Heart of Stone (Alice Worth Book 4)

by Lisa Edmonds

  The wolf snarled, her lips curling back to show all of her teeth.

  “She hates me, but she loved Caleb,” I added, my eyes on the wolf. “She wouldn’t have sent him out there to attack me because as much as she wants to get rid of me, she wouldn’t have wanted Caleb to die. She knew damn well even if he was able to bite me, I’d kill him. If he’d killed me, Sean would have killed him and not been quick about it. When I saw her tonight, I knew she hadn’t put him up to it. She’s heartbroken.”

  “And really pissed off,” Malcolm observed. “I dunno, Alice—I should probably go get Sean, just in case. If she bites you, I don’t know if you’ll be able to do the virus-burning trick again.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t have to.”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, worried.

  “Something I should have done a long time ago.” I locked eyes with the wolf and approached her slowly, my back straight and head high. I didn’t have a tail or other wolf physiology, but wolves recognized dominance in eye contact and body language, even in humans.

  Shifter magic uncoiled in my chest, but I tamped it down. I didn’t exactly know what it was or how to use it, and I didn’t need it to show Delia who was boss. Instead, as I’d done in the conference room when facing Bell and Monroe, I drew on my own power—power I’d mis-identified as coming from who I was as Moses’s granddaughter, but I now realized came from somewhere much deeper than that, from the core of who I really was.

  I spooled blood magic and let my eyes glow. Delia was the most dominant female wolf in the pack and probably fourth in the overall hierarchy, behind Sean, Jack, and Ben. As we stared at each other, her tail went down and curled between her legs. She crouched, then rolled to her back to show her belly, her eyes on my feet.

  I stood a few feet away, looking down at her. “I know you hate me. I know you’re angry and hurting and I’m sorry for that. But the fact of the matter is that I love Sean and he loves me and I’m here to stay, so you’d best come to peace with it or at least learn to live with it. Karen’s baby is going to be awesome whether or not it’s a shifter, and Casey could give either of us a run for our money in the fierceness department. This pack may not be growing in the way you want, but it is growing and getting stronger by the minute. Jack already sees that. I hope someday you will too.”

  Two enormous wolves emerged from the trees. Sean came to my side and Jack went to stand beside his mate. She rolled to her feet and stood beside him, her tail matching his at about halfway up, showing deference to Sean and me.

  One by one, the rest of the pack gathered: thirteen werewolves ranging in size from extra-large—Sean and Jack—to the much-smaller Karen. Though he moved slower than the others, Ben seemed well on his way to recovering from his brush with death.

  Sean nudged my hand. I knelt beside him and he rested his chin on my shoulder.

  “Wow,” Malcolm said quietly.

  Sean raised his head and howled. It wasn’t the same kind of howl I’d heard earlier; instead, it was mournful and quieter. The others raised their heads and echoed his brief howl of grief. The sound made my throat tight. The pack mourned for Caleb.

  As the howls ended, the others trotted off into the trees to spend the remaining hours until sunrise running and hunting. Sean stayed, however, sitting at my side.

  “I think you guys need some alone time. I’m going back to the house,” Malcolm told me.

  “Whose house?” I asked, smiling. “Mine or Liam’s?”

  He winked and vanished.

  Beside me, Sean settled in, forming an inviting-looking nest with his enormous body. I moved my blanket and lay down beside him, curling up against his warmth and running my fingers through his fur. It was so thick that my whole hand disappeared.

  I curled my fingers in his fur and rested my head against his side, listening to his heart and drinking in his scent.

  There, under the stars and safe with my wolf, I fell asleep.

  THE END

  Thank you for reading! Did you enjoy?

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  HEART OF SHADOW SNEAK PEEK

  Present Day

  Keep walking.

  The highway stretched out in front of me in a seemingly endless track of asphalt lined with pipe fence and trees. In the distance, the tall, dark shadows of mountains loomed on the horizon. The sun blazed overhead in a cloudless sky and the road shimmered in the heat.

  A handful of cars and trucks had passed me in the last hour or so, but other than those few signs of life, I might have been the only person in ten square miles. I hadn’t seen any houses, gas stations, or other buildings since I started walking. The only sounds I heard were wind in the grass, the far-off lowing of cattle, and my boots on the pavement.

  My chest felt hollow, as if something had been ripped out by the roots, leaving an achy emptiness. My heartbeat seemed to echo inside my ribcage like reverberations in a deep, dry well. I was incomplete, fractured, broken. I didn’t know how I’d come to be this way or what was missing—only that I’d once been whole but now was not.

  My legs grew tired again and my feet hurt with every step. My pace slowed.

  Keep walking and don’t look back.

  The command drifted through my head. The voice was familiar, though I couldn’t attach a face or a name to it.

  I realized I was walking quickly again. My boots felt like they were full of razors. My socks squished wetly with every step. I wasn’t sure why since I hadn’t walked through any high water…at least, not that I could remember. The fact I was completely dry otherwise supported that assumption, so my wet socks were a mystery.

