Magic Awakened: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  Blood stained the warehouse floor, but other than that, the area was now all cleared away, and Leviticus entered the center first. The Nightshade Hunters, including Jackson, filled the area behind him, and likewise, when Kyle stepped forward opposite of Leviticus, his Blood Warriors squared off behind him.

  Magnus remained by the door, somewhat in the middle of the two fractions. If things went south, maybe he would be able to duck out of there.

  Yeah, right. He doubted he had the energy to stand.

  Leviticus, for all of his talk instigating the fight, was strangely quiet now, but Kyle didn’t hold back, hurling insults and threats and deadly promises.

  “You’re lucky your wife died because otherwise, I would have claimed her as my own and done with her as I pleased,” Kyle ended with.

  Any calmness Leviticus had showed up until that point ended, and he launched himself at Kyle even though they were still human. By the time Kyle landed flat on his back, they were both wolves. Snarls, grunts, the sound of fur being ripped apart echoed in the room, but only for a few minutes until the two sides erupted with cheers for their alpha. Kyle was a darker color wolf, but the two were comparable in size, and they were equally brutish and ruthless. Fresh blood speckled the floor, and Kyle got in a particularly nasty bite deep into Leviticus’s shoulder.

  But that only spurred Leviticus on, and he swiped so hard at Kyle’s head that the wolf went down, Leviticus forced him onto his back, pinning him down hard enough that his head snapped back and hit against the concrete with a wincingly loud thud.

  And Leviticus wasn’t done. He pushed two paws against Kyle’s throat, crushing him. Kyle, Magnus had to give him credit, never stopped fighting, trying to kick and claw his way free, but Leviticus had the upper hand, and soon, Leviticus was the only alpha still living as Kyle twitched and twitched and then stilled.

  The rousing cheer of the Nightshade Hunters drowned the loud roar from the Blood Warriors. Leviticus bore the brunt of his terrible battle like they were badges of honor as he stood, transforming to human. With a grunt, he picked up Kyle’s dead wolf and lifted it over his head.

  “I am your alpha now.” Leviticus slowly twisted in a circle, still holding up Kyle’s body in an awesome display of strength given the fight he just completed. He gracefully lowered the wolf, showing Kyle more respect than he deserved. “Now… we can either part ways and you Blood Warriors will never cross paths with us again, which will mean at least one more of your numbers will die because I’m sure you will not vote on your new alpha.”

  A low chuckle went out.

  “Or,” Leviticus continued, “one of your females could wed me, and our packs will be united, our numbers solidified, because honestly, the blows we’ve dealt each other… We’ve lost too much already. There needs to be no more blood to be shed.”

  A woman with curves stepped forward. “I will.”

  There was rumbling and grumbling from both sides, but eventually, a kind of peace began to somewhat form. Magnus gathered that the woman was the sister to Kyle’s wife, so she had a small measure of clout among the Blood Warriors, and from her shrewd green-silver eyes, Magnus had a feelings she was more than ready to take on the role of alpha female, that she might even try to gain the upper hand on Leviticus one day.

  Leviticus asked—not demanded—for the room to be cleaned once more and suggested the ceremony to commence within an hour. Most of the Blood Warriors went to clean up, but Magnus figured that was more out of respect for their fallen alpha than for their soon-to-be new one.

  He closed his eyes, but when footsteps approached, he lifted his head and opened his eyes to see Leviticus.

  “Have you decided to rejoin us then?”

  Magnus’s body was growing stiff. The agonizing pain he’d been suffering was beginning to numb him, which greatly worried him. He should accept the offer.

  But he didn’t want to.

  “You,” he started.

  But the alpha cut him off. “I owe you an apology. My sister wanted you gone. I agreed to help her. It got out of hand. Behind my back, she asked a Blood Warrior to help her. I guess she’d been sniffing… Well, she tried to orchestrate your death, and I didn’t stop her. I even aided and abetted to some degree. It wouldn’t be right for me to ask you to return to the pack without letting you know.”

