Breaking Free

by Layla Nash

  The senior witch hesitated, eyeing the young one, then shook her head. “You may ask the others if they want to assist you, Deirdre, but I will not ask my coven to embark on such a foolhardy scheme, even if it means having debts with the ErlKing. Having him know we are here is too dangerous, even with favors.”

  “He’s changed,” Nick said abruptly, shoving his hands in his pockets. “He’s not like he used to be, like the stories. He’s mellowed with age and family. He has a niece now, other people he cares about. If it makes a difference.”

  “It does not,” the older one said. She barely glanced at me, instead talking only to the wolf. “Deirdre may help you, but do not call us again.”

  They walked away, leaving Nick and me watching the one who remained. She folded her hands calmly at her middle, unblinking as she studied us. “Well?”

  “Well what?” I asked. “Start doing your witch thing. Find Smith.”

  “My witch thing?” The corner of her mouth quirked up and she glanced at Nick. “I like her.” Then she turned her attention back to me. “I can’t just snap my fingers. I need something to help me find him. The Betwixt can be difficult to navigate even with magic and knowing where one is going, and it can be deadly even on good days. So. Get me something of his, preferably something with a great deal of his aura or something he used in the Betwixt, and I will do my best to locate him.”

  “Once you locate him, you can get him out, right?” I had no idea how the hell we would find something with aura on it. Maybe Nick would, although I wasn’t keen on spending more time around him. He was like a band-aid—I just needed to rip it off and be done with him.

  The witch shrugged, still looking far too calm about the whole thing. “Maybe. It depends on what I find over there. The sooner you get me the item so I can track the ErlKing down, the sooner I can answer that question.”

  “Will you need more witches to help you?” Nick frowned as he studied her, as if realizing she was the youngest and potentially least experienced. I had a few of the same doubts, myself.

  “We will find that out as well,” she said. Deirdre inclined her head a tiny smidge, then handed me a business card. “My number. Call me when you have the item.”

  She turned to go, and I cleared my throat. “Wait. If we can arrange to get into his house, will you go with us to make sure we get the right item? I don’t know about aura shit.”

  Her dark eyebrows rose a touch as she faced us once more, and she glanced over her shoulder at where the other two witches had disappeared. “We do not want to be seen with your kind. The least amount of time we interact is the only acceptable option. But I suppose... I am already breaking the rules.”

  “Good,” Nick said, his cell phone already in his hand. “I’ll make some calls. Stay here.”

  He strode away, and I heard a hint of Rafe O’Shea’s voice as he answered Nick’s call. I held my breath, not certain it was a good idea for Nick to ask the wolf alpha for his mate’s help. Meadow O’Shea, Rafe’s mate, was also Smith’s niece or goddaughter or something. She was part fae and knew more about Smith’s habits than anyone else, but Nick had been part of BadCreek when that pack kidnapped her and tried to trick her into staying in the compound outside the city. Meadow still got jumpy when Nick was around, even knowing his true purpose in having been at the BadCreek compound. He helped her escape, apparently, at no small cost to his own standing in the pack, but still. I’d have a hard time forgiving and forgetting something like what BadCreek had done to Meadow.

  And he left me facing the witch without an idea of what to do or say.

  She broke the silence first, unblinking under the moonlight. “So you are the hyena queen. We noticed some of the unpleasantness of the last few weeks and wondered at the outcome. Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to congratulate me,” I said under my breath, uneasy with the sudden feeling that I should confide in her. She wasn’t one of the shifters or the fae. She was something else entirely. Maybe she could understand. I shook myself and tried to remember what it was like to be my mother’s daughter, with ice in my veins and an iron shell around my heart. “Hyena queens don’t tend to live long or happy lives.”

  “Then my condolences.” Deirdre frowned as she studied me, her head tilted a little. “Why do you fight for it, then? It can’t have been easy to wrest power away from the others, and harder still to hold it. What makes it worth the effort?”

