by Lan Chan
Inside my head, the lion sank its claws into my gut. Though he was currently doing his best to kill me with disobedience, Chuck was blood. And my duty should have been to him above all else.
Knowing that there was nothing I could do to help him made the words that came out of my mouth razor-sharp. I wasn’t sure which one of us the abrasiveness was directed at. “Why don’t you spend a little less time worrying about me and Sophie, and a little more time focusing on Cassi–”
His fist came at my head. Releasing him to avoid the impact, I countered his swing with a knee to the gut. His stomach muscles flexed, scattering the pain of contact, if not keeping him from being completely winded. While he was distracted, I grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved him face down into the carpet. Distantly, I was aware of a blur of bodies and mumbling voices on either side of us. It would be a grave mistake to get side-tracked at the moment.
Even though the mention of Cassie had leached some of the fight out of him, he was still a lion shifter. It was the fact that he didn’t try and get out of the submissive hold that caused my heart to stampede in my chest. On his worst day, my brother would never go down without a fight. He might not win, but he would take out a few arms and legs and pass out before giving up.
Right now, he lay prone beneath the restraining hold, a low growl rumbling in his chest. For his sake, I hauled him to his feet and threw him back into the broken shell of the office. He landed on two feet, proving that the scuffle was more play than fight.
“No more,” I said. “Another incident and I’ll take the demon blade.”
Attention at last. He reared back as though I’d decked him. “You try it and–”
“I’ll do more than try.” Stepping up to him so we were eye-to-eye, I gave him a hard stare. A year ago, I’d have had to turn my head down to pin him with my dominance. Today, at least physically, we were equals. The alpha in me urged me to wallop some sense into him. The big brother in me clasped his shoulder, frowning at the chaotic emotions I saw reflected in his challenging gaze.
“We just need to hold the line,” I told him, not believing my own words for a second.
He huffed out a breath. “Bullshit.” He tried to shrug me off, but I held firm. “What the hell is the point in this? Sitting here with our tails between our legs when we should be storming the gates of Hell?”
I’d asked myself the same question. That niggling voice inside me that sounded exactly like Kai showed me the many reasons why we couldn’t throw our lives away in glorious suicide. Without us, there would be nobody to defend the vulnerable.
“Okay,” I said, feeling the conviction slamming back into place even though the lion fought against it. “Let’s go hunting. Who should we ask to raise Dani when we’re both dead?” I paused a second to let reality sink in. “Actually, never mind. Let’s take her with us. She’ll be dead anyway when the malachim return and there’s nothing in between them and her. How long do you think Edward’s little growl will hold them off?”
His top lip quivered even as his head sank. “You don’t know–”
“I do know, Chuck. If you’d get your head out of your ass for two seconds, you’d realise it too.”
He raised a brow in disdain. “Oh yeah? Shut up or put up, is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying we need to get our house in order before we go off trying to huff and puff and blow everything else down.”
If there were a wall in front of him, he would have punched it. “Things are never going to be the same again. Durin is in a pack-linked coma. The alphas are barely holding it in place to keep him alive. Dad–”
It was my turn to snarl. The hypocrisy of it was not lost on either of us. I might talk a lot of shit about holding it together, but we both knew I was a sliver away from losing it too. Because if Durin went down, he would take the alphas, including Dad, with him. Then the Reserve would go crumbling after.
“And you want us to just sit by?” Charles hissed.
“I’m asking you not to be a thorn is my damned side so I can do my job.”
“And what job is that, exactly? Because if you want to talk about duty, you’d get on top of Stacey and get it over with.”
The lion came roaring to the surface of my thoughts as my vision became saturated in gold. He was only still breathing because my lion scented him as blood. Otherwise, there would be a corpse in front of me. I took a long, heated breath and drew the snapping animal back. What pissed me off the most was that he was right. The shit-eating grin that lit up his face told me he knew it too.
