by Moira Rogers
She stopped at the corner of the house and stared at the barn. She’d pushed Jay last night. Scratched at him, challenged him, skated along the line between violence and sex because there had been something thrilling in the game. Something necessary to satisfy her baser needs.
Such a delicate balance, and it could go so horrifyingly wrong. What would it take to push them off that edge, to stumble over the line from sweet games of power to the sort of nightmare Kathy and Albus had lived out on this farm? Violence and passion, rage and lust.
Maybe it could never happen. Maybe it would only take one step.
Shivering, Eden hurried past the porch and strode toward the barn. Neither of them would take that step. She’d give him up before she became her uncle. Cut out her own heart if she had to. Cut out his too. Better numb and alone than destroying each other and everyone around—
“I don’t want you to fight. I want you safe. I fucking need you safe. When you say this shit, you’re not making it better. You’re giving me one more reason to get the hell away from you.”
It was Zack’s voice, drifting from around the edge of the barn, and Eden froze as Kaley answered.
“Is that what I’m supposed to do? Go away, just not too far?”
Eden could hear the tears in the girl’s voice. Her already battered heart broke in half as Zack whispered Kaley’s name, full of pain and regret, and Eden had to move, because she couldn’t listen to any more of this and couldn’t let Zack say the words he wouldn’t be able to take back.
“No,” Kaley continued. “At some point, I’ll have to leave. I won’t be able to—”
Eden reached the edge of the barn, and Kaley’s words cut off in a gasp. When she stepped around in sight of them, Kaley drew away and turned, folding her arms around her body, and Zack jerked around, his eyes going wide. “Eden.”
“Sorry,” she said, forcing her voice to sound casual. “I was bringing this stuff out to the barn to sort through later and I heard voices.”
“I was going for a run anyway.” Kaley kicked off her shoes and picked them up. “I’ll be back late.”
“Don’t go too far,” Eden warned her. “Jay doesn’t want any of us running on our own after dark right now. If you want a long run, you could see if Colin or Shane wants to go.”
“Fine,” she muttered, already brushing past Eden. “Whatever.”
Eden fought a flinch and turned back to Zack. “I’m sorry.”
He laughed, strangled and hoarse. “Christ.”
“I didn’t hear very much.” Enough to know he’d probably hope she hadn’t heard more. “Are you all right?”
“I screwed everything up,” he said calmly. “For them, and now for you too.”
The calm was almost as chilling as the outburst in the dining room. “You haven’t screwed anything up, Zack. Even if you could take it all back… God, I hate everything that brought you here, but I like being a wolf. I like how I feel now.”
He nodded, his gaze fixed on a point past her shoulder.
“Zack. Look at me.”
He did, but his eyes didn’t focus. He was looking at her, but he didn’t see her. “If I hit a skid, Jay knows what to do. I took care of that already.”
Her heart froze. “Don’t say that. Jay is the only thing—” The lump was back. She had to squeeze the words out past it. “I think I love him, Zack. If you hadn’t come back, I never would have known. And if he has to—it won’t matter.”
He snapped into focus then. “Yes, it will. Damn it, Eden, don’t toss him over stupid shit like that.”
“Stupid shit?” Her temper slipped as she slammed the box to the ground. “You don’t get to tell me your life is stupid shit. You may not value it, but you have to deal with the fact that the rest of us do.”
Zack swallowed a growl. “Why would—”
The earth shook. Eden’s stomach dropped out, through her feet and into the earth, taking her equilibrium with it. For a moment, she felt like the ground was sucking everything out of her—oxygen, balance, the ability to think. She blinked at Zack, but all she could make out was a blur of him pressing a hand to his head.
It hit her a moment later. Screaming, a warning that rang not across the still night but inside her head.
“Magic,” Zack muttered. “Fuck. Did Stella set up something, an early-warning spell in case someone shows up?”
“I don’t know.” Eden’s human mind was still rattled, but the wolf rose to steady her as she turned and started for the house. “We need to find out.”
