Conor felt nervous and also glum. He was kneading his hands together, which he never did. He made a concerted effort to stop that, leveled his light eyes on his brother, and said, “It’s about Rachel. I have to ask you…”
Troy seemed to sense where his brother was going with all this and a dark cloud lowered over his gaze. “Ask me what?” he prodded.
He bit the bullet and blurted out, “Can you tell me if she’s the one for me?”
The air thickened between them. Troy didn’t move a muscle. He just stared at his brother for a long moment and to Conor it felt like an ominous premonition.
“Conor,” he began, choosing his words carefully.
But he interrupted, “I’m asking you to use your gift of foresight to tell me if she’s my one true mate.”
“I know what you’re asking me.”
“Then tell me how long it will be before you can find the time to meditate and have a vision of the answer and let me know,” he demanded.
“I’ve already looked into it,” he returned in an unemotional tone that Conor didn’t like.
“When?”
“When we all noticed your affection towards her,” he answered honestly.
“Well?” Conor pushed.
Troy pressed his mouth into a regretful line, and Conor felt his brow furrow and everything inside of him lock up.
“I’m sorry,” Troy said. “She isn’t your one true mate.”
It was like a fist to his solar plexus. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. He felt his face flush hot with anger and realized his hands were balled into fists.
He tempered his reaction and swallowed hard, fighting for control as he fought to keep his voice steady. “If Rachel isn’t meant for me, then who is she meant for?”
“I have no way of knowing that,” he said. “I don’t have access to the hearts of mortals. You know that.”
“Then who is meant for me?” he demanded, even though he didn’t care. If Rachel wasn’t meant to be his, then he would spend his life alone. To hell with all of them, and yet he still demanded, “Who, Troy?” It was as though he needed to fight, to argue, to let the anger out and if that meant digging into his brother then so be it.
It took Troy a very long moment to inform him, “Not all of us are destined to have a one true mate.”
Everything inside of Conor, all the rage and hurt and disappointment that had just consumed him went suddenly quiet and he felt so still that he realized the true depths of his emptiness. There was nothing there. It felt like he’d been drained of his spirit, and had been reduced to an empty, dark shell of the man he thought he was.
“I’m sorry,” Troy breathed.
Conor was stunned. He didn’t respond. He didn’t even move.
Finally, he asked, “How can that be?” but it came out as a whisper, as if every cell in his body had already started receding inward to fill the void where he thought his soul should’ve been.
From out of nowhere—it was as though Conor was outside of himself, watching his reaction explode—he sprang up and slammed his hands onto the desk, angling over Troy and shouting, “How can that be, Troy?!”
Troy leapt to his feet and yelled, “I don’t create it, I see it, Conor! You asked me and I told you what I saw for you and Rachel! Nothing! I saw nothing!”
Conor could have clawed his brother’s eyes out, but instead he tore himself away from the desk and threw the office door open. He was in a blind rage, panicked and heartbroken. He flew through the cabin and when he spilled out into the fresh air, it felt toxic and devoid of oxygen.
He didn’t know where he was going. All he knew was that his brother had to be wrong. This had to be a mistake. If Rachel wasn’t meant to be his one true mate, then how could he possibly feel the way he did about her?
As he raced down the stairs and came to his parked truck, he was slammed with another heartbreaking realization.
Rachel had felt it as well, the horrible mix of love warring against an instinct that had told her this would never work out.
He needed to find her, to convince her they could make it work, that what they’d been feeling—the building emotions that had to mean something, they had to!—was real and the only thing that mattered.
But before he could jump into his pickup truck, two strong hands clamped over his shoulders from behind and spun him around. Troy slammed him against the side of the truck then grabbed his shirt.
“I’m sorry!” he yelled, his dark eyes intense, two deep pools that contained a world of sympathy. “I’m sorry!” Troy repeated.
