by Mary Hughes
Quickly he shifted back. The Hunt is successful. My mate and I will eat. Then the rest of you will taste in the order we give. Tail lifted like nothing was wrong, he trotted to the stag’s belly.
Wait, what? They’d eat? As in, him and her? She started giving him as many no, not, never, uh-uh signals as she could short of waving her paws like a berserker puppet.
Jayden nosed her. Said on that private band, Just pretend.
Oh. Yeah. She could do that. Panic subsided. She raised her own tail and strutted to Noah’s side…where he’d opened the stag’s belly with a powerful chomp. Under her fur, her face turned green.
She managed to pretend to sample pâté de foie stag for about two seconds before she stepped back. Bonnie immediately took her place.
Sophia growled, low and angry. Wolf pecking order might normally give Bonnie first dibs, but some of those trembling females had less meat on them than fur on a hanger. Noah had said they’d choose the order, not nature, so Sophia growled louder.
Bonnie pretended not to hear.
That just pissed Sophia off.
So when Noah herded one of the elderly wolves toward the stag to take his place, Sophia found the thinnest female and nosed her in too, next to Bonnie.
Bonnie turned on the poor wolf, snarling and nipping to force her out. The wolf whimpered.
Righteous anger blazed through Sophia. She turned human, grabbed Bonnie by the hips and pulled her away.
Bonnie yowled. She jerked her hips away from Sophia and muscled back in on the deer.
Sophia grabbed Bonnie’s tail with both hands and pulled.
Claws scrabbling, Bonnie came away from the carcass. With a bark she twisted and tried to bite Sophia.
Sophia whacked her across the snout.
Bonnie turned human. It took her a while, muscle creaking and bones cracking. But when she stood facing Sophia, murder was in her eyes. “You’re pretty happy for a woman who’s just killed her mate.”
“What are you talking about? The Hunt was successful.”
“Sure.” Bonnie smirked. “Noah won this challenge. Better if he’d lost. That would have only meant his exile. Now he’ll be fighting Ivan—to his death.”
With the pack busily feeding, Noah, Mason, Jayden and Sophia returned to the shop.
The moment Noah was inside and out of sight of the pack, he sagged, a hand to his flank.
“What’s wrong?” Sophia was immediately at his side, fussing like he was hers to fuss over.
“Nothing,” he said wearily.
She yanked open his shirt to reveal his ribs. Dried brown blood streaked his sleek skin. She grabbed one of Mason’s hand wipes and cleaned it off. Noah bore it stoically but she could see the blackened skin, angry red lines radiating from the wound. It had to hurt like hell.
Noah peered at his side. “Damn it. Not nothing.” His voice was soft. “This looks like the wound that killed my mother.”
Sophia’s heart iced. “What did that fuck Killer do to you, that you’re not healing?”
“Let me see.” Jayden moved her gently aside, surprising in a man with his strength and shocking in a man with his annoyance factor. He examined Noah’s flank with a bunch of grave hmms and tsks. Even in those few moments, Noah’s pupils dilated severely and his mouth worked like it was dry. “Like your mother’s but deeper.”
She didn’t like any of it. “Magic?”
“Yes.” Jayden’s black eyes snapped. “Which is why shifting hasn’t healed it.”
“Killer’s no wizard. How’d he manage it?”
“I’d guess a knife treated with magical poison,” Jayden said. “Enhanced nightshade, from the looks of it.”
“That’s not deadly to shifters,” Sophia said.
“It is if it’s mixed with the target’s blood.”
She chilled. “This was planned? How lethal is it?”
“In an iota wolf, within minutes.” Jayden reached into his pocket. “An alpha takes longer to die, but not much. Hours. Unless we stop it, now.” He pulled out a flat silver disk.
“Hours?” Noah’s shock was clear. “My mother took days.”
“There are significant differences,” Jayden said. “That was regular magic, and a glancing blow. This is enhanced. Stabbed deep.”
“How do you know—?”