“We need a new alpha mating link,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. It grated all the same. “If Durin’s breaks, there will be chaos.” I swallowed, not trusting myself to speak. “Having said that, if you force me to be nice to some vapid, self-serving bitch one more time, I’ll gut her where she stands.”
In his eyes, I saw the truth of it. As a dominant shifter himself, it was anathema to his instincts to hurt a weaker member of the pack. But Kai and I had both asked a lot of him. More than any shifter teenager could handle. It was a miracle Chanelle hadn’t been hung from a branch by her own entrails. I suspected it wasn’t loyalty to us that had stayed his hand.
I had asked Sophie to mate with me. The timing and circumstances couldn’t have been worse. But the sentiment? I’d never been surer of anything in my life. There was no mating link between us. We’d spent enough time together and it should have manifested by now. None of it had mattered. The lion half of me had chosen her long before the logic of the man could muddle it with practicality. But she’d been branded a criminal. She’d admitted to committing the same crimes as her great-grandfather. So, when I convinced her to mate with me, there was every chance the shifters would refuse to accept her. The lion bared its teeth in sudden protectiveness, and I knew where its loyalty had shifted. There was no choice now. They would accept her, or they would die. End of story.
Knowing the damage he’d been able to inflict with just his words, Charles grew bored. “Can you hand out my punishment now so I don’t have to suffer that constipated look on your face? It’s pathetic.”
The sting might have touched me if I wasn’t already being cut up inside. “I’m done sentencing you to hard labour or more hours on sentry duty. When your punishment comes, I hope you’re ready for it.”
He left with a backwards glance that was mildly gratifying. I was the one who stood there in the crumbling ruins of the office until the light outside turned wan with the setting of the sun. Gwen came and went, sensing my inability to take more mundane pack admin. As the first Fae lanterns came on, I gave in to the lion’s urge to roam.
Loosening the reins a little, I stalked away from the perimeter of the office buildings, past the intersection of the treetop conference halls, and away from the bustling comfort of the pack homes.
Taking care not to walk absentmindedly in the direction of Basil’s abandoned mansion, I slipped through the barrier of the civilized section of the Reserve and allowed myself to shift. Unlike the wolves and smaller cats, my beast wasn’t built for long-distance running. I wasn’t slow by any means, but I gave up a portion of speed for bulk and power.
Running for hours in lion form, especially now, wasn’t pleasant. And I wasn’t wired in a physical sense. Instead, I ran in a steady trot through the harsh terrain that morphed from one ecosystem to another until I came to the unnatural perimeter that now intersected a part of the Reserve that had once been an unending savannah.
The invisible line didn’t even need to be there. Scraggly grass and compacted dirt ended abruptly and morphed into lush grass too green to be anything but magical. The air on the other side stank of brimstone. The stench of the fens never failed to make me sneeze. My lion flattened its nose, burying it into the dirt of the earth to dampen some of the smell. No shifter in their right mind was comfortable this close to the fens. But for some inexorable reason, it pulled to me like the breaking down of an addict.
By the time
dawn began to ease its way across the sky, I’d settled into an uncomfortable stalk. Though my eyes were closed, they snapped open at the sound of something familiar hitching a ride on the early-morning breeze. A scent of childish terror that had the hair on the back of my neck rising. I was running through the barrier before the first scream tore open the night.
3
Sophie
I’d made many mistakes in my short life but none of them was as bad as allowing an insane vampire to talk me into meeting a psychic. Worse still, allowing him to convince me to do it in a location so close to the Reserve. Then again, everything was close to the Reserve these days. Desperation had become my middle name.
“Hello, cupcake,” Andrei drawled from behind me. He sidled up so close to my back I felt the coolness of his breath against my cheek. The psychic chill was just as icy as the physical tingle that ran all the way down my spine. Bending down, he took a good, long sniff of me. Shuddering, I elbowed him in the gut.
