by Eve Vaughn
The other woman nodded. “That makes sense. All you have to do is stay in your two-legged body.”
“It’s not that simple. If we run into a hunter, that can force a shift. They have a spell for that.”
“Then we’ll avoid them.”
“Maybe it’s best that you stay on the island,” Calliope suggested.
“If I need your advice, I’ll ask for.”
Calliope gasped before bowing her head. “Of course. I’m sorry for overstepping Beta.” She turned to leave but Aries called her back.
“Calliope, wait.”
The brown-haired beauty turned around with tear-filled eyes. Nina could practically feel the other woman’s pain. It wasn’t hard for her to understand why she’d fallen for Aries. He was handsome, brave, and kind-hearted. It was also clear to Nina that he was also a great leader and cared about his pack. How could one not fall for him? The more time she spent with Aries, Nina found her feelings grow deeper for him.
“I apologize for my abruptness. I appreciate you trying to help us.”
She nodded. “Anytime. I just…wanted to be of help to you. I hope you know that even though I wasn’t thinking straight when I pulled that foolish stunt, I would never do anything to put this pack in jeopardy.”
“I appreciate that.”
“So…are you leaving the island?”
“It may be for the best because we don’t know what this thing can do to Nina or the rest of the pack.”
“Well, good luck.”
“Thank you, Calliope.”
This time when Calliope turned around, she hurried off and didn’t look back.
“You broke her heart,” Nina observed.
Aries sighed. “That couldn’t be helped. Even if I did return her feelings outside of the realm of friendship, it would have all been over the second I saw you.” He pulled her into his arms and gave her a deep, long kiss. Aries then raised his head and looked into her eyes. “Are you ready to go?”
Nina’s heart raced with fear as she nodded. Getting off the island was probably for the best. But as soon as she got the opportunity, she needed to get away from Aries. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something bad were to happen to him.
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you sure this is was where she was sighted? This is practically a ghost town.” Paris looked around the little town that barely showed signs of life. This country province had a few shops and a handful of people milling about but other than that, he wasn’t hopeful of finding Anisa. They’d passed some cottages along the way and even questioned a few locals but no one seemed to know anything.
Paris looked around in frustration. Another dead end. He wanted to rip something apart with his bare hands. He felt his wolf fighting to break free. He and Dante had searched his little town thoroughly. There were a few agents of the Underground still scouring the area but so far no one had managed to turn up anything.
“This is what my sources have told me. They got it from the hunter,” Dante assured him.
“But it’s possible he could have given false information,” Paris suggested.
“It’s not likely considering it was Sasha who compelled him to speak. She enchanted his tongue so he was incapable of lying. Look, my friend, I know you’re concerned but she has to be out there. The world isn’t that big anymore. I battled my other brother for centuries mainly because he was always one step ahead of me. But technology has made it nearly impossible for someone to stay hidden forever.”
“But technology also helps the ones who want to hide. That’s how they managed.”
“You’re being a pessimist. We’ll find her. We’ve sent agents ahead of us and they’re posted all around this region ready to report anything out of the ordinary,” Dante assured him.
Paris wracked his hands through his hair in frustration. “We’ve been scouring this town for hours and haven’t managed to turn up a single clue. This is frustrating the hell out of me. And all the while, these people are walking around this town oblivious to the fact that I’m two seconds away from burning this entire country to the ground if I can’t find her,” Paris growled. His ears perked up as he detected movement several feet away. He turned around to see a woman coming out of one of the little shops. She didn’t seem to be heading in any particular direction. He wasn’t sure why but he followed her progress and noticed that she circled the perimeter of the street of the courtyard before heading back inside the store.
“What has you so fascinated?” Dante inquired.
“I noticed the woman over there came out of that shop and is heading back in. It just seems a little odd.”
“Yeah, I guess…you know, I noticed a man do the exact same thing a few minutes ago.”
They both turned in in the direction of the little store and waited. Sure enough, the woman Paris had spotted earlier came back out a few moments later only repeat the same action she’d done only minutes before. That was beyond odd.
“There’s the guy I saw,” Dante pointed out.
“Something is definitely off. I think we should check it out.” They headed to the shop and stepped inside. From the looks of things, it was once a convenience store but the shelves were practically empty. Several people wandered aimlessly around the aisle not picking anything up just…walking and not particularly looking at anything.
“It’s as if they’re under some kind of enchantment.” Dante walked over to one of the patrons, a man who was closest to them and began to converse in French. The man seemed to look right through Dante.
Dante’s eyes started to glow and as he grabbed the man by the face. Their eyes locked and from Paris’s perspective, the vampire was delving deep into the human’s man. It felt like several minutes before Dante released him. “Go home and sleep this off. You won’t remember any of this in the morning.”
The man nodded before heading out the door.
“What the hell was that all about?” Paris wanted to know.
