by May Dawson
I added, “As long as the rest of the team isn’t in the room with us, they never have to know.”
Jensen’s lips turned up at one corner, and his hand swept up my back to cup my neck. “My little witch.”
He leaned in to kiss me. I tilted my head back, my lip parting as his mouth pressed mine. His lips were as soft as his fingers against my neck were hard and unyielding.
Maybe we were both hopelessly damaged, but I loved the way he touched me.
And I loved fighting by his side.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jensen
As soon as Tommy opened the front door, I barged the rest of the way through it. I pushed him up against the wall as I jammed the barrel of my gun into his throat. “Hey there, Tommy.”
He didn’t even try to argue with me. “Hi, Jen.”
He seemed calm, still, as if he’d been expecting me. He didn’t see Maddie until she popped up at his side. She grabbed the gun he carried before he could press it into my side, chopping his hand, and he let out of a bark of pain.
“He hates being called that, by the way,” she said as she took a step back, raising the gun to train the barrel on him. “And if I were you, I would maybe not antagonize him right now?”
His teeth were still gritted in pain.
“It’s funny, babe,” I said. “Seems like other shifters never see you coming.”
“Mm. Maybe misogyny is its own punishment.” She flashed him a tight smile. Then she eased back to close the front door.
“Let’s take a seat,” I told him, before pushing him across the room.
Maddie moved ahead of to the dining set at the corner of the room and grabbed a chair, spinning it on its back legs and plunking it down. I checked Tommy for other weapons, then forced him back into the chair.
He sat, a resigned look on his face. “How do you think this ends, kid?”
I didn’t answer. I pulled Tommy’s hands behind his back and wrapped them in duct tape. Meanwhile, Maddie duct-taped his legs to the legs of the chair.
“What do you want?” Tommy asked.
“For one thing,” I said, “I want to know why you’re alive.”
“Because the witches missed me,” Tommy said. He studied me carefully. “Magic blasted off most of my face. They thought I was dead. Like my new look?”
Bullshit. He thought he could just lie to me. “How come the records from the mission and your statements don’t match up? The official records place you tracking down a coven, but the statement you gave puts you at a shipping warehouse—”
“What we were really doing is classified,” Tommy interrupted.
“We’ll keep it between the three of us,” I promised.
“I’m not going to tell two nosy kids about it.” Even with two guns trained on him, Tommy looked relaxed. “But everything that mattered? That your sister fucked up and got our patrol killed? That’s all true.”
“That’s it,” I told Maddie, “I’m using the spell.”
“Jensen.”
“No one will know unless you tell them.” I glanced through the kitchen behind Tommy to the back door, the window there, even though I saw no hint of our team.
“He’ll know. You going to kill him?” she asked, glancing at Tommy.
“Good fucking luck, kid.” Tommy muttered.
I hesitated. A month ago, I didn’t give a damn what anyone thought about me. Lots of people looked up to me—God have mercy on their miserable souls—and lots of people hated me, and none of it mattered. But Maddie looked at me with those bright blue eyes and a question written across her face. No judgment…at least, not yet.
“It can’t make things much worse,” I told her. “After everything I’ve done, we’ve done, the only way out it is to see this through.”
“Okay.”
Tommy stiffened against his chair. I grabbed his arm, peeling back his sleeve, and pulling out the Sharpie I’d carried in my pocket. He tried to pull away, and Maddie grabbed his forearm, pushing it down against the table.
“You don’t need to be part of this,” I told her.
“Can’t make things much worse,” she shot back.
I was still inking the rune in when he stiffened. His eyes went blank. Maddie and I exchanged a look.
“Tommy? You still with us?” I asked. Was he faking?
The smirk returned to his face. “What?”
Maddie looked to me, her face troubled.
“Do you have my sister’s sword?” I demanded.
“Under the bed upstairs,” he said without hesitation.
But I wasn’t sure yet the spell had worked. He might be playing along with every intention of lying to me.
“I’ll go.” Maddie touched my back lightly as she passed.
“Be careful.” I didn’t like having her out of my sight for a second, no matter how capable she was.
“Why do you have her sword?” I demanded.
“Because I loved her,” he said.
Those simple words pressed a cold edge of fear into my chest. If he really couldn’t lie to me right now, then what he’d said about Eliza getting her patrol killed had to be true. No one who loved someone else would betray them like that.
“Start at the beginning,” I said flatly. I had to know the truth, no matter how ugly it was. “What was your real mission?”
“Our mission was to destroy the covens who were smuggling drugs into the states,” he said.
“Why was that a secret?” Everyone knew how many shifters had died from magical overdoses.
“Because they were working hand-in-hand with wolves. The Council couldn’t afford the infighting that would cause. They thought it was a small faction within the packs. It wasn’t worth all-out war.”
“Jensen.” Maddie’s voice was quiet.
I turned to see her coming down the stairs. She carried Eliza’s saber. I would’ve recognized it anywhere.
The cold edge of fear was back in my throat. I didn’t want her to hear if my sister had really fucked everything up, but there was no time to hold back.
“What happened when Eliza was killed?” I demanded.
