Haven City Series Books 7-9: Alpha's Gamble (Haven City Series #7), Alpha Enchanted (Haven City Series #8), Alpha's Cage (Haven City Series #9)

by Zoe Perdita

  A chill seeped into Ari’s skin. The ruby necklace and earrings felt like they were burning a hole in his pocket. “Why are you so interested in it?”

  Margaret laughed. “I’ve always been interested in the things you sell, even if I don’t understand them.”

  All the pieces clicked into place the moment he heard the detective’s name, but he’d told himself it couldn’t be true. She wasn’t even a member of the shadow folk. She was only a human, but then again so were hunters, and they made a big enough mess of things.

  Ari licked his lips, his mouth dry. “I did have it, actually.”

  “Oh? Where is it?” Her eyes gleamed.

  Ari kept the hand with the broken glass behind his back.

  Kian’s shadow fluttered at the top of the stairs, just out of the corner of his eye.

  “The river. It was ugly and causing me problems, so I tossed it away.”

  Margaret laughed, a sound that was too high pitched to be pleasant. “Ari, do you expect me to believe that? Tell me the truth.”

  “Who says I’m lying? Do you think I want the sort of trouble something like that could bring me? No. I just want to get on with my life and—”

  Her eyes hardened, and she cut him off. “We both know you’re lying. You’re too smart, too practical, to actually throw it away. And with your alpha in my hunter’s grasp, I think you’ll give me what I want.”

  His mouth felt like a desert. She had Felan? That would explain why the ice mage hadn’t seen him, but—no. “You think I’m going to believe you? He can mow down hunter’s in his sleep. No way in hell yours got him. Prove it.”

  “Do you want me to bring him to you in pieces? I can prove it like that,” she asked and smiled, showing her teeth.

  “You’re the buyer?” Ari asked. His shoulders shook, a mixture of rage and fear running through him. “How the hell do you intend to pay them off? You don’t have that kind of money.”

  “I have a plan, and I’m not about to share it with you. Give me the sword or your boyfriend dies,” she said and put her hands on her hips.

  Those words were almost funny coming from the mouth of a middle-aged woman in a floral dress. One with no weapon who was all alone in his house.

  Ari let out a bark of laughter. “I’m not sure what you know about us, but it’s not enough. Didn’t you ever wonder how those foxes you sent in here died? You don’t even have a weapon, and you expect me to hand something powerful over to you, just because you claim you have my boyfriend? I don’t know what kind of movies you watch, but that’s not how kidnapping generally works.”

  Margaret’s face twisted into a scowl but before she could speak, Ari lunged at her.

  The woman stumbled as he swiped the shard of glass at her, forcing her back.

  “What are you—” she started, sounding honestly surprised that he’d attacked her.

  “Did you think I would hand it over just like that? Because you threatened me? Because you have your husband framing me for murder? No. That’s not how this works. You pissed me off. Ruined my shop. My herbs. You’re going to pay for that,” Ari snarled and moved forward.

  A flash of shadow leapt between them.

  Ari.

  Stop.

  Kian’s voice rang in his ears, and his heart snagged on it.

  He froze, the sharp piece of glass ready to cut.

  Margaret stared at him as if he were doing a poor rendition of the hula. What the hell kind of spineless pushover did she think he was?

  And what the hell did Kian think he was doing?

  “She’s going to hurt Felan,” Ari said, and bit the inside of his cheek. Would that help matters or not? With Kian’s ghost involved, it was impossible to tell.

  A growl rumbled around the room, and Margaret’s eyes widened. “What’s that?”

  “My secret weapon, and he’ll rip you to pieces if you move,” Ari said and dropped the piece of glass. He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out Seth’s phone.

  Conner was on his list of contacts, and he picked up after one ring.

  “Ari?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got the buyer. She’s at my place, but Felan is missing. She’ll confess everything to you, or she’ll die. Got that?” Ari said and didn’t bother to mention what he had in mind.

  Felan might still be outside. The alpha may have missed the ice mage and Margaret coming in.

