by Gaja J. Kos
“T-the m-magic.” He hugged himself tighter and buried his head against his knees for a long moment as spasms jerked through his body before he looked up at me again. “The curse. It’s…like a tug.”
He tapped his chest—more like clawed at it. I grabbed his hand before he could hurt himself, but when I tried to maneuver him out of the shower, he didn’t budge.
“Is that why you came here?” I asked—and it hit me.
My phone blowing up earlier. It hadn’t been Aric or Finn. It was my aunts, probably worried sick because Dominik had escaped. Shit.
Dominik nodded. “I k-knew that if I didn’t follow, I’d be forced to sh-shift. And if I did”—the agony that seeped into his eyes gutted me—“I don’t think the wards could hold me.”
“Let me help get you out of h—”
“It’s different, Gina.” He folded into my embrace, but I hardly felt the shock of cold as his wet clothes adhered to mine. “Stronger. It’s… It’s making me stronger too. I had to run.”
I stroked his head. “You’re safe with me, Dominik.”
“I’m not. And neither are you.” He leaned back and looked me in the eyes. “I can still feel it calling to me. Being closer helps, but…the pull’s getting louder. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to…”
Seeing him so godsdamned defeated ignited something inside me. A pyre that burned through everything and fortified me through a core of steel.
“I’ve got you, Dominik,” I said with absolute conviction, then moved.
Whatever energy I’d thrown out must have worked, because when I attempted to maneuver him out of the shower, my brother didn’t fight me anymore. I helped him ditch his soaked clothes, then swathed him in my oversized, fluffy white robe. Once he was as comfortable as I could make him in such a short amount of time, I sat him on the edge of the bed, where he waited while I plugged my phone in the charger.
The depleted battery sign flashed on the black screen. Yeah, yeah, I fucking knew.
I glanced over my shoulder at Dominik. He’d sunk into an almost catatonic state, which, in this case, was a good fucking thing since my phone had decided to power up at an appallingly sluggish pace. The longer Dominik could keep the roiling thunder of the curse silent, the better.
As soon as the phone kicked to life and I tapped in my code, a flood of my aunts’ missed calls and messages barraged the screen. I fired back a quick text to Britta that Dominik was with me and that I’d contact them later, then punched Roth’s number on speed dial.
When he answered, I cut straight into his sleepy greeting. “I need your assistance ASAP.”
“What’s going on?” Roth sounded instantly alert.
“My brother’s at my place. He’s being drawn to the werewolf we have in holding. And that just so happens to be the only place in Berlin that will be able to withstand his shift. Can you get a cell ready and gather the witches? I’ll transport Dominik—”
“I’m coming to get you.” The rustle of movement hummed down the line. “I don’t want you driving, Gina, in case…”
In case Dominik couldn’t hold it in any longer.
I cursed silently, then said, “We’re wasting time, Roth. I can get to HQ faster.”
“I’m already on my way,” he barked and hung up on me.
For a second, I stared at the phone, more curses tumbling through my mind, until I remembered that me being anything but totally fucking cool and collected would be a death sentence. Exhaling through my nose, I centered myself, then shimmied down the bed until I was sitting beside Dominik.
“My boss is coming to get us.” I wound an arm around his shoulders. “We’ll take you to ICRA. The cursed werewolf you’re feeling—she’s there.”
He didn’t reply, but when I tugged him up, he followed my lead without a fight. There was no point in changing him back into his wet clothes, and nothing I had here would fit him, so I just escorted Dominik out of the apartment barefoot and wrapped in my robe, locking the busted door as best I could. The walk down the stairs was grueling with Dominik unable to move with any kind of efficiency while he waged his war with the curse on the inside, but eventually we managed to break through to the crisp night air.
My still-wet clothes plastered to my body and my skin pebbled before my inner temperature control kicked in. I maneuvered us down the steps and onto the sidewalk, and the stark silence of the street wrapped around us. I dragged my gaze along the dark windows of the apartment blocks on the opposite side.