“He was under some kind of enchantment but it wasn’t something as simple as a memory wipe. It’s like someone has siphoned off part of their soul. It was something dark. It wasn’t regular magic.”
“Black magic?”
Dante nodded.
That can only mean hunters are in the area. Or they still might be.”
“Very good, I was wondering when you would catch on, bravo.” A tall pale woman with short blonde hair stepped out of the shadows, clapping ironically.
He didn’t get a chance to wonder why he hadn’t been able to detect her before a jolt of energy hit him in the back sending him crashing to the floor. His wolf clawed to the surface, bursting through the seams of clothing as he shifted to his other form. Paris sprang to his feet just in time to dodge another jolt of energy. He quickly noticed that besides the tall blonde, there was two other hunters cloaked in black. One was a short, muscular man and the other was a tall gaunt woman so pale her skin seemed translucent.
Paris was certain he and Dante could take them down but the problem was, there were humans still wandering aimlessly around the shop and it seemed as if the hunters had no problem using them as shields. When Paris would have charged at the blonde who appeared to be the leader, she threw one of the hapless humans in his way. He bumped the human aside and continued to charge.
Before he could make it to her, she placed her hand out and chanted a spell beneath her breath. The humans who had had previously been wandering around without any general direction turned toward him, their eyes now a soulless black. They swarmed him making it nearly impossible for him to break free without seriously injuring one of them. The last thing Paris wanted to do was harm innocent humans who were clearly pawns of these hunters who had no regard for anyone’s life but their own. Paris had been involved in many battles in his lifetime but he’d never had to deal with humans in this manner before. Careful not to cause any major damage, she shook of assailants. When they came for him again, he ran into each one of them, knocking them to the gr
ound.
He hoped by maneuvering them out of the way he could get to his puppet master. The blonde hunter laughed with glee before she teleported to the other side of the room. Paris briefly wished they had a witch or warlock in close proximity to counter this dark magic.
The humans ran toward him again, this time with clenched fists. None of them could hit him hard enough to cause any real damage but they were definitely an annoyance. When one of them yanked his tail with a force that took him by surprise he turned around and swiped his aggressor across the chest, tearing into his clothing.
Paris made sure not to dig too deep into the flesh, so that he wouldn’t kill the unsuspecting him. The man howled in agony before collapsing to the ground. His eyes changed to a watery blue. He clutched his chest and looked around him, apparently disoriented. He clutched his chest and scrambled away with a cry of fear, probably because there was a giant wolf a few feet away from him.
So it seems that he could break their trances if he caused them pain. He sunk his teeth into a woman’s arm, careful not to bite hard enough to rip her arm off. Like the man before her, she cried out in pain and scrambled away from him. He fought through four more humans before he made it to the blonde but just as he was about to pounce in her direction, she disappeared again, but not before smirking at him maniacally.
“You’ll never get to her in time.”
When she was gone, Paris looked around the shop frantically. There was no sign of her but he did see Dante fighting off the gaunt huntress who seemed to have some kind of invisible hold on him. Dante seemed to be paralyzed. Paris also noticed that the other shorter hunter’s body rested at their feet, while his head was several feet away.
Without further hesitation, he sprang toward the hunter knocking her off her feet. He opened his jaws wide and tore into her throat, this time using all the force he had at his disposal. He ripped and tore at her thin body with his claws. When he was done with her, she was a lifeless skeleton with chunks of meat hanging off of it.
By now the remaining humans were slowly coming out of their state of stupor. Paris could only imagine the sight they were waking to. A vampire whose fangs and talons were bared and a very large wolf.
Someone let out of scream.
Paris mind-linked with his ally. I think you should handle this, Dante.
The vampire nodded allowing his incisors to ascend and his appearance to go back to normal. His eyes, however, held their glow as he turned into the director of the quivering humans.
“This place was robbed. Some of you were injured but no one was hurt. You will leave this shop and forget you ever saw either one of us.” Dante pointed to himself and then toward Paris. He then turned to a tall man cowering in the corner. “You, remove all of your clothing except for your undergarments and leave them on the floor.”
Once the man had completed that task. Dante pointed to the door. “Everyone out. Go home and don’t come out until the morning.”
The group of people nodded before scurrying out of the shop in a hurry without a backward glance.
Paris shifted back to his human form and headed to the pile of clothing left on the floor. “That was considerate of you.”
Dante snorted. “I did it for myself. I don’t want to spend the rest of this mission looking at your dick.”
“Jealousy is a mother fucker, my friend.” Paris teased.
“Oh please, I was bigger than you when I was a boy.”
This was one of the reasons Dante Grimaldi was his best friend. Even when times were dire, they could find a moment to laugh together which served to strengthen their camaraderie.
