by Lola Taylor
Secret locked up her body as she was about to shrink into the corner, making her hold her ground. Alara’s teeth gritted.
Simon froze, both hands in the air. “I never meant for any of this to go this far.” Regret briefly flashed through his eyes.
“But it did,” Alara bit out. “And you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your miserable life, however long that might be.” Quickly losing her patience and ready to get the hell out of there and away from him, she said, “Last chance. Give. Me. The. Blade.”
He shifted his weight, swallowing hard. Sweat glistened across his weathered brow. “I can’t. She’ll… she’ll kill me…”
“Not if I do it first.”
The gun went off.
Time stopped as the bullet fired across the room, straight for Simon’s heart.
As Alara watched Simon’s imminent death unfold, a black pit of horror opened up in her stomach.
She was going to kill someone. She was officially going to be a murderer. Sure, she’d assisted in the death of her father. Yes, her paws were already partially stained red, but this was different. With this, she’d never get her innocence back.
Oh God. What had Secret done? What had she done?
Her quiet moment in the woods with her mate came to mind. Killing changes you. It blackens your soul, and once you cross that line, you can never turn back.
She started forward. “No!”
The air directly in front of Simon lit up with flames, a swirling, writhing vortex of fire and tendrils of Red Magic. Simon grunted, both hands braced behind the fire shield as it swallowed the bullet. The flames grew hotter, bluer, until their indigo light literally melted the bullet. With a final cry, Simon threw the shield downward, casting aside the ruined bullet in a puddle of metal.
Alara’s jaw dropped.
This was no ordinary Red Warlock. He was supremely powerful, more so than she’d ever suspected. No wonder he had a seat on Mistress Black’s inner circle.
Panting hard and deathly pale, Simon lifted his eyes to her. Anger burned there. “You’ll regret that,” he rasped, right as he launched a fireball at her.
Alara started to duck, but Secret took over, throwing up her hands. A pit of deepest midnight tore open the air in front of her, sucking the fireball inside before blinking out.
Any color left in Simon’s face leached out of his skin. “Black Magic? You’re a Crescent. There is no dark power in your family’s line. How is this possible?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Secret said with a wicked smile. With a flick of her wrist, shadows poured out of her fingers. They snaked through the air, wrapping themselves around Simon’s head. Choking noises sputtered from the cloud, and he grasped at his throat. The cloud vanished, revealing eyes round with terror. The vibrant blue of his irises, as well as the black dot of his pupils, had been blotted out by a milky white film. As he continued to gasp for air that wouldn’t come, he began flailing his arms, almost in a paddling motion.
What did you do to him? Alara demanded, watching in horror.
It’s an illusion spell. I made him believe he was drowning—his worst fear, Secret added with a smile in its voice.
You what?
Secret shrugged it off. You’d be surprised how many Red Witches and Warlocks fear death by water. Grab the dagger while he’s distracted.
Alara scurried across the room, reaching into his jacket and unhooking the dagger strapped at his waist. Her lip curled up at the vile thing. She wondered if her family’s blood still coated the blade or if they had had the decency to at least clean it off.
Alara looked at Simon, who still swam toward the ceiling as if trying to escape an ocean of endless depths.
A small smile of dark satisfaction curled her lips as she watched him die.
Good, she thought.
She caught herself, blinking. No. No, she wasn’t going to be that kind of girl, that kind of queen. If she allowed that darkness, that anger, to take over, she knew she’d lose herself completely. And she didn’t like the idea of who she would become.
Fight, Izzy whispered at the back of her mind.
Let him go, Alara said.
No.
Yes, she pressed, reaching for the magic.
Secret immediately blocked her. We need to get out of here.
Not until you release him! It hurt to say it, but it felt right. And she trusted her gut.
Fight, Alara. Don’t let the ugliness win, urged Izzy, all innocence and goodness, the light in Alara’s darkness.
She had been so much better a person than Alara. Why did she have to die?
“It should have been me,” Alara whispered.
Come on! Secret screeched.
An alarm sounded, and red light flashed outside of the office as the sirens wailed.
Secret swore. They must have found our incapacitated guard. Time to go.
Footsteps thundered toward the office. The doorknob rattled but didn’t give, right before someone started kicking the door, hard. The reverberations rolled through the floor and into Alara’s feet.
Jerking her arms upward, Secret yelled, “Barium steelio!” A thick, smoky barrier coalesced in the air in front of the wall containing the door and the window. Outside the office, the security guards pushed past the crowd of workers and began banging against the glass with the butts of their guns, fire extinguishers—whatever they had handy that was hard enough to break glass that had been clearly reinforced and, possibly, enchanted.
That barrier won’t last long, Secret said, heading to the desk. Your body isn’t used to magic, and your energy’s draining quickly. Search the drawers.
Alara started ripping open drawers and riffling through them. So far, they were stuffed with only office supplies and documents. What am I looking for?
Let me look. I’ll be faster.
A loud boom shook the room, followed by the sound of hundreds of glass shards hitting the concrete floor. They’d broken through the window somehow. She didn’t dare look up and break Secret’s concentration as the angry mob of guards began to beat on the magical barrier Secret had erected.
