A pulse of power rolled out from the warlock king, a wave so strong it was visible. It rippled out from his center and washed over everyone in the lobby. The magic felt oddly transformative, as if it were meant to change something. However, once the wave had passed him through and Byron steadied himself and looked down, it was to find that nothing had changed.
Not with him, anyway.
A warning buzz thrummed through him and Byron’s head jerked up in time to see a man in black raising his arm toward Lucas, who was holding his wife at the center of the room. “Lucas, lookout!”
Lucas’s head snapped up at the warning, and he managed to dive for cover just as a ball of what looked like dark, crackling energy went sailing over his body. Lucas hit the ground, rolled, and looked up to find that the large lobby that had been filled with several werewolves and one warlock a second ago was now teeming with both races.
He called them here, Byron thought as he, too, hit the ground, avoiding a ball of black magic by a wolf’s hair. He rolled and was instantly on his feet again, scanning the room for his mate.
Where…. When he couldn’t find her, alarm bells went off in his head, especially when his glowing gaze found the spot against the cracked wall where the warlock king had been standing seconds ago only to find it empty as well.
Byron flashed into wolf form just as something hot and sharp crackled by him – another bolt of dark magic that had barely missed his shifting form. If he hadn’t transformed just when he had, the attack would have hit its mark dead center.
He ignored whatever warlock had it in for him and rushed across the room. His blue-black fur sparked with residual magic as another bolt just missed him, but he ignored that as well. Instead, he shoved all sense of the growing, growling, sparkling chaos around him away and concentrated on one vital thing: The scent of his mate.
There.
It was like a whiff of softener sheet at a dryer vent in the middle of a polluted city. It felt like catching the scent of rain or freshly made waffle cone – it was stark, distinct, and absolutely wonderful. Once he found it, he followed it down the hall that adjoined the apartment lobby and into the apartment complex courtyard. An as he ran, he tried his damnedest not to think about the fact that his nose was telling him the warlock king had gone the same way.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“The Scent”
Katherine rushed headlong through the deserted halls of the apartment complex she’d once lived in, her paws pounding out the ground beneath her at an amazing pace. She hadn’t thought she would know how to make the change she knew she was now able to make, but apparently what her mind could not fathom, her body was ready to teach it. Only seconds after she’d taken off down the hall adjoining the lobby, thoughts of following Wraythe’s scent in her head, her body had been enveloped in a warm, white light. When the light passed, she found herself closer to the ground, moving along it at incredible, mind-boggling speed.
If it weren’t for the fact that she was chasing after the man who killed her father and that she had no idea what the hell she was going to do with him once she caught up with him, she would have enjoyed the run. It was exhilarating. She felt free. Each step was light and fast and her lungs felt as if they would never tire. There was no pain involved as there normally was with running. All humans had pain, but Kat was no longer human. And right now, nothing hurt.
As soon as Malachi Wraythe had hit the wall in the lobby, opened his eyes, and cast whatever spell it was he’d cast, he had once more disappeared. Kat wondered where he had gone for a second and then realized that he wouldn’t have gone far. He wanted to see the destruction of Byron Caige. And Byron was here, in the apartment.
Wraythe would have gone somewhere close by to recuperate. And though, as a human, she would have no idea where that was – as a wolf, she might just have a chance at tracking him down. Because she could follow his scent.
Then Kat’s legs were moving before she fully realized what it was she was doing. She had to follow him – she had to find him while he was still weak. His body had to have taken some damage when Dannai had slammed him into that wall, and as far as Katherine knew, Dannai was the only magic user around who could heal people.
Kat’s training as a Hunter had taught her many things. A lot of them were wrong – not in a factual sense, but in a bigotous, ignorant, intolerant sense. But a lot of them, whether wrong or right, were still useful. Like the fact that as long as they weren’t delirious, a person weakened by pain or injury was a lot easier to deal with on a physical level than a wholly healthy and utterly pissed off person.
If she could get to Wraythe right now, she might be able to trick him into willingly spilling his blood for the reversal of the werewolf curse. She had no idea how such a thing worked. She had no idea where or how to even start – but she had to try. She owed the werewolves that much, even if it meant dealing with Wraythe and his hatred one last time.
If she failed and Wraythe was allowed to escape, he would never willingly free the wolves from their burden. All hope would be lost. Kat heard the rumors that had been running through the werewolf council. Without a miracle, they were doomed. The Hunters had all but destroyed them, and before the turn of the century, they would be no more.
This was partly her fault. Hell, it was a lot her fault. She’d killed alphas – beings paramount to the continued success of the werewolf race.
Please help me, she mentally whispered. She didn’t know who she was asking, or whether there was anyone there to hear her, but she prayed anyway. Just help me do this one thing.
Katherine flew past the flung-open doors that led to the apartment complex’s courtyard and rushed into its tangled, weedy mess.
Kat’s mother had died when Katherine was six years old. Kat and her father moved into these apartments years later and Kat had never seen her mother move through these gardens. She’d never watched her pick a flower or sit under the tree. She’d never seen her smile with the shadows of the maple leaves brushing across her face and hair.
