Hungry Like a Wolf

by Jessica Lynch

  A wolf. The bastard was a wolf.

  It was bad enough he was a shifter who was using their supposed status as mates as an excuse to keep her locked in a cage. But why did he have to be such a… such a predator? She might’ve been able to handle a rabbit shifter, or a harmless little hedgehog, or even something sweet like a puppy dog if the circumstances had been different. But a wolf? Territorial, possessive, and with a skill at tracking he’d already proven.

  She was so screwed.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. But I called for a reason, not because I wanted another lecture, alright?”

  A pause.

  “Good. Listen, turns out that the cabin’s a wash. She doesn’t remember it and she’s already made a break for it once. It’s too dangerous. It’s making my wolf restless, too. It knows what was supposed to happen here and it just doesn’t understand why we both have to wait.”

  Evangeline cringed, then pressed her ear closer to the door. It was smashed up against her skull and still she pushed, eager to hear what he was saying.

  Now that she knew he thought she was his mate, she could guess what his wolf was waiting for.

  Hell freaking no.

  Maddox sighed loudly. “Sure. Okay. But, listen… remember when I had you get that stuff from Wolf’s Creek? Uh-huh. You got it? Thank fucking Alpha. It’s a back-up plan, but the only one I’ve got, so this is what I want you to do—”

  The heavy cadence of his steps echoed and faded as he started down the hall again. His voice became nothing but a buzz of murmurs and muttered orders before Evangeline couldn’t hear anything from him at all. A few seconds later, she heard the door slam. He’d gone into his bedroom.

  That was one good thing.

  Evangeline stepped back from the door, a strange feeling—an empty feeling—washing over her.

  A good thing… right?

  She shook her head, hobbling back toward the bed. She was stuck, just like she figured, all alone in an empty cabin out in the middle of the woods. It was like the set-up to a bad horror movie. No one would be able to hear her scream. But if she managed to get her hands on his cell phone…

  Evangeline’s pulse settled. She felt a lot better knowing that at least one of them had a phone. The second he let down his guard, she’d snatch it from him, then she’d get the hell out of there.

  Because now that she knew why he wanted her so badly? She had to escape before she started to buy into his obvious delusions.

  Colt hung up his phone and slipped it into his pants pocket with one hand. He pinched the bridge of his nose with the other.

  One day. His brother had followed their plan for one day. Not even a day. Now he wanted to give up on the cabin, trading it for the only home that anyone could trace to him? He had to be kidding.

  Only Colt recognized that tone. That was Mad’s Alpha voice which meant that he was deadly serious. That was his obey-me-or-else voice. As soon as Colt finished this late night meeting, he’d have to check in on his brother and see if Maddox could be reasoned with.

  Slamming his truck door shut, Colt snorted.

  Why the fuck had he thought Maddox could keep a clear head around Evangeline? His brother was thinking with a head, all right, but it certainly wasn’t the one sitting on top of his shoulders.

  He should’ve known better. To be honest, pushing Maddox to run off with Evangeline was a clear sign that Colt probably wasn’t doing his best thinking, either.

  What he was about to walk into? Probably the biggest hint that, somewhere in the last week or so, he’d lost his ever-loving mind.

  The building he was standing in front of was one of a trio of skyscrapers that lorded over the city of Coventry; aptly named for the main power in town. His instructions were to go to the middle one and stop at the receptionist desk. So long as he had payment, he’d be let up to the top floor.

  If you were oblivious to the witches’ presence and power in the large integrated city, no one could blame you for not knowing that the building was the headquarters for the local witch’s coven. Except for the purple accents displayed throughout the first floor, there was no other clue that this was coven territory.

  Well, if you were oblivious and an Ant. As a shifter, Colt picked up on the magic before he even stepped a toe inside. The sweet scent of baby powder overlaid everything, coupled with a jolt of electricity that made his fur stand on end.

  Shaking it off, he headed straight for the young male witch at the desk. Like every other witch Colt had ever met, this witch proudly wore his purple eyes out in the open. In the years since the Paras stopped hiding who and what they were, the witches had earned the best reputation. They didn’t have to hide anymore and most didn’t.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’m here to see Luciana.” Colt flashed the diamond in his palm. “She’s expecting me.”

  It was a full carat, worth more than three grand. It should’ve been enough to hire a handful of witches except, for some reason, his name came up on the coven’s blacklist. Not a single witch would take his job. And since he couldn’t get in touch with Maddox’s witch, his brother’s longtime friend Priscilla Winters, Colt had to do something he absolutely hated.

  He had to grovel.

  To add insult to injury, just arranging to meet with the head witch of the local coven was obscenely expensive. She wouldn’t even let him make an appointment to see her without the promise of payment. And a witch didn’t take cash.

  The male witch nodded. Colt was willing to bet that the guy knew the worth of the rock in his palm at a glance. It was nice to see he passed muster.

  “Take the first elevator to the top floor. Madame is waiting for you.”

  Colt folded his fist. “No stairs?”

  “Just the elevators, sir. They’re run by magic, though. You don’t have to worry about them going out.”

  That wasn’t what he was worried about.