  His gut twisted.

  Told him that wasn’t true.

  Felan was the best alpha Ari knew. He wouldn’t mess up like that. Not unless something happened to him. Whatever it was, he’d better be alive.

  Margaret glared at him, but then Kian growled again and the woman squealed.

  “Coming right over. Stay put!” Conner said and hung up.

  Ari frowned. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to keep that promise.

  He peeked out the front door but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then again if the hunters were out there they wouldn’t really stand on the lawn and hold Felan captive. It wouldn’t make sense.

  “Where is Felan and the ice mage? It’s your last chance before I get the sword and go after your husband with it,” Ari said.

  Margaret winced and a trickle of blood ran down her shoulder. The faint outline of a shadow wavered over her, but he had no clue how long Kian could hold her like that. Not long, he guessed. Not after how weak Kian’s ghost had been after he killed those foxes.

  Ari cursed under his breath and pulled out the contents of his other pocket. The ruby necklace tumbled onto the floor, and Margaret stared at it.

  “You have the jewels too!”

  Ari rolled his eyes. That wasn’t what he was looking for. There. He yanked out the herb he’d carefully wrapped just in case they needed to knock anyone else out. “Where’s Cage?”

  “Here,” his voice rang down the hall, pained and heavy, and Ari turned.

  Two hunters held him upright while one pressed a silver pendant into his bare side.

  Felan’s eyes burned, but he winced at the touch.

  “You’re killing him!” Ari cried and nearly went for the glass shard again, but it wouldn’t do much against four hunters.

  Felan was pale and getting paler. Prolonged contact to silver was deadly to shifters, and even if the contact was short, it could have detrimental effects for the rest of a shifter’s life. He’d dealt with silver poisoning more than he cared to think about.

  No way Conner and Seth would make it in time unless they were right down the street.

  There was only one thing to do.

  “Kian, save him. Please,” Ari breathed and charged into the sitting room.

  He didn’t turn to see what happened, but he heard the rush of air and the gurgled scream of a man—a hunter.

  Kian hadn’t even hesitated.

  Ari didn’t expect that. If he had more time to think about it, he’d have smiled.

  He heard the thump of footsteps chase after him, and he slammed the sitting room door, turned the lock, and moved on. He charged through the dining room and into the kitchen. He’d hoped none of them knew how his house was laid out enough to guess where he was going.

  Ari yanked the kitchen door closed and locked it too, then he knelt in the center of the room. His hands shook as he pulled the loose board up and opened that safe.

  The knife, the blade and hilt a dull black, didn’t look like something capable of causing this much trouble. As Ari reached for it, however, he felt the hunger spark across his flesh. It only felt empty before.

  That was new.

  Someone slammed into the door, and he jumped.

  Scrambled to pull the ruby encrusted jewelry out of his pockets.

  They popped out of the necklace and earrings far too easily, buzzing on his fingers with a nervous sort of energy that made his hand feel like it was about to fall asleep. The rubies wanted to return to the knife. That couldn’t be good, but Ari needed a weapon right now, Persian demon or not.

  He took a ste
adying breath and dropped each ruby into the hilt. They glowed when they clicked into place, the knife humming with power. The last one fit into the bottom of the hilt, and once there, the blade burst into flames.

  Ari started.

  Ari!

  Kian’s voice filled his mind.

  Sword in hand, Ari ran for the door.

  It flew open as he reached it, and a hunter stood there. A big man that towered over Ari by more than a head, but when he saw the sword in the healer’s hand, he backed up.

  “Good job. Where’s the wolf?” Ari growled and surged forward.

  The hunter pointed down the hall, back toward the entryway, right where he’d left Margaret and the others.

  He hoped that bitch was still there.

  “Walk in front of me,” Ari said, and the hunter complied with a grimace.

  They stepped over the bodies of two hunters, bleeding out on the floor, before they made it to the entryway.

  The alpha slumped against the wall, his breathing heavy, and he stared at Ari with foggy eyes. Then a smile slid over his lips.