But here, in this courtyard garden every Tuesday night, Katherine would sit under the Japanese Maple and try to imagine what her mother would have said to her if she’d been alive. Kat would have tucked a dandelion behind her mother’s ear. Or picked a shamrock for her and put it between her mother’s bare toes. She’d loved going barefoot. Kat imagined her mother would have laughed and curled her toes in joy.
She had chosen Tuesday nights to come here because it was deserted on Tuesdays. It was quiet. There was room for her thoughts and dreams.
Now, as Katherine raced through it for the first time in twenty years, she was struck with how it had changed. The structure of the garden was still there – the same stone steps, though now crumbling, the same walls, the same dead wood of the shrubs that had once flowered. But the peace was gone. There was a storm brewing above them and the wind whipped through the fallen leaves and weeds as if she were caught in a gothic horror movie. She also had the stench of the warlock king in her nostrils, and its darkness cast a pall over her and her surroundings that did them far more damage than either time or any storm could do.
Up ahead, the air thickened and Kat’s shifted vision caught movement of a non-plant nature by the very same Japanese maple she’d sat beneath when she was little.
Malachi was there, standing beside her tree. He looked up as she pounded down the path toward him – and he smiled. Blood painted his bottom lip red, suggesting he’d either bitten his tongue or he was bleeding internally.
The warlock king waved his hand over the trunk of the tree and a portal swirled to life. Kat was getting used to them now. She was understanding – more to heaven and earth, her father had always said. More, indeed.
Wraythe stepped through the portal once it was tall enough to take him, and about two and a half seconds later, Katherine’s wolfen form rushed through after him.
*****
He was going to strangle her when this was ove
r. If they lived through it.
He couldn’t believe her will. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that she was chasing after the man who had nearly raped her only minutes ago. She was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid – and he knew damn well that she wasn’t stupid. It was one of the things that made him love her.
So she was brave. Which he also already knew.
But why? Why would she do this?
Byron’s claws gripped the cracking tiles and cement as he rushed through the open doors that led to the courtyard of the apartment complex. He rounded a copse of un-trimmed and overgrown trees just in time to catch sight of both the warlock king and Katherine at the opposite end of the massive garden.
A portal had been opened near a stand of maple trees. Malachi Wraythe stepped through the portal – and Byron watched as Katherine rushed through after him. If he’d been human, he would have bellowed for her to stop. But he was a wolf and every last ounce of his energy was being funneled into his legs so that he could catch up with them on time.
He made it. But just barely.
The portal swirled closed over his fur and a horrible feeling went through Byron. It was like being ripped apart in slow motion. He felt something inside of himself pop and tear and wondered at the damage. But he pushed on through using all of his supernatural strength. The portal shut like an irate elevator door finally being allowed to close, and Byron found himself flashing back into human form and tumbling to the ground on the other side.
He rolled, his entire body aching horribly, and came to a stop amidst pine needles and fallen leaves. He stared up at the dark night sky and blinked. Redwoods.
Again. ***** Kat skidded to a halt and flashed back into human form. It was so easy to do. She’d simply wanted to do it – and it happened. Malachi Wraythe was standing still and alone on the other side of a small clearing, his hazel eyes watching her with interest and expectation. Katherine’s senses were on overload. She could smell the forest all around her, feel and hear another building storm – or maybe it was the same huge storm cell that was also over San Francisco right now. But she couldn’t tell what Wraythe was thinking, what was going through his head as he watched her like that.
As she’d feared, now that she had caught up with him, she didn’t know what to do.
“I can’t imagine you enjoyed our little tumble in the lobby so much that you’ve followed me here for a second go at it,” the warlock king said, his eyes flashing. “So tell me, little Huntress. What is it you hope to accomplish now?”
“You made a deal with the vampire king,” Katherine ventured, going with her gut. She had nothing else. “You were going to trade him the continued existence of the werewolf race for Byron’s death. Why would the vampire king care?” She realized as she asked it that the unanswered question had been brewing in the back of her mind ever since she’d learned about the deal.
Malachi smirked. “Dormants are delicious,” he said with a shrug. “And they’re all but extinct. For thousands of years, the king has kept his people from feeding off of dormants due to their rarity and the fact that without them, the werewolf population will evaporate.” Wraythe stopped, clutched his stomach for a moment, and then coughed, wiping the added blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“The vampire king wants you to reverse the curse just so he and his people can feed off of dormants again?” Kat asked, disbelieving.
“What can I say?” he asked with a dark look and a red-stained grin. “Vampires will do anything for tasty blood.”
“Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”
“Who am I to know what goes through the vampire king’s head?” asked Wraythe, no hint of sarcasm to his tone now. “I made the offer – he accepted. That was all that mattered.”