“When did it start?” I asked Dominik.
“Last night.” He shifted his shoulders, rolling them as if in discomfort. “An ache in my chest.”
Last night. When Emilia had been killing people, driven by her curse.
I scanned my brother’s solemn features. “And you never felt anything like this before?”
Dominik shook his head.
I dragged my teeth along my lower lip. While there was a chance—a chance I really didn’t even want to think about—that there was another cursed werewolf out there responsible for the change in Dominik, instinct said that wasn’t the case. Emilia somehow lay at the core of this. But why would Dominik feel her now? What was different?
Dominik shuddered, and I slipped my arm around his waist, holding him to me.
Could Emilia stirring his curse have something to do with her escaping the witch’s grasp?
She had to have been controlled somehow during her previous killings. Sure they were all in pretty isolated locations, but not nearly isolated enough for a rampant wolf not to go for another kill before shifting back. The timeline certainly fit with Dominik’s experience.
But if the witch had been using her magic to actively control the curse, somehow dampening its signature in the process, then the sheer amount of power she had to wield…
Dominik flinched.
I pressed my lips together and quickly snuffed out the thread of trepidation worming through my gut. Later. My theories would have to come later, when my mood couldn’t affect Dominik’s already fragile state.
An engine rumbled in the distance. We both went on alert, and I held Dominik tighter, then heaved a small breath of relief when Roth’s car turned down the street.
“This is our ride,” I said to my brother, who, mercifully, relaxed almost at once.
Roth pulled up to the curb and got out, dressed in pajama bottoms and a plain black tee. Although this was the first time he actually saw my brother in person, my boss didn’t gawk or hesitate at all. The man knew Dominik’s story too well to downplay the danger we were all in with every second spent not getting my brother to a cell.
Together, we helped Dominik into the back. I slid in beside him while Roth closed the door and ran back around to the driver’s side. The second he was in, we were already rolling down the street. I glanced at the buildings drifting by. I always loved my grungy apartment due to its proximity to Spanduer Forst, but right now, I would have given everything to live closer to Mitte.
We crossed the Havel, then cut through Charlottenburg, Roth sticking to the broad main roads that allowed him to hit the pedal hard. I kept my energy in check, all the while monitoring Dominik’s for even the smallest of spikes. I could feel the shift bubbling beneath the surface—not powerful enough for it to present an immediate threat, but it definitely underlined the importance of getting him into that cell ASAP.
As if willed into existence by my train of thought, Roth got a call from the witches confirming everything was set up on their end. He thanked them, then bypassed a slower-moving taxi and speared through the dark Tiergarten. The Brandenburger Tor rose ahead. Not far now.
We turned right at the end of the road, then took the first left, but before Roth could even shift gear, a line of warning lights had us slowing to a stop. I peered around the front seat.
A fucking construction site.
“Shit,” Roth muttered, though none of the agitation I was certain he felt leaked into his scent.
He turned the car aro
und, and I observed Dominik, trying not to be too obvious about it. Tiny beads of sweat gleamed on my brother’s skin along his forehead and temples.
It’s just a minor detour, I told myself. Circling around would set us back for no more than a few minutes.
But why was it that the delay felt so grave?
We eased back onto the main road, and Roth headed north. Right as we passed the Brandenburger Tor, it happened.
The foreboding sensation hadn’t originated from my fears. It had been instinct. Intuition, warning me to thread another path.
Only there were none at my disposal.
A pulse of Dominik’s shift rocked the cabin of the car like a rifle firing into a windshield.
I met Roth’s gaze in the rearview mirror, the tightness around his eyes echoing what I knew with absolute certainty in my gut.
We weren’t going to make it.
Chapter 10
The volatile energy of Dominik’s impending shift saturated the car, and a sudden surge of claustrophobia wrapped thick ropes around my neck.