  Maybe she’d been talking to Nick. My mouth twisted in a wry smile, and I folded my arms over my chest to try and protect what remained of my heart. “I don’t know anymore. Why don’t you want to be the head of the coven? Sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.”

  “Who’s to say I’m not head of the coven?” Deirdre’s smile grew more mysterious, as if she was laughing at an inside joke with someone else. “But witches don’t tend to kill each other in transfers of power, so there’s somewhat less risk in my challenging the head witch.”

  My hyena side practically howled with the need to get away from her and the creepy-crawly feeling of her magic. I shivered, standing there in the cemetery under a near-full moon. “You’ll have to excuse my lack of knowledge about witches.”

  “There aren’t many who know we’re here, and that’s the way we like it.” She played with the ends of her long hair, frowning as she stared past me into the cemetery. “If Nikolai hadn’t known Estelle from before, we would not have answered the call.”

  “If you can help people, why keep yourselves hidden?” I watched Nick pace back and forth in the near distance, now and then gesturing wildly, and the fear that neither Meadow nor Rafe would want to help us settled in an icy ball in my stomach. “You could have most of the shifters in this city in your debt, including the alphas. Especially the alphas. Why not capitalize on that?”

  “Because then we would have to pick sides, would we not?” Deirdre shrugged, and for a second she looked even younger, and a little lost. I wondered if witch politics were half as cutthroat as shifter politics. Maybe their dealings were backhanded and subtle, filled with curses and charms instead of outright fighting. She glanced back at me, then waved her hand in Nick’s direction. “I did not realize the species were allowed to mate between them.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You and the wolf. You’re mated, are you not?”

  My heart jumped to my throat. It wasn’t possible. Cal had been my mate. Nick was just a fling, a distraction. “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re connected.” Her hand waved again, as if along a cord stretching between Nick and I. “There’s a connection between your auras. I didn’t think you brother and sister, not with the different animals, but there is most certainly a bond.”

  “We’ve slept together, that’s all.” I said it carelessly, like it didn’t matter, and shoved my hands in my pockets. “I don’t think it’s any more than that.”

  Deirdre smiled faintly once more, inclining her head. “I’m sure that’s it.”

  Before I could snap at her, maybe put some fear into her, Nick returned. He didn’t look particularly happy. “Rafe and Ruby insist on being there if Meadow is going to be placed in any sort of danger. That’s two more wolves knowing your face, Deirdre, and your magic. Is that a problem?”

  “You tell me,” the witch said. “Do you trust them?”

  “Yes,” Nick said without hesitation. I envied his certainty. I still believed the O’Sheas would do the best for their pack and family, regardless of what outsiders promised. But Nick apparently didn’t share those concerns. “And Meadow might be a good person for you to know. She’s got contacts in the fae community.”

  “If you say so.” Deirdre frowned, rubbing her jaw. “The more people who know about me, the more risk you’re taking, Nikolai. I have secrets of yours that I can trade. If this business leads to anything negative for myself or the coven, there will be hell to pay. If you are willing to risk it, then...”
She shrugged, though her dark eyes held a hard edge that I hadn’t seen before in someone so young.

  “I understand.” Nick’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth, and I wondered what secrets the witches knew. “They’ll meet us at Smith’s townhouse. It’s not far from here. Lacey, are you coming with us?”

  “Of course.” I checked my watch but knew I would go regardless of the time. I just needed a second to think. I had to untangle myself from Nick as quickly as possible. Hopefully once we got Smith back, he would move along. A guy like Nick didn’t stick around in one place very long. Or so I hoped.

  Chapter Thirty

  Nick

  He hated asking for help, and he hated it more when he had to ask for help from another wolf. Even with it being Rafe O’Shea, one of the least objectionable alphas Nick had ever met. The guy was hesitant to expose his mate to more craziness and even a hint of danger, particularly when Nick was the originator. Nick couldn’t take back what had happened at BadCreek, when Ray wanted to keep Meadow there by convincing her she was crazy. He couldn’t take it back, but he could make up for it the only way he knew how—destroying what remained of BadCreek and freeing the remaining hostages. He hoped that would be enough.

