So he set himself to the task of making the list himself. He knew Valen would say she was intelligent, which she was. Reckless, certainly, but not stupid. Her work with magic had always been ingenious. She was also a team player when it was needed. She had started this mess trying to do it alone, but she quickly let Maxwell and the bounty hunters step in to help when she realized it was bigger than she intended. That was a strong skill, one she’d learned from William. Maybe not as well as his old friend had wanted her to, but she had learned.
It obviously didn’t completely sink in or we wouldn’t be in this position. Sorry, William, you didn’t fully hit the mark on at least one thing before you died. But everything else…You know, if she were a man, she would probably already be fighting a war against Hell itself somewhere out there. Or my boss in the MD.
If she were a man, she would be hailed as a strong warlock with a dominant personality and everyone would respect her.
Well, he hit the root of the problem. He was judging her as just a woman and not for anything else she brought to the table. Remy had a good point. Did it really matter what was between her legs? Had it ever? Everything he’d said to her had been about her being a woman, even the positive things.
I’m such an asshole and there’s only one way to fix it.
He smiled to himself. He hated the idea, he really did. It would put her in danger, right in the thick of every problem in Redstone, where she always was anyway. Other people would whisper about her, but they already did, even when she was happily married.
And yet, he had a sneaking suspicion that she would shine in it. Adalyn was never a conventional woman, no matter how much others had always wanted her to be one. He needed to find a way to stop accidentally trying to make her one out of his own misguided efforts to protect her from herself. All it was doing was killing the friendship they had spent nearly a decade building, and hurting his friendships with others he respected.
“Valen, I’ll support it,” he said as they mounted again. “I’ll throw my hat into the ring with the town to make sure she gets the job.”
“Good. I’d hoped you would come to your senses. Now, let’s go save our future sheriff so she can actually take the job.”
25
Adalyn
Adalyn woke up during sunset. She could see the golden red of the dying sun coming into the mine. She was out of it, but it had still woken her up.
Shit, I had told myself not to fall asleep.
She stood up slowly, groaning as her leg ached miserably. She looked down at it, frowning. She had a medicated potion she could make to keep any of it from scarring, but it was only fully effective if she put it on as soon as possible after the injury. She didn’t want her leg scarred to hell, which meant she needed to handle this and get home quickly.
After an entire day of the wards being up and her time in their care, she hoped they would believe the wards fading on their own.
It still felt like it was too soon. Maybe after nightfall. Maybe they’ll think I’m trying to sneak out.
She watched the sunlight entering the mines disappear, waiting for that right time. Once it was gone, she slowly released the spell. Just a little at a time. They would notice it. They wouldn’t be able to pass it until it was completely gone, but they would notice.
She waited to hear any of them say anything as she worked.
“Marcus, the ward is fading. She must be too weak to keep it up for very long. She did get injured while she escaped.”
“Yeah,” the leader replied. Marcus. She hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names, or cared to ask. Now she knew one more to add to Lars and Georgie. Somehow, knowing their names made it feel a little less good to banish them back where they belonged, but they weren’t their demon names. The names they used were the ones attached to the human bodies they stole.
Whatever else was said was too hushed for her to understand. She just kept the slow lowering of the wards going. It would take a few hours, but she didn’t want it to happen too fast. For all they knew, she was asleep and they were just fading. Like her sound spell in her home. She hadn’t put enough power in it to last the entire night. That was what she was trying to replicate here.
It was slow, but before midnight, the wards were down. She pushed back into the ward she had behind her and ducked behind a lone minecart, so that they couldn’t shoot her the moment they saw her.
They didn’t come in immediately. She felt like it was ages later when she heard them walking closer. The distinct sound of a gun cocking, then another, told her that she made a good decision to hide before they even came in.
The mine was dark. She couldn’t see the pentagram in blood on the ground, but she knew where it was. It called to her, waiting for her to activate it, to feel that rush of dark power, the thrill of it. The only good thing about the situation was that if she couldn’t see it, they wouldn’t either.
She heard them walking closer and held her breath. The clang of spurs and buckles. The chafing sound of denim and leather. They weren’t even trying to be quiet.
“Little witch, we can keep doing this the easy way. Don’t make us hunt you down into the mines. It won’t go well for you. Nothing down there can kill us. You, not so much.” Marcus called out. It wasn’t loud enough to worry her about a sound-induced cave in or anything, but it did worry her that it could give her away to any other possible inhabitants of the mine.
