Sofia laid her hand on my arm, drawing my attention back to her. Her eyes were wide and horrified, the phone still held to her ear in her other hand. “Dawn’s gone missing. She went to pick up her grandmother for dinner and never came back. Luke can’t even find her car.”
I wondered just how long Christopher had been watching us before he made his presence known. Did he know everyone whose lives we touched? He must have known about my attachment to Sofia, because he had been hinting about her in specific when he came to me at the parking garage. How much of it was going to be about the ritual he needed to do and how much was just getting revenge on the pack who nearly stopped him before?
“Jean-Claude, I’ll call you back. We’ve got another missing person,” I said.
“Shit. Okay. Call me back soon. I have no idea what to do with this wolf. Bye.”
After he had hung up and Sofia was off the phone, we just stood there in stunned silence for several moments.
She was the first to break the silence. “What was that about wolves?”
“Christopher’s pack found Jean-Claude’s apartment and broke in. They left a dead wolf from the zoo.”
“God, that’s horrible,” she breathed.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m going to call Edie. If nothing else, burning them should stop them, right?” She selected the number in her contact list, then waited while it rang. I could watch the worried frustration on her face grow as it continued to ring unanswered. Rather than leave a voice mail, she hung up.
She could have been busy with another call, or taking a shower, or a nap, or a million other reasonable reasons not to answer her phone, but reasonable wasn’t the order of the day.
“Do you want to go to her place?” I suggested.
Sofia nodded and started to slide her phone back into her pocket, but it began ringing as she did so. She immediately answered it without checking the number. “Hello?”
As close to her as I was, I could hear enough of the other side of the conversation that it was no surprise when she swayed on her feet, looking like she might faint. Her cousin Ana was missing.
I gently pulled the phone from her hand and put it to my ear. “Damon? Sofia will call you back. Just stay calm. We’ll find some way out of this.”
I guided Sofia over to a chair to sit down and get her bearings before we pushed on. With everything happening so quickly, I had serious doubts that we’d find Edie safe at home, but I didn’t point that out. There was no need to state the depressing.
“Hunter, I might have an idea,” Sofia said, picking her head up to look at me.
I paused, regarding her with some surprise. Frankly, I had assumed she was in a state of shock and wouldn’t be thinking of much for a while yet. I wouldn’t have blamed her, either.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’re not gonna like it,” she warned, “but I think it might be our best shot.”
***
Sofia was right. I hated the plan. Everyone else involved in it wasn’t especially pleased with the idea either, but it was also better than anyone else could hope to come up with. And more importantly, I trusted her and her judgment
“And just remember that even if you can’t trigger their weaknesses, beheading will stop anything,” Jean-Claude advised me from the backseat. Beside him sat Sofia’s Uncle Damon, with Sofia herself in the passenger seat beside me.
“You make that sound so easy.” I turned to glance at him. “Have you ever actually tried to remove a head?”
He stared back at me with those light green eyes at odds with the rest of his coloring, then nodded slowly. “I imagine you’d have an easier time than I did. You’re stronger.”
Part of me wanted to ask when he had occasion to behead someone. The rest of me was quite firm on not wanting to know.
“Good luck,” Sofia told me softly. She reached out to cup my cheek, gently rubbing her thumb against the grain of my stubble. I closed my eyes and turned in toward her hand to press a kiss to her palm.
“You too.”
I got out of the car alone, then started walking in the direction of the warehouse. I’d parked a block and a half away, to avoid being seen or heard in our approach, but I was sure that as I walked closer I’d be noticed. Jean-Claude had said there were twelve wolves involved in the hunting and killing. All twelve of them would have to be involved in the ritual in order to prolong their own lives, which meant that they’d all be inside the building when it happened. The trouble was that we weren’t entirely sure when the ritual would begin. It would be at some point between the moon’s rise and zenith, which gave us between about a quarter after eight and midnight. If we waited too long, twelve women would die.
The sun was setting as I walked up the sidewalk. Moon rise wouldn’t start for a few more minutes. It meant it was still possible for some of them to be outside and watching for me. The closer I got, the stronger the stench of fear became. Scent is so much richer of a sense than humans realize. Eyes can show you what’s currently in front of you, but a good nose told a story in four dimensions. Hours after they had been dragged inside, I could still follow the path that Dawn, Edie, and Ana had been taken on. I was starting to be able to pick out the individual scent trails of different members of the pack as well.
I turned around, sniffing at the air and straining with my ears. It appeared that they were all inside. Maybe the ritual would start just after moon rise, then. The thought of how close we had to come to disaster to succeed made me shudder involuntarily.
I followed the scent trail to a door, found it locked, and hammered on it with my fist. A few moments passed before it was jerked open. A man about my height with sandy blond hair, brown eyes, and a few days’ worth of stubble pulled it open. He was flanked by two other shifters in their halfway form between man and beast. They were covered in shaggy coats, their faces almost entirely lupine, but stood on their hind-legs, massive clawed hands at the ready. The threat was clear enough without anyone even having to growl.
I gave a small nod to the three of them.
“Christopher here?” I asked.
