by Martha Woods
Liam kicked the man’s chair, making it hit the wall. Sarconi jumped awake, gasping and letting out a high-pitched shriek at the sight of Liam and Michael, both tall and imposing.
“Whatever you want,” Sarconi started, “I’ll give it to ya’-”
“Shut up,” Liam said, backhanding Sarconi so hard he bounced back against the chair. “Listen to me, and listen well. I want you to tell me what the fuck your people are doing out here. Was this you? Coming back to the scene of the crime?”
“What?” Sarconi looked shocked like he couldn’t believe someone would suggest it. “No, Mr. Conway, we didn’t touch your house. I just had my men out here today to keep tabs on the place, see if the girl’s father-”
Sarconi seemed to realize too late that mentioning Skylar was a grave mistake. Liam picked him up, chair and all, and threw him against the wall. The chair shattered and the ropes loosened as Sarconi slid down, tattered and bleeding.
Liam roared. “Tell me the truth, you bastard!”
Sarconi’s eyes were wide with fear as he looked up at a man who was clearly coming undone.
“I’m telling you, we didn’t do anything to your house!”
Michael hit the man across the head again and wiped the blood off of his hand distastefully. Sarconi slumped forward, going silent for a moment.
“Mr. Sarconi,” Liam growled, coming face to face with the man, who was sweating and creating quite a stink. Liam’s nose twitched, his wolf begging to kill the worthless human and let it be over. “I understand you’re a very powerful man. But you must realize at this point that I am a very powerful man as well.”
Sarconi spits a mouthful of blood out onto the ground and looked up at Liam.
“I’m not a truthful man,” Sarconi whispered, “but you better believe me when I tell you the fools I boss around aren’t capable of something like this.” Sarconi looked around the house, taking in the wreckage, before meeting Liam’s eyes. “You are dealing with something much bigger.”
Liam shook his head and stood, running his hands over his head and kicking a piece of debris. Michael watched his brother carefully, his arms crossed.
“But listen up here, if I go missing, you’re going to be in a world of hurt, so you better-” Sarconi was effectively silenced as Michael swiftly snapped his neck, making the man’s body slump, lifelessly to the floor.
“Fuck!” Liam said, sliding to the floor. Michael crouched next to him, not daring to touch him, but offering his words.
“Liam, it’s not the end of the world-”
“How are we supposed to stop this thing if we don’t even know what it is?” Liam snapped, taking his hands away from his face and getting closer to Michael.
“You need to pull yourself together,” Michael said, his face unchanging, calm, “The pack needs you, Skylar needs you. Hell, I need you, okay? So get off the fucking floor so we can go home and make sure everyone is okay.”
Liam held Michael’s gaze for a moment before nodding and standing abruptly. The two men started to leave, then Liam looked back at the body slumped against the wall.
“Don’t worry,” Michael said, his hand on his brother’s back. “I’ll get someone to take care of the mess.”
Chapter 4
“Aidez moi, ma fille.”
The room was dark, and candles flickered all around Farah, casting ominous shadows on the wall. All around her, the shadows shifted between corporeal beings and mere shapes, and fear was palpable in the room.
A sense of lost love, a mother who had forever lost her child, was hanging in the background. It was too much, the sense of hate and love, fear, and longing, all in one place at the same time. The pain of the conflict rippled through Skylar’s body and she writhed.
Farah was trapped somewhere, the room dark and dirty, filth and weird inscriptions coving the walls. Farah was looking right at Skylar, her eyes pleading, as though Skylar knew where she was and was supposed to save her.
“I don’t know how to help you,” Skylar whispered, knowing that Farah couldn’t hear her. Tears were running down Skylar’s face, and she could do nothing but watch as the figures in the room pulsed and writhed, getting closer to Farah with each flicker of the candles.