  “Laci… Will you go and seek her out?” Magnus asked.

  If Zelda was correct, Laci would start to experience affects of the “poison,” soon herself if she ventured near packs. Although, knowing her, it wasn’t too difficult to picture her worming a way into another pack.

  “She made her choice,” Leviticus said harshly. “She could have been alpha female. She could have united the packs. Now I’m the alpha, and she is on the run. I do care for her, but even I have to admit that she can be more trouble than she’s worth.”

  Magnus grunted. “Will you tell the others what happened?”

  Leviticus hesitated before shaking his head. “I would prefer not to.”

  “Of course. Keep your sister’s memory in tact.”

  “If words gets out that my sister was willing to kill a packmate, that I didn’t stop her, it would destroy the pack. It’s going to be difficult enough to merge the packs peacefully. I can’t… I can’t risk it. Not yet, at least.”

  Magnus rolled his eyes. If Leviticus didn’t tell them now, he wasn’t going to tell them ever, and they both knew it.

  “Rejoin us,” Leviticus said, holding out his hand to help Magnus up.

  “So you can feel better about yourself after the stunt you pulled?” Magnus grunted as he pulled himself to his feet, ignoring Leviticus’s offer.

  “Being alpha means making choices. I choose family. I choose wrong,” Leviticus said quietly.

  “The pack is supposed to be your family,” Magnus said through gritted teeth.

  “I understand that fully now. I will not make the same mistake ever again. You have my word.”

  Magnus didn’t know what good Leviticus’s words were worth, but he didn’t have a choice.

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Good.” Leviticus beamed. “You’ll be my right hand man in the Nightshade Warriors pack.”

  Magnus rolled his eyes. A new name wasn’t going to be enough to bring the two sides together.

  “Time for me to get married. Third time’s the charm, right?” Leviticus smiled wanly.

  Magnus just shook his head.

  Chapter 22

  Luckily, a few blocks down the way, a classmate of Zelda’s drove by and picked her up. Eric tended to be a little self absorbed, so he didn’t notice the stench of death that seemed to coat her like a morbid perfume, but she was so thankful to not be walking the entire way back that she wouldn’t have even cared if he made comments or cracked open the windows.

  She had him drop her off at her place, and she quickly washed, the shower water almost scalding her, trying to burn away the images of the battle, eyes squeezed tightly shut so she wouldn’t see the bodies of the werewolves she’d killed. The water circling the drain was mixed with dirt and blood, and she hoped to feel better about everything once she stepped out.

  She didn’t.

  Still, she pressed forward, grabbing herself some green tea and a cranberry muffin before hurrying to lecture. Her mind kept trying to wander, but she forced herself to focus. When it was eventually time for her to head back to the lab, she hesitated between her old work and the slides of werewolf blood. Instead, she opted to open a new notebook, this time for jotting down ideas between animals and humans instead of animals and plants and then a second list for ideas between plants and humans.

  Time passed on by, and eventually someone sat down beside her with a huff.

  She glanced over to see her best friend. “Tracey, what are you doing here?”

  “You never showed up for lunch.” She held up a brown bag.

  Zelda gasped. “What did you do to your hair?”

  “Do you like it?” Tracey patted he
r ear-length bob.

  “But… But your hair…”

  “Do you know how much of a pain it is to have hair long enough you can sit on it? It’s terrible. So I chopped it off.”

  “Wait… you cut it off?” Tracey’s hair looked perfectly styled.

  “Well, it was a little uneven. I had wanted it shoulder length, but it was crooked so I tried to even it out, and it looked even worse so I cut a little more and… I had to go to the hairdresser’s to get it redone. What do you think?”

  “It looks so cute on you!”

  “Thanks. Mom likes it, too. She thinks I look like a pixie.” Tracey laughed.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Not good, honestly.”