“Floor it!” I yelled without actually yelling.
The last thing my brother needed was a spark of panic or fear to spur him on. I grabbed his hand, hoping I could somehow anchor him for long enough to get our asses to HQ. Or, at the very least, within our witches’ range.
But instead of taking the right turn just after the Brandenburger gate I’d expected him to, Roth steered the car west toward Platz der Republik.
“What are you doing?” I gritted through clenched teeth.
Dominik groaned and doubled over, the muscles on his back visibly bulging through the thick robe.
“I’m taking us into Tiergarten.” Roth flicked his gaze to mine in the rearview mirror. “If we get off the road, I can throw up illusions and keep him contained in the confusion.”
The energy Dominik kept throwing out in cascading waves, each stronger than the last, tainted my tongue.
“Sir, turn around,” I said steadily, though a hint of trepidation and urgency seeped into my tone regardless. “He’s drawn to the wolf. That tether will cut through your illusions.”
Beside me, Dominik jerked, then groaned. I clutched his hand tighter, filling my touch with all the grounding presence I could muster, but it was like holding on to a fucking dandelion by the stem and hoping it would be enough to protect the fluff from blowing away.
Will had power. And that power existed in a constant state of exchange with nature, shaping reality together.
But Dominik’s curse had nothing to do with will or nature.
It was a twisted, corrupt mirror of the laws that should be, answering to no one but itself.
“Damn it, Roth, he isn’t going to last.” My words resonated through the dense air within the car. “We have to get as close to HQ as we can. If I’m right, Dominik will tear through the town trying to get to Emilia.”
Roth swore but U-turned the car the next second and shot back toward the Brandenburger Tor. For a heartbeat, Dominik settled—a lull in the chaotic, thrashing power pumping from his flesh.
But he was too far gone.
Tension built up in a deafeningly silent climax, then, with a snarling cry, Dominik ripped his hand from mine.
The crackling of his shift rolled across my skin—
Dominik wolfed out.
He lunged, and I barely vaulted myself into the trunk before he could crash straight into me. Roth hit the brakes. I bounced off the seats, then pulled myself up as snarls thundered through the car. I watched in horror as Dominik’s massive wolf reared back on the seats, then shot straight for the door.
The metal didn’t stand a chance against my brother’s bulk. The door flew clean off the hinges, shattered glass sprinkling into the night.
“Call HQ!” I clambered over the seats. “Tell them to clear the fucking path to Emilia.”
I didn’t wait for Roth’s reply. I was already running, shifting shape mid-step, and shedding the remnants of my clothes as I raced down the road after Dominik.
He was a dark blotch in the night, going faster than any werewolf rightfully should.
Panting, I pushed myself harder.
My muscles screamed in protest, but the adrenaline burning in my veins propelled me forward. After a few seconds, I managed to close some of the distance, but the gap between us would have still had me growling had I been capable of actually forming the sound, breathing as hard as I was. A car honked as it bypassed me, then swerved around Dominik when he shot straight across the intersection at the Brandenburger Tor. My heart climbed into my throat as I spotted a group of people staggering on the other side.
I squeezed the air from my already tight lungs into a vicious warning snarl.
Curses touched the night air, but the five humans scurried out of the way seconds before Dominik would have run them over. The relief that would have otherwise rolled through my entire body was only a distant sensation as I barreled down the middle of the road after Dominik. This wasn’t over yet.
Foam frothed at my muzzle and bile coated the back of my tongue, but I didn’t dare slow. When we reached the open plane of Bebelplatz, the night turned significantly darker.
My mind reeled, and shadows crept inward from the edges of my vision. The tip of the ICRA building looming just a stone’s throw away from the Berliner Dom remained the only thing in focus. I latched on to it, tearing down the street after Dominik.
My legs disconnected from my body.
Slobbering and foaming, I kept up the mechanics of running even when I didn’t feel the actual movement any longer. The concrete beneath my feet had turned into a lofty sponge that threatened to throw me off balance. The bile climbing up my throat burned harder.
