by May Dawson
Lex. Fucking Lex.
Regret and guilt twisted my gut as I left him behind.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Maddie
In the middle of the night, a jolt of panic woke me.
“What is it?” Silas leaned above me, his face watchful. From the dresser, the cat’s eyes glowed as she studied me.
I pressed my hand to my chest, trying to slow my rapid-beating heart. We were supposed to act normal, but I didn’t feel normal.
“Something’s wrong,” I murmured. “Someone’s hurt, or in danger…”
I might have broken the mating bond on their side, but I still felt it when something was wrong.
Silas hesitated. “I’ll go see where Winter is.”
Winter had taken Bennett and Alice on some midnight mission, which made me feel another prickle of unease. But it was time to move, no matter what.
Silas and I crept into his office. We had to steal everything the Day planned to use to distribute the Cure.
As we were going through his office, I found my pendant hidden in a drawer. I squeezed it so tightly that my fingernails bit into my palm.
“Silas,” I whispered. “Do you think he might have put some kind of enchantment on this to trap me? Or can I put it on?”
He looked up from the cabinet he was searching, then held out his hand. I dropped the pendant into his palm.
“I don’t sense any magic on it besides your enchantment,” he told me, and instead of passing it back, he slipped it over my hair. I bowed my head so he could slip it onto my neck.
“Thank you,” I said. The weight of the pendant hanging between my breasts was comforting. It felt like we were one step closer to home.
Of course, home was my men, and I didn’t know if any of them would look at me the same, ever again.
We loaded up everything we found in a bag, then moved as quietly as would through the house. My footsteps, as soft as they were, seemed too loud on the front porch as we crossed it. Then we headed to the workshop.
“I didn’t think anything could creep me out, but your dad sure does,” Silas said.
“Don’t call him that,” I said.
He glanced at me, and I added, “I’m glad he’s my father, don’t get me wrong. It’s given me a chance to protect our people.”
I forgot sometimes that Silas wasn’t really a wolf, that he had used magic to deceive us. I corrected, “Well, my people.”
The two of us moved through the workshop, grabbing the rest of the artifacts. With Silas in the room with me, it was easier to close the door with the blood-stained hammer.
“They’re my people now too,” Silas said quietly. “At least some of you are.”
As the two of us headed for the door, I breathed a sigh of relief. We just had to reach the car and get home to the academy. Whatever waited for us there, I could deal with, so long as our mission was successful.
When I swung open the door, Alice stood in the grass outside.
She stared at us, wide-eyed. With our bags thrown over our shoulders, there was no denying what we were doing, and none of us were supposed to be anywhere near Winter’s workshop.
“I know what this looks like,” Silas said, already raising his hand, as if he was going to alter her mind.
She raised her hand, magic sizzling across her palm. “Don’t,” she warned. “I’m tired of people underestimating me.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Alice,” he said. “But we’re leaving here.”
Her lower lip was trembling, her eyes wide. There was more going on here than just her catching us.
“How long until Winter gets here?” I demanded, taking a guess.
“Minutes,” she said.
Silas swore. “Come on, Maddie. We’ve got to run.”
“I closed the Door,” she said. “It was all I could do once you triggered the alarm in his workshop.”
Silas stopped, his gaze meeting mine. Alice had been with Winter.
“You went through the rip first and closed it on Winter?” I asked, clarifying.
She nodded. “He would kill you otherwise…”
Silas swore again, with even more feeling this time. “Alice, come with us. We’ll sort this out later.”
Somehow. Witches weren’t welcome at the academy.
“I can’t go,” she said. “This is my home.”
She looked dazed, as if what she’d done hadn’t quite hit her yet. She’d made an impulsive decision to help us.
“You can,” I said, grabbing her hand and pulling her with me. “Alice, you tried to protect us. Let us protect you. We’re friends.”
Silas and I threw all the gear into the trunk of the car. Silas whispered the words of a spell, shook out his fingers, and the tires on all other cars popped, the tires sinking down to the ground. Meanwhile, Silas hopped into the driver’s seat, and Alice reluctantly climbed in behind me.
Silas’s cat meowed and jumped into the backseat. Alice picked her up, cuddling the cat to her cheek, and I almost smiled. Cats might not be welcome around shifters, but I thought animals had a sense for people, and the cat seemed to think Alice was one of the good guys.
The sun shone brightly down on us as we rocketed off.
We didn’t get very far before the air across the road in front of us seemed to undulate.
I looked to Silas, wondering if he’d seen that too.
“Great,” Silas said, slamming his foot down on the brake and slamming the car into reverse. We accelerated rapidly backwards, with Silas’ hand pressed against my seat back as he twisted to see behind us. “How does it look, Maddie?”
In front of us, the world seemed to rip open.
“Not good,” I said. “I think Winter is using the rips to transport himself.”
Silas swore. “He’s going to tear apart that fabric of the universe just because he’s got a hurt ego.”
Silas managed to make a U-turn, the car sliding across the road, and we raced off.
