I snarled but slowed. She was right. I had to get the LaSalles out of pack territory before they were spotted. The destruction Savannah’s cousin had likely caused was sure to draw attention.
Savannah was peering into the smashed Oldsmobile. Her cousin hobbled out of the car and leaned against the hood as I approached. His foot was injured, and I could smell the repressed pain streaming off him. He deserved more for unleashing hellfire on my city.
“You were told to leave, and yet, you came back,” I growled, smelling the faint traces of wolfsbane on her.
Did this woman have a death wish?
Savannah spun and met my gaze, her eyes blazing. The skin on her cheek was red and swollen where she’d been struck. Rage and protectiveness flooded me, threatening to spill out.
I’d beat the hell out of the shifter who’d hit her.
“What are you doing here?” I roared.
Savannah flinched and I could smell her fear, but she planted her feet and stared me down, giving me that ridiculous look she used when she thought she could make me bend. “I needed my stuff, so I came back and was jumped. In. Your. Territory.”
Anger burned through me, and my claws itched to come out. How did this woman know exactly how to drive me over the edge?
I strode up to her, my body shaking as I fought for composure. My wolf wanted control. He wanted her to submit. I wanted her to submit.
And something else.
Her heat flooded into me, and her pulse pounded in my ears. I could taste her sweat from here, so fucking sweet. “I told you to stay out of my territory tonight. When I tell you something, you’d better listen.”
Her cousin scoffed as he limped around the car. Broken ankle, I noted. I’d have liked to break the other.
“I do what I want. I’m not a wolf. I’m not beholden to you,” Savannah hissed, though I could sense her trepidation.
“Apparently, you want to fuck up as much shit as possible.”
She grabbed my partly torn shirt. “Well, I guess we know one thing: your plan to use me as bait would have worked. Except without my cousin, they would have grabbed me and been long gone before you knew what had happened.”
My body shook. She had no idea how close I was to shifting. Nor how close I was to picking her up over my shoulder and dragging her back to my place to lock her in my spare bedroom. At least I’d be sure she wouldn’t be causing trouble.
I closed my eyes and asked my wolf for patience. “If I would have known you were going to go to the motel, I would have guarded the goddamned place. How am I going to fucking protect you if you always do the exact opposite of everything that you’re told?”
She crossed her arms. “Well, I lived. And it looks like they got away. I thought you were fast, but…”
I had to step away. Just for a second. Just until I could get my wolf under control. Now was not the time for them to meet.
My chest rose and fell as I sucked in a deep, calming breath. I knew in my gut that the masked wolves were going to escape. They were amped up on something and moving far faster than a werewolf could.
The one in the car was dead. That meant that as much as Savannah infuriated me to the core of my being, I needed her.
I turned back and stepped up into her face. “Your situation is perilous. You need to help me. Scry on the she-wolf that attacked you. Tomorrow.”
“I’ll scry for you on the she-wolf, but”—she paused and narrowed her eyes, like that would somehow have some effect on me—“I’ll bring the scrying potion.”
My mind reeled. She agreed? If I’d known that all it would take to get Savannah to work with me was a little fright, I’d have done it sooner. Myself.
It was time to press. I shoved my hand in my pockets and loomed over the red-haired woman. “I’m glad you found your senses. You’ll meet me at Eclipse tomorrow at one p.m. We’ll scry, and if that doesn’t pan out with enough information, you’ll come with me to meet a seer.”
“Wait a sec, I didn’t agree to meeting a seer. Why would I do that?” She cocked her hip out and frowned. Even with a welt on her cheek and her hair a mess, she looked delicious.
But my patience was thin. “Because scrying might not give us the answers we need. We must do everything we can to stop these rogue wolves, for your sake and my pack’s.” I leaned close, whispering, although no one who would care was close enough to hear. “The seer is how I found you. She warned me that I had to protect you. She’s available tomorrow night. You’ll go.”
Savannah glanced over her shoulder at her cousin, who was resting his busted foot on the bumper of their car, looking amused. He shrugged.
“Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow. Until then, I’m going back to the motel to get my stuff. I assume I won’t be jumped there again, but feel free to tail along.” Her eyes lingered on me for a second, and then she spun and headed toward her cousin’s car.
Protectiveness surged inside me. “You should stay here tonight. I’ll put you up in a different hotel, somewhere safe.”
She opened the driver’s door and paused, regarding me with obstinance. “Not a chance. I’m safest with my people. My family.”
My wolf rose, and my claws extended. “I can’t protect you there.”
“You can’t protect me here, Jaxson. Nobody can. I’ve been on my own for a while now. I’ll take care of myself.”
Her sadness and anger hit me like a punch to the gut. She was alone and had no one she trusted in this new world.
Savannah slammed the door and drove off, and my emotions ripped into me like claws. Frustration. Rage. Possessiveness.
Why did I fucking care if she was miserable? She was just a means to an end. The key to getting the answers I needed.
The seer’s prophecy wound around me like a python strangling an unsuspecting victim in the night. If you do not stop them, she will be dead before the full moon rises, and with her, the future of your pack.
The moon was up, and nearly full. Three nights left.
I scrubbed a hand through my hair. The fortune teller had drawn three tarot cards to foresee my future. The Moon for our adversaries. Strength for the woman. And the third had been for me.
The Hanged Man.
That fate seemed inevitable now. Savannah Caine was going to be the end of me.
21
Savannah
The next morning, I awoke in another strange room far from Belmont.
Aunt Laurel’s house.
I hadn’t had nightmares. This time, the nightmares had been real.
In a vain attempt to get a little control over my life, I’d broken into Jaxson’s auto body shop, stolen my car, and was chased by the damn werewolf alpha himself down the back alleys of Magic Side. To cap the night off, I’d gotten jumped by the very psychos I was trying to avoid. Not to mention, the horrifying image of Sam ripping through her clothes and shifting into a wolf was now burned into my memory forever. I’d never be able to look at her the same.
What a freaking mess.
Terror wasn’t something I experienced anymore. It was just a part of my life.
I sat up and groaned. Every part of me ached. The mattress felt like it had seen a lot of use since the late eighteen-hundreds, and my ass and lower back missed the motel.
The LaSalles’ guestroom had apparently been decorated by a blind person with a side job at a thrift store. There might have been a theme, but I was too overwhelmed to find the connection between framed antique sketches of pineapples and jaunty sailboat bookends.
God save me.
I’d learned about these people less than forty-eight hours ago, and now I was staying with them. Temporarily.
Still, it was insane. But so was this city. Either way, I would need to find my own place once the rogue wolves were behind bars. Or dead.
Maybe somewhere in southern France.
At least I had my car back.
Well, not technically, but kind of. In theory, the Gran Fury was currently sitting in another auto body shop in a part
of the city run by demons. I assumed that was going to raise a whole new set of problems, but still, no one was holding it ransom at the moment. As soon as Zara installed the magic regulator and the Fury was up and running, I’d feel a bit more in control, and the extreme weirdness of the situation would be more bearable with a viable exit plan.
California. Texas. Cabo San Lucas. It didn’t matter.
Until then, I would have to make the best of a bad situation.
It was like the woman in my dream had said: You cannot outrun your fate, Savannah. They’re coming for you. Beware the wheel of fortune. It does not stop. Time is ticking. You need to learn who you truly are so that you can stop the ones who are coming.
Fate had nearly got me, this time.
I showered, and while the hot water ran over my skin, I tried to figure out what to do. No matter how much I disliked the idea of working with Jaxson, I needed to help him stop the damned rogue wolves. Clearly, they were hunting me, and I had to find out why. There were three things I could do.
One, I’d make a scrying potion with Uncle Pete and use it to spy on the wolves.
Two, I could go with Jaxson to the fortune teller. I would have scoffed at that notion three days ago, but apparently dream warnings and fortunes were a real thing.
