’re still alive and we all make it out of there. I don’t want to think of the worst case. Anymore, it feels like that’s all I’m living. I need a good outcome. No more death. Well, except for Benedict.

  Rion clasps his hand on Aries’ shoulder while I take Dante’s hand in mine. Along with the sheer determination I have to get Wake and Sienna out of there, there’s an underlying layer of fear, which I constantly have to push down. Benedict has proven, time and time again, he’s smart and full of power.

  Rion must sense it from me because he bends down to brush his lips against mine briefly. “I love you, little mouse.”

  “Ditto.”

  With a snap of our fingers, we teleport out of the mansion and into the woods outside the house in Alaska. Instead of walking through the woods and causing our feet to crunch repeatedly over pine needles, sticks, and brush, we teleport in short increments. Vampires have amazing hearing. The only thing we can count on is Benedict thinking we don’t have a clue he’s here.

  Dante and I end up on the west side of the home. We’re a short distance away. Dante winks at me before shifting into his grey wolf with a white patch on its chest. He’s off at a run, moving in the opposite direction of me so he can draw Benedict away. I remember thinking how quietly Orion could walk around in the forest. For something so massive, he moved soundlessly. That’s not Dante’s goal, however. We need Benedict to race in the opposite direction of those of us who need to teleport inside.

  It’s light out and the windows are unobstructed, yet I don’t see anyone walking around inside. Luckily, I have a clear view, so I won’t end up tripping over something when I teleport inside.

  The sound of glass shattering is my cue to get moving. I snap my fingers and am on the opposite side of the windows. Thankfully, there is no ward to keep us out. I’m not sure what we would have done if there was. We probably should have thought of that before we left.

  Turning, I run to the room to my right. Empty. Then I go into every room on the upper level. After sending Rion a quick message saying the upper level is clear, I quietly go down a set of spiral stairs.

  Growls and snarls reach me. Rion confirms in my mind that Benedict is currently fighting Ford, while Aries and Dante circle, getting bites in when they can. They have to keep him busy so he doesn’t try and teleport away.

  “Find them!” Solomon yells from another part of the house.

  “We have to move,” I tell Rion, who appears at my side.

  We clear the second floor without finding anyone. Then the lower level, making sure not to get involved in the fight.

  I have no idea where they are. We’ve searched the entire house.

  Teleporting back outside, I walk through the woods. Solomon appears, trailing along with me while Rion takes the other side of the exterior. Then I hear it. The slightest whimper. We run as fast as we can until we stumble upon a small, run-down shack in the middle of the dense woods. There’s a deadbolt on the door, which Solomon easily rips off.

  Inside, we find Sienna chained up, hanging from a metal pipe that runs up the walls and along the ceiling. Her hands are cuffed to the chain, as she hangs limply, her feet not able to touch the ground.

  “We’re here now. We’re going to get you out of here,” I say, pleasantly surprised when I see her chest rise and fall. I’m not sure how I would have broken the news to Ford if she would have been dead. She flinches when I reach for her.

  “Rion, you need to kill him!” I send him with my mind. “Solomon and I have Sienna. We’ll find Wake. Go join the fight.” I also send Rion the image of Sienna before me. He’s blind with rage now and shifts into his wolf before rounding the house and lunging at Benedict.

  I can’t focus on what he’s doing. I have to get her out of here and find Wake.

  “Where’s Wake?” I ask her as I gently pry a dirty cloth from her mouth that is tied around the back of her head.

  “River,” she says in a raspy voice.

  “Get her out of here and back to Des,” I tell Solomon. “I’m going to find Wake.”

  Outside the shack, I shift into my wolf and let her senses guide me to the water. She finds it in no time but I don’t see Wake anywhere. My wolf puts her nose to the ground, searching for him. Then she smells something faint. After a couple of feet, she takes off through the trees in the hope of finding Wake alive.

  26

  My wolf rushes to the top of a small hill. Looking down, I see him. He’s in human form, lying with his face in the mud along the river bank. My wolf races to his side, and I shift back. First, I check for a pulse but can’t make one out. No, this can’t be happening. I can’t lose Wake. I need to get him out of here and back to Des. There could be a small part of him somewhere in there still holding on.

  It’s then I notice his arms are each bent at odd angles and blood is trickling from his mouth. No, please. Tears form in my eyes as I gently grip Wake’s hand and teleport us to the hallway outside the medical rooms at the mansion.

