by Lucy Lyons
“A lot of my pack didn’t make it, Orson. You need to be prepared for that too.” She moved closer to Marcos and Steven, leaving me to watch my people and wonder which of them would be sacrificed for the freedom of the rest.
I motioned toward the cave and we crept through the thicket that had been tended with the intent to give the pack protection and privacy. It was easier to move as wolves, but I couldn’t strangle the life out of Thaddeus without hands. I directed the other men to change, and Goldie and I took the lead, climbing through the brambles and bushes as stealthily as only a shifter or a native could.
The smoke that emanated from the mouth of the cave made my skin crawl, even though I knew it was only the torches inside. Everything that I had loved about our ritual space suddenly had an ominous feel to it, from the gentle wisps of smoke that escaped the cave, to the thorny bushes that once had made me feel sheltered, but now looked like barbed wire around a prison for my people.
Just as I was about to break through our cover and race the last hundred feet to the cave, Thaddeus and a wolf I didn’t recognize exited, with the new wolf sauntering to the crowd. I watched in horror as people scrambled over each other to be the farthest from the approaching soldier, with the few remaining men hiding females and young ones behind them. Thaddeus shouted the order and the soldier shifted, his arms and legs elongating as he took the last steps to my cowering packmates, none of which answered his shift with a change of their own. I felt dark magic like fog drift around my ankles and the wolf drew away from the surface, hiding so deep I no longer felt its presence at all.
Do you feel that? I silently asked Goldie, and she nodded, her eyes wide with shock and apprehension.
What do we do?
I glanced back at Ray, who was feeling the effects, but maintaining his form, his whole body trembling from the exertion.
We fight back. I shrugged at her and swept her into my arms and kissed her the way I’d wanted to since I made the decision to let her go. My hands found an opening between the light sweater she’d worn and the waist of her pants and I took advantage, running my palms up over her back and pressing as much of my skin to hers as I could get.
She did the same, her hands searching for the edge of my shirt and dragging it up over my body as I drank her in. When I finally pulled away, Marcos and Steven were staring at us, confounded.
“Do you draw magic from each other?” I asked them, and Marcos eyes widened with understanding. He pushed Steven’s shirt up and his mate yanked it off as they stood, the one’s back pressed against the other’s chest. “Good. Draw as much power as you dare, and help us shield Ray and ourselves.”
I ignored the two men after that, my focus on coaxing Goldie’s beast to the surface in the hopes that she’d help mine find its way back from the depths of my unconscious.
Goldie dragged me to the ground with her, straddling me and moving her hips as she leaned forward to kiss my face, my ears, my neck, all the way down to my chest as I heated to her touch. That heat grew and began to glow between us, starting under her skin and spreading to mine, building as I rode a wave of pleasure that couldn’t crest because of the clothes that still kept us apart.
“Later, I expect you to finish what you started,” I murmured into her ear as I pressed her hips down onto me and rocked them over the proof of my arousal.
“If we survive this, I’ll finish it several times, just for good measure.” Her breath panted in my ear as I brought her with magic, and in turn, it pushed me over the edge and into oblivion. I managed to strangle my roar of pleasure into a growl, and I reached out for the men a few feet from us, their sweat and magic starting to expand beyond our protection.
With a curse, Goldie followed my lead and we used our combined power to stifle theirs, keep it controlled and direct it to Ray, who was shimmering and blinking in and out of wolf form, fighting the magic to the point of agony. But I knew that agony, I’d felt it at Caroline’s hand, in her circle of power, and I knew how to fight it. I took his pain in, centered it, used it to wake my wolf and counter the sleep that had been put on it. Finally, I felt the familiar “other” in my head, and I stretched under Goldie, satisfaction coursing through me.
Ray was in his half-wolf form, solid and steady on his feet, and somewhere in the midst of calling his wolf back from the edge of unconsciousness, we’d called both the other men to their wolf-man forms as well.
“Well, I preferred guns for this fight, but at least with claws and teeth, you can’t accidentally hit an innocent, right?” I joked lamely as my heart pounded in my throat. Goldie kissed my cheek and lifted her holster from one of the bags we’d brought, securing it over her shoulders and adjusting the buckle.
“I’m sticking with guns for this one, how about you, big boy? You going to shift now, or would you like a gun?”
I flexed my arms and smiled as an idea began to form. “I’d best start human. I need to prove I can shift at will despite Miriam’s spell, proof that Thaddeus isn’t as powerful as he says.
“I think he might be, Orson, even ill-gotten, it’s still power.”
“Yeah, it is. Which is why you are staying in the woods, where the gator-boys can protect you. Shoot all you want, just do it from behind the thorns.”
With that, I stepped into the clearing, gun tucked into my waistband and silent prayer on my lips. Thaddeus and the soldier were ahead of me, putting the cave closer to me than to them, and the wolves showed no sign of seeing me as I slipped past my alpha and into the cave. I sent one last mental command to Goldie to keep our wolves back and safe until I gave her the signal to move forward, and glanced back out into the sunshine at the growing shadows of evening.
