by Alisa Woods
Jak was doing his best homeless person impression, including ragged clothes and a long trenchcoat to hide his weapons, huddling under a couple layers of cardboard in an alley across from the walkup. His vantage point was excellent, and absolutely no one looked at him, no on purpose at least. But it was quickly getting cold and dark, and his ass was numb from cuddling up to the pavement in the stench-filled alley.
All of it paid off right at sunset. As the sky flamed overhead, the two hunters, still sporting their gray hoodies, skulked down the sidewalk and up the four steps to the front door. One had a bandaged hand: the one Jak had crunched in his jaws when he disarmed the hunter earlier in the day. As they keyed themselves in, Jak sprang into action, crossing the street before they could make it past the threshold. He barreled into them, shoving them inside. If he was forced to shift, he wanted to do it off the street.
The hunter with the bandaged hand fell face first into the tiny living room while the other one rolled on his shoulder going down. Jak slammed the door behind him and tried to draw his guns, one in each hand, but the bandaged hunter swung up from the floor and charged him. Jak almost shifted, but then he would lose the guns. The hunter grappled with Jak, gaining a hand on the pistol and punching at Jak’s face with his wrapped hand. Jak’s shifter strength worked in his favor, but he didn’t understand why the hunter was tackling him. He had to know Jak could shift and rip out his throat. It made no sense to go hand-to-hand with a shifter, unless… it was a distraction.
Jak dropped his pistol, yanked the hunter close with his free hand, and pivoted to use him as a shield. Three soft pops sounded, and darts intended for Jak sunk into the hunter’s chest. The dart-gun-wielding hunter’s eyes went wide. He dropped to the floor, scrambling after Jak’s pistol, which had clunked across the dusty carpet. Jak’s human shield crumpled to his feet, and Jak lurched after his pistol as well, but the second hunter beat him to it.
A shot rang out, and hot metal tore through Jak’s arm.
He roared and shifted. His fangs ripped the gun from the man’s hand, along with a good chunk of his flesh. When Jak shifted back, he still had the gun in his mouth: he dropped it into his hand. His clothes lay in a heap next to the man, who was clutching his bloody hand to his chest while he cowered on the moldy oriental rug. Jak wiped a smear of the hunter’s blood from his face and glanced at the mess that was his shoulder: it was a clean shot through-and-through, and it seemed to have missed the bone. It would heal soon enough.
“You know, what?” he said to the man on the floor. “That really fucking hurts.”
The hunter just shook, clutching his hand closer.
“But I’ll get over it.” Jak raised the pistol to point at the man’s head. “You, on the other hand…”
“No, wait!” The hunter’s hands flew up, like he could ward off the bullet that way. “Come on, man, just tell me what you want.” He was shaking pretty good, and now that Jak had a look at him, he was about Jak’s age—twenty-four, give or take a year. Jak took two steps forward, the gun barrel drilling a line of sight into the hunter’s skull. He edged back, still on the floor, hands up.
“I want to know who hired you to bag a couple wolves at UDub this morning.”
The hunter swallowed and looked at his fallen partner. “Dude, she’ll kill me. You know how crazy witches are. She was just out for some blood, that’s all. Just bag and drain and…” He stalled out. “We would’ve let you go after that.”
“Sure you would.” These assholes would have let the witch carve up Arianna, and that made him want to pull the trigger right then. But he needed answers more than he needed to vent his anger. Jak stalked forward and pressed the tip of the gun against the man’s head. He shrunk back and trembled. “Now how about you stop shitting me and tell me the truth? Because I’d be happy to put a bullet in you. Or maybe shift and tear you apart one small piece at a time, if you really piss me off.”
“Hey, man, come on, be cool… I’m telling you the truth. I mean…” He swallowed. “Okay, okay, we weren’t just after your blood, we were going to bring you in. The witch was looking for parts. The girl’s heart in particular. It wasn’t personal, dude, I swear, it’s just… that’s what the lady wanted, and I’m not going to mess with a witch, you know?”