And finally, I could mine the LaSalles for information about my parents and my magic. Maybe I could figure out why the wolves were hunting me from that.
In the worst case, I could probably learn to blast them.
I hopped out of the shower, dried off, and dug through my bags. At least, after everything that had happened, Casey and I had been able to go back and get my stuff. Jaxson would have probably agreed to just about anything to get us out of pack territory, especially after the hellfire Casey had unleashed.
Once I was dressed, I staggered down the stairs and wandered into the kitchen. Someone had left a yellow sticky note on the coffee pot: Make yourself at home, and help yourself to anything.
I shook my head in disbelief. Somehow, I had gone from having no family to having a dangerous and untrustworthy family entangled with dark secrets, and then straight to living in their house in under forty-eight hours.
Well, supposedly, adaptation was the key to survival.
I put a kettle on and rummaged around the kitchen for tea. The first cupboard I opened was loaded with boxes of sugar-coated kids’ cereal. I smirked. Casey, one hundred percent.
How was he still eating this kids’ stuff in his twenties? I hadn’t had sugared cereal since I was fifteen, because it rotted your brain and teeth and attention span. I preferred donuts…which, okay, weren’t much better, but at least my guilty pleasure didn’t come with a prize in the box.
My fingers twitched. I grabbed a box of Count Chocula and poured myself a huge bowl and topped it with milk from the fridge. Then I plopped down at the table and dug into the sugary goodness.
I could adapt however I damned well wanted.
Halfway through the bowl, my stomach started to rebel against the sickly sweet milk and sodden marshmallows, but a rising sugar craze drove me on, spoonful after spoonful.
A waft of nutmeg drifted into the room, and shortly after, Aunt Laurel swept around the corner. “Savannah, you’re up! And good, I see you’ve gotten breakfast. Count Chocula. You and Casey are so alike.”
My stomach churned in protest, and I slowly set my spoon down.
Casey limped into the room seconds later, and Laurel looked from one of us to the other. “What have you done?”
“Nothing!” Casey protested.
Aunt Laurel rested her fists on the heavy wooden table in a gesture that reminded me of a silverback gorilla. “Are the cops involved?”
“I don’t think so,” he mumbled.
Her eyebrows rose. “Are we going to get sued?”
“Maybe? Probably not, actually.”
“Did anyone die?”
I trained my eyes on my cereal. Technically, yes.
“Hey!” Casey exclaimed. “What’s with the third degree? Everything is okay. And also, don’t ask any more questions.”
Laurel whipped out of the room in a rage.
“Uh-oh,” I muttered.
She came back moments later and slammed a little glass vial full of red liquid down in front of him. “Drink.”
“Ah, no, Mom. I’m gonna go to a doctor, and they’ll heal me in—”
“You are not going to a doctor. We have perfectly fine healing potions here.” She shoved the vial toward him.
“Oh, gods,” he moaned.
“That potion will heal your ankle?” I asked.
“Well, it’ll get most of the work done, though he’ll have a bit of a limp for a while,” Laurel said. “They’re expensive and time-consuming to make, which I hope Casey and you will keep in mind on your next extracurricular adventure.”
Casey looked at the potion with a dubious expression.
“Drink it,” she ordered.
“Won’t it make you better?” I asked, not understanding his hesitation.
“It’s one of Dad’s. He believes the worse a potion tastes, the better it works. His are legendary.”
My uncle’s low voice resonated from behind me. “It’s true. The flavor is how you know it’s going to work.” I turned, and he beamed. “You ready to cook, Savannah? I’ve got everything ready.”
“Absolutely.” I leapt from my chair, leaving Casey to his fate, and poured the last of the cereal down the disposal, vowing never to eat it again. Then I followed my uncle to the back door with an eager bounce in my step.
Casey’s gagging echoed off the hallway walls. “Oh, gods, it’s so bad! The broken ankle was better!”