Farah opened her mouth again, taking a breath to tell Skylar something, and Skylar put her hands out, begging the woman to give her some sort of clue, where she was or how to find her, but when Farah opened her mouth the figures forced themselves in, filling her mouth and ears and eyes and turning everything black.
* * *
Skylar shot up in bed, her hair hanging around her head in sweaty strands. The sheets and the nightgown were soaked with sweat and she glanced over at Liam, who was sleeping on his side, turned away from her.
She stopped, watching his side rise and fall, his ribs stretching the skin. Skylar fixed on the mole just below his arm, watching it for a moment before she shook her head and looked away.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, walking through the room and to the closet, where some of her new clothes hung. Grabbing without looking, she headed to the bathroom and turned the cold water on before stepping under the stream.
She gasped as the cold water hit her skin, but let it calm her down as she stood under it. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the image of Farah out of her mind. She knew logically that they were just bad dreams brought on by her missing Farah and hoping that she was okay; but, for some reason, Skylar couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to it.
Something about the dreams, how they repeated, made her think there was more meaning to what she was seeing. Farah was trying to tell her something, was trying to get Skylar to save her. But there was nothing Skylar could do. Liam was strong, and Farah was magical, but Skylar was just a human. Even if she knew how to, she wouldn’t be able to save Farah from a pack of hunters.
The dreams had to mean something.
Skylar shook her head against the cool water. No, that was insane. There was nothing special about her dreams, and thinking that just made it apparent how badly this was affecting her.
Skylar stepped out of the shower and pulled a white nightgown on, stepping softly back into the room and climbing under the covers. Liam sighed and rolled over, putting his arm around her sleepily. He was warm and soft and sleepy, and it managed to soothe her thoughts of Farah.
She cuddled into him, shivering when his lips found her skin.
“Skylar?” he whispered, some of the sleep leaving his voice as he opened his eyes. “Sky, you’re so cold, what’s going on? Why are you wet?”
“I just needed a shower,” Skylar said, snuggling into him further, encouraging him to wrap his arms around her tighter. After a moment, she reached up and pecked him on the lips. “Love you,” she said, her voice already sounding sleepy.
“Love you too,” Liam said, holding her tight as they fell back asleep together.
* * *
“I’ve been thinking,” Michael said, tossing an apple as Liam emerged from the cabin, pulling his leather jacket on over his shoulders. Liam looked over at his brother, who followed Liam as he walked to his car.
The sun was shining bright, gorgeous rays jutting out from behind the hill as the sun rose. It was early morning, the air crisp, the breeze just coming through the trees. A bird chirped somewhere in the distance and Liam couldn’t help that it annoyed him, the sound made him want to grab it in his jaws.
“That’s dangerous,” Liam quipped, not pausing his stride. Michael caught his apple and took a quick bite, raising an eyebrow in Liam’s direction.
“Very funny,” Michael said, “but seriously. We’ve ruled out the people who were after Skylar, Lucas is gone so that only leaves one possibility.”
Liam sighed and hung his head, pausing his hand on the door handle of his car. He’d wanted to head into the city and get a head start on catching up on all the work he had to do, but his brother was incessant in reminding him that they had bigger matters to attend to.
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br /> “Hunters,” Liam said, cussing under his breath and turning to his brother. “But what are we supposed to do? Wait for them to attack again and try to catch them in the act? Even then, if they are this powerful, they might be able to overpower us.”
“It’s not very comforting to hear the Alpha talking like that,” Michael murmured, “but nevertheless, it’s true. I was thinking, instead of waiting for them to come to us, we go pay one of our little hunter friends a visit. We’ve got his name, so tracking him down shouldn’t be too much of a problem. And if we can find something that belonged to him, it shouldn’t take long at all to find the scent.”
“I know just the thing,” Liam said, and it wasn’t long until he and Michael were searching through the closet in Liam’s bedroom, on the second floor of the ruined cabin. Liam pulled a leather jacket out of the closet and held it at arm’s length.
