Alex put a hand on my shoulder, turning me. “They’ve got trackers, Pamela. I’ve seen them.”
My eyes about bugged out. “They have a Tracker?”
“Not like Rylee.” He dropped his hand. “But human trackers and they are good. They won’t miss you here. You have to do something more.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Mac said. “And forcing her to kill people isn’t going to happen.”
Alex’s frown deepened with Mac’s comment. It was clear he couldn’t get his mind around why I wouldn’t just save everyone with my enormous powers. It’s what I’d always done in the past with no thought to who it might affect as long as the end result was there.
The first rumble of an engine snapped mouths shut and the people around us shuffled and scuffed their feet, anxiety flowing through them like the wind.
“Can’t you distract them then?” Alex tried again.
I closed my eyes before I spoke, unable to look at him. “I don’t have the strength I once did, Alex. I can’t.”
A whoosh of air rushed out of him. “Well, shit.”
I opened my eyes as he shared a look with Jasmine. She shook her head.
“I’m not saving a stupid, useless witch,” she said. “You brought us here because she’s your friend, and strong enough to help keep us safe. I’m not putting my neck on the line for her.”
Alex let out a low growl as he stripped out of his shirt and his hands went to his pants. I looked to Mac, keeping his face in my line of sight.
“Shift, Jasmine. We’ve done it before, successfully. You’re afraid now?” Alex said.
I wasn’t sure that he meant she was afraid of shifting. I glanced over to see the large black wolf with silver tips in his fur standing behind me.
Jasmine growled, whipped off her clothes and shifted. She was a maddeningly beautiful wolf with blond tips on her dark fur, exotic. Really, they were a gorgeous couple, in both forms.
Damn it.
She followed him out from under the cover of the woods and they took off toward the hill. Toward the sounds of the engines and Stefan.
“Bloody hell, what are you doing, wolf?” I snapped as I took off after them. “Oka, stay with the caravan!”
Mac yelled after me, but I kept on running. I couldn’t lose Alex again. I couldn’t watch him die a second time. It didn’t matter that things between us were different. Or that we were different. In that instant, all I knew was that my best friend was running head first toward one of the most ruthless humans I’d ever known.
My lungs burned as I drew close to the top of the hill. Every breath was hard won, and it reminded me I was not fully back to 100 percent either. My muscles screamed for me to stop, and my bones ached as if I’d been hammering on them.
That was the price I paid for using my dark magic, for killing with it. My body hurt everywhere.
“This is why I don’t like you,” I snarled, really to myself, but the magic responded as it so often did.
Embrace me fully, and there would be no pain, only power.
“Bullshit.”
I flattened myself out on top of the hill and belly crawled the last few feet so I could see over without being a full-on target.
My eyes roved as Stefan’s group crawled forward. His numbers had grown since I’d seen him three years ago, and I’d hoped that the early reports coming back from Neil had been off, but it looked like he had underestimated.
“Sweet baby gorgon,” I muttered into the dirt. He had at least a hundred people to his name now if my quick count was even close.
How had he found that many like-minded people left alive? Or were they just happy to not have to be alone?
My tallying continued. They had ten vehicles, some trucks, cars, and a quad, and I’d bet my life every one of them had some kind of weapon.
There was a thud behind me as Mac dropped to his belly and scooted up next to me.
“Pamela, let’s go.”
I pointed at the group below us. “Moving that many people isn’t fast. We have time.”
“Who needs to be fast with that much firepower behind you?” Mac countered. “We need to go.”
He had an arm across my waist, but he wasn’t dragging me away. We both knew he could if he’d wanted to. He could have slung me up and onto his shoulder like I was nothing.
“Just wait.” My mind churned, working to solve this problem. If Stefan just walked past us, we’d be fine. But what were the odds of not a single one of the one hundred people he had with him not seeing someone in my caravan? And if he had trackers as Alex said he did . . . then we were good and royally fucked.
