by Cecilia Lane
A smattering of low cheers quieted when Judah raised his hand. “Jones, Cullins, I want you two to stay here and coordinate our teams. Half of you will hold the town. I want everyone calm and indoors unless they care to help defend their enclave from this rotten fae attack.
“The rest of you, I want you to surround the reservoir on all sides and move in at my signal. If I hear one of your radios squawk or a damn branch break underfoot, you’ll be on desk duty with old Conroy,” Judah nodded to the man still sleeping in the drunk tank, “there for the rest of your lives. You’re shifters, besides that bloodsucker Milo in the back and we forgive his proclivities. Let’s protect Bearden!”
Leah stood by while Callum and Judah made plans with the leads of the teams, and made sure the ones staying behind were looped in as well. All in all, they were out the door within five minutes of the fire pillars appearing in the night. She had to give them her respect; they accepted the stakes immediately and got right to work.
Guilt hit her in the stomach. She’d caused the escalation. If she hadn’t been so caught up in her own head and just told someone what was happening, Jamin wouldn’t have gotten as far as he had. But no amount of focusing on the should haves would change the nightmare that they all faced.
She still had a role to play and sins to atone. She could try making things right and accept whatever punishment came after.
Judah winked at her before pushing on the door with his back. “For what it’s worth, I’d pay to see you shoot him.”
“The night’s still young.” She tried to crack a smile but just couldn’t find it. Too much potential for catastrophe worried at her and dragged her down into dark thoughts.
All pretense of joking faded as soon as they stepped out of the police station. People were running or gawking everywhere she turned. Terror hung heavy in the air, the smell of it sharp and stinging. She rubbed at her nose, unsure if she imagined it.
“It’s real,” Callum murmured. “New senses, remember?”
“Callum! What’s going on?”
The new voice came with another scent. Burning wood and smoke overpowered her enough that she tried to find the new fire, but nothing burned and only Gideon jogged toward them.
“Gideon!” Callum greeted in a rush. “I’m glad to see you. We might need your fire tonight at the reservoir.”
Gideon nodded, eyes glowing silver. His shape expanded and wings tore out from his back. His voice was thick in his throat. “You have the Bloodwings at your service. I’ll summon the others and fly with you tonight.”
Leah gasped as the rest of his shape shimmered and a wave of energy washed over her, lifting hairs all over her body. In place of her boss stood a lithe, winged beast. He tilted his long neck and shapely head into the sky and spewed a stream of fire before lifting into the air.
She vaguely heard Judah speaking into the radio on his shoulder. “We’ve got eyes in the sky. Don’t shoot above the tree line.”
“Dragon? He’s a dragon?” she whispered.
Callum grinned down at her. “We still have some secrets for you to discover. Now, let’s go find Jamin.”
Chapter 24
A dark shadow crossed over the moon. “There’s Gideon,” Callum said.
Judah nodded and pulled to a stop well away from the reservoir. The police following behind did the same. They were well trained and only left their vehicles after Judah stepped out of his cruiser and waved them on.
The shadow crossed again, wheeled around, then sped straight for them. The dragon’s wings snapped shut at the last second and Gideon trotted a half dozen steps on human feet to meet up with the group.
Leah squeaked and quickly raised her eyes above Gideon’s head. A growl tumbled out of Callum’s chest before he could quiet the noise.
Gideon snorted, then moved to put the police cruiser between himself and the rest of the group. “Calm yourself, bear,” he teased, then turned serious. “There’s a seated group on this side of the water. They’re spaced out with pillars of fire around them, and bodies stretched out in the center. From the looks of it, those are our Broken.”
Callum glanced around at the faces looking to him for answers. He only had questions. “Why would he drag them outside?
“We should have brought the fae,” Judah muttered. He pressed a button on the radio attached to his collar and spoke quick orders. “Cullins, I need you to relay a question to the fae in the cell. I want to know why his companions would pull the Broken out of their resting place. Are we walking into any magic here?”
A muffled squawk followed a moment of impatient silence. “He’s shaking his head, sir. He doesn’t know what Jamin is playing at but says there could be magic involved. He wouldn’t know what kind. He doesn’t have the gift.”
Judah made an annoyed sound, then used his booted foot to clear away leaves from a patch of dirt. In the next instant, he found a broken branch and drew a curving line along the ground with an X at one end. He quirked an eyebrow at Gideon. Gideon took the stick and made his own mark to stand for the fae.
Judah raised a hand and circled a finger in the air. All the officers closed in, nearly bumping shoulders. “The fae made our jobs easier, folks. No more sneaking into the dam. We’re playing out in the open.”
He drew a half circle around the mark Gideon made, then slashed lines toward the center. “We surround them and slowly close in. Cut off the access to the dam and push them toward the river’s edge. That’s where we take them.”
“Couldn’t they just cross?” Leah asked softly. A few others in the group nodded.
Pride swelled in Callum’s chest. He’d known from nearly the very beginning that she had a tough streak a mile wide. She wasn’t one to sit idly by when something needed doing. She was no dummy either; her question was one he planned to explain if Gideon didn’t do it himself.
