by Lucy Lyons
“I wouldn’t know. Caroline says she only does that with her very favorite people, and I didn’t make the cut.”
“Neither did Nick, so don’t feel too bad, Dom. I think it’s more a magical thing than a like thing. Your magic is almost pure sorcery. Caroline is a psychic witch before anything else. Her connection isn’t with potions or herbs like yours but through runes and things she can connect to in her mind and empower, like her zombies.”
Dom gaped at me, wide-eyed. “That’s astute, for a werewolf,” she chuckled. “You’re only a psychic witch. You don’t have any power beyond those mental connections, do you?”
“That and some shielding I’m learning to manifest in the physical world, but yeah, no sorcery or herb witchery here,” I confessed, and she grinned.
“Look at you, getting so wise about magic. Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
Dominique was bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, swaying with Ro in her arms like it was the most natural thing. I never would’ve guessed Dom for the maternal type, but something in the way she moved suggested she’d not only done it before but that it was habit, born of hours spent with a child or children somewhere in the hundreds of years she’d been alive. I wanted to ask, but Caroline, Nick, and the others were all still missing, and I needed to find out how Ashlynn and Rae were doing, assuming they’d made it to the medical center.
I kissed the top of Ro’s head and on an impulse, swept my lips over Dom’s cheek before I sniffed the air one last time and stepped back out into the hallway, avoiding the concrete and wood strewn all over the floor as a reminder of the battle that had led to the baby’s nursery.
The door wasn’t salvageable, but I pulled it to as best I could, lifting it into place and forcing the wood together enough to squeeze into the buckled doorframe. It wouldn’t keep anyone out for long, but at least it would give Dom the extra seconds she’d need to defend herself and Ro if I didn’t make it back before our enemies did.
My nose followed the trail of blood toward the business end of the underground compound, and I silently prayed the vampires had thought to shut off the elevator so the humans above remained safe.
The smell of blood became so heavy in the air that I could taste the rich copper at the back of my throat, and the beast in me rose to just under the surface of my skin. My body begged for the change, but I shielded myself against the power that surged in me and retained my human form. The beast wanted blood, but I needed human hands to aid the injured.
I shouldn’t have worried as much as I did. When I reached the combat training studio, I saw the carnage even as my nose told me that the blood I saw coating the walls, the floors, even the racks of weapons, was human, or nearly so. One black cloaked figure knelt on the floor in front of Caroline, who hovered just above the floor, her power so tightly reined in it that it seemed to take on physical form. I couldn’t feel it from the corridor, but the moment I stepped into the room, my hair stood on end from the current, and Caroline turned vacant, glowing eyes on me.
“Caroline? Are there injured. What do you need me to do?” I asked cautiously. I pushed the same questions forward in my mind for her to read in case whatever power had taken hold of her wished to invade my mind. There were other questions I wanted to ask, but I pushed those down as hard as I could.
You seek to hide from me, but I see you, wolf, I felt her inside my head, causing a mixture of fear and anger with her for breaking her own rules about mindreading.
You see what? Me asking what the hell happened here? If you’re not injured, why are you up here instead of with your daughter? She didn’t answer, so I spoke aloud again, inching my way farther into the room despite my better sense screaming at me to shut the door on the new, terrifying version of Caroline and find a way to seal all that blood and the insane grief shining from her eyes away.
I started seeing individual bodies in the mess of limbs and bodily fluids, which was worse than seeing it as a whole. Vampires I worked with, had drinks with, were scattered among the bodies of the human invaders.
“Don’t worry, Clay. None of your wolves are among our dead. At least not in this tomb,” a weak voice growled from behind me. I spun around to face Nick, who was braced against an overturned bench seat near the back of the room.
“Caroline, I saw Rowena,” I said, keeping my eyes on Nick. He raised his eyebrows, and I nodded. “Dominique had her, and she was asleep and happy and completely, blissfully unaware that anything bad had happened.” I continued. “But, she kept trying to make me find her mama.”
Nick coughed and choked up blood, panting and shaking his head. I rushed to his side with Caroline’s stare burning a hole in my back and helped him stand. He led the way back to his wife, who was still hovering like an ancient, wrathful goddess over her intended victim.
“Woman, I need you,” Nick wheezed, hot blood hitting me in the face as he coughed again. “I need you to heal me more than he needs to die, my love.” He reached out for her and slowly, the dark light behind her normally soft brown eyes faded and she gazed at us like she was seeing us for the first time since I entered the room.
“Clay . . . uh, help him lie down . . .” Her voice broke, and she surveyed the room. “Somewhere, somewhere where there’s less . . .” I nodded and helped him into the shower room adjacent to the training room. The stark contrast of the nearly pristine white tile and the astringent smell of bleach and bathroom cleaners after the sights and smells of the room just outside the door was enough to make my stomach heave, and I vomited near the showers.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized to Nick, but he held out a hand to silence me.