“We got to the warehouse where the drugs were being distributed before the packs did. We were supposed to kill everyone involved in the smuggling ring, take the drugs, then disappear. Like it never happened. Keep it quiet. Cut the packs off at the source.”
“And then?”
“The witches were ready for us.”
“How did they know you were coming?”
He stared at me for a long second, his lips parting. Maybe the magic was fading.
“Because I told them,” he said finally. “The Council was getting too close to the smuggling ring. But they only had so many of the ‘Council’s Own.’ All we had to do was take out that patrol and we’d buy ourselves time.”
“You betrayed your own patrol,” Maddie said. “And then your pack took you back, with a new face? Does your father know his new beta is his son?”
Maddox Leon stared her down. “My dad wasn’t too fond of the Council’s Own. But he knew having me there would be useful.”
“What really happened to my sister?” I demanded.
“I killed her.” His lip curled up at one corner as he stared at me. The expression on his face was almost proud.
Rage spiked in my chest until I could barely breathe. I forced myself to stay calm. “You said you loved her.”
“I did. But she turned me down,” he said. “She and Nic had a thing. You should’ve seen the look on her face right before she died.”
Maddie touched my arm, and when I looked at her, she shook her head subtly.
She must’ve seen I was on the verge of losing it. For a second, my anger flared hotter. I stared back at her for a long second, but there was nothing but affection and concern in her luminous blue eyes. She was trying to take care of me.
I nodded stiffy, then turned and walked away, putting some distance between Tommy and myself. We needed more information to exo
nerate my sister. I couldn’t kill him.
“Did they know they were asking you to turn on your father’s pack?” Maddie demanded.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t working for him.”
“Who were you working for?” she asked.
There was a faint sound outside. Maddie and I exchanged a look.
“You’d think you’d have learned at Reefer’s house,” he said with a laugh. “You trip the spell, the witches show up.”
“It wasn’t witches who came to find us before,” Maddie said, frowning as she looked to me.
“Might as well be.” Tommy said. “They’re working together. Better run, Jensen. They’re going to get you and your girlfriend too.”
Glass broke in the living room we’d come through to get here. I turned toward it just as Maddie shoved me hard, knocking me down.
A bullet crackled above us. Tommy’s head fell back, blood trickling between his unseeing eyes.
“No!” I screamed, but it was too late. I needed more answers.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Maddie grabbed my arm to pull me up as she scrambled to her feet. I looked back to where the bullet had come from, but there was no direct line of sight from here to the broken glass of that window.
The bullet that had just killed Tommy had come through the window, then turned a corner to find him. Magic.
“Jensen, come on!”
It was the edge of fear and pleading in her voice that snapped me out of it. We didn’t know if they could write bullets with our name on it that would twist and turn to find us, or if the witches had something of Tommy’s that had allowed them to kill him long distance. But we couldn’t stick around to find out.
Together, the two of us ran for the back door.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Maddie
Back in the hotel room, Rafe paced back and forth while Lex sat silent and still, his elbows braced on his knees.
“With Tommy dead, I don’t know how we clear Eliza’s name,” Rafe said.
Lex looked up. “We finish the work their patrol was supposed to do.”
“You want to take down a coven of witches?” Rafe asked tartly. “We don’t know where to find them. We don’t even know which packs are working with them—”
“We do,” Lex said. “We know my pack is involved.”
“Tommy said he was working for someone else,” Jensen interrupted. “We just didn’t get a name before the witches got him.”
“Speaking of,” Penn said. He leaned against the wall alongside the window, watching out the curtain. “Those magic bullets give me a twitchy feeling. We should move soon.”
Rafe swore, then strode out of the room, raising his cell phone to his ear.
Lex went on, “If we take out the smugglers—shifters and witches both—the Council gets what they need. They’re never going to come clean about why Eliza’s patrol was there; they can’t afford the war that would follow. But we can end this.”
“Eliza was murdered,” Jensen said, his voice low and cold. “I don’t just want to end this.”
“I know,” Lex said. A long looked passed between the two of them. “I don’t want that either.”
“But if we give them what they want, and we expose that Tommy was a traitor and a liar, maybe they’ll pin the murder of the patrol on him. Like it should be. They could say he was a traitor without giving away the whole truth,” I said.
It wasn’t perfect, but we’d get what we wanted most: honor for Eliza’s memory.
“I’ll go back,” Lex said abruptly. “Find out where they’re getting the drugs from. We can follow the trail, take out the coven.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Lex, they’ll never trust you—”
“It’s a long-term plan,” he interrupted. “Not a quick fix. It would take time to get them to trust me.”
“You’re going to drop out of the academy and go home?” Penn asked skeptically.
Lex nodded. He was focused ahead of him, on nothing, and I had the feeling he was deliberately avoiding my gaze. “You guys would be safe at the academy. You know, if you actually stayed there like you’re fucking supposed to for once. If I got myself kicked out of the academy, my pack might buy that I was willing to do the stuff I never would before.”
“No, Lex,” I said. “You can’t do that.”
“Why’d they keep Tommy alive anyway?” Tyson interrupted, a grim set to his handsome mouth. “It’s been bothering me. It would have made more sense to kill him. Erase the whole patrol.”