Come on, come on, Secret muttered, fingers flying. A warlock this powerful has to keep a stash of—aha! With a delicate click, Secret pushed a button underneath the top drawer, and a hidden compartment slid out. Alara had no idea what all this stuff was—bottles of shimmering liquid and opaque containers containing who knew what—but Secret obviously did. Grabbing a small silver pillbox, it dumped a handful of what looked like glistening white pearls into Alara’s hand.
What’s that going to do? Alara asked.
Save our asses. Close your eyes. Raising her hand, Alara threw the pearls down right as the barrier of magic finally broke.
An explosion of light was released from the pearls the moment they hit the floor, blinding everyone around her and sending a shock wave through the air that knocked them off their feet.
Alara was instantly on the move, guided by the doppelgänger’s killer instincts. Jumping onto the desk, Alara gripped the hilt of the blade with her teeth and leapt through the air toward the window. Her body Shifted in midair, and the beautiful umber-colored wolf landed on the cold, concrete floor of the production room. Her paws slipped along the muck; digging in her claws, she found better traction and sprinted toward the exit she’d used to waltz in there.
No! Go to your left! There’s another way out!
Veering sharply as gunfire split the water near her, she banked hard and bolted down a hallway. The guards thundered after her, swearing and screaming orders into their walkie-talkies.
Just as Alara was nearing the end of the hallway, a guard burst around the corner, gun aimed for her head.
Give me control! Secret screamed.
Being cornered front and back, Alara didn’t question it. Surrendering her senses to the doppelgänger’s expertise, she marveled at what followed.
It was a bloodbath, a beautiful, deadly dance between wolf and human. The guard
was no match for her superior strength and speed. Ripping out his throat, she turned and clawed another guard, who didn’t fare much better. Blood slicked the floor, splashing on the white walls like some abstract painting.
And for a few seconds that would forever vibrate inside Alara as a warning, she relished the bloodlust. It was like being at the gym, a powerful release of anger, pain, and suffering.
Only, with Secret’s astonishing knowledge of killing techniques, the revenge she’d only dreamed of was now a crimson reality.
She was a warrior, an angel of death come to wreak her vengeance upon the evil of the Underworld.
And, for a while, she enjoyed every bloody second of it.
Some wolves had gotten drunk off bloodlust. It didn’t just happen to vampires and demons.
And they usually ended up living like rabid animals, going on a killing spree until taken down by some hunter or a larger monster.
By the time the carnage was done, Alara’s fur was soaked in blood. Its hot stickiness drowned her other senses, leaving the smell of iron and life burning her nose and tongue.
They encountered no one else and burst through the exit Secret had promised. The cornfield she’d come in from lay to the right.
The sudden rush of fresh air purged her body of the bloodlust, and she started coming down off her high. Her body shook as she lost her wolf form and morphed back into a human. The dagger slipped from her grasp as her naked body fell to the ground, her breaths coming in shaky gasps. She lifted her scarlet hands, staring at the blood coating them, which was caked under her broken fingernails. She stared. And stared and stared, unable to believe what she was seeing. She was coming apart inside. “What have I done?” she whispered. “What have I done?”
In the distance, doors burst open, and guards shouted to one another, coming her way.
Get up. We have to go before they see us.
Secret forced her up, grabbing the dagger as she stumbled toward the rows of cornstalks. Her feet seemed to catch every hole and twig. She fell at least five times, palms scraping the rough earth as Secret spurred her closer to safety. It felt as if she’d had the flu, died, and then been resurrected to be hit by a bus. Her insides felt ragged, as though someone had taken a meat tenderizer to them. The overexertion of magic had left her drained, while the guilt that split her conscience wide open left her mind feeling numb.
What have I done?
You can worry about it after we save ourselves. They fell into the cornfield, and Alara spit out dirt. Her elbows shook as she lifted her body, the soil sticking to the blood that coated her skin. Like a baby, she crawled along the earth, her feet trying to find purchase only to give out again.
It was so hard to focus, so hard to think. Every cell in her body felt fried, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Close her eyes and never wake up.
Never wake up.
She smiled a little—right before a hand shot out of the corn and grabbed her.
Nik swore as Alara’s teeth bit down onto his hand. His skin was tough but not that tough. Damn.
Pulling her to him, he said quietly into her ear, “It’s me, it’s me. Sssh. It’s okay.”
“Nik?” Her teeth let up, and she turned around to gape at him. “What are you—? How did you—?”
“Your scent, love,” he said tersely, cutting her off. “Plus, I’m an Alpha, and you are part of my pack. Though you’re blocking me for some reason, I can still sense our connection, dull as it is. I’ll always be able to find you.”
She frowned at him, and he frowned right back. “Care to explain what the hell we’re doing here?”
Her eyes looked away, and he growled a sigh of exasperation. Running a hand through his hair—which he was still surprised he was able to do, considering how long it’d been since he’d last had hair this long—he said, “It’s fine.” It wasn’t, but he wasn’t about to pry at his mate. It would only cause her to clam up tighter, and he’d worked so hard this past month at getting her to trust him. He wasn’t about to break that fragile trust now by being a prick.
