“That was Majka,” I said with a tight pursing of my lips, “raining hell.”
Sitting in calculus with Nic was bittersweet agony. Everything was so fucking normal and easy, our elbows brushing as we took notes—he was left-handed and I was right-handed—that it was almost impossible to believe that this was his last day. There was no need for a guard to attend college.
That's something I'm going to change, I thought as we packed our stuff and headed for the door. Any pack member that wants to attend school can and should.
“Seven pieces of silver,” Nic said as we walked down the hall to find Faith. As long as she was on campus with me and Nic, she was safe. If a vampire set foot anywhere near this building, I'd know about it. “Zara, that's practically torture.”
“It's only for a year,” I said with a tired sounding sigh. “Once I choose I mate, I can stop wearing the extra pieces.”
“I still don't like it,” he said, raking a hand through his mahogany hair, fingers tangling in the deep red strands. They were mussy and unkempt, just like they were most mornings that we struggled to make it to class on time. Somehow, that thought made me feel like complete shit. And sad. Really, really sad. “What are you going to do, put loops in your ears?”
“That's the coward's choice,” I told him, but he already knew that. Just like he knew I was too stubborn to take the easy way out. “I'm piercing my lip.”
Nic groaned.
“A piercing? Only the craziest Alphas go that route. You are aware that every time you take it out, it'll heal and you'll have to pierce it all over again?”
I gave him a wolfy smile as we rounded the corner and found Faith waiting for us with a coffee in one hand and her phone in the other. As usual, she was texting Owen with a seriously fast thumb and letting autocorrect misspell every other word. On the other side of the table, Anubis waited in a black wifebeater and jeans, his blue-black hair spiked up, his red eyes covered with brown contact lenses. He told Faith that he'd taken his red lenses out for his trip to tour the college's campus.
“You okay?” I asked Faith as we paused next to her table and I lifted my gaze up briefly to find the Ebon Red wolf I'd assigned as my friend's personal guard for the day. With a slight lift of my lip and a flash of purple in my eyes I told her in no uncertain terms that if anything happened to this human, it'd be her head. I watched as she licked her lips in submission.
“Absolutely,” Faith said, handing me her phone and then tossing back the black coffee in her cup like it was hard alcohol. “Read that.”
I scanned Owen's almost indecipherable texts and managed to glean that he was planning on coming back into town tomorrow. And, of course, he wanted to get together.
“Faith, you promised,” I said, feeling a small flash of panic. I didn't want her getting with Owen until I could sniff him out and make sure he wasn't involved in any of this. I was almost positive he was just your average, everyday douchebag, but I wouldn't risk my only friend on a bet. Yes, I could leave the guard with her, but if either Owen or Diya really was mixed up in Blood politics, they could kill them both before I ever had a chance to find out about it.
“I know, but if Owen's there …” she started, and I reached down to grab her chair and pull it away from the table. The way she was looking at me, I was sure she thought I was a crazy person, but I couldn't help it. I was genuinely worried about her.
“Faith, if Owen really loves you, then he will be perfectly okay with waiting until Saturday to hang out.” I swallowed hard and pushed some bright red strands of hair back from my face. The Pairing rituals, combat, and ceremonies would take all weekend, but there was a slim chance I could slip away on Saturday to check him out. “Pretty please? I just … I don't want to have to cancel my grandma's doctor's appointment to stay here and yell at Owen for you.”
Faith's mouth twitched slightly. She knew how hypocritical she was when it came to guys. With me, she expected nothing but the absolute gold standard of behavior, all intentions in writing beforehand, and no touching below the belt for at least six months. When it came to her own personal life, she let her boyfriends get away with complete and utter bullshit. I didn't get it.
“If it were me, and my boyfriend had run off to sell drugs and then come back and basically demanded we get together for a booty call—”
Faith gasped and flicked her long, dark braid over one shoulder.
“That was not a booty call,” she said indignantly, grimacing as Nic reached around me and grabbed the phone to look for himself.