  And then he would get the hell out of the city and Meadow would never have to see his face again. Neither would Lacey.

  Nick drove the witch and the hyena queen through the city to the brownstone townhouses in a hoity-toity neighborhood. He didn’t want to think about how he would deal with the hyena queen once the drama with Smith was resolved. Lacey might never see reason. She might die there in the city, defending her mother’s legacy. It set his teeth on edge just to think about. He didn’t think he could stand by and watch her sacrifice herself for a bunch of ingrates with spots and tails, but the thought of walking away from her made his chest ache with an echoing hollow despair he’d never felt before.

  He couldn’t leave her. But if Lacey persisted in wanting nothing to do with him, how could he stay?

  “This must be it,” Deirdre said from the back seat, blinking owlishly when he glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “I can feel it.”

  Nick parked at the curb, frowning as he leaned to peer out the windshield at the imposing but still rather anonymous building. He couldn’t sense anything about it, other than that it needed new paint on the shutters and the stick pulled out of its ass. “You sure?”

  “It’s the correct address,” Lacey said, and kicked her door open. “There’s Ruby.”

  Ruby O’Shea appeared out of the shadows, scowling already, and Nick resisted the urge to snarl. He didn’t like being surprised, and even knowing both O’Shea alphas would be there didn’t help settle the wolf. And he sure as fuck didn’t want them near Lacey.

  The witch remained in the back seat, and a hint of amusement colored her words when she spoke. “Should I be concerned?”

  “Why?”

  “You’re easier to read than you used to be, Nikolai. You don’t like the ones who appeared. Are they not who you expected?”

  His dislike of witches returned in full force. He growled under his breath and opened his door. “It’s hard to explain. It’s fine. We should get this over with.”

  “As you like.” Deirdre exited the car with almost preternatural grace, raising goosebumps all over Nick.

  Ruby looked about as happy as Nick felt as she faced him and the witch. The female BloodMoon alpha raised her dark eyebrows at the younger woman. “You sure pick ‘em young, Nick. Did you get this one out of high school, or what?”

  Deirdre didn’t blink, only folding her arms over her chest, hands hidden in her sleeves. “You’re not nearly as brave as you pretend to be.”

  Lacey sucked in a breath as Ruby rocked back on her heels, dark eyes narrowing and the piercings in her face and ears shining in the light of a street lamp. The wolf alpha’s eyes flashed as she looked at Deirdre. “You must be the witch.”

  Deirdre smiled politely, pressing her palms together in front of her chest, and bowed very slightly from the waist. Nick wanted to laugh. Instead he nodded to Ruby and did his best not to groan out loud as he caught a whiff of Lacey’s scent on a slight breeze. “Let’s get in and out as quickly as possible, okay? We don’t have any time to waste.”

  “A few ground rules,” Ruby said, and planted a finger in his chest. “Rafe is on edge because Meadow is jumpy. She’s worried about Smith, as are we all, and she’s worried about seeing you again. So be on your best behavior, or I can’t promise my brother won’t try to maul you. Got it?”

  The wolf wanted to break her arm off at the wrist and smack her with her own hand. But he only set his jaw and inclined his head to acknowledge her concerns. “I’m just here to get whatever it is that Deirdre needs to find Smith. I won’t even look at Meadow.”

  “I’m still not convinced you’re sane,” Ruby said under her breath. Nick remembered her and Rafe trying to hold him down when he heard about Lacey’s supposed death, and didn’t entirely blame her for wondering about his state of mind.

  Lacey stood at the top of the brownstone’s stoop, half lost in shadow. “Would you all stop chitchatting and get on with this? We’re wasting time. He’s fine. He’s been fine. Can we do this?”

  Ruby didn’t like it, but after a long silence, she nodded once and strode up the stairs. Nick exhaled and followed, though he made sure that Deirdre wasn’t lost in the darkness. The witch didn’t need any help getting to the front door, still moving like she was on wheels instead of feet, and she looked around with wide eyes as if she’d never seen a rowhouse like that before.