Conor shoved him off as tears welled up in his eyes. “You, Kaleb, and Shane have true mates!” he yelled. “You just told Dean the other day that his one true mate would be here in the Fist soon! And you’re telling me that the woman who I found, who I fell in love with, will never be mine?!”
When Troy put his hands on him next, Conor expected him to slam him against the truck again, but he didn’t. Troy jerked him into a strong hug, holding him hard and tight, and that’s when Conor totally lost it.
***
“I’m not sure where Shane and Dean are, but we might as well get started,” said Troy, nearly an hour later, as he stood at the head of the oval table in the conference room of Quinn Security.
Conor could barely hold his head up. He felt drained. When his brother and king had prevented him from jumping into his truck and driving straight to Rachel, he’d inadvertently robbed Conor of his last surge of will to fight for her. He didn’t have it in him now. He wasn’t going to fly into town, storm the castle, and convince the princess to choose him. He didn’t even have the energy to excuse himself from the meeting and drive home to recuperate. Even the bathroom seemed too far away to wallow. He doubted he would have it in him to open the conference room door.
Seated across from him was Kaleb and Professor Gaylord Geer III. This was shaping up to be a very odd meeting and it hadn’t even started yet.
Conor felt Kaleb’s eyes burning into him from across the table and then he was asked, “Are you okay?” When Conor didn’t answer or even lift his eyes, Kaleb asked Troy, “Is he okay?”
Troy slid his eyes to Conor as well, but only said, “He’s listening. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us why you’ve called this meeting?”
Kaleb cleared his throat and the professor sat up just a little bit straighter in his chair, poised to share his findings.
“Gaylord here has found a viable strategy to more or less stun Dante, but we’re not going to be able to do it without Angel Mercer’s help,” said Kaleb.
Troy groaned and it seemed everyone except the professor was thinking the same thing. “There’s no way to avoid it?” he questioned. “We’re definitely going to need to involve Angel?”
Instead of explaining further, Kaleb prompted the professor and Gaylord said, “Reading through all of the folklore that I have, it’s clear that overpowering an Astral requires that one must pierce the Astral’s heart. Upon doing that, you can command the Astral to obey and they will.”
Kaleb made the argument to Troy, “Dante has combatted his every adversary by using his powers. When I mentioned this to the professor, he suggested that Dante would not have his guard up around someone he trusted. Hence Angel’s involvement.”
“Because he trusts her,” Troy supplied, following along.
“She’s our best hope,” he suggested. “We can bet that he’d love to have her back so he could very well let her get close to him. It’s an option.”
Troy mulled that over as Conor listened as if he was a million miles away.
“She’s not going to like it,” Troy mentioned, thinking out loud. “She and Jack think they’re finally free of this thing.”
Kaleb reminded him, “No one will be free until Dante is out of our lives, and this town, for good.”
“I agree,” he said. “So if I understand you correctly, Professor, once Angel pierces his heart, then she can command him to do… what?”
<
br /> “My sense,” Kaleb began answering on the professor’s behalf, “is that she can simply command him not to resist and chain him up.”
“Can’t he slip out of this dimension and into the next?” Troy smartly challenged. “Isn’t that how he’s been able to appear and disappear? Lucy has the same ability.”
“True,” he allowed. “But Gaylord found another trick to handle that.”
“I have,” said the professor as he stood and angled over one of the many large books he’d brought with him. “I’ve found specific commands that should do the trick. They’re in Latin,” he added as if that would somehow authenticate his findings.
“It’s worth a shot,” Kaleb said optimistically.
“We have to know it will work,” Troy insisted. “If we’re going to ask Angel to get within spitting distance of Dante, we’re going to have to be absolutely sure that this plan will work. I’m not going to put her life in jeopardy, and I think we all know that if Dante catches on that he’s about to be tricked, he won’t try to mind control her. He’ll kill her.”
Kaleb pressed his mouth into a hesitant line. Whatever was on the tip of his tongue to suggest, he was thinking good, long, and hard before sharing it.