  Kian’s presence hung in the shadows.

  Ari felt him struggling to hold on, to stay present. Acting must drain Kian’s spiritual energy.

  That meant it was up to Ari to save them both now.

  “The cops will be here any minute, and you’re all going to confess, or you can get cut down. Your choice.”

  14

  With the flaming sword in Ari’s hands, he looked like some kind of avenging god and not a mild mannered (if easily annoyed) healer. His eyes reflected the light of the flame and burned with their own fire, the same color as moss.

  It was probably the silver in his system, zapping his strength and messing with his cognitive functions, but when he squinted his eyes he thought the flame turned that color as well, the same healing green as Ari’s eyes.

  If he survived this, Ari was going to have a fit over how he managed to get ambushed by four hunters, and Felan wouldn’t be able to blame him.

  Felan had smelled ice and magic on the other side of the house and slipped in that direction when something hard hit him in the head. He fell forward, ducked, and tried to stagger upright to get his bearings. If it hadn’t been broad daylight in the middle of a residential neighborhood, he’d have shifted and fought his way out, but that wasn’t an option.

  Instead, he snarled and tried to run inside to warn Ari, but the hunter’s used their silver. Shoved it against his flesh until he slumped forward. Not in defeat, but in an effort to keep his strength.

  It hadn’t worked the way he’d planned.

  Now, things were looking up.

  The gentle sensation of fur brushed his cheeks, and when he sucked in the scent, he caught Kian’s musk. His eyes pricked. He never thought he’d get to smell his brother again or feel him so close.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

  Kian let out a low whine, a sound Felan wasn’t sure anyone else in the room could hear.

  Ari’s eyes were wide with worry, but his expression looked like a terrible scowl that had been carved from stone.

  That knife hadn’t been holding any power when he touched it before. Felan remembered the smell of emptiness. That meant either the rubies did power it like Ari thought, or—

  Ha! This weak and still his mind won’t stop working.

  And if he was right . . . .

  He never wanted to worry Ari, but he wasn’t sure how long they’d pressed the silver against him. The stinging burns covered his back and his arms. His sides. They all melted together into one large ache after the hunters caught him. Even that ice mage who seemed to appear out of nowhere hadn’t been a match for them. He hoped she was still alive. She’d frozen one hunter before they pierced her with an arrow in the shoulder.

  The silver sapped his energy, threatening to yank him under.

  Join Kian in the sweet darkness of death.

  If he succumbed to something like that his mate would never forgive him.

  At least none of the remaining hunters or that woman had tried anything yet. Felan didn’t blame them with the look on Ari’s face.

  “Ari. Try the sword on me,” he managed, trying to growl, but it came out as a hoarse whisper instead.

  “What?” Ari asked and shook his head. “Why would I do that? I said I loved you. I don’t want you dead, stupid dog!”

  Felan tried to laugh, but it turned into a cough. “Remember: destruction is only one side of the coin. Hand the sword to me. See what happens.”

  Ari kept his eyes on the hunters and slowly handed the sword to Felan.

  He wrapped his fingers around the hilt, smelled the strange magic that fizzled through the air, and the flames fell into nothingness. The rubies bright light dulled.

  Just as he thought.

  The woman made a sound of displeasure. “That can’t be the real sword. It’s supposed to be the most powerful weapon in the world.”

  “It’s not,” Felan said and pressed it back into Ari’s palm. “The sword is a conduit. The power comes from the wielder, and the gems amplify it. That’s all.”

  Ari’s eyes lit up. “Whatever is in the wielder’s heart . . . .”

  His vision went fuzzy, and he blinked to clear it.

  Still fuzzy.

  No good.

  “Exactly,” he said and took a shallow breath.

  The last thing Felan saw was the bright light of a mossy green fire before it plunged into this chest and everything went dark.

  15

  Sure, Ari said he’d wanted to stab Felan before, but he never thought he’d actually have to do it.

  But when he let the thought of healing Felan’s wound fill his mind instead of the thought of stopping those hunters and Margaret, the blade’s color shifted from blazing red to cooling green.