It was really irritating that his guffaw was mostly theatrical. The smile on his sallow face when he stepped in front of me was not for show. Neither was the maniacal glint in his eye. Without meaning to, my gaze feathered over him. Prolonged contact with humans saw him imitating their slouchy, lazy way of dressing. His black jeans had a tear in them that had nothing to do with his current demon-hunting profession.
Four limbs. Both eyes functional, even if they were currently laughing at me. A scar that now ran along the seam of his neck where a malachim had tried to relieve him of his head. The blood blade sitting–I stopped dead in my tracks at the realisation of what I was doing.
A broad grin split his face, adding light to his seemingly dead eyes. “Aww, I missed you too, cupcake.”
Swatting his hand away, I threw him a withering glare that only made him chuckle. Missing Andrei Popescu was not on my list of appropriate feelings for a fugitive.
“I already have a bad feeling about this,” I told him.
Taking me by the wrist, he led me to a seat in a darkened corner of the bar. Like a lamb to the slaughter. Once upon a time my instincts would have gone crazy at the very mention of following Andrei anywhere. For months now, I’d kissed instinct goodbye.
Groaning, I noticed one of the two other figures at the booth in the corner. Looking up, Eugenia waved conspicuously at us. Like we were meeting to gossip and not trying to divine where the soul of Malachi Pendragon had been hidden.
Beside Eugenia, the other redhead at the table sniffed. You’d have to be blind to miss the resemblance between them. I wracked my brain for a name. Too many things had happened the night of the party with the Human League, but I remembered being introduced to Eugenia’s sister...her sister...whose name was...Cordelia!
As we took seats opposite them, Eugenia reached out and ran her fingers through a lock of my spell-straightened hair. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
I knew the ones reflecting back at her were nothing close to the natural dark brown of my real eyes. The image the disguising spell projected would be different for everybody who happened to linger too long on my appearance. “Shall we dispense with the illusion?”
I gently pulled the hair back. “I’d rather not.”
Her head tilted to the side. “Paranoid, I see.” She frowned, and in it were a hundred questions I knew she was dying to ask. But then she too sniffed. “Suit yourself. Did you bring the item?”
I produced the necklace from my pocket. Andrei tried to grab it for inspection, but I snatched it away. Unfortunately, the overeager waitress took it as a come-hither gesture and bustled up to us. The rosy hue in my cheeks as she smiled at Andrei made my stomach turn. Ew.
No matter how much blood he now drank, or how frighteningly attractive he’d become as a result, when I looked at him, all I saw was the disturbing menace in his sky-blue eyes. He said something to the waitress and she left, but I didn’t hear it above the beating of my own heart in the presence of a predator. Even though I was certain he wouldn’t hurt me, the primordial prey instinct in me was perpetually on edge. His smile slipped a little at my intense scrutiny.
“Don’t look at me like that, cupcake,” he said, eyes going crimson at the rims. “You’re making me blush.”
After the waitress brought back a pitcher of enchanted beer for them and a lemonade for me, I laid the necklace out in front of Cordelia for inspection.
Cordelia didn’t move to pick it up. In fact, I’d noticed that in the confined space, she didn’t move much and almost flinched whenever Eugenia tried to touch her—something the other woman did as often as she could just to get a reaction.
“This has been cleansed?” Cordelia asked.
I nodded. “I also dunked it in seawater and buried it in dirt for a few days.”
“You didn’t use anything supernatural on it?”
I shook my head. “I was worried it would leave imprints. The only other thing I did was smoke the scent of leather out.”
For the first time, Cordelia produced an expression that I might have considered a smile. “At least the human knows how to follow orders.”
It might have been a compliment had her face not contorted at the word human.
Gingerly, Cordelia reached out to take Kai’s mother’s necklace into her ivory-skinned grip. Lex’s necklace, I corrected in my head. Though it seemed less like it belonged to her given her complete abandonment of it after the whole Chanelle incident. Everything in me was crossed in the hope that there was enough of Kai’s essence left behind in it for some kind of vision.
