by Moira Rogers
She’d thought Jay might have come after him, but he was alone, sprawled in the clearing where they’d gathered to shift with the last full moon. He didn’t stir as she approached, just stared up at the night sky, his jaw set and his hands tightly fisted.
No room to dance around it. She didn’t have the right. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
“Don’t, Lorelei.” His voice was flat. No anger, no accusation… Just gentle firmness. “I thought pushing was what you needed, but I was wrong. I won’t do it again.”
“Maybe it is what I need,” she countered, crossing her arms over her body. “My way isn’t working out so well.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But if so, you need it from someone you trust.”
This was the hardest to explain. Eden still thought she stood on shaky ground, that Lorelei couldn’t depend on her the way she had Zack. But the truth was far more damning. “I trust you all—every single one of you—more than I trust myself. I think…maybe that’s the real problem.”
Colin finally turned his head, squinting at her through the darkness. “You don’t trust me with your secrets or your pain. I’m not blaming you, just stating a fact.” He turned his gaze toward the sky. “How could I blame you? Maybe I’m not built for trusting.”
It hurt worse, in a completely backwards sort of way, having him take the blame on himself. “I don’t know if you’re making this about you because you’re trying to protect me, or if you’re just being a self-centered dick.”
That got him up. He rolled to his knees and glared at her, and she could feel his anger and hurt seething behind a blank wall of power, as if he’d locked everything up inside him so tightly that his wolf was muted. “It’s about me because I should be protecting you.”
“From what? Something that happened six years ago?” Familiar panic threatened to choke her, but she shoved through it and reached for her own anger. Her pain. “Most of the time, I don’t think about Robbie, because I can’t. I hide from what happened, that’s how I keep it together. But fair is fair. I shouldn’t have started this if I couldn’t open up to you. Be mad about that.”
“I can’t,” he snarled. “I can’t get mad.”
“Why not?” Need dragged her two steps closer, desperate, driving need. “I fucked up, and I hurt you.”
His breath whistled out as he came to his feet, and for a moment she thought he’d retreat. From her. “After all you’ve been through—” He bit off the words and growled. “You’re supposed to be safe here.”
Everything burned—her eyes, her throat. The knot in the pit of her stomach. “I lied to you, hid parts of myself. And now you’re doing the same thing to me.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” She bit off the words with a frustrated groan. “I’m safe, Colin. Here, with you, I’m—”
Pressure raised the fine hairs on Lorelei’s arms a fraction of a second before magic cracked through the night like a shot. It throbbed in her ears, muffling Colin’s shouts.
Run. He was telling her to run, but her feet were rooted to the spot. It took every ounce of her strength to lift them enough to stumble, to try to close the distance between them.
Then Colin flipped into the air, head over heels, and slammed to the ground in front of her. Lorelei screamed for help before the same unseen force sent her sprawling. Her head hit something hard, and the blinding flash of pain subsided into an inky weight that dragged her under.
Chapter Fourteen
Colin had only been really drunk once. As a werewolf, his metabolism kept up with whatever liquor he consumed, and with a job as dangerous as his, it was never that much. But he’d been drunk once as a teenager, during the week before he’d undergone the transformation from human to wolf.
It had felt a lot like he did now. Blurry, confusing. Like he might puke on his shoes at any moment.
“Wake him up.”
His eyes might as well have been cemented shut. Vertigo crashed into him when he turned his head toward the sound of the voice—or tried to turn. He couldn’t tell if he’d moved at all when everything seemed to have taken on the inebriated sway of a boat at sea.
Pain cracked across his face, shattered the cement and sent his stomach lurching. At least he could open his eyes now, but squinting only revealed the rough walls of a cabin and two blurry figures.
“He’s useless now.” A woman’s voice, aged and low, and one of the figures bent closer. “First you rattled his brains, and now the spell… It’s too much.”
