God, she felt like she was touching fire… and she liked the burn. He didn’t seem to mind either—his body seemed to quake at the touch.
He’d pushed her shirt up, her bra aside and took a nipple in his mouth, sucked hard enough to make her stifle a cry of pure pleasure. Her hands held his head and she was climbing his lap, aided by a strong arm wrapping her waist.
Straddling him on the stretcher, his face buried against her chest, her face buried in his hair, she felt the orgasm start to rise in her. Her body was strung as tight as a bow and it wouldn’t take much. He played her easily, his mouth suckling her nipple, and the wet between her legs called for his touch.
She wanted to be naked. Right now.
“Rifter,” she murmured into his hair. His response was to grind his arousal against her, the rock-hard erection pressing between her legs, the scent of pine needles and cold air and a tornado of complete want spiraled out of control.
She felt the orgasm in her womb—deep contractions that rocked her with the same kind of pleasure she’d felt that morning. But this was better because she wasn’t alone.
Rifter started to take off her jeans, but Liam picked that moment to stir, the monitor beeping alerting them. She and Rifter broke apart quickly, and she tugged her shirt down and went to Liam’s stretcher. When she took his hand in hers, he opened his eyes and stared into her face for a long moment, like he was trying to remember who she was“You’re all right,” he managed finally.
“You’re okay too. Just try not to move too much. I stitched you, but they won’t hold if you try to go out and save random women.”
He smiled a little. “Didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“Feeling better, Liam?” Rifter asked, and the younger man nodded. “Good. Gwen, you can go with Cyd—he’s waiting for you in the hallway and he’ll get you food and a place to rest.”
She turned toward the door, which was still closed, but she heard voices in the hallway a bit too clearly.
“They’re coming for him,” she heard Jinx say, and realized they were talking about Liam. She heard muttering and caught bits of conversation among the cursing.
“… knows he’s alive.”
“… trappers working with the outlaws, like he said.”
When she turned back around, Rifter was staring at her.
“I need to stay with Liam,” she told him.
“Your stomach’s growling and you’re exhausted. And my brothers and I have to talk some business with him—we’ll call for you if there are any problems.”
She relented reluctantly. “Don’t wear him out.”
Rifter’s lips curled, like he was holding back a laugh, and she pushed past him into the hall, still feeling his mouth on hers.
Chapter 12
Neither Jinx nor Vice commented when they saw Rifter, partly because they were focused on Liam, but Rift knew they’d smelled the arousal in the air. No doubt they’d caught his scent on Gwen.
He was marking her—subtly—but it was there. And he couldn’t have stopped it if he tried.
It was frustrating because he needed to have her, and he knew that could never happen. Brother Wolf was pissed about that because he’d been marking her too, in his own way. Because as strong as Rifter’s urge to mate with Gwen was becoming, Brother Wolf’s urges to become Father Wolf were far more primal. For Brother, a mate was a source of more wolves, and that would make him truly complete.
Stray had remained with Harm, Jinx told him in passing, which Rifter was grateful for. But he wasn’t sure how long that wolf would retain his self-control—he would head to see Harm for himself as soon as this conversation was over.
Now they circled Liam’s bed—the stubborn young wolf was trying to sit up, but Jinx stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Relax—your wound was nasty.”
Liam stared down at the line of black stitches at the wound, which already appeared to be healing. “I have things to do.”
“You need our help, so start talking,” Rifter told him with a low snarl, because the young wolf looked ready to bolt.
“I need to get back to my pack—to lead them. There’s chaos among the Weres now, and I have to stop it before it spreads outside of New York.” Liam was growing frustrated, but he remained respectful.
Chaos was an understatement.
There were werepacks scattered across the United States and the rest of the world. The main pack, which would now fall under Liam’s control, was in New York City, with the other large packs being in Texas, California and Wisconsin.
Discontent among the pack members was normal. For the most part, the alpha orders were to be followed without question, but living so close to humans and their ways had put a different spin on their lives.
Alphas would run their own packs while still following the rules of the king. But the main problem the outlaw pack had was that they found the old ways Linus adhered to far too restricting.
Join the goddamned club, Rifter had growled when Linus told them that. Rifter had also been privy to several werepack meetings about the subject, listening in from outside to ensure that the Weres all spoke their mind.
Teague and Tals, along with Walker, were the major problems.
“We’re wolves—we’re supposed to hunt and kill,” Teague argued. But Linus had quashed their talk of rebellion without the Dires having to do much but remain in town. There had been little to no talk of the outlaws until a couple of weeks ago, when Linus and Liam had been kidnapped, their wereguards left dead around their New York City brownstone.
The outlaws hadn’t publicly taken responsibility for any of this thus far. “Have the outlaws tried to take over your pack?” Rifter asked Liam now.
“That wasn’t their first goal.”
“What was?”
“The outlaws wanted to turn the Dires over to the weretrappers,” Liam said quietly, and Rifter felt a collective, palpable pain rise from the Dires that surrounded the young wolf, whose father had died for them.
“Who?” Vice demanded.