“Oh yeah, that's a booty call,” he said and then handed it to Anubis. Faith paled a little but gestured angrily in his direction anyway.
“Well, go on,” she said with a sigh, “tell me what you think. I figure since you're a stranger and we just met, that you, at least, will be impartial.”
Anubis looked down at the screen for about half a second and then smiled tightly, his eyes crinkling at the edges as he glanced back up and returned the phone with its Eat Healthy, Live Long case back to its owner.
“It's a booty call,” he confirmed, almost apologetically.
“Make him wait a day and make me feel better,” I said and finally, I got a sigh of defeat.
“Yeah, okay, fine, Zara. You win. Now can I please go to chemistry and wallow in the fact that I won't be getting laid for at least forty-eight hours?”
I smiled.
“You may.” I held out a hand to indicate her path to the chem lab and she slapped my palm, flicking her braid in my face before disappearing down the hall in a sea of students with book bags slapping against their hips and backpacks flopping as they ran.
And now … I was going to walk out of these doors, climb in the SUV, and head off to a meeting with Coven Triad. If that went well—meaning I didn't die—then I'd have the privilege of heading to the Hall to meet the last two alpha-sons.
I almost envied Faith and her douche-y boyfriend troubles.
Almost.
In our corner of the world, there was only one circle of witches that might have the power to spy on kingdom territory lines without getting caught: Coven Triad. When I'd called to ask for a meeting—the witches were much more comfortable using technology than my people were—I'd been told to limit myself to two guards.
Nic, I had picked for obvious reasons, and Anubis had volunteered for the second spot. I'd only known the guy for about a day, but I needed to start putting these men into tough situations so I could see how they'd react. Now was as good a time as any. And besides, there was no way I was bringing Montgomery in with all those weapons strapped to his body before I had good reason to think we'd need a blade made of bone to cut down a witch.
After we'd pulled the SUV into the gravel parking lot of the Triad Historical Society, Nic and Anubis had stripped their clothes (and contacts) and shifted into wolf form. Nic was as beautiful as always, the majestic lines of his face accented in washes of color. His muzzle was red-brown, cheeks white, speckled black above his eyes, and two little slashes of cream that looked like eyebrows.
Anubis, on the other hand, was clearly from Pack Crimson Dusk. His fur was a glossy blue-black, like a raven's feathers, and dashed with patches of gray and white, like he'd been dusted by the skilled fingers of a cosmic hand. When he hopped from the back of the Yukon onto the sun dappled pavement and shook out his thick coat, I felt a small surge of warmth in my belly, my wolf responding to his—and she liked what she saw.
I curled my fingers in Nic's fur and pretended not to notice; he growled at me anyway.
'All these cars out here,' he started, lifting his muzzle and scenting the air, 'and there's barely any scent at all—human or otherwise.'
I lifted my own head up and flared my nostrils, trying to catch a hint of something other than car exhaust and oil from the crowded parking lot. But Nic was right: there was nothing.
'Witch hazel,' Anubis said, sitting down at my feet as I studied the purple and black Queen Anne towering above me. There was a tower
with a conical roof on the left side and a wide, welcoming porch on the right. The parking lot was off to the side with a small black metal gate that opened into the meticulously landscaped yard. 'They enchant it and use it to scrub their scent.'
I raised a red brow as we made our way over to the gate, unlatching the door and stepping through with both boys at my heels, weaving our way through a garden that was cultivated for more than just looks. I recognized a lot of the plants as having magical properties: lavender for love spells, garden angelica for exorcising ghosts, hyssop for purification. A pair of hazelnut trees flanked the front porch steps and I knew that not only could the nuts be powdered and used in healing spells, but also in a bind, a witch could snap off a branch and draw a circle of protection around herself.
But I'd never heard the bit about witch hazel and hiding scents.
'Where'd you learn that one?' I asked, careful to keep our conversation safe from prying ears. In the bushes just past the curve in the path that led to the front door, I saw a slender gray tabby cat, its black and brown stripes making it nearly impossible to see in the shadows. When I met its green eyes, I bared my teeth and it slunk away. If it hadn't wanted me to see it, I probably wouldn't have; Coven Triad was letting me know that they were aware of our arrival.