“He’s here.” The blond man said, but he didn’t move to allow me entrance. That shocked me, since his two buddies would have been visible from the street if anyone tried to look. They really didn’t care in the slightest about caution. “You shot me.”
I glanced down from his face, noting the bulk of bandages around his shoulder under his shirt. It made me smile grimly before I looked back into his eyes again. “You attacked my mate, murdered humans in our territory, and took our people. I’d say a bullet is the least of what I owe you.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, but finally moved to allow me passage into the warehouse. I stepped through, disliking just how close I had to brush past them to get inside. A few feet in and I could see into the main area of the warehouse. There was a circle of blood painted on the concrete floor. It must have been done a few hours before, because it still smelled like salty copper and looked gooey instead of wet. Slightly coagulated, but not dry. Various symbols I didn’t recognize were painted within the circle, but I paid them no attention. Far more pressing was the matter of the twelve women bound and gagged on the floor within the circle. The symbols spread outward from the center like the spokes on a wheel, marking the spot around each woman. There was a thirteenth spot left empty. I looked over the sacrificial victims, feeling rage overcome me. Six of them were the ones we knew were missing. Six others were strangers. Most of them smelled human to me, so I assumed they were humans with paranormal gifts or else half-shifters like Dawn.
“If you’ve come to join us, we’ll need to prepare another spot at the dinner table,” a distinctive voice commented from somewhere in the shadows. “Ha ha.”
That irritating laugh was unmistakable. I turned to look toward Christopher, my lip curled with disgust. “I’ve come to offer you a choice,” I said.
Others were spilling out of the shadows now to take up spots ar
ound the circle. The blond from the door and his two half-shifted companions stepped past me as well.
Christopher’s pale lips curled up in something that could almost be described as a smile if I had never seen a real one before. “And what choice do you think you’re capable of offering me?”
“Stop killing,” I said. “Release your prisoners. Don’t carry out any more of these rituals. You can join us here and live peacefully.”
“Ha ha.” Christopher pulled his fedora off and dragged a hand through his hair.
It was the clearest view I’d had of him without the hat putting his face in shadow all the time. Despite how deathly pale he was, I could see the resemblance between us. As someone who had grown up adopted, raised by parents who weren’t even the same race as me, it was strange to look at someone now and see that genetic resemblance. It didn’t seem right. I’d lived my entire life without any blood relatives, and now I had one in front of me and he was absolutely repellent.
“Or else what?” Christopher prompted after a moment.
“Or else we’ll kill every wolf who rejects our deal.” There was no menace in my voice as I said it, because there was no need. This was just a basic fact. They could live peacefully or die.
Christopher slid his fedora back into place, then spread his arms wide to encompass his pack. “If we take your deal, we’ll wither of old age and die eventually. Why not join us instead and truly live?”
“How is this a life?” I snarled. “The women who should be your mates, your sisters, your friends are your prey. This isn’t a pack and this isn’t a life.”
A dark look overtook Christopher’s face and he leaned in closer toward me, his eyes narrowed. “I’ve had a mate.”
“You mean my mother?” I asked softly. It seemed so obvious, but I had to have the confirmation. I had to know for certain before I killed him.
One corner of his mouth quirked up in a faint smile. “My boys would have filled this pack.” He nodded over toward the blond guy and I looked toward him, now realizing the resemblance between us. His hair was the same as our mother’s in my dreams. His eyes were exactly hers…and mine. The rest of his features were strongly from Christopher, but I could see her in her face. I could see myself there, too.
I thought of Sofia and all we shared and struggled with. I thought of everything that I would do for her, everything I was trusting her with in that very moment, and couldn’t comprehend treating my mate as anything more than a treasured equal.
“Was that all she was to you? Just a way to get sons?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “She was good to fuck, too.”
My eyes moved once more to my brother’s face. He didn’t flinch at hearing our mother referred to that way. James just looked blank, or maybe bored. My focus went back to Christopher.
“So you didn’t mourn her for who she was? Just what benefits you missed out on?” There was no keeping my disgust hidden and I didn’t try besides.
“Women aren’t for mourning. Women are for taking.” He waved that off. “I already had my revenge for it anyway. I killed the mate of the wolf who killed her.”
He bragged about killing Sofia’s mother so casually. She had disappeared when Sofia was just sixteen. Her mother had suffered from depression for years and everyone sort of assumed she ran off to kill herself. As much as I wished Ric hadn’t killed my mother, I was horrified to learn Sofia’s mother’s death had been out of revenge. I would have been disturbed and angry enough over this, but it wasn’t my emotional reaction that I felt then. There was no denying that we had re-awoken the marks because Sofia might as well have been riding shotgun in my head. I swayed on my feet for a moment, overcome with her grief and rage. I tried to send what comfort I could back through the marks, but it was too new to me to be sure that I’d done it right.
Christopher regarded me curiously, cocking his head slightly to the side. “What’s wrong with you?”