“Oh, shit.” Mac pointed to the right and my stomach dropped right through the earth’s crust. Alex, with Jasmine in tow, charged down the hill, straight at Stefan’s crew.
“No,” I breathed, and moved to stand up. Mac held me down, his arm firm against my back.
You can save him. And end Stefan for good. He will never stop. He is nothing but cruelty and evil.
“Oh, fuck off you,” I snarled. Mac startled and I shook my head. “Not you, Mac. Not you. The magic . . .”
His arm felt as though it grew heavier as he held me in place. “I’ve got you, Pam.”
He pointed toward Stefan’s caravan, and the chaos that unfolded slowly as Alex darted in and out of the people, staying just out of reach. Even at this distance, the sounds of screaming were impossible not to hear and it made my stomach twist.
“Pamela, he’s giving us an out,” Mac said. “We need to take it.”
“That won’t work forever. They have guns, they’ll shoot him,” I said. I wanted to stand up, to dare Stefan to look my way, dare him to come at me again. Because while I didn’t want to kill anyone, for Stefan I’d make an exception.
I spotted him easily amongst the milling, screaming people. That kind of asshole was hard to miss. But he was shouting orders and taking his shotgun off his back.
“No,” I said again, only half struggling against Mac. I felt like it was the only word I knew at the moment. As if saying it out loud would stop what was going to happen to Alex.
“Pamela, let’s go. Don’t waste his efforts.” Mac pulled on me now, no longer just holding me but finally dragging me away, down the slope. Inch by inch, I lost sight of Stefan and his group, of Alex and even Jasmine.
Oka bounded up to us. “Pamela, Mac is right,” Oka said.
“I’m going to need that in writing, cat,” Mac shot at her.
She took a swat at him but spoke to me. “We need to go. Alex will be fine. He’s survived this long. Stefan won’t even nick him.”
I glared at them both. “Right. A hundred men, most with guns; that’s a walk in the fucking park.”
Oka put her face so close, our noses nearly touched. “There are children here Stefan would shoot in the forehead without thinking twice, if he’s even half as bad as he was three years ago. Alex is doing what he can to help us.”
I knew they were right, the logical part of my brain was on board with what they were saying. But my heart, oh heaven have mercy on my heart, had I not lost enough? Or would this be the final price I paid for helping to break the world, to see my best friend killed?
I scrunched my eyes shut and shimmied back down the hill without another word, dust and dirt puffing up around us.
Halfway down the hill, I stood and that’s when the gunfire started. The rapid-fire bursts brought me to a screeching halt, my heart in my throat. I turned and Mac caught me around the waist once more.
“It’ll cover the sound of our own engines,” Mac said. “And Alex is fast, and strong, he’ll be fine.”
I gritted my teeth and frowned at him. “In what world is gunfire aimed at Alex good or fine?”
Oka leapt up onto my shoulder as I shook my head, frustrated and scared. Not for me, not even for my own caravan, and I should have been. Logical side of my brain said move your ass while you have cover. Get the caravan to safety.
“I hope you’re right,�
� I said.
Mac didn’t engage. He could’ve. He could’ve made me choose between him and Alex right then and there, but he didn’t. Instead, he tightened his hold around my waist and pulled me to his side. “He won’t. He’s smarter than that. Oka told me he broke the Veil. It sounds to me like you’re not giving him enough credit.”
I glanced at him as we hurried toward the forest, and he raised his brows at me. “Or am I wrong? Is Alex just a submissive wolf waiting to be saved? You can’t have it both ways; either he’s an Alpha or he’s not.”
Before I could answer, Richard materialized out of the woods like some kind of elemental. I just about crashed into him with my forward momentum.
“Bloody hell, Dick. You scared me.” I took a breath and forced the words out of my mouth. I had to be the caravan’s witch now, and not Alex’s friend. “Get everyone moving. Now. Alex has given us a distraction. We need to get as much distance between us and Stefan as we can.”