He was more and more convinced that she would be the perfect mate. He had a clan to fix after letting Bruce slide them into chaos, and he’d need the support of someone like her. She could soften blows to bruised egos without crumbling under pressure.
Judah sized her up in a quick moment, then focused on Gideon. “We’ll still have eyes in the sky, and one dragon can guard the river better than we could. I’d rather have everyone on foot on this side.”
“You get the Broken out of there. I’ll roast those fuckers till nothing remains,” Gideon said, flashing extra long teeth.
The bottom of the dam was easy enough to reach from where they all parked. A long line of officers spread out along the road, then stepped off pavement and into the woods.
Utter silence reigned around them. No bugs chirped in the night. No steps were heard. Everyone was on their best behavior. Even Leah surprised him with her own silent stalking.
Callum still felt like he was walking into a trap.
One foot in front of the other brought the entire group steadily closer. The trees started to thin as they neared the river. The sound of water could be heard, and a crackling of fire.
His ears popped and a quick glance to his sides showed others working their jaws or pulling on their lobes. He inhaled deeply, but no matter how hard he tried to scent the woods, nothing came to him.
“You smell anything?” Callum asked in a whisper toward Judah.
Judah shook his head. “I can barely see anything, either. The fuck did we walk into?”
“Dulling our senses to even out the fight, I guess.”
From there, the silent advance slowed to a crawl. Every now and again a breaking branch shattered the quiet and announced their progress. But nothing moved in the night around them.
Pausing right at the edge of the woods, Callum shifted his focus to Leah. She stared straight ahead, rifle in hand and ready to fight. His bear rumbled happily at the sight. Lover, fighter, mate. She was everything the beast wanted.
They had much to discuss and plans to make. She was at the center of the storm that brewed in front of them and behind them in the town. But no matter
what happened, he couldn’t lose her. That was the one truth that stood larger than anything else.
“There,” Leah breathed.
A lone figure strode in a tight circle. Flames rose around him, but none nearly as tall as the pillars surrounding the town. Dark lumps on the ground had to be his fae companions. And in the center, blocked by fire and fae, stretched three bodies.
The hair on the back of Callum’s neck prickled with warning. Jamin wanted fae objects, but he’d taken the bodies of the Broken as well. He didn’t know the purpose and he didn’t want to find out. The Broken needed to be saved along with the orb they touched, otherwise the barrier around the enclave would fall and allow humans inside without trouble.
“Move,” Judah whispered into the night. As one, the group stepped from the trees and started their advance on the fae circle.
On silent feet, they hurried forward. Callum was the first to cross through the circle, with Judah and Leah entering right next to him. None of the seated fae moved or raised their heads from studying their laps.
“On your knees!” Judah commanded, gun pointed right at Jamin.
The fae didn’t move.
Callum circled to Jamin’s front, ready to fight with gun, fangs, and claws. What he found sent a roil of disgust through him.
The man’s face was gone. It was a carefully crafted duplicate of Jamin, just without any facial features.
Callum’s brows shot together, and he hastily squatted and scanned the other faces. All held the shape of men and women, but none had faces.
They’d been tricked.
“Touch nothing!”
Too late, one officer rolled one of the Broken to their side. The man’s mouth opened and a blast of energy surged outward. Callum was sent flying, along with the rest of the team. The world went black before he landed.
Dark skies twinkled with shining stars.
A rustle of grass rubbing together spoke of a gentle breeze.
Callum groaned and tried to sit up. The world spun around him like he’d downed ten bottles of liquor on an empty stomach. His stomach turned in on itself and cramped so badly that he fell back to the ground. He wanted to heave. He wanted to die.
His hearing returned in a rush that pained him further. Groans from men and beasts filled the air. When he psyched himself up enough to raise onto his elbows, he found everyone around him in similar states of suffering. Some had tried to shift into their animals, but none had succeeded. Some half human, half animal monstrosities rolled around among those that stayed in their human skins.
What the fuck happened?
He tried to think and a blast of pain set fire to his brain. He pressed fingertips to his eyes and focused solely on breathing through the agony.
Callum slowly shook his head to clear the haze around his thoughts. Fakes, that’s what they found at the reservoir. Jamin choked off their senses so they couldn’t sense the lack of scent or life in the copies.
“Leah?” He scrambled to his feet. She’d been right next to him when the blast hit. He whirled one way, then the other. His bear roared to be let out, to find her, to rip into anyone that might try to hurt her.
All the surrounding bodies wore police blue in various states of distress.
No gorgeous woman with curves made just for him. No wild purple set against her brown hair. No Leah.
Bile rose in his throat again and he couldn’t tell where the pain from the magic ended and the threat of losing his mate began.
Callum dug his hands into dirt and clung on to sanity. He needed to keep his wits about him. He needed to find her. “Leah!”
Chapter 25
Leah’s senses faded in and out, like someone turning a volume knob on a radio. Her head pounded with each beat of her heart. She was glad when consciousness slipped through her fingers.
Light. Blinding light. Noises in her ears that sounded like jumbled words. Not a language she understood. Could she speak? Her tongue wouldn’t move. Trying to push sounds between her teeth made her entire body shake with pain.
