For the moment she was content, but tomorrow night she hoped to spend more of her time in this form asleep. It felt strange, actually getting used to having four legs and the inability to speak aloud.
She wanted her human body back.
Gris-Gris chose that moment to saunter down the hall toward them, her tail in the air. The conduit looked oddly small trotting next to the much-larger werewolves.
She sat herself on Eliot’s chest. Instantly, the fledgling warlock passed out.
What shall we do with him? A woman’s voice spoke, and she sounded highly amused.
Sebastian and Briony exchanged a look.
He needs to go to my coven, Briony projected to the both of them. They’ll sort out what to do with him.
Gris-Gris inclined her head, and Eliot disappeared along with the bodies of the other warlocks.
A growl pierced the absolute silence. It was the strange were, the one whose identity Briony still couldn’t work out. To her shock, the growl was aimed at her.
Somewhat unsteadily, Briony and Sebastian regained their footing, Sebastian standing in front of her and shaking his head slowly.
Who is that?
Vale, Heath’s brother. Apparently you’re the only one here he doesn’t recognize by scent and because he’s unmated…Sebastian trailed off, his body tensing.
He won’t be able to control himself around me, Briony finished, remembering the shame Sebastian had displayed over his actions during previous full moons. There had to be a way to stop Vale from doing something he would regret once the sun rose.
If not, it would come down to choosing between her and their temporary Alpha’s brother.
“Shh.” Katarina walked forward to kneel beside Vale, who hadn’t moved his focus from Briony. “Hey, you don’t want to bite her. She’s Sebastian’s mate, can’t you tell? She’s a member of your brother’s pack now. Please actually be Sebastian’s mate,” she finished in a whisper, glancing up at the two of them questioningly.
In answer Sebastian blocked Briony from their view completely, emitting a snarl so vicious it truly did rival Sophia’s.
Briony had no idea he could be so…scary.
“See? They are mated, so you should just chill for the, oh, hour or so that’s left until the sun rises.” Katarina bit her lip and examined her hands. “Maybe now is a bad time, but we’re going to need to burn down the firehouse once you guys are free.”
This time it was Sophia who roared.
Chapter 18
SEBASTIAN woke the next morning feeling stuffed with so many conflicting emotions, he wished he could set them on a table somewhere just to sort them out.
The first was love for the woman draped over his chest, her curls rising and falling in the same steady rhythm as her deep breathing. He winced, knowing he’d have to wake her soon despite their lack of rest.
He was also stressed, pissed, and damned grateful, all at the same time. Someone—probably that warlock woman, Katarina, had brought them pillows and blankets so he and Briony could get as much sleep as possible while chained together.
Along with Sophia, Heath, and Vale, she’d also kept the warlocks from killing them last night, and from tearing the firehouse apart once they realized the incendie sûr wasn’t real.
Thankfully, they’d come to an agreement regarding that scenario—Sophia hadn’t clawed her heart from her chest, and the warlock agreed to rethink the idea of burning down their home, never mind a very convincing argument regarding her furious boss.
Heath and Sophia had already dealt with an angry Christabel, so Sebastian wasn’t altogether concerned about the faery at the moment.
Rather, his concerns involved warlocks and the changes in his powers. First, he’d have to test out what had altered within his abilities. If he didn’t know what he was capable of, he’d have a hard time defeating enemies as powerful as warlocks.
Then he’d go after them once and for all. The next time they attacked his home, their plans for murder might succeed.
And that was unacceptable.
Careful not to wake Briony yet, he rose and meandered, naked, to the garage where he’d undergone every full moon for the past hundred years excepting last night.
Inside, he raided the stores of clothes they kept stashed in compartments underneath the floor, pulling out two of everything: one for him and one for Briony. He covered her as best he could with a large T-shirt and left a pair of folded sweatpants next to her, trusting no one would come down this hall after last night.
Back in the garage, he closed the door and set his powers free, releasing almost all the energy inside him simply to see what it did.
Every light in the room shorted out and burst into flames, which he almost effortlessly extinguished. Cool. He didn’t accomplish this the way his sister did—by controlling the flames. He smothered them with a sort of shield he automatically threw between the fire and the remainder of the room.
That was something he hadn’t been able to do before.
Still, the fire had to have damaged the ceiling while his stunt with the lights rendered the space almost pitch-black. Sighing, he made a mental list of what he needed to fix. When he made for a larger compartment under the floor, one that had everything from lightbulbs to paint and spackle to an extensive first-aid kit—hidden from view to prevent uncontrolled werewolves from destroying them—the lights came on.
That was when he discovered the compartment was already opened. In seconds, the ceiling went from appearing charred to freshly painted. What kind of power is this?
He’d somehow fixed everything without lifting a finger, but he didn’t understand how. This had nothing to do with his elemental abilities, which were more prone to destroying than returning what he ruined to its previous condition.
Having left the door to the garage unlocked, he was unsurprised when Briony slipped in, yawning and stretching her arms over her head. The clothes hung around her small body, making Sebastian want to peel them off her with his teeth.
