by Kamryn Hart
For the first time since he joined Trinity, Rogue had someone he wanted to go back to: Emily. He had always wanted to, but he never let himself consider it because of that promise he had made to Mason. Things changed. Emily was here, and Mason freed them all. He had a life to get back to, a future he wanted to see. For the first time in five years, he wanted to live.
The haze was growing thicker. It didn’t just inhibit vision, it sunk inside of Rogue’s lungs. He supposed that was a good sign. They were getting closer to the source of Black Magic. He suddenly felt blind, and a shiver crawled up his spine. This was bad shit. No wonder Bruiser loathed to get close. It was better to have him here with them than knocked out of commission because he was on a solo recon mission.
“Everyone stop,” Ava said, voice full of authority—which was super unlike her.
Rogue stopped dead in his tracks along with Bruiser, Max, Derek, and the rest of the shifters with them. Rogue could sense everyone, but they had been reduced to nothing more than vague silhouettes. Ava stepped forward, closer to him than anyone else so he could actually see her, and held out her hand to the thick fog. She met resistance. It pulsed through her, shaking her clothes and knocking her winter hat off her head while making the short hair on her head stand on end. It looked like it hurt, like she took an electrical shock, but she stood her ground. The smog no longer parted for her, and it looked like she was touching a solid wall of inky black as she pressed her hand hard against it.
“Are you okay?” Rogue asked.
Ava gave a jerky nod of her head. “It wouldn’t hurt anyone else, they’d just pass through and be sent through a loop, I think.”
Max revealed himself as he stepped out of the thick smog. He went right to Ava, though he stayed behind her. He placed his hands protectively on her waist. She let out a little sigh and eased back into him. It was as clear as day that this blond, tan shifter man—basically what Rogue would call a California man—was this White Witch’s anchor. He changed her entire countenance.
“It’s not malicious,” Ava said as everyone else gathered around so they could actually see each other. “The witches inside can probably see us as clear as day, though. Get ready for when I take this down. We might get rushed.”
Ava didn’t know exactly what was inside of this barrier either, but they could all feel the hairs on their arms standing on end in reaction to it, like a warning before a thunderstorm.
With Max there to ground her, Ava closed her eyes and pressed hard into that invisible wall again. Rogue tried to gather his awareness, to focus on what was waiting for them on the other side, but all he got was a big fat nothing. It was all Black Magic making his senses go haywire and a constant crawling sensation on his spine like someone was tapping on his skin, pressing down the piano keys of his spine. It was safe to say that Ava would be the primary target since she was the one disrupting this elaborate barrier, so he focused on her instead, readying himself to protect her by throwing his body in front of her if he had to.
“I have it,” Ava announced. She clawed her fingers, and the solid invisible wall before her cracked, making it visible. It looked like glass encasing the thickest part of the smog, and then it shattered. The putrid, thick black smoke came rushing past them in a chorus of angry screeches. It was smothering. Rogue felt like he was drowning and sucked in a much-needed breath of air after the black haze dissipated after a few agonizing seconds. But what it left behind was much worse.
Rogue hissed and his hackles rose at the sight of, not one or two Black Witches, but an army of Black Witches. Hundreds of them. They stared down the shifters and lone White Witch with blood-red eyes that made them look like demons straight from Hell; they weren’t far off.
Rogue was pretty sure he and everyone with him were all dead. But then the witches screeched and disappeared in the same black haze. Once it cleared, Blue Forest was left untouched as if this light-killing, soul-crushing Black Magic was never there to begin with. Rogue was relieved but also confused as hell. That was one acid trip he could have so done without.
“Fuck!” Bruiser shouted. “It was all a trick, an illusion. I should have gotten closer when I was using Terros Sight. I would have seen it.”
“No time for that,” Rogue chastised quickly.
He turned on his heels, back in the direction toward town. The darkness around them was gone. There were no Black Witches here, no enemies at all, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t an army of them heading for Moonwatch right now. Blue Pack needed them. Emily needed him.
