Blood of the Wolf

by Holly Evans

  Alasdair parked illegally with the car half on the pavement, and we all jumped out of the car. My hand went for my knife, only to come up empty. I hadn’t retrieved a replacement, as I couldn’t take that through airport security. I felt naked. The air was remarkably still and quiet. I glanced around, looking for a witch or a fae. Alasdair came up beside me and pressed the hilt of a blade into my hand.

  “Grayson has gone around the other side of the alley. You’re with me,” he whispered in my ear before he strode up to the entrance of the alley in question.

  Bright blue wooden shop frontages with white trim sat on either side of the alley. It looked to be ancient with pale stone and white mortar, the stone itself worn smooth and soft around the edges. A heavy archway swept over the entrance. The moment we stepped through the archway, the sound hit us. I gripped the knife tighter and looked around for the magic wielder. We’d need to take them out.

  A trio of hunters had what looked to be a made elf pinned against the wall. The smallest of them, a young woman with deep brown hair and a round face, struck the elf hard in the solar plexus, causing her to groan. The two men flanked her and laughed.

  “You twisted fucks think it’s funny to outnumber and beat a woman?” I snarled.

  Alasdair had a predatory smile on his face as he pulled his knives and eyed up the largest of the men. I caught a glimpse of Grayson tackling someone at the far end of the alley.

  The three hunters turned to face Alasdair and me. The poor elf collapsed to her knees against the wall. Blood coated her pale shirt and bare legs. The biggest of the hunters, a broad older man who clearly spent a lot of time in the gym, took a step towards Alasdair. He paused when he caught sight of the sigils on Alasdair’s hands, and I ignored that particular pissing match to try and get between the hunters and the elf.

  “What the fuck are Guardians doing here?” the female hunter said.

  I flashed her a broad smile and allowed my wolf forward enough to give me the advantage of its increased strength and senses. My magic bubbled up alongside the wolf, and a small flame licked down the edge of the knife. I bottled it back up as I got within arm’s reach of the female hunter. The familiar sound of crunching cartilage echoed around the alley as Alasdair’s fist met his hunter’s nose.

  “You’re made! What are you doing with the Guardians, you filthy abomination!?” the female hunter shouted, drawing the other hunter’s attention.

  So much for my hopes of hiding the fact I was made once I was rid of the enforcer brand.

  I gave her my sweetest smile. “I’m putting you in your place, sweetheart.”

  She threw herself at me in an explosive action that came with a pair of small knives aimed at my abdomen. I side-stepped her at the last second, putting me closer to the trembling elf, and tilted my head a little.

  “I thought you called yourself a hunter,” I taunted.

  Alasdair had his hunter pinned to the far wall by the throat, leaving me with two while Grayson dealt with the magic wielder. Given the scream of anguish, I was assuming Grayson was tearing said magic wielder apart. The sandy-haired hunter whom we’d ignored thus far was a narrow wiry man with patchy stubble along his weak jaw and oil-stained jeans. He tried to move around behind me while I was focused on the female. I spun on my heel and lashed out at his throat with my knife before I stepped back to guard the elf from further attack. The female hunter landed a heavy punch to my ribs. I pushed the pain down and threw my weight into turning to face her. My fist met her throat with every bit of force I could muster. She didn’t stand a chance. Her eyes went wide as she clawed at her throat before she passed out.

  Alasdair grabbed hold of the sandy-haired one and tossed him across the alley before the hunter could drive his knife into my kidneys. I glanced down the alley to see Grayson strolling towards us as though he were sight-seeing.

  “The little witch they were working with developed a rather large hole in her skull,” he said brightly.

  With the hunters in crumpled heaps, I stepped away from the elf and gave her some room to breathe. Grayson and Alasdair stood back so she had plenty of room to run should she choose to. She looked up at us with large eyes before she bared sharp teeth and bolted. I shrugged and handed Alasdair his blade back. The fae made were often skittish and volatile, and elves were no exception. I hadn’t been expecting any thanks from her.