We headed out through the backyard to a shed. My uncle turned the key in the lock and did something with his hand like Casey had last night…perhaps disabling a spell?
“It’s good to have the workshop away from the house,” he said as he worked. “That way, if something goes wrong, the house will be left standing.”
Holy crap.
I followed my uncle into the interior of the workshop, my stomach churning. My parents had died when the house burned down. Had one of them been making potions? Was that what had happened?
Wonder drove the intrusive thoughts away. My uncle’s workshop was everything I’d imagined and more. The long workbenches that ran along the walls were covered with a bizarre assemblage of glass apparatuses—yellow curlicue tubes, beakers, flasks, and all assortments of devices. Potions—I assumed—bubbled on a few low burners at the back, slowly distilling into vials. Thousands of jars, boxes, and tins sat in racks on the wall, alongside dusty cupboards with long drawers and a couple of mini fridges. One was labeled Beer, the other Not Beer.
I’d wandered into the lab of a mad scientist. Or mad sorcerer. Or madman. I hadn’t really asked my uncle what he was, and I needed to rectify that. “Are you a sorcerer like Casey and Aunt Laurel?”
“Yes, ma’am. We tend to stick together. Other people don’t understand our magic.” He started organizing a few trays on the table.
“How so? What’s the difference between a sorcerer and, I don’t know, a witch?”
He handed me a pair of heavy rubber gloves, and I put them on.
“Magic Side has every kind of spellcaster you can imagine,” he explained in his low, earthy voice. “Witches, mages, druids, demons—you name it. What makes us all different is where we draw our power from. Mages are scholars. They cast spells using scrolls and books and formulas and learn their craft through intense study. Witches, on the other hand, draw power from their covens—from each other.”
“What about sorcerers?”
“We draw power from ourselves, from within.”
“Like our souls?
“Our bodies, our blood, our souls, all of it. It’s a very personal art. A witch might make you a spell to go—you can carry it around and cast it later. We don’t because we’re not about to let people go waltzing around with a little bit of our soul in their
pocket. I’d never sell one of my healing draughts, but I’d let Casey drink it. He’s all the soul I’ve got.”
I nodded, wondering if that’s how my parents had felt about me. “So how do potions work? I don’t know much about casting spells.”
“Spells are one thing, and your aunt can teach you those. Potions are another. They’re like a spell in suspension. You drink it, and it goes off. The ingredients don’t entirely make the spell— they just hold it there, ready to be consumed.”
My uncle lifted a tiny iron cauldron and set it on a burner, added a little clear liquid from a tin, and set the flames on high. Then he motioned to a tray of plants and boxes of powder. “I’ve got most of the ingredients here so you can look at them.”
He listed them off. Some names I recognized—ginseng, ginkgo, amanita, cinnabar. Most, I did not.
Step by step, we measured each ingredient precisely with a scale, and dumped it into the cauldron. “You’ve got steady hands,” he commented as I dusted some powder off a slip of paper into the brew.
“I shoot. And draw.”
“That’s good for making potions.” He checked a list. “Always remember that the order of ingredients is important. If you add the amanita first instead of last, you make a hell of a potion. Instead of seeing whomever you’re thinking about, they’ll see you,” he explained, and chuckled.
“We didn’t mess up the order, right?” I hedged.
“I don’t think so.”
My trepidation checked in to see if I was going to need it again, but I shooed it away. Uncle Pete knew what he was doing.
I hoped.
Soon, the cauldron was frothing, and the workshop smelled like so many repulsive things that it made my head spin. Sardines. Old rotting grass. Foot fungus.
“Just one more ingredient,” said Uncle Pete. “Your blood.”
I tensed. Jaxson had mentioned it, so I’d guessed it was coming, but the request made my stomach lurch. “Why?” I asked.
“A scrying potion has to be attuned to one person only. That requires a bit of blood.”
Shit. Blood magic. Aunt Laurel had warned me about giving out my blood. Her first lesson. But Uncle Pete would be okay, right?
Wolf Marked (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 1) Page 15