by R. E. Butler
“Not alone,” he said.
She nodded in agreement. Adam barked instructions to the wolves around him, and within minutes, they were following an agitated Cinder into the pack’s territory. She strode with purpose through the trees. She stopped suddenly and lifted her head, inhaling deeply.
“What is that?” she asked.
He inhaled and smelled nothing but the woods. “What do you smell?”
“I don’t know. It smells like sulfur, like lit matches or fireworks.”
She took a few steps away, sniffing the air loudly, and he would have remarked on how adorable she looked if he hadn’t been so worried about why they had walked nearly to the edge of the territory.
A mist rose from the ground, and the wolves around him grunted in surprise. It was dense like fog but had a strange scent to it. Dread settled over him as he realized that there wasn’t anything natural about the fog that was surrounding them quickly.
He reached for his mate, but she was suddenly pulled away, her scream of surprise cut off as the fog rolled around them like boiling water and obscured their vision. He snarled, reaching his hands out and in front of him, desperately searching for her.
As quickly as the fog had risen, it began to recede, and he found himself with his wolves in the woods, no trace of his mate.
Chapter 12
Cinder choked as the fog covered her body and filled her mouth, the sulfur scent making her gag. She tried to scream, but something was tied around her mouth. The gag was made of thick fabric that tasted sour like rotten milk and made her want to retch. Rough hands quickly bound her wrists, and she was upended over someone’s shoulder. The sound of air rushing by filled her ears as the person carrying her ran far faster than a human. Branches slapped at her, and she felt their sting even through her clothes. She tried to scream again, trying to work the awful tasting fabric out of her mouth, or slice it with her fangs, but her fangs seemed to have disappeared. She felt as though the fog had seeped into her skin. Her eyes burned and her heart pounded in her ears. She struggled to stay awake, but she was being pulled into darkness too fast to stop herself from being overwhelmed.
She was aware of everything and then nothing.
* * * * *
Setta smiled as she lowered the disorienting fog. She had glamoured herself with foliage, blending in perfectly with the woods around her. The stupid lygisa had fallen for her trap so easily that she wondered why her master had even bothered with something as complicated as spell casting. The lygisa had been unable to tell that Setta had been watching her because she was so confused by the changes happening to her. She had also not known that Setta had been invading her dreams a few times to give her glimpses of what her future held.
The injured she-wolf whimpered at Setta’s feet. She’d sealed her mouth and bound her in magic, but not the nice kind of magic that the foolish lygisa could use. Setta used dark magic. The kind that turned an unsuspecting sister of the alpha out running errands into a writhing ball of pain.
Setta flicked her finger over the female, and a piece of her skin shredded as if cut by an invisible knife. She shrieked in agony, and Setta inhaled the scent of her pain. Rubbing her sides in a sensual way, she thought she might just hurt the female a few more times before turning her over to her master for her swiftly coming death. Of course the master would play with her a bit first, too, but maybe he’d let Setta help.
She felt her master call for her through their mental link, and she sighed. No more fun for her right now. Reaching down with her power, Setta lifted the female off the ground, and the she-wolf whimpered in fright, which only made Setta smile. Once upon a time, she’d been an innocent Wiccan, content to share her power with her coven, and then she’d gotten a taste of dark magic, and she hadn’t wanted to go back to being pure and good. It was much more fun to be bad.
A clawed hand flew through the fog and snagged Setta around the neck. Thick claws dug into her flesh, and she struggled, gasping for air as she was lifted off the ground. The she-wolf crashed to the ground next to her. Setta was pulled through the fog by the clawed hand until she was nose-to-nose with a half-shifted, pissed off wolf. His mouth was elongated into a fur-covered muzzle complete with glistening, deadly teeth. His eyes were such a bright amber that they momentarily dazzled her.
She knew who he was without an introduction. Adam, the alpha and mate of the Wiccan.
“How?” she wheezed. There was no way the wolf should have been able to find her through the fog.