Winter came through the rip, his cloak fluttering behind him, his face furious.
“Go, go, go,” I said urgently.
As I watched behind us, more witches emerged behind Winter.
The three of us raced off with Winter—and Winter’s army—in pursuit.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Lex
I woke up with a pounding headache, in darkness, in a swaying vehicle. An engine rumbled beneath me, and the air was cold.
I sat up in a hurry, ready for a fight, my nostrils flaring. Without being able to see, my other senses felt even sharper. There was someone with me.
Clearborn.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice even.
“More or less.” I rubbed my hand across the back of my neck. “Where are we?”
“I’m not sure exactly. They’re transporting us to a second location,” he said, “which is always a bad sign. They’ll be headed for packless territory, and there isn’t that much of that around here. Someplace close to the witches.””
“Why didn’t they just kill us already?”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, Garmond’s beta was happy to monologue. They’ve got a handy alibi since they’re on a council mission tonight, but they were able to spare a few men. They plan to discredit me by making it look like I was killed by the witches I was working with.”
He went on, “They’re hardly as bright as they think they are, though. I imagine the Council will see through their machinations.”
There was a pause, and then he added, “I’m sure my corpse will feel very smug.”
“Can’t you do some of that voodoo and get us out of here?”
“It’s not voodoo,” he said. He raised his hands, and now that my vision had grown accustomed to the darkness, I could see the cuffs around his wrists. I frowned. They hadn’t cuffed me. He added, “Magical handcuffs.”
“The cuffs keep you from using your powers?”
Clearborn winced. Apparently, he didn’t appreciate anyone referring to
his powers even when it was just the two of us. “Yes, yes, they do.”
“Where did Garmond’s pack get those from? Didn’t they need to use magic to make them?”
I’d thought that the wolves’ take on magic was hypocritical ever since getting to know Maddie and her pack. Before I got to know them, I’d been scared of magic too, because that was what I’d been taught.
“It’s my fault. I’m so glad I invented these now.” Clearborn leaned his head back against the wall of the truck. “I adapted the design based on what Maddie experienced when she was captured by the Day the first time.”
“The first time?” I asked, my voice dark. Maddie was in danger, and Clearborn had kept us away from her.
He managed to wave me off dismissively, despite his hands being bound. “At the time, I thought the cuffs would encourage the packs to take witches prisoner instead of killing them. That way, perhaps we could bring about a semblance of law-and-order.”
“You don’t want to kill the witches?”
“I want to destroy the covens,” he corrected. “I have no problem with killing when it’s required, but I don’t think we need to destroy every individual who uses magic.”
“I guess that’s a pretty relevant distinction to make when you’ve got the sparkle fingers yourself.” I wiggled my fingers in an approximation of jazz hands, not that he would appreciate them.
Maddie made the same distinction between everyone with the powers and the particular covens that wanted to destroy us.
“You all have the capacity for sparkle fingers,” he said, his voice acerbic. “You just choose not to use it.”
Yeah, sure. I don’t have any magic but the big white wolf I carried inside.
Maddie was something special, but it came at a cost. She’d always been embarrassed by how hard it was for her to shift. It was yet another thing that had worried me when she showed up at the academy after all. I knew how hard she took any failure. Just like me, she had a lot to prove, even though our reasons were very different.
I raked my hand through my hair, still focused on what he’d said about Maddie. “You sent Maddie on a mission.”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. He’d told me to remember my place at the academy, and yet he hadn’t treated Maddie as if she were just a student. He’d put her in danger.
“Is she okay? For real?”
He hesitated long enough to make tension curdle through my stomach. “We lost contact with her.”
I sat forward, my jaw tensing.
“Have some faith,” Clearborn said. “We have her last known location. She’s still alive. She hasn’t called for help.”
“I do have faith in her.”
“You seem awfully intent on riding to her rescue. Which is almost amusing, because at the moment, it seems like we’re in need of rescue.”
“Well, she needs us now,” I said. “If I’d known that I should just let her go, if you’d told me…”
I trailed off, my jaw tense. I’d tried to take care of Maddie. She needed us now, no matter what Clearbon claimed. I could feel it. But I’d made things worse.
“You’ve got a bit of a hero complex, huh?” Clearborn asked, his voice amused.
He’d already despised me; he must think even less of me now. “Maybe. That must seem funny to you, when you think I’m a coward.”
He didn’t say anything for a few long minutes. I was alone with my thoughts, which raced as I tried to figure out an escape plan. Had I done enough to get Jensen and Rafe to the hospital? If they were okay, if Maddie was okay, that was all that mattered.
“You remind me of myself when I was young, Lex.”
His words almost made me laugh in surprise. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You’ve got so much to prove,” he said. “To yourself, which is fine. To anyone else in the vicinity, which is… not ideal.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what game Clearborn was playing, but after the way he’d treated me, I couldn’t believe he saw himself in me.
“Why do you give a fuck what I think?” Clearborn asked. “Really?”