Rogue stripped in record time, and then he shifted. His black panther impatiently clawed out of him, limbering up his body, making him stronger, giving him greater balance and speed. Once he was covered in shiny black fur, his shift was complete. He took off like a comet, speeding through the woods so quickly he left blurry afterimages. He was moving faster than he ever had and it was still too slow.
Emily, you better not die on me.
He let out a loud scream, a warning to anyone threatening to harm Emily and his pack. They were his people. He was going to keep them safe. And so he ran.
Pacing back and forth did little to soothe the itch to draw her pistol. Emily was on the lookout with Josh the White Witch, Willow, and some other Blue Wolves. She kept squinting out into the blue spruces, hoping to see some sign of Ethan. Maybe it was unrealistic, but she hoped to see him and everyone he left with coming out of that forest unscathed with the problem taken care of. A girl could hope, right?
She squinted again, focusing on the spaces in between the Blue Spruces. She couldn’t be sure, but she swore she saw movement. The trees cast plenty of shadows on their own, but the shadows weren’t in the same places they were when she had looked out into the trees a moment before.
Emily turned to Willow and asked, “Do you see something moving out there?” She pointed to the tree line.
Willow followed her line of sight and froze. Then she whipped back her head, white-blond curls flying everywhere, and let out a howl. She was perfectly human-looking at the moment, but the sound she made was all wolf and a warning. At the same moment, shadowy figures poured out of the forest like a flash flood of black ink.
Emily was stunned, confused. The figures looked strange, insubstantial just like shadows, but they were menacing and aggressive. Everything they touched seemed to grow a little darker. The snow they trampled was left dusted in black like an army of chain smokers had sprinkled the ash from billions of cigarettes all over the land.
Thankfully, Emily’s muscle memory made her instinctively draw her SIG Sauer P938 before her brain started working again. She flicked the safety off and lined up her sights as everyone around her either shifted or did something similar. Once she was locked onto one of the shadowy targets, she fired. The bullet zinged through the air and hit right where Emily aimed—except it went right through the target. Emily was about to curse, but the dense smoke her bullet passed through spiraled until the figure’s body twisted and disfigured. Its blood-red eyes glowed white-hot for an instant before the demonic being vanished into nothing with an ear-piercing shriek.
Well, Emily didn’t understand how these creatures worked, but at least bullets seemed to be effective. That was one shadow bastard down and hundreds more to go.
Emily lined up her sights and fired again while Josh was doing something with his hands, creating a golden glow that seemed to make the shadows think twice about rushing them. A group of wolves ran forward, taking the shadows head-on. One wolf tried to bite into a shadow, which seemed to have a similar effect to her bullet, but the shadow managed to get in a final attack and clawed at the wolf with its knife-like fingers before vanishing. Hot red blood steamed in the snow as it spilled from the wolf that cried and backed off with his tail tucked in between his legs.
Okay, so even though these things seemed insubstantial, they were corporeal. It was a good and bad thing perhaps, but it was something Emily could work with. She didn’t know what other tricks they had up their sle
eves that would no doubt be more mystical in nature; however, she was a girl with a gun. She could dispose of these creatures with bullets and stay out of reach of their sharp claws. That was all she needed to know.
She buckled down and kept firing. She reloaded when necessary, backed up by the White Witch and shifters around her. The shadows were getting closer to the outlying farmhouses and the motels, though. They were failing to keep them back. Josh’s magic was being overwhelmed. Emily needed to think of a new plan, quick.
More figures rushed out of the forest, but one, in particular, caught her eye because he wasn’t shadows. He was flesh and blood, a tall imposing man with scars and tattoos all over his body, shirtless regardless of the cold, and she recognized him. This was the man Ethan believed was David Fletcher, none other than Mason’s killer. Ethan hadn’t seen him to confirm it was, in fact, David Fletcher, but he had the eyes of a killer—and the Five Claws scar. There was no doubt in Emily’s mind. And she was determined to give him what he deserved.