“You know, I think I will stay right where I am.” She wasn’t going to give in now.
They walked closer. She waited patiently. She didn’t need to see it to know when they walked on the pentagram. She could feel it. Deep in her bones, it told her that its quarry had walked onto it. Before they could move off it, she threw up the ward. She looked over her mine cart and grinned as Marcus walked right into the ward and groaned at the impact.
“You sly little bitch,” he growled, pulling his gun. She ducked as he fired at her. “For this, I’m just going to kill you.”
“Well, first you need to be on this plane, and you won’t be for much longer,” she explained, quite pleased with herself. She put her hand on the ground and yelled the spell, pushing every ounce of her strength into it.
The red glow of the pentagram filled the mine, but when she looked up, the portal to hell didn’t open, only glowed that eerie red. It fizzled out and Marcus began to laugh. Probably at her pale face when she realized she wasn’t strong enough to activate such a big spell. All it had done was eat her strength.
“Oh, you are a smart little thing. Thank goodness, like every woman I’ve ever met, you overestimate yourself.”
She ground her teeth, glaring at him. He spun his revolver, smiling. She ducked as he stopped to take quick aim on her, and his shot missed again, ricocheting off a wall further down the mine.
“How long are we going to sit here before these wards fail, Mrs. Lovett? They’ll fall long before you’re strong enough to banish all of us. Not even a group of witches and warlocks could banish four demons at once.”
After that, the demons just endlessly taunted her—until something growled. Oh. We must have woken up whatever lived here. I was planning on being gone before this.
She huddled next to her minecart, her eyes fixed on the dark passages of the mine. She had wards up between those dark tunnels and herself, but she also had to keep a front row seat to whatever it could be, since moving to the other side of the cart was only going to get her shot.
Another growl and she saw a big paw hit the dirt.
“Oh. It’s a werewolf that lost control. Poor thing,” she mumbled as it became visible. She had a ward up for that too. The bipedal, wolflike beast walked into the dim light coming off the pentagram behind her, which hadn’t totally faded. “Hey buddy. We’re going to be out of your hair soon enough.” He was probably using the mines as a place to sleep.
He snarled and jumped forward, slamming into her wards hard enough that she felt the impact. He fell back, snarling so viciously that she saw s
pit and drool fly from his jaws, his eyes locked on her.
It happened rarely, but sometimes, a were would go too far. They became the beast entirely and there was no saving them, their humanity gone. This was the real reason her wereanimal suppressants for werecats and werewolves sold so well. The less often they turned, the less likely they were to fall prey to this final form. Wereanimals unable to change back, unable to recall their humanity, were violent and had to be put down quickly. There was a reason the wereanimal affliction was considered a curse. The only cure was a silver bullet.
She didn’t have a gun on her, much less silver bullets. She could only hope her wards held up. Until when, she didn’t know.
“Well, little witch. Do you need someone to save you?” Marcus teased from his place.
She narrowed her eyes at the werewolf. “No, I’m fine. I deal with wereanimals all the time. They are one of the bigger populations of residents in Redstone.” She tried to sound bright, like it wasn’t a big deal. She knew her wards wouldn’t go down for at least a day, but she didn’t know if the werewolf would back off by then. He might be wanting to leave to eat, and she was the closest meal to him. “Though I’ll need to tell the pack back home about this. They’ll need to come help him.”
“Help him. You mean kill him?” Marcus chuckled.
“I do,” she whispered.
She was pinned between demons who wanted her dead and now a werewolf that wanted her dead. Perfect. Just what she needed. If only I could banish the demons, I’d be able to leave the werewolf alone, send Lawrence to come handle it. This is definitely his responsibility. Hopefully, this isn’t someone from the Pack and they just didn’t tell anyone what happened. William used to be the one who had to hunt them down.
The mine went mostly quiet again. The only thing in the standoff making any noise was the werewolf, snarling and growling at her.
This just keeps going from bad to worse.
She waited, stretching her legs out. She knew she was safe where she was, but she didn’t know for how long.
“Adalyn?”
Adalyn nearly jumped. The werewolf in front of her, who had finally calmed down, snarled viciously.
No way. Is it really?
“Fuck!” Marcus snapped. “If anyone comes around that corner, shoot them,” he ordered his followers.
“Maxwell?” she called back. “Is that you?”