  Alasdair ran his knuckles over my cheek. “Are you ok?”

  I resisted the urge to scowl at Grayson’s smug smirk. “Yea, fine, only a broken rib, it’ll heal.”

  Alasdair smiled, apparently satisfied, before he headed back to the car.

  “You need to get that fire under control,” Grayson whispered in my ear as he walked past.

  I froze for half a beat before I schooled my expression into one of confusion. Fuck, were hellhounds that sensitive to fire magic? Had Alasdair noticed it? I watched Alasdair open the front door of the car. Nothing about him had suggested he was going to send me to the Council or worse. I swallowed down my fear and hoped I wasn’t missing something.

  Twenty-Nine

  We’d stopped at a drive-through and picked up three large bags full of burgers. My ribs hurt like a son of a bitch as they healed, and my body burnt through a ridiculous number of calories as it dealt with that. Alasdair kept glancing back at me in the rear-view mirror. I glared back at him.

  “What? You know how shifter healing works,” I said.

  He smiled. I looked away before I could drink in just how damn pretty that smile was when he wanted.

  “I didn’t think made shifters healed at the same pace as born.”

  I shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. How far away is this historian?”

  No born would go near me, so I hadn’t been able to compare how I dealt with things compared to them. I’d heard that made shifters were supposed to heal at half the pace of born, but there’s only so much you can learn from books and hearsay. Either way, I didn’t like Alasdair noticing the ways I wasn’t like a normal made. Frowning at the drizzle outside, I realised that as his partner, I was likely stuck with him for decades to come. How was I going to keep my secrets for that long? Grayson’s words popped back into my mind, nudging me to trust him. Sighing, I tried to think of something else. The risk was just too great.

  “Five minutes or so. We’ll go and see the priestess afterwards to make sure the witches can’t find you,” Alasdair said.

  I wrinkled my nose at the thought. Research and playing nice weren’t my fortes. I was much happier out in the field kicking ass. Still, I could help far more people as a Guardian, and that’s what I clung onto. The goddess had chosen me. I was going to make the world a better place.

  The historian lived in a beautiful house set back off the road with tall mature trees lining the short driveway. The house itself was made of red and white brick with pale cream stonework around the narrow windows. It had a spiky almost castle-like appearance to it, which made me smile. Maybe one day I could afford a place like that with a large lawn behind it where I could sprawl out and stargaze. In my daydream, it backed onto a huge forest where I could run as I pleased, too. The historian’s house was in the outer suburbs and just had a garden behind it, or so I assumed. I couldn’t see any sign of a great forest, at least.

  Grayson nudged me with his elbow as we walked up to the front door. “Why do you have a goofy smile on your face? You didn’t strike me as the research type.”

  I shrugged and pushed my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Just happy to be a Guardian, I guess.”

  He grinned at me, and I was struck with the ease with which he did that. His mouth pulled up into a broad genuine grin that made his eyes shine. I couldn’t help but smile back, and, for the first time since Brodie, I was relaxed around someone. Grayson’s expression stiffened a little and he took a small step away from me as his gaze flicked to Alasdair. I looked down. Of course - I was Alasdair’s partner. Shifters were very territorial, and Grayson likely didn’t want to tread on Alasd
air’s toes by seeming too friendly with me. I ground my teeth and reminded myself it wasn’t either of their fault; we are what we are, after all.

  I’d been expecting an older man in a well-worn cardigan to answer the door. The athletic and manicured young man that came to the door was almost the exact opposite of the image I’d had in my head.

  “You must be here about the sigils,” he said, his voice rich and velvety.

  I mentally growled at myself. I needed a night to myself with someone to screw; my libido was getting out of hand. Alasdair brushed his fingers over the palm of my hand, and I could feel the sinful smirk on his face. Damn him.

  “Come in, we have much to discuss,” the historian said.