His hazel eyes were wild and mostly gold. He sent his crazed look to Emily. He recognized her immediately, giving her a large toothy grin that scrunched up his scars in a way that made his face look alien. He was all apex predator, and Emily was his next target—or maybe she had been his target for some time. She could tell by his eyes that this was the endgame.
Emily blinked rapidly, not sure why she was doing it at first, but then she realized David’s skin was glowing, getting brighter and brighter by the second. Looking at him now was like trying to stare the sun down: impossible. Still, she raised her gun and struggled to aim. There was a high-pitched whining in her ears. She felt like her retinas were burning up.
She fired and missed.
BOOM!
Everything around David exploded—including the shadow monsters by him. Fire rushed out from him, melting snow, digging up earth, and evaporating shadow monsters in an instant. He turned the air into a furnace that dried out Emily’s throat. Then the aftershocks of the blast hit her and everyone else around her, throwing them back like they had just bounced off the world’s largest beach ball.
Emily landed in the snow behind her, ears ringing and bleeding. She tried to get on her feet, but the ringing in her ears made it impossible to keep her balance even on her hands and knees. She collapsed back into the snow and touched the warm blood trickling out of her ears. She was dizzy, so dizzy.
“Emily Walker.”
She shivered when that brute, David Fletcher, said her name. Everything sounded like it was underwater, but she felt his boot at her side as he rolled her over onto her back so he could look straight at her.
Emily wanted to spit venom. She wanted to snatch her pistol and shoot him, but she had no idea where it went. It wasn’t in her hands anymore. Shadows were gathering around her and David. Apparently, there were so many of these creatures, David didn’t mind destroying a few. They were subordinate to him. They weren’t attacking. They were statues at his side like they were mindless drones awaiting a command.
“I can smell Ethan’s stink all over you,” David stated. “He marked you, cut into you and made you his. Good job.”
He wrenched her up by her arm and forced her to stand by him. Her feet were unsteady and she ended up leaning against him. She was repulsed, but she could barely move. She was just starting to feel the pain of burns all over her body, too. She hadn’t felt pain like this before. She had never been burned badly in her life, but these burns were like nothing she had ever experienced. She had to bite back a scream.
“This will make it that much more painful when I kill you in front of him.” David sneered and blew his stinking breath into her face.
Emily glared at him as she worked through the pain. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he had broken her. This was unacceptable. She was going to get away, and this bastard was going to pay for his sins. This kind of hatred, the way he used Emily, how he killed Mason, what he was doing right now, he was back to finish Ethan just like Ethan feared.
But Emily wasn’t going to let things end like this. It was time for Five Claws to die for good.
Chapter 15
“STOP!”
Rogue was irritable. He didn’t want to listen to Ava’s demand, but he could practically feel her power rippling through him. He skidded to a snow-spraying stop and looked behind him reluctantly. Ava was sitting on Max’s back; the monster white wolf he shifted into was big enough for her to do that.
She leaned forward and pointed past his big furry head. Max charged forward, startling Rogue and the other shifters with them all in animal form. It was then Rogue saw it, a figure fleeing into the trees. His ears and whiskers twitched. He ducked just in time when a burst of Black Magic like lightning came flying out of the trees.
Rogue’s heart stopped for a fraction of a second. Derek was behind him. Did he get hit? Before he had a chance to look behind him and find out, he heard the magic snap and sizzle out. Ava’s finger was pointed in their direction. White steam floated up from it. She shot White Magic, nullifying the Black Magic like a fucking pro. Derek let out a whimpering sigh, but the big black wolf was unharmed behind Rogue.
Ava was back in action, holding tightly onto Max’s fur as he tackled the culprit to the ground. Ava jumped off his back, her hands glowing warm and golden. She touched the crazed woman struggling underneath Max. The Black Witch certainly looked the part; she had nails that were so long they spiraled.
“Sleep and have sweet dreams,” Ava said.