  “I’m sorry.” Zelda glanced at her notes to the brown bag. “Let’s get out of here. You know food isn’t supposed to be here.”

  Tracey walked over to the door. “Aren’t you gonna bring your papers?”

  “Nah.” Zelda grinned. “I can devote a week to trying to help your mom. What can it hurt? My research hasn’t gone anywhere.”

  Tracey squealed, and Zelda knew she was making the right choice to move on with her life.

  The days melted together. For the time period that Magnus and werewolves had taken over, her life had been on hold. Now her days were again filled with classes, labs, and her research.

  But every night, when she closed her eyes, she dreamed of wolves—either nightmares about the battle and the werewolves she killed or dreams of a certain wolf that she could not quite forget. Magnus intrigued her in a way no other guy had, but she tried to convince herself that it was only because she was interested in him and his ability to shape shift and nothing else.

  Deep down, she knew that wasn’t the case, not entirely.

  Maybe it was sad, but her lips still tingled when she recalled their kiss. He was funny and smart…

  And a killer. She’d never be able to forget what he did to those two werewolves who kept coming after her, and the sight of him covered in bruises and blood…

  Besides, she had killed werewolves, too. Was it fair to judge him when he had acted as she had—in the interest of self-preservation?

  Her research for Tracey wasn’t going anywhere, but then again, she had only just started. At night, her mind went wild about the wolves until finally, she gave in, and she ran a few more tests on the werewolf blood. Ironically, she was disappointed to see that Tracey’s blood—she had been using some to compare differences to her mother’s—also merged with Magnus’s. Stupid as it was, she had hoped that only her blood would fuse with his.

  But this did bolster her hypothesis that Magnus might be able to create a werewolf from a human. Would a bite or a slash do it like in the movies?

  Or would it mean that he could get a human female pregnant and their offspring be a werewolf?

  The notion was insane.

  That night, Zelda dreamed she had married Magnus, and she got pregnant, and she gave birth to a handsome little boy… who, the day after he turned two, transformed into a baby wolf.

  Like it or not, trying to distance herself wasn’t completely working.

  Somewhere along the line, she had become too invested. Not with the werewolves. With a singular werewolf.

  Chapter 23

  Days and nights went by. Weeks. An entire month.

  Magnus was miserable.

  Daily, there were skirmishes between the two sides. No matter what Leviticus or his new wife dictated, the Blood Warriors and the Nightshade Hunters refused to merge together to be the Nightshade Warriors. Sometimes, they even resorted toward violence, but no one had died since the night Kyle lost his alpha status and his life.

  It was even worse for Magnus. The Blood Warriors resented him for having killed their alpha’s brother, and the Nightshade Hunters likewise resented him for making their lives miserable. In turn, they were making him miserable.

  If he could, he would leave in a heartbeat, but it was impossible for a werewolf to just up and leave their pack. The tie to one’s alpha was strong. For the most part, only death could sever it, and Magnus had no intention of seeing if he could survive another near-death experience.

  Instead, he endured their abuse only by thinking about Zelda. He needed to have some kind of light in his life. It was because of her that he was still alive; he was certain of it. Without her, he would never have rejoined the pack. The moment he was accepted back into the fold by Leviticus, his “poison” immediately went away, proof enough to him that loner wolves could only survive if not living near other werewolves. We aren’t meant to be loners. We’re meant to be together, in a pack.

  But he had exchanged the “poison” for abuse—verbal, mental, and physical. Magnus snapped back at first, but that only increased their violence to the point that they broke his back. He healed within a day, but that wasn’t an experience he ever wanted to relive.

  To try and keep them all in line, Leviticus had secured them apartments within two complexes next door to each other. It made things convenient for him, but not so convenient for Magnus.

  For whatever reason, several of the werewolves believed Magnus should cook them breakfast each morning, so he either had to get up earlier than the birds or else he’d risk having his wrist snapped or a knee bashed in. This particular morning, Magnus didn’t care. When his alarm went off, he silenced it and rolled over, falling back asleep.