Darkness again. Light again. Dark. Light. Dark. Light.
Dank. No, that wasn’t right. There wasn’t anything dirty like mildew. Wet. That was better. Earthy. Closer still.
Metal.
Leah cracked open her eyes and was relieved when she didn’t immediately writhe with pain. Her head still ached and her limbs felt heavy, but she wasn’t going to die. Not yet.
She lolled her head to the side and barely kept her shocked cry contained. Faces she only vaguely recognized were set in rigid agony. Thick chains were wrapped around Jamin’s fae companions and strung them together. None of them moved. None had the ability to move for hours. When had he killed them? As soon as he lured them into the woods and set his trap?
At least the Broken appeared unharmed. They lay with their fingers still touching the orb that gave the town its barrier.
Another tiny shift brought Jamin into her sight. He talked low in a language she couldn’t understand, back facing her. He held a stone bowl in one hand, then swirled the tip of a rough knife into the contents. He flicked the knife over the Broken, spilling drops onto each of their foreheads, then dribbled three more onto the orb. The thing glowed red for a single second, then dimmed again to the dull silver she’d seen before.
With Jamin occupied, Leah took stock of herself. He’d seated her on a step and tied one hand to the railing. Leaving one hand free tickled at her sense of caution, but she had no time to listen to that inner voice. She needed to get out of what she assumed to be the insides of the dam.
Jamin started to turn and Leah quickly shut her eyes and dropped her head to her shoulder. She tried to become one with the floor. She wanted to sink into it. She was utterly boneless when Jamin swiped his thumb across her forehead and continued speaking in his strange tongue. The scent of metal hit her nose, and she suspected he wiped blood on her skin.
He turned from her and she reached carefully for his back pocket. The bulge there had the look of keys. Keys might be needed to get out of the dam.
“Not so fast, sweetheart.”
Jamin’s words froze her, fingers barely touching his pocket.
He turned and casually backhanded her across the cheek. Leah tongued her teeth and glared a promise of death at him.
“You were never as good a thief as you thought.” He wiggled his fingers in the air and a flicker of smoke rose from his fingertips. “You always needed a little aid.”
“I worked just fine before I met you. Worst day of my life, come to think of it.” Lie, but that day they’d bumped into one another was quickly rising to the top of her list. So much hurt could have been prevented if they never crossed paths.
But then she wouldn’t have met Callum.
That fueled her determination. She needed to get herself free so she could see Callum again. And not just that. She needed to ruin Jamin’s plans so he couldn’t hurt anyone in Bearden. Jamin needed to burn.
“Drunk truckers don’t count.” Jamin lifted her chin with a single finger, then wrapped his fingers around her free hand and slashed her palm with the knife.
Leah hissed at the sudden sting of pain. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes but she refused to give Jamin the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
He held the knife over the stone bowl, and her blood slowly dripped inside. A flash of blue light burned against her eyes then faded as quickly as the red glow of the orb.
“It isn’t working,” Jamin muttered. “Why isn’t it working? Fae, vampire, shifter, and now human blood. All here. Why won’t it work?”
Leah licked her lips and prayed he didn’t watch her cut close on itself. The wound on her leg had healed quickly. Would the rest of the ability fade in and out with her senses until she shifted for the first time? There was too much she didn’t know about her new life.
Still, a small part of her felt glad that someone had gotten one over on Jamin. For all his machinations, he didn’t expect Bruce to change her. One bite was all i
t took to undo his plans.
She’d forever look favorably on Bruce for abducting her, fighting Callum, and changing her from human to shifter.
“I need more.”
More? More did not sound promising. More didn’t sound like she’d leave alive.
Jamin turned to her, and she struggled against the ropes around her wrists. Her nails dug into the knots, but she couldn’t undo them fast enough.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
A growl rose in her chest and she lurched forward, nearly falling flat on her face. Her wrist burned where the rope tore away from the railing. Super strength. More shifter surprises. She was going to have words with Callum for not properly explaining the benefits of having a massive bear inside her.
Leah scrambled to her feet and pushed away from Jamin. He appeared at her side, and she swung a fist into empty air. Something breathed against her skin and she whirled, only to see him disappear into smoke once more.
“Too afraid to fight a girl?” she shouted into the space.
Silence greeted her ears.
It was too late for the fae, and she couldn’t move the Broken by herself. But she could put Jamin’s tools of black magic out of commission.
Leah took three quick steps and swiped her hand across the workspace, sending knife and bowl crashing to the floor.
“No!” Jamin howled, appearing right next to her.
She jumped, instinct kicking in and saving her life. Jamin’s hand closed around empty space where her shoulder had been second ago. His eyes darkened with a foul rage and an inhuman sound leaked out of his chest.
“Do you know what you’ve ruined? Do you know how long I’ve worked to open the veil?”
Leah whirled toward the door, but Jamin beat her to it. She slashed her eyes to the circle of dead fae. Iron. That’s what Jamin used to keep Quincy subdued. Jamin followed her gaze and growled once again.