by L. M. French
The door had barely latched when Oz curled up throwing his legs over the side of the gurney. “Boss.” It came out low and hoarse.
I winced a bit in sympathy. “That shard damn near decapitated you, brother. It was close.”
Oz scratched the side of his head. “I’ll try to keep my neck out of the way next time.” He cleared his throat. “Everyone else?”
“Emerick and Pike were bloody but fine. Jericho’s eardrums were shattered and his brain was leaking but he healed up.”
I stepped closer and he tensed. It was a shit storm and he could smell it. “Veda and Phin were taken.”
Oz stood up and pushed past me. “Let’s go,” he rasped.
He’d barely made it across the threshold when Jericho grabbed him in a back thumping hug. “You scary bastard. You had us worried.”
Pike stepped in when Jericho moved back. “Glad to see you, Oz.”
“Always with the fucking dramatics.” Grabbing Oz by the back of the neck Emerick bumped their foreheads together.
Oz’s lips quirked into a halfhearted smile but tension still rode him.
Kova hovered just outside the edge of their impromptu circle. “O-Ozias?”
Oz tipped his head to see around Emerick. “Hey there Kova. Those for me?”
She ducked her head and held the bundle out like an offering. “Kojak thought you’d want them.”
Oz looked down his body as if it just occurred to him he was wearing nothing but a set of hospital scrubs.
No sooner had he got his hands around the fabric when she scuttled away. He sighed and I chuckled. “She’s getting better.”
“I don’t know if that’s good news or fucking depressing.” Emerick thought about it a minute. “No, it’s definitely fucking depressing. What was Eiryn thinking putting Kova with Jet?”
Now I was sighing again. I scrubbed my face hard. “It’s a problem for another day. Oz get changed. Pike we need wheels.”
Pike jogged away to secure another vehicle and Oz dipped back in the room to change. Jericho leaned back against the wall. “What the hell’s going on, boss? The Lovely Din? Where the hell did they come from and why are they attacking us?”
I tapped my knuckles against the wall. “I don’t think they were after us. I think they were after Veda.”
“Yeah, but why? After all this time suddenly everyone wants the sentinel- excuse me- the not-sentinel. And right as Sai goes missing? Nah, boss.”
“Well, wolf it gets better.” He raised his eyebrows as I continued. “Sai disappears, our more obscure factions reappear only they’re making war, our sentinel is not a sentinel and everyone wants a piece, only now she’s bonded to one of my wolves and they’re both missing.”
“Thanks, Bay I didn’t think that could sound worse.” Emerick sucked his hoop into his mouth. “Well, I vote we kill ‘em all and sort it out later.”
Oz reemerged and slapped Emerick on the shoulder as he went by. “No time like the present.”
Jericho and Emerick fell in line as we marched past. There was no talk of strategy or approach. No further explanations of where we were going or what we would do when we got there. There was only one acceptable course of action. We would find our people and kill everyone else.
Simple.
Blood to Oz was like a divining rod. Once he had it, he could track someone or something across miles. He reached the driver’s side door and wrenched it open and pulled Pike out.
“Fucking hell, Oz,” Pike cursed.
I jumped in the passenger seat while everyone else scrambled into the back of the H3 before he threw the truck in drive and smashed the gas. Emerick cursed pulling the door closed as Oz took a tight turn out of the drive.
I glanced at Oz and noticed the red vial around his neck. “Think you should drink that before you commit to a direction?”
He gritted his teeth and threw a glance my way. “It’s covered.”
Meaning he’d already tasted her. My eyebrows rose. “Got a little ahead of yourself, wolf.”
The smirk he threw at me was unrepentant. “Someone had to.”
My wolf growled low in my chest. “She’s already bonded Phin-”
“And she’s under your skin. Well, I guess it’s a party boss.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now. Do we not have enough to deal with?”
For a moment he lost the grim look and grinned at me slyly. “You’re just mad cause I know what she tastes like.”
