The Angel Hunt
Dark World: The Angel Trials 2
Michelle Madow
Dreamscape Publishing
Raven
“I can’t believe we left Margo by the side of the freeway in the middle of nowhere, Texas,” Sage mourned the loss of her Range Rover—the car she’d named Margo—as we sped down the road.
I had a feeling she wasn’t going to get over this anytime soon, as evidenced by the way she was pouting in the driver seat of the truck we’d stolen from the coyote shifters who’d attacked us.
Except… can you really steal if the previous owner was dead? Because dead people can’t own things.
Correction: The truck we’d inherited from the coyote shifters who’d attacked us.
The coyotes certainly hadn’t intended to leave the truck to us. But after what they’d put us through, we deserved it. Because after they’d surrounded us and driven us off the empty freeway in the middle of nowhere, they’d launched an attack against Noah, Sage, and me.
Well, they hadn’t known I was there since I was hiding in the Range Rover. So the attack had been against Sage and Noah. But still. They’d cornered us and attacked us.
Noah and Sage had sworn it would be easy to defeat the coyotes. After all, two oversized, ferocious wolves against a pack of coyotes? The victor should have been a no brainer.
They hadn’t counted on one of the coyotes being a dyad—a shifter who can shift into two different animal forms. From what Noah and Sage had told me, dyads were rare, since a shifter only became a dyad when they mated with a shifter of a different species. The mating process joined both their souls together, allowing them to access both forms.
The dyad in the pack that had attacked us could shift into both a coyote and a mountain lion.
Wolves could easily beat coyotes.
Mountain lions? Not so much.
Luckily, I’d had a moment of ingenuity in which I’d downed a vial of invisibility potion and distracted the coyotes, giving Noah and Sage the opportunity they’d needed to go in for the kill.
Except judging by the way Noah was brooding at me from the back seat of the truck, he still didn’t appreciate my help. If it were up to him, I’d have stayed hidden and out of danger. He wanted me to be a damsel in distress who sat to the side and let others fight battles for her.
I was no damsel. Sitting to the side and not taking action so wasn’t my style.
But Noah had made it clear that since I was a human, he saw me as useless. I thought helping in that fight would have changed his mind, but apparently not.
Stupid, stubborn wolf shifter.
“We need more AC.” I fiddled with the knob, determined to ignore Noah’s death stares. You’d think from the way he was glaring at me that I’d tried to kill him—not save him. “This can’t be the highest it goes.”
Unfortunately, judging by the tiny wisps of air fighting their way out of the vents, it appeared that was the highest it went.
“We can always lower the windows,” Noah said. “It’ll be nice to travel in silence for a change.”
“Burn.” I rolled my eyes, refusing to allow him to get to me. “I’d regret saving your life if I didn’t need your help getting to Avalon.”
Avalon. The island the vampire psychic Rosella had told me to go to gain the strength I needed to save my mom from Azazel—the greater demon who’d abducted her.
I had no idea what a greater demon wanted with my mom. But I wouldn’t rest until she was safe.
To gain entrance to Avalon, Noah needed to present ten demon teeth to its ruler—an angel named Annika. Why he needed to do this was beyond me. Noah wasn’t a man of many words, so I had no idea why he’d been given this special task. But Rosella had told me that to get to Avalon and have the best chance of saving my mom, I needed to join him on his hunt for demons.
He currently had six demon teeth, which meant he had four to go.
So here I was. In a piece of crap pickup truck rattling down the freeway with two wolf shifters who’d made it clear that this mission would be a lot easier for them if they didn’t have me—a human—dragging them down.
At least unlike some shifters, they had control of their human sides. If they didn’t, I’d be in danger of becoming a convenient meal on the road.
I supposed I should have been scared of them. But I wasn’t. Sage was cool, and while Noah and I were constantly butting heads, he wouldn’t hurt me. He’d had enough chances by now that I knew I was safe with him.
“If you’d saved my life—which you didn’t, by the way—you wouldn’t regret it.” Noah smirked. “You like me too much.”
“I do not.” I bristled and turned away from him, keeping my gaze straight out at the road ahead and refusing to look back at him. Partly because he was irritating me, and partly because it was true.
But mainly because even if I did like Noah, it wouldn’t matter. Shifters imprinted on other shifters, and eventually chose one of the shifters they’d imprinted on to be their mate. Once they chose a mate, their hearts belonged to each other forever. They’d never mate again, even if their mate died.
Since I was a human and shifters couldn’t imprint on humans, I wasn’t in the running for Noah’s affections. At least not if I wanted to be anything more than a fling. Which I didn’t. So yeah—liking him was out of the question.
Especially since I had more important things to focus on—like saving my mom.
“You also wouldn’t regret saving my life because you owe me,” he added. “Or have you already forgotten that I saved your life—for real—from the demon who attacked you in that alley?”