  “Yeah.” He ran his hand through his short hair. “That’s fine. Thanks.”

  A short elevator ride later—that seemed longer with his wolf whimpering at the metal confinement he could rarely tolerate at the best of times—Colt found himself entering one hell of an office.

  It was made of windows, each one warded with enough magic to make his back teeth ache. Everything inside was either black, white, or gold; no need to overdo the purple when one look at the woman sitting at the massive black desk in the center revealed that she was a powerful witch. At least twelve other witches were in the room, some at desks of their own, others milling nearby in case their Madame needed them, but Colt easily picked up on the biggest, baddest, most dominant predator of the bunch.

  Ah. The head witch.

  He’d never met her face to face before. Luciana la Sorcière was almost a boogeyman in Para circles. Everyone heard of her, but she spent most of her time running her coven like a multi-billion dollar company; she was rarely caught in public. If other witches served as the face of the race, Luciana was the beating heart of the coven. Without her, they just wouldn’t work.

  Her eyes drew his attention first. They were purple, of course, and they were shrewd. She might be wearing a smile on a pair of lips so red, it was like she painted them with fresh blood, but her eyes were sizing him up, too.

  Smart witch.

  Luciana was wearing a suit: white blouse, black blazer. If she got to her feet, he knew she’d have on black slacks and heels. It was the same uniform all of her people wore, with the male witches moving easily in boots that matched the female witches’ stilettos.

  The other witches all kept their hair short or plaited out of their face. Not Luciana. Her hair was a vibrant red shade, cascading in perfect waves down her back. She smelled like an earthy combination of baby powder and fire. It should’ve been off-putting. Strangely, it wasn’t. He wondered if she wore her hair like that on purpose. When she nodded in greeting, the light from above rippled on her long red hair, making it seem like a dancing flame.

  She was also exceedingly
beautiful, but Colt had been expecting that.

  Witches were nothing if not a contradiction. If they trained in it, they could be as good a lie detector as a shifter, using magic to sense a deception rather than sniffing one out. But, because of how they could use their magic, most witches tended to glamour themselves. Luciana had been the head witch of this coven since before Colt was a pup. She didn’t look a day over twenty-five. She was a walking lie.

  He had to remember that. She could lie to his face by keeping her glamour up. If he so much as tried to tell a fib while in front of her, she’d make him pay.

  Fucking witches.

  Colt strode forward, forcing himself to remember why exactly he was doing this again.

  He wouldn’t even be there if it weren’t for his brother. Finding a witch to check on the status of Maddox and Evangeline’s bond was exceedingly important and if it kept him from dwelling too closely on his own troubles, that was fine with him.

  Luciana folded her hands, finger over finger, resting them on the edge of her desk. The epitome of a business professional about to make a deal.

  See? Just another day at the office.

  “Did you bring the diamond?” she asked.

  He showed the witch what was in his hand.

  Her painted lips pulled upward in a satisfied smile. “It’s mine? Meant for me and no one else?”

  Colt nodded.

  More witchy bullshit. The diamonds had to be freely given otherwise they were worthless to their spells. It was why the witches sold their magic to the government and those who could afford their steep prices. If making off with a sackful of precious diamonds left their inherent power intact, there would be a rush of gorgeous jewel thieves with purple eyes. Since they had to earn them—and buying them with their own funds didn’t seem to work, either—spells and wards cost a pretty diamond.

  Luciana held out her hand. Soft purple light bathed her palm in an otherworldly glow. She closed her eyes, hummed, then opened them wide.

  The diamond was nestled in her palm.

  Colt glanced at his. Completely empty.

  He hadn’t felt a thing.

  His wolf bared its teeth. Just in case he gave in to the same urge, Colton clamped his mouth shut. Probably not a good idea to accidentally threaten the witch.

  As if she even noticed his reaction—or maybe she did and didn’t care. She laughed joyously at her prize, dipping her hand down to one of the pockets in her suit. As soon as the diamond was gone, Colt knew she’d taken his payment. For as long as she wanted to humor him, he had an audience with Luciana.

  Well, then. Better make the most of it.

  20

  “I need a favor.”

  Luciana leaned back in her desk chair, the very picture of a regal queen in her throne. “Go on.”

  “A witch severed one side of a mate bond. I’m willing to pay as much as you’re asking to put it back together again.”

  “Interesting. Tell me… was it your witch?”

  His back went up. A heartbeat later, his wolf lunged to the forefront. Fur sprouted along his arms, his neck, his throat. He struggled to force the partial shift back, but it was almost as hard as his poor, unfortunate dick.

  But his witch? Colt didn’t have a witch.

  Luciana pursed her lips. “Your eyes go blue. Almost icy blue. That’s… unusual.”

  It was. He was the only shifter he knew whose eyes did that. In the case of wolf shifters, even if the two-legged shape didn’t have the golden eyes common to his kind, the wolf did and his shifter’s gaze turned a mix between amber and yellow.

  Not Colt.

  While pure-bred wolves in the wild didn’t have blue eyes, shifters could—but only the man, never the wolf. Colt was the only one he knew whose gaze went icy blue when his wolf was in control. He’d given up trying to understand why.

