The Witch's Protector [The Protectors 2] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Doris O'Connor

  “Drugged, same as you were, Boss,” Rhonda said. “Randolph is still to come round. We’re not sure he will, and you looked set to go the same way. I’m not sure what Salasino used, but he didn’t care whether he killed with it. He must have somehow slipped it into the water butts most of us use to drink from when we come back from a run. Olaf and I weren’t out last night, hence we’re unaffected, as are a handful of the others.”

  Henry stared at her in disbelief. His entire pack in threat, not to mention Joanne and he hadn’t even sensed it. While he was busy fucking…

  “Boss, this isn’t your fault.” Olaf interrupted his inner pity fest. “No one could have foreseen this. His beta said he’s been planning this for months. None of his pack took him seriously at first. Then he killed that witch and things turned ugly fast. While his pack was behind him when they were openly fighting us, the majority of them don’t want anything to do with him now that he turned to underhand dealings. He’s lost his fucking mind, Boss.”

  Henry’s wolf whined and Henry groaned.

  “I know he has and he has Joanne.”

  Olaf swore, but it was the barely disguised pity in Rhonda’s eyes as she glanced at him, that made Henry want to kill something.

  “Where is this beta of his?” he asked through clenched teeth and pulled on the trousers Olaf handed him.

  “In the garden, waiting for you, but boss…”

  Henry didn’t stay around to hear what Olaf was trying to tell him. His wolf was baying for blood, and if there were Lupines crawling around Joanne’s cottage, and by the myriad of strange scents assaulting his nostrils as he sprinted down the stairs they were, then he would bloody well indulge his beast.

  The sight that greeted him downstairs turned his stomach, and increased his fury. Joanne’s tidy cottage had been turned upside down. Furniture lay overturned, the stuffing ripped out of the seat cushions, drawers were upended, their contents spilled over the floor. Even some of the floorboards had been ripped up, and Salasino’s stench was everywhere. Henry could almost taste the man’s despair, as he’d torn through the cottage. There could only be one thing he had been looking for. Joanne’s ancient texts and Henry groaned at the thought of all that information in the hands of the deranged shifter. He had clearly been underestimating the extent of the fucker’s desperation, now that the powers he had stolen were starting to work against him.

  Henry didn’t know where the texts were hidden. He hadn’t asked, as this was none of his business, and Joanne hadn’t volunteered the information. He was pretty sure, however, they wouldn’t be hidden here, and if they were, they were no doubt heavily spell-guarded. His little red took her job as Guardian Witch very seriously, and he knew that Joanne would rather die than give those texts over to anyone. His wolf whined at the thought, and Henry’s vision returned to him in full, gory detail. That fucker would try and torture it out of her, and weakened as she was she might not have the strength to shield herself from him.

  Fuck. Taking a deep breath in to calm his agitated wolf, he stepped through what remained of Joanne’s back door, and scanned the devastation of what had been her tidy herb and vegetable garden. Here, too, the ground had been overturned, her chicken pen smashed and the animals were hopping about freely. An elderly wolf shifter pushed away from the half-demolished shed he had been leaning against, and threw the cigar he’d been smoking on the ground. His boots crunched on broken glass as he stepped over the gooseberry bushes, and approached Henry, head bowed in submission.

  The action calmed Henry’s wolf somewhat, especially as he sensed no malice from this shifter, nor the assembled crew of Lupines. Surrounded by what was left of Henry’s undrugged pack, they watched the exchange between their leader and Henry warily. As well they should. Henry would be perfectly within his right to rip the other man’s head off. In fact his wolf was still urging him to do so, but that action wouldn’t get Joanne back.

  If the intentions he sensed in the man stood in front of him now were indeed true, then the Mongrels could do with the help. In turn he would grant any of the Lupines who wanted it, amnesty. It’s what Henry was trying to achieve, after all, for the shifters to unite.

  They had enough worries, hiding their true identity from the rapidly increasing human population, which continued to flood into Cumbria, and encroach on their open spaces.