“You wrap a binding around me and then tell me it’s too much,” the other retorted primly. “He’s a dark one, he is. His hands are dripping with blood. Shall I have him add yours to it?”
“Don’t be daft,” the woman spat. “We’ll have to get it from the girl.”
The girl. Colin craned his head, ignoring the seesawing vertigo, and caught sight of Lorelei sprawled out on the other side of the room. Rage shot fire through his limbs, and a growl escaped from between his teeth.
“Hmm, I concede your point.” One pale hand reached toward him, twisted, and Colin rose. Not of his own accord, but as if some force dragged him to his feet. “Up.”
Even with a rattled skull, he knew he was facing witches. Two older women, one small and slender, the perfect picture of a small-town grandmother, the other tall and curvy, wrapped in silk and fading glamour. She had a charismatic air and the arrogant body language of a leader, but it was the sweet-looking grandmother who held Colin immobilized, her magic a crushing weight all around him.
God, he hated witches.
“Don’t look at me like that,” the gray-haired witch admonished. “I haven’t killed you yet, and I could—right where you stand.”
Anger cleared the static from his mind, so he let himself feel the vicious bite of it as he glared at her. “Then let the girl go. Whatever you need, get it from me.”
She scoffed. “No, that won’t work. The boy’s gone. Austin’s girl is the key to everything now.”
Austin’s girl. He forced his gaze to the side again, but his eyes only told him what his nose had already confirmed—Lorelei was the one sprawled out in a tangle of limbs and blonde hair. Lorelei, who looked so much like Eden that no one had questioned they were cousins.
They thought they had Eden, and correcting them might prove fatal. He couldn’t know for sure until he got more information. Not that it could be as easy as asking.
Or could it? The witches stood in front of an open door, one that spilled morning sunlight into the cabin along with a chilly autumn wind. Arrogance, but maybe justified when they had him wrapped in so much magic he could barely move his jaw to ask, “The key to what?”
The witch ignored the question. “What did they do with it?”
“What did who do with what?”
Her jaw clenched. “With the node, smartass.”
He didn’t have to fake a growl. It rattled through his aching chest as his lips pulled away from his teeth. “Do I look like I know what a fucking node is?”
“One of you knew enough to get it out of the ground.” She nodded to the taller woman. “The others will be here soon. Get the blood.”
The witch took one step toward Lorelei, and Colin reassessed the danger. “If you want Eden’s blood, you won’t get it from her. That’s not Eden Green.”
The women exchanged looks, and the tall, curvy witch shook her head. “Looks like the picture to me. I think he’d say anything to stall.”
Panic spiked through his rage as he realized that his wolf hadn’t stirred. His other self was there, asleep inside him, but it wasn’t a natural sleep. The wolf felt muted, distant. He could no more summon the change than he could take flight, and that was the most terrifying knowledge of all.
No, the second most terrifying. The curvy woman took another step toward Lorelei, and he redoubled his struggles, straining against the invisible bonds with a desperation born of the need to protect. His pinky finger twitched, and then his whole hand, and he sn
arled and threw himself at the spell with renewed hope.
“Unless…” The older woman held up her hand, stilling his struggles as well as the other witch’s progress. “Unless he’s telling the truth. We only have one shot at this.”
“You think it’s better to wait for Nancy?”
“She’s known Eden Green since she was a child. She can tell us for certain. And once we’re certain—”
“We’ll be ready to go.” The tall witch backed off with a nod. “Then we’ll wait.”
The grandmother dropped her hand, and Colin hit the wooden boards in a painful sprawl, knocking his head against the floor hard enough to cast a gray pall over the world. “The wards will hold them both,” he heard the older witch say, her voice brisk and unconcerned. “But I see no reason to take chances. I’ll set his bindings, and you see to the perimeter.”
“Should we bind the girl?”
“Next to him, her power is a spark beside a bonfire. Save your strength for their witch. She might be a clumsy child, but she’s strong. You’ll have to mask everything.”