Jak understood that much. He didn’t know half of what witches could do, but what little he’d seen was brutal and painful, at least for the wolves involved. Witch magic was powerful and mysterious… and all that power tended to make them a little crazy in the head. Like cats playing with mice, witches had their own reasons for tearing people apart. And they didn’t need a good one, either. They did that shit for fun.
But who was this witch? And how did she know about Arianna? Or Jak, for that matter…
“You know,” Jak said, “maybe I’ll just get on the darknet sites, post your address, and mention that you’ve screwed a witch out of her wolf score.” Someone already outed the hunter online, which meant he’d been in the business a while. If word got out he’d double-crossed a witch, maybe trying to sell his booty on the black market… well, Jak wouldn’t want to be him. “I don’t think it will take long for your witchy friend to find you. I’ll just sit back, watch while she fries you like an egg, then get what I want from her.”
“No! Wait… come on, man!” The hunter looked like he was about to piss his pants.
Jak eased back and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. I get the witch either way.”
“Okay, okay…” His hands were up again, imploring. “I can tell you her name. But you gotta give us time to clear out, okay? I mean, go ahead and go after her, I got no problem with that.” He pressed his hands to his chest. “Better for me if you take her out, right? Otherwise, it gets back to me, and I’m sunk. Just… give me and my partner time to clear out of Seattle. The witch community here… they talk, man.”
“Oh, I know they do.” Jak gestured to him with the gun. “Tell me her name, and I’ll take your proposal under consideration.”
The hunter grimaced. “She’s a really powerful witch, man. I’m just saying… you probably don’t want to mess with her…”
“Name.”
He swallowed then seemed to force the words out. “She calls herself Hecca. That’s all I know.” He was shaking his head, sadly, like he thought he had just signed his death warrant.
And it was quite possible he had.
Because Jak knew Hecca—she was one of the witches Red Wolf kept on retainer for their “special projects.” If she had betrayed the pack, there was going to be serious hell to pay for that. Possibly a full out witch-wolf war.
“Thanks,” Jak said. “You’ve been very helpful.” He stepped back, scooped up his fallen dart gun, and pumped the hunter full of darts, just like his partner.
The thing was… Jak believed him. Hecca was too powerful a witch for the hunter to call out for no reason. But it didn’t make sense for Hecca to sell out the pack, much less Arianna. Female wolf hearts were valuable, but nothing like the business Hecca did with Red Wolf on a regular basis. There was something deeper going on here, and Jak had to figure it out… before he tipped off an all-out war.
If the hunter was lying about Hecca being the source of the hit, Jak would be back to claim another chunk of flesh in search of answers. The darts wouldn’t hold them long, but they would at least stay put for a while.
Long enough for him to call on a certain witch.
Jak pulled on his clothes and strolled out of the apartment, leaving the bounty hunters unconscious on the floor like the trash they were.
Jak strode out of the elevator onto the thirty-fifth floor: Morgan Media and Art took up the entire wing with a glass barricade and an imposing reception desk between the public entrance and the company inside. Morgan Media was a successful social media management group, well-known in Seattle for performing near-magical feats of social awareness ad campaigns for their clients. Only a few people knew that Morgan was actually a coven of witches, and their combined mag
ical strength was no small part of Morgan Media’s success. Social media was only one part of their empire—they trafficked in all kinds of dark arts, playing the field far and wide, everything from helping law enforcement identify shifters to helping shifters evade exactly that kind of detection. They were amoral, powerful… and it was precisely Jak’s need for a very dark art that had him venturing deep into the heart of Hecca’s world.
The rail-thin blonde at the receptionist desk was so beautiful, Jak had a hard time tearing his eyes away. He had only seen Hecca a couple of times, but she was supermodel gorgeous as well—it was rumored that all witches used dark arts to enhance their beauty, and the receptionist was no doubt part of the coven. If she had been human, Jak might have tried to charm his way in to meet with Hecca. Instead, he kept his distance, stopping a good half dozen feet away from the desk. The spells she could cast were dangerous enough, but a witch’s touch accessed the very deepest of shifter magic… something that precluded a friendly handshake, in any event.
