by Jayne Hawke
The witches casually bounced the fireballs in the palms of their hands, waiting for us with smirks on their faces. I moved in front of Briar and tried to figure out the best way to get in close to the witches. All I had was brute force and good luck, which meant running at them and praying for the guardian shield to hold.
“Stay right behind me,” I whispered.
Briar crowded in close behind me and I sprinted towards the closest witch. Alarm passed over his cold features right before he began throwing his volley of fire at me. Warmth spread across my skin but the weird shield was holding thus far. Briar was hot on my heels. The witches saw that I wasn’t on fire and panic spread through them. I drew my shiny new knife and prepared to remove the threat to me and my car.
I blinked and they were gone. Skidding to a stop, I looked around and wondered if I’d imagined the entire thing. Was someone screwing with me?
“You’re welcome,” a man dressed in silvery blue said drily.
I looked at the man with white-blond hair and sharp fae features. A chill ran through me.
“Well, don’t stand there. Her highness is waiting,” he said.
I muttered curses under my breath about the fae as I climbed into the Mustang and prepared for a long drive back home.
My phone had been buzzing and bouncing for most of the journey home. I was pretty sure every single text and missed call was from Cole. Things were going to be unpleasant when we finally got home.
Eira hadn’t given us a place to meet her for the exchange so I pulled into the carpark for my favourite coffee shop and assumed she’d just show up. I kept my new knife on me. Briar had taken a few photos of the stone so we could see exactly what we’d done. I was likely going to regret it once I knew, but that didn’t make me stop her.
True to form, Eira did appear within ten seconds of our getting out of the car. Exhaustion filled my bones. I didn’t have any sarcastic remarks. Briar handed me the stone and I held it out for Eira to take.
She took the stone, leaving trails of cold on my hand in her wake. I rubbed my hands together trying to shake her touch off while she inspected the stone. Finally she nodded and smiled.
“I will return at a later date to strike another deal.”
I ground my teeth and said nothing. It was time to go home and face the disaster waiting for us there.
58
The smell of blood hit me as I walked in the door. Pausing, I sniffed, trying to pinpoint whose blood and where it was coming from. The smell was coming from the living room. I ran there and almost skidded to a halt as I saw Cole lying on the couch, pale, and bloody. I sank down to my knees next to him and ran my hands over his body trying to assess the damage.
“What happened?”
“Where the hell were you?” Sky snarled.
“Excuse me?” I growled back.
“We went after the blood witches, as agreed. We texted you. We rang you. We damn well needed you, Rosalyn. Thanks to your disappearing, they managed to cut Cole with their sacrificial knife. Amy’s now working her ass off to form a salve that will save him. So I ask again, what the hell was so important that you abandoned your pack and alpha for?”
I froze. Anger warred against shame.
“I made a promise to a fae queen. I had to fulfil it else she’d kill everyone I knew.”
Sky sighed and paced back and forth.
“Any other stupid promises we should know about?”
“No,” I said flatly.
Sky exhaled and left the room. I turned my attention to Cole and ran my fingertips over his injuries. The blood was cool and his breathing shallow. His eyes were closed, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hanging on by a thread. My instincts took over, and I began very slowly tracing the lines of the slices across his chest and abdomen. Something passed between us, a gentle warmth.
My body tired quickly as I worked. My thoughts became sluggish, but I pushed on, needing to help him. My Cole. Closing my eyes, I allowed my fingertips to continue their trail over his body as the blackness consumed me and there was nothing but the thin sliver of warmth between us. He took a deep breath as I floated away into oblivion.
Guilt riddled me when I woke back up. They were right. I should have been there. My pack had suffered due to my absence. I refused to leave Cole’s side. He was stroking my hair when I regained consciousness and gave me a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Never do that again,” he managed to growl.
I laughed out of relief that he still had his fire in there.
He cupped my face and moved his own close to mine, twisting on the couch to do so.
“I mean it, Rosalyn. You do not abandon this pack like that again. Next time you owe a favour to a fae, we all go with you,” he said while intensely staring in my eyes.
“Ok,” I said softly.
That was not a promise I was willing to make. I needed to look after my pack, and sometimes that was going to mean leaving them behind.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me onto the couch with him where I lay pressed against him.
“Now, what exactly did you have to do for Eira?” he demanded while I couldn’t escape.
“I had to steal some stone.”
He sighed.
“From who? And what stone?”
I pulled my phone out and showed him the photos.
“From a rich witch, and I don’t know. It was black with gold glitter.”
“You’re the dumbass that stole the night stone!?” Sky exclaimed. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in!? The coven you stole from are very influential, with more money than you can imagine. They’ve already brought in some Morrigan witches to mete out punishment. And you gave it to a fae queen? You’re going to be the end of me,” Sky continued.
“I did what I had to do to keep my pack safe,” I growled.
Sky threw her hands in the air and muttered about a lack of perspective.