  As was the plastic bottle clutched in my right hand. I could remember drinking from it, but it had been empty for a very long time. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to drop it beside the road. My hand wouldn’t open and let it go. My fingers cramped from holding it so tightly.

  I walked on.

  Hours passed. The sun crossed overhead and descended, slipping behind the snow-capped mountain peaks in front of me and evening turned to night. The quarter moon was bright enough in the clear sky for me to easily see the road. The pain in my feet was white-hot now, but I couldn’t stop. Clutching the empty bottle, I dragged myself on, putting one foot in front of the other, with that strange voice replaying endlessly in my ears.

  Keep walking and don’t look back.

  Behind me, I heard the sound of a truck engine. The sound grew quickly, as if the vehicle was moving very fast. Oddly, the sound was vaguely familiar, though that didn’t make any sense. My fingers tightened around the bottle and I quickened my pace.

  Bright headlights illuminated the highway in front of me as the truck crested the hill I’d just walked over. I heard a screech of brakes and tires skidding in gravel as the truck pulled to the side of the road behind me and stopped. I kept walking.

  The truck’s doors opened and someone shouted, “Alice!” The male voice was a strange combination of relief, fury, and worry. It too sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  Footsteps pounded on the asphalt behind me. I heard two sets of steps, moving fast. Suddenly, two dark-haired and muscular men with glowing golden eyes appeared in front of me. They wore jeans, long-sleeved tee shirts, and hiking boots.

  The larger of the two grabbed me. “Alice,” he said again, his voice growly.

  I stabbed him.

  —Or at least I tried to. My fingertips rammed into his hard stomach and I felt a sharp pain.

  I looked at my fingers in confusion. For some reason, I thought I should have been able to gut him that way, but all I’d done was reopen the torn flesh where my fingernails were broken and caked with dirt. Blood welled and ran down my fingers.

  “Oh, hell.” The other man’s voice was also growly, but he seemed less threatening than his companion. “Sean, she’s bleeding badly from somewhere.”

  “I smell it.” The
larger man held me by my upper arms, his eyes searching my face. “Alice, how did you get here? We’ve been looking for you for almost a week.”

  I tried to pull free and start walking again, but his grip was like iron.

  “I don’t think she knows who you are,” the younger man said, his voice full of worry. “I’m not sure she even knows her own name or where she is.”

  The larger man cupped my face with his hand and stared into my eyes. A strange scent teased my nose. Like the men and the truck, it seemed familiar, as if I’d known it—and them—in another life. Smells like a forest, some part of my brain said.

  “Alice,” he said carefully, “Do you know who I am?”

  Keep walking and don’t look back.

  I struggled against his grip, my eyes fixed on the distant horizon past his shoulder. I needed to walk. I couldn’t stop—not now, not ever.

  He swung me up in his arms and headed toward a large black truck. I fought him, beating him with my fists and even clawing at him, but nothing I did fazed him in the least. The other man had his phone out and was texting, his face grim.

  The larger man carried me to the truck. The other man opened the back tailgate and the big man sat on it with me in his lap and wrapped his arms around me, holding me still. I’d scratched his face, neck, and arms bloody but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Did you let the others know we found her?” he asked his companion.

  “I told Jack. He’ll tell the rest of the pack.” The younger man rubbed his face. “I wish Nan was here, or Casey. We need a nurse.”

  “Take off her boots,” the big man said roughly. Strangely, he seemed to be nuzzling the back of my neck. He held me so tightly that I couldn’t even squirm, much less get away, but he was also gentle, as if he was afraid of hurting me.

  The other man unzipped my right boot. When he started to remove it, the pain was so intense that I screamed.

  The man holding me growled. I felt a strange comfort wash over me, as if I’d suddenly been wrapped in warm blankets. I wanted to push the feeling away, but I couldn’t.

  The younger man carefully removed the boot and swore. “Her feet are a bloody mess.” His voice sounded agonized as if it were his pain instead of mine. “She must have walked for twenty miles, maybe more. These boots were not made for walking, Sean. Her feet…they’re just mangled.”

  The larger man shook with what looked like fury and grief. “Take off her other boot and her socks. We need to see how bad it is.”

  “It’s bad,” the other man said grimly. He gently peeled away my wet sock, revealing my bloody foot, and swore. “The bottoms of her feet are all cut up and half the skin is missing. I don’t even know how she was standing, much less walking.”

  The man holding me made a strangely inhuman sound that was part snarl, part howl. “Because she was spelled to walk. She couldn’t stop, no matter how much it hurt. She would have walked until she dropped dead if we hadn’t found her.”

  A strange pain seared my skin. The sensation felt like a hot sandstorm scouring my flesh, but I couldn’t see what caused the pain. For a moment, I thought it might have come from the man holding me, but that didn’t make any sense. I whimpered and the feeling faded.

  Gingerly, the other man took off my other boot and sock. He got a bottle of water from the truck and washed the blood away. It hurt—a lot. I sobbed and fought to get away, but they held me still with seemingly no effort at all. I didn’t understand why they were so strong.