Before long, I expected the cavalry to arrive, pissed off and looking for a fight. With any luck, we’d be done and gone by then, but if not, at least they’d get their people, and Goldie, away to safety, no matter what happened to me.
I crept along the wall heading deeper inside and took the right at the fork that led to a space we’d once used for cold storage. It was the opposite of where the stone table was, but if people were being kept inside, it was the most likely place to put them. The cold storage room was useful because of its high ceiling and the small underground spring that flowed along the edge. It was deep, but narrow, too small for my shoulders to travel through under the stones to its outlet on the edge of the gator-boys’ territory. It provided clean water for rituals and bathing at the widest point in the cavern, where now almost half a dozen wolves cowered together, holding one another up as they cleaned their wounds and washed away the same tarry substance I’d seen in my visions.
“Hey,” I whispered, hoping my voice didn’t carry out, and that the smell of death and fetid wounds hid my presence for just a little longer. “Hey, I’m going to get you out, OK?”
A girl sobbed as she looked at me, and as my eyes adjusted more to the low light and the altered appearances of the people backed against the wall, I recognized each of them in turn.
“Orson?” whimpered a small female voice, and I leaned down to touch Ms. Abernathy on the arm.
“Oh, Grace I’m so sorry, Ma’am.” I sighed to my landlady. “I should’ve known you weren’t hurting Porter,” I muttered, not meaning to say it aloud. “I’m here now, I’ll get you out, OK?”
She shook her head and a male came forward on his hands and knees, too weak to stand and almost too weak to crawl. “No, they wanted you. They hurt us just to bring you here. You’ve got to go.” His voice was ragged and talking sent him into a coughing fit, and I held him until he stopped hacking, his body trembling and weak.
“I know what they’re doing, Nelsan. They’re trying to keep Thaddeus strong, to hold back the soul-sickness.” Nelsan nodded and leaned against me, and I felt some of the magic built up inside me flow into his body, strengthening him.
“Just go, Orson. It’s too late for us, for poor . . .” Nelsan’s vice broke and he wept openly, pulling away from me and severing the connection. But I
’d heard his thoughts, and finished his sentence in my head. Poor Porter, he’d thought. My heart sank, but I’d known the moment that I entered the room that he wasn’t there.
“When did they take him?” I asked, and Rachel, a young wolf who had spent time with my brother inched forward. I took her hand and shared my power with her, watching as the glow under her skin spread and filled out the hollows of her eyes.
“Hours ago,” she whispered, threading her fingers through mine. “I think it was sunrise, but so little light gets in here, it could’ve been starlight for all we know.”
My vision had been in the morning, enough after sunrise for Porter to look broken and hollowed out by the magic.
“OK, how long do they keep you?”
“It’s been days. They let us get a little better and take us back. Some only make it once, Nelsan’s been put on the altar three times.” Rachel sniffed.
“They took my Brody and Porter at the same time, and threw me in here when I tried to take them back,” Grace hissed, her voice full of pain and regret. I gave her my other hand and shared the power with her and focused on the room as a whole and released the energy into group. My human mind tried to panic at the thought of losing all that power, but the wolf was calm.
We don’t need it, the beast assured me, although I wanted to argue I kept silent. We are more powerful than you know, and our power is limitless.
I knew that was a lie, but the wolf paced inside my head, ready for the fight, and I lacked the control to quell the beast and help my wolves at the same time. I touched each one of my packmates in turn, making sure they received some of my energy, then started toward the corridor that joined the two sections of the cave.
As I moved back toward the entrance, a light flickered around the corner and stopped me in my tracks. I backed away from the entrance and pressed myself against the back wall with the others in the hope that they’d be bringing Porter back and I could attack the approaching wolves with surprise on my side. The water gurgled next to me as we waited for the captors to arrive, and I peered down into the depths. As a child, I’d fallen in one day, and been swept right into alligator hunting grounds.
Daryl had found me and we’d begun our uneasy alliance over a couple of eels he’d fished up and a hare that I’d caught. I knew it was impossible for me to squeeze through the opening anymore, but Rachel’s thin shoulders gave me an idea.
I took her hand and sent an image of her diving down and surfacing in the same place I had years ago, and her eyes widened. “Just go,” I whispered, and repeated the instructions to all the females and the males young enough to make it through the two-and-a-half-foot opening. Even almost mummified, Nelsan was too broad-shouldered to fit, but it took the group from six or seven wolves to the three males and myself.
“I’ll distract them. You get the women and young out, and make a break for the front of the cave. If they can, my people will get you out.”
“If they can’t, I’ll die like a wolf, instead of a sacrifice,” Nelsan finished the thought I was unwilling to voice. I nodded and squeezed his shoulder. “Thanks for the healing, Orson. I always figured the King’s would be back in power someday.” He managed a wan smile, and I bolted for the approaching torchlight, screaming like a feral animal as I launched myself at the astonished wolves and the boy they dragged between them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I smashed into the man on the left, forcing him to drop the arm he was holding and block my punches as I screamed in his face and pummeled him. I knew I had only seconds before either his companion dragged me off, or Thadd himself arrived to check out the commotion I was making, so I drove the man back as far as I could, drawing my claws and raking them across his chest, then calling his wolf.