I hung my head for a moment as I settled back into myself instead of in Sofia’s mind. When I looked up again, I saw Edie watching me closely from where she was bound on the floor. They had wrapped both of her hands individually with some sort of batting. Flame retardant polyester, I guessed. Sofia said she was a pyromancer. Like beheading, fire tended to work on everything. None of the wolves there looked to have been burned, which was a disappointment. I’d hoped she would have put up more of a fight.
My eyes moved from Edie over the others. Autumn had a black eye nearly swollen shut, but otherwise appeared to be well. Dawn and Ana both looked unharmed. Belle and Tamara were a bit bruised, but appeared to be largely fine. The other six women that I didn’t recognize were all unharmed. They must have needed them relatively whole for the ritual, I surmised.
The pack had all stepped into the circle and each of them stood beside one of their intended victims, except for Christopher. One of the women I didn’t recognize was behind me, while Christopher stood beside the empty thirteenth place. They were all clearly ready for the ritual to begin.
I turned from Christopher to his blond son. “Your name’s James, right?” I asked.
He blinked in surprise, then nodded slightly. “Do you remember me?”
“Vaguely,” I admitted. “You don’t have to live like this. You could come and be part of my pack.”
There was uncertainty in his eyes. That alone was enough that I didn’t want to kill him. I’d never had a brother before and he wasn’t as irredeemably shit-brained as our biological father. It was enough for me. He glanced at Christopher, then frowned and shook his head. “No. This is the only family that will ever accept me.”
“That’s not true. I promise you that,” I said.
Christopher rolled his eyes and came closer toward me. “We’re not taking your stupid little deal. You can join the ritual or you can die. I don’t care any longer. I can always make more sons.”
With a snarl, I launched myself at him, tackling him to the ground and slamming his head back against the concrete. It hardly stunned him and in the next moment he had flipped us over to pin me down, one hand wrapped around my throat. I could feel his hand shifting as it grasped my throat. The claws extended to dig into my flesh, just barely pricking it.
“Wait!” Everything went still as Sofia’s cry carried across the warehouse. They had been so focused on me that none of them had noticed when she came in a few moments after I had. She crossed the warehouse over toward the ritual circle, gave it an uncertain look, then stepped over the tacky blood and within the circle. “I challenge you, Christopher.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sofia
“You challenge me?” Christopher sneered, looking me up and down.
There was no question that he outweighed me physically, but size differences between males and females weren’t really that important when it came to power among paranormals. Mystical strength came from something other than muscles, since otherwise we’d all be nothing but grotesque balls of muscle tissue to account for our strength.
Apparently, Christopher hadn’t gotten the memo about size not mattering. “Your mate holds no chance against me. What makes you think you do?” he asked.
I glanced down at Hunter, who said nothing as he laid there with a clawed hand gripping his neck. He watched me with a look of concern, but didn’t show much more than that. I didn’t need to look in his eyes to know how he was feeling anyway. That the marks were active now was clear, which was good except that I really had to wish that we’d had more time to adjust to them before the fight.
My eyes raised to Christopher again and I gave him a small smile. “Woman’s intuition. What’s the matter? Scared you’ll lose your pack to me?”
He released Hunter and straightened up to his feet. His eyes started to shift and I could see the fur crawling up his arms. “Challenger takes the first shot,” he growled and spread his arms wide, as if offering up his torso freely to whatever assault I wanted to make on it.
“Sofia…” Hunter murmured in warnin
g, wisely cutting himself off before saying anything more.
Rather than go directly for him and into those arms waiting to grab and crush me, I began to circle Christopher warily. He turned as I did to keep facing me, putting me in mind of the confrontation between Hunter and me in the clinic. That had just been dominance posturing, though. I’d never feared Hunter would hurt me. With Christopher, I had to be careful he didn’t kill me.
“Make your move, pup,” Christopher snarled.
I said nothing, continuing to circle with him, all too aware of the horrifying strength within him. All the eyes of his pack were on us. I could feel the focused attention of the pack in the same way I felt the auras of paranormals. The pack itself was an organism and this one was deeply diseased.
Christopher made a feint towards me, but I recognized it for what it was and didn’t flinch, continuing to circle him. Were I a member of his pack, he could have disciplined me without losing face, but I wasn’t a member. Attacking me once an official challenge had been issued and I hadn’t yet made the first attack would be a sign of supreme cowardice. Pushing me to attack prematurely would shift the advantage to him, as he’d no longer have to hold back. I knew it was unlikely that I’d win in a fair fight, which was why I had to make it unfair.
Outside was the shrill cry of a bird. The pack’s attention briefly drew back from me, wondering at the noise. That was when I struck, rushing Christopher and then sliding in low below his grasp to slam my heel into his kneecap. As his leg started to crumble beneath him, I punched him in the stomach. It wasn’t the best shot I could have made, but it put me where I wanted to be.
His arms closed around me to haul me up off of my feet and I saw the flash of a wolf’s canines in an otherwise human mouth as he lunged with his jaws. I brought my left arm up just in time to save my neck, shoving my already injured wrist into his mouth. I felt the flesh tear on his teeth and my blood come spilling out over his tongue. As it did there was a collective sigh from the watching pack.
Once Bitten, Twice Claimed (Claimed by an Alpha Paranormal Romance Book 3) Page 12