“Amy will be here soon. Don’t do anything stupid,” she said before she left.
Adam came in with a bag full of Chinese food. Steam curled upwards from the brown paper bag, and my stomach growled. I didn’t know how long it had been since I ate, but I suddenly felt as though I could eat an entire horse.
“Tell me what happened with the blood witches,” I demanded as I began pulling the cartons of food out of the bag.
“We found out where they were camping out, and the location of their next sacrifice. They’re far stronger than we realised. It was supposed to be a quick and easy ambush, like the cabin was for you and Sky.” Cole paused to open his carton of hoisin duck. “They knew we were coming. They attacked us from all sides. Rosalyn, their magic is dangerous. I should have died, but Amy and Sky broke their magic quickly enough to keep me on the edge. They said your guardian magic brought me back, but,” he shook his head, “no one can survive another cut from their blades. Now they have tasted my blood they’ll be even more powerful.”
“So, what are we supposed to do?” I asked around a mouthful of Cantonese duck.
“The witches are going to try and weaken their bond to their god. They say it’ll take a week, and we’ll need to buy a heap of wards from other witches, but it’s our only chance,” Adam said.
No. That wasn’t good enough. Every moment those witches continued to breathe, my pack were in danger.
“When and where’s the next sacrifice?”
“Tomorrow night. We’re pretty sure they have a Frigga witch and a garou from Atlanta. They’re doing it on the big stone with the view,” Adam said.
Cole was weirdly quiet. It took me a moment before I realised they were doing it on our stone. The place we relaxed and enjoyed the peace of each other’s company.
“We’ll cleanse the stone, Rosalyn,” Cole said.
No, we wouldn’t, because they were not going to take another garou life. I was a guardian, and I was going to end this like I should have done weeks ago.
59
&n
bsp; My wolf side snarled for every moment that Cole lay shirtless with Amy running her hands over his torso. She was applying the salve that would break down the blood magic and allow him to heal fully. Still he was my Cole and no one else should have had their hands on him. I did my best to remain relaxed and still.
“Stop snarling and come and help me,” Sky said as she took my arm.
I grudgingly followed her into the kitchen where the papers and study on the blood witches had been sprawled out over the table. Adam and Briar had gone to bed to be ready for a day at work the next day.
“This is everything we’ve managed to find on the blood witches and their sacrifices. We need to put it into something we can use. You start by looking over the details of the sacrifice and ritual we think they’re completing tomorrow night.” Sky pointed at a heap of papers.
I made myself a cup of coffee and settled in for a long night of reading and note-taking. Amy’s notes on the ritual were neat and precise, so they gave me a starting point. So far, we knew that the entire ritual would take most of the night, which meant I had lots of time to get there and put an end to it.
The papers weren’t in a useful order, and it took me two cups of coffee to work my way through everything and get them into something I could really make sense of. Some of it still made no sense to me, talk of unity with their god, and swallowing the essence. I felt good about my understanding of the rest though.
I began making my own notes as a plan formed in my mind. We knew they’d be at our stone. They would get there at sunset with their sacrifices. All I needed to do to stop the entire ritual was keep one of the sacrifices alive. From what we could see, the witches would be using the ritual to gather power and funnel it into someone or something else.
Someone must have been paying them a fortune to have them take the risk of upsetting their god by pushing all of that magic into someone else. My reading suggested that their god was very specific that their magic was gifted to them and them alone. I wondered who it could have been. Surely the Apophis witch would have his own magic and wouldn’t use the blood witches that way? Why would he bring in outside magic?
I began looking around the papers for something on the Apophis witch, we were missing something here. He was more important than he’d been given credit for.
Sky was absorbed in her work and Amy had crashed out on my bed. There was no one around that I could ask about the information I needed. Chewing on my bottom lip, I slowly slipped the large red notebook away from Sky and flipped through it, looking for information on the Apophis witch.
“That’s not on blood witches,” Sky said distractedly.
“Yea, I just want to check something about the Apophis witch.”
Sky’s phone vibrated. She glared at it.
“It appears that the Apophis witch is now in possession of the night stone. The same stone you stole,” Sky said coldly.
I raised an eyebrow.
“That means he can draw on the magic of the night sky and make himself more powerful. He was already far too powerful.”
I needed to know what he was planning.
“Apophis is darkness and chaos?” I asked.
“Do you not understand what you’ve done?”
I understood, I just saw no reason to get into a screaming match over it. I was going to fix my mistake, I just needed some more information.
“What exactly does that stone do?”
“It gives the user access to the inherent magic found within the night sky, a wild magic untethered to the gods.”
I looked back at the notes I had on the ritual the blood witches were doing.
Then it hit me. They were going to use that stone to amplify the ritual. They weren’t going to just push magic into the Apophis witch, they were going to drain the magic out of the local area. The witches would be unstoppable if they succeeded.