After a long moment, he finally said, “We can try it on Lucy.”
“What?” Conor hissed from across the table as he lifted his eyes and glared at his brother. “You would pierce her heart?”
“It’s not fatal,” he informed him. “Is it, Professor?”
“No, it’s not fatal. If it was, then that would be the recommended method of killing Dante in the first place.”
It still didn’t bode well and Conor couldn’t stop himself from glaring at Kaleb. His brother had found his one true mate. Hell, he’d been lucky enough to have a one true mate, and now he was taking it all for granted? He would piece the heart of the love of his life? Just like that? He would volunteer Lucy? What if this didn’t work? What if piercing her heart actually was fatal? What then?
It suddenly felt like Kaleb was a stranger. Conor couldn’t look at him. They were all strangers. He ran his large hand down his face and tried to get some air into his lungs.
“It’s the only way, Conor,” Kaleb argued, but his brother had already dropped out of the conversation. “What the hell has gotten into him?”
“Leave it alone, Kaleb,” Troy ordered and there was a lull in the room.
Before the strategy could be discussed further, Conor heard footfall coming through the cabin, his brothers’ scents filling the air. Troy must have smelled Shane and Dean as well, because he opened the conference room door as they rounded through.
“Got your messages,” Dean mentioned as they piled into the room and sat beside Conor. “What’s with him?”
“Never mind what’s with him,” Troy said hotly. “Where were you?”
“Doing what you asked,” Shane barked. “We followed Larry Hardcastle and Ronnie McDowell all damn night. Is there coffee?”
“I could use a coffee,” Dean agreed, seconding the notion.
“Coffee can wait,” Troy objected. “I want an update. Now.”
Shane and Dean exchanged a look, and even Conor could see the shadowy grins on their faces.
“Ronnie met Larry at his shack out on the plains late last night,” Shane began. “They got into Ronnie’s car and drove back into the Fist. You’ll never guess where.”
“I don’t want to guess,” Troy told him impatiently.
Dean leaned over the table and smiled, locking eyes with Kaleb and then Troy without immediately answering as though building suspense would make the payoff of the news even richer.
Finally, he told them, “Adelaide Marple’s cottage.”
“You’re kidding,” said Kaleb.
Troy pulled the pieces together and surmised, “Adelaide is one of Dante’s damned?”
“That was my impression,” Shane told him.
“Which means that Jake’s murder and the fire…” Troy trailed off, trying to connect the dots.
“Could be connected,” Dean supplied. “Or not. Bear in mind that we didn’t see Adelaide, or any of them, shift. And the midnight visit could’ve been about something else.”
“Right,” agreed Troy. “No one jump to any conclusions.”
But it was clear that everyone already had.
***
Adelaide was well aware of the next step. She knew exactly what to do. But without Harry, it would not be easy.
She stood at the kitchen counter and listened to the sounds of the coffeemaker brewing as she stared vacantly out the window. The sun was climbing the sky. It would be a clear, blue day, and hot. She couldn’t wait for autumn, for the crisp air and changing colors that would spatter across her backyard. By then this would all be over. She wanted to be there now, in the future, bathed in the relief that would come with having escaped the long arm of the law. She could feel it now, the inevitable investigation. Sooner or later, the police would be at her door, and that was the lucky scenario. She feared that the next knock that came might be the Quinns, here to serve as her judge, jury, and executioner.
She sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
The coffeemaker sputtered and spat, the last of its brew dripping down into the pot. She gave it another second or two, poured herself a large mug, then walked through her cottage and out the back door.
The view wasn’t enough to soothe her as she absently sipped dark roast. It tasted more bitter than she remembered, or maybe that was her anxious mood.
She stared out at the rolling hills that seemed to go on for miles and miles. She tried to get lost in them, in the peace and quiet of this place she’d called home for more than ten years, but she kept getting yanked back into herself, into her worrisome thoughts as though her trembling bones were an anchor she’d never be able to cast off.