  “She needs medical attention for her feet and probably severe dehydration,” the younger man said when they’d gotten a good look at the condition of my feet. “I saw an urgent care center in that last big town we drove through about thirty miles back.”

  “No doctors, no hospital,” the man holding me stated. “We’ll take care of her ourselves. Get the first aid kit out of the back seat.”

  While the younger man went to get the kit, the man holding me stroked my tangled hair. He pressed a kiss to my jaw, his stubble scratching my sunburned skin.

  “I don’t know what happened to you,” he murmured. “I don’t know how you got here, or who did this to you, but I swear I will find out and I will end them.” He squeezed me gently. “Please say something, Alice. Tell me you know who I am.”

  I turned my head and looked over the top of the truck, toward the mountains. “Let me go,” I said, my voice hoarse from dehydration and disuse. “I have to keep walking.”

  His chest rumbled. “You’re not walking anywhere. Your boots are full of blood. Whatever this magic is, whatever’s been done to you, we’re going to fix it. But first, we’re taking you somewhere safe.”

  The younger man returned with a white case and another bottle of water. My eyes locked on the water.

  “She needs liquids,” the younger man said, opening the case and taking out a pill bottle. “If we can’t get her to a hospital, we’ve got to rehydrate her some other way.”

  The man holding me nodded at the pills. “Give her half of one of those and some water.”

  The younger man shook a small white pill into his hand. He broke it in half and opened the bottle of water.

  “Alice, here’s some water,” the man holding me said. “Drink.”

  The other man brought the water bottle to my lips and gave me a little to drink. My mouth and throat were so dry that the sensation of water was both wonderful and almost painful.

  The younger man slipped the little half-pill into my mouth and then gave me more water. I swallowed. He took the water away. I made a little protesting sound.

  “You’ll get sick if we give you too much at once,” he told me. “Let’s wait a few minutes and make sure you can keep the water down.”

  I wanted—I needed—to keep walking, but exhaustion tugged at me. I rested my head against the larger man’s chest. This felt familiar too, as if I fit just right against his body like pieces of a puzzle. It was a strange feeling.

  The pain receded. I sensed the younger man doing things to my feet, but it all felt distant. The command to walk was still there, but my arms and legs felt as if they were full of lead and I couldn’t obey.

  “How did she end up like this, walking down a deserted highway so far from home?” the younger man asked as he bandaged my foot. His voice sounded like it came from a long way away.

  “I have no idea, Ben,” the larger man said, cradling me gently. I’d long since stopped fighting to get away. The warm comfort he’d wrapped around me and the effects of the pill they’d given me made it so I couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t even care about needing to walk. I should have been terrified that I had no memory of who I was or where I came from, and that I’d fallen into the hands of two powerful strangers who seemed to know me, but I was so very, very tired. My eyes drifted closed.

  Just before sleep stole me away, I heard him add, “But I’m sure as hell going to find out.”

  Don’t stop now. Keep reading with your copy of HEART OF SHADOW coming soon.

  Find book one of the Alice Worth novels with HEART OF MALICE and discover more from Lisa Edmonds at www.lisaedmonds.com

  Meet Alice.

  Private Investigator of the Supernatural.

  The first time Moses Murphy’s granddaughter killed on his orders, she was six years old.

  For twenty years, she was a prisoner of an organized crime syndicate, forced to use her magic to make Moses the most powerful and feared man on the East Coast. To escape his cruelty, she faked her own death and started a new life as Alice Worth. As a private investigator specializing in cases involving the supernatural, Alice walks a precarious line between atoning for the sins of her grandfather’s cabal and keeping her true identity hidden.

  Hired to investigate the disappearance of a mysterious object of power, Alice enlists the help of Malcolm, a ghost running from a past as nightmarish as her own. It soon becomes clear the missing object was taken by someone with a dangerous secret and an unknown agenda. When her client is kidnapped, A
lice must find her and the object of power before a vengeful killer destroys the city and slaughters thousands—starting with Alice.

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  Acknowledgments

  As always, thank you first and foremost to my editor Heather McCorkle, Tina Moss, and Yelena Casale at City Owl Press, who work tirelessly behind the scenes so I can share Alice’s adventures with you.

  A very special thanks to my squad of awesome and dedicated beta readers: Dr. Marie Guthrie, Shannon Butler, Dr. Kimberly Dodson, Dr. Adrienne Foreman, Amy Hopper, Carla Schultz-Ruehl, and Dr. Robert James, for their feedback on the drafts of this book.

  I am extremely grateful to Chief Warrant Officer 3 (Retired) Cary Flatt of the United States Army for his assistance with matters relating to nighttime reconnaissance, small-scale military operations, and medium-sized kabooms. Thank you as well to ace pilot JC Krueger, for ensuring the accuracy of my information about Gulfstream jets, and to his fearless copilot Jen Bauer-Krueger, for all the ways in which she makes my life better by being in it.