So was he. Heard her calling for him, the way she had before he rescued her. There was more urgency now, something that made his blood boil, and the need to protect her was overwhelming. He put his hands over his ears for a second, the way she had earlier, then took them off when he realized everyone at the table was staring at him.
“And you want to know what’s wrong with me,” Jinx huffed loudly as Stray removed his hands.
“It’s weird … I can hear her calling for me,” Stray admitted.
“We talked about a possible binding spell attached to the brand,” Jinx reminded him. “A strong witch has a strong spell.”
Vice broke in. “Dude, I thought you could read her mind?”
“I was trying to give her some space, but I can’t shake her thoughts,” he said.
Vice shook his head. “We can’t afford space. And she’s been reading about familiars in those witchcraft books I found in her apartment.”
Stray knew he was right, thought about Kate and the books, the way she called to him, and it took about half a second for him to get what Vice was saying about familiars and why he’d emphasized the word—and the other half to breathe, “Fuck, no.”
And then he wondered if Kate had made that connection as well. Note to self—read her damned mind always so you’re not caught unawares.
“There’s no way I’m her familiar.” Then he recalled her earlier threat, her promise to create a spell that would work on him. No matter how this had happened, it was the worst possible thing for him.
“Stray, do you think that’s what’s happened—that you and Kate have a witch-familiar bond happening?” Jinx demanded and Stray nodded. It was the only explanation. But he wouldn’t tell them that it felt like a mating, even though Jinx had already noticed that the first day Stray had met Kate.
Vice gave a low whistle. “So you’re like her pet?”
Stray was on Vice in seconds. Vice was the best in a close-quarters battle, a hands-down winner in hand-to-hand combat and wetwork, his specialty, but tonight Stray could’ve wrung the wolf’s neck easily.
“Said what you were feeling. Don’t kill the messenger.”
“Stray, stop,” Rifter commanded. But it wasn’t until the king literally put hands on him that he loosened his grip on Vice’s throat.
Vice, of course, stood immediately and continued. “You’re falling for the witch. You’re acting like a mated Dire. What the fuck is going on around here?”
When Stray didn’t deny it, Rifter jumped in. “Is she doing something to you? Compelling you because of your bond?”
He wanted to ask how this was any of their business, but fuck it all, it was. Everything any one of them did affected the pack. “She’s not compelling me.”
“You and Brother Wolf are just confused because of the familiar thing,” Rifter told him.
“I don’t think so,” Stray insisted, his voice tight, body taut with anger. So much for holding back. “I think I’m in love with her. I know I’m her familiar. There’s a different feel to the two things.”
He wanted Jinx to understand that, mainly because Jinx had been the one who’d said they’d have to find a way to neutralize Kate when this was over. He was about to remind the wolf about that and ask him to clarify when his phone rang, loud and insistent, and he knew without looking where the call was coming from. All the wolves had this number in their phone with a distinctive ringtone, and for good reason.
It was the police station. Many young Weres ended up there and needed the Dires’ help to bail them out before they were discovered. But Stray knew this call was not about Weres.
“I so do not need this shit right now,” he muttered before answering.
“Steele, how’s it hanging?”
“Where the hell are you, Killian?” he demanded and the other wolves stared at him, the room suddenly silent.
“Got into a slight altercation last night.”
“And you need bail money?”
“Mine’s a little tied up at the moment, if you know what I mean,” Killian said.
Stray didn’t bother to ask why his brother had remained in jail for close to eighteen hours before calling. “I’ll be there. Don’t cause any more trouble.”
“Never, Steele.”
“Stray,” he said through gritted teeth before he hung up. He addressed the others. “Killian’s in jail.”
Vice hung up the phone call he’d just taken. “Killian was at Howl’s. He was all bruised up, but witnesses say he won several fights easily. Humans started taking bets.”
“Tell me he didn’t shift in front of humans?” Stray asked.
Vice shook his head.
“What the hell is with your brother?” Rifter asked.
“Cage fighting is how Killian earns his living when he’s not hibernating.” Stray moved to grab his laptop and brought up the website for the underground chain and showed it to Jinx. “They call him Kill—he’s the ultimate champ in four states now.”
“Way to stay underground,” Vice muttered.
“He’s got to have a lot of control not to kill Weres or humans in the ring,” Rifter commented.
“Money’s a strong motivator,” Stray said, pointed at the ultimate fighting forum he’d pulled up on his phone’s browser. “And Kill is raking it in.”
He supposed Killian could be doing a lot worse things to earn money. The Greenland pack didn’t have anywhere close to the resources the Dire pack who’d adopted him did. Stray had been amazed at Rifter’s wealth and generosity.
“What’s ours is yours,” Rifter had told him and Stray had never felt otherwise.
Now he looked into his king’s eyes and knew the time had come. “You’ve been patient with me. Haven’t pressured me to tell you more.”
“You had your reasons, Stray. I always suspected, knew when the time was right, you would tell us everything,” Rifter said. “You brought Killian back to help, even at dear cost to yourself.”
“I should’ve trusted you.”