He snapped his jaws at her, and she tried to shrink away, but he held her immobile. Her chest burned as he squeezed her throat and the oxygen was cut off.
“Where is my mate?” He snarled the words.
She stared into his eyes and could see her own death. She struggled to find her power, but because she was surrounded by the alpha, she couldn’t reach her dark magic. How was he stopping her?
The fog dissipated as she weakened further, and she found herself in the company of a pack of pissed off wolves.
“I’ll never tell,” she gasped, reaching into the pocket of her jacket for a knife.
Her wrist snapped as the alpha stopped her from closing her fingers around the hilt, and everything slipped into darkness.
* * * * *
Adam pulled the knife from the witch’s pocket and tossed it to Brick. He sniffed at her, and his nose wrinkled as the heavy scent of sulfur stung him.
The fog was gone, and so was Cinder, but his sister, surprisingly, was on the ground, seeming to be bound by something that was invisible to the naked eye.
Adam dropped the witch to the ground and knelt down next to Angie, brushing the back of his knuckles over the strange, clear covering on her mouth. She was panicking, her eyes wide with fear. “Calm down, Angie. The witch is out of commission. You’re safe now.”
He looked up at Solan. “Call the coven to help Angie.”
He picked up the unconscious witch and tossed her over his shoulder. “I’m going to find out what happened to Cinder.”
Brick said, “Do you want us to search the woods for her?”
Adam shook his head. “She’s not in our territory any longer. I can’t feel her at all. This one will tell us what we want to know. I’ll make sure of it.” He paused and looked behind him. “Sweep the woods for intruders. Figure out how this one got through the patrols and how Angie was taken.”
Brick nodded. A few wolves followed Adam, and he knew they were watching his back. The strange female bumped against his shoulder blades as he walked with purpose through the woods. Somehow, she’d captured Angie and gotten into Cinder’s conscious mind to pull her to their location. The disorienting fog had effectively hobbled him, but when he heard her scream, he’d partially shifted and immediately scented a strange presence. If he hadn’t, he might not have known that Angie was taken or who was behind Cinder’s disappearance.
He was furious that Cinder had been taken. He didn’t know how, but someone had figured out that she was a lygisa. He was as sure of that as he was that the moon would rise tomorrow.
He cleared the woods and turned to the right, where a large barn sat away from the house. His father stood next to the open door. “What do you need from me?”
“Watch the door. There’s going to be a lot of screaming.”
The door slammed shut and Adam walked to the center of the concrete slab that comprised the floor of the barn. In the center of the room, a bare light bulb swung lazily, casting shadows along the roughhewn walls. He dropped the witch to the concrete non-too-gently, and after extracting a length of cord from a storage shelf, her tied her up and hung her from a hook in the ceiling.
Turning to a large sink in the corner, he filled a bucket with cold water and carried it to the still unconscious woman. Hate filled him. He wanted to gut her for her part in Cinder’s abduction. And maybe he would later. But right now, he needed answers more than he needed vengeance. Willing his wolf to heel, he returned to his normal fully human form and tossed t
he water on the woman.
She came to with a screech of pain and found herself hanging by her wrists, which had to be mind-numbingly painful considering one of them was shattered; her feet dangled above the ground.
“Talk.”
* * * * *
Cinder woke slowly. She opened her eyes and found herself staring at chain-link fencing, and beyond that, a water-stained ceiling. She blinked away the blurriness, lifted her hands, and found them bound in front of her.
Her mind raced. She’d been in the woods with Adam, certain she’d felt a she-wolf injured in the woods, and then she’d been attacked and taken away. She closed her eyes and reached for her powers, but whatever lygisa power she had was gone.
She heard footsteps and she turned her head.
It couldn’t be.
Her father stopped and stood a few feet away from what she realized was a cage, the sort that was used in dog kennels. The room was empty except for the cage. The walls were bare and the windows were boarded up. He stared at her blankly, his eyes roaming over her as if she were a piece of meat for inspection.