“Tals. Teague. Walker.” Liam shifted in the bed, his eyes lupine as he spoke of the wolves who had murdered his father. The death was so fresh it burned in his eyes, and the Dires waited, giving him the time to regroup and stop the imminent shift.
Total control over his wolf was not something a Were could ever have, but if Liam was to lead, he would need more of it than the average Were, especially under this kind of pressure.
Weres turned younger—at sixteen as opposed to the Dires’ twenty-one. An imperfect system, Rogue had always said.
After several tense moments, Liam’s eyes returned to full human, even as a thin sheen of sweat covered his chest. “They started quietly recruiting rogue wolves from other packs to join their cause—they believed that if my father sold you to the weretrappers, the Weres would be left alone. This was their plan—my father was trying to tell you, right before he got kidnapped.”
“It’s one thing for them to say it, another to actually do it,” Rifter said.
“Either way, I’ve got to start taking back control by calling those three out,” Liam countered.
“They won’t respond to the old ways,” Rifter told him. “Besides that, it’s too public. And we’ve got enough of the humans breathing down our necks.”
“Or with their tongues down our throats,” Vice muttered, barely getting the last syllable out before Rifter threw him across the room. Vice hit the wall with a satisfying crack of plaster meeting skull and rebounded, landing right in front of Rifter, but with a few respectful feet between them.
“Wolf, I will take you out right now,” Rifter warned, his voice low. “We have too many problems for infighting.”
Vice nodded, and a hand on his shoulder from Jinx helped. But Rogue was somehow the only one who could fully control Vice and his many excesses.
Rifter turned his attention back to Liam. “Linus had been challenged before. He’d always fought and won.”
“The outlaws blindsi
ded him this time. He was murdered in front of me. If I don’t take the pack over…,” Liam started.
“You’re in no shape.”
“Then get me ready,” Liam challenged, and Rifter had to push him back down because Gwen would have his ass if the stitches split.
Since when do you worry about a woman’s opinion?
He shook his head, and Vice looked at him strangely. “What?”
“Just waiting for you to react to what Liam said about the outlaws selling out Weres to the witches and trappers for profit. Because once we’re under the weretrappers’ care, so to speak, there’s nothing to protect the non-outlaw Weres from selling their own kind out.”
“Is that true?” he demanded of Liam.
“My father confirmed it in the week leading up to his death. At first, the outlaws wanted to out the Weres to the human population. They believed it would take away some of the weretrappers’ power because they also want to out the witches. My father disagreed. They knew they wouldn’t be able to do it without his consent, and that’s why they killed him and planned on taking out the entire council. Tals and Teague were having private meetings, telling the rogue wolves, ‘Why should the witches get all the benefits? We didn’t start this—the Dires did. We shouldn’t have to take on their burden while they’re off partying.’ They’re angry wolves, more intent on killing than following the old ways, which makes them quite dangerous. The Weres like killing humans and have taken to selling their own kind to the weretrappers in exchange for protection. Some of them have started to work as bodyguards for both witch and weretrapper.”
“Rebellion—using the weretrappers to get what they want—could they be any stupider?” Vice asked.
The trappers had started as good humans, but their purpose had evolved over the years. When the pre-Extinction Dires killed human families, the families bonded together, intent on keeping humans safe from the wolves. When the Dires were taken out by the Extinction and the Weres were created, the weretrappers began hunting them, not caring about the difference in breeds.
Over time, the trappers began to realize the power they could have if they were able to harness the power of the Weres. Now they regularly captured Weres and experimented with ways to keep them under their control.
Rifter knew the Weres were in far more danger than the Dires were—and since the Dires were sworn to protect them, they knew the fate of the pack leader who sat in front of them in the hospital bed. Sincere and strong, but inexperienced, and facing the fight of his life. “We’ll need to make some confirmation of our own about all of this,” he said, and Jinx nodded.
“I’m going with you,” Liam said, and Rifter stared at the man who would be king.
“Tomorrow night. Tonight, you rest and heal.”
Liam nodded, seemingly satisfied.
“I’ll keep an eye on him tonight with Cyd—I don’t think we’ll need to call in Doc E,” Jinx said.
“And Gwen’s here. She’s awesome.” Liam looked pale, but his eyes were bright.
“You saved her, she saved your life, so you’re even,” Rifter told him.
“Still can’t believe you brought her back here,” Vice muttered.
“We should get her the hell out of town and warn her to forget all about you,” Jinx added, stepping in front of Vice. Liam just watched all of them carefully.
“And let the weretrappers take her?” Rifter asked.
“Why would they want her?” Jinx looked confused, the way Rifter felt.
“Because of me. I can’t leave her vulnerable,” Rifter said, trying not to roar.
“At some point, she’s going to figure out the difference between dream and reality,” Liam said, and they all turned to him.
Rifter had to admit, the young wolf had balls of steel, because he didn’t flinch at all. In the presence of the Dires, most young wolves pissed their pants at the very least.
He was most definitely Linus’s son.
“So why did you go out of your way to help her?” Vice demanded of Liam, still not seeing the benefits of any human.
“She was in trouble—Cordelia was coming. And she’s sick…” Liam trailed off as if he couldn’t quite explain his actions.
