by Leia Stone
Panic ripped through me, but I kept my face calm. Thank God we’d gotten Cass into hiding. I just hoped the gate kept him hidden or we were in for a world of trouble. Brock nodded, and the three witches started to chant.
I recognized immediately that they were doing a power of three spell. I’d seen Gran do a few of them outside in the back yard with her friends. They were powerful and little could hide from them.
Please let Cass be okay.
A white mist rolled out from their hands and shot out across Brock’s land in one quick burst.
The head witch raised an eyebrow. “No living demons on the property, but there has been one here recently. The essence still lingers.”
Fuck!
“Yeah, the entire town just fought a fog demon,” Brock interjected.
Thank God for his quick thinking, because I’d had no idea what to say.
The woman nodded her understanding, and the witches broke apart.
“My second-in-command has a full list of every single wolf under my authority,” Brock announced to the agent in charge. “He’s bringing it out to you now.”
On cue, Ray emerged from the house, a sheaf of papers clutched in one hand.
“That won’t be acceptable,” Agent Maler said. “We need to take down their names in person and confirm them with their state-issued IDs.”
Brock crossed his arms over his chest and glared. “The list is all I can offer at this time.” A patch of fur worked its way up Brock’s arms and the lead agent’s eyes widened a little.
Maler’s jaw worked, and when Ray handed over the papers, he snatched them out of his hands and stared at my man. “This isn’t over, Brock Adams. It’s far from over.”
Brock’s lips curved into a frigid, deadly smile. “You can count on it.”
When Maler stomped back to the lead Hummer, the soldiers and witches under his command followed suit. Within minutes, they’d all peeled out of the driveway, leaving clouds of dust—and a shitload of anxiety—in their wake.
14 Fuck you, Agent Fuckface
I was far from happy about how things had gone down with Agent Fuckface, but at least it was over—for now. The first thing I did once the convoy of trucks faded from sight was hightail it to the site of the gate. With the flag marker, it was easy to locate the part of the gate that was cracked open—making sure I didn’t fall straight through. Because I’d consumed Cho’s potion, I wouldn’t be able to shift for twenty-four hours. Not that I would want to anyway; I needed to take it slow for the baby’s sake.
“Cass! It’s safe to come out,” I yelled, pulling up Tianna’s contact listing on my phone. I knew we’d agreed that she’d come up with a spell that would go into the gate and notify him it was safe to return, but I couldn’t discount the possibility that he might be able to hear me and come out on his own. No point making things complicated if we didn’t need to. The less time my bestie spent in the underworld, the better.
“Cass!” I called again right as Tianna answered her phone. “Hey,” I said to her while Brock filed in behind me. “The agents just left. I’m calling to Cass, but I’m not sure he can hear me. You should probably head out here to do your spell once you’re all clear over there.”
“I can’t,” she said, voice tight. “I’m trapped here.”
“What?” I squeaked. “Is everyone all right? What’s going on?”
Tianna chuckled. “No need to freak out, girl. We’re all fine. So fine that the agents skipped right over us. Johnny did some kind of last-minute high-level cloaking spell that disguised the location of the entire coven. We saw the armored vehicles driving by on the road, but they couldn’t find us.”
“No doubt they intended to surprise us all at once so we couldn’t warn each other,” Brock grumbled from where he was listening to the conversation at my side.
“That was smart,” I said to Tianna.
“A little too smart maybe,” Tianna said. “It was such an advanced spell that Johnny is having a bit of trouble taking it down now, and I’ve never seen anything like it before. We’re trying to figure out what’s glitching. The cloaking sort of backfired and locked us in at the same time. No one can leave the property.”
“So you might be a while, then?” I asked.
“Seems like it. I’m sure we’ll get it figured out with time.”
“All right … well, I’ll just keep calling to Cass until you can get here. He should be fine to wait in there a little longer.”
“Uh, Evie,” Brock said, and I spun to face the direction of the gate.
“Hold up,” I spoke into the phone. “The bartender is climbing out of the gate.”
“Hey, man,” Brock called out.
The large demon bartender, who’d come on to me when I first met him, was grim. His face looked ashen, and his mouth was pulled into a frown.
“What is it?” I asked, my heart thumping in my chest already. That was the face of someone with bad fucking news to share.
“They took Cass,” the bartender with the horns said in a gruff voice.
“What do you mean, ‘they took Cass?’” I was going to be sick.
“They came out of nowhere and snatched him before we had the chance to react. They snuck up on us, knocked me out.”
“What the hell is going on?” Tianna asked through the phone, but I couldn’t answer her yet.
I forced the words through a throat that was suddenly bone dry. “Who’s ‘they?’ Who took him?”
“Three sirens. We didn’t even see them coming.”
“Tianna,” I snapped into the phone, “get that spell down as quickly as you fucking can. We’ve got a big problem over here and I’ll take all the help I can get. These bitch sirens have Cass, and I’m getting him back. And then I’m going to kill every motherfucking one of them.”
“What’s happening to her?” Brock asked my father with panic in his voice. I was pacing the living room floor; arcs of purple magic flared off my skin, lashing out at the walls and leaving dark marks there.