Through the dark curtains of my vision, I spotted another group of late-nighters ahead, but as I attempted to figure out how to howl without losing all the contents of my stomach, Dominik speared for HQ.
I swayed when I turned but didn’t dare stop, even when it felt like this was the homestretch. I bolted after him into the building, saliva dripping from my muzzle.
Fast on Dominik’s heel, I cut the corners devoid of agents all the way to the proper floor and wing. Nausea clogged my throat, my legs liquid. I wasn’t even sure how I was still moving, but when Dominik ran down the corridor lined with holding cells, I was right there behind him.
Magic rested thickly in the air, forming a kind of magnetic pathway to lead Dominik where we wanted him.
He neared the empty cell—and bypassed it.
Fuck.
But right as I dragged up what strength I still had in me to intervene, the two witches standing on the opposite end of the corridor exchanged a glance I picked up on despite my blurry vision, then diverted their magic from steering Dominik to casting open the door to Emilia’s cell.
Dominik darted inside, and the witches sealed the door shut.
I collapsed.
Shades of darkness pulsed in my brain, my body light and heavy all at once. It felt like floating belly-up in a turbulent underground pool of some weird-ass liquid that allowed oxygen to pass through to my lungs in tiny, measured amounts. The vortex threatened to break me apart into free-floating pieces—
A familiar scent curved through the ever-morphing penumbra.
My nose twitched, inhaling more of Zaynab’s unique fragrance.
The vampire touched a tentative hand to my fur. “He’s safe, Gina.”
In the background, more magic slicked across the air. I shifted into human form but didn’t have the strength to pry my face off the floor.
Zaynab scooped me up as if I weighed nothing. “Let’s get you fixed up.”
“M—my aunts,” I slurred, trying to crack open my eyes. “I need to call them—”
“Leave that to me.” Zaynab’s voice was kind but firm. “You take care of yourself first.”
I mumbled something that could have been anything, then sagged in Zaynab’s arms, the last tethers to consciousness broken.
&nbs
p; Dressed in spare clothes that smelled exactly like the whole year I’d left them stashed in the downstairs locker, I slumped on the couch in the break room on the fourth floor and nursed the cup of coffee Zaynab had firmly put in my hands after she and the witches had sorted me out. The exhaustion continued to weigh on my limbs, but at least my healing ability was starting to kick in after the witches gave me the initial heave out of my near-death exhaustion.
Lucky, apparently, didn’t even begin to cover the damn miracle of me not sustaining any permanent damage. Even werewolves had limits about what we could come back from. And my maddening sprint had broken clear through.
But as much as I was grateful to our ICRA coven for everything they had done, as much as I took their order to rest to heart, I still had to constantly fight the gnawing urge to amble back to the holding cells. I sipped on my coffee, thinking back to the last time I was down there.
The witches had booted my ass out so fast my mind hadn’t even caught up with what happened after I was halfway up the stairs.
Given my wrecked state, that meant a lot of time.
Since I didn’t want to get scolded like a pup again or come across as disrespectful, the only thing I was left with was replaying Zaynab’s report in my mind.
After Dominik had burst into Emilia’s cell and I drifted into passed-out land, Emilia had shifted too. Only instead of them killing each other, the two huddled close and fell asleep as if it were the first proper rest they’d gotten in months.
They were as fine as they could be, and I was so fucking thankful for it. But it didn’t make staying away any easier.
Dominik was family. Pack. Not being near him after all that had happened went against all instinct.
“What are you frowning about?” a voice wove through the empty break room.
I looked up to see Finn, his strawberry blond hair mussed and clothes hastily thrown on, striding toward me. A black tote bag with long handles slung off his shoulder. Not a look he usually went for.
“Finn.” I blinked and disentangled my legs to sit up straighter. “What are you doing here?”