“The coyote I killed to distract the others was real.” I turned back around and gripped the seat, anger blazing in my eyes. I still hadn’t grappled with the fact that the coyote I’d killed was a shifter—which meant it had a human form—but I’d deal with that another day. “It wasn’t a coincidence that you killed that mountain lion immediately afterward. I helped you in that fight, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“Maybe I should have let Eli hand you off to Azazel in that alley,” he muttered, crossing his arms and turning away from me. “It would have been a lot easier than babysitting a bullheaded human who can’t sit back and do what she’s told.”
“Bullheaded?” I raised an eyebrow. “Personally, I think ‘stubborn’ is a much better description of me. You’re the bullheaded one, since you refuse to acknowledge that I helped you.”
“And you still think you know best,” he said. “Even though you’ve only known about the supernatural world for what—a few days?”
“Stop it!” Sage snapped. “Both of you. I get it—none of us are happy right now. We had to abandon Margo for a piece of crap truck that has terrible AC, a radio that barely works, and no way to charge our phones. This is not the way a Montgomery road trips. But the two of you fighting about the past is distracting us from the elephant in the room here.”
As far as I was aware, there were only wolves in the room—no elephants. But I knew better than to voice that thought out loud.
“What elephant in the room?” I asked instead, more than eager for the change of subject.
“The fact that the coyote attack wasn’t random,” she said. “They were after me, and seeing as they’re all dead now, none of us know why.”
Raven
Of course, I thought, remembering the conversation I’d overheard between Sage, Noah, and the coyotes before they’d attacked. The coyotes had specifically said they needed Sage Montgomery to come with them.
They’d known her name, even though she hadn’t introduced herself to them.
“Had you ever met those coyotes before?” I asked.
“Never,” she said.
“B
ut they knew who you were,” I continued. “And they knew how to find you.”
“Bravo.” Noah slow clapped from his seat in back. “The human’s able to string together a few simple facts.”
“That’s rich coming from you.” I turned around, gripped the back of the chair again, and glared. I refused to take this treatment from him anymore. Not like I ever accepted it to begin with, but there was a line, and he had way over-crossed by now.
“Coming from me?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
Coming from someone who doesn’t know how to read, I thought. But I pressed my lips together, not saying it out loud. I wouldn’t stoop that low. It was too mean, despite the crappy way Noah was treating me.
I didn’t know much about his background, but it was clear that his not knowing how to read was because of how he grew up. And judging by the few conversations we’d had so far, he only left his home a few weeks ago, when he started on his demon hunt and met up with Sage.
His not knowing how to read wasn’t his fault.
But being born human wasn’t my fault, either.
“I just meant that you haven’t exactly come up with an answer, either,” I said instead. “Unless you know something you’re not telling us?”
“Now that you ask, no—I don’t know why the coyotes were after Sage,” he said. “But I do have an idea of how they might have been able to track us.”
“How?” Sage asked. “Because with our cloaking rings, tracking either of us is impossible. And we’ve both had our rings on since leaving the Montgomery complex.”
“Except when you gave yours to Raven before we fought the coyotes,” Noah said. “But they’d already tracked us by then, so that’s not relevant.”
“So how do you think they tracked you?” I was just as eager to hear his theory as Sage.
“I don’t think they were tracking Sage or me.” His gaze snapped to mine. “I think they were tracking you.”
“Me?” I choked, barely able to contain a chuckle. It wasn’t funny—it just made no sense. “Why would they be tracking me?”
“To get to Sage.” He sat back in his seat, looking mighty proud of himself for his deduction. “Whoever sent them must know we’re traveling with a human. All they’d have to do was go to your apartment and get something of yours to be able to track you.”
“Hold up,” I said, since this was getting more and move convoluted by the second. “Now not only do these people looking for Sage know that I’m traveling with you, but they know where I live?”
“It’s just a guess,” he said. “Do you have a better one?”
“No,” I said, since obviously I didn’t. The whole supernatural world was brand new to me, which made me as clueless as ever. Noah knew that.
He only asked me that question to get under my skin.
“They could be using a tracking chip,” I threw the idea out there, since it was better than sitting there like a mute idiot. “You know—the way humans track people.”
“Supernaturals don’t use technology for stuff like that,” he said simply. “Magic is far more reliable. Besides, Azazel knew where you lived. I don’t think it’s too far out there to think that whoever’s looking for Sage figured it out too.”
“What would Azazel want with me?” Sage asked. “He doesn’t even know who I am. And even if Azazel were after me, why would the coyotes work with him? They hate him just as much as we do.”
“Relax,” Noah said, although given our current predicament, it seemed impossible for any of us to relax. “I never said Azazel was after you. Maybe it’s Azazel, maybe not. The point here is that since Raven doesn’t have a cloaking ring, her being with us is putting us in danger from whoever is after you.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes. “It always comes back to another way I’m messing up your mission and putting you in danger.”
“Don’t take it so personally,” Noah said. “Especially since unlike you being human, this problem has an actual solution.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “What solution is that?”