  “Talk, and give me one good reason why I shouldn’t make a fucking example of you right now.” Henry’s terse command and the inherent threat brought the other man’s head up. The Lupine’s wolf briefly snarled at Henry, before the man spread his hands in surrender.

  “We haven’t come to cause problems, Alpha, far from it. As I explained to your beta, our so-called Alpha has gone too far. I may be honor bound to him, but when he’s hell bent to send the pack into ruin, I have to act.”

  Henry narrowed his eyes, and searched the other man’s weathered expression. There was a quiet air of command about him, and he looked familiar. Henry had seen him before, or rather he’d seen what must have been this man’s father, when he had been the Alpha of the Lupines. Henry had been a child when he had witnessed the negotiations between his own father and the then Alpha. They’d enjoyed a period of peace while he was growing up, until Salasino had fought for and won the position of Alpha, and things had changed beyond recognition.

  “Your father was the old Alpha, right?” he asked and the other man’s head shot up in surprise. A brief flash of pain crossed his features, and he nodded. “Why didn’t you challenge him when your father died?”

  Again that flash of pain so intense it almost hurt to look at him.

  “Salasino threatened my mate. She was human and far too fragile for me or this life. She never would have survived in a fight, so I stepped down. “

  He raised his head and stared Henry down, seemingly willing him to argue the point. Before Joanne, Henry might have done. As far as he was concerned the pack’s needs always came first, but that was before he had his own mate to worry over. Already he felt cut in half. He had to find her and save her. Any other alternative was unthinkable.

  “Why didn’t you leave after?” he asked the other man, and the wolf shifter shrugged his shoulders.

  “I couldn’t. For better or worse this is my home, my pack, my family. And at first Salasino was a good Alpha. Keeping the bloodlines pure made sense, up to point. But, then he became fanatical about it. His inner circle was needlessly cruel to other shifters, and there has been growing concern among the Lupines still loyal to me. An oath is an oath, however.” He stopped speaking and looked into the distance, and Henry waited for him to continue. Henry sensed the turmoil in the other man, and put his hand out to touch his shoulder.

  “I understand that better than most, and your loyalty does you credit. If those you’ve brought with you are willing to pledge themselves to me and the Mongrels, there is no need for further bloodshed between us.”

  The other man’s amber gaze sought his, and he studied him for the longest moment, until he bowed his head.

  “It is true what they say about you,” he said.

  Henry couldn’t suppress a humorless laugh at that.

  “And what do they say?” he asked.

  “That you’re fair and wise beyond your years. That you’re a man with a vision to take the Cumbrian shifters forward, and that you want to keep us all safe. This is what my father would have wanted. It’s what I want for the pack. You have my word upon my honor that we will serve you well.” He paused for a second and when he grinned it was his wolf staring back at Henry. “We will help you get your mate back. Miss Joanne has only ever been kind to everyone, and I have a fairly good idea where he’s taken her.”

  The relief that flooded through Henry at those words almost brought him to his knees.

  “Where?” he asked, and the other man smiled.

  “Let’s shift. It will be much quicker to get there. It’s an old abandoned mining shaft that leads to an underground cave. It’s where those fucking vam
ps tend to hide in the daylight. I say we get out your mate, kill Salasino, and bring that whole fucking place down around their heads.”

  Henry threw his head back and howled his agreement with this plan. His wolf’s cry was joined by many others as all round him men shifted, and they all took off at run, following the Lupines lead.

  * * * *

  Joanne curled into a ball on the damp ground, and tried to breathe through the pain. Everything hurt, and the sickly sweet scent of her blood filled her nostrils and made her gag. The stench of death was everywhere, and Joanne closed her eyes again to summon her powers. Vamps, that was who she sensed, and her blood ran cold. They stayed in the shadows, but she could feel their murderous intentions toward her. Clearly they were clueless if they thought they could take her on. Joanne almost hoped they would try. To see them writhe around on the floor as her blood poisoned them would be worth the agony of being bitten.