  “Help!” I scream. “Desmond! He’s not breathing!” I jump to my feet and quickly go in search of him but end up slamming into his chest after I take a few steps. He rushes past me while calling for Cash to help him lift Wake. They do so gently as not to hurt him further. We walk past one room with Solomon and a fox in it. Good, they got Sienna to shift. Let’s hope she keeps doing so. I’m grateful she’s alive.

  Cash and Des place Wake on a bed. Des doesn’t bother checking for a pulse. He’s
going right for the serum, in hopes it will jolt Wake back to life.

  He injects it into Wake’s heart and then we remain silent as Des stands close, listening for the beat of Wake’s heart. Seconds tick by. Desmond’s face drops as tears cascade down my cheeks and emotion clogs my throat. His eyes find mine. There’s so much sorrow in them. So much pain.

  “No,” I cry, shaking my head. “I don’t accept it. He’s not dead!”

  Gripping Wake’s shirt in my fist, I get right in his face and yell, “You will not do this to me! You can’t leave! Do you hear me? You’re my friend and I love you! And so help me, if you don’t get back here I will find a way to get to the other side and bring you back. Do you want that? You know I’ll do it!”

  “Ari,” Desmond says gently. “He’s gone. We don’t know how long he was like this before you found him.” I give him a hard look, not willing to accept his words as reality.

  The door to the room slams open into the wall as Paige rushes in. Her red hair is flowing behind her like a curtain of fire. She races to Wake’s other side. “He’s not...” she stammers then peers over at me. “Please, Ari, tell me he’s not dead.”

  My bottom lip trembles.

  “No, Wake. Please,” she cries as she caresses his cheek in her hand. Gut-wrenching sobs take over her body. “Please. You can’t leave. Not when—”

  She doesn’t get the next word out because Wake’s chest rises once and slowly falls, causing Desmond to gasp. Paige and I jump out of the way, letting Des get to work. Coming to my side, Paige takes my hand in hers as we both cry, watching, waiting for Wake’s next breath.

  “We need to get him to shift. The three of us need to shift and have our wolves call out to his. We have to get him to heal himself.” I nod and let my wolf take over.

  The room suddenly becomes too small with three large wolves in it. Our wolves surround him, nudging Wake. Then Des’s lets out a long howl and Cash’s and mine follow suit. I’ll do whatever I can to get him to shift and so will my wolf. However, nothing we do works. Then I hear Paige’s voice.

  “Wake,” she says softly. “You have to shift. You can’t leave me yet. I need you. Please, do it for me. For us.” Us? There’s an us? As soon as things get back to normal and everyone is safe and healthy, she and I are having a girls’ night out. She has some dishing to do.

  Wake stirs, groaning loudly. Des lets out another howl and it’s enough to call to Wake’s wolf. He shifts, though his wolf can’t move. Not yet. Bones are still broken. Internal injuries we don’t even know about need mending. But with each shift, he’ll heal a little more.

  He repeatedly shifts over the next ten minutes. Des, Cash, and I go back to our human forms. Once Wake’s eyes open, it’s time for me to get back to Rion.

  Walking past the other room, I find Sienna sitting up on the table talking to Solomon and Galina. Galina is crying as she holds her daughter’s hand.

  “Ari, are you going back?” Solomon calls to me.

  “Yes. I’m not leaving them there. I have to make sure Benedict’s dead.”

  “I’m coming with you.” I nod.

  In the hallway, we both teleport back to the house in Alaska. It’s there we find blood everywhere. Splattered on the exterior of the house, dripping down the windows as if it had rained. The ground is also coated in it. I’ve never seen so much blood. But what has me stopping in my tracks, as we round the back side of the house, is Benedict’s dead body. Or the pieces of it scattered around the yard. Aries, Dante, Ford, and Rion are standing spread apart. Blood coating all of them.

  “Did you each take a limb and pull? You couldn’t have waited for me?” I ask, walking to my mate’s side. “We’re burning your clothes by the way.”

  “You don’t look much better.” It’s then I notice the small amount of blood on my shirt, along with mud everywhere.

  “He’s fine,” I say quickly. “Wake and Sienna. They’ve both shifted and are going to be okay. Wake was dead when we found him,” I choke out. “Or nearly dead. He must have just stopped breathing because he came back.” I leave off the part about Paige talking to him and the whole there being something between them. That doesn’t matter right now. All that does is that Travis and Benedict are both dead.

  “Did you find out what Travis promised him before you killed him?” I ask.

  “The humans,” Dante growls.

  “Travis said once his pack ruled ours, he’d hand over our humans, including the mates, to Benedict,” Aries adds.

  That son of a... Something flashes across the memory I get from Rion. He doesn’t willingly share, but we’re connected and I see what he did. Bile rises in my throat, and I’m unable to prevent myself from turning and throwing up on the ground by my feet.