“I’ll get started.” She stepped away from Lorelei and slipped through the open door.
Colin’s skin prickled, a mild itching that turned to rough pain as magic began to press in on him. The weight made it hard to breathe, but he didn’t panic. He’d fallen facing Lorelei, and her deep, even breaths soothed him.
His mate was alive, and the witches had underestimated her. He couldn’t blame them. He’d underestimated her again and again, tiptoeing around a fragile woman who just needed someone to believe in her strength.
He did. Maybe part of him always had, because for all the panicked need to protect pounding in his veins, he wasn’t afraid for her. Not really. The witches had underestimated Lorelei, and they’d regret it.
They were trapped.
Lorelei had smashed every damn thing she could think of into the windows and the oddly open doorway. Every time she thought she might break through, the glass or air crackled with energy that raised the hair on the back of her neck.
Magic.
She tossed the heavy iron poker down beside the hearth, abandoning the pursuit in favor of another round of pleading with Colin. The cut on his forehead didn’t look that bad, but the fact it was scabbed over instead of healed—combined with her inability to rouse him—scared her more than that open door.
“Wake up,” she whispered, stroking his cheek and jaw. Her fingers moved automatically to the base of his throat, feeling for the pulse that beat there, strong and slow. “You have to wake up.”
He stirred this time, at least, pressing into her touch as his lips parted around a sound. A groan, or maybe the first part of her name.
It shoved aside every bit of fear she felt for herself. “Colin, please try.”
“Magic,” he muttered, and his eyelids fluttered. “Spell. Binding.”
Whether he was talking about the cabin or himself, she didn’t know. “We have to get out of here somehow.”
His eyes cracked open, but his gaze seemed fuzzy, as if he couldn’t focus on her. “Touch helps. Talking too. Gives me something to follow…” The words trailed off into uncertainty.
“They bound his magic,” a familiar voice offered from behind her, a voice that froze her in place. “Two witches.”
Lorelei whirled so fast it made her head ache and left her dizzy—but not too dizzy to focus on the man in the corner, standing with his hands in his pockets and a somber expression on his unshaven face.
Her heart shot into her throat, pounding with renewed terror. She couldn’t smell him, sense him, but then she wouldn’t be able to, would she? He wasn’t there, couldn’t be—because she’d helped put him in the ground herself. “Quinn.”
“Hey, Lorelei.” His smile was everything she remembered, though she hadn’t seen it in ages, since long before he’d taken his own life. He watched her now as if her reaction had been the punch line to one of his off-color jokes. “You’ll be all right, I promise. You just have to stay calm.”
“Calm,” she repeated blankly. As if calm was an option with one man possibly dying at her feet and another quite literally dead on his feet. “This isn’t happening.”
He crouched and studied Colin. “They hit him hard. More than one spell, I think. Something about him scared the stronger one, though she didn’t want to show it. You need to help him fight through the magic.”
“I know.” And she did, so maybe that’s what this was. Her own subconscious, telling her what to do in a way that would sure as hell get her attention.
It had happened before. All those long nights in the hospital, behind a locked door, she’d taken comfort in her hallucinations. They meant she was never really as alone as she felt, and she’d clung to them for exactly that reason.
But she’d gotten better, and she’d sworn to herself—never again. Only Colin was hurt, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to get help for him, even if meant crawling headfirst back into the darkness of insanity.
She touched his cheeks, framing his face with her hands. “Open your eyes, Colin. I need you.”
He blinked once. Twice. This time his gaze snagged on her face, and she thought perhaps he really saw her. He wet his dry lips…
And apologized. Of course. “I’m sorry, Lorelei—”
“Later,” she said. “When we get out of here.”
He nodded faintly. “Help me sit up?”
He looked like he might pitch forward on his face, but she slipped his arm around her neck and started to ease him upright. His muscles twitched and cramped under her hands, but he struggled to sit in spite of the obvious pain. “They didn’t do this to you?”