“Don’t sweat the human stuff, Clay. It disappears all too soon, and all you have are the memories of how you used to care that much, and the faint regret that what you remember is the soul you’ve lost.” Nick sighed and slumped over as I gaped at him. It was the most personal thing he’d ever said to me, and with the blood rushing to escape his body, it felt far too much like a farewell for my comfort. Caroline hovered near us and the electricity made my hair stand on end. I glanced back at the lone human survivor who was on his back. As I watched, his chest rose and fell, and I turned back to Nick with a silent prayer of gratitude.
“Caroline, you have to dial back the power. I can’t think with all the white noise in my head,” I complained, and she sniffled.
“I’m trying, Clay. There’s just so much. I thought he was . . . I thought Nick was finished, and suddenly I was trapped in this ball of energy. I think it’s the only reason this place is still standing.” She reached out to her husband, and the humming in my ears rose to a fevered pitch. Out of sheer necessity, I started to draw the power in, the way I did when I harnessed the beast inside me. Lava flowed through my veins as the power threatened to overwhelm me, then it cooled to the temperature of the wild hunt, and I knew where I could send the excess.
My power found the wolves that had sequestered themselves in the prison to protect it and keep the humans from taking Haley from us. I found Dirk and Rae and Ashlynn, and then I felt Fin and the wererats who had survived, some so badly injured I knew they wouldn’t make it through the night.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and glanced up at Caroline, who was standing on the ground but still thrumming with magic. Nick took her hand, and I felt my power both augmented and splintered off. Through the connection between the three of us, I could feel all every living and undead creature inside the walls of the compound and the club above. The power rushed out through me, the way that Caroline had pushed the Fae magic through my wolves, but I had no control.
I felt magic rush through every . . . body, living, dead, and in between, looking for a home. Caroline’s face met mine when one thought rushed to my mind, and it was too late. I prayed that Dominique had felt the uptick in the magic and shielded Rowena before it got to them, and then I couldn’t hold back any longer. The white noise turned into a bright white light, far brighter than the glow of my previous magic s
haring with Caroline’s help.
There was a moment when I felt like I was in the center of the sun, then the only light was the spots on the insides of my eyelids. I kept them closed for what felt like an eternity, waiting for my heartbeat to stop pounding in my head. I didn’t know what we’d done, only that my entire body was a live wire, and together, the mutts of the Fae world, had just reincarnated the wild hunt in our own image, and the Fae world was not going to like it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I opened my eyes when I felt a hand on my chest and realized I’d been holding my breath. Nick’s eyes were inches from my own, and as concerned as they seemed, I still scooted back, pushing my way out of the bathroom until my hand hit something cold and sticky. I knew without looking it had once been at least most of an arm. I jerked away from the body behind me and hugged my knees to my chest, putting as much distance between me and the remnants of the battle as I could until I could get my feet under me again.
“You OK there, Clay? That was some big, dark magic we just did. Can you hear me? See me?” Nick was firing questions at me faster than I could answer them, and I could hear Caroline chuckling behind me.
“Did you always like Clay this much or has Ro gotten into your head after all, husband?” she asked him. He flinched and rocked back on his knees, his face the pleasant neutral I was accustomed to.
“My apologies, Alpha. Your face was so pale and your heartbeat so fast, I was afraid our little foray into the magical unknown had harmed you.” I flashed him a quick grin and loosened my grip on my knees.
“I’m a Venatores hunter first, then a wolf. This is a whole lot more magic than I ever thought I’d have to deal with in life,” I confessed. I glanced around me and wished I hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave the white tiled shower. “What are we going to do about the mess in there?” I asked. “I was kind of hoping the magic would, I don’t know, vaporize all the blood and bodies, I guess.”
“Some of those bodies belong to people we love, Clay. I don’t want them vaporized. I want them given a proper farewell. But I understand. There were animations in that mess. Somewhere in the battle I called some zombies, and I didn’t know it.” Caroline shook her head. “I wish those had been vaporized. They were chopped up so small I can’t put them to rest.” She sniffled again, and Nick put an arm around her. “They deserved better than that. They used to be people too.”
Nick assured her that we’d put them to rest with the same care that we used on our own, and I shook off the horror as best I could, locking the images away so I could function without losing my stomach all over our fallen comrades.
“I need to check on my wolves, and I know you want to check on Ro and then your clan,” I offered. “We also need to talk to Haley. I think she’s the key to finding out who’s behind the attacks.”
“Then we all check on our people and rendezvous in the prison sector,” she said, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. “Tell me that life isn’t exponentially weirder than when we were super-secret, vampire-hunting, religious soldiers,” she added, giving me a baleful look.
“Would if I could, sis, but life is definitely more interesting now,” I patted her on the shoulder. “Not easier or more carefree but more exciting and stranger, to be sure.”
I left Caroline still mother-henning her husband and started toward the medical center, where I hoped Ash and company had made it. When I came to the intersection of the corridors that lead down toward the prison, or to the back door and the living quarters, my feet found their way right instead of left, and I headed back toward the nursery. The door was still closed, which I hoped was a good thing, and I lifted the wood out and set it against the wall in the hallway as I called out to Dominique that it was me, and I was alone.