  The vile things Benedict said. What he confessed to doing before we could get to the humans. What he did to Kiara before he killed her. She was the one he used as an example to everyone else. They all watched as he did horrible things to her and promised they’d be next. We got there just in time to save their lives. Except, there were some, like Dante’s mate, who didn’t get away unscathed. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and right myself.

  “She was going to be next after Kiara. He had plans for her death,” Rion says in my mind.

  “I’m so glad you killed him.”

  Ford’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Would you mind if I—”

  “Go, Ford,” Aries tells him. “Go to her.” Ford is gone in the blink of an eye. He needs to see Sienna; to make sure with his own eyes that she’s alive.

  “We need to do something with the house,” Solomon states.

  “Like burn it to the ground?” I ask.

  “Well, sure, but that would draw the authorities. The only reason they’ve stayed away so far is, no doubt, due to the isolation of the property. We should at least hose it and the ground down. Clear out the blood. That way if someone comes up here, it will appear like the home is abandoned.”

  “And the broken windows?”

  He shrugs. “Squatters?”

  “That works,” Aries states.

  He finds a hose and begins to rinse off the house. Water runs down the exterior wall in a small stream of crimson. Dante asks me to teleport him back to the house so he can be with Mira and tell her Benedict is finally gone. I do so and return to the scene.

  Rion gathers the pieces of Benedict’s body and puts them in a pile. “I’m going to teleport him back to the field beside the mansion. We have to burn him to get rid of the body. We can’t do it here.”

  “Good thinking,” Aries states.

  “Wait, can’t we just throw him into the ocean or something?”

  “Do you want the police finding pieces of a body floating out at sea? What if it washes up at the shoreline for a kid to find? It’s not like when you killed Travis. That was in a dream state. When he was killed there, he was dead in real life, but there was no body to dispose of because he remained in that state. This is a human body in the real world.”

  “Right. Good point. Teleporting him back sounds like a plan.”

  I teleport back with Rion, needing to see Benedict’s body burn. I need to watch it to know this is over. Rion teleports from where he leaves the body to the mansion to grab a lighter and accelerant. When he returns, he strips off his shirt and jeans, throwing them on top, and adds the accelerant. With a flick of the lighter, the flames begin to spread. He stands beside me in a pair of boxer briefs and boots. At least some of the blood is off of him.

  Solomon and Aries join us as the flames begin to grow, and the smell of burnt flesh permeates the air. When the wolves are put to rest, they are up on a platform, keeping most fumes away from us. Benedict doesn’t get the same courtesy. The smell is awful and makes my nose burn, but I refuse to move. I refuse to take one step away until there is nothing left of this vampire but ash.

  Slowly, other members of the pack, and those staying in the mansion, join us as the fire begins to fade. Dante and Mira. Galina and Si
enna. Ford keeps a measurable distance from her. Wake and Paige. Bray. My mom. And so many more. Everyone must feel like I do. They want to get their lives back and can’t do that as long as they think he might still be out there. Watching him burn is the only way to know for sure. To have any peace of mind that it’s really over. It’s the closure we all need.

  Rion and I stay next to each other as the flames slowly dwindle down to nothing. His arm is wrapped around my shoulders as he holds me close. We’re the last ones to leave, but I can’t step away before walking to the pile of ash and spitting in it. He can’t hurt us anymore. Neither can Travis. They’re gone.

  We slowly walk back to the mansion, and with each step, my body becomes more tired. My limbs become heavy and my eyelids begin to droop. Rion scoops me up in his arms to carry me. My hands lace at the back of his neck as I press my cheek to his shoulder. The dried blood caked to him and the dirt smeared all over me doesn’t matter. I have my mate. No one else died. I can rest now. Each step he takes is like a lullaby, slowly rocking me to sleep.

  I’m barely aware of us reaching the mansion. Rion doesn’t stop until we’re in our room and he places me on my feet in the bathroom, fully rousing me from my brief slumber. He turns the shower on, letting the hot water steam up the room as he strips me of my clothes and throws them into the garbage, followed by what was left on him.

  We spend the next twenty minutes scrubbing every inch of each other, needing to get the blood and mud off. For tonight, when we go to bed, it will be with calm minds and serene hearts. The horrible paranormals who’ve been plaguing the Avynwood Pack for so many years are finally gone. I can only hope others take solace in knowing they won’t be hurt by them again. I don’t doubt that there will be more battles. More shifters, vampires, or fae who want to harm us or others out there, but today, good won. It’s a victory and I’ll take that any day of the week.