By the time she made it to the front of the house, Jay and Stella were out in the yard. Fletcher stood on the porch at the little house, ushering the latest refugees from Memphis out the door.
“Eden!” Jay’s hands fell on her shoulders, heavy and reassuring. “I think it’s time. Someone’s coming.”
“Lots of someones.” Stella closed her eyes, swayed, then dropped to her knees and reached for a twig. “Clear some space.” She began to sketch something into the dirt.
A rough form took shape, a box followed by a single line that curved a meandering path. The shape nagged at Eden, something familiar. Something she’d seen before. “Are you—?”
“Yes.” Stella quickly scratched in two boxes, one smaller than the other. Their relative placement and sizes jarred Eden into realization—the farm.
Shane bounded down the porch steps, a bag clutched in one hand. “Is this it?”
The witch closed her eyes again. “Sprinkle it on.” He did, and she began to chant. As they watched, two glowing pulses of light swirled up out of the soil, one at the top of the crude map, near the road, and the other at the back edge of the property, through the trees. “Incoming.”
Fear settled in her gut, but it was the feral, vicious anticipation that left Eden shivering. “So we need to—”
“She’s not here.” Zack’s hoarse mutter cut through Eden’s words, and her breath caught as she searched the wolves gathered around them and realized one was missing.
Only one.
Zack had done the same math. His gaze fell to the ground, where the crude map showed its damning pulse in the woods. He whispered Kaley’s name and bolted for the back of the house, even as Eden lunged after him. “Zack!”
Jay caught her shirt. “Don’t. He’ll find her, but we need you here.”
You don’t care if he lives or dies. She bit down on the words because she knew they were unfair. Zack was the one who didn’t care if he lived or died. Jay could have told her as much, but he’d taken that responsibility on himself too.
He’d been a good alpha, and he was demanding the same of her. She stopped trying to jerk away and twisted around far enough to watch Fletcher steady Tammy, who was sheet-pale and clutching at her sobbing child. Mae looked just as bleak, huddling in on herself inside another sweatshirt so huge it had to be Shane’s. Even Lorelei was scared.
Kaley could take care of herself, and Zack would shake the world to pieces to protect her, suicidal tendencies or no. Eden choked back her worry and focused on her duty.
Her pack. “Where do you want us to go?”
“Get them in the house. Upstairs.” His jaw clenched. “If any of them get past us, it’s up to you, Eden.”
Yes yes yes, chanted the wolf, trembling with the need to snap the leash and savage the enemies who had harmed her people. She pressed close to Jay, lowering her voice to a whisper. “How? Will I know?”
“Let her out.” He dragged her mouth to his, lifting her off her feet for a quick, bruising kiss. “It’ll be over soon.”
So much left unsaid between them, bad words and good, but they were out of time. She was still trying to form a sentence when he set her on the ground again, and then it really was too late. Jay started barking orders, sending Fletcher and the one able fighter among the new refugees in search of Zack and Kaley in the woods, and it was up to Eden to gather up those too weak to fight.
But not alone. She turned and found that Lorelei had already shaken
off her fear and put aside her distaste for the newest refugees. She herded Mae and Tammy toward the front porch as Eden gathered the rest of the new arrivals, soothing them with a rush of power that tasted as much of Jay as it did of her. His strength, always at her disposal through their bond—and shared without reservation.
If—when—they got through this, she’d give him all the words she’d held back out of fear. For now, all she could do was feel it, feel it hard enough to sing across their bond and seep into his bones, and maybe give him a different sort of strength.
I believe in you. I want you. I need you. I love you. Come back to me.
Waiting was torture.
Jay clenched his fists and rocked back on his heels, waiting for the first sounds to prick at his ears. They’d have left their vehicles at the road, slipped through the trees lining the long, twisting drive. As little warning as possible, no time for anyone on the farm to prepare before the fight was upon them.
Christian Peters had underestimated them. Again.