“She is angry, and her magic is becoming unstable.” My father spoke as if I wasn’t there. I knew I needed to calm down, that weird shit was happening to my body, but I couldn’t. My best friend in the entire world had been taken. Calista and her psychotic evil sisters had turned my life into a shit show and I was pissed. If one tiny pink hair on his head was damaged, I would eviscerate them all.
“Ev. Can you focus on my voice?” Brock said quietly.
I stopped pacing. “I can hear you,” I snapped. “I’m trying.” Then I resumed my pacing.
I couldn’t go into the gate because it would kill me. I wasn’t demon in origin. I didn’t have any demon bounty hunter friends or anyone I could send in after Cass, and while the bartender was willing to help as much as he could, let’s face it, he was a fucking bartender—useless in a fight against three nasty bitches.
A crash pulled my attention as a painting ripped off the wall and slammed onto the floor.
Shit.
My purple magic was like a violent whip right now, and I didn’t know how to fix it. “Whoops. Sorry,” I winced.
“Evie,” Brock snapped. “You could be hurting our baby!”
Fear flushed through me, dousing my anger; the purple streaks finally subsided. My hands shook as Brock’s face swam into view.
“I’m sorry.” Tears lined my eyes. “Cass … my sweet Cass.”
“We’ll find him. I promise.” Brock rubbed my arms and then looked at Cho and my father. Normally this room would be full of people, but we were down to a group of four.
“Has anything like this ever happened to you before? The … magic flying out?” My alpha was clearly worried, and now I felt awful for how I’d lost it. I needed to get better control over myself.
My gaze flicked to my father, who answered Brock: “The anger streak was usually her mother’s thing. But it happened to me once or twice too. Completely normal, but not exactly safe when you have power lashing out with no intention.”
My father wheeled closer to me. “It’s perfectly normal. Someone you love has been taken.” Reaching up, he clasped my hand and I bent on one knee to face him.
“Dad—” That word still felt weird in my mouth. “Help me get Cass. You have to have an idea, a way inside. I know I’m not a demon, but there has to be a spell or something that could help.” My gaze flicked to Cho as the panic ramped higher. How long had it been since he’d been taken? Were they hurting him? I wasn’t able to mind message him at the gate, so he must be far away. How would I find him?
Cho shook her head. “There’s no spell that could temporarily turn you into a demon that wouldn’t also risk you and the child.”
I was going to be sick. We had to get Tianna out of the Black coven’s land. She would be able to help me … maybe.
Fuck!
My father rubbed his chin. “I have a thought.”
Hope burst inside my chest. “Tell me.”
“Haru was telling me that you’d formed a bit of an alliance with the selkies. And selkies are creatures of the underworld.”
Creatures of the underworld.
The entire room spun as adrenaline coursed through me. The selkies! Yes.
“Dad, that’s genius!”
Brock cleared his throat. “Umm … you do remember that before we left the cove, the selkie leader almost didn’t let us go, right?”
Yeah, well, technicalities. We all wanted the same thing. For me to close the gate and for the Akuma to go fuck themselves.
“Brock, if they could help us get Cass … we have to try,” I said.
He sighed. “You’re right. I’ll charter a helicopter. Call Tianna one more time, see if she’s made any headway on breaking out of the Black’s land.”
I nodded. This was going to work. It had to.
Tianna picked up on the first ring. “Tell me good news.”
“You first,” I prodded.
She sighed heavily into the phone. “We’re fucking stuck here. Your cousin has even called in some friends to break down the spell from the outside, but they can’t fucking find us. We’re definitely going to be here a while.”
No.
“Can you like, shatter it or do another pentacle spell or something?” I suggested. “You have a ton of powerful witches there.”
“That’s the problem. We all put our energy into helping Johnny create this concealment shield, so it’s not a hostile spell. My magic is a part of it, so my magic doesn’t recognize it as a threat to combat. Hard to explain, kid, but we’ll figure it out. Tell me about my Cass.”
Her Cass. My bestie finally found his better half and now…
I couldn’t think about it.
I tried to keep my voice upbeat: “Well, we have a great plan.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Evie. That’s my soulmate in there. Give it to me straight.”
My voice shook. “He’s gone, T. Cho sent out some initial feelers but nothing came back. The sirens have him and no one can go in after him without the gate ripping them in half, according to my father at least.”
I wasn’t prepared for the wail that came through the other end of the phone. It was a cry of anger and desperation, coming from one of the strongest witches I’d ever met.
“But we have a plan,” I hastened to add. “We’re going to jump in a helicopter and fly to see the selkies. I’m going to convince them to go in after Cass and save him or something brilliant. Don’t worry.”
Silence.
Until finally, “The selkies…?” Her voice was airy on the other line. “The Selkies!” she shouted, making me jump.
“Yeah…”
“Evie. The selkies aren’t shifters. Their ability to change forms is confined to their seal skins. Legend says that anyone with magical blood wearing a seal skin can become a selkie, even if only temporarily. Men and women used to try to steal the skins in order to harness their powers.”