“Besides the power you hold over my career?” I muttered.
“I wouldn’t keep you from the Council’s Own,” he said. “Have you seen what I’m working with at the academy? I’m going to recruit the competent guy who tried to save my life twice today, even though you annoy the shit out of me, Lex.”
What? “You said that you were debating whether or not to recommend me—”
“Well, there’s always a question,” he said, quick and unapologetic. “I was trying to get you to give up on Maddie.”
“I wouldn’t put my own ambitions over her or the team.”
“Yes, I realize that now,” he said dryly. “And here we are.”
I’d made everything worse, and there was nothing I could do to undo it. Garmond’s pack would have targeted Clearborn tonight anyway, but when he followed Jensen and me, he became an easier target. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” He swiped his hand through his hair and sighed. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t protect you or Jensen or Rafe from the ramifications of my actions. I wanted revenge on Garmond for his gall in coming to my academy and undermining my authority and hurting my cadets.”
The fact that he felt guilt too both startled and relieved me.
Then an idea occurred to me. “If the cuffs were off, what would you do?”
He glanced around. “Probably ride to the end, then use an illusion spell to distract them.”
“You say we all have sparkle fingers? How does that work?”
“You might want to stop calling them that. You are already on very thin ice with me,” Clearborn said, his voice amused.
“I’m not sure that’s ever going to change.”
“You might be surprised,” he said dryly. “All right, let’s see how you do with Magic 101.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Lex
The truck rattled to a stop. I heard voices outside, then a raised voice in warning. “We’ve got guns pointed on you. No funny business.”
When they threw open the door to the truck, they held guns at the ready, but they still weren’t prepared.
The illusion spell that Clearborn had taught me made it look like the two of us lay on the ground, unconscious. Meanwhile, Clearborn and I concealed ourselves behind the boxes left in the back of the moving truck.
“What’s wrong with them?” one of them asked.
“Probably bullshit.” From where we hid behind the boxes, I heard a gun cocking, and I winced. We were concealed by the boxes, but they wouldn’t be much of a shield if the bullets started flying.
“We’re supposed to keep them alive.” Someone else argued hotly. “Get your ass up there and drag them out. Don’t be a coward.”
Clearborn’s shoulder was pressed against mine as the two of us hid, so from the corner of my eye, I could see his lips curl into a faint, sardonic smile. Shifter pride was working in our favor for once.
The guys jumped up into the truck, rocking the floor of the truck as their feet clattered across it. There was a grunt as one of them reached down to grab the first body, as if he expected it to be heavy.
Then he straightened with nothing in his hands but the wool furniture packing blanket. “What the—”
Clearborn and I burst out from our hiding place. The guys with the guns outside the truck raised their guns, but their friends were between us and the shooters.
I punched the guy nearest me in the face, trying to keep his body between me and the gun barrels pointed my way. Get control of the gun, that’s the most important thing.
I grabbed his wrist as he jerked back and forth, trying to evade me. The gun went off, the noise painfully loud in the narrow confines. I slammed my elbow down on his forearm, trying to make him release the gun, and he grunted in pain but hung on. I hit him again, and his fingers released. He tried to catch the gun in his free hand as it fell, but I’d expected that. I caught the gun
first, already jumping to close my arm around his throat.
I yanked him close to me, pressing the barrel of the gun to the temple. Clearborn had just wrestled the gun away from the other guy, and he did the same.
“I notice you noticing you got your guy first,” Clearborn told me without looking away from our enemies at the end of the truck.
My heart was pounding, but I still grinned.
“Let us walk out of here, or your friends are dead,” Clearborn warned. “Put those guns down. Kick them away.”
The guys outside the truck reluctantly looked at each other and then put their weapons down.
“Take it easy,” I warned the guy I pushed forward, still holding him close to my body as a human shield.
“I’d appreciate your keys,” Clearborn said. “Nice and slow.”
Moving hesitantly, someone threw the moving truck keys in, then the keys of the truck that was parked behind us.
“You can pick those up for me,” Clearborn told the guy he gripped.
Slowly, he let the guy squat to pick up the keys. Once Clearborn had the keys in hand, we jumped down from the back of the truck.
One of the guys in the ring facing us suddenly reached for the back of his waistband. As he pulled out his gun, Clearborn was already squeezing the trigger. Two shots punched through his chest, knocking him to the ground.
The guy I’d been holding dropped his weight, trying to get out of my grip, as the clearing exploded into chaos.
Suddenly we were back to fighting for our lives.
The guy who just broke my hold dove for the gun his dead buddy had dropped. I fired two quick shots, catching him in the leg, and he let out a pained grunt as he rolled onto his back, raising the gun. We were so close that the barrel seemed enormous, and time seemed to slow.
He jerked and fell to the ground. I only registered the gunshot that had taken him down a second later.
Around us, the rest of the shifters fell.
Penn, Ty and Chase moved into the clearing, their guns still raised, checking each body.
“I’m so glad to see you guys.” I grabbed Chase in a hug.