“What’s this?” Michael asked, sniffing and looking to Liam.
“This is the jacket she wore the night that she…”
Michael’s eyes got wide as he looked from Liam to the jacket.
“Holy shit, Liam, I had no idea anything actually happened with that loser.”
“Nothing did happen,” Liam snapped, pulling the jacket back. Then he shook his head and stalked from the room, giving his brother a disproving look over his shoulder. “Not that it’s any of your business,” he said, shaking his head again.
Michael was trailing him closely.
“Hey man, I was just surprised, that’s all.”
Liam growled under his breath as they climbed into Michael’s truck. Michael started it up and some pop music started playing softly through the speakers.
“So now what?” Liam asked, eyeing the jacket distastefully. “How are we supposed to catch his scent? He could have gone anywhere.”
“Luckily for you, dead brother, I managed to get a handle on a powerful searching tool, the internet. He moved a few towns over and is the Sheriff there. I say we get to the town and find his scent, we should have no problem paying him a little visit.”
Liam had to grin at the idea of finding the bastard – he hated him for too many reasons, and it would be nice to instill a little fear in the man. Even if he wasn’t the cause of these attacks.
An hour later, Michael was finishing a burger and tossing the balled-up foil wrapper into one of the trash cans on the corner. Liam and Michael walked down the sidewalk, surreptitiously sniffing the air every now and then.
They both stopped in front of a small apartment building. The lawn was patchy, the shutters old and chipping. Liam glanced at Michael, then they turned and walked up the stairs, following the scent. The apartment building was old and not well kept, and the stairs creaked as they walked.
The hallway smelled heavily of cats, and it made Liam’s nose twitch. They reached a door, where the smell was strongest, lingering just outside, and Liam knocked briskly. They both took a step back, waiting for the door to go flying open, silver weapons flying about when Cayden realized it was them.
Instead, they were met with something different.
“What do you want? I told you, I’m already saved, and I don’t want to talk to you about our lord and sa-” Cayden’s words stopped in their tracks when he saw who was standing in the doorway. He stepped back and tried to shut the door, but Michael was too quick, wedging his boot in the doorway so it bounced back in Cayden’s face.
“Fuck!” Cayden said, turning away from the door and rushing to the other side of the room. Michael pounced on him and pulled him back before he could unsheathe some dangerous silver-tipped weapon. Michael turned him around, holding him so he was facing Liam.
Liam stopped, his eyes taking in Cayden’s form. The man was much smaller than the last time Liam had seen him, as though he had stopped eating. His skin was pale and thin, dark purple rings around his eyes. Cayden was shaking, trying weakly to get out of Michael’s grasp.
Michael threw him to the ground against the wall and Liam and Michael stood in front of him, both shocked at the hunter’s sudden lack of confidence. He was no more threatening than one of the shifter babies back in the pack.
“What do you want from me?” Cayden whined, his eyes shifting around the room without landing on Michael or Liam. He was still shaking, and he wrapped his thin arms around his knees and started to rock, the back of his head tapping the drywall every time he did. “I’ve left your pack alone, haven’t I?”
Liam couldn’t help it, he let out a low string of chuckles before turning to his brother. “There’s no way this guy’s done any of this. He’s a wreck.”
Michael was looking at Cayden with thoughtful eyes. He took a step closer, not missing the way the man flinched away from him. “What happened to you, Cayden?”
“What do you mean, what happened?” Liam asked, “He was almost killed by the members of our pack. It’s no wonder he ran away with his tail between his legs.”
“I didn’t run away,” Cayden snapped, a version of his previous self-surfacing. “I left because Sky asked me to. That’s the only reason I left. I would have fought to the death, and you both know that!”
Liam hated the way her name sounded on his lips, but he didn’t have a chance to react because Michael opened his trap again.
“Does this have something to do with the men that were after Skylar’s dad?”