In my anger, I’d forgotten that the magic to hold back the beast had been cast in a wide net across the camp and the man might not be able to shift, but as soon as I found resistance, I barreled through it like I was smashing through the rock behind him. Instantly, the magic parted and I could see the wolf, drag it to the surface, and jerk it from his skin like a hand from a glove.
Before me stood a ruddy young wolf, wide-chested and muscular, but panting and leaning against the wall to brace himself. Praying that he stayed weak for a few moments more, I turned my attention to the man still holding the boy and lurched forward, barely hesitating as I gained momentum and leaped over the boy, driving the man into the wall and sliding him across the surface until I smelled the sharp tang of his blood as his back was torn. I tried to sniff out who the prisoner was, but all I could smell was blood, rotting flesh, and the taint of dark magic. I left him to crawl away on his own as I faced off with the broad chested blond man and began to gather my power.
The volume of blood the guy was spilling made it easier to pull the wolf out of him, and within a minute I was faced with a second, blond wolf to match the auburn one still panting and snarling at me. Wolf number two advanced with a stiff-legged, canine gait, head and tail down, teeth showing, but without a sound. I crouched and readied for his lunge, but instead of attacking me, he swung around and clamped his jaws on the neck of the prisoner they’d been dragging back to the holding pen. I heard a sick crunch and the boy fell to the stone.
“No more brother for you, King,” the red wolf snarled, and I glanced at the body, just as the wolf lunged. He managed to tear a gash in my shoulder as I rolled away from him, and landed on top of me, pushing me to the ground as I tried to keep his fangs out of my throat.
I threw him off me and bounced to my feet, grateful to feel the muscle he’d torn already knitting together again. I leaned down and felt for a pulse on the body that lie far too still on the floor and found one, thready and weak, but still struggling along. I pushed the remainder of my excess energy from the small sex Goldie and I had conjured into his thin frame, imagining it as a bubble around him, healing him and hiding him from the wolves.
The magic took only a moment to move from me to him, but it was enough time for the wolves to regroup, and the next thing I knew I was slammed up against the wall as the wolves tore pieces out of my back. The swathes they cut in me weren’t deep enough to kill me, easily healed, but slowly as it required new muscle to from over the bones and new skin over that.
My arms were pinned to the stone as thy took turns slashing at me with their claws, while I struggled to hold on to my beast and keep it from surfacing too soon. Thad would be arriving any moment, to witness my humiliation and make an example of me once he believed me too weak to fight back against him. The edges of my vision turned grey from blood loss, but I held the beast back, praying that Goldie and the wolves stayed hidden from sight until I could figure a way out of the mess I’d gotten myself into.
When they finally let me fall to the ground, I glanced at the place where the kid had been, but he was gone, and I couldn’t feel the remnant of the magic I’d shared with him. the wolves dragged me between them and I understood why they’d dragged the boy when either of them should’ve been able to carry him with two fingers. The cave held me like a magnet, pulling me down, toward the walls, any way but the way they were dragging me. I felt my ribs separate and my joints pull apart at their sockets until a scream of agony clawed its way out of my throat.
Outside, I heard the beginning of a dogfight and knew that my pain had called to Goldie. With a curse, I tried to contact her, but she slammed the door on me as I heard her yelp and snarl right outside the cave entrance.
The silence that followed was far worse than the sounds of the struggle, and when I silently begged whatever magic was holding me back to let up, I flew out of the soldiers’ hands and into the stones head first before I could brace for impact. The world went dark for a few seconds and left me with a ringing in my ears to replace the terrifying silence.
When I came to, I was chained to the stone slab, no leather thongs for me, but silver links that burned into my flesh and hissed as they burned my blood. I yelped from the pain and struggled, only to increase
the pain as they dug deeper into my chest, wrists, and ankles. I was still in the leggings that Clay and Ashlynn had given me, and it was enough to make me grateful for the moment, all the other victims been naked.
As the fog in my head cleared, I felt Goldie’s presence and searched the room as well as I could without moving the chains too much. My blood froze when I found her and Steven both chained to the wall in more silver, clothed but both apparently unconscious. There was no sign of Ray or Marcos, and I prayed that they had gone to Daryl and Poole, or gotten hold of Dominique to send help.
“You’re an idiot, Orson,” I muttered to myself. “Never should’ve let them come.” I strained against the chains, eyes watering as fresh pain blossomed in my chest and my lungs refused to inflate.
I’m sorry it has come to this, a voice resounded in my head. He wants you more than the others. I had to bring you back for the greater good.
I jumped and then went still, listening for the voice again. When nothing more came to me, I reached out and tried to find them.
He wanted me dead, what changed? The sense of another person in my head returned, and I got an impression of the person on the other end of the conversation. Images of chanting, blood magic, and fire danced in my head. Miriam, what happened to change his mind?