My groin tightened. “Her blood. You know what her blood tastes like.” I retorted through clenched teeth. Cocky motherfucker.
Jericho snickered.
“Fucking wolves.”
WE’D TRAVELED MILES down the county highway when Pike slapped the back of my seat as his head hung out the back window. “You smell that, Commander?”
I rolled mine down and inhaled deep. A wolf, not one of ours.
Oz pulled the H3 onto the shoulder and idled.
Pike pulled the door open and started stripping.
“Emerick go with him.”
“It’s one wolf commander, I can check it out and find y’all.” Pike argued.
I stared at him till he rolled his eyes. “Aye-aye, captain.”
Emerick tossed his pants through the window before shifting. His blond wolf flanked Pike’s russet wolf as they disappeared into the tree line.
We made it a few more miles before Oz pulled off the road in front of an abandoned house. Nothing moved or breathed. I barely stepped out when I knew she wasn’t in there. “She’s not here.”
Her smell was there but it was faint. Oz climbed the porch and a laid a hand on the doorknob. Turning he held it up showing me his bloody fingers. “She was here.”
It was Jericho that pointed out what neither of us said out loud. “I don’t smell Phin.”
“She must’ve taken him through with her.” Oz offered weakly. If he’d been here, we’d smell them both.
“Spread out. She had to have gotten here on foot. He might be nearby.”
Between the three of us we covered miles around the leaning house. There was no sign that Phin or Veda had come through the woods here which meant she’d come in the way we had. Off the road.
Frustrated I turned to head back when Pike broke through the trees. He shifted quickly. “You need to see this.”
We jogged through the trees until I saw Emerick standing on the edge of a clearing. The closer I got I realized it wasn't a clearing. Maybe never was.
I slowed my jog stopping suddenly when green grass gave way to charred earth. And a fucking crater. I guess now we knew what happened when Veda’s power erupted without Phin to stop it.
I squeezed my eyes shut. If Phin didn't stop this then-
“Boss.” Emerick’s voice was hesitant. “I found this a few yards away.”
He held something wrapped in leaves. “I’m not sure what- I’ve never actually seen one.”
The look in his eyes was shaken and it set my nerves on edge. My beast stretched and pulled at my skin but I pushed it aside and reached out to move the leaves apart.
No. By the fucking moon, no.
“It’s a reaping beetle, isn't it?” Emerick’s question sent skitters racing down my spine and my wolf howled.
Pike leaned over Emerick’s hand to look and jerked back cursing.
He turned back to me fury in his eyes. I nodded. “We’ve gotta find Sai. Before the territories fall.”
Turning one last glance on the destruction behind me, I took off with Pike and Emerick’s wolves flanking me.
We made it back to the house to find Jericho’s and Ozias waiting impatiently.
A wolf laid at their feet, leg shattered and covered in blood and ash. Even if I hadn't smelled him, the dark coat told me this wasn’t Phin. I leaned down and grabbed the male by the scruff and snarled. “Shift. Now.”
Two milky white eyes rolled as it whined and did as I commanded. Suddenly I was gripping the neck of one of the Vernon wolves that had escap
ed at Fulcrum.
I dropped him like filth at my feet and he scrambled to find his balance.
“Is he-” Jericho tilted his head to get a better look at the male.
I squatted down face to face with the traitor. “Blind. Yeah, seems like.” I slapped the wolf open palmed across his head. “What happened here?”
“Please. Please, I can’t see. He cursed me.. You have to help me” he begged.
“Oh, do I? Tell me, why would my brother blind you?”
“I didn’t want to do it. Please you have to believe me. It was just supposed to be the sentinel. But then Ivory grabbed your beta and the Din refused to stay-”
My fist whipped out cracking his jaw to stop his fucking rambling. “Where are my fucking people?”
“I don't know- I don't know- please,” he sobbed.