“I’m here to see Hecca,” Jak said without preamble. He hadn’t called or messaged ahead—the pack’s usual method when contacting the witch for her services—but then he wasn’t exactly here on pack business. If the hunters were telling the truth, and Hecca had been behind the hit, then Jak suddenly had unique leverage against a very powerful witch… leverage he planned to use to find a way to break an unbreakable magic bond.
If the hunters were lying, Jak was taking a huge risk… but Hecca could scarcely afford to kill him in her office, not while his pack was expecting his return from the bounty hunters. If he went missing, his pack would come for him… and find Hecca in the process. Jak just hoped his scheme wouldn’t inadvertently set off a war between his pack and Hecca’s coven.
“Ms. Morgan’s not available,” the receptionist said. She lifted her pointed nose and gave him a disgusted look. “She only meets with shifters by appointment.”
He didn’t know what magic she had used to detect him—normally even witches couldn’t detect a shifter without a spell—but maybe he had given himself away by barging in. And by using Hecca’s witch name, instead of her human façade: Ms. Elizabeth Morgan, social media princess.
Jak glowered at the receptionist but didn’t venture any closer. “She’s available for Red Wolf. That’s the definition of a retainer. Or perhaps you’d like to explain that you turned away one of her best clients?”
The woman pursed her glossy-red lips and slowly rose from her seat. She was tall—he’d heard that all the witches were—and her six-inch heels made her even taller than Jak.
“Please wait here.” She gave him a cat-eating-mouse smile then sauntered to the frosted glass door leading to the interior of Morgan Media, taking the jasmine scent of her perfume with her. Jak was tempted to stalk after her, but he didn’t want to give the impression he was here to cause trouble: Red Wolf and Morgan were business partners, and this was just a business call. At least, that’s what he needed the office to think—he was already walking a tightrope, he didn’t need to put the whole coven on alert.
Not if he’d like to come out of this alive.
The receptionist returned with a dark-haired witch Jak didn’t recognize. She was curvy—hips swaying under the clingy red silk of her dress and an ample chest bouncing under fabric that barely restrained it—but that was where the softness ended. Her face was carved from porcelain, all angled lines, high cheeks, and perfectly-pale skin.
She strode up to him, confident in her power-red heels. He almost objected to being handed off to some low-ranking witch, but the way her glittering blue eyes were raking over him gave him pause. They were alive and intelligent and had a small glimmer of… something. Curiosity? Attraction?
He swallowed. He couldn’t afford to have a witch—any witch, even a low-ranking one—be overly interested in him. Not in that way. Usually witches and wolves mixed like gasoline and campfires, but he’d heard of witches who had a taste for shifters and kept them as pets. The shifters—usually males—were kept imprisoned under some kind of love spell. The witches used them for sex toys, and when their captors tired of them, they slowly bled the shifters of their magic-filled blood.
It was a particularly pathetic and disgusting way to die.
“I’m Circe, Hecca’s sister,” the witch said, her gaze still lingering uncomfortably long on Jak’s body.
Sister? Why was Hecca sending her sister out as an advanced scout? Jak didn’t know Hecca even had a sister, although witch families were often primarily female. Male witches were as rare and sought-after as female shifters. Circe had the same waist-length sheet of flowing black hair as Hecca, only with a red streak of tint down one side, instead of Hecca’s purple.
“You’re one of the Red Wolf pack, aren’t you?” she asked, curiosity enlivening her face. “Please… tell me what Morgan Media can do for you today.”
Jak frowned. Circe’s overly friendly tone was completely the opposite of Hecca’s normal arrogance… and it was sending warning signals crawling up his back. But he needed to get through the advanced guard as quickly as possible.
“Can we speak in private?” Jak asked, throwing a frown at the openly curious face of the receptionist watching them.
Circe fluttered her fingers, and the receptionist witch practically levitated out of her chair and scurried from the room in a blur of heels and whispered silk.