  Nick kept his mouth shut as he ducked into the foyer and closed the door behind him, hanging back as Ruby introduced Meadow to Deirdre. Lacey explained very briefly what they were trying to do to free Smith, while Rafe growled in the corner and paced restlessly. Meadow kept close to Ruby, her wide eyes worried as she listened to Lacey and studied the witch. Nick wondered if her worry was because of him. He could have waited outside, but the wolf couldn’t let Lacey out of his sight just yet. Their time together might be limited enough; he wouldn’t give up a second of having her near.

  He tensed as a silence fell over the group, standing there in the well-lit foyer to the ErlKing’s abode, and everyone looked at Deirdre.

  The witch smiled very faintly, her hands folded once more into her sleeves, and addressed Meadow. “Does he have a workroom, a place where he casts magic or spills blood?”

  “Spills blood?” Meadow’s eyebrows shot up, almost blending into her hair. “I…I don’t think so.”

  Deirdre didn’t look ruffled in the slightest. “Then the room where he sleeps, I suppose.”

  “Back here,” Meadow said, and reached for Rafe’s hand as she walked up the stairs and over to the back of the house.

  The stairs and floorboards creaked under their feet, and Nick found himself looking around as the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Something wasn’t right. The house didn’t feel abandoned, as if it had not been unoccupied for the months that Smith had been gone. “Has anyone been living here?”

  Lacey stiffened when she heard his voice, but she didn’t speak. Rafe’s upper lip curled back from his teeth as he turned to look down the stairs. “No. It’s been empty since the ErlKing disappeared. Why?”

  “Just feels off,” he said under his breath. He stayed close to Lacey as they all trekked into the back master bedroom, a neat if spartanly decorated space. Nick remained close to the hall, though, just in case. The wolf growled in his head, ready to fight to protect their mate, and Ruby shot him a warning look over her shoulder.

  Deirdre wandered around the room, humming under her breath, and ran her hands close to the surface of every object in there. She didn’t touch anything, just got close to it before moving on to the next. There wasn’t much in the room to start with—none of the knickknacks most people collected, no toiletries or hair brushes, and very few clothes in the wardrobe. It was as if Smith had moved out, or barely lived there to b
egin with.

  Meadow started to look worried. “There’s an office, a den. It’s a library with mostly books, but maybe there’s something there you can use.”

  “What happens if you can’t find anything?” Lacey asked.

  Deirdre absently peeked into a drawer in the wardrobe, then sighed and shook her head. “We can try the office. If we can’t find anything... I won’t be able to find him or remove him from the Betwixt.”

  “We’ll find something,” Rafe said. He practically shouldered Nick aside to make room for Meadow to walk past, back down the stairs to a room on the first floor, and kept himself between his mate and Nick until they were safely past. Ruby shook her head and followed on his heels, Lacey right behind her, and Deirdre followed serenely after.

  The witch paused halfway down the stairs to tilt her head back, eyes closed as she inhaled deeply, and Nick held back, the wolf even more uneasy as the air in the house moved. Tensed. With each inhalation, the witch dragged at the atmosphere inside until static crackled like lightning from the sconces on the walls. When her eyes opened, they were pure silver shot through with green. The bones in her neck creaked as she rotated her head, then Deirdre floated down the rest of the stairs. “This way.”

  Growling rose up from the office where the rest of their group waited, but none dared exit as the witch drifted past and toward the back of the house. Nick didn’t like it, but he put on a brave face and just shrugged when Ruby started to question what happened. The walls creaked and crackled as the static increased in bright flashes, and as Deirdre raised her right hand in a soft gesture, the back door blew open.

  Deirdre walked into the manicured backyard, her eyes still glowing weirdly, and went straight to a massive oak tree in the center of the yard. It seemed out of place compared to the landscaping in the adjacent backyards, and yet... it fit. The tree drew their eyes and their attention, and despite the time of year, the leaves had started to turn color.

  “It’s dying,” Meadow said, a bare whisper that reached Nick from far away.