“What was that power punch you guys knocked out up there, Clay?” she asked the second I walked in the room. “I barely had time to bump up my own metaphysical shielding before it gut-punched me.”
I took Ro from her and murmured into her sweet-smelling little neck until her eyes slowly blinked open. She cooed and smiled, and I sent her pictures of kittens and puppies, surprised when I came up on a metaphysical wall as solid as any shield her mother could produce.
“Well, sweet baby. I hope that means that you didn’t get hit with the mega-dose of magic we released in here. It was hurting your mommy’s head, wasn’t it?” I asked, raising my voice and speaking softly. Ro responded by cooing and reaching up to touch my face with her little pudgy fingers, and I melted a little, grateful for whatever natural magic she had that protected her from my lack of control. “Your mommy and daddy will be here as soon as they can, little muffin. Daddy got pretty banged up, I have to admit, but he’s all better now.”
Rowena just rubbed her hand over my jaw, entranced with the texture of my scruff. Dominique took her from me and kicked me lightly in the shin to bring me out of the semi-trance my goddaughter had put me in.
“You have your own people to attend to, Clay, no matter how much the little princess here thinks she needs you the most,” Dom sighed and kissed Ro’s cheek. “I hope she learns to love me too. With all the effort she puts into imprinting on you, I’m feeling a little like chopped liver.”
I laughed aloud, all the tension and fear and horror spilling out of me in a hysterical hyena laugh, tears spilling down my cheeks while I giggled uncontrollably.
“Sorry, Dom. I, uh, you’re right. I got to get going.” I wiped my nose with my shirt and exhaled hard as I got my laughter under control. “Lots of weird stuff today, Dom—more than I think my head can handle right now.”
“That’s why you need to go check on your people. On your woman. I can feel your need pushing past this little monster’s head games,” she chuckled, pulling Rowena up to her face and kissing her again.
“I’ll be back to check on you, and Caroline will be here as soon as she knows her husband really is fine, I’m sure.” I touched her hand. “They’ll both be glad you were here with her, to protect her.”
“As long as they don’t think it was opportunism that brought me here, we’ll be just fine, I’m sure,” she sighed.
“What did bring you here?”
“Wild magic. My mistress craves her own kind, the Fae of the night court. She’s very interested in your magic, and her offer to be your patron still stands.” I laughed weakly and thought of Nick’s eyes, too close for comfort and full of the first real concern I’d seen in any vampire for my safety.
“Thank your mistress for me, Dominique. Truly. But I have my patron, and I’m not going to dishonor him by trading up the moment a larger power comes to town.” I reached out and brushed my fingers across Ro’s forehead and trailed them down Dominique’s face. “Thank you, Dom. You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever known, and I don’t know if we’ve ever been friends. But I believe in your heart.”
She leaned in and kissed my cheek then gave me a gentle shove toward the door, and I left without another word, keenly aware of the distance I was putting between myself and Rowena. Little monster, I thought affectionately. I’ll be back to check on you as soon as I know my people are all right.
I wound my way back to the rooms set up as a preternatural hospital where I found Ashlynn and Dirk watching over Rae. Dirk had hooked her up to machines and was watching instrument panels I didn’t know how to read. Ashlynn was conserving energy by staying in wolf form and sitting by Rae’s bedside with her soft, cinnamon muzzle resting on the sheets next to her friend’s hand.
I inched into the room silently and leaned against the wall until Ashlynn noticed me and padded over. I knelt and pressed my forehead against hers then slid my face into her neck while she did the same.
“Did you feel that, Ash? Did you feel what we did?” She snuffled into my ear and sat back, tilting her head to the side. I stood and held out a hand and with a rush of air and flesh over her fur. She took it and stood, naked and almost painfully beautiful.
“I felt it,
but what did it cost us?” she asked. She hugged herself, not out of modesty but fear. I felt it rising off her in waves as memoires of her former enslavement invaded my mind as though they were my own.
“I did that, Ash. My magic, focused Caroline’s, and we healed everyone. No strings, no promises. Just family working together.”
Her arms went around me, and I picked her up so she could do the same with her long, athletic legs. We didn’t even kiss, she just tucked her face into my neck and clung to me while I breathed her in.
“I didn’t know if we’d find you in time. Why did you go in without me?” I whispered, and she stiffened in my arms.
“You didn’t believe me. You never just take my word for anything, always believing the other males before me.” Her voice was muffled in my neck. “You joined the boys’ club, and left me out, just like when I was alpha. Only without any way to protect the females because I gave you my power.”
I didn’t have a response, so I didn’t try to justify myself. I carried her over to the bed and sat with her in my lap.
“Hey there, Rae. How are you feeling?” I asked, running both my hands down Ashlynn’s back in long, comforting strokes.
“Grateful that I have a mate who would overturn every stone on the planet to find me and that we have an alpha who didn’t hesitate,” she smiled. “Looking at my fluids, contractions, and blood pressure, everything’s OK.”
Dirk leaned over and placed his hand on her stomach above the band that held her monitors in place and sighed. “I’d like to see more movement from the baby, but there’s a heartbeat, so I’m trying not to worry too much.”