“The Council doesn’t kill their own,” Chase said, frowning. “Right?”
No one answered him. These days, I could believe that shifters were capable of almost anything. Especially the Alpha council.
“Maybe they intended to do the same thing we’re doing now,” Silas said. “Maybe they were suspicious about him. Maybe they left him alive to get information.”
Jensen jumped to his feet. “Maybe they bugged his house. We’ve got to go back.”
“That’s too dangerous,” Rafe interrupted. He leaned in the doorway, toying with his cell phone absently.
“I get it. You two—” he nodded to Jensen and Lex, “would do anything for Eliza. I would, too. But she’d just be pissed off if you were reckless and got yourselves killed.”
“Now you give a fuck what she would’ve wanted,” Jensen muttered.
Rafe’s gaze sharpened on him, but he swallowed his anger. His voice was cool when he said, “We’re not giving up on Eliza. But it’s time to shut down the Scooby team. We can go to the Council—”
“Is that who you called?” Fire sparked in Jensen’s eyes, but his voice only turned colder.
“No.” Rafe flipped his cell phone in his hand absently. “Maybe it should’ve been.”
“Who?” Lex demanded.
“Dani,” Rafe said. “I wanted to make sure we weren’t going to catch a magic bullet.”
“You told a witch,” Jensen said flatly.
“She’s known something was going on since Rafe and I tore out of the Hunters’ academy because we had a funny feeling about Northsea,” Lex said.
“I’m not going for help to the same Council who sacrificed my sister’s memory,” Jensen said. He grabbed her sword from the coffee table. “I’m going back to that house. I’m—” He broke off suddenly.
“Jensen?” I asked.
He fell to his knees, his shoulders bowing. The sword was still clutched tight in his hand.
“What happened?” Rafe demanded, running across the room to him.
Jensen collapsed to one side, sprawling across the carpet as if he’d died.
“Jensen!” I cried again. I wrenched the sword out of his hand, and a jolt of magic traveled up my arm, like an electric shock.
I tossed the sword away across the room, before grabbing my hand. An uncomfortable pins-and-needles feeling crawled up my arm in the wake of the magic, and my hand cramped, my fingers stiff as claws. “What the hell was that?”
Jensen’s eyelashes fluttered open. He sat up, shaking his head as he rested his elbow on one knee. “I think I saw some kind of… I think those were Eliza’s last memories.”
“She enchanted the sword,” I finished for him. I was wary to touch the sword again, but when I knelt by it, ignoring the pain that radiated through my arm, the runes still glowed in the hilt. “Did she carve these runes herself in the hilt?”
“Eliza didn’t use magic,” Rafe said.
“You’re smarter than that, Rafe,” I muttered.
He glared at me in response.
I stared back at him. His glares didn’t make me shrivel up inside anymore. I had bigger problems. “I would expect you to all be smarter than that, but apparently not. Either she used magic herself, or she had someone help her.”
“What did you see?” Lex asked Jensen.
Jensen took a deep breath, as if steeling himself to pick up the sword again. It had hurt so badly when I touched it. I wondered if he was afraid of the
pain or the memories.
“Let me try,” Rafe said. His dark eyes fixed on Jensen as if he saw more than Jensen wanted him to.
Jensen hesitated. Then, as if he couldn’t re-live his sister’s death over and over, he nodded.
Rafe knelt and picked up the sword. He gritted his teeth as if the same electric tingle ran through his hand, then finally cursed and threw the sword back down.
“Let me try,” I said. “Like Eliza, I’m not afraid of a little magic.”
Rafe narrowed his eyes at me. But I wasn’t exactly scared of his ire today. I’d faced a lot the past few days. And if we didn’t figure out how to end this, I’d face a lot worse.
Jensen shook his head. “I think maybe the spell is tied to our DNA. Otherwise the memories might have come up for anyone, and they might have realized what they had. They might have destroyed the sword.”
“Why did they keep it at all?” Penn asked. “Shouldn’t it have gone back with her for her burial?”
“I never even thought to look for it,” Jensen said. He scrubbed his hand over his face. “God, I was such an idiot.”
“Tommy said he was in love with her,” I said. “But he wasn’t, really. He hated her for not choosing him… and he was the one to kill her. He must have kept it as a trophy.”
Jensen nodded. “She thought about it before she died. About how he betrayed her because he couldn’t just be her friend…he couldn’t see her as a person. She was a mate or nothing.”
He looked shaken by the thought.
“I wish I could see it,” Penn said quietly. “I wonder if my pack…”
I had an idea. “Maybe we can.”
Rafe raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Maddie, what—”
“I have a question about Dani,” Lex said suddenly, moving toward him.
Thank you, Lex.
I grabbed the sword’s hilt and Jensen’s hand in my other. Painful magic jolted through my body, burning through my chest like a lightning strike. Through gritted teeth, I muttered, “Show us.”
The shape of the docks leapt up around us. I blinked as the walls of the hotel room disappeared, replaced by a dream-like vision of boats rocking on the water and the rough shapes of buildings.