The information had been relayed to her that the sheriff and his entire department wouldn’t be able to touch her. Apparently, this guarantee had come straight from the top, straight from Dante himself, but she hadn’t seen her dark lord since the day he’d turned her. She questioned Larry and Ronnie. Had they told her the truth? And if so, why was her ex-husband sitting in a jail cell at the station right now?
Something wasn’t adding up.
The sheriff should’ve released Harry by now if he truly was under Dante’s command. Why hadn’t he? Why was Rick still playing sheriff and toying with Harry’s life?
She reminded herself that this would all be over soon as she focused once again on the view before her.
But this time, the only thing that filled her vision was the image of his pale, lifeless face on that horrible slab he’d been lying on in the morgue.
It had broken her. It had weakened her. It had caused a thick fog to roll in, clouding her mind so terribly that Dante hadn’t had to lift a finger when he’d ambushed her.
Adelaide had always considered herself a strong woman, but the sight of her only son, her only child lying dead had sucked the life right out of her. She hadn’t had a prayer of fighting Dante off at that moment. She’d barely resisted him when he’d appeared from out of nowhere in her bathroom. He’d turned her, quickly and quietly behind closed doors as Dean had stalked around the outer perimeter of her cottage, doing another routine perimeter check as he always had done whenever they’d returned to her house.
It was only because of the dark power running through her veins—that sick darkness that Dante had planted inside of her—that Adelaide had grown the will to go against her new lord.
And where did it get her?
Dante had ordered her to turn five residents into werewolves. He’d given her twenty-four hours to do it. That command had comprised his last words to her. But she’d refused, determined to go about her life, to mourn, and to deny what she’d become.
In retaliation of her disobedience, she’d lost her store to arson…
…and when next Larry had approached her with firm warnings to join togeth
er with her ex-husband, she hadn’t a drop of fight left in her.
She wasn’t sure what else she could possibly lose. It felt like she’d already lost it all. But she’d told Larry she would do it, whatever Dante wanted; she surrendered. She still had her life. As dark and desolate as it felt, she would always fight for her own life. It was nature and inescapable.
Since Dean had left her side, satisfied that with Harry in jail she would be safe, Adelaide had managed to turn two of the town’s residents. It hadn’t been too terribly hard. One simple stop into Acorn Fashion & Accessories just before closing time and she’d managed to overpower Courtney Harrington. Next, she’d moved on to Angel’s Food where she’d successfully ambushed a poor waitress who was carrying bags of trash out to the dumpster in the shadows behind the diner.
Three more. She had to turn three more and she knew she would have to work fast. Larry and Ronnie had issued more threats last night. They’d reminded her of the timeline.
A dark force was growing in Devil’s Fist. It was spreading like cancer. And Adelaide was a horrible part of it.
But there was no turning back.
***
Just as Adelaide Marple was working up the nerve to overpower crotchety old Mrs. Yeats—she’d driven to the library and was spying the old librarian from behind a book she had no interest in checking out—Conor pulled his pickup truck along the curb across the street from the police station, trying to fill the emptiness in his soul with the recent memory of how good it felt to wake up with Rachel in his arms.
He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. All he knew was that he couldn’t stay at Quinn Security. He couldn’t spend the day around his brothers, around werewolves who had all been born into this world with the names of their one true mates sewn into their hearts. He couldn’t relate to them anymore, and they wouldn’t be able to understand how he felt. He was an outsider, alone. He felt damned. And when the meeting had adjourned, he’d known immediately that he wouldn’t be able to spend another second in the company of those strangers.
That’s what his brothers had become to him—strangers.
Nothing made sense. Everything felt wrong. He barely recognized himself. And now he was sitting in his idling truck, trying to figure out how he would ever be able to be around Rachel again without feeling this dark, desperate weight imprisoning his spirit.
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