“I have Valen, Easton, and Remy, as well. How are you?”
“Well, I’ve gotten myself into a little bit of a predicament. You see, I escaped the demons and decided to take shelter in this mine.” The werewolf snarled and snapped, upset by her loud voice. “And then I set a trap, which has only half worked! Oh, and I found a feral werewolf. He’s down here too. Don’t worry, I’m quite safe right now, but I’m not really sure how long that’s going to last.”
She could have sworn she heard one of the men laugh.
“If you come back here, we’ll shoot her,” Marcus threatened. “And you.”
“They’re stuck on a pentagram. I tried to banish all of them, but I’m just not strong enough to fully activate the spell.”
“You tried to use the damned spell again?” Maxwell’s voice had an exasperated tone she was used to. She had never been so glad to hear it.
“I nearly had it, Max! Now, on to figuring out what to do. We can argue about it later, old friend!”
She didn’t hear an answer. Instead, guns started going off behind her, spooking her and the werewolf, who backed away.
“I said if you came around the corner, we’d shoot you,” Marcus reminded them. “Don’t try it again.”
“Maxwell, maybe you and I can cast the spell!” She knew she was asking him to do something he would later hate.
“Fine. Once they’re banished, we’ll deal with the damned werewolf. Ready?”
Her eyebrows went up. I wasn’t expecting him to actually agree with me. “Yeah!”
She started the spell, her hand on the ground. She hoped he was doing the same, as he joined in on the spell.
They repeated it twice, the red glow taking over the mines.
“NO!” Marcus roared. “Damn you, you bitch! I’m going to come back for you!”
She kept chanting the old Latin words that opened the portal to Hell. She heard screaming behind her. This time the rush of power was even headier than the first time she ever cast the spell. It nearly knocked her over. Her fingers curled into the dirt as the power continued to grow.
“Adalyn, something is trying to crawl out!” Valen roared. “Max, stop it!”
She took a moment to glance up and nearly lost her lunch. This was why witches and warlocks weren’t supposed to do these spells. Had she forgotten something important? A massive demon yanked the screaming ones down, and then tried to crawl out. The demon creature had too many horns. It reeked of sulfur and made the mines smell toxic as black goo dripped from it. Roaring, it clawed at the earth, trying to find a grip.
“Keep chanting!” Easton screamed at her.
She did, hoping they didn’t just give themselves a bigger problem. The awful looking beast was now being pulled down as well. It fought hard, but it never made it more than halfway out of the portal she and Max had opened. The werewolf slammed against her ward, trying to break through. It saw something bigger than itself and wanted to prove its dominance. Snapping and snarling, it wanted a piece of the demon crawling out of the hole.
She kept chanting, screaming the old, strange Latin words. Her power was fading fast now. If she didn’t finish the spell soon, Maxwell wouldn’t have the strength to. They would all be dead in the damn mines.
“Don’t stop, you two! He’s going back in!” Easton called out, then began to chant something she had never heard before. New power flowed around them, one she didn’t understand.
Then it was over. As if it never happened, the demon went back down into the portal and it closed, the power fading.
“Someone…go get her away from the damn werewolf,” Maxwell said. She could barely hear him. She could barely see him when she tried, her vision blurry.
The next thing she knew, large hands were picking her up.
“Hello, big man,” she purred weakly, smiling up at Valen. Such a big, gorgeous man. “I escaped the demons all on my own.”
“You really did,” Valen murmured, chuckling. “I’m going to give you to Easton and Remy, then take care of the werewolf before it gets out.”
“How did you get over here?” she asked, a mumbled question.
“There are no wards, or runes, or anything else that can stop me except my own kind,” he explained. “I’ve never told you that before, have I?”
“No. Good to know.”
He handed her off. “She’s got dried blood on the left side of her ribs. There’s a nasty bump on her right temple. Her leg is a mess.”
“A horse fell on me,” she informed them, leaning into another chest. Trees and wolf, with just a touch of Hell, that sulfur. “I can walk, Remy.”
“Maxwell can’t,” Easton said softly. She looked over to the warlock, who was on the ground.
“Never again, Adalyn,” he muttered, staring up at her.
“Yeah, this is like a bad hangover,” she agreed, forcing Remy to put her down. “I almost escaped on my own. You would have been proud of me.”
“I know. I am proud of you.” Maxwell gave her a rare and real smile.
They heard a vicious snarl, followed