When he closed the door, something fluttered in her stomach. She didn’t want to read any further. Stray might be checking up on her because he needed her help.
She curled up against the pillows and again she read the passage about witches and their familiars—a pairing as old as time and as necessary.
If she couldn’t have love, she would settle for protection.
Let me protect you. Stray’s words, echoing in her ear.
And only then did she realize, for the first time, what exactly had been happening between her and Stray. She dropped the book as though it were responsible for it.
No. Nonononononononono.
Protector. Animal. Familiar.
There was nothing in that book that said her familiar couldn’t be a wolf.
Chapter 13
Jinx was still having trouble thinking straight. Brother Wolf had shifted him and run from the massacre still happening at the last cemetery because he knew Jinx was done handling it.
He’d forced Jinx to shift back, dress and drive to the nearest motel room, since it was morning light and not the best time for a wolf to be sauntering through town.
He ignored his phone in favor of sleeping in wolf form, where the ghosts couldn’t get to him and the nightmares weren’t as bad.
When he woke, he realized none of it had been a dream, no matter how hard he’d tried to hide from it.
His own father had sold him out in order to stay . . . a ghost. A vengeful one. Jinx could’ve helped him cross back over—or he could’ve worked with Jinx to help the Dires send the Dire ghost army back to where they belonged once and for all.
But he’d chosen his side, in death, as he had in life.
Literal deals with the devil were made by humans almost every day around the world. The consequences rippled throughout the population. But the biggest loser in this case by far was probably the human who’d asked for the original bargain.
There was always a price, and it was always too high. Jinx and Rogue had heard far too many sob stories over the years. Because dead men absolutely did tell tales, none of them pretty.
Jinx always had a theory, that the more logical a person was, the more egregious their crimes.
“People need to be a little less rigid,” Jinx always said. “Because that always comes back to bite them in the ass.”
“Or else I do,” Vice would add. Vice, who’d no doubt been calling him all goddamned night. The wolf was good enough to have scented him here, which meant he had his hands full.
If something had gone really wrong, Jinx would know it. And he comforted himself with that thought as he headed for the shower, letting the warm water beat down on his bare skin. Ignored the ghost that pulled back the shower curtain and attempted to explain why he was still there.
Jinx didn’t want to hear it.
In his early years, he’d been plagued by ghosts until he realized that ultimately, his best defense against them was to ignore them, rather than trying to help them pass over. Rogue did the same to the spirits that plagued him, because they had passed over and most of them wanted to come back. It wasn’t easy. Born-and-bred warriors, their abilities gave them a sensitivity not necessarily helpful to what their futures were supposed to be—warrior alpha pack leaders. The sensitivity was too distracting and the pretending soon became exhausting. The only relief they’d had was on their Running, when they didn’t have to pretend they weren’t different from the other Dires. Because the Dires they were running with were all as different as they were.
Jinx and Rogue had honed both their warrior skills and their abilities with ghosts and spirits over time. They’d seen some weird things, but nothing as menacing as this.
He rubbed his head against the cold tile.
Purgatory was open. And whether he’d done it or had been used as a vehicle to do it didn’t matter.
It was fucking open.
Neither Dire twin had been allowed or able to see inside that realm and both had always supposed it to be for the best. And Jinx wouldn’t tell a soul—or Vice—that he was suddenly able to see those souls, those freaks, as they called themselves, hanging out there in the space that wasn’t heaven and certainly wasn’t hell.
Jinx thought it was worse, maybe like the place Rogue currently found himself in, with a fucking mare sitting on his chest, drawing on him, marking him as hers, and all because of Seb.
After the shower, he pulled on the change of clothes he always kept in the truck and sped back to the house as dusk turned to dark, a light rain falling. There were no supernatural storms. Yet.
He pulled into the garage, letting it close behind him with the comforting, heavy thud of lockdown. Outside, there were no cop cars or signs of trappers, but inside this house was going to turn into an interrogation to beat all interrogations.
Starting with Vice, who must’ve slept in the damned garage, waiting for him. The wolf didn’t look as much angry as . . . distraught.
“The witch is fine,” Vice said by way of greeting. “And you? Can you fucking hear me now?”
He lunged at Jinx, who caught him by the shoulders, but they still went tumbling over each other on the stone floor before hitting a car to break their roll.
“Get. Up.”
Rifter’s voice over them. It took a long minute for Vice to obey, par for the course, but twice as long for Jinx, which was . . . odd. When his hands finally came off Vice’s throat, he didn’t even look at the other wolf, but stood in front of his king and waited for the dressing-down, the way he’d done so many times before in the Army for doing something not within regs.
Fuck regs. Fuck it all.
Because you’ve really fucked up.
He never should’ve come back here. Hell, he had his own bank account, plenty of places to hide. Or he could tell his Dire brothers they needed to get out of here and salvage what they could.
“Where have you been?” Rifter was demanding, shaking him by the shoulders since Jinx hadn’t answered him the first several times he’d asked the question.