  Obnoxious banging on his apartment front door woke him. He grunted and peeked one eye open to see that only seventeen minutes had passed.

  “Who is it?” he called, his voice raspy from sleep.

  “Your alpha. There’s a meeting.”

  “When?” Magnus yawned.

  “Now.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Trust me. You’ll want to be there.”

  Interesting.

  Magnus changed into a gray cotton t-shirt and jeans and strolled out the door to the courtyard. Most of the other werewolves were already there, including the ones who demanded their breakfast. He’d swiped a banana from his kitchen before leaving his place, and he made a point of eating it in front of them.

  The biggest guy out of the group punched his hand into his open fist, but Magnus wasn’t fazed. In fact, he smiled and waved at the guy.

  The guy’s expression turned murderous.

  Magnus ignored him. For the first week, he had fought back, and he was sick and tired of it. Honestly, he was downright miserable. If things could change…

  But that wasn’t gonna happen.

  “This morning, I received a message from my sister Laci,” Leviticus said.

  Instantly, the whispers among the werewolves silenced. Almost as one, they turned toward their alpha, including Magnus.

  So she’s still alive, huh? He wasn’t surprised.

  “She’s married into another pack. I’m sure a lot of you are upset with her. You lost friends, brothers, sisters, spouses. That’s why I challenged Kyle. For peace.” Leviticus eyed them each in turn, his gaze falling on Magnus last. “My sister also wishes for me to unveil her secret. You see, my sister asked a Blood Warrior to handle a problem for me, one that she first came to me about. A werewolf did not return her affection, and Laci took exception to that. She convinced Colin, Kyle’s brother, to kill the werewolf. As a result of the attack, Colin died, and we thought that the werewolf’s wounds were mortal. We released him from the pack.”

  Many eyes turned toward Magnus, who kept still. Was this it? Would this finally be a means for the other werewolves to fully accept him into the pack?

  Was that something he wanted?

  He wasn’t certain, but he did appreciate Laci’s gesture to come clean. She had done a lot of despicable things in her life, but maybe she was finally maturing. Taking responsibilities for her past actions was definitely a sign that she wasn’t the same werewolf she had been.

  “But he did not die. And we have rewelcomed him to the pack… or have we?” Leviticus turned in a circle so he could see al
l of his werewolves. “Magnus did kill Colin, yes, but he had been attacked. He protected himself. Wouldn’t we all do the same if in that position? Should we blame him for not dying? If anything, Magnus has every right to be furious with us, and yet, some of you…” The alpha glared at the wolves who had been eyeing Magnus since the meeting started. “…haven’t been treating him as a member of the pack. If this continues…” He let the threat trail off.

  Would this be the break Magnus needed for his life to finally turn around?

  Honestly, he doubted it.

  To some extent, not many things changed for Magnus. He got glares and growls and threats and taunts, but no one was physical toward him. That was an improvement.

  But… what was worse was that a certain werewolf would not leave Magnus alone. A certain werewolf with green-silver eyes.

  Leviticus wife and the alpha female.

  Heather.

  If this was gonna be Laci all over again…

  Magnus avoided her whenever possible to the extent that he was withdrawing from the wolves even more than when he had first rejoined the pack.

  Life, though, was falling into a routine. He would get up, eat and shower, then go to work—his odd jobs on construction sites throughout the countryside as he traveled away from his former pack had given him enough experience and knowledge that he was overseeing a small sect of a large construction company—return home and see if the pack had need of him. The long days and hard work left exhausted and ready to crawl into bed.

  That night, he was especially fatigued, and that could be the only reason why he didn’t realize that his front door had been cracked and that someone else was in his apartment. It wasn’t until he exited the bathroom and prepared to enter his bedroom that he realized that he wasn’t alone.