“You did. You do. You didn’t trust yourself. Fifty years might seem like a long time to many, but the fact that you could let us embrace you the way you did … well, you’re a good wolf. You just weren’t ready,” Rifter said.
“But now I need to be.” Stray looked each wolf in the eye before he continued. “The Elders never told me anything. My pack did, from day one. They’re in Greenland—kept alive after the Extinction, just like all of you.”
Stray waited for the revulsion in his new pack’s eyes, but none came. Instead, Jinx’s eyes widened. Vice cursed quietly under his breath as Rifter asked, “How many?”
“There were thirty when I left. Not immortal. No abilities. Not until Killian and me, and we paid dearly for that.” He paused. “There are females. I guess potential mates for all of you, and I kept you from that.”
Vice’s face hardened. “You kept us from nothing—we don’t want anything to do with females who’ve harmed you or Killian. I think you’ve always known that on some level.”
Stray could only nod gratefully at him for those words as Rifter continued, asking, “That’s why you and your brother left and separated?”
“Yes. They thought we were the brothers mentioned in the prophecy.”
“I think you’ve got to tell us more about Killian,” Vice said. “I want to know what we’re up against.”
“He won’t hurt us,” Stray told him. “But if the prophecy begins, you should separate us.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Vice said.
“If the prophecy is right, this could be the end of days,” Jinx pointed out.
“Or not,” Rifter said. “Just because we need Killian doesn’t mean that. None of those prophecies have come true—not the way they were written, at least.”
It was true. The Extinction wasn’t prophecy. And Stray could only hope that Rifter was right, that he and Kill and the others could work together to stop Seb and the trappers. But he couldn’t ignore certain facts. “They looked
on my being born as a betrayal. But my birth was what kept them from being destroyed. They were spared the Extinction so I could fulfill the prophecy. That has been passed down through the pack for centuries, through different generations of Dires.”
When Stray and Killian were growing up, the small pack had always been wary of the two of them. They were kept separate and apart from the others. When Stray escaped, he’d grabbed on to technology as a way to reach out and touch somebody.
It was there that he heard rumors of other Dires—and other wolves called Weres.
He avoided them like the plague. When Rifter finally found him, Stray had been really reluctant to go back to the way things had been … He’d been in the process of setting free young Weres who were being hunted for fun by a group of weretrappers—or Weres themselves.
He didn’t trust humans, and the packs kept trying to force him into theirs. He didn’t tell them he was a Dire—and if they’d known, they hadn’t said. Weres’ senses weren’t as keen as Dires’ senses, and Stray kept himself under wraps in terms of his strength.
He couldn’t hide his size, though, and that was why the packs wanted him on their side. A good mate, they kept saying. They talked about Dires in the most reverent of terms for the most part.
It was rumors of a lone Dire that brought Stray to Rogue’s attention.
“You’re one of us,” Jinx’s twin had told him, and from there, he’d never looked back. Not until now.
Stray had memorized details and facts about the time period of the Extinction and beyond from his old pack. He’d meet Weres along the way who might try to use a too-young Dire to their advantage.
He’d known that someday he’d meet up with the Dire king and others, tracked them through various exploits. And since Dires with abilities barely aged, none of them questioned his story about his pack being smote.
He didn’t know why he’d kept his pack’s secret for so long. “When I was younger, all I thought about was staying alive. Killian was around until I was about eight or so; then he left. I realize now that he did it for me. Before the change, so he did that on his own. Didn’t want them to murder me.”
“But he never told you that.”
“No.” He stared at Rifter. “Killian rescued me right before my first shift. Taught me how to fight in the warrior way, because my family had refused to.”
And then one morning, maybe a year later, he woke and Killian was gone. No note, although Stray knew the prophecy was at the heart of it. Stray resisted the urge to find Killian, because he knew that if he ever saw his brother again, it would mean the world was in a bad way.
Stray understood, but the feeling that he’d lost everything never left him.
Kill hadn’t betrayed him, left him because of his ability and Stray kept waiting for the bottom to fall out of this pack, for them to decide that they were better off away from him.
Although they fought fiercely at times, that was never suggested.
“We tried it once, all of us being separate,” Vice had told him years earlier. “Made all of us fucking miserable. Figured being miserable together’s better.”
A piece of Stray was definitely missing—there was no more denying that his brother was a piece of the puzzle. He’d never expected a witch to be the other, but she was. “I’ve got to post bail for Killian.”
Rifter stared at him, his wolf barely contained. Stray couldn’t blame him. Kill was supposed to help them, not make things worse. A wolf with the police on his ass would fuck them over.
“Do what you need to. Take a lawyer,” Rifter said through clenched teeth, jabbing his thumb toward Jinx.
“I’ll get changed and meet you in the garage,” Jinx told him.
“I’ll get you the money,” Cain offered.
“Stray, deal with Killian now and then you need to handle things with Kate. You need your bond with both to be strong, but the witch is every bit as important as your brother. We can’t move on the trappers until she’s ready to eradicate Seb. We’ll keep Kill close so you can concentrate on your charge,” Rifter told him. Although Stray wasn’t the naturally submissive type, for his king, the wolf who’d always treated him like family, he would be. He nodded as he pulled on his black leather jacket and headed downstairs, leaving Rifter, Gwen and Harm in the kitchen and, no, he didn’t want to be a fly on the wall for that little family get-together any more than he wanted to go to his own.