  And he hated it when someone pointed it out.

  Almost as much as he hated someone telling him that he had a witch when he most definitely did not.

  For Maddox’s sake, he didn’t snap. It wasn’t easy.

  “The mate bond is my brother’s,” he grumbled after a moment. “Maddox Wolfe.”

  Luciana tapped the bottom of her chin with one of her long nails. To nobody’s surprise, it was painted purple. “Name’s familiar.”

  She gestured toward one of the witches watching from the side. A stout witch with her raven hair done up in twin braids came rushing over.

  Luciana murmured something.

  Colt was barely six feet away from her. His shifter senses should have picked up on the murmur—but they didn’t. He didn’t catch a single word. It was like someone had shoved cotton in his ears.

  The other witch whispered something back. Luciana nodded. With a careless wave of her hand, the magic lifted.

  His ears cleared in time to hear an understated, throaty growl. Shit. It was coming from him.

  “Sorry about that,” Luciana said. “Coven business. I’m sure you understand.”

  In an instant, Colt was thrown back to the day he found Evangeline and ran straight to the Cage. Pack business. That’s how he described his reason for returning so soon. So, yeah, he understood.

  Didn’t mean he liked it, though.

  “My apprentice reminded me of your brother’s sad tale. He lost his mate, didn’t he? Then chose to wallow in the dreadful prison rather than let one of mine relieve him of his heartache.”

  “Yeah,” Colt said dryly. Not the way he saw it—or Maddox, for that matter—but who ever said that witches were like normal folk? “Only it seems as if someone got the wrong memo. His mate isn’t dead now.”

  One perfectly arched eyebrow quirked skyward. “That’s wonderful news. But what does that have to do with me?”

  “His mate isn’t dead, but his bond is.”

  “Oh.”

  ‘Oh’ was right.

  “I know you witches work with the Cage guards. You ward the windows, make the cells Para-proof. If a bonded Para chooses to break their bond, there’s a witch on duty to perform surgery on the poor sap’s soul. I don’t know what happened to my brother and his bond. No one does. But, we’re thinking, if a witch can cut a bond, maybe they can heal one.”

  It made sense to Colt. To Maddox, too.

  One look at Luciana’s regret-filled expression and Colt realized that he didn’t know jackshit when it came to magic.

  “I wish I could tell you that it would work like that. A bond that needs to be removed, it’s child’s play to snip it in half. But the reverse…” Luciana shook her head. “A bond heals on its own or it doesn’t. Unless there are other forces at play, there’s nothing I can do.”

  Colt seized on the last thing Luciana said. “Other forces? Like what? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Magic is a fickle thing. You spend decades learning it, then it switches suddenly because it’s in a mood. Do you know why we use diamonds?”

  Strange segue, but Colt had to admit he had no clue why the witches did anything.

  “It’s because a good diamond is hard and it’s cold and it’s strong. The perfect conduit for spells that require a little more oomph. With enough power, anything is possible. I could give you your deepest wish”—Luciana’s purple eyes lit up, a true shocking violet—“I could make her notice you at last, even make her lust after you, if I had enough diamonds. I could make her forget you, too. But I could never make her bond with you. Love… there are things that are more powerful than magic. You understand?”

  Colt might have—if the witch hadn’t used his nonexistent bond as an example.

  This time, when he went full wolf, he was a hair away from shifting totally on the spot. Only the reality that he’d either have to march through the crowded downtown in his fur or strut to his truck bare-assed naked kept him from the final snap.

  It didn’t stop him from snarling at her.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, a hint of amusement in her tone.

  The room crackled
with magic. Everyone and everything took on a pale lavender tinge. Every single witch in the room—male and female—had a spell at the ready. Colt needed to calm the fuck down.

  It took a second. He grunted and shook, adjusting his shirt before he popped his collar. His wolf continued to prowl around inside of him, torn between wanting to run to his mate and following Colt’s lead that she be left alone.

  He never should have come into the city. It wasn’t Grayson, but it wasn’t home, either. At home, Dodge could shield the house, trap Colt inside whenever he thought he was going feral. When Colt was younger, Dodge was still strong enough that he could track Colt down, haunt his furry ass all over the state. Now that he was fading, Dodge couldn’t even leave the Bumptown—which meant that Colt was on his own for this one.

  He had to get the hell out of there.

  “Know what? I’ll think about what you said. I’m still gonna find a way to fix my brother’s bond. If love won’t heal it, maybe enough diamonds will.”

  It was hard to talk around his extended canines. His claws and his fangs revealed the precarious state of his mind.

  The other witches were primed to throw magic at him if he made any sudden moves.

  Luciana continued to smile across her desk at him. “I like you. Too bad another of my kind has already got her hooks in you.”

  He went still. “She’s not a witch.”

  “Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better. It’s faint, but it’s there. You’ve definitely been touched by a witch.”

  No. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t have the signature purple eyes, and she spent every day downtown running some kind of hippie shop in Grayson. What kind of witch worked retail for cash when she could be guaranteed true diamonds by working with the coven?

  She wasn’t a witch.