“Aren’t you fierce? Look what happens, somebody brings you a head and then that’s all you’ll settle for.” Parker shrugged. “Sugar fairies. Whatcha’ going to do?”
“Stop flirting with me, Parker Woolven. I know you just brought your pretty bride home. What would she think of all this?”
“Honestly? She’d tell you to take me off her hands.” Parker winked at her.
“Well, if she does decide to trade you in, and you bring me DeVayne’s head, I would so go out with you.”
“You have to wear your wings.”
“Get out of here.” She rolled her eyes. “Take care of my friend.”
“She’s my sister now, so yeah, looks like that’s definitely on the to do list.”
Drew cradled Emmie closer and carried her all the way to Aphelion. Hiding the incident would be near impossible, as his clothes had been shredded and they now hung off his body in tattered rags.
But he didn’t care.
He didn’t care what anyone thought, he didn’t care if Westwood was pissed, nothing mattered but Emmie and Noah.
Entering Aphelion, he’d never been more grateful for his family. His brothers. His pack. He imagined what it would be like facing down DeVayne, Monk, and all the other threats he now faced on his own. It would be like drowning.
Mrs. Westwood appeared at his side the minute he carried Emmie though the door.
“Let’s get her to your room.”
“It was DeVayne. He was here.”
“That’s impossible.”
“And yet, he stood in front of Gin and asked for Emmie.”
Lightning crackled in a nimbus around the witch. “He has a witch, then, who must be more powerful than me. I will consult my sources.”
“Could the Okami have helped him?” Parker suggested.
Westwood paused. “Yes, he very well could have. That would give him enough power to cross the boundary, but only if he didn’t intend immediate harm.”
Drew eased Emmie’s unconscious body down onto the bed where only a few hours ago, they’d made love.
The witch scanned Emmie and sighed. “The wall is still in place, but not for long. It’s going to crumble. You need to decide. Do you want to be here with her when it falls, or do you want to kill DeVayne and Monk?”
“Why is it a choice?” Parker asked.
“What’s happened?” Blake demanded.
Westwood met his eyes. “There is something I can do, but how sure are you of your love for her?”
“I am sure. I am her mate.”
“Hers for you must be just as fierce,” Westwood warned.
And of that, he was not as sure. He knew Emmie wanted to be with him. Knew she cared for him, had acknowledged the mate bond, but she wasn’t a wolf anymore. She was human.
“I don’t know.”
“I ask, because I can give her the sleeping sickness. She will fall into stasis and only true love’s kiss can wake her.”
“What happens if…” Drew couldn’t bring himself to finish.
“She sleeps forever. Time will pass. Ages will come and go, and she will sleep on. Woolven’s very own Briar Rose.”
How did he make that choice? At first glance, it seemed like it was the right thing to do. When she awoke, all the things that went bump in the night would be dead. If something happened to him and to Lenore, Peter would never be able to terrorize her again, either.
But Noah.
Noah would be without his mother.
She wanted the wall to come down. This was what she said she wanted…
Drew clamped his hand on his shoulder. “As Alpha, I’m taking this choice from you, brother. This is not on your shoulders. For the good of the pack, put her under. Brief us on how to capture the Okami, then I need you to take my nephew to sanctuary at Academy.”
“Yes, Blake.” Mrs. Westwood agreed.
A spindle needle appeared in her hand, black as night.
“Wait! No. I will take this on my shoulders. It’s my responsibility.”
“And what do you say, brother?” Blake asked.
“Yes, do it.”
Mrs. Westwood pricked Emmie’s thumb and a drop of blood welled bright and stark against the pale pad of her thumb.
“It is done.” She tucked the spindle needle in her pocket. “I’ll get Noah.”
Drew wasn’t sure if he’d made the right decision, but it was the only decision. He’d never be able to live with himself with either choice before him otherwise. Stay with her, and send his brothers to fight his battle, or go with them and leave her to face the monsters in her head alone.
Now, she’d sleep, and maybe have some chance to rally her strength before she had to fight again.
“It’ll all work out, brother.” Blake promised him. “I swear.”
They headed toward the door, and he took one last look at Emmie. “She’ll be safe here, won’t she?”
“As safe as she can be. There is something you must consider,” Mrs. Westwood began.
“Oh, now you tell me?” Drew growled.
“Stop growling at me! Listen, as I was in the middle of telling you before you flipped shit and ran for the sweet shop, something you must be prepared for is that the Okami belongs with Emmie.”
“What does that mean?”
“Her wolf spirit is broken. The Okami, though twisted, would take its place. No, I don’t know what that would mean for Emmie. Only that we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”
Drew’s mind raced with all the possibilities and none of them ended well for anyone.
“Where are we going to find this fucker?” Warner asked from the door.
“I’ve got a location spell spinning in my laboratory.” She blinked out and was gone for several moments before she blinked back. “He’s at the old family estate.”
Blake pulled out his cell phone. “Fuel the jet. We’re going to Scotland.”
Chapter Eighteen
Emmie knew she was dreaming.
It was a strange, lucid sort of dream where the whole world was dipped in surreal colors and textures. She had to be dreaming.
