by Nora Ash
I grabbed my purse from the table by the front door and slung it over my shoulder. “Let’s go—he didn’t put a timer on, but poor Jade’s been with him for more than an hou—” My voice cut short when a large hand landed on my shoulder and halted my attempt at leaving my apartment.
“We’re not going anywhere, cupcake,” Jackson said as he pressed me backwards. “I’ll take care of it.”
I gaped at him, momentarily taken aback. “And how’re you going to do that? I thought you needed a witch to take down a demon.”
“I needed a witch’s magic to ensnare or kill a demon,” he said. “But I should be able to distract it enough to get in and get the girl. I’m not bringing you to face a demon, Poppy.”
“And what if you’re mistaken and you can’t? Then both you and Jade are done for. She’s in his clutches because of me, Jackson. I’m going.”
A low growl escaped his throat.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Really? You’re growling at me to make your point?”
“And what do you suppose you’ll do to help? If you’re there, you’ll be in danger, and I won’t be able to concentrate. I can’t fight if you’re…” He stopped himself, those soft lips pinching into a frown. “You’d be a liability, not a help.”
Was that… did he… care about me? Was that what he’d stopped himself from saying? That he couldn’t fight if I was in danger?
Something all too warm heated up in my stomach, fanning the confusing feelings of hope and longing I’d woken up with this morning. Slowly, giving him time to pull back if he wanted to, I placed my hand on his arm. It was warm and firm under my palm.
“I won’t be a hindrance for you. I promise. I’ll distract him so you can sneak in unnoticed, and then I’ll get out of the way. But I am going. Jade… she only tried to help me. She tried to be my friend, and that’s why she’s gotten hurt. I couldn’t live with myself if I just hid at home when I know I can help you save her. Please don’t waste time arguing about this—we need to get to Jade as soon as possible.”
Jackson was silent for a time, his jaw working as he stared down at me. But finally, he released an irritated grunt and moved so my hand slipped off his arm.
“Fine. But if you fuck this up, witch, know that you’ll be responsible for her death. I hope you can live with that.”
I followed him out the door, clutching my leather purse against my hip. If Jade died because of me, she wouldn’t be the first to do so.
Which was why, despite how hard my heart was hammering at the thought of facing off with the demon again, I was ready to put my own life on the line. I hadn’t been able to make it right the first time this bastard blew my life up and killed everyone I loved. This time was going to be different.
THE FAINT YELLOW tint on the trees surrounding McLaughlin’s old barn whispered of the approaching fall, even though the air was still as hot and humid as it’d been throughout summer.
Last time this demon had taken people I cared for from me, it had been in the depths of Maine winter.
But this time, I wasn’t alone.
I glanced up at Jackson, whose sensitive mouth was set in a grim line, his face all business. There was an air of certainty about him that calmed my nerves far more than the knowledge of the spellpowder I’d brought in my purse.
Wordlessly, he handed me an imposing-looking gun, and I wrapped my hand around the grip, accidentally brushing my fingertips against Jackson’s.
He visibly shivered before he pulled back, and when I looked up and caught his gaze, there was so much intensity there that it made my already rapid heartbeat quicken. I couldn’t figure out if it was anger or… something else that blazed down at me from those hazel eyes.
I pulled the gun down by my side, comforted by its weight. Right now, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting Jade rescued.
Nodding at the agent to show him I was ready to set our plan into motion, I turned around and began to walk down the long dirt road leading to the barn.
It wasn’t much of a plan, truth be told. I was going to approach the barn, compressed salt-bullets loaded and ready in case the demon tried to jump me. Not that they’d kill him, but they should slow him down long enough that Jackson could intervene.
If things went smoothly, Jackson would sneak in through the back while I distracted the demon, and get the jump on him. Then, while they were fighting, I’d find Jade and free her before fleeing to Jackson’s car and driving us both home to my apartment to hide behind my wards. He hadn’t specified how he was going to win a fight against the demon without a magic weapon of some sort, but he’d seemed confident, if grim.
