I look up and give him the smile he needs to see in order to believe I’m okay.
He leans in slightly. “Hey, do you like Italian food?”
Food? Once again, I’m thrown, but this time by the change in topic. “I love food in general.”
“There’s this little place I know that does the best Italian food. When Fee’s back and mated to Grayson, we should go there.”
“Fee would love that.”
He blinks slowly, and a small smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “No, Cora. Not Fee, just you and me.”
I stare at him for a long beat, allowing the implication of what he just said to sink in, and despite my anxiety over Fee, I can’t help but feel a zing in my blood. There’s an attraction between us, no denying that, but I’ve just been so caught up in worrying about Fee and finding the hooded bastards that I haven’t bothered to pursue this.
He’s looking at me, waiting for a response, and I see the doubt creeping across his face. Oops, I guess I’ve taken too long to answer.
I give him a coquettish smile. “You mean like on a date?”
There’s an edge of relief to his grin. “Yes, on a date.”
“I’d like that.”
A chill tightens my skin into gooseflesh. I don’t even need to turn my head to know that Jasper is standing behind me.
“We have a location,” he says tightly. “One hundred miles east of Necro, a small village called Stoneshire. There’s a cabin twenty miles out from there. Bloodshed is in progress. Several Loup in the cabin.” He steps to the side so he’s beside me and holds out his hand. “Shall we go assist?”
Hell, yes. I shove back my stool, but Dean grabs my arm to stop me.
“You can’t go alone,” he says.
Spiky rage beats off Jasper, its sting a palpable force that makes me wince.
“Get your hand off her.” Jasper’s voice is like a knife’s edge, ready to slice, but Dean ignores him, speaking only to me.
“Are you sure you’re up to this, Cora?” His eyes are warm with concern. “You jumped an awful lot today.”
He isn’t questioning my ability, just whether I’m recharged enough to kick ass. “I’m fine. I can do this.”
Azazel and Mal are already out the door, and Grayson nods at me before heading after them.
Dean looks torn, his gaze flitting from Jasper to me, and then he nods curtly. “I’ll see you there.”
Dean releases me, and I take Jasper’s hand. His grip is brutal, almost punishing.
“Cora.” Vi throws something to me. “The key.”
I catch it neatly and pocket it, and then the darkness swallows us. Ice pricks at my skin, and Jasper crushes me to him. I bite back a gasp because he’s fucking hurting me. He’s pissed about something, but I don’t have the time or inclination to soothe his ruffled feathers. Fee’s in danger and saving her is all that matters.
Chapter Nine
Fee
The Loup attacking us wouldn’t stay down. It was as if they were juiced up on something. The injuries I inflicted with my daggers healed too fast. I was flagging. Hunter was flagging too. His body was slick with blood from wounds that had healed, but the claw marks across his chest weren’t knitting. These Loup couldn’t half shift like Hunter, but they had knuckle dusters with silver spikes on them, which acted like claws, and I swear silver residue was being left in every cut they made.
A little voice in the back of my head told me that the fact they hadn’t shifted yet was less due to the lack of space in the kitchen and more due to the fact that they didn’t expect us to put up much of a fight.
They might be right. I was exhausted.
“Stop resisting,” Larson shouted over the growls of his minions. “You’re simply delaying the inevitable.”
It was beginning to look like he had a point, but if I was going down, I’d do it fighting. Hunter threw off a Loup, and then we were back to back in the semi-destroyed kitchen, amidst the wooden splinters of the broken dining table, boots crunching over smashed plates and shattered crystal.
The wolves circled us, and a pit of oh-shit opened up inside me.
“You should have run,” Hunter said. “You were meant to run.”
“Fuck you, Hunter, you don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I’m beginning to see that, but we can’t win this. You have to run, Fee. Go through the kitchen window. You’ll get cut up, but you’ll heal. Don’t be a hero.”
“And let you be all sacrificial?”