Richard nodded and took off, barking orders as he went. Within moments, the trucks were going. Some of the shifters were in their animal forms and they loped along, keeping up easily. Crimson was one of them, her cougar form lean and golden. She swept around to me once as I jogged behind one of the two trucks, Oka to one side and Crimson to the other of me.
“Mac,” I said, “take your bike, check things out ahead.”
“On it.” He hopped on one of the two bikes, motioning for one of the other shifters to take the other. They were gone in a matter of seconds.
Gunfire still rattled off behind us and the nausea it produced in me made me want to vomit. Goddess, let Alex be okay.
The truck in front of me held Marley amongst the others and the look in her eyes gutted me. Part fear, part condemnation. I turned from her to find the shifters I was looking for.
“Neil, Fred, and Char, you three take the trail, wipe it as clean as you can.” I gave the orders quickly and they fell back to do as I’d asked. I grabbed the edge of the truck and pulled myself up, Oka leaping up beside me. I took her and pulled her into my lap.
“Marley, he’ll be fine. They both will. I’m sure of it.” I couldn’t tell if I was saying it to her, or to myself. “He always comes back.”
She folded her arms and looked at me. “He’d better.”
I didn’t blame her, because she was right. Once again, the people I loved were in danger, and I could do nothing to save them. I held onto Oka tighter than she liked but she didn’t complain.
The truck bumped along the rough beaten road, away from the gunfire, and the man who’d had my heart for so long.
“It will be okay, Pam,” Oka whispered up at me.
“You don’t know that,” I whispered back. No one knew what would happen, or who would survive, least of all, us.
5
We drove for close to nine hours, and I mixed the gasoline and magic twice to keep us going, despite the deep ache in my body that using my mother’s magic gave me. I couldn’t do a large amount, and it sucked, but it had to be done.
You’d be far better off using the magic to kill than to make recipes.
“Shut the fuck up.” Goddess, now it was being smart with me? Was it the magic or was it my own mind breaking down under the strain of the day, of my life? Oka stirred on my lap, restless in her sleep. I put a hand on her warm little body taking comfort from her presence.
“Hundred miles,” Richard said as we neared hour nine, leaning out the driver’s window of the big truck and looking back to me. “That should be far enough, don’t you think?”
Normally a hundred miles was huge, something we’d do in a week or more, so in nine hours it was good, amazing even. But for Alex to find us again, how long would it take him to cover that distance?
“Yes, far enough.” I nodded and slid back down in the truck bed.
Richard made the call and the caravan ground to a halt, bodies tumbling out of the trucks or shifting back to two legs as they set up camp. It wasn’t even full dark yet, and that seemed so strange, to have so much change in just a single day.
An hour ticked by and the night fell. I set up a tent, Oka with me.
“Aren’t you worried about Mac?” she asked. “He’s still not back yet.”
I smiled at her and shook my head. “No, I’m not worried at all. He’s stronger than anyone I know.”
“Even stronger than Alex?” Oka offered.
I nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. Alex was a submissive for so long, his body broken, and even though he’s survived the last three years, I worry that it’s been a fluke.” I cringed as I spoke, feeling disloyal to Alex. But that was the truth. As many times as Alex had emotionally been my rock, I’d saved him with my magic. “He just isn’t strong like Mac. It’s like I have to protect him. It’s my job to protect him. Just like it’s your job to look out for me.”
Oka sighed.
A low laugh turned me around to see that Mac stood behind me. “You want to protect that wolf?”
I frowned. “He was my best friend, Mac. Of course I want to protect him. He’s like my . . .” Brother? That wasn’t quite right.
Something akin to relief flowed over Mac’s face. “Like your brother? I’m sorry, I’ve been an ass.” And then he was next to me, pulling me into his arms. I buried my face against his chest as he rubbed my back. “He’s family to you, I get it now. I was just—”
“Insanely jealous,” Oka offered.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” Mac laughed and I tightened my arms around him.
We stood like that long enough that night fell completely around us. I made myself pull back from the warmth of his body.
