by May Dawson
Was Penn afraid to fall apart now, when we needed him? Or had he changed his mind about the promise he’d made to let me see all of him, even the broken parts?
He must’ve felt me staring, because he squeezed me gently. But he didn’t say anything; he just loped toward where the guys were forming up around the hood of one car.
Both Penn and Jensen seemed to stick with the same motto that my sister’s mates had: Fight first. Feelings later.
Or—as a wolfish boy—it generally seemed to be: feelings, never.
We staged the cars a few blocks away from the docks. The scent of salt water washed over me as I got out of the car. I was suddenly keenly aware of the seven athletic, muscular, heavily armed male bodies surrounding me.
“Be careful in there.” Penn grabbed my shoulder, his eyes smoldering with intensity.
“You should all be careful in there,” Rafe said sternly, glaring at Penn
Well, that was endearing. For all Rafe’s issues, at least he didn’t see me as needing to be protected more than the guys.
He reminded us, “Be smart. Be careful. And do your jobs.”
Then, as if he remembered we were cadets—and that half of us were first-years at that—he added, “The jobs you decided to take on yourselves because apparently, one month of hand-to-hand combat training and you’re ready to go to war.”
Penn kissed me goodbye one last time. Now that he’d shifted and healed himself, he kissed me hard, his hands cupping my waist. I kissed him back just as recklessly. Seeing him so badly hurt had left me shaken, even if he was fine now.
I could lose one of my men out here tonight.
“See you on the other side, Mads,” he said, then went around to the side of his car and got in.
Tyson ruffled my hair with his hand and flashed me a smile as he headed for the passenger side. We figured it wouldn’t raise alarm bells for Penn to have someone from his pack tagging along.
We didn’t want any of us to be alone tonight.
The rest of us melted into the shadows, away from the streetlights. Moving silently, we approached the docks.
An enormous commercial boat was already anchored along the pier. The slightly rusty boat rocked on the lapping waves and looked as if it had already been completely unloaded.
I hid with Lex behind a set of shipping crates. The docks were quiet, and it was a cloudy, starless night, so the only light came from the enormous street lights dotting the pier. Good; if we had to, we could take out the lights. Then we’d be able to see better in low light than the witches could, at least until they had the chance to form a spell.
There was no one on the gangplank leading to the ship. Except for a handful of lights onboard in the cabin, it looked abandoned.
I heard the low rumble of Penn’s car and turned to see him pull into the dock, just as planned.
Lex touched my shoulder. His deep blue eyes met mine, then I followed his gaze to the gangplank, where a pair of witches in dark robes swept down the thin ramp between the boat and the water.
“Really?” I whispered. While it was convenient for us, did the witches really have to wear those discount ren-fair-looking robes everywhere? I never remembered seeing my faux-father dressed like that before Piper killed him.
A faint memory bubbled up from the back of my mind. He’d worn dark robes the day he tore Piper away from me, dragging her toward the basement door, the place we were never allowed to go…
But was that a real memory or just my imagination? I could never be sure. I shook my head to clear it. Head in the game, Northsea. The past doesn’t matter.
Penn and Tyson met the pair of witches and handed them the money. I’d thought this was a final pay-off, but one of the witches turned and gestured to the boat.
And half-a-dozen heavily armed men started down the ramp, carrying boxes.
Holy shit.
“Penn’s pack isn’t out,” Lex muttered.
The men his father had sent must have just decided to keep buying and distributing drugs.
The skepticism on Lex’s face surprised me. I reached out and grabbed his hand. “Penn doesn’t know.”
“Where the hell has Penn been?” Lex muttered back.
“Lex, trust me,” I murmured. “He doesn’t know.”
Some of the disbelief left Lex’s face. He squeezed my hand in his and gave me a nod. “Okay. You know him better than I do.”
A warm glow lit my chest. I hadn’t expected Lex to defer to my judgment.
I turned back to the scene in front of us just as one of the witches threw his arms out toward Penn. Magic ignited across his hands and blasted out, knocking Penn backward.
Penn slammed into the ground ten feet away. My heart stopped, but he was already scrambling to his feet. Penn was tough.
Tyson already had his gun out, and as he ran for cover, he popped off several shots at the witches.
“Let’s go,” Lex said urgently.
As we swarmed the dock, one of the armed men threw his rifle to a friend and dropped to all fours. His muscles shook as he began to transform.
God damn it. We weren’t just dealing with a coven bringing drugs to the packs; the smuggling ring comprised wolves and witches working in tandem.
“And here I always thought wolves and witches were mortal enemies,” Lex snapped. “Maddie.”
When I turned to him, he handed his gun to me. I slipped it into the back of my jeans as he dropped to the ground, already transforming. We weren’t supposed to shift anyplace humans could see us. But if they weren’t playing by the rules, we couldn’t either.
Lex and the other shifter slammed into each other, snarling, going for each other’s throats. The dock erupted into chaos. Bullets and magic flew.
The witch who’d knocked Penn down advanced on him, holding his hands out as if he was going to finish him off.
Magic sparked between the witch’s hands. But Chase, in his form as an enormous wolf, charged into him. The witch screamed, then went suddenly silent.