  We stepped into a brightly lit foyer with clean lines and lots of off-white. Elegant vases, which I assumed were both very expensive and very old, sat on simple white-washed pedestals. Three in total, each black with gold script running down the very centre of them. The historian led us through into the back of the house, where we entered what I assumed was his office. There were none of the dusty tomes I’d expected. It was clean with crisp edges. One of the walls was covered in a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf where everything was clearly catalogued. Small brass plaques had been stamped into the pale wood at even distances along the shelves. ‘Mesopotamian rituals’, ‘Latin inscriptions’ and so on.

  “Call me Dominic,” the historian said as he sat in a pale-grey, high-backed chair with small square feet.

  The chair seemed to embody Dominic beautifully. I kept that particular observation to myself.

  “Alasdair, Niko, and Grayson,” Alasdair said, gesturing to us each in turn before he handed over the photos of the sigils.

  I perched on the edge of a pale cream chair that I was sure was worth more than I was. Alasdair sat next to me, and Grayson positively lounged in his chair of choice as he watched Dominic look at the photos.

  “Annette had said that these were old, but she hadn’t specified. What a find, where did you take these photos, again?”

  “That’s Guardian business. If you could be so kind as to tell us the ritual they’re from, we’d be grateful,” Alasdair said with a professional smile.

  Dominic raised an eyebrow at him, his thin lips pinched, before he retrieved a trio of books from his bookshelves and flipped through them.

  I resisted the urge to tap my foot impatiently. I wasn’t made to sit still and do research. Finally, Dominic looked up from the books and grinned at us, a vicious expression that made his grey eyes look like disks of steel.

  “This is extraordinary. The sigils are a mix of Aztec, Norse, and African origin. The style hasn’t been seen in use for some five hundred years, back when the shadow was more prevalent and the fae had more freedom on this plane. The sigils are all tied to the shadow, the dark primordial shadow that slips between the cracks and calls to our darker, less civilised selves-”

  Grayson held up his hand. “I’m sure that’s fascinating, but we need to know what exactly they do so we can find the person using them.”

  Dominic went stiff, his lips thinned into a small line, and his hands clenched.

  “They are a work of art. They speak to the shadow god through pure shadow. They appeal to the chaos within his realm and use said chaos to draw his attention. I would say that the person using them is trying to secure a very lucrative deal with the shadow god. The sigils draw shadow into the person wielding them, although I am curious as to whether they realise they also open up small cracks that allow the shadow to come into this plane. Not the shadow you know, true shadow.”

  Well, that explained what I felt at the ritual sites. The fact my own shadow magic responded to it send a shudder through me. I couldn’t be connected to that.

  “And what happens if this person continues to use these sigils?” Alasdair asked.

  “The cracks will widen, and the person will either get their deal or the shadow god will step through and treat this plane as a playground.”

  Dominic said it with a small flourish of his hand and a roll of his eyes, as though it were nothing. I was pretty sure he’d just told us we had to stop the apocalypse.

  Thirty

  The ride over to the church was a solemn one. Dominic hadn’t given us anything we could use, but we now knew the fate of the world rested in our hands. I was expecting something exciting and heroic for my first Guardian mission. Saving the wolves fit into that. Saving the entire world felt like a bit much.

  “We’ll speak to Selene and see if she has anything more for us, and we’ll get her to hide you from the witches,” Alasdair said with a soft smile as he squeezed my shoulder.

  I’d forgotten the witches were looking into me. The day really hadn’t gone as I’d hoped.

  “Mom and Dad have dragged Tabs back into the city, so I’m heading off for a family meal. Catch you guys tomorrow,” Grayson said with a broad smile.

  I found myself reflecting his smile as my muscles relaxed. Grayson looked away and headed to his car. It took me a moment to feel Alasdair’s gaze on me. I gave him my most charming smile, the one I reserved for pissing off superiors, and walked into the church.

  “News has come from Galway, Saoirse has found the origin of the bead. You’re heading to Altensteig in the Black Forest,” Selene said as we walked into the main church area.

  “How long until we fly?” Alasdair asked.