There was coldness in his gaze, and it chilled her to the core. The nightmare she’d had surfaced quickly. She’d never told Adam, deciding that she was safe within the alpha house and that it hadn’t been a vision. But she couldn’t deny the clarity that spiked through her. She’d made a terrible mistake.
Her father looked over his shoulder as another male entered the room through the only door. He was tall and lean, his face aged with time and a hard life. She fought screaming in terror as the male of her vision, the one who had pushed her roughly to the ground and violently claimed her, strode toward her with purpose. He knelt next to the cage, his yellow teeth showing as he grinned.
“Such a pretty thing. You’ll make nice meat for the pack. Wouldn’t you say, Roscoe?”
The alpha looked at her father. He smiled in a way that was far too lascivious for a father to look at his daughter and horror filled her. She could get away. She had to. The whole pack was evil. She could smell it on them – that strange sulfur smell that she’d scented in the woods. She shouted for her wolf to help her, but everything inside her felt heavy, as if her power was blanketed somehow.
“Aw, she’s scared. Funny,” the alpha said. He wiggled his fingers through the links, taunting her. “Don’t worry, little girl. You’ll come to love your place in the pack, casting spells against our enemies and spreading your legs for anyone I choose.” He rattled the cage, and she squeaked in alarm, which only made him chuckle. “Enjoy your last few hours of freedom. When the moon is in its arc tonight, we’ll force your power to rise now instead of waiting for tomorrow. It’ll be my pleasure to usher you into our pack by blood and flesh.” He stood and turned his back on her. “You can release her if you wish, or don’t. It matters little to me if she’s comfortable now. It’s a good lesson to learn for her future.”
The alpha left, and she was alone with her father. Except she wouldn’t call him that anymore. He didn’t deserve the title.
Something glinted in his eyes, as if he knew what she was thinking. A small smile curled the corner of his mouth, but he said nothing. Turning slowly, he left her alone. The door shut, and she strained her ears to hear anything, but either there was no one around or the walls were well insulated.
Panic clawed at her, but she pushed it away. If she fell apart, she wouldn’t survive, and she knew she needed to live. She had to keep her head together and figure out a way to free herself. She called for Adam, pushing against the wolf in her mind that felt as though it was asleep. She’d been feeling so connected to Adam until now, as if they were one being and not two. Now, all she felt when she thought of him was nothingness. But it felt like less than nothing, like the absence of all they’d been together.
She tugged the gag free. Closing her eyes, she sorted through her mind for something she’d read in the lygisa book that would help her. She wasn’t a true Wiccan anymore, but at one time, she’d harnessed the power of the flame. Her fingers tingled as she thought about her south power. She hadn’t experienced a connection to her Wiccan power since that fateful day when she’d changed completely, and Adam had come for her. But now, she could feel the heat in her fingers as her nerves snapped with energy.
Whatever had been done to her wolf and lygisa powers had allowed her Wiccan powers to return, at least in a small way. Concentrating on the feel of heat that spread down her fingers, she spoke the words of a simple, familiar spell. Her power swelled, and her hands began to burn. She ignored the scent of singed flesh and wiggled her fingers, trying to grasp pieces of the rope to burn them.
Screaming inwardly as her flesh seared with the heat of her power because she was unable to throw her power anywhere, she focused on the ropes and watched them loosen and finally give way. Sweat dripped from her brow as she shook out her hands and the power receded. Her hands were red and raw, her fingers blistered and swollen, but she was free.
She’d read once about a Wiccan who could reach her coven by focusing her power and slipping into a sort of meditative state. Closing her eyes, she let the Wiccan power flare to life again as she reached out to her former coven. She didn’t know if it would work, but she hoped it would. She didn’t know how much time she had left.