Otherwise, how could the man in the cloak be standing over her bed?
She felt as if she’d been asleep for a hundred years, her eyes gritty with sand, her limbs heavy, and her lips swollen and raw, as if she’d been kissed.
Panic surged when she remembered the sugar statue of—
“No, that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. Only you. Only me.” The black ink spilled across his eyes. “Come with me, Kate. Come and see.”
“I can’t.”
He smiled at her and the black in his eyes was gone. “Yes, you can. You want to, don’t you? I have something for you.”
His face—it was familiar. She knew him. He was… her friend?
“Come with me, Kate. What I have belongs to you.”
“I don’t want it.”
Sebastian snarled, “Neither do I. I should’ve been dead long ago, but I can’t die. Not while I keep this for you. You’ve had long enough to hide. To play with Lenore. You never came back for me.”
“I don’t understand, Sebastian.”
“Come.” He held out his hand.
It was just a dream, so what did it matter? Maybe this was her mind’s way of dealing with what had happened to her? Maybe the answers really did lie with this figment of her imagination.
She got out of bed and followed the floating figure out of the house and deep into the woods. It seemed like they’d been walking for hours, but that couldn’t be the case, could it? Besides, it was only a dream.
“Step across the threshold.” He pointed to a place on the ground. It was innocuous, a little bit of nothing really.
A circle of stones.
But she hesitated. “I don’t want to do this.”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “You demanded to know. Those you love and who love you are keeping it from you. But I don’t love you, Kate. The beast in me does.”
That wa
sn’t what she wanted to hear. “Did you love me once? Because I think I loved you.”
He hissed at her. “If you’d loved me, you wouldn’t have left me with DeVayne.”
Emmie realized this was no dream. She turned to run, but it was too late. She’d gone too far and was no longer under the protection of Woolven.
The hand that reached out and grabbed her was all too real. His claws dug into the flesh of her arm, and he pulled her inside the fairy ring.
Suddenly, they weren’t in Missouri anymore.
“Bring back any memories?”
Whatever thrall Sebastian had held over her was gone. All the misty dream-like qualities were gone, and there was no hiding from the fact this was reality.
“None at all.” She wouldn’t show him her fear. Emmie had said she was done being afraid, and she meant it. The worst thing this animal could do to her was kill her. She could survive anything else. After all… she already had.
She had a son that needed her.
A mate that loved her.
Whatever happened here, it was temporary. It was fleeting.
“Then let me help you with that.” He lunged for her, but she didn’t flinch. “Oh, there’s that fight I know so well. I couldn’t believe it when DeVayne told me you’d married Breslin. It was insane. Then when you left him, and were on the run? I kept tabs on you then, too. You were so miserable, it suited my purposes.” He took her hand and led her deeper into the strange woods. “But now, I couldn’t have you settling down with that Woolven scum. Just couldn’t let it happen, Kate. But it was beyond time to give you this gift.”
She allowed him to pull her along; after all, there was nowhere else to go. At least for the moment. Not until she figured out exactly where they were.
“Still no bells in your pretty little head?” He came to a stop. “This is where they killed you the first time.” He yanked her arm and pulled her to a small alcove in a manicured garden that bordered the forest. “And this is where they resurrected you.”
Flashes of blood and torment exploded in starbursts behind her eyes.
“Anything?”
“No,” she lied.
“Here,” he dragged her toward the ruin of what had once been a lavish country estate. The house loomed like a shadow. “Is where all of DeVayne’s beasts took their turn on you.”
Remembrance flashed again and again, her body remembered the violation, even if her mind refused to acknowledge it.
“I bet you feel it right now, their rancid breath on the back of your throat. Their claws tearing at you, the howls in the moonlight while they ran you down for sport.”
The wall in her mind that had kept her safe for so long crumbled to dust and all the horror came rushing back. Only… it had happened to her, it had happened to Kate. Kate was dead. She was Emmie.
Her knees buckled and she almost fell, but she was determined to stand. She wouldn’t go to her knees in front of him. She hadn’t survived all of this to let him beat her.
“I’m not Kate. I’m Emmie.”
He roared and his eyes blackened again, the ink spilling from his nose and mouth in long, snake-like tentacles that curled around him and reached for her.
She didn’t fight, she didn’t scream, and she didn’t try to run.
Emmie had faced down things more terrible than this. The possibility of Peter Breslin catching her and her son. Noah in the hands of a hunter. This was nothing.
“I am not afraid of you.”
“Maybe not, but you’re afraid of our keeper. After all, his very presence made you faint.”
“Our keeper? I guess he needs a shorter leash,” she said with more bravado than she felt.
“DeVayne plans to refresh your memories with a reenactment.”
Her terror spiked, and she couldn’t fight it. All the things he said, the memories he’d awakened, they were demons clawing at her mind.
Then she remembered the lesson from Santorini. Her demons, she couldn’t outrun them. Not ever. The only thing to do was to face them.
She was afraid, oh so afraid. These were the things that had broken her, that had killed the woman she used to be. Would they slaughter her now, in this strange place? She wanted to say that she’d never let anything keep her from Noah, or from Drew, but some demons were too dark. Too strong.