Stella brushed one heavy, beaded lock of hair from her face and rose. “Should we go find them?”
“No.” Jay growled at the thought. “We stay here and guard the house. They’ll come to us. They’re being careful, that’s all. Don’t want us to know they’re here, not just yet.”
Colin stripped off his shirt, letting the fabric fall carelessly to the dirt beside Stella’s sketched map. “What sort of combat magic have you got, and how do I stay out of its way?”
She flexed her fingers as her hand began to glow. “Just don’t try to eat me or anyone I like.”
His boots and belt joined his shirt before he looked at Jay. “I’m gonna end up trying to tear those bastards’ throats out with my teeth either way. Might as well use my sharper teeth.”
It would always play out that way, no matter how the fight started. Jay would use his guns until he ran out of ammunition—or until the wolf took over, demanding a chance to bite and rend.
To win.
Shane had already shed his clothes as well by the time the first strange wolf burst out of the thick trees lining the driveway. Jay drew his pistol and fired. The shot winged the creature’s shoulder but, more than that, it heralded the pack’s readiness to meet the attack.
Another shot, and the wolf fell. Jay fought to still his finger as it itched to pull the trigger, again and again.
A second wolf, then a third and a fourth. Stella muttered a curse and began to chant, and Jay spoke, his voice miraculously even. “Fletcher and the others will work their fight our way. So we hold our ground, and we show these bastards what happens when they violate our sanctuary.”
Colin answered with a snarl and lunged toward the wolf on the far right. He was bigger and faster, but it wasn’t strength that gave him the advantage. Protective fury seethed in every line of him as he crashed into the first enemy and bore him to the ground, jaw snapping shut on his enemy’s shoulder.
Wolves were still spilling from the trees. Six, ten—a dozen. Jay pulled his second pistol and emptied them both. They’d be useless in a close fight anyway, the kind that was coming. Twelve—no, fifteen. Fifteen to four.
Not a fair fight at all. He grinned, more feral snarl than anything, then tossed both handguns aside and yanked at his shirt. “Cover me, Stella.”
The witch hit her knees, heedless of the fanged, four-legged creatures bounding toward them. One deep breath, and bits of light began to glow in the air around her, like fireflies converging on her hands. When she slammed her palms to the ground with a shouted word, the earth shook beneath them.
Jay expected to fall, but as he tossed his pants aside, he realized his footing stayed true despite the quaking. Only their attackers pitched and rolled, hit the grass with yelps and whines.
“Magic,” he muttered, and dropped to the lawn to call his own, the change that splintered through him like lightning, riding adrenaline and anger.
The strongest of the attackers regained their feet and refocused their line of attack, charging toward Stella with a desperation that stank of fear. Colin, silent and lethal, slammed into them from the side, tumbling one wolf into two of his brothers. He vanished just as quickly, flowing over the ground to guard their right flank.
Shane fought naked, ready to change but still in his human form. When a wolf sprang at him, he caught it in an iron grip, clutched its muzzle and jerked its head around with a lethal crack.
Jay brought down another of the Memphis wolves with a quick snap on a hind leg as it rushed by. The animal tumbled to the grass, biting and snarling, but it was no match for Jay’s strength. He dispatched the wolf as pressure built in the air around them, a sensation he already recognized as the prelude to magic.
Stella chanted, her head bowed as Shane ran interference in front of her, holding off attackers. When she lifted her head and opened eyes gone completely white, Jay howled a warning to Colin, who bounded out of the way just in time to avoid the sweeping of her arm.
The pressure exploded outward, and four of the wolves who’d managed to coordinate an attack detonated, just blew the hell up in a rain of blood, bone and fur.
Jesus Christ. Jay took a hard blow to his left flank as the interlopers scrambled to reform, attack harder or faster, but Colin and Jay and Shane and Stella met every advance head-on, and with brutal efficiency.
Something was wrong. The wolves fought with purpose, but no clear leader. No direction, no rallying howls of encouragement.
Christian Peters wasn’t among them.