I’d brought my Demon-Be-Gone spellpowder, just in case. Not that it looked like it worked, judging from Don’s lack of dying from eating my cursed muffin, but I’d felt compelled to bring it regardless.
“Poppy.”
I turned around at the soft sound of my name and saw Jackson staring at me, his hands flexing with pent-up energy.
I arched my eyebrows at him, the uncertain look in his eyes both confusing and oddly warming.
“Be safe.”
I nodded, ignoring the warm flow from my stomach. Now was not the time to get all swoony. “You too.”
The barn was a last-century, old wooden structure with a couple of boards missing here and there, and the clearing around it overgrown with weeds and littered with scattered beer cans and cigarette buds. No one apart from teenagers looking for privacy had been here in eons, and judging from the height of the weeds, even they hadn’t been around in a while.
No sound came from within. I hesitated a bit in front of the closed barn door, looking for signs, but there was nothing.
Not even the sound of birds in the air. Just quietude.
Breathing deeply and with a firm hold of Jackson’s gun, I pushed the door open and walked in.
The air inside the barn was thick with dust and the scent of old hay. I squinted against the semi-darkness, sweeping the gun back and forth in front of me until my eyes became accustomed to the lack of light. Then my gaze landed on the small, slumped figure by the side of the barn.
Jade.
I took two steps toward her, deep worry souring my throat. Was she hurt? …Dead? Oh, Goddess, had I made a mistake in waiting for Jackso—
Movement in my peripheral vision made my thoughts come to a screeching halt. I spun around, gun still raised—and had to bite back an instinctive whimper of fear.
Sheriff Wilson stood at the other side of the barn, brandishing a crowbar in his large hands. Only, it wasn’t him. Not really. The way his features were pulled into an obscene grimace made any resemblance to his familiar, Midwestern face seem like a grotesque caricature.
There was nothing natural about the man looming in front of me.
“Well, well, Poppy Rose. I was beginning to think you didn’t care about your little friend. What kept you? Were you trying your hand at another batch of those pathetic muffins? Don’t get me wrong, it tasted delicious, but as far as magic goes… Well, I guess power isn’t always inherited, huh? And yet here you are, showing up to save a weak little human. She’s dying, you know. You’ll need to pull some pretty strong protective magic to save her. Have you got it in you, Poppy Rose? Do you have the strength to save your friend when you couldn’t even save your own parents?”
“Fuck you!” I hadn’t planned on attacking first, but his words hit me hard. Without pausing to think, I pulled the trigger on the gun, firing two shots of compressed salt right into his chest.
The demon roared and stumbled back—and I threw myself at Jade.
“Jade! Can you hear me? Wake up, hon!” I grasped her thin shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. She was boneless in my grasp, her head lolling against the floor. “Jade, we have to get out of here. Come on, wake up.”
“She can’t hear you, you worthless cunt!” The growl made me snap my head in the direction I’d seen the sheriff stumble. He was upright again, as if the two bleeding wounds in his
chest didn’t bother him in the least. His eyes were pitch-black. “And now she’s going to die, like your parents. Like you will!”
He threw himself across the barn, and I opened my mouth to scream for Jackson—but I didn’t have to.
One side of the barn blew in with a loud crash, and something large and white whipped through the dusty air, crashing right into the sheriff.
The demon howled on impact as he went flying, his attack on me thoroughly ruined by the huge, white wolf that drew itself up in front of him, teeth bared in a snarl.
Jackson.
I gaped, momentarily stunned by the magnificence of him. He was the first shifter I’d ever seen in his animal form, and I’d never… I’d never imagined they could be like this. So completely awe-inspiring. It was as if the ferociousness I’d been able to sense whenever I looked at the agent in his human form was finally unleashed.
He was breathtaking.
The sheriff opened his mouth wide and let out an inhuman, ear-piercing scream that made me cower, hands clasped against the sides of my head. And then he attacked.