Chapter 13
Adam snarled when the barn door opened, but reigned in his wolf when he saw Lorene and the corners. She stumbled as she walked and pressed her hand to her nose. “She stinks of evil.”
All four women covered their noses and gagged. Adam had gotten used to the scent, along with the metallic tang of blood and the sound of the witch’s screaming.
“You’re supposed to be helping my sister.”
“We did, and she’s fine,” Lorene said. “But we smelled something awful and followed it here. Your father asked us to wait until you were done, but we need to be part of this.”
“Don’t ask me to give her mercy,” Adam said.
Gwen’s eyes blazed with indignation. “Who said anything about mercy? She’s given herself over to black magic. Her soul is tarnished. She can’t be redeemed.”
The witch screamed and kicked her legs. Blood droplets flew through the air before splattering on the floor.
“She won’t talk. She wants to die,” Adam growled.
“She’d probably be killed by whoever gave her the power,” Idurre said. “A better choice to die now than at the hands of the one she would betray.”
Lorene hummed. “She doesn’t have to be willing to share what she knows.”
Adam stepped back as the four women circled the witch. Immediately, the witch screamed a string of words that sounded like a spell. The Wiccans held hands and something shimmered around them, like the heat of invisible flames. The witch fell silent, and her eyes rolled back in her head until only the whites showed.
“I’ll force the moon to bloom tonight,” she rasped in an otherworldly voice. “The lygisa will claim her power, and the pack will have her.”
The Wiccans raised their arms slowly, and the witch began to shriek as her body jerked. Then she fell limp as the Wiccans chanted. The barn became stiflingly hot as the air shimmered again. They dropped their hands and stepped away.
Lorene turned slowly, and her eyes were electric blue and glowing. “I see Cinder in a cage. She reached out with her Wiccan power and touched us when we called the corners to bind the evil one. She’s in a house one hundred miles from here.”
She bent over and wrote the word Rexton and the number seven in the witch’s blood on the concrete. Straightening, she blinked several times, and the glow faded from her eyes. The other Wiccans surrounded her as she weakened at the knees and they caught her.
“What is Rexton seven?” Adam looked past them to the witch who was completely still save for the rise and fall of her chest.
“The street and house number,” Lorene said.
Hope bloomed in his chest. “I thought her Wiccan power was gone because she’s a lygisa? How could yo
u see her?”
Lorene looked over her shoulder with a sneer. “Whatever this one did to her, it covered up what makes her a lygisa, and enough of her is still pure Wiccan that she was able to pull that power to her use. But there’s a bigger problem, Adam. She said she was going to force the full moon tonight.”
“She’s not going to do anything.” He turned his attention away from the witch.
“But they might force Cinder to,” Lorene said. “Whoever gave this one the dark magic can turn it on Cinder. It’s seductive and volatile. If Cinder is forced to make the full moon happen tonight, she’ll die. It’s against the laws of nature to change the moon’s pull. If this one had done it, she would have died, too, although she may not have known that part. The earth will rebel against the power and destroy the one doing it. We don’t have much time to get her out of harm’s way.”
Adam nodded.
Lorene added, “I’m going to send this one to the council for punishment. She’s committed grievous sins against Wiccan-kind. You’ll have your vengeance.”
He turned on his heels and strode out of the barn, leaving the Wiccans to deal with the witch. He wanted to slaughter her himself, but he knew time was running out for his mate and that was far more important. His wolf howled at him to hurry, and he listened. After checking on Angie to make sure she was okay, he left her in the care of the females and several guards and gathered the best fighters in the pack. He stood on the hood of his SUV and looked down at them. “We’re going to get our lygisa back. Who’s with me?”
The pack howled in agreement, and he was bolstered by their support.
“There’s dark magic and a dangerous pack waiting for us. Stay alert and stay together.”
Lorene climbed into the SUV as Adam jumped down and opened the driver’s door. “I’ll give you directions. I can see the location in my mind.”
“Can you still feel Cinder?”