Ozias stepped behind him and I nodded. He pulled the males head back and snatched his throat with his claws, tearing out chunks his trachea and esophagus. I watched him choke on his blood, eyes wild and unseeing until he dropped to his side motionless.
Phin was a wolf through and through, he’d given up every aspect of his old life when he’d transitioned. It wasn’t something we’d demanded, be yourself and all that, but Phin had made it a point that when he became a wolf he’d stopped being a druid.
In almost four hundred years he’d never practiced his magic. But he’d hexed that wolf and he did it cause he was desperate.
Veda had made it out of that crater but there was no sign of Phin. There could only be one reason for that. Grief was palpable, suffocating us but no one spoke.
I raised my eyes to Oz. “You have her trail?”
He nodded scrubbing a hand across his hair. “Bay, I-”
“Not now, Oz.” I closed my eyes. “We still have a job to do. If we survive,” I swallowed down the pain rising in my throat, “we’ll deal with it then.” Cause he’d still be dead.
We left the body where it lay. Scavengers would pick it clean. Silently we loaded up and got back on the road.
Oz headed into the city winding through downtown before pulling up outside of a brick business building. The sign read “Nude Psychic Readings and Tax Advice”.
“You sure about this, Oz?”
Pike leaned over my seat. “Frank’s offices are on the second floor.”
“Veda’s boss?”
“Yup.”
I exchanged looks with Oz. “Take no chances. Someone so much as smells odd put them down.” The sound of multiple rounds being chambered filled the cabin. I cracked my neck and kicked the door open. “Alright then. Let’s get bloody.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Veda
I killed Phin. His body destroyed by mine, everything that made him incinerated by yours truly. Dhara. I was gonna be sick.
The weight of my head was too much to hold up, falling back on my shoulders as my eyes closed. My mind replayed my last memories of Phin on a loop chronicling in excruciating detail how I’d survived. Again.
Alone. Again.
When he’d slanted his lips across mine it had felt like coming home, for one moment I was safe, a piece of me I didn't know was missing slotted home.
But the power that lived in him- my power- crashed back into me. Then I was no longer in Phin’s arms but on my knees in that tent. Reaping beetles swimming under his skin where he lay next to me. They climbed the sides of the tent and likely were already traveling beyond its borders.
I’d been a stranger in my own body kneeling there, my hand gripped in his, as his wolf fought the beetles and lost. I kept his hand in mine as power unleashed from my center and I watched through new eyes while the atoms around me fractured one after another.
A blinding burst of light stole my breathe and my eyes slipped closed. A shock wave stole the sound around me. My insides felt like they had been torn away, that surely the shell of my body would collapse. I screamed and screamed and screamed.
When I’d opened my eyes again it was to a wall of dust and empty hands. Nothing remained of my wolf. Not ash or bone.
Vaughn was awful and killing him- and I did kill him- I could admit that now- killing him felt like a tragedy. Maybe not because he didn't deserve it but because neither one of us had a choice.
But Phin was different. Like losing an old friend and a new love all at the same time. It made no sense but we were connected and whatever we’d lost, I knew it was important.
I don’t know how long I stayed there in the crater I’d created. When I finally moved it was to find I’d kept my end of the bargain. I’d scorched the earth just as he’d asked.
Not knowing where we’d been held, I simply started forward. And kept walking until the charred earth gave way to trees and the trees a dirt road.
I turned onto the road and ignored the tears on my face as I kept walking. I walked until the sun dipped below the tree line telling me the earth was still in fact rotating. That even though it felt like the whole world should stop and acknowledge something terrible had happened, it didn’t.
The house seemed to appear out of nowhere, set back from the road. I didn’t stop to examine it too closely. White clapboard, dilapidated shutters.
Like I had known I could unmake the iron chains in that tent, I knew that any one of the broken doors on this house could act as a gate. The roof was sinking but it didn't matter. I would never set foot inside its walls.
I climbed the stairs and paused briefly at the graffiti message scrawled across the front of the dilapidated clapboard.