“What the hell do you think you’re using?” Sophia grabbed for the disk. “It’s silver.”
Jayden snatched it away. “It’s this or nothing. Noah?”
Noah removed his hand. Even in those few moments the poison had spread. Angry red stitched across his ribs like forks of toxic lightning. “Do what you have to. Stop this.”
“Wait.” Sophia jabbed her finger at the disk. “Not before I know what that thing does.”
“It’s an asp’s compress, princess,” Jayden said. “It’ll suck the poison back to the point of entry and imprison it there. Once the poison is centralized, we can eventually extract it with a spell.”
“How’d you happen to have it along?” Mason asked suspiciously.
“Please. When the anti-alphas lost at Bonnie and Clyde’s, I knew they’d try something underhanded. I also have a disk for plague, bullets and catastrophic hemorrhages. Now if you’re all done proving how skeptical you are on your alpha’s behalf…” Jayden slapped the disk against Noah’s skin.
Noah sucked in a pained breath.
“Hold still.” Jayden lifted the disk away; it made a thwuck like a suction cup coming off, revealing a small circular red patch, like a layer of Noah’s skin had peeled off with the disk.
“That made it worse.” Sophia snatched the disk from Jayden. It tingled in her fingers.
“It only looks it.” Jayden was unrepentant. “The poison was drawn to the surface and confined. See?”
“I’m okay.” Noah’s words were a little gaspy. “I think I’m feeling better.”
“Lucky Jayden.” She put a little wolf in it. “I won’t kill him immediately.”
Noah gave her a small smile. Then he said to Jayden, “Now heal me.”
“I hand you a minor miracle, and you want more?” Jayden grimaced. “Shifters. Look. Magical poison stabbed deep into a hexed werewolf is tricky enough. Add in your other little issue, and if I try to remove the poison the wrong way it’ll irritate the hex—or any other magic on you—and make things worse.”
Sophia’s ears pricked. Or any other magic on you. Was that the secret Jayden had hinted at?
Mason growled. “You said that once the poison was centralized, you could extract it.”
Jayden was already shaking his head. “I said we could eventually extract it. First we have to remove the hex. Then we’ll see.”
Sophia didn’t like any of this. She examined the disk. Small runes were inscribed around its edge. Introductory arcane languages told her the symbols had to do with healing, but silver wasn’t made for a shifter.
So why had it worked?
“Then remove the damned hex,” Noah said to Jayden. There was more than a little wolf in his growl.
Jayden gave an exaggerated sigh. “Any removal spell will remove the containment on the poison as well. Released poison, scant hours to live, remember?”
“Damn you.” Mason crowded Jayden, almost chest-butting. “Sounds like convenient excuses.”
“It’s magic, not me.” Jayden threw hands in the air. “Ask her if you don’t believe me.”
Mason’s head swiveled.
Sophia nodded reluctantly. “Single spells, okay. But layer two or more, and complexity zings off the scale.”
“He’s telling the truth?” Mason’s jaw gaped.
“I don’t know. But it’s possible that, in trying to remove the hex, he’d release the poison.” She liked this less and less. Five shitheads she knew and a shadow agent she didn’t—with powerful magi
c—were threatening her mate. And now a man who was supposed to be a friend was using silver on him?
She cracked her third eye to peek at the disk. The metal glowed with diamond-blue purity on the etheric, like a small white-hot star in her palm. It was a magic healing token all right.
For witches and wizards, not shifters.
She exploded “Why the hell did you use this? It’s for wizar—”
“I had to do something or he’d die.” Jayden whirled to face her, fists on hips. “What would you have done?”
“I’d have brought disks for shifters, dumbass.”
“Enough.” Noah’s white-knuckled hand clamped to his side. “I don’t care why, or even what at this point. Come morning, unless we find a way to reverse the hex, I’m facing Ivan as fifteen pounds of dog. Against a hundred pounds of wolf, I’m dead.”
Silence. Sophia swallowed hard.
Then Jayden said, “This is more than a talisman can handle.”