  Salasino paced around the fire she was lying next to, his desperation so thick, Joanne wanted him to choke on it.

  “Oh good, you’re awake again, you little slut.” A forceful kick to her side took her breath away and she bit her lips to stop herself from crying out. She wouldn’t give that asshole the satisfaction of hearing her cry out in pain, even if he broke every bone in her body, and it seemed he was well on the way of doing so.

  Joanne took a mental inventory of her injuries. Three broken ribs, which made breathing extremely difficult, a broken wrist, where he’d tied her arms awkwardly behind her back, a strained ankle, when she had twisted it going down, and, of course, the head injury. She knew she had lost too much blood from that, as her vision kept going fuzzy. Even now, her blood seeped into the ground around her, and she swallowed hard to stop herself from being sick.

  Her life was not going to end here on the damp floor of a damn cave. It couldn’t, not when she had only just found her Henry. They had their life ahead of them, after all. Thoughts of Henry brought his beloved face to mind. He was coming. She knew that as surely as she knew she was running out of time, her mortal body succumbing to the loss of blood. She could sense his fury, his quiet determination to rescue her, and he was close, so damn close.

  By all the heavens above let him hurry. If I’m going to die let me die in his arms.

  Tears clouded her vision and she hastily blinked them away, as Salasino approached again and yanked her up by her hair. Her broken wrist gave way, and this time she couldn’t stop her grunt of pain. Salasino’s eyes glittered in triumph, and he leant in to lick her face. Bile rose in her gut and Joanne spit in his face.

  With a furious growl that echoed around the cave he back handed her, and dropped her back on the floor. Joanne went down hard and she tasted her own blood as her lips split open.

  “Clearly that Hastings hasn’t taught you any manners. If you were mine you’d know how to treat a man right. Too bad we haven’t got time to teach you. But, I have better plans for you, much better plans, and then nothing will be able to stop me. Nothing, do you hear, bitch? I’ll be fucking invincible, and your pathetic little wolf will be my rug in front of my fireplace.”

  His evil laughter rang round the cave and Joanne screwed her eyes shut.

  Oh my god, he’s gone utterly insane.

  A commotion at the back of the cave caught his attention and Joanne shifted herself, to see a woman approach. Ethereally beautiful, she wore a long purple dress, that hugged her slim form, and her long black hair hung perfectly straight. It framed a face so pale that her ruby red painted lips stood out in dark contrast against her perfect complexion. Her scent was sweet, and seductive, overlaying the stench of those that followed her, and Joanne’s heart missed a beat, when she realized who this was. The sire, Henry had talked about.

  “There you are. Took you fucking long enough. I told you I got you a present. This one should sweeten the deal, right? Right? You promised.” Salasino’s words barely registered as all of Joanne’s waning attention was taken up by this new and extremely dangerous arrival. Joanne knew that her blood would poison vamps, but did this still hold true for one as powerful and ancient as this one? This was the one who had been there when Salasino had killed Liz, after all. Joanne didn’t know how she knew that, she just did, felt it in her soul. With that knowledge came her renewed conviction that Salasino would not get her powers. She would hold onto them with her last dying breath.

  The woman’s almond shaped violet eyes sought out her gaze and held it for a moment as Joanne could feel her presence try to probe into her mind. She frowned when it dawned on her that she couldn’t and ignoring Salasino’s blustering, she crouched down in front of Joanne and sniffed her. Her eyes widened and her fangs dropped, yet she made no move to bite her. Instead she straightened and whirled round with inhuman speed, and before Joanne had managed to draw another rattling breath into her painful lungs, she had Salasino by the throat and dangling a foot up in the air. Her cohorts hissed and swarmed around her, claws extended, a gruesome parody of what they once were.

  “This….this is my present, wolf?” She snarled the words in Salasino’s face, and he desperately tried to get her clawed hand off his throat, but he was clearly no match for this vampire’s strength.