Then he remembered her shields from the night before, and the way she’d stripped the glamour from the three warlocks lying in wait.
She had her magic back. Was it possible that some of it had been given to him? It made logical sense, given Raphael’s tendency to display banshee-like powers when angered, abilities he undoubtedly had because of Mary.
“Look.” With a startlingly low amount of effort, he blew the opposite side of the garage to pieces. The walls and ceiling turned black, thin cracks appearing, and all the light bulbs exploded.
Briony cringed. “That’s one way to wake a girl up after only a couple hours of sleep,” she said mildly. She offered him a small smile, the move making him want to rub his heart. “Next time, may I suggest herbal tea and a foot rub?”
Unable to help himself, Sebastian wrapped his arms around her and held her tight for a long moment before pulling back for a deep, sleepy kiss.
When he leaned away Briony made a disapproving noise, her kiss-bruised lips pursed. She didn’t bother to open her eyes.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she murmured, pulling his shoulders until she had him exactly where she wanted him…which was, incidentally, precisely where he wanted to be.
It took too long for Sebastian to remember why he’d set half the room on fire, and it was a miracle neither of them had shredded their temporary clothes. Yet.
This time when he backed away from his mate, he ignored her irritated huff.
“Is this a witch thing?” Just like before, he restored the room back to perfect order. The cleanup took more effort than it had taken to destroy the area, but it wasn’t nearly as much of a strain as it should have been for a fire elemental.
“Yes!” Briony’s smile was contagious and excited, her voice a high-pitched squeal. She inclined her head. “You’ve got the magic in you…”
Shimmying her shoulders, she threw her head back as she sang the older Weezer song with gusto, breaking d
own into giggles every time Sebastian tried, and failed, to frown in her direction.
If only to stop her off-key singing, he backed her against one of the reinforced walls. He was unable to contain his smile.
“How is it that you make everything seem okay when at any moment, the world could come crumbling down around us?” he asked, amazed.
Her response was immediate. “Because I know we won’t let that happen to our world anyway.”
At the moment, there was a list of a dozen different things he needed to do to keep them safe…but he found himself unable to do anything but lean down to kiss Briony again, and this time he had no intention of letting her go until he had his fill of his new mate.
The scent of chocolate, ivy, and red currant swept over him, grounding him as their tongues danced, their hands roaming, pulling clothes until they fluttered to the floor.
His breathing was ragged, his every moment so frantic he would have been embarrassed had she not fully returned his enthusiasm, moaning low in her throat when he finally reached between her legs to see how ready she was for him.
Wetness coated his fingers, and it was all he could do not to pull his hand away and replace it with his painfully hard length.
“It’s okay,” Briony whispered with a smile. As if she read his mind, she reached down and guided him inside her. “I want you, too.”
He saw stars.
Literally.
They sparkled, falling over their heads like rain while he and Briony moved together, the colors brightening as their pleasure increased.
When he came, her second orgasm pushing him over the edge, the stars burst into pieces and fell to the floor, where they disappeared.
Briony’s wondrous expression mirrored his own. “That wasn’t me,” she murmured, the edge of laughter heightening her voice. “I think your powers and my magic combined to make something extraordinary.”
Sebastian brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek before brushing his lips across the soft skin. “Maybe it was a reflection of something else extraordinary.”
At that Briony nodded, her eyes watering. “I love you. We’ll get through this together, you watch.”
He helped her dress, savoring the brush of his hand against her skin, over the curves of her waist and thighs. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but when I fight, I fight for you first, then my pack.”
Once he’d pulled his clothes on, they walked up to his room to shower, hand in hand.
Half an hour later, he’d written his list out with Briony’s help and spread it on the kitchen table across from Heath and Sophia. Vale was perched on the counter, Katarina the Good Warlock sticking oddly close to his side.
Cael and Aiyanna sat at the other end of the table, unharmed after being taken away from the firehouse by Gris-Gris the night before.
Sebastian’s phone vibrated. Harry.
Expecting it to be an update about the brewery he scanned the text, only for red to cover his vision.
Without a word he reached out, plucked the sheet Heath held up between himself and Sophia out of the temporary Alpha’s hands and used his fire ability to burn the paper until nothing but ash was left.
“Change of plans?” Sophia asked warily.
A few feet away, Vale, having finally been introduced to a perplexed Briony, hopped off the counter. Both Aiyanna and Cael rose from their seats, sensing that a serious problem had arisen.
Sebastian took a deep breath. It did nothing to appease his fury. “They’ve infiltrated the brewery. All of my employees and a group of about a dozen human tourists are being held captive.” He held up the message from Harry. “The warlocks have said it’s our lives or theirs, our choice.”
Heath swore, and Cael put his fist through the four-inch thick wooden table.
“I think,” Briony began slowly, “it’s time we called Raphael and Mary back.”
Nodding, Heath left the room, lifting his phone to his ear.
“They really will kill every one of them,” Katarina said sadly. Her eyes were resigned, her fingers abnormally white where she tightly clutched the counter behind her. “More than likely, they’ll kill the humans no matter what you do. Don’t give them your lives today.”