“Work.”
“Not an answer,” Rifter growled. He yanked Jinx’s phone from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, turned it on and held it out to him. “Plenty of juice. You’re never supposed to turn this off.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit,” Vice muttered and Rifter echoed the sentiment, then added, “I didn’t tell the twins you were unaccounted for, but what the hell were you thinking?”
Jinx paused for a second, and then told the wolves the only thing he could about the night before. “It’s Jameson. He’s in charge of the Dire ghost army—and they’re coming for us.”
* * *
“It’s really there?”
FBI Special Agent Angus Young looked into the empty field where Leo Shimmin insisted the wolves lived in some kind of rock-star-like mansion.
Wolves. What the fuck?
He’d been in town for a less than a month and knew his life would never be the same. He’d suspected it was coming to that the farther into his investigation he got, the one that brought him to this Catskill town in the first place. He’d been studying the supernatural and wondering if he was crazy for even pursuing that angle.
“It’s there. Fifty feet in.” Leo Shimmin sipped his coffee laced with whiskey and Angus shook his head.
“I don’t get it.”
“The witch Seb put an unbreakable protection spell on it. Not even he can break it,” Leo explained. Wolves, witches . . . Angus supposed that every monster purported to live under the bed and in the closet was real.
“If I walk in?”
Leo shrugged. “We’ve never tried it. Any Were we’ve sent in said it looked like a two-room shack. No one can ever figure out what’s going on.”
“How can a house shift?” An
gus muttered, then held up a hand. “I know. Magic.”
“Unbreakable.”
Angus had been surprised when the cop reached out to him early that morning. When he met Leo outside the precinct and followed his car through town and along its outskirts, he hadn’t commented on the fact that the man looked like shit. Or like he’d been beaten.
“Rough night?” he’d asked instead when he’d parked and Leo let himself into the passenger’s side of Angus’s truck.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Leo had told him. “Unless you really want to.”
Angus stared into the field of nothingness. It was a cold morning, dark and damp as if spring was trying to break through and winter wouldn’t release her stranglehold. “You only come here in the daytime?”
“Safer that way. I don’t need an ambush.” The cop rubbed his bruised cheek thoughtfully. “You need to think about how far in you really want, Agent Young.”
Angus had been thinking about it since he’d spoken with Shimmin yesterday. Shimmin had called Angus in to interview another woman who’d lived through a suspected wolf attack, although that was never mentioned in the official files. It fit the MO of the cases that Angus had been following for years—and Leo told him now that Harm was in fact inside this invisible house. And that Harm was a wolf.
Angus wasn’t sure if he knew too little or too much about what kind of world the humans lived right alongside of—or rather, with—but either way, what he’d discovered served only to make him more on edge. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Leo nodded. “For now.”
Angus stared at the emptiness again, his skin starting to crawl, which seemed to happen every time he found himself in Shimmin’s presence. “I’ve got to bolt.”
The cop smiled, like he knew. “See ya, Fed.”
Fed. Not for much longer if he didn’t bring on the big prize. After Shimmin left, the energy in the car got better.
According to Shimmin, he’d taken over for his brother in the fight between the supernatural and the humans—his kind, Leo had said.
His kind.
Christ. He needed to start drinking whiskey for breakfast on a regular basis if he was going to remain on this case.
He stared at the blank space and tried to imagine wolves in there. Fucking wolves.
And it was the best explanation he’d come up with this far. But it wasn’t something he could tell his sup, who was on the other end of the ringing cell phone.
“Any leads on Harm?” his supervisor demanded.
“There was another murder. I’m close. I know it,” Angus told him, knowing it was a shitty answer and nowhere near enough to justify keeping him on this case much longer. He rubbed his chin and felt the day-old rough stubble. Despite being on the road, there was nothing else to do but eat, sleep and work out, so he was staying on top of his game. At thirty-five, he had no choice. So while on the outside, he looked pretty damned good, on the inside, he felt like a house of cards that could collapse with the pressure of a strong wind.
He was restless. Horny. And pissed off. And his sup was slow coming with a response, but Angus waited him out patiently. Sometimes, waiting was the best thing a man could do. He’d learned that in the Army and it had served him well during his sniper days.
“You’ve got another week, Young, and then I need to see results.”
The conversation ended with a click. Angus pocketed the phone and led the truck away from the field and back through town, thinking on his next move.
When Angus had come to town and met Leo Shimmin, he’d never expected to learn what he had about the supernatural world, although he’d begun to suspect it. Having those suspicions confirmed made him feel less crazy—and way more out of control.
He’d been following his only lead, Cain Chambers, since he could actually find him. Still, Angus had a feeling everything he found on Cain was carefully crafted bullshit.
A couple of weeks earlier, Cain had been found near the body of a dead woman, killed with the same MO as the murders Harm had been accused of committing.
Angus had traced the series of murders back over a fifty-year span. If Harm was as old as Shimmin claimed—centuries—and he’d used other names throughout the ages, well shit, there were ever more murders in a pattern Angus had never thought to tie to the man—wolf . . . wolfman. But that term wasn’t right, either.