  Selene looked up at the large window to her left. “You have four hours.”

  “Niko had a run-in with the witches earlier, can you hide him from them?”

  I didn’t like the way Selene looked at me. Her silver eyes felt as though they were inspecting the fibres of my soul. It took everything I had not to squirm.

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  With that, she turned and knelt before her altar. I bit my tongue and held back my sarcastic comment about how talkative she was and instead walked back out of the church. My mind was running over everything. I didn’t pay much attention to my surroundings. At least we had some progress on the bead, surely that would give us a concrete lead so we could save the wolves. A cold, slippery hand wrapped around my throat, snapping me out of my thoughts. A pitch-black man stood before me. His proportions weren’t quite right. The arms were slightly too long, and the torso had an oddity to the shape. My magic flared up, shadow filling my veins and fighting to be released.

  I punched the black man with everything I had. My hand went straight through him. Alasdair was fighting his own shadow man, and my throat was slowly closing under the pressure of the shadow’s grip. I glanced at Alasdair again to make sure he wasn’t looking at me before I released the shadow magic within me. They say fight fire with fire. I was going to try shadow with shadow.

  The shadow man tilted his head as he watched my hands turn black much like his. I punched him again. His fingers released my throat, and I gulped down air while fighting off the dizziness. I kicked the shadow man’s legs out from under him, allowing my instincts to take over and remove the threat. Or so I’d hoped. The bastard vanished into thin air before I could hit him again.

  Alasdair approached slowly with stiff steps as he looked around the small car park, checking for further threats. I drove my shadow magic back deep inside me and tried to appear calm and collected. Just part of being a Guardian, no big deal. Alasdair ran his fingers over my tender throat. A furrow formed between his brows as he growled softly.

  “Are you ok?”

  I grinned at him and shrugged. “Never better.”

  Had he seen or felt the shadow magic? Did he know?

  He grabbed the collar of my shirt and drove me back against the tree at the edge of the car park. He pinned me there, his lips pulled back and face barely an inch from mine.

  “Why are strange beings attacking you, Niko?”

  “Fuck if I know, why the fuck do you keep getting in my personal space?” I snarled back.

  A flicker of sadness passed over his eyes before he stepped back and marched over to t
he car. I brushed myself down and tried to calm myself. He was supposed to be the one person I could trust absolutely. Putting my shoulders back, I walked to the car and acted like none of it had fazed me. I couldn’t afford to show weakness, especially to him.

  Thirty-One

  Alasdair didn’t say a single word. We travelled to Germany in absolute silence. He kept to himself, his hands in his pockets and his gaze anywhere but on me. It was eating at me. I’d grown used to his contact, his pushing, and as much as it irritated me to admit it, I missed it. That was the first and only pack contact I’d had. The familiar loneliness was creeping back in again. I stretched out in the passenger seat and prepared for a long and tedious two-hour drive out to Altensteig. It was so much worse being in the Black Forest again. I’d missed running there. Maybe I’d be able to slip away and run for an hour or two.

  Saoirse hadn’t given us any information outside of the church we needed to speak to. I fidgeted in my seat and wondered why I was even there. Alasdair would interrogate the priest. I could have been back in Paris helping Grayson research; as much as I hated research, it was better than trying to act like I was calm and relaxed in the tense car. Alasdair was uptight, and my desire to reach out and stroke my fingers over the edges of him grew with every agonising minute. Damn pack instincts.

  “What exactly is your problem with me, Nikolai?” His voice was low and threatening.

  No one had called me Nikolai since I was a little boy. I took a calming breath and weighed up the possible ramifications of telling him, of being blunt and honest. Grayson had pushed me to trust him. He was my partner. Trust didn’t come easily, though, especially with a pushy stranger. Why the fuck did he choose me, anyway?

  “You push, and push,” I ground out.

  “And you shut me out and hide things.”

  “You’re a stranger. I’m hardly going to spill every dirty little detail of my life to a stranger.”