Now more than ever, hope was a dangerous thing in this world. As evidenced by the stinging pain in my chest when Cordelia’s eyes opened and she shook her head.
“There has to be something!” My voice was whiny. I didn’t care. “Do you need some other personal item?” How I would get it, I wasn’t sure. The Nephilim had anything Kai-related on such tight lockdown I’d only managed to swipe the necklace because it had been the first thing I’d done after teleporting from the cells in Seraphina. A week after Lucifer returned, news began to spread that Raphael had succumbed to some kind of ailment. The Nephilim Council went into overdrive locking everyone else out.
Andrei played with the tip of the blood knife. The blade was a dull reddish-brown, the handle an intense magenta. Though it was no longer a part of me, the hum of my blood transmuted into a physical state still made my molars ache. Eugenia stared at it hungrily. Kicking him in the shin, I tilted my head in a silent plea.
Andrei grinned at Eugenia. “What this?” he said. “Why yes, it is a hexed weapon made entirely of blood.”
She might have licked her lips had it not been so obvious what she wanted. Turning to me, she pointed a finger. “Name your price.”
I shook my head emphatically. “No way. I don’t have the energy for more.”
She leaned forward this time, the amusement in her demeanour drying up. “There are ways we can increase your stamina.”
There was no need to elaborate. I was more than convinced of Ravenhall’s magical virility. “I said no! You’ve got your own ways to counteract the malachim. You don’t need me. I only risked coming here to find Kai’s soul.”
“I can’t find something that no longer exists,” Cordelia said.
Trying to ignore the spear that was repeatedly lancing me through the heart, I said, “What do you mean?”
Cordelia snapped her fingers. “Poof. Zip. Zilch. It’s gone. What part of that don’t you understand?”
None of it. None of those words made sense. My mind refused to accept their meaning. “Just because you can’t find it–”
Discarding protocol, Cordelia latched onto my shaking hands. “No, witchling. Understand what I’m saying to you. He’s–”
Her words died out in a garbled cry as her eyes rolled back in her head. I saw Eugenia mouthing something before shaking her sister. All sound receded into the background as a whooshing filled my ears. Cordelia’s skin turned blistering cold around my fingers,
making my teeth chatter. Just when I was about to try and yank back, images flooded my mind.
I sat upon the grass inside the soul gate erected by the Sisterhood. Beside me, Lex knelt in the grass, her little body wracked with pain. Around me, the supernaturals charged repeatedly at the barrier or threw themselves in between the demons swarming out of the portals. High above the gate, Kai lashed out with his blade, only to be flung back. But it wasn’t the chaos of the fight that was the epicentre of this vision.
It was the smouldering rage of the lion shifter who was preparing for another assault on the barrier. One of his back legs was limp. There was literal smoke wafting from the tips of the hair around his mane. And he was going to come back for more.
“No!” I screamed in my memory and perhaps in the here and now because Andrei’s hand was suddenly clamped around my forearms. Something gripped me by the throat as I watched in horror as Max flung himself in harm’s way. It happened just as it had the first time. His front paws connected with the soul gate first. They dragged an invisible line of damage down its side for a fraction of a second before it delivered a metaphysical slap that sent him barrelling back the way he’d come.
Just like the first time, something inside my rapidly beating chest sank its hooks in deeply. The seed of it had planted the day of the Unity Games. While Max fought to reach me inside the soul circle, it blossomed into something both beautiful and horrifying. Something I had tried my hardest to avoid even as an invisible tether seemed intent on lashing us together: a shifter mating link.
The image in front of me changed to the landscape that now shared top billing with Lex and Kai’s disappearances as my worst nightmare. A patina of green shades blotted out the horizon making me convinced that we were in some kind of field. Cold bled into my breath and through my chest. Every inhale felt like it was impaling shards of ice into my heart.