The roars from the two combatants was deafening, and everything in me ached to aid Jackson somehow—but the girl on the floor in front of me needed my help more than the experienced agent currently fighting for all of us. I had a job to do, and if I failed, I would let both Jade and Jackson down.
I stared down at her face. It was unnaturally pale, and so still I couldn’t even make out if she was still breathing.
“Please, Jade. Please don’t be dead.” Oh, how I wished I wasn’t such a complete failure! A real witch would have the power to save her.
“Do you have the strength to save your friend when you couldn’t even save your own parents?”
I didn’t. I didn’t have the strength, or Sheriff Wilson would have been dead.
Think, Poppy, think!
I grabbed for my grandmother’s talisman like I always did when looking for focus… and paused. I might not have powerful magic, but my necklace… It’d protected me through most of my life now. Was likely the reason I’d managed to escape the demon the first time.
Resolutely, I pulled it over my head and wrapped it around Jade’s neck instead, ignoring the twinge in my gut as I saw my grandmother’s talisman on someone else. I felt naked without it—hadn’t taken it off since the day she gave it to me. But right now, Jade needed it more.
I ignored my apprehension and rubbed at her arms, trying to get the blood flowing. “Come on, hon. Wake up. You’ve gotta wake up now.”
Her eyelids fluttered, and finally her big, brown eyes opened wide, confusion plain in them. “P-Poppy?”
“Yeah it’s me. Come on, girl, we’ve got to move.” I wrapped my arm underneath her shoulders, not waiting for her to regain her bearings before I started hoisting. Thankfully, she weighed next to nothing, and I had her on her feet easily enough. But when I tried to move toward the exit, Jade froze with her hand clutched around my arm in a death grip, her mouth opening in terror.
I turned just in time to see Sheriff Wilson pull free from Jackson’s jaws, leaving a gaping wound in his shoulder. Jackson lunged at him again, but he narrowly avoided the wolf—and then he came at me.
I squealed and somehow managed to fling both myself and Jade out of the way of his outstretched hands, but landed on my butt in the process. When he turned toward me again with sick glee in those black eyes, I scrambled to get up, but the dirt and straw underneath my feet slid and I couldn’t get purchase. In a sickening moment of clarity, I knew he was going to get me.
Only, he didn’t get the chance.
A feral roar ripped through the barn, followed by a flurry of white fur. I recognized Jackson’s wolf form the same second he snapped his jaws shut around the sheriff’s neck and ripped. The sickening crunch that followed was nothing in comparison to the rain of blood that sprayed from the sheriff’s neck as Jackson tore his head clean off his shoulder and flung it to the other side of the barn.
I stared from the suddenly unmoving body in front of me, to the white wolf-who-transformed-into-a-man, blinking several times to try and get my brain caught up to speed.
“You... You killed him?” I mouthed stupidly as Jackson crouched down next to me so he could look me over for any damage.
“Are you all right? Did he get to you?”
“No, I’m…” Fine was perhaps a bit of a stretch. “Not hurt. Jade…”
From the look on his face, it seemed like Jackson had completely forgotten about the other girl. He turned around without getting up from his crouch next to me, eyebrows locked in a frown. “You hurt, girl?”
Jade, who was staring open-mouthed from the dead sheriff to the butt-naked shifter, shook her head. “Nuh-uh.”
I frowned when her eyes dipped down Jackson’s front—it hadn’t even dawned on me that he was fully naked until I saw the blatant admiration in her eyes. An odd rush of hot jealousy churned my got, and I mentally scolded myself for such a ridiculous notion. Now was so not the time to get all territorial!
Jade arched an eyebrow at Jackson, letting her eyes wander up to find his again. “So… werewolves are real—and pretty dang hunky? Well, this day just keeps on giving, huh?”
15
JACKSON
“I really just need to sleep.”