“It’s simple.” He smirked, and I cursed my heart for the way it pounded harder when he looked at me like that. “Once we get to New Orleans and go to the witch there, we’ll get you a cloaking ring of your own.”
Flint
I paced around my room—the master bedroom in the Montgomery compound—glaring at the phone in my hand.
The first bits of light were starting to peak over the tops of the Hollywood Hills outside my window, but I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep all night. Because the coyotes should have contacted me by now to let me know that they had Sage and were on their way back to LA. There shouldn’t have been any problems. The plan had been airtight.
After all, there had been no question which route Sage, Noah, and the human were taking to New Orleans. Straight east on the 10. And that road got pretty deserted all the way out in the middle of nowhere in Southwest Texas. Especially at night.
The coyotes—plus that handy dyad mountain lion of theirs—should have been waiting to ambush them the moment they spotted the Range Rover. They were to take Sage, kill her companions, and bring her to me.
I’d offered such a generous monetary reward for the completion of the task that they’d jumped at the job. Coyotes were such a greedy, pathetic, predictable bunch.
I’d tried calling their leader, Wyatt, multiple times to check in and see how it was going. Each time, it rang through to voicemail. He was ignoring me. The question was—why?
I picked up the phone and called Wyatt again.
It rang through to voicemail. Again.
Rage coursed through my veins. I gripped the phone tighter, seconds away from throwing it against the wall.
But that wouldn’t help anything. So I took a deep breath and thought about this logically. Wyatt’s number wasn’t the only one I had from the coyote pack. In case of an emergency, he’d given me the number of their matriarch, Glenda. According to Wyatt, Glenda was so old that she couldn’t fight anymore, and she kept herself on top of all the drama of their pack.
I searched for Glenda in my contacts and called her.
She picked up on the first ring. “Hello?” Her voice was low and gravelly—not what I’d expected.
“Is this Glenda of the Southwest Texas coyote pack?” I asked.
“This is she.” She left it at that—I wasn’t sure if she knew who I was or not.
Best to state my business, and state it quickly.
“This is Flint Montgomery, alpha of the Montgomery wolf pack,” I started. No need to specify that the pack was in LA—every shifter knew that the Montgomery pack was in LA. “Some of your boys are out doing a job for me.”
“I know who you are.” She sounded sharper now. More on edge. “If you called to apologize, forget it. And don’t call back here ever again.”
“Wait!” I yelled into the phone, afraid she was going to hang up.
I glanced at the screen, relieved to see she was still on the line.
“Yeah?” From her tone, I could practically imagine her giving me one hell of a nasty side-eye.
“I should have heard from Wyatt by now, but I seem to be unable to make contact with him,” I said, returning to my default way of speaking. Cool, relaxed, and in control. “Do you have any updates on his status?”
“You haven’t heard.” Her voice was flat. “Of course you haven’t heard. How could you have?”
“Haven’t heard what?” I froze, my lungs tightening with dread.
“Wyatt’s dead,” she said simply. “All of the shifters who went on the mission with him are dead.”
“What?” I asked, shocked.
“You heard me,” she said. “I felt their life forces die out about two hours ago. I don’t know what type of mission you sent my boys on, but it killed them. All of them.”
I didn’t speak for a few seconds, too stunned to respond. There was certainly no need to ask how she knew they were dead. Pack
mates had a spiritual connection to each other. When one member of the pack died, the rest of the pack felt their soul disappear. It was cold when it happened, like falling into icy water and having your lungs robbed of air. The feeling only lasted for a second, but when it happened, it felt like the longest second of your life. And we instinctively knew which member of the pack had just lost his or her life. It was impossible to describe how we knew—we just knew it in our bones.
Wyatt and the others were dead.
Sage was still alive.
I was glad my sister was alive, but her being alive meant only one thing—Sage, Noah, and that wretched redheaded human traveling with them had killed the coyotes. All of them. Even the mountain lion dyad.
I knew my sister was a strong fighter, but damn. As angry as I was that Wyatt and his boys had failed, I was impressed by her skills.
Hopefully Azazel would be impressed, too.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I told Glenda, even though I couldn’t care less. “I’ll respect your wishes and won’t call again.”
Why would I call again, when her pack was a bunch of imbeciles who couldn’t manage to take down two wolf shifters and a human, even with a mountain lion on their side?
I hung up before she could reply and threw my phone onto my bed, pacing around my room some more while running my fingers through my hair. It was a relief that Sage was alive, but my sister sure wasn’t making this easy on me. She was probably nearly to New Orleans by now.
If she were going to any other city, I could send another pack to ambush her. But not New Orleans.
Because New Orleans was home to the rougarou. Fierce fighters, all of them. They were the only wolf pack in the entire country as strong as mine.
Needless to say, the rougarou and the Montgomerys were not on good terms. We had a deal—we’d stay out of New Orleans, and they’d stay out of LA. It was risky enough that Sage was venturing onto their territory. With her cloaking ring, they wouldn’t know she was there, but it was still dangerous.
The Angel Hunt Page 1