Rafe grabbed Penn’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Another shifter aimed at Rafe’s back, but Penn raised his gun and popped off two rounds that hammered into the shifter’s body. He hit the ground.
Where was the other witch? The docks were a riot of noise and violence. I wasn’t afraid of magic, and I could use it myself. I should be the one to face him down if Lex or Chase didn’t get to him first.
“Behind you!” Silas shouted suddenly. My gaze snapped to his—his eyes were wide with alarm—but I was already spinning as I dropped to the ground. Bullets crackled over my head.
The shifter behind me jerked his gun down to where I was on the ground, but I fired off two quick shots. His body jerked and went down.
“Silas!” I shouted. The witch was behind him, but I didn’t have a clear shot because Silas was in the way.
Silas whirled, raising his hands, and a blue bubble of magic shielded him as the witch’s magic crackled against it.
What. The. Hell.
Even if Silas’ pack did magic—which I was sure of—that was magic unlike any I’d learned as a wolf.
Freaking useful, though. I was jealous.
“Silas, left!” I shouted, aiming through him toward the witch, and he threw himself—and his bubble—to the left without question.
Before the witch could move, I squeezed the trigger. Once, twice. He looked at me with surprise written across his face before he fell.
“Clear the boat,” Rafe shouted.
The chaos was quieting now; Chase and Lex fought the last two shifters.
“They might have multiple buyers. Look for more dust,” Rafe ordered.
Tyson held his gun out confidently, waiting for his shot. Chase fell, his opponent’s mouth bloody, and Tyson squeezed a shot off that went through the other wolf’s throat. The other wolf fell, blood soaking his white fur.
“Northsea, McCauley, Chase, with me,” Rafe shouted, heading for the gangplank. We didn’t know how many more shifters or witche
s might be on the boat. And we didn’t know how long we had until the cops showed up. Someone must have heard all this gunfire, and they’d probably call it in.
We had to be out of here with the Fae’s dust first.
I looked up at the boat, checking for the glint of a barrel—or the spark of magic—but I didn’t see anyone to pick us off at our most vulnerable.
Chase streaked up the ramp, still an enormous, terrifying wolf, and Rafe charged after him. As I ran up, it shook under my feet, and I caught blurry glimpses of the dark water in the narrow, deadly gap between the ship and the dock far below.
Jensen was close behind me, and I raced as fast as I could, no matter how much the plank shook beneath me.
“Don’t want you saying I slow you down,” I shot over my shoulder as Chase and Rafe disappeared into the boat ahead of us.
“Going to hold that against me forever, aren’t you?” he demanded, his voice low and sexy no matter how dangerous the situation.
“Yup.”
Together, the two of us reached the top of the gangplank and burst onto the ship.
“We need to find the drugs and get out of here,” Jensen said.
“You two, that way,” Rafe ordered, pointing the other way down the narrow hall we’d just entered. He nodded down the hall as he locked gazes with me, indicating I should come with Rafe.
I followed him down the narrow hallway. He moved with quick, athletic grace despite his tall, muscular body.
I caught a flicker of movement and pushed him into the sunken doorway to our left, pressing my body against his so we’d be hidden out of view. His arm closed around my waist, drawing me close.
My heart galloped harder with his hard forearm against my abs and his taut, muscled body against my back; his body heat washed over me.
God, I had it so for bad for Rafe that even when we were raiding a boat full of smugglers, evil witches and pixie dust, being close to him excited me. What the hell was wrong with me?
His lips grazed my hair as he held me tight, as if he was listening intently to the footsteps. With his body against mine, I could feel his heart pounding too. The two of us barely breathed as two witches rushed down the hallway toward us.
“Ready?” he breathed into my ear, so softly that no one would have heard it without shifter hearing. “As soon as they go by.”
I gave him the faintest nod in return.
As soon as they were past us, I stepped out, grabbing one around the shoulders and yanking him down to the ground. Rafe caught the other, seizing his jaw and snapping his neck so the man dropped to his feet.
I pinned the witch on the ground as his hands rose to form an incantation, but Rafe dropped to his knees and drove his knife into the man’s chest first. The witch’s incantation died on his lips.
Rafe yanked the knife out and wiped it on the witch’s cloak before sliding it back into his sheath. When he looked up at me, his lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but instead he stood.
Together, we moved stealthily down the hallway, further into the bowels of the ship.
Chapter Fifty
Rafe
When Maddie and I reached the hold, it was a cavernous room that could hold a lot of boxes and cargo containers—but there were only half-a-dozen wooden crates left strapped to the floor.
I pried open the top of the box. There it was. Dozens of bags of life-destroying drugs. Drugs that killed Eliza and the rest of her patrol because they were in the way. Drugs that killed shifters like my brother.
“Worth killing for,” I muttered.
“They sure are.”
I whirled to find several men with guns. My nostrils flared at the scent in the air.
Shifters.
Traitors.
I searched for the speaker. He stepped out from between his men, and while he held his gun pointed at us like all the others, he drew my attention the most.
Because I knew him.