“No,” she said. Colin didn’t seem to notice Quinn, which only confirmed her suspicions. “Maybe they thought I wouldn’t wake up.”
“Stupid.” He lifted a clumsy hand to her cheek, stroking her with warm fingers. “They’re stupid. I’m stupid. You’re not stupid. You’re strong.”
So woozy and confused. “Can you get up? We have to get you moving…”
He gripped her suddenly, both hands tight on her shoulders, and his eyes all but glowed. “No, Lorelei. It’s important. I trust you.”
“Don’t.” The plea came out thin, reedy, and she hated herself.
“I trust you.” The words were raspy, hoarse, but they didn’t sound confused at all. They sounded intent. “I trust you.”
“He loves you,” Quinn’s voice came from behind her. “It’s not much of a fairy tale, and he’s not much of a prince…but there’s an evil witch and a big bad wolf. If you can find him.”
Love. Her subconscious wouldn’t flirt around the subject, would it? No, it would strip away all pretense and lay out the core of her, her deepest desires and needs.
It almost distracted her from the rest of the words. If you can find him. She shivered. “I trust you too, Colin. I thought I didn’t, but I think…I didn’t trust myself.”
The golden glow in his eyes strengthened.
“I can’t stay,” Quinn whispered, his voice wavering. “Kathy can’t hold the doorway open for long. But you don’t need me. You know what to do. Kiss Kaley and Mae for me.”
“I will.” If she looked at him, she’d break, so she kept her eyes on Colin, who blinked at her in confusion and glanced around the room.
She guided his gaze back to hers. “I didn’t trust myself. I still don’t, but I know that I can. I can do it someday, Colin, because you’ll help me.”
He heaved a shuddering breath and nodded jerkily. “We’ll trust each other.”
Magic surged along with the prickle of awareness she always felt around him, the innate recognition of the wolf inside him. “But first, we have to get out of here.”
Colin closed his eyes. “How?”
“She bound your wolf.” She leaned her forehead against his. “We’ll set him free.”
“I can’t feel him at all.” His hands settled on her hips, fingers clenching as if she was the only so
lid thing in his world. “I can barely feel anything. Like being drunk. Numb.”
They bound his magic. His magic, him…but not his wolf. Maybe they couldn’t, and that was why they had to keep him incapacitated. “Can you trust me enough to let go?”
Comprehension came slowly, but when it did, his brow furrowed. His eyes popped open, and he made a low noise, almost a growl. “Do you trust me to let go?”
She nodded, and that was all it took. The muscles trembling under her hands tensed as power ripped through him. It felt like the magic that accompanied a change, but Colin didn’t shed his skin. In fact, nothing about him seemed different until he opened his eyes.
The whites were gone. Dark pupils contracted to a tiny circle inside a sea of pure gold, and they studied her without a speck of humanity.
The wolf, in human form.
Lorelei fought tears as he inhaled deeply before leaning in to nuzzle the spot just below her ear. “There has to be a weakness in the magic, Colin. Some way out of here.”
“Mate.” The word shivered through her as he lifted a thumb to brush her jaw. “You’re the man’s mate. Our mate.”
“If you want me,” she whispered.
He frowned, as if the question was foolish and not worth comment, and flowed to his feet. There was still something of Colin in the way he prowled the confines of the cabin, but his deadly grace seemed less contained now. This was a trapped animal pacing a prison, not a logical man searching for a way out of it.
She walked over to stand beside him, stroking his shoulder. “The windows and the door are secure. Can we go through the wall?”
He tilted his head and studied the paneling. She wasn’t sure what he saw, but after a moment he extended one hand to hover an inch shy of the dusty boards. His lips curled in a snarl. “Magic.”
“Through the walls too?” She could barely feel it, just a low buzz that could have come from anywhere—or from Colin himself.
His snarl deepened into a growl. Colin was a coiled spring, and he snapped without warning, flinging himself against the wall hard enough to rattle the window.