Nothing human about them, Leo had claimed. Their human forms were some kind of shift thing that allowed them to blend in and trick innocent humans.
He reached for the ever-present file on the case, riffled through it and stared at Harm’s recent picture and then the old album covers of other bands he’d been in.
Wolf . . . not man, and nowhere to be found.
Chapter 14
Rifter walked away from them and Jinx followed his king, Vice at his heels. They headed toward the kitchen, where they’d all learned early on that everything could be fixed.
Lately, those fixes were harder and harder to find.
When they got into the hallway near the guest bedroom, their boots squished on wet carpet. There were cracks in the plaster walls and pictures were down on the floor, but no one commented and Jinx just kept walking behind Rifter.
As he neared the kitchen, Rifter bellowed for Harm to come down, and yeah, it made sense for the wolf to be there, since this involved both him and Rifter the most.
“Rift?” Gwen looked up from the coffee she’d been pouring when they entered the kitchen, her king in the lead. She put the mug down and went to him when he didn’t answer. She glanced at Jinx, her brows furrowed, but he sank into a chair instead of trying to explain what was wrong.
Because really, it was just about everything.
Vice stopped in the doorway as Rifter moved among the broken bulbs and dishes and the overturned, heavy oak table. Rifter had destroyed one just like it weeks earlier. This new one looked slightly worse for wear, but when the king righted it, it stayed in place.
Jinx got up and helped Vice collect the unbroken chairs from around the kitchen, leaving the mess scattered around them for now as the Ragnarok, an ancient Norse Prophecy circa 1000 CE, rang in his ears instead of the buzzing ceiling lights.
“Brothers shall fight, and slay each other; cousins shall kinship violate. The earth resounds, the giantess flee; no man will another spare.”
It was all about the age of evil, where stealing, hoarding and fornication ruled. Even though it’s the end of the world, no one lifts a hand to help the other.
This prophecy was as well known as the one they now knew was referring to Stray and Kill. Any family with brothers—especially twins—wondered if they were the ones.
Jinx hadn’t thought about the prophecy since the Extinction. What was the point? At times, Rogue had wondered out loud if he and Jinx were the culprits.
But now, with Stray trotting out his brother . . . well, Jinx figured that maybe the prophecy about dangerous brothers was true after all. Together Stray and Killian could be used to wreak havoc on humans and wolves alike, utilizing total mind control.
Dangerous when apart, but terrifying together, as Stray could make sure Killian’s suggestions worked their magic. And, after Jinx’s announcement about Jameson and the Dire ghost army, it appeared to be only one facet of their problems.
Rifter, Gwen, Vice and Harm joined him at the table, with Liam, Cyd and Cain entering right after. Jinx asked, “Should I get Stray?”
Rifter pondered a moment, then said, “Let the wolf remain with the witch. Now, tell me what you’ve learned.”
“The ghost army—many of them—want destruction,” Jinx confirmed. “They’ll be really hard to control once they start. They have a lot of unfinished business toward humans.”
“I’m not sure there could be worse news, but I have a feeling there is,” H
arm said quietly.
“Jameson’s leading the way. And he’ll be looking for you and Rifter,” Jinx continued. “He might not be able to kill you and Rifter, but he can torture the shit out of you for eternity.”
“There are no Dires for me to lead, so what’s his problem? I didn’t kill him or vote myself king,” Rifter said. He sighed, drank his coffee absently.
Rifter knew that something was wrong with Jinx—way goddamned wrong—but thankfully he decided against delving into it now. Jinx was relieved that Rifter preferred to use their energy to figure out the plan moving forward.
With the witch in the house, it should balance the scales more favorably. Should. If Stray could gain her trust.
“I’ve been working with Liam. Cyd and Cain have been out trying to gain support for Liam, but we all know that doesn’t mean anything until Liam makes another show of power,” Vice said. “Maybe we should call the pride back? We could use all the help we can get, even if the shifters aren’t as strong. We’d have numbers.”
“Leave them. They’ve made their choice.” Rifter pushed the mug aside. “We’ll need to pull more support from the Weres.”
“What if it’s not enough?” Gwen asked hesitantly.
“It has to be, baby. Has to be. I realize Seb’s done something of biblical proportions and now everyone and everything in the army’s path is going to pay dearly. But I’m going to make sure we’re not the only ones left standing at the end.”
“What if we can make the Dire army work for us?” Vice asked Jinx.
Jinx shook his head. “Even if you could grab some of them, Jameson’s hold is too strong. He’d slaughter them. We don’t have enough of them on the inside who’d rise up.”
“Maybe you’re not giving our ancestors enough credit,” Rifter said, his words ending with a slight growl.
“Rift, what the fuck?” Jinx asked, his own canines lengthening in response.
“I’m asking you the same thing.”
“I’m going back out, all right? I’ll try to find out more,” Jinx said.
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