What was she suggesting? “Could I do this? Could Brock and I temporarily become selkies enough to convince the underworld that we have a demonic energy signature?” It was as bananas as it got, but it was also the only plan we had that didn’t rely on an untrained bartender.
“Yes,” Tianna confirmed. “You and Brock could cloak your energy in demon magic to cross into the underworld and save Cass. At least, that’s the theory.”
Oh fuck. My alpha was not going to like this.
15 Friend or foe?
After suggesting I was crazy about twenty times, Brock finally agreed to at least ask the selkies if it was even possible to disguise ourselves as them. Now we were a few minutes away from their cove just off of the coast of Washington state. I’d always wanted to ride in a helicopter, just not like this.
“It’s totally weird to me that the government knows exactly where we are right now.” I reached out and rubbed the small lump on his shoulder, evident even beneath his t-shirt.
Brock grimaced. “If there’s a murder within five miles of my location, I’ll probably get blamed for it.”
My eyes widened.
“I’m messing around,” he told me before looking out at the open sea, but he was right. He’d taken a huge risk to protect his wolves.
Since we were on borrowed time, we’d convinced a fae pilot Brock knew to fly us to the selkies. I didn’t want Cass in the underworld after nightfall.
“I’m going to do a water landing!” the pilot shouted over the sound of the whirring blades.
A water landing? That sounded scary, but his bird looked equipped for that sort of thing with floats for landing gear, so I just held on white-knuckled until he lowered us near the edge of the shoreline.
“I’ve got an inflatable boat,” the pilot called out, and ten minutes later Brock had rowed us ashore.
“Let’s be quick. Cass is … counting on us,” I told Brock over the lump in my throat that had been lodged there since I found out the sirens had taken my bestie.
My alpha gripped my hand and we slow-jogged to the thick patch of forest where we’d seen the last selkie leader, or whatever she was.
Brock was staring into the forest. “Was it through here?”
“No, I think it was farther down.” I pulled his hand and that’s when the leader of the selkies emerged from the trees.
“Broke your sword again, kitsune?” the long-haired selkie asked behind black eyes that scared the shit out of me. Why couldn’t they be beautiful mermaids instead?
I approached her, hands out. “Hey. We’ve got a situation and we’re hoping you’ll help…”
What would I offer her in exchange? Money? I doubted the selkies cared for that.
She raised an eyebrow. “Selkies don’t help others. We stick with our own kind.”
With that she turned her back and started to walk away.
What the fuck?
Rage boiled inside me.
“Fine! I’ll fucking call the Akuma and sic them on your asses. I don’t care. Meanwhile, the human Feds are locking up demons in concentration camps. I wonder how you and your group will fare in bunk beds on land!”
My chest heaved as the anger ripped through me. Brock stood there, wide-eyed, holding my hand tightly.
The selkie froze, then spun about, a demonic fire blazing in her eyes. “You dare threaten me?” The trees shook at her words, but I decided I’d gone too far to back down now.
“My best friend Cass, the little pink demon imp you met last time, was taken in the underworld, and I need to get him back. I’ll threaten whomever I need to in order to make sure he doesn’t die.”
She sighed.
“Please, he’s family.” I whimpered.
Her face relaxed a little. “I wonder what it would be like to be that full of love for someone…” She sounded wistful, and I suddenly wondered if she had ever been in love.
I tried to hook the sale. “My witch friend said that if you loaned us two
of your skins, we could—”
She gasped. “Loan you our skins? That’s like asking someone to loan you their soul!” The fire was back in her eyes, burning more fiercely than before.
‘We may have to call the pack. Take them by force,’ I told Brock through our link. I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I couldn’t, not when this was our only chance at getting Cass back right now.
My alpha’s eyes went wide and concerned, his mouth tight. War with the selkies wasn’t exactly on today’s agenda, I got that. But what else were we supposed to do? Leaving Cass in the underworld as a prisoner of the sirens for a second longer than necessary was completely out of the question.
He dropped my hand and approached the selkie leader. “Times have changed. Supernaturals have become hunted overnight.” Lifting his shirt, he showed her the small red bump on his shoulder. “I’ve been tagged like an animal, and now the government knows everywhere I go.”
He allowed his words to linger until fear flickered in her eyes.
“It’s only a matter of time before their witches find you and flush you out,” I added for effect.
She crossed her arms. “So I let you borrow two skins, and what do I get? You’re going to protect me from the humans?”
Brock shrugged. “Maybe. If you lend us two skins to cross over into the underworld, I, Brock Adams, will pledge an alliance with your clan. That means that if you’re ever in need of protection or a favor, I’ll grant it. No matter what.”
Chills broke out on my arms. That sounded magically binding. A smile curled at the edges of the selkie’s lips. “A favor and alliance with the alpha.” She dragged the words out, seeming to ponder Brock’s offer while stroking her stringy, long hair.
After a moment’s pause, she snapped her fingers and two naked women walked out from the woods, a wet selkie skin draped over each of their arms in offering.
Thank you, Jesus!
I wanted to weep in relief, but kept my shit together. I could lose it on the helicopter ride back, but not here.
“I accept your offer, Brock Adams,” the selkie leader said. She spat on her hand and held it out to him.