“Fee—"
“Stop talking.”
All four Loup attacked as one, and I fell into auto survival mode. Ignoring the ache in my limbs and the trembling in my thighs, I kicked and swiped with my blades, maintaining a tenuous circumference of safety around us. And then with a howl, Hunter went down. I looked around to see him on his knees, hands clutching his abdomen. His body was already slipping out of half-shift mode.
He looked up at me, golden eyes bright in his tanned face. “Fee!”
Something slammed into the back of my head. The world went black for a moment, and arms wrapped around my waist, hauling me away from Hunter.
“No!” Hunter’s growl was a desperate, jagged thing.
I kicked and bucked, but my body was spent, and the Loup that had me was too strong.
The sound of shattering glass cut over the cacophony of the fight, and the Loup holding me froze. His grip slackened slightly, and it was all the leeway I needed to break free. I fell to the ground and scrambled away from him, my gaze flying to the door to see what new hell had found us.
I caught a flash of Larson’s shocked face, and then he was staggering into the kitchen with us to get away from the new Loup that had entered the house.
It was impossible to know how many there were, but I caught sight of the familiar gray coat and blue eyes of the female Loup from the forest. She was the first into the kitchen, her Loup form eating space. Her gaze locked with mine for a moment before sliding to Hunter, and then the rogue males shifted and attacked, and the focus was no longer on us.
It was Loup on Loup.
Males versus females.
The kitchen was filled with fur and claw, and we needed to get the fuck out of here. I reached for Hunter, but he batted me away, shaking his head.
“I won’t make it. You have to go,” he said.
I looked down at his stomach. Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. I could see his insides. No. No. My Loup surged up, wanting to be free, to shift, but the bracelet burned my skin, keeping her at bay.
“You bastard.” My eyes pricked and stung with impotence and the knowledge that there was no time. No time to make this right, to fix his body so he could fix his heart and mind later.
“I’m sorry,” Hunter said.
His dark eyes were filled with regret, and for the first time since we’d met, I wanted to save him not because of the Loup, but just because.
“Go!” he urged.
“I’m not leaving you.” I tucked the daggers into their sheaths, slipped under his arm, and hauled him into a fireman’s lift, ignoring his shrill scream of pain. “Hold on.”
If I could get him to the pack house, to Petra, maybe she could help speed up the healing, to stop him from bleeding out. Goodness knows she owed him.
Even as I thought it, I knew it would be too late. We were several hours away from civilization.
Fuck that. I had to try. I had to keep moving. Using the final vestiges of my strength, I ducked and wove through the fighting Loup and burst through the side door into the hallway. The back door was hanging off its hinges, and I hurried through it into the night. Hunter had gone limp, a dead weight on my back. Unconscious, no doubt.
I trudged through the snow, around the side of the house to the garage, which was a separate building. The side door was open, thank God.
I stepped inside and froze at the sight of Larson leaning up against the hood of the Rover. He was bloody, his shirt torn, but his expression was smug as shit.
&nbs
I wanted to punch that smug smile off his face. “You underestimate us. Without females, you males are useless. You can’t even shift. And guess what, you have to go begging to another group of females for help. Witches. So, don’t fucking tell me how powerful Loup males are. Because those females are probably tearing holes into your rogue males right now.”
Doubt flickered across his face, but then his gaze fell on Hunter, and his smug smile was back. “He’ll be dead in a few minutes. He’s lost too much blood to heal himself, and you’re in no shape to fight me, and you know it.”
I wanted to scream in his face until his eardrums burst. I wanted to smash my fist through his chest and pull out his heart. But right now, one on one, I’d lose. I was tapped out, and Larson hadn’t expended any energy yet. He’d only gotten scratched up escaping from the fray.
“Put him down and come here,” he said. “I’ll make your death quick.”
I lowered Hunter to the ground and propped him up against the wall. He was deathly pale, his breath too shallow. He was dying, and I was running out of time to save him.