Someone shouted from beyond the cornfield, and both their heads jerked around as they listened. “What’s going on?” he said quietly, tensed for battle. “There’s an alarm going off.” He listened more closely. “Wait, are they looking for you?”
“We should go,” she said, eyes scanning the rows of cornstalks.
He grabbed her and shook her. “What the hell, Alara? What’s going on? What have you gotten yourself into? You’re naked, covered in blood…” His hands began to shake.
“I had to Shift, and I can’t talk about it now!” she snapped, jerking free. “We have to get out of here!”
Before he could speak, she took off at a run toward the road. Growling curses under his breath, he ran after her until they came to the road.
More footsteps and voices followed behind them, and they did not sound happy. They had to get the hell outta Dodge before whomever she’d pissed off found them.
When she started to go left, he grabbed her hand. “Hold up. I’m over here.” Leading her down the road to the right, he pulled her down a gravel driveway to an old farmhouse. There sat his Porsche, gleaming silver and looking very out of place considering the surroundings.
Unlocking it with a beep, they got in and quickly buckled up. Nik punched the start/stop button and burned rubber out of the driveway, tires squealing and gravel pitching every which way as they gunned it down the highway.
“There’s a change of clothes, and a towel, I think, in the backseat.”
Alara immediately went for it, quickly pulling on a large navy-blue T-shirt so she didn’t flash whomever they might pass. She tugged on a pair of oversized pants without attempting to get the blood off. It looked like a crapshoot anyway. Most of it appeared dried.
The engine growled as it switched gears, and Alara laced up a pair of sneakers that looked a size or two too big. Nik made a mental note to stock more feminine clothing in the cars. They did have more female wolves in the pack now. While they weren’t a high-maintenance lot, he was certain they’d appreciate clothes that fit halfway right.
He sniffed, his nose shriveling up. “Your scent is off. It’s… sour. Like magic.” He’d always thought magic of any color made the air smell like sunbaked milk. It hadn’t been as noticeable outside, among the open sky and smells of ripe corn and freshly tilled earth. But in the confinement of the car, it was downright overpowering.
Alara didn’t speak, staring out the window.
He looked at her. Her hands were gathered in her lap.
And they were shaking.
He instantly softened, concern taking over. “Alara—”
“Don’t,” she said quietly, closing in on herself and turning farther away from him. Her hair ducked in front of her face, hiding it from view. “Please don’t.”
He wasn’t about to give up that easily. “What were you doing in a place like that?” Gently. Nonaccusatory.
She shifted her weight, leaning farther away from him.
Okay, so this was not working. Deciding to switch tactics and wait for her to open up, he looked away, and a glimmer caught his eye. At her hip was a dagger he hadn’t noticed before. He’d been too focused on all the blood coating his very naked mate.
It looked exactly like the dagger that prick king had tried to use to kill Alara…
“Where did you get that?” he started to ask but stopped. Prying clearly wasn’t getting her to open up any faster. If anything, it was driving her farther away from him.
Though patience wasn’t his strong suit and it killed him to do so, he turned around and faced the road. His hands flexed against the steering wheel in a weak-assed attempt to rid them of tension.
Magic stench. Ritualistic daggers. Secretive mate.
Something had to be wrong for Alara to lock down like this.
Was it him? He glanced at her sidelong. She still hadn’t looked at him, still continued staring out that window as if the cows and corn we
re fascinating.
His heart sped up. What had he done wrong? How had he made her not trust him so soon into their bonding?
“I wish,” he said quietly, “you would let me in, Alara. I wish you would let me help you. I wish you would trust me to let me help you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, her voice rough. Weak.
Beyond the point of caring.
A lump formed in his throat and a knot in his stomach.
“It means since we’ve been back, you won’t open up to me. You never have. Not truly. And I want so badly to help. Really, I do. But you won’t let me.”
She flinched. For a moment, it looked as if she was going to speak. Her mouth opened, she licked her lips—and then nothing. Not one damn word.
He was so fucked. God, why did he screw up every relationship he’d been in?
She’s going to abandon you. Just like Elijah, Verika, Gage, your father—
Shut up! he growled at his inner voice of doubt. Just shut the fuck up about stuff you have no idea about.
No, he couldn’t think like this, not now. Their bond was still there. Something had weakened it, yes, but it wasn’t broken.
Not yet.
And he wouldn’t let it. He would never willingly let Alara go. Doing so would be like ripping out his own heart. Unless she wanted to leave him. At which point, he’d let her go because he loved her so damn much, and he heard that was the thing you did when someone wanted out. If you love someone, you’ll let them go, and all that shit.
That thought alone made his heart start to tear and made him go cold all over.
“I’m sorry,” Alara whispered. “You’re right. You’re right about it all. I haven’t done a very good job of letting you in. For so long at Court I was an outcast. I was taught from a very young age you couldn’t trust anyone. That if you let them get too close, they’d use your weaknesses against you. They’d hurt you.” A shudder rolled through her, and she hugged herself.
He started to reach for her but stopped. God, it was hard wanting to comfort his mate but being afraid to touch her for fear he’d drive her away. “I understand completely.”