Rifter interjected. “He probably sensed her seizures the way I did.”
“Great, we can rent ourselves out as seizure-alert wolves if we need scratch,” Vice said.
“Why wouldn’t we be able to sense seizures?” Jinx asked, ignoring Vice, which wasn’t easy to do. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve had the opportunity, but it makes sense that we could.”
“In all these years, I’ve never scented a seizing human,” Rifter said. “But at first… it smelled like a shifting wolf.”
“I have—and it does scent like a wolf shift. Difficult to tell them apart,” Stray added.
Rifter frowned. “That can’t be good.”
“It’s not like we’re supposed to be out do-gooding individual humans. We have our own problems,” Vice pointed out. “What good can a human with no gifts of her own bring to us?”
“She’s a doctor,” Rifter reminded him.
“Human. She bleeds,” Vice argued.
“So do you.”
“Cut us both and see which one survives.”
Rifter didn’t move, but his tone was deadly enough when he said, “I’d make sure you didn’t.”
“So we’ve got a wolf with a target on his head living with us. We’re housing a human, and Harm’s back. Merry fucking Christmas,” Vice muttered, but he held up his hands in mock surrender.
“We’ll have to train him if he has any hope of controlling the New York pack again,” Jinx said quietly, his gaze on Liam.
“Oh fuck.” Vice threw the hand-rolled smoke he’d lit seconds earlier to the ground. “Are we running a halfway house for these wolves?”
“What the fuck do you think you are?”
“I’m way more civilized.” He bared his teeth even as he said it, exposing the gleaming white, longer-than-normal canines.
Vice was telling the truth—as odd as it seemed, Weres had no control over the wolf they became when they turned, making them hard to reason with. Brother Wolves could control a turned Were, but the Dires hadn’t wanted to take control of the werepacks. They had enough trouble with the weretrappers and the witches.
Vice ran a frustrated hand through his hair and pointed at Jinx. “You’ll have to train wolf boy the way you’re training the twins. I’ve heard three are as easy to handle as two.”
“I’ll just bet,” Jinx muttered. “And this one’s all yours.”
“Seriously?” Rifter eyed Jinx. “That’s not going to end well.”
“Yeah, but for which one?” Jinx asked with a smile.
Chapter 13
Cordelia burned.
Seb’s own forearms and chest blistered with painful, third-degree burns, and for a half hour, he writhed on the floor, unable to do more than scream.
He’d hated her with the same intensity he felt during her dying moments—Cordelia had always known that her younger brother couldn’t stand her. This blood-bond binding spell was her way of ensuring he kept his word and worked with the weretrappers after she was gone. She’d lost her immortality when she’d sold her soul.
He’d felt her die earlier—felt the sharp, stabbing pain at his throat and lost the power of speech. Whatever Were had claimed her life had surely taken a piece of his as well. And although the last breath left Cordelia’s body long before she burned in the fire, her spirit hadn’t surrendered until her bones were ash, a long and tortuous process that left him prone on the floor and barely breathing.
It took hours, but Seb literally died and regenerated behind the closed door.
When he woke, the blisters and pain were gone, and so was his sister.
Making Rifter pay had never been his top priority. It would have to be now. It was the only way his coven, who’d joined in with the weretrappers—and the trappers themselves—would have it.
Seb had to remind himself that there were still good witches out there. Hopefully, the majority of the white witches would remain strong. Once the lure of the weretrappers and their promised power began to spread, it could cause complete chaos. Which, of course, was the weretrappers’ plan. Start in one state, take it over, and once they controlled the New York financial markets, there wouldn’t be much that could stop them from continuing to dominate other states.
There was a time he’d considered the Dires—especially Rifter—as more of a family than he’d ever had. His own had been long abandoned—he’d left his coven at twenty for refusing to practice the black arts. While it interested him as a student of serious magic, he knew the consequences. Black arts could turn men—even witches—mad. He wasn’t willing to risk it, not the way Cordelia had.
When she first approached him about coming back to the coven, he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist for long. As powerful as he was, black magic was much harder to outrun.
Good might prevail over evil in the end, but most of the time, it was pure dumb luck. And so he’d taken off and he’d run. Figured that maybe splitting entirely from the wolves would be enough to satisfy the coven that he was completely neutral.
It wasn’t. The witches sent demons who chased him throughout the world, and Seb lost track of time, spent the majority of the last six years running, living like a hermit, trying to find someone he could pass his powers on to.
The only way an Adept, or master witch, like him could die was to release his power into an unsuspecting child. Then he would become mortal and he could kill himself.
But to burden someone else—there was no way. One other witch he knew had done so. The rumor was that she’d branded a young girl the weretrappers now watched carefully, waiting for her powers to unfold. Passing powers on was such a risky proposition at best, and if Seb did so to the wrong person…
No. He could trust himself only to do the least amount of harm. And that was still, unfortunately, a great deal.
The binding spell his coven placed on him ensured he was bound to them, which meant he was bound to help the weretrappers as well. And so he worked spells that would help his coven and avoid the searing pain he endured every time a witch in his coven, or a weretrapper working with them, was killed by a wolf.
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