Face the Gods and Surrender to Your Destruction
Been there, got the tee shirt.
I pushed through the creaking door, through the familiar swirls of color and light and here I was, in Frank’s office.
Logically, it made sense. I spent most of my time here even when I wasn't working. It was a safe place to escape to when one needed escaping.
I hadn't gone far since opening what turned out to be his closet door. In fact, I was huddled on the floor of the closet nestled into the folds of Frank’s trench coats. I knew I should call someone; they’d be looking for me and Phin but honestly I didn't really give a damn. I was tired of this ride. The price of admission was too steep.
Suddenly the closet door was ripped off the hinges and thrown against the opposite wall. Frank’s snarl froze in his throat as he took me in. Blood and dust covered me from head to toe and if the chuffing sound he made was any indication, I smelled a little ripe.
As if he could sense how close I was to the edge, Frank lowered himself to the floor. He folded his colossal body small and set one large hand over the top of my foot reverently. “You’re alive.”
My head rolled against the wall as I chuckled darkly. “Yeah, I’m alive. More than I can say for your door.”
He looked around the office as if maybe Phin had just been hiding in the corner behind the coat rack.
I braced for him to ask me, for me to have to say it. Instead, he tapped squeezed my foot. “They’ve been searching the four territories since it happened. No one can believe the Din have resurfaced.” He looked out the window. “I should call the wolves and let them know you’re here.”
And that Phin was not. “Can you wait? Just a bit?” My eyes were pleading and he squeezed my foot softly.
“Of course, girl. We’ll wait till you’re ready.”
I nodded and let my eyes drift to the floor. Frank slid a tissue box across the floor to rest against my hip. At my questioning glance he supplied, “For your face.”
It was then I felt the wetness against my skin. I’d been sitting here crying soundlessly.
“Was it the Din?”
I shook my head.
“Ivory.” Not a question. It was always going to end in Ivory killing me. Or me killing him. Until this week I didn't think I had it in me to kill anyone least of all someone I cared for.
I shook my head again.
His normally flawless forehead crinkled with confusion.
“Me.” I r
asped. “It was me.”
His eyes softened with sympathy and no small amount of pity and I broke. Tears blinded me and he pulled me from the closet into his big arms. He held me like a child while I cried till I felt sick and my face was sore from the tears and snot.
He rocked me as I sobbed, shaking so hard I thought my bones would break. Some part of me acknowledged he gave good hugs. They were almost- almost enough to stave off heart ache.
“I wasn't there and I don't know what happened but I know you did what you had to do to survive. And I know he’d want that for you.”
You can’t save me, baby, you have to save us all.
The exterior door burst open and Frank spun with me in his arms blocking my body with his. Peeking around the edge of his trench coat my gaze collided with a pair of black eyes. Ozias stormed in behind him stalling as he got a look at me behind Frank.
“So, is she in there?” Emerick called out from the hallway. Evidently they all couldn’t fit through the doorway at the same time.
“Sentinel.’ Bay’s voice was gruff.
“Wolf.” I whispered.
Relief took the starch out of Oz’s legs and he slid down the wall next to the door as Bay approached me.
Before he could speak Frank blocked his view of my body. “Easy with her or we’ll settle that debate, son.”
Instead of bristling at Frank’s tone Bay merely nodded before crouching in front of me. Sliding his hand into the back of my hair to cup my head he touched our foreheads together.
Pike crouched at my side and took my hand in his. “We need to know everything that happened. From the moment the Din attacked. Can you do that, Veda?”
I swallowed and pulled away but Bay kept his grip on the back of my head keeping us close. It was too close to how Phin had held me before and my breath shook.
“Veda. Look at me darlin’,” his hand squeezed my neck, “Let me see those eyes, sentinel.”
Reflex had me glaring up from under my eyelashes.
“There she is,” he murmured. “Where did the Din take you?”
“I don't know, they knocked me out and I woke up in a tent.”