  Felan’s breath hitched, and he was paler than Ari had ever seen him—as pale as Kian had been right before he'd . . . .

  Ari grimaced, hoped Felan was correct about the sword’s actual powers, and plunged it into the alpha’s chest. It didn’t cut, and the green light flashed and covered Felan in its brilliance. He shone with it, the light slipping over his flesh—to the burns left from the silver, and Ari felt it flowing out of him, and how his will could guide it.

  He did.

  Urged it to wrap around Felan’s heart, protect it from the silver that was more than likely in his bloodstream by now. He pictured the light banishing the poison from the alpha’s body.

  Then, Ari felt his knees tremble.

  The sword’s light flickered.

  Faded.

  Went out.

  He held a small dull bladed knife, and the rubies, which had been the same color as blood, were as dull as the rest of it.

  Everyone in the room stared at it, and Ari felt Kian’s presence nudge his leg.

  A gentle whine brushed his ear.

  The door burst open then and Conner stood there, his gun drawn. Seth came in behind him.

  “Finally,” Ari said and let himself slump to the ground next to Felan to check the alpha’s vitals.

  His eyes had slipped shut, but he breathed steadily and his heart beat strongly.

  “Ari, are you okay? How’s Cage?” Seth asked.

  When Ari opened his eyes, the seer knelt in front of him, violet gaze wide with worry. “Alive. I had to heal him. There was silver and. . . It’s a long story. But your vision was pretty accurate. She’s the one behind it, her and her husband. She’ll confess. Just have Conner threaten to bite her face off. The others are hunters who tried to kill Felan.”

  Seth nodded, and gripped Ari’s shoulders. “Can you stand?”

  Ari smiled and let his old friend help him up.

  Ari had been lucky enough to avoid the fallout from everyone else’s adventures, but he couldn’t avoid his own.

  Conner and Seth questioned him for over an hour. Then another couple of detectives that Ari didn’t know questioned him further. He assumed they did the same w
ith Margaret and the hunters. Thankfully, Conner got a confession out of her easily, and her husband confessed to tampering with evidence as well. Though, the actual truth of the magic didn’t come out. Instead, the hunters were labeled mercenaries and charged with the murder of that ice mage’s partner. They confessed as well, mostly, Ari guessed, because they knew Margaret would turn on them if they didn’t.

  Thankfully, the ice mage in question survived her cross bolt wound and would make a full recovery.

  Felan was transferred to the local hospital for observation until he woke up the next day, then the police questioned him too. Ari stayed by his side and called his pack, who all came and waited with him faithfully, besides Amy (who was still in France).

  When the alpha blinked and looked around, Ari slunk from the room and let his pack be the first ones he saw. They stayed with him for nearly half an hour, complaining about how they could’ve helped, and that he shouldn’t have put himself in danger on his own.

  Ari paced the hallway, waiting for them to finally filter out.

  “You should be in there,” someone said, the voice husky and familiar.

  Ari turned and looked at the tattooed wolf he’d helped more than once: Tyler Harrison.

  He snorted. “I’d rather not have them complaining to me about what almost happened to their alpha, thanks.”

  Tyler shook his head. Leaned against the wall. “No, it should be just you. You should be the first thing he sees, because I’m pretty sure that’s what he wants. He could have explained it to them later. The pack is important, but you’re his mate.”

  No one was close enough to hear that, but Ari still scowled at Tyler. “So? I don’t have the authority to kick them out of his room. They wanted to see him. You’re here to see him too.” He bit his tongue to keep from saying anything more.

  “Yeah. Whatever he did must’ve been bad, but I’m glad he’s got you to stand by his side again,” Tyler said and slipped down the hallway toward the room.

  After Tyler stepped in, he must’ve said something because Felan’s pack left. They cast Ari a variety of curious glances and half smiles, nodding their appreciation, which Ari wasn’t sure he deserved. Felan had been the one to figure out the quirk in the sword’s power. When he suggested it as a theory, Ari shot him down.