The magic in Ava’s hands grew warmer, like gentle sun rays. The Black Witch’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she passed out cold. Rogue had never seen such a terrifying passive power display before. Ava hadn’t been offensive to any degree. White Magic was all about being protective and restorative, but this woman wielded it like a weapon. He was glad Ava was on their side.
“I don’t feel any Black Magic anymore,” Ava noted as she had Max back up. Derek went over to assist her in getting the Black Witch on Max’s back, and then she crawled on behind her to hold her in place. Two people was a crowd on Max’s back, but he was plenty strong enough for it, even if he wasn’t big enough for it to be comfortable.
“I think there was only one Black Witch,” Ava said.
Rogue was doubtful, but the air did feel ten times lighter with that witch unconscious. Bruiser let out a growl and started moving forward again. Moonwatch needed them. Hopefully, they’d be able to take the Black Witch back to Trinity for questions, but none of them knew what they would find once they reached Moonwatch. Ava was powerful, but she wasn’t omnipotent.
The blue spruces were just starting to thin, and they came up on the tree line, when a challenging roar resounded all around them. It startled the birds in the trees who stayed for the winter. They screeched as they flew out of the trees and marred the sky in a swarm of little black dots. Rogue’s hair stood on end, but he didn’t slow down. He ran full speed ahead because he recognized that roar and the challenge in it. David Fletcher was alive, and he was back to destroy Ethan all over again. No. He was back to destroy him for good this time.
An answering scream was trapped in Rogue’s throat, but he held it back as he bypassed his squad and emerged first from the blue spruce tree line. It took him one second to spot David holding Emily captive in a charred clearing of Moonwatch. It looked like one farmhouse got hit in the sizable Solsis Burst, but all in all the damage was small. David didn’t care about destruction, but he had the prize he wanted trapped in his arms. He grinned like the fucking maniac he was when he saw Rogue and the others emerging behind him. Bruiser let out a roar that stopped everyone else dead in their tracks—though Rogue could see Derek fighting against the command with a tortured look in his eyes; Rogue wasn’t the only one with a loved one hurt. Rogue sauntered forward alone, head low, ears back, golden eyes gleaming and dangerous, muscles rippling and ready to spring as each of his powerful paws dug into burnt earth.
Rogue’s heart
pounded in his chest as David chortled. His Emily was burned and bloodied, grimacing in David’s hold as he aggravated those stupid Solsis burns more by holding her tightly against his shirtless chest. Rogue glanced a few more shifters who had been caught up in the explosion. Josh too. They were sufficiently backed off, nursing wounds that looked a lot like Emily’s while watching the situation warily.
He caught sight of Nick running through the snow, just arriving at this crime scene like Rogue and his squad, but he stayed back too when Rogue caught his eye. He went to his sister’s side, assisting her and carefully watching the situation as it played out. This would have to be done delicately. Rogue would need to outsmart David because all he’d need to do to kill Emily would be to rake his deadly claws across her throat.
“It’s been a damn long time, Ethan,” David greeted. Without a shirt, the majority of his scars and tattoos were on full display, but none looked as ugly as the one that took a chunk out of his lip. It made his grin look as sinister as it was meant to be. That scar showed his nature. The scar across his chest, over his heart, showed his undying loyalty to Liam. Rogue could sense it even now.
He was one ugly son of a bitch.
Rogue stopped his advance when he saw David’s hand hover below Emily’s throat, waiting to be coaxed into slashing her jugular or choking her to death. Or maybe he’d use another Solsis Burst, blast Emily into dust and simultaneously take out anyone else he could reach. He could blast a much larger radius, but he had only used his upper body so far. That explained why he wasn’t wearing a shirt. It would have burned off.
Rogue shuddered and his heart palpitated, the beat was so erratic his ribs ached with their job to keep it from jumping right out of his chest. How was he going to save Emily? If he could get close, if he could distract David, maybe he could move fast enough, but there was little chance of that, especially since David made sure there was a good few feet worth of distance between them still.