As Paris shrugged on the jeans and t-shirt that were a little snug on his bulkier frame, the seriousness of the situation hit him again. “The head Hunter got away. She intimated that we wouldn’t get to her in time which means they know where she is.”
Dante pulled out his phone. “I’m on it, I’ll call in the team to meet us on the outskirts of this town at the abandoned cottage we passed. We can better formulate a plan if we put our heads together.”
Paris nodded absently. “That sounds like a good idea. But we have to hurry.”
Now more than ever, Paris was certain that Anisa was close. He could feel it. He just hoped that they could find her before the Hunters did.
Chapter Fourteen
When his phone rang, Aries answered right away knowing it was his Uncle. He hoped it was good news. He and Nina had arrived at his safe house only a couple hours previously. The trip had seemed to take a lot out of Nina so she was resting in the bedroom. “Hello, Uncle. I hope you have good news.”
There was a pause on the other end causing him anxiety. “Uncle?” he prompted.
“I’m sorry, Aries, it’s been a long day. And I fear that the news I have isn’t so great.”
Aries closed his eyes and grimaced. “So you haven’t found her?”
“No, but I feel that we’re close. In fact, Dante and I ran into a few hunters earlier. We were able to take two of them down, but one got away. These aren’t ordinary hunters. They’re stronger…but you already know that.”
Aries stiffened. “I do?”
“Yes. They were much like the hunters who attacked you and Calliope when you went to her house on the mainland.”
Aries had left out many details on his trip to the mainland and he’d left Calliope’s name out it.
“You’ve gotten quiet. Did you think I wouldn’t find out, Aries? There’s not a lot I don’t know about the goings on around my island or the mainland. I have spies everywhere. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Calliope made a mistake and I didn’t want to be the reason she was banished from the pack.”
“And you were so sure that it wasn’t some setup? She did after all nearly get you killed.”
“She almost died as well, so I doubt she set me up. It was poor judgment on her part but I don’t believe she thought she was in any real danger.”
“Hmm,” came Paris’s noncommittal response.
“I used my judgment to handle her the way I saw fit. If you don’t like what I did, then I’ll accept any punishment coming my way…just don’t banish her.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone before his uncle spoke again. “Even after what she did, you show mercy. Sometimes a situation calls for mercy and other times retribution. Without consequences there is chaos. You could have brought the downfall of our pack had she been up to anything nefarious.”
“So you don’t believe she intentionally tried to set me up?”
Paris sighed. “No. I think she’s a woman who made a foolish mistake. Matters of the heart can be tricky at times but you did the right thing in this case.”
Aries let out a soft sigh of release. “I feared you would view this as another Eleni situation.”
Eleni Kyriakis has been the sister of his Uncle’s former mate who had made a deal with the hunters in order to grab power. She also had her eyes set on being Paris’s never mate.
“The difference between Eleni and Calliope is that Eleni only had herself in mind. She didn’t care about me, she just wanted to the status and the power. Calliope...well, she actually believed herself to have feelings for you and maybe she does but I think she’s been punished enough for her mistake. She’ll have to live with what she did and that she won’t have you. Besides, I knew she was remorseful when she came to me.”
“What?”
“She was the one who told me what happened. I suppose the guilt was too much for her to hold in so she confessed. I would rather have heard it from you, however, but understand. Ever since you took over the role of Beta for this pack, you’ve proven time and time again that you care about its members and you’ve never shirked your duties. Where I have often been the harsh one, you’ve been the reasonable one. Sometimes, I believe that you’d probably make a better Alpha than me.”
Aries shook his head even though his Uncle couldn’t see it. “I wouldn’t presume that Uncl
e Paris. You’re a great Alpha. The pack looks up to you and they respect you.”
“But they respect and love you as well. And even with your various pack duties, you’ve managed to help out on Underground missions and helped run the business. If I haven’t told you, I appreciate you, Aries and you don’t have to be guilty for what your parents did.”
That last statement totally took Aries by surprise, so much so that he thought he’d misheard it. “Excuse me.”
“I think you heard me the first time. I know. I’ve always known.”
Aries had been holding the secret in for so long that he thought he’d carry this secret shame with him for as long as he lived. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“At first I didn’t realize that you knew. Eros…was my brother and I loved him. He was always the serious one and honestly he probably was more suited to be Alpha than me. But he had the curse of being born the younger brother and I think it ate away at him until he eventually felt he had to do something about it. I was the one who put him down you know. It killed me to be the one to end my own brother. As his spirit slowly drifted away, I held him in my arms and I mind-linked with him. His thoughts were all over the place because of the Malum, but part of him was still there. And it was that part that reached out to me. He told me he was sorry and to look out for you. And then he was gone. I’m not sure what was worse, losing him or learning of his betrayal. In a way, I wish I’d never known because every day I think of what I could have done to change things so that he would still be alive today.”
Aries was at a loss for words but thankfully, Paris continued.