So she let go. Opened the door, and invited them in.
She relived every awful moment, and the woman she’d been breathed her last.
As the darkness strangled her, she heard him say, “This is exactly where I’ve wanted you for so long, but now it’s going to be over much too quickly.”
He roared and the black tentacled beast that had shown himself in blinks and flashes of dark ink erupted from his flesh, tearing itself out of the meat suit that called itself Sebastian Monk.
It had a mouth full of terrible razor teeth, worse than any werewolf. This was what her nightmares were made of—not Royce DeVayne. Not the hunt. Not even when she’d been ripped apart and resurrected, no… this monster.
Its jaws detached to open wider and it tore out her throat, but not to kill her. So it could push its way inside.
The darkness was so cold it burned as it slid through her veins. The agony was indescribable, but as it looked for anything rotten inside of her, fed on her pain and her suffering, she kept one thing in the forefront of her mind.
An image of her son playing with his father. Noah’s smiling face and the way Drew looked at him.
Yes, these were the things worth dying for and, more importantly, worth living for.
The twisted spirit ate all the fear, all the terror. It devoured the memories she’d been hiding from herself, and the last of the ghost of Kate Rouen. There was no more Kate, she was finally at peace.
All that was left was Emmie, and the dark wolf spirit that fought to break free of Royce DeVayne.
Instead of fighting it, Emmie allowed it. Welcomed it and for, as awful as it was, feeling it inside her was right. Sebastian had been correct—this thing, it did belong to her. No matter how broken it was, how dark, it was hers.
And so was DeVayne’s heart. She’d rip it beating from his chest.
“DeVayne!” she howled into the night sky, the sound of her voice reverberating with power.
She was rewarded with a slow clap as her tormentor showed himself.
“Finally, a worthy hunt. I knew you had it in you, Kate.”
She hated everything about him. His clothes. His face. The sound of his voice. The stench of him. How had she not smelled him? “I’m not Kate. I kept telling this asshole that.” She kicked Monk’s dead body.
“No, you’re so much better than Kate.”
“Why?” She advanced toward him, thinking only that he smelled like prey.
“Because you’ll fight. I’ll play with you until I break you, Emmie.” He grinned, showing all of his rows of teeth, his wolf teeth. He didn’t have the good sense to be afraid. He hadn’t yet realized he didn’t control the thing inside of her anymore. “Do you want to play?”
“Yes,” she said with a smile of her own. Her skin was too tight, and her body temperature skyrocketed.
“Emmie!” Another voice called.
She turned to look over her shoulder, and she saw them, her pack. The Woolvens.
“You might want to step back,” she warned and a howl was ripped from her throat.
Drew was stricken, but she flashed him her teeth. I don’t need you to save me. She hoped he heard her and understood.
He held out his arms to hold the pack back and they waited.
“Why don’t you run, Royce?” she drawled. “I know how much you like the hunt.”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten how this game is played.” He pulled out an amulet and thrust it at her.
But it did nothing, it didn’t even tickle. “Would you like me to tell you where you fucked up?” Her voice had dropped another octave.
Royce fumbled with the amulet.
“You twisted a wolf s
pirit that was already on this plane. You merged it with the Okami—my wolf spirit. You took it and crushed it, ripped it apart, but like a dumb fuck you put it back together. Now, it and me are one again. It is mine. I am… its. You have no power over us.”
DeVayne transformed and he was like no natural werewolf. His bones hung at odd angles, and there more of them than there should’ve been twisted this way and that, he had no pelt to speak of, just a strange skin, not human and not wolf. His teeth were like a sharks, a twin set above and below, dripping with venom.
But Emmie knew she was no natural werewolf either. She was Okami, the wolf spirit. Or as some would say, the demon wolf. Just like Lenore had defeated in the dark, dark woods. Just like the pack she’d called to her defense that had destroyed the other wolves like DeVayne.
If this wasn’t poetic justice, she didn’t know what was.
“Run, DeVayne. RUN,” she commanded, the same as he’d commanded her all those years ago before he’d torn her apart.
She felt the wolves of her pack behind her, their presence, their intention. The advanced, giving her the lead, but showing their solidarity.
For a moment, she thought DeVayne would deny her the pleasure of running him down, but his human fear got the best of him and he ran.
She launched herself into the darkness after him, following his putrid scent. She ran and ran, the night wind on her sleek black pelt, the taste for blood on her tongue and she sniffed out her prey.
When she found him, she howled long and loud, calling the pack to her location.
Emmie struck the blow at his throat, and the rest of the pack pounced, tearing him limb from limb and leaving nothing left of the monster that had once been Royce DeVayne.
Or the wolf that had been Kate Rouen.
In her place, was Emmie Anderson—Okami.
When the sun began to rise above the trees, and the wolves had taken their human form, Drew grabbed her hard, and she returned the embrace just as fiercely.
“When I found out you were gone, it broke me, Emmie.”
“And this version of me, this is who you want?”
“How can you even ask that? Of course it’s what I want.”
The Werewolf Tycoon's Secret Baby (The Woolven Secret Book 2) Page 16