The light bulb over her head shattered before Sebastian realized what he’d done. Katarina jumped, gasping when a piece of glass cut her cheek.
He didn’t care.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to protect those being held at the brewery,” he snarled. “That isn’t up for debate.”
The others nodded in agreement.
Katarina threw up her hands. “Then go ahead and get your last rights, pig out on that food you never let yourself eat—do whatever it is you’d do when you know you’re about to die because if you go into the brewery, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
Next to him, Briony reached out to take his hand in silent support.
“Are you going to help us?” Vale asked Katarina, his voice almost toneless. “If you’re not, I’ll take you back to Christabel right now.”
“Oh, I want you to take me back to her, all right,” Katarina replied, her eyes darkening. “She doesn’t know the battle her and Emmanuel are about to enter, and I’m going to tell her.”
Sophia slammed her palm down on the table. “How in the hell are we supposed to trust the same woman who burned the majority of my body a little more than a month ago?”
Holding up a hand, Sebastian silenced his sister’s rant. “Emmanuel? That bastard owes me—”
“Believe me, he remembers your deal,” Katarina interrupted, her voice dry.
She hesitated before offering Sophia a small smile, as if she understood exactly why Christabel was a difficult creature to trust. “Christabel’s loyalty is questionable to everyone except her race as a whole. The moment she realized the warlocks planned to exterminate the Fey, they gained a powerful enemy.”
Vale held out a hand. “I’ll take you to her.”
It took less than an hour to for them gather their forces, each minute burning away the precious time they had before the first life would be taken.
A fine, thinning thread of sanity was all that kept Sebastian from storming his brewery, backup or none. It was his worst fear, to bring danger to the humans he felt responsible for. To risk the lives of his packmates when they weren’t the ones meant to protect his employees—it was unthinkable to him, yet he couldn’t fathom not asking for help he knew he needed, not when his pride could cost someone their life.
“Is everyone ready?” he finally asked, gripping Briony’s hand tightly. “You can stay here,” he whispered so only she could hear. “I don’t want to risk you.”
He didn’t say he wouldn’t risk her because by facing the warlocks, he was putting her life in jeopardy. If he died, as his mate, she would too.
Steel crawled up his spine, made his fingers flex. He didn’t want so much as a single scratch on his mate.
She squeezed his hand. There wasn’t a hint of reservation or sadness in her smile, only her never-ceasing hope. “I can help, so I’m coming.”
He nodded and found the rest of the room watching them, even Raphael and Mary. Their Alpha cleared his throat. “I leave for a week and you get mated while Alex disappears. Unbelievable.”
Still, Raphael inclined his head to them both in congratulations. Beside him Mary smiled despite the fear and sadness gathering in her large eyes.
“You’re sure Leila’s somewhere safe?” she asked, worrying her lip with her teeth.
“You can call Wish if you want—he texted me about an hour ago to let me know Leila’s been with him since the night before last.” Sebastian threw her his phone, but she only tossed it back with a trusting smile.
“Thank you.”
A moment of silence passed, allowing Sebastian to vaguely wonder how Mary would react to her sister’s undead living status. Ever the Alpha, Raphael intervened.
“Heath, Vale.” Raphael’s expression was solemn as he placed his hand on the sheathed machete he had hooked to his jeans. “It’s time.”
Sebastian kept his hand on Briony’s until they were successfully transported to his office at the brewery. There, she ripped away with a gasp, slamming both of her hands against the bay window overlooking the brewhouse below, where all of his workers and the human tourists sat silently, watching one another with wide eyes.
She watched Noam, who stood next to a tall man with a shaved head, her hands clasped behind her back.
That must be Radburn.
“Noam isn’t a witch,” she muttered angrily, hitting a fist against the glass. Below, a number of humans jumped.
“Who’s Noam?” Heath asked, peering out.
Briony looked stricken. “She’s the High Witch of my coven, and she’s one of them. Look there, you’ll see her standing beside Radburn.”
On her other side, Sophia stepped forward, her expression pensive. “How do you know she’s a warlock?”
“Did you notice how none of the humans looked up here even though they heard something strange? There’s a haze over them, confusing their senses so they can’t react, can’t regroup and rise against her. That’s not something witches do, but there it is emanating from Noam.”
Turning away from the eerie scene beneath them, Sebastian reached out to sense the powers being used. Briony was right—Noam was emitting large amounts of energy while Radburn saved his, releasing nothing, revealing nothing.
But she wasn’t the only one using magic. Harry was as well, from his place on the floor next to Jerry.
What’s he doing?
Vale and Heath arrived with Cael, Raphael, Mary and Aiyanna, who was clutching Gris-Gris.
“Can you get the humans out of here and wipe their memories?” Sebastian asked the conduit.
Their memories won’t be a problem, but we can’t evacuate them immediately, a man replied. The same spell that woman is casting keeps us from taking them anywhere. We can work to penetrate the fog, maybe get some humans away one by one.
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