“I need this hex gone. Do whatever it takes.”
Whatever it takes. Sophia stiffened. This was more than a few gewgaws could fix. Noah needed a real witch.
She’d have to do it. Which meant she’d have to break her second funeral seal. Hands.
Even at the thought, pain seared her hands. They seized up, the disk slipping from numbed fingers into her jacket pocket.
She breathed through it. For Noah’s life? She’d risk it.
What the hell. It hadn’t killed her last time, it might not this time either. Maybe next time, but that was then.
She opened her mouth to say she’d do it. That she’d use her magic. Mason spoke first.
“How?” he asked. “How do we get rid of the hex?”
“Carefully,” Jayden said.
“No,” Noah said. “We’re out of time. Use brute force and deal with the fallout as best we can.”
“You need to do it,” Noah said.
Yes. I’ll do it.
But the instant she put air behind the words, a thousand razor blades of pain spun through her hands, up her arms and sliced into her larynx.
Nothing came out.
Into the silence, a voice said, “All right, I’ll do it. But you know it will cost you.”
The voice was Jayden’s.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Of course it costs, with you.” Noah’s face was grim. “What do you want?”
Eye my newt. Sophia mentally smacked herself. In hindsight it was obvious, though all of his previous magic could have been explained by his artifacts, the apron, the brooch, the disk.
Jayden was a wizard.
Which meant Sophia trusted him even less. Since Rodolphe, she didn’t trust any witch or wizard except her brother. Not her aunt, not even herself. A wizard who charged favors for magic? Bottom of the trust pile.
“How did you know?” Jayden said.
“I didn’t,” Noah said. “I just suspected. But my mother worked—” he grimaced, “—for one of your kind and the possible signs were there. Now stop delaying and do what you need to do.”
She said, “Noah, don’t. I’ll do i-i-hhh.” Pain constricted her words, hands searing as if each of her fingers were lit like a firecracker.
“I don’t want much.” Jayden shrugged. “Name your firstborn after me.”
“That’s it?” Noah raised one brow. “All right, but only if my mate agrees to it.”
“Done.” Jayden plucked a thick wedge of blue chalk from the air, squatted and began to draw on the garage’s concrete floor.
“I do not like this,” Mason growled.
“Hush now,” Jayden said in a distracted murmur. “I have to get this right.”
“Noah, don’t,” Sophia said again. “He’s got his own agenda—”
“Princess, with all due respect, shut it.” Jayden swept out a circle. “This is hard enough.”
He closed the circle and her lips snapped shut. The spell was begun. Any interference now would only hurt Noah.
Jayden sketched a second circle, inscribing it inside the first, touching at their tops. A container circle, the kind that held magic on the inside rather than kept it out.
She was grudgingly impressed. He was doing serious magic, faster than even her most accomplished professors. She wondered why she’d never heard of him. The magical community was exceedingly small. Wizards powerful enough to reverse another witch’s complex hex? Minuscule.
She knew them all. At least, all the lawful ones.
Sophia’s heart started pounding, like a drum rattling her ribcage. Could Jayden…? She’d seen photos of the Council’s most wanted, but disguise spells good enough to fool a witch were not impossible. Especially fooling a witch who wasn’t doing magic.
Vanishing the chalk, Jayden stood. “Okay, you can talk again.” He pointed to Noah and then the center of the circles. “Stand there.”
“Noah, wait.” Fear and need and love collided in her throat. She forced her words past the pain. “I-I’ll do it.”
Noah frowned at her.
A strange glint entered Jayden’s eye.
She ignored him to concentrate on Noah. “Don’t let him do magic on you. I don’t trust him. I’ll do it.”
“Sophia.” Noah cupped her chin, raising her face, and kissed her lips gently. “I saw what that cost you at Bonnie and Clyde’s. I don’t want you going through that again, especially when there are alternatives. Jayden knows what he’s doing. Once he’s given his word, he’s trustworthy.”
“Names have power.” She searched Noah’s golden eyes. “How do you know what he’ll do with our…” Her cheeks heated. “With your firstborn once it’s named the way he wants?”