Sky was glaring at me, but she soon huffed and returned to her phone.
I had a decision to make. My instincts told me this was why I was turned. I was there to act as a guardian and keep my people safe. I could stop the ritual by myself.
I glanced back at the living room where Cole was sleeping. He’d be very upset at my actions, but he wasn’t going to be back at full strength for another day or two. The siblings were too young to take on something this dangerous. There wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d be able to take Sky with me, not without Cole. Closing my eyes, I reached deep within myself and knew this was something I needed to do alone.
60
Cole slept through most of the day while I quietly formulated my plan. His state had only reinforced my decision to do this alone. Guardians were supposed to protect their people. That was what I needed to do.
From what I could see, I needed to make sure that I wasn’t cut by the ritual knives the witches carried. Those knives stole the life essence from those they drew blood from. I wouldn’t have Sky and Amy to break the link between me and the knife. The witches would have a lot more magic flowing through them than they did at the cabin, which meant I’d need to decapitate them or rip their hearts out. This was not going to be pleasant.
Once the sun began to set, I slipped outside into the forest with my new knife at my hip. It felt right. The wolves adorning the hilt felt like they were tied to me somehow. Something told me it was my guardian knife.
I didn’t have long to get to the stone before Sky and the others realised I’d gone. It wouldn’t take much to figure out what I was planning. Shifting into my wolf form, I pushed myself to run as fast as I could, taking no pleasure in the route through the forest. There was none of the usual excitement. This was going to be a dark night full of blood and pain.
Darkness slipped between the broad boughs of the trees and blinded me. I was getting so close to the stone, but I couldn’t see through the pitch shadows that hung unnaturally. Growling, I shifted back into my human form, knife in hand, and looked around for the culprit. Blood witches were shadow weavers, they could use their magic to keep themselves alive, and draw on others’ life essence. There was little to no manipulation of their surroundings in anything I’d read.
“Turn back, guardian,” a silky voice said.
The sensation of a serpent filled the back of my mind and I knew the Apophis witch was here. It looked like I’d be taking out two birds with one stone that night.
A beautiful man with rich bronze skin and eyes the colour of amber stepped from the shadow. Wearing a pale tailored suit, he looked ridiculous out in the heart of the forest. His hands were casually tucked in the pockets of his pants, and amusement danced across his delicate features.
“You still have a chance to survive this night,” he said as he slowly approached me.
I gripped my knife tighter and looked for weaknesses.
“Such a shame,” he said.
Shadows around me coalesced into monstrous forms with long claws and sharp fangs. It put a fresh twist on the idea of shadow boxing. Slowing my breathing, I allowed my instincts to take over and kick some shadowy ass.
The monsters reared up over me, their torsos elongated and slender. I shot forward, slashing at the darkness. My knife slid through their forms only to watch them draw back together again, leaving no harm behind. Snarling, I turned, looking for the source of my problems. If I could do no harm to the shadow, then I would take out the shadow weaver.
Ice slid into my veins as pain exploded from my shoulder. A scream choked me as the air was dragged from my lungs. It was pain unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. The shadow receded, leaving the icy darkness swirling around my shoulder where it had bitten me. I pushed the pain away into a small box and began looking for the Apophis witch.
There was nothing put pure blank ink swirling around me. Something tugged at me though. An understanding, a feeling. I ducked under the swipe of another shadow’s claws and surged forward, following the tug at my feet.
The Apophis witch came into view. A smudge of pale cream against the pure darkness.
Pain was slowing me down. Fear formed a tight band around my chest. It was unnatural and difficult to push away. I dug deep, searching for the fire within, the need to protect my pack. Pulling on the flames buried deep within, I focused past the smothering sensation that all was lost and tried to find the tugging once more.
Coldness swept past my face where another shadow took a casual swipe at me. They were toying with injured prey. That fuelled the flames within. I grasped onto the fury at being seen as weak prey and used that to push me forward. The tugging grew, and I ran through the darkness past the hard edges of impossible shadows towards the ever-moving soft cream.
Suddenly, the cold was gone, and I was left panting before the witch, who casually leaned against a tree.
“Very good,” he purred.
I grinned at him, a feral expression that made his own expression falter.
His mouth puckered, and I felt him pulling on his magic. The air stilled, and something prickled against my skin. I circled around, watching him, looking for tell-tale weaknesses. His eyes began to close in concentration, and I raced forward, knife in hand. This was my moment, my chance to end him.
His eyes flew open, and I gasped as terror consumed me. My body threatened to crumple as blood froze in my veins and air left my lungs. He looked at me with a gentle smile upon his elegant face. Tilting his head a little, he watched, a glow of victory blooming from deep within him.
I saw the tattoo Cole had given me, making me his shadow. Marking us as bound. Focusing on that, I reminded myself what I was fighting for and slowly pushed myself back to standing. My body was slow, but I would not give in. No one was going to hurt my pack and live to talk about it.