  When he made a gurgling sound in the back of his throat, she threw him to the floor in disgust. He hit the ground with such force that the earth shook, and Joanne was pretty sure she heard the man’s spine crack. His wolf yelped in pain, yet he didn’t seem to notice. Too high on adrenaline and still believing he was invincible, he tried to sit up and frowned when he couldn’t.

  Joanne would have laughed at his expression had she had the energy. As it was, it took all of her last remaining strength to just keep breathing.

  “You took the last one. This one has more powers. I couldn’t get the texts, but you’ll get it out of her,” Salasino said and paled as her minions surrounded him at a snap of her fingers. “Get those fucking things off me. You promised, damn you. Angelique, please.”

  Angelique laughed and shook her head. It wasn’t an amused laugh, however. No, this one sent chills down Joanne’s spine, and Salasino seemed to, at last, cotton on that this whole scenario was not going in his favor. Two of the females circling him dived onto his legs, fangs extended, when Angelique snapped her fingers again. The fact that he didn’t seem to notice how they mauled his flesh in the process confirmed Joanne’s earlier assessment of a broken spine and she brought up whatever she had left in her stomach.

  Her throat burned and the roaring in her ears increased, as the faint snarls, yips, and growls of wolves registered. Angelique’s head snapped round in the direction of the noise, and before Joanne knew what was happening she had hauled her to her feet. Joanne cried out in pain, and the vamp shifted so that she lay half across her, as the woman sank to the floor, the cave walls at her back. One of her razor-sharp claws dug into her neck, where her heart was desperately trying to circulate her remaining blood with not much effect. Joanne didn’t know why she just didn’t finish the job there and then. Cold seeped through her bones and made her teeth chatter, just as the welcome sight of Henry in his wolf form leapt into her view. Teeth drawn back, he growled and circled the vamp and her, while Salasino cried out in pain and the furious sounds of fighting filled the air.

  His worry for her wrapped itself around her like a warm cocoon and she closed her eyes and let herself sink into oblivion.

  I’m so sorry, Sir. I love you.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Henry’s wolf went wild and not caring of exposing his weaker side, Henry shifted back to human. Joanne couldn’t be dying, not now, not here, no fucking way. Slowly the sounds of fighting diminished and he was dimly aware of his men shifting around him, as deathly silence fell onto the cave. Joanne’s heart was still beating, but irregularly—the distance between each heartbeat getting longer and longer.

  “Let my mate go, now. She’s not going to die in the arms of a fucking vamp.” How Henry managed to get the words out past the lump of dread and m
isery in his throat he would never know. His whole body ached with the need to hold Joanne in his arms. He had failed in protecting her, damn it, and he had cost her his life.

  “You’re surrounded. All your children are dead, and Salasino soon will be. Give up, and give our Alpha his mate.” Olaf’s voice, heavy with grief, yet no less powerful echoed around the heavy stillness surrounding them, and the thing in front of them laughed.

  Once it had no doubt been melodic and lured many a man to his death, but, here, right now, it was pure evil. Henry wanted to tear the fucking bitch apart but she had Joanne in her grip, and while there was still breath left in his little red’s body he couldn’t risk her getting hurt further.

  The thing made a big show of studying them all, and then sniffed Joanne.

  “Yes, I can see she is your mate. She stinks just like you, mutt.”

  A collective rumble went up in his men at the insult she had just thrown at them, and she grinned.

  “Oh, do keep your furs on. You shifters are always so touchy. Not an ounce of a sense of humor. That useless mutt down there, was the worst of them all.” She pointed one red-tipped fingernail to Salasino, who lay in a pool of his blood, barely conscious. “He summons me here, and then thinks that gives him some claim over me. Poor deluded fool. He proved useful for a while, of course, but so demanding. Give me this. Give me that.”

  She spat on the ground in his direction and shook her head as though disgusted.

  “He wasn’t even that good in bed, and completely failed to get me what I truly wanted.” She looked at Henry and let her violet gaze slowly run over his body. It made the blood in his veins run cold, and when she paused at the sight of his cock, and licked her lips, it took all of Henry’s will power to not cover his junk with his hand. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of showing how much she was getting to him.