Noah kissed her again. “He wouldn’t dare harm any child of mine, yours or ours.” With a final kiss he released her and strode into the center of the circle.
He faced the intersection point as if he knew what it was. Maybe more of growing up in a wizard’s home. Jayden faced him across the point. Only a few inches separated them. Sophia was struck by how alike they were, wizard and shifter. Equally tall, lithely muscled, rangy builds, their black locks carelessly tousled, and handsome, chiseled faces. Even their skin tone was the same bronze.
“Ready?” Jayden said.
Noah’s eyes smiled. “No. But go ahead.”
Jayden joined his hands and swept both arms back toward his hip, like he was going to pop a volleyball.
“Wait,” Sophia said. “The hex rebounded on a magic mirror with carved demons, then hit my picture. Are you compensating for that?”
Locked mid-gesture, Jayden gave a sarcastic eye roll. “I wasn’t born yesterday, kid. I’m doing a reveal first.” He released his joined fists at Noah. “Show!”
Magic shot into the circle. The air ignited with a whoosh of violet smoke that rose in a cylinder from chalk to ceiling. Violet haze washed back through the joined point to envelop Jayden. For the first time his wizard magic was evident, glowing strong and clear. He must have been masking it. The reveal stripped the mask away.
The magical poison also showed, a bilious sea urchin, spiny fingers waving, anchored to Noah’s flank.
But not the hex. The reveal didn’t show the one thing they needed. “Damn it, Jayden! What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” The wizard’s black eyes were narrowed, his clenched teeth bared. “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
A buzz bit Sophia’s ears. Not the normal hum of reveal magic, but the angry drone of a thousand riled hornets.
The smoke around Noah went red. He folded over suddenly, as if he’d been hit. His head kicked back. His face was drawn in severe pain, skin dead white.
“You’re hurting him,” she shouted over the buzz. She barely kept herself from yanking Noah out of the circles, which would result in far more catastrophic pain. It took
clutching her pearls so hard they nearly cracked.
“The poison is trying to latch onto my magic.” Sweat trickled down Jayden’s forehead. His hands, extended toward Noah, were stiff and tense, tendons white. “Trying to break out.”
“Heavens above.” Sophia dropped her pearls to clutch her hands. They were cold.
“What does that mean?” Mason’s voice was dark with concern.
She swallowed an iceberg of fear to answer. “Using Jayden’s power, the poison could break confinement, take over Noah’s body then jump the gap to take over Jayden too.”
“Hell.”
“Yes.” She held her arm out to Jayden. It shook slightly. “Use my power to resist.”
“What about your death seals?” he yelled over the drone.
“A little Share Power won’t break them.” She hoped. But even if it did, she needed to do this, for Noah.
Jayden didn’t wait for another invitation. He latched onto her wrist, his other hand still extended, quaking, toward Noah.
She chanted up a small Share. She’d already released a third of her power and her magic stirred deep in her core, her very cells, responding to Jayden’s need, rising to her wrist to meet him.
He drew.
Her Sight showed her power pulsing from their joined hands into his aura. He converted the power into a pulse of magic aimed at the poison.
Spiny fingers shot up, trying to grab it. But Jayden’s augmented magic sheared through the bilious poison’s fingers like shurikens through vines.
The red haze faded to a pulsing violet.
“Did it work?” Mason shouted.
“Maybe,” Jayden said. “I’m going to try to unravel the hex.”
“How can you?” Sophia said. “You can’t even see it.”
“Like this.” He snatched a purple wand from the air. Flicked it at Noah. “Unwind!” He spun the wand as if he was wrapping the hex around it like yarn or cotton candy.
Sophia didn’t see anything gathering on the wand. “It’s not working.”
And worse yet, as Jayden used up his magic, the poison surged. New fingerlets grew and latched onto his dimming power.
Jayden dropped the wand and switched to fighting the poison. “More power,” he gasped at her. “Faster. Now.”