“Except that Byron didn’t kill your daughter, Wraythe.” The warlock king’s gaze narrowed and his stained teeth clenched tight. “No one had more of a reason to hate her than he did.” “That doesn’t mean he was the one who killed her,” she told him. “It doesn’t work that way.” She would know. Malachi cocked his head to one side and studied her with renewed interest, the expression on his face shifting from loathing to a nasty, dawning comprehension. “Well, well,” he spat. “I’ll be damned the little Huntress hasn’t gone and learned herself a lesson.”
Anger spiked through Katherine, but she held her tongue and tried to remember why she was there. “Wraythe, you are the only hope the werewolf race has of continued existence.”
Not true.
Katherine blinked. She could have sworn the voice in her head hadn’t been her own, but it was also possible that she was imagining things at this point. The night had been pretty stressful.
“That’s right,” said Malachi, taking a step toward her. “It’s all in my hands. So, how about it, Katherine? Want to give it another go?”
“No,” she told him simply. “I will not sacrifice myself to your hatred, Wraythe. I would rather die first.”
“Very well,” he conceded with a disgusted expression on his face. “I see no reason why we can’t have our cake and eat it too, but if you insist,” he said right before he raised his arm and his magic rushed her.
It was the same thing that Dannai had done to him back in the lobby. Kat knew that as she was picked up and thrown several yards. The pain of her impact into the tree trunk behind her was immense. She felt things go pop inside of her and cried out with the agony before she limply slid to the ground.
She hadn’t been planning on the magical attack. She didn’t know why. She supposed it was just that everything Wraythe had done to her so far had been so personal, she’d expected he would want to strangle the air from her lungs or break her neck himself. And when he came for her, she was going to stop him. He was injured and she was a perfectly healthy, Hunter-trained werewolf no longer willing to let him touch her. She would have stopped him cold.
But now she understood how the warlock king had managed to keep a werewolf like Byron Caige prisoner all of these years. Brute strength was no match for magic. It never had been. It never would be.
Kat blinked through her blurred vision to find Wraythe standing over her.
“Stupid bitch,” he hissed. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” He knelt in front of her as pain racked through her. Her body was trying to heal itself and it wasn’t a comfortable process. But it was a fast process. And hopefully the warlock king didn’t realize that.
“Hurts, huh?” he asked. “I bet this isn’t going to help any.”
He raised his hand and pressed it to her chest. Before she could knock the hand away, a horrid, sharp arc of agony ripped through her, forcing a piercing cry from between her lips.
Her body reacted as her mind went blank with the pain and Katherine slipped into Hunter mode. With werewolf speed, she slammed her palm into his arm, knocking it away from her. Then she raised her knee for a kick to his chest. She felt and heard his ribs crack beneath the impact and he stumbled backward. Katherine shoved herself off of the tree trunk to come to her booted feet.
She watched as Malachi backed himself into an opposite tree and doubled over, clutching his already injured torso. Katherine didn’t know her own strength. She hadn’t meant to hurt him so badly – just get him away from her.
When he straightened a few seconds later, she saw that his chin and neck were now covered in blood he had vomited up. He was bleeding fairly badly internally.
Katherine was beginning to understand how vital Dannai and her healing abilities were. She was also pretty damn grateful for the fact that werewolves healed on their own.
Wraythe glared at her through eyes that glowed with menace. “Fuck this,” he hissed through his bloodied teeth.
He then raised his right hand and at the center of his palm grew a swirling, building, throbbing mass of black magic. She knew what it was on sight. She could feel its evil even from across the clearing. It sucked at the air like a black
hole. It made everything around it appear dimmer, less beautiful, tainted and wilting. It looked like hatred. And, on an existential level, Kat realized that was exactly what it was.
Lightning split the sky, striking so close, it temporarily blinded Katherine and definitely killed a tree nearby.
Wraythe was unaffected. Malevolence etched lines into his face. “We’re through here,” he said. Malachi pulled his arm back to throw the dark energy at Katherine and she felt her body go cold, her feet rooted to the ground. She felt her mother push her on the swing and heard her laugh. She saw her father helping her floss for the first time. She smelled the fresh baked cookies she’d had on her fifth birthday. She rode the carousel on Pier 39 and waved at the camera. She fell off of her first bike, snuck behind the couch to watch the scary part of her parents’ film, and saw her father laying in his own blood in the apartment lobby. She heard the gavel fall in the court room, felt the cold splash of water on her naked flesh as she went skinny dipping with Kai, and then felt the pain of a sparring match while working for the Hunters. Finally, she melted beneath the all-encompassing, hot and demanding kiss of one Byron Caige.
All of this and more, she saw and heard and felt the space of a heartbeat.
And then lightning struck.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“The Gut Shot”
The closing portal had thrown him off course. He could tell when he sat up and realized he no longer had Katherine’s scent. His body was beginning to heal itself from the time-space mishap, but for the moment, pain shot through every one of his joints as he got to his feet.
Thunder rolled overhead and he glanced up, surprised by the building storm clouds that grayed the darkness and made it feel thicker. Storm cells weren’t usually so large. But he paid it little heed and turned his attention back to the woods around him.
The Hunt Page 22