Rage ignited in my chest, lending my limbs a little substance. I drew my daggers. “Fuck you, Larson. You want to kill me? You’re going to have to fight me.”
Larson’s meaty mouth stretched in a grin, and then he morphed into a huge shaggy Loup. My heart battered my ribcage as I slipped into a defensive stance, daggers gripped firmly in my hands.
He growled low, a warning of what was to come, and then he leaped toward me. His body flew across the room in a lethal arc, claws aimed at me, and then he exploded in a spray of gore and blood. I brought my arms up to shield my face in time to avoid the spatter.
“Did you have to be so messy?” Cora admonished.
Cora? I lowered my arms to find my bestie, hands on hips, glaring at Jasper.
“Cora…”
She rushed across the garage, and then I was in her arms.
“You found me.” Gah, I was so gonna cry.
“I found you,” Jasper said.
“The guys are on their way,” Cora said, ignoring him.
“It’ll be too late.” I grabbed her hands. “There are Loup in the house, rogue males. They’re fighting the female Loup that came to save us. I have to help them, but Hunter’s dying, and we need to help him first.”
Cora made a disgusted face. “You want to save him? After what he did.”
“It’s a long story, but you have to trust me. I need to save him, please.”
Cora looked to Jasper. “Jasper?”
A series of emotions I couldn’t quite get a read on flitted across the malevolent spirit's face, and then his lips twisted in a sneer. “I think you have me confused with someone who cares. We had a deal, and I’ve kept my end of the bargain. The rest is up to you.”
He vanished.
Cora looked momentarily stunned, and then her mouth parted as if a thought had occurred to her. She fumbled in her pocket.
“What is it?”
“The key. I have the key to your shackle.”
She grabbed my wrist and pressed a disc to the bracelet. There was a soft click, and the damn shackle fell off. Power flooded me, rushing up to infuse my limbs with strength and soothe the aches and pains in my muscles. I was fully back online.
My hand tingled, and the scythe appeared. It glowed bright and then vanished, leaving my palm glowing.
I recognized this. It happened before when Grayson was hurt.
I slipped past Cora and fell to my knees by Hunter. The Loup growled in my chest, urging me to hurry. I pressed my palm to his cheek, and my hand glowed brighter, just like when I’d healed Grayson.
There was a tugging deep inside me where my reserves of power resided, and then that energy spilled into Hunter, amplified by the scythe. Just like with Grayson, Hunter’s veins lit up amber and crawled across his body in a network of healing. The energy pulsed through me into him and then back into me, cleansed by the scythe. A circuit of power held in place by my palm against his skin.
“Fee, it’s working,” Cora said. “His wounds are knitting.”
I closed my eyes and abandoned myself to the circuit. Long seconds passed, and then the power began to ebb.
“You did it, Fee,” Cora said softly. “You saved him.”
I opened my eyes to see the confusion in hers. She was wondering why the fuck I’d just saved the man who’d kidnapped me. A man everyone thought was a villain. But he wasn’t a villain. He wasn’t evil. He deserved a chance, and now that he’d live, he’d get it.
“I’ll explain later, I promise. Right now, we have some Loup to kill.”
Chapter Ten
Turned out I’d been right. Hell hath no fury like a Loup female victimized. They’d literally torn holes in the rogue males, and I couldn’t help but be proud.
Cora and I stood in the center of a ruined cabin surrounded by wounded female Loup. The gray one shifted first, her body healing as she morphed. Her mouth was bloody, but I doubted the blood was hers. These Loup were warriors, and I couldn’t help but feel a kinship with these females.
“These woods have been our home for a long time,” she said. “The arrival of these rogues meant we’d have to move. We were outnumbered until you and your Loup male killed several of their pack in the woods.” She looked down at the bodies with a sneer. “These are the last of them.”
“You’re thanking me? You saved my life by coming here tonight.”