Joaquin McCloud, head of combat training and the patrols at the academy. He’d worked for the Council for years before he came to the academy.
Behind him, I saw Lex edge into the room. I kept my gaze focused on Joaquin. That wasn’t hard—a gun barrel pointed in my direction tended to draw my attention. In my peripheral vision, I watched Maddie, who stood tall and fierce as ever, even if she only came up to my shoulder.
He stared at Maddie in a way that made anger tighten my chest, even before he said, “She’ll fetch a good price on the black market. Thanks for bringing her to us.”
Rage spiked in my chest at the thought of anyone selling Maddie as breeding stock.
He grinned. “I never expected someone like Jensen to have so many friends, though.”
“We’re a team,” I said. “Where one of us goes, the rest of us are probably there too.”
“Mm. Too bad Eliza wasn’t so loyal—when she realized half her team was on the take, she tried to get help. She died expecting back-up.” The man flashed us a tight smile. “Too bad I was the one she reported to.”
“So you were working with the witches the whole time.” The anger I felt cut through any fear at facing down the barrel of a gun. My brother had died from their magic. “The witches that have been poisoning our own kind.”
“It’s a free country. People want to poison themselves, they should be able to.”
“How can you do this to your own people?”
“Profitably.” He gestured to Maddie with the gun. “Get down on your knees. Both of you.”
Maddie’s eyes sparked, and I knew what she was going to do. They didn’t have any intentions of shooting her. A shifter princess like her was incredibly valuable to the witches; that was why she’d grown up as a victim of the covens until her sister freed the two of them. She’d fetch a high price.
“Maddie,” I whispered. There were too many people, and she was in the line of fire. No matter how much they meant to keep her alive, in the end, they’d kill her to make sure no one escaped. “Take it easy.”
We had more backup coming. Lex was angling so he could fire a clear shot on the guys facing us without possibly killing us with friendly fire. That wasn’t perfect, but it was our best chance.
But she only went down to one knee before she launched herself up at McCloud.
The room exploded into violence as Lex squeezed off two quick shots, then whirled and took out a third shifter.
She kicked the gun out of McCloud’s hand, and I grabbed it out of the air. As shooting filled the room, I quickly took out two of the guys.
Maddie never even saw the one who went to shoot her in the back.
I caught her in my arms, tackling her, twisting to take the bullet.
I wasn’t letting any of goddamn pain-in-the-ass cadets die today.
Pain exploded between my shoulder blades.
Chapter Fifty-One
Maddie
“Rafe!” I screamed. He landed heavily on top of me, still protecting me from the gun blasts going off all around us.
His blood spilled out across my shirt, soaking it to my body, as his head slumped by my ear. “You all right, Northsea?”
“Hang on.” I planted my hands on his body, forcing my magic into him, trying to seal the wound. The bullet had gone all the way through him, barely nicking me on the way out. It burned in my abs, a puncture that hadn’t hit anything more than muscle.
Probably better than I deserved after breaking the rules and putting Rafe in a situation to take a bullet for me.
“Come on, you want to stay with me so you can make me pay for my sins. I know you.” I knelt over him, my lips moving with the words of a Latin spell. Sparks flared under my fingertips as I pressed them into the wound, feeling his blood pump through my fingers.
And then the rapid flow of hot blood started to slow.
“This wasn’t your fault,” he muttered. “I should’ve protected you. It’s always my job to protect you all—no matter how difficult you make it.”
“Yeah, you’re the ultimat
e big brother. I don’t actually need more of those. I’ve got eight.” His shredded organs knitted together under my fingertips. The wet, moving sensation was unsettling, and I gritted my teeth, focusing on healing him.
Then his muscles shuddered, convulsing as they began to heal.
It was a good thing he was so close to being healed, because I was fading. I’d poured all my magic, all my life, into him.
My vision dimmed to black at the edges as I glimpsed the brass bullet that had fallen when I wiggled out from underneath his body. With one hand still on the knitting-together flesh, I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket.
He gasped, sitting up abruptly, his hand going to the wound in his side. He still had a bloody wound, but now there was no waste of bone and organ laid open to the world.
He caught me just as the world slipped to black.
Chapter Fifty-Two
I woke up in a blur of white. I blinked, wracking my brain, trying to remember where I was.
Or who I was. My head pounded.
“Am I dead?” I muttered. My voice came out hoarse. “No, I can’t be dead. Everything wouldn’t hurt if I was dead.”
“Only you would wake up from twelve-hours of unconsciousness and immediately resume talking non-stop.” That was a familiar, grouchy voice. Rafe.
I blinked again, fluttering my eyelashes—even my eyelashes hurt—and the white blur turned into the sharp lines where the white ceiling met the wall.
“And maybe,” Rafe added, “you’re in Hell.”
“Nonsense.” I tried to sit up on my elbows to find him, but my head swam with the movement. “Me, maybe. Nice boys like you don’t go to Hell.”
I finally managed to lift my head off the pillow. He leaned against the windowsill. His athletic shorts hung low on his hips and he was shirtless, revealing bronzed skin and the lean, muscular lines of his body. A white bandage covered much of his abs.
“What happened?” I managed to ask.