“I’m going to check on Marley. See if she’s okay,” I said.
Mac let his hands slide down my arms to my fingers. He raised them to his mouth and kissed them gently. “Go, do your thing, my witch.”
My witch. That was a first, but I kinda liked it coming from him. I turned, a smile ghosting across my lips as I walked away from Mac. Oka, of course, was with me.
“I think Marley is with the littles,” she said. The littles being the three Immunes. Scratch that, two Immunes, Ruby and Lily. Frost—not an Immune, but something else.
I wove my way through the camp. Everyone was settled and the breathing was deep and solid; everyone felt safe, apparently. A few guards had been posted and I double checked that the land we were on was not dead ground.
The littles had been set up near the Humvee, sleeping in a tent with the flap open for fresh air. Marley slept on one side of them, Crimson on the other. Crimson’s eyes opened as I approached and then slid shut, her arm around Ruby.
Marley was sound asleep already, snuggled in with the other kids for the night.
“Well, she’s obviously not worried,” I said under my breath as I turned, working my way around the camp perimeter.
Oka yawned. “She has the right idea. We need to sleep. You especially.”
What was it like to live with that kind of certainty that all would be well because you trusted those around you? I remembered it, vaguely, when I was with Rylee. But even then, I’d always been on edge, wondering when the next bomb would drop. Certainty would be peaceful, at least, I imagined so.
We make our own certainty, the darkness said. We make our own fate. Our own safety if you would let me out.
“Shut the fuck up.” The anger burned through the worry which only sped up my feet, making my cloak snap out behind me.
“Alex found you once. He’ll find you again,” Oka said. “He’s not going anywhere, despite you trying to make him leave.”
“It took three years, Oka.” I settled down near the edge of the caravan, bringing up the rear, hoping beyond hope he would just show up on the horizon like he had before. I wasn’t sure what his top speed was with that new body of his, or how long it would take him to cover a hundred miles.
Mac found us again after only a few minutes. I held up a hand before he could say anything.
“Yes, I know I should
sleep, but I can’t. I’m too worried.”
He sat beside me and I leaned into him. Oka leapt up onto my lap and stretched out across us, her claws digging into Mac’s thigh. She all but grinned up at him as she flexed her tiny dagger-filled paws. That had to sting.
He raised an eyebrow. “You checking out my muscles?”
She let out a shocked hiss and pulled back to curl up on just my lap. I found myself laughing at them both. “What would I do without you two?”
Oka yawned and wiggled herself around until her tail wrapped over her nose. “You’d probably die.”
Mac barked a laugh. “I hate to say I agree with her but if the shoe fits . . .”
I rolled my eyes and then closed them.
In that half-aware state, my mind played tricks on me. Like waking nightmares that I couldn’t quite get away from.
Alex lay dead, a shotgun wound to his head splintering his skull.
Stefan standing over Ruby and Marley, the image flickering to my first caravan with Susy, the first Macy I met, and Susy’s baby.
The image flickered and then it was Stefan skinning my best friend and wearing the hide as a cape, the blood coating his face as he laughed.
I woke up with a start, rage boiling my blood, crying out for vengeance.
You could do it. Wipe out that entire group in one fell swoop. We could go back, do it now while we still can. The darkness was relentless, and I listened far longer than I should have as the fear and anger still rolled through my veins.
The image of walking through Stefan’s camp, of reaching out to people as liquid black poured from my hands and strangled them one by one was all too real and all too tempting. I sucked in a sharp, shuddering breath. Mac’s arm around me shifted and he placed his palm in the curve of my waist. “You okay?”
“Dark thoughts,” was all I could give him.
“Like dirty ones?” His voice snapped my head around so I faced him. His eyes were almost a midnight blue in this light and the curve of his mouth was so tempting.
He smiled a little wider, likely picking up on my thoughts. “I agree, very tempting. Too tempting to resist.” He cupped my face with his hand and pressed his mouth to mine.
Caravan Witch (Questing Witch Book 2) Page 5