Jinx got into the truck’s backseat with him a few minutes later, dressed to the nines for his role. The truck they’d taken had blackout windows, which added to his mystique of a rich, out-of-town lawyer. Cain climbed into the front seat and drove them to the police station.
“Things okay?” Stray asked Jinx.
“Why wouldn’t they be?” Jinx wasn’t okay—far from it, was still doing the keep out of my mind bullshit song—but Stray had a bigger problem waiting at the police station. “Can Leo get to him?”
“No way. Especially when we’re in such close proximity.”
“Some scary shit.” Jinx stared out the car window, then leaned forward and touched Cain’s shoulder as the young wolf drove through town. “Hang in, brother.”
Cain nodded, a tight but proud smile on his face that remained there for the ten-minute ride into town. He pulled into the back lot of the police station, keeping them as far away as possible while still maintaining a clear view of the back doors.
“You want me to go in alone? Probably safer if you think Killian will tolerate me,” Jinx said.
“I don’t know what the hell he’ll tolerate,” Stray muttered. “But I’d rather not get spotted in the police station.”
“Hear ya.” Jinx got out and strode into the same building Stray had walked Kate to just forty-eight hours before.
Time was flying and for the first time in his seventy-five years, that wasn’t a good thing.
His skin had tingled for hours, the way it had in Killian’s presence.
“Should’ve known that bastard was here.”
Chapter 16
Jinx hated the police station, less for the humans than for the hundreds of ghosts that congregated there at any one time, hanging on in hopes of vengeance or redemption.
They’d get neither, but try telling them that.
Negativity bred in kind, and in this place, there was barely any hope. Strangled Jinx every time he walked in here playing lawyer. He adjusted his tie and showed ID to the clerk, who recognized him, pointed toward room four and said, “He lawyered up, so he’s all alone.”
“What are the charges?”
The clerk leafed through some paperwork on the clipboard in front of him. “Drunk and disorderly. Public nuisance. Fighting. The officer will be in to see you both soon to discuss his options.”
“I’m posting bail as we speak,” Jinx told him.
“Didn’t doubt it, Mr. Neil.”
The clerk went back to shifting through his papers and Jinx walked through the room, past the criminals and prostitutes, human and ghost and Were, and found Kill waiting for him in the small interrogation room.
The Dire resembled Stray, but it was obvious he’d lived harder. It showed not so much in his face but in his eyes, and there was a world-weariness about him that pervaded the small, depressing room.
“Aren’t you fancy for a public defender?” Kill spoke in a voice tumbled hard with whiskey and no sleep. There were days of stubble on his face and his shirt was ripped half open. He hadn’t bothered to wipe the blood off himself, although Jinx doubted anyone had offered to let the wolf clean up.
His hands were also chained to the table. Kill could take that table apart in seconds, never mind the cuffs, but for now he was playing nice. Like he should’ve been last night.
“Listen, asshole, I’m your lawyer. Your family hired me,” Jinx told him, and the wolf across from him smiled wryly and really looked none the worse for wear, considering the rumors of just how big the bar fight he’d been involved in was.
There were still
bruises, but because he was young, they wouldn’t fade as fast as Jinx’s would.
“Like I couldn’t smell you a mile away,” Killian told him. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“I’ll post bail. You’ll have to—”
“I’ll take care of this,” Killian interrupted him. He stared down at the cuffs, then raised his arms and watched the cuffs crumple like paper clips. He waved the guard back in through the glass window and the officer came in fast.
“Hands on the damned table,” the officer shouted. Killian simply stared at him for a long moment. Jinx felt the chill in the air and realized Killian was showing him his power, digging into the officer’s mind and suggesting new thoughts to override his existing ones.
Fuck. And it was too late for him to do anything about it because the officer was saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Killian. Is there a problem?”
“Yes,” Killian said and then he smiled. The officer continued to stare at him and then said, “Sir, I’m so sorry you’re still here. Please accept my deepest apologies.”
“Not a problem.”
“Please, go out the back. Don’t wait another minute. I’ll shred your paperwork and erase all signs that you were ever here. Better yet, that you even exist.”
“That’s perfect. Thanks,” Killian told him, and when the officer left, said, “We’d better get out of here now, before he remembers what he’s really supposed to do with me.”
Jinx stared at Killian for a moment before heading through the open door and letting Killian follow him through the parking lot and into the waiting truck.
No one spoke and Cain pulled away.
“Why the hell did you put us out when you could’ve freed yourself?” Jinx asked finally.
“Because I never know if it’s going to work correctly,” Kill said simply. “Once you were there for backup, I could come out and play. Would’ve been better if Steele was there. Much better.”
“This isn’t the time for fun,” Jinx said. “And his name is Stray.”
“Stray said he was coming for me, so where is he?” Kill asked.
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