“What?” Cayden asked, ripping his eyes away from Liam. “There were men…? You know what, I don’t even care. And no, this has nothing to do with anything even remotely human.”
Michael and Liam glanced at each other, then back at Cayden, who was pulling his long sleeve shirt down over his wrists. Michael caught a glimpse of a weird looking scar but held his tongue.
“If I tell you, will you leave me alone?” Cayden asked, looking back at the door as though someone else was going to bust through any minute.
Michael nodded and Cayden sighed. “After everything that happened out at the pack grounds that day… I needed to prove to myself that I was still a hunter, even if a girl had talked me down from taking each and every one of you out.”
Liam snickered and Cayden narrowed his eyes, but continued. “I’d heard rumors that there was a witch living outside Boulder Junction, in a little town. There were reports of strange, unexpected deaths, so I thought I would go check it out.
“I found the place that that witch was living and decided to kill her in her sleep. They sleep so deeply, you know, so they can have those seeing dreams or whatever. Anyway, I staked the place out, then I slipped in and went to her bedroom.
“I was just about to slip my knife through her ribs when her eyes flew open and she started chanting,” Cayden shuddered, stopping the story for a second. ‘Then… there were so many of them. It was like they were coming out of the wallpaper or something. They surrounded me, and I thought they were going to kill me, but they just…”
Cayden swallowed, hard and turned his head away from them. “They kept me alive. For weeks. They did… things to me. It was torture.”
“What kind of things?” Michael asked, his voice incredulous. He had never met a witch, so knowing that dozens of them were in the same place was enthralling.
Cayden shook his head and yanked the black sleeve on his arm up. There, on his arm, were symbols, all packed together and swirling over the flesh. Some of them looked fully healed, but some of them were red and tender-looking.
“Jesus,” Liam said, his eyes taking in the symbols. He had seen Farah drawing some of the same symbols in the dirt in the garden, or stitching them into the pillows in her room. He had never assumed there was anything more to them.
“I managed to get away,” Cayden whispered, “I’m not sure if they let me go or I really did manage to slip out in the middle of the night, but I’m here now. And there’s no way in hell I’m letting them get me again,” he said.
“I talked to one of the lead hunters in my order, and he said there’s been evidence of some sort of rising coven of witches lately
. Reports… of terrible things, done to animals, human corpses. Some of the hunters have been working around the clock to put a stop to it, and I just happened to stumble into it.”
“Aren’t witch covens typically peaceful?” Liam asked, recalling the images of naked women, their long hair draping over their back as they danced in the firelight.
Cayden started shaking his head. “For being a shifter, you sure do know nothing about your kind.”
“Witches are not our kind,” Liam snapped, taking a step forward. Cayden seemed to be gaining back some of his confidence, because he didn’t even flinch, just holding Liam’s gaze.
“Witch covens are typically evil, chaotic forces. They work to destroy as much as possible. These types of witches typically believe they are of a higher order than other beings on earth,” Cayden said, as though he was reciting it from a book.
Michael and Liam left Cayden in his apartment and hurried down the steps to Michael’s truck. When Michael had shifted into gear and was pulling away from the curb, he glanced over at Liam.
“It seems as though the hunters have enough to deal with. They’re probably not the ones coming after the pack… but it may be the witches. They do have a long history of hating and trying to control shifters.”
“Yeah,” Liam said, not looking away from the window. “The myth that they created us and all that.”
“Yeah…” Michael let the conversation trail off, but thirty minutes later, when the cab of his truck was still silent except for the pop singer cooing through the speakers, Michael cleared his throat.
“What’s eating you, Liam? We’ll get whoever this is, witch bitches or not.”
“It’s not that,” Liam said, turning and looking out the windshield. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Farah, my housekeeper…”
“The French woman who’s gone missing that Skylar can’t stop worrying about?”
“Yes, her,” Liam said. “She’s… she’s a witch.”
Michael was silent for a long time, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. “How long have you known? Does Skylar know?”