“Now that we’re quite alone,” Circe purred, “what can I do for a handsome wolf like yourself?” Her gaze kept dropping to his tailored pants.
Jak swallowed again and hoped he hadn’t made a terrible mistake in coming alone. And without actually telling his pack. “Look, I really need to talk to Hecca—it’s a matter that concerns her. And her alone.”
“Hecca is out of town at the moment.” Circe stepped closer, wafting her spiced clove and sage scent past his nose. “But my sister isn’t the only powerful witch at Morgan. I’m certain I can give you whatever you desire, wolf.”
She reached out with just a single red-nail-tipped finger. Before she could touch his face, he stumbled backward, out of reach. That finger was more dangerous than a loaded gun: a bullet he could recover from.
The witch chuckled. It was a dark sound, and it filled Jak with chills that sent his wolf whining. Something wasn’t adding up here. If Hecca put the hit on him, why wasn’t she in town to take possession of the goods—he and Arianna? Maybe her sister was in on it… although she certainly wasn’t acting like she had expected bounty hunters to show up this morning with his body.
“I have some personal business with Hecca,” Jak said, regaining his composure but keeping out of arms’ reach. “When will she return?”
Circe sauntered closer, forcing Jak to edge backward until he bumped up against the receptionist desk. Her red-lipsticked smile grew more lecherous. “Hecca will return tomorrow. But what is the nature of your personal business? I have to say, you’ve aroused my curiosity, wolf. And my sister isn’t quite as fond of shifters as I am… I’m sure whatever you want, I’ll be much more inclined to strike a deal with you. You might even enjoy it.”
“I’m not interested in that kind of deal.”
Circe gave an elaborate pout. “You wolves really aren’t any fun outside of bed.”
Jak fought off the chills that were racing up his arms. “I have a message for Hecca: I know about her extra-curricular activities, but I’m willing to strike a deal to keep that knowledge under wraps. If she wants that to happen, she should call me as soon as she returns. Do you think you can deliver that?”
Circe arched her pencil-thin eyebrows. “You’re threatening my sister? You are a bold one. I like that.” She licked her lips, sending more shivers down Jak’s back.
“It’s not a threat,” Jak said carefully. “It’s an opportunity to avoid some… complications that I doubt Hecca, or Morgan Media, would like to deal with.”
Circe’s leering stopped for a moment, and she frowned. But Jak wasn’t saying any more until he could
deal with Hecca directly. Before Circe could corner him or grill him any further, he turned and hurried out of the witch’s lair as fast as his legs would take him.
The waiting was killing him.
Jak knew there was no point in pacing, but his legs carried all his agitation, and he couldn’t keep them still. He was wearing a path through his room, from the door, to the window, and back to the bed. In each pass, he scoured Mace’s house with his gaze, looking for a shadow passing by the lit-up windows, but the shades were drawn, and he couldn’t see anything. His wolf snorted and pawed the ground, insisting that Jak go and check on Arianna, but there was no plausible excuse for it. She was back inside Mace’s domain… and Jak didn’t know if Mace would ever let her leave. Add in that Hecca wouldn’t return until morning, giving him no way to explore alternative options for freeing Arianna, and Jak’s wolf was clawing at him from the inside, wanting him to relieve the tension by doing something.
A pounding at Jak’s door almost made him shift with the sudden jolt it sent through him.
He strode over to answer it, heart hammering, but it was only his alpha.
“The boys and I are going out to the club,” Gage said. “Come on, Jak, you could use some blowing-off time. It’s been a helluva day.”
“You are not kidding.” Jak sighed out some of his frustration. But the last thing he could stomach at this point was an anonymous hookup with some random brunette… and his alpha would almost certainly find someone for him. And insist he take a bite. “Look, those hunters are still on my mind. I think I’m going to take another swing by their place, camp out for a while.” Jak had already lied to his alpha once today, telling him the hunters had never showed, but a second lie, face-to-face, still twisted his gut. He would tell Gage the truth eventually… just not until Jak had sorted everything out. And used his temporary leverage with the witches to figure out a plan for getting Arianna away from Mace.