'My alpha-father,' he said, referring to his grandpa, a position in the pack that Majka called alpha-otac. My Otac was long gone, killed by a rival pack almost forty years before I was born, a pack that no longer existed. Picking on Ebon Red had been the last mistake they'd ever made. 'He used to buy it from a local coven back home, to mask our scent from other packs.'
I didn't ask why Crimson Dusk might want to hide from other werewolves: it was rumored that the eyes of all their future offspring would be forever tainted red from all the blood the pack had spilled during Anubis' great-grandfather's reign as alpha. It was why Majka had chosen them to breed into Ebon Red: they weren't just fierce but fearless, too.
We moved up the front steps as a unit, ignoring the Closed sign hanging in the front window, and stepped inside the front door to the sound of a jangling bell.
The foyer of the old house had been converted into a lobby for the historical society/museum that the coven ran, showcasing artifacts pertaining to both real and imagined witchcraft. Of course, most humans didn't much know the difference or believe in it anyway, so the Triad hosted tea parties in the beautiful old Victorian, gave tours, and sold cheap pentagram necklaces on top of a glass case filled with werewolf tails. And yes, they were real.
I gave a low growl and scared a cat—a real cat, I think—from its hiding place on the floor behind a large vase of curly willow branches.
I heard movement before I spotted the girl coming around the corner, dressed just as causally as I was in a pair of jeans and a purple tank top that read Triad Historical Society on the front. The coven's crest—the connected shapes of a waxing, full, and waning moon—was hidden in plain sight, disguised as a decorative logo on the shirt; I knew better. There was power in that design.
“Don't let those bother you,” the witch said, approaching the front counter and tapping a finger against the glass of the display case. The almost overwhelming stink of incense she stirred up as she moved through the room made my nostrils flare. “They were harvested almost six hundred years ago, somewhere in eastern Europe.”
“They come from Pack Ebon Red,” I said, my own fingers dancing across the display. I could tell from the auburn color of the fur, the striations of white and black and gray, that even if they really were six centuries old, they still belonged to my pack. With a slight smile, I smashed my fist into the glass and shattered it, collecting the tails from the case without apologizing or explaining myself.
The witch sighed as both boys raised their hackles and lifted their heads, tails up, ready to fight.
“Ugh,” she scoffed, turning and shaking her long, red hair out with both hands, threading her fingers through it as she made her way toward a doorway marked Employees Only. “This is why I can't stand wolves.” She paused with one hand holding the long purple curtain back and gestured with her chin. “Well, are you coming or not? It isn't everyday that the Three hold a formal meeting on a werewolf's request.”
The fingers of my right hand curled tight around the old tails.
The Three arranged a meeting for me? That didn't make any sense at all. When I'd made that phone call, I'd expected to see someone like this girl: a young, low-ranking member of the coven with no title and just enough training to make sure we didn't get the upper hand during our meeting.
Cold chills danced across my skin, like curls of Arctic wind, freezing me to the bone.
'You informed the Alpha of this meeting?' I asked Nic, even though I already knew the answer to that question.
'Of course,' he said, pressing his nose into the palm of my left hand. Anubis stiffened slightly at the familiar gesture, but he didn't say anything. At this point, I didn't care if he saw something more between me and Nic than should be between an alpha-daughter and her guard. Today was the last day before the official Pairing ceremony, and I intended to spend every last second with Nic that I could—even while negotiating inside a witch's lair.
I stepped forward and grabbed hold of the curtain, following the girl through a dusty storage room filled with empty boxes, broken brooms (of the non-magical variety), and a series of artifacts stored on shelves against one wall. It was so humdrum and dull that it was probably fairly rare that someone ever stumbled through the clutter and around the corner, past a half-open bathroom door and a utility closet over to a small, thin multi-paneled old door painted the same color as the wall.
The girl magicked a key into her palm—or else she was an expert at slight of hand because suddenly it was just there—and inserted it into the lock.
“Go on in and follow the candles,” she said with a snide smile, and I gestured for Nic to precede me down a steep flight of steps. Before the witch closed and locked the door behind us, I saw that they were made of books.
Candles were stuck at random intervals, on sconces or on the steps themselves, bleeding white wax down the walls and across the floor, but they did little to illuminate the space. Fortunately, my people were blessed with incredible night vision.
'Too bad they don't use witch hazel down here,' Anubis said, and even though he wasn't speaking aloud, I could almost hear the huskiness of his voice as he tried not to choke. Not only did it smell like old books (that heady mixture of ink and paper) but also mildew, smoke, dragon's blood incense, and the sweet scent of cats. Underneath it all was the stink of magic and witch, almost indiscernible from one another.
It was a difficult scent to describe—sharp, almost metallic, but with this organic softness to it that reminded me of flowers, although I couldn't pinpoint exactly what sort of flowers those might be. And trust me: I could identify floral scents as easily as I could pick out letters in the alphabet.
Nic snorted to clear his nose of the scent and then paused at the bottom of the stairs to let out a warning growl.
As soon as I stepped down next to him, my feet scuffing against the old wood floors, I could see why. On either side of us, creating a narrow winding path through the center of the room, were stacks of books piled all the way to the ceiling. Stack after stack after stack, broken up here and there by shelves with artifacts that were either too valuable or too disturbing to keep in the museum. And amongst it all … were hundreds of pairs of eyes.
They reflected the light of the candles back like mirrors, flashing silver-gold as they bobbed their heads and craned their necks to get a better look at us. No matter where I looked, there was another set of eyes, attached to a black cat here or an orange tabby up there. As I moved forward, one of them hissed at me from a nearby shelf and batted at me with a paw.
'Familiars,' I said to both Nic and Anubis, and we carried on. I knew that the entire coven was watching us from those eyes, using their magical bonds with the cats to spy on us as we ma
de our way through the rambling basement of the old house and to a set of doors in the back.
They opened entirely on their own.
Here goes nothing, I told myself as I strode into the room with my chin high and my expression neutral. Making a mistake here could cost not only my life, but Nic's and Anubis' as well. No doubt the packs would come down on Coven Triad like a hammer, but their vengeance wouldn't bring us back to life, now would it?
“Zara Wolf,” I announced as the boys moved forward with me and simultaneously shifted back into their human forms. “Of Ebon Red.”
“Anubis Wolf of Crimson Dusk,” came the slow, sensual voice to my right.
“Nicoli Wolf of Ebon Red,” from my left, Nic going last to indicate his ranking in pack hierarchy.
The three of us were standing in the center of a circular room with a heavy black chandelier above our heads, and more haphazard stacks of books strewn about at random intervals. The old wood floor beneath our feet was blanketed in overlapping rugs, and the air was hazy with incense smoke and tobacco from the pipe one of the Three was smoking.
I kept my eyes straight ahead, but I didn't look at Coven Triad's leaders.
I wasn't ready to see the Crone just yet.
A pentagram was painted on the ceiling above us, and I knew without a doubt that there'd be one under the rugs beneath our feet. One wrong move and the Three could cast a spell and trap us in this circle with little more than a look.
Abruptly, both Anubis and Nic shifted back into wolf form and I knew. I knew they'd seen her.
“Zara Wolf of Ebon Red,” the Mother said, sitting in the center of a long, curved desk. It was made from a single piece of carved, polished wood. From the reddish color, I imagined it had come from an ancient sequoia, one of the monstrous old trees that grows on the Northern California Coast. It was doubtful that there were many other tree species that held that much power. “We were surprised to get this request from you so close to the Pairing.”
I dropped my gaze from the back wall and allowed myself to look at her face. It was soft and kind, a gentle smile curving across generous pink lips. A few crinkles danced at the edges of her eyes, lending the expression some credibility.
Pack Ebon Red (The Seven Mates of Zara Wolf Book 1) Page 10