Jay feinted right to avoid a desperate attack and pulled up short when another wolf charged, knocking him over. Beyond the house and the barn, the sounds of a second fight drifted closer. Maybe Peters was with the other group, cowardly enough to sneak in the back way while most of his pack fighters died in the front yard.
It wouldn’t do him any good.
Chapter Fifteen
Tammy’s son couldn’t stop crying.
Silent tears. They tracked down his pale face as he huddled small and terrified in his mother’s arms, and even though his too-thin shoulders shook with each sob, he didn’t make a noise. He cried like someone who knew how to make himself invisible, like someone used to hiding from the monsters.
Eden didn’t know how to soothe him when his own mother’s whispers didn’t help, when the walls weren’t thick enough to hide the sound of battle. It surrounded the house now, which was why they’d crowded into the empty bedroom at the top of the stairs. One window, one door, no balcony.
No space. It wasn’t a large room, and agitated werewolves seemed to take up more than just physical space. Tammy and her son were tucked in the corner with the two weaker males from Memphis. Mae leaned against the wall with her eyes closed, drawing in breaths too slow and uniform to be anything but a conscious effort to stay calm.
Eden stood next to Lorelei and lowered her voice, though Mae would be able to hear a whisper. “Is she going to be okay?”
Lorelei watched the door. “When it’s over. She’ll be fine when it’s over.”
“Soon,” Eden promised, though it felt like a lie. So many howls. Could Jay keep them all from breaking through their lines? Even if fighting that many wasn’t impossible, keeping track of them might be.
It would only take one. Shivering, Eden bent to remove her shoes and socks. Better to be ready, which meant stripping naked so she could change at a moment’s notice.
She had her shirt off and was reaching for the hooks on her bra when something thumped lightly in the hallway. “Lorelei, get back in the corner with the others.”
“I don’t think so.” She stood beside Eden, her hands at her sides. “You need a beta, right?”
Someone who could stand at her side, the way Colin stood next to Jay. Eden grabbed Lorelei’s hand and squeezed it once. “I need you to keep the others out of my way. If someone comes through that door, I’m giving in to the wolf. And I don’t know if she’ll know how to stop fighting once she starts.”
“
No one else is running into this fight,” Lorelei murmured. “No one else could. Just you.”
Footsteps whispered on the other side of the door. Eden released Lorelei, inhaled deeply and caught the scent of wolf and something sharp, almost metallic. No, not a scent, a taste—like chewing tin foil. It raised the hair on her arms and curled her lips back into a snarl as the doorknob twisted slowly.
In the corner, Tammy whimpered, high and terrified, and Eden knew who was coming for them, even if she didn’t recognize the tall, coolly handsome man who pushed open the door.
Lorelei snatched a pistol out of the back of her waistband. “Get out, Christian. Now.”
Talking, not shooting. If Eden were any good with firearms, she’d have snatched the thing out of Lorelei’s grasp and shot the bastard herself, but distraction now could prove fatal. “Shoot him,” she whispered, dragging power up from the depths of her being.
Christian laughed. “Shoot me? Lorelei doesn’t shoot people. Lorelei rolls over like a good bitch and does whatever it takes to keep a man distracted. Don’t you, pretty pet?”
Her jaw clenched, and she gripped the butt of the gun so hard her knuckles turned white. “I’ll find a way to do it this time,” she whispered. “For them.” Her thumb eased the safety button off with an audible click.
Christian laughed again, a sound full of grating disdain riding dominant power. It shredded through Lorelei and smashed into Eden, and for the first time she recognized the true difference between them. Lorelei swayed as if the power had snuffed out her will.
Eden felt nothing but rage. Clean, sweet fury.
The gun slipped from Lorelei’s limp fingers, and Eden caught it in midair. Time constricted as the wolf flooded her, turning an awkward grasp into a smooth spin. Grab the gun. Push Lorelei back toward the others. Eden swooped up to face Christian as she squeezed the trigger.