She looked sheepish. “We should have aided you in the woods when the rogues first attacked. I’m ashamed that we ran.”
“You did what was best for your pack.”
Her lip curled in self-deprecation. “No, what’s best is to fight. To show them that we will not be owned. That we will not be treated like breeding machines. Ever since the Loup female population fell, the males have traded us like possessions. They care only for the miasma we can create with our presence and the cubs we can bear to swell their ranks.”
Yes, from what I’d seen and heard, there was a powerplay between packs when it came to female Loup, but the Regency Pack didn’t treat their females like possessions. They protected them.
“Not all males are bad.”
“You speak of the Loup who fought to protect you.”
Cora flicked a glance my way.
A few hours ago, I’d have scoffed at this, but now… “Yes. And there are others too. Males that will treat you with respect. Males that will treat you as equal. You don’t have to hide out here. You could join my pack.”
She stepped closer and sniffed the air, then stepped away quickly. “You’re an alpha.”
“So they tell me.”
“You have your own pack?”
“I will as soon as I’m mated to its alpha.”
She smiled wryly. “But the male will still be in charge.”
I wanted to argue, but with me gone three weeks out of four, Grayson would be in charge. “You’d be safe. I guarantee it.”
“Thank you for your offer,” she said. “But my sisters and I prefer the call of the wild and our freedom.” The other Loup began to troop toward the door. “We must go now.”
“If you change your mind, come to Necro City and find the Regency Pack. Ask for me, Seraphina Dawn.”
She inclined her head. “Be safe.”
And then they were gone.
Cora and I lugged Loup bodies to a corner of the lounge while I filled her in on the last few hours. How Hunter had kidnapped me, how I’d tried to escape and been cornered, and how he’d saved me. I told her about the revelations of his past and how Larson had admitted to besmirching Hunter’s name. Besmirching, yeah, I’d actually used that word.
“So, basically, Hunter’s an alpha-hole worth redeeming?” Cora asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I don’t like the way he’s treated this whole fated mate thing, like a competition, like I’m a prize to be claimed. But he has issues that are deeper than what I’ve seen on the surface. I thought he was a misogynist, but that was Larson spreading lies and making Hunter look bad. I’ve realized that I don’t know the real Hunter; hell, I don’t think any of us do. I don’t think even he really knows who he is.”
“Uh-oh.” Cora gave me a wary look. “Please do not go into fix-it mode. You can’t fix him, Fee.”
I gave her a doh look. “I know. I don’t intend to. Getting help is up to him. He has a second chance now, and he needs to use it.”
“Are you saying you’ll wait for him?” Cora looked concerned. “Fee, the heat’s only going to get worse, and what if he doesn’t get the help he needs? What if his go-to mode is alpha-hole?”
Yeah, my brain had been processing this shit in the background ever since I’d used the scythe to save Hunter’s life. “This fated mate thing is supposed to mean something, Cora.”
“Fee—”
I held up my hand. “Wait, let me finish. I think the undamaged, unfucked-up Hunter was meant to be my fated mate. Maybe in Loup form, stripped of all his human psyche’s concerns, he is the perfect mate for me. That would explain why my Loup chose him and why my wolf feels a connection to him, but I don’t. In human form, Hunter isn’t the mate for me, and I can’t allow myself to be tied to him, but Grayson…My Loup was attracted to him from the start, and as I got to know him, so was I.” I was thinking out loud, and Cora didn’t interrupt. “My body reacts to Hunter on a primal level even as my mind rebels, but with Grayson… I want Grayson not just with my body but with my heart.” Cora exhaled in evident relief, and I couldn’t help but smile at her reaction. “I started falling for Grayson weeks ago, but I put the brakes on that and pushed my feelings aside because I didn’t want to be tied to this world. But I’m done fighting it, Cor. The Loup is a part of me, and this world is mine just as much as the Underealm.”
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