Poppy’s lips pulled into a disapproving line at the small brunette’s brush-off of her offer to come back to rest and recover. “Are you sure, Jade? It… can’t have been easy on you, being kidnapped and…”
“And finding out witches and werewolves are real?” Jade said, wrapping her hand around the chain of the protective amulet Poppy had given her during the fight. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to talk about this—about all of this. But right now, I just want to climb into my own bed and sleep for forty-eight hours straight.”
“Yeah, I gotcha. I’m probably going to have close down the bakery for a week just to recuperate,” Poppy said, smiling a sad little smile that still made her face light up in a way that nearly took my breath away.
I can fight a fucking demon without even getting winded, but not look at my own mate before my heart tries to climb out my throat? Fucking fantastic.
I brushed away the wave of emotion just looking at the woman my Wolf had claimed brought up. There was still business that needed dealing with—I could fall apart like an adolescent pup who’d just discovered the opposite sex on my own time.
“Jade, someone from the Arcane Affairs Agency will stop by in the very near future to debrief you.” And possibly make her forget her little demon-encounter. The humans who were allowed to know about us paranormals were a very exclusive group. Not that the girl needed to know that part—something about having your memories wiped tended to make people rather flinchy. “It is vital, for your own safety as well as that of the community, that you don’t share what you’ve experienced with anybody. If you find you cannot cope, for whatever reason, have Poppy give you my number. Got it?”
She nodded, her doe-eyes large and serious. “Got it, sir. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want to do anything to put Poppy in danger.”
My Wolf growled in my chest at the fond smile she gave Poppy, placing her hand on top of my mate’s.
Great, now I’m jealous of her friends? I pushed the feeling of irrational anger down and popped the lock for the backseat of my car where Jade was sitting. “I’m glad to hear it. Stay safe.”
She nodded and gave Poppy a final smile before she slid out of my car and disappeared into the shabby-looking apartment block she’d told me to drive her to.
Poppy got out from her seat behind me too, and for a moment I thought she was just going to fucking leave me without another word, but then the passenger side door opened and she eased in next to me, securing the seatbelt by her side.
I let out a quiet breath of relief, not realizing until then I’d held it in.
“Now what?” she asked. When I glanced at her out the corner of my eye, I could see she was tense and the way she was st
aring straight ahead was deliberate. “You leaving town?”
Fuck no! The urgent and immediate reply died on my tongue, even though my Wolf whined pathetically at the mere thought of leaving her.
Leaving town was exactly what I was supposed to do. I’d done my job, it was time to check in with my supervisor and drive off to the next assignment.
But… I had a mate now. An unbreakable responsibility to her, even if she didn’t even seem to know what that mark on her neck meant.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her grasp for the amulet she no longer had around her neck, her fingertips sliding up to the bruise left behind by my claim in its absence.
A shudder went down my spine, images of taking her from behind as my Wolf reared up and laid claim to the woman who’d been mine long before we were both born playing through my mind.
But I’d claimed her without ever asking her what she wanted. Did witches even know about Fated Mates? Fucking cookies! I’d never wanted this! None of it! Not a mate, certainly not a Fated Mate, and most definitely not a sassy witch whose life was suddenly more precious to me than my own, more precious than the whole fucking world.
“We should probably talk,” I said, clutching at the steering wheel.
Why was the prospect of talking to her suddenly more terrifying than any evil I’d ever faced?
Because you’re a fucking coward, Dale.
“Yeah… Jackson, about last night… a-about the cookies—”
“Not yet,” I sighed, setting my car into gear and finally pulling away from Jade’s apartment complex. If we were gonna do this, I’d rather it be without the risk of a captive audience.
I drove us out to the field I’d used to prepare for tracking down the demon, where Poppy had spied on me and stolen the crystal. She didn’t say anything about my choice of location, but I could feel the question in her eyes when she turned to look at me.
“About the fucking cookies,” I began, but she interrupted me by putting her small, warm hand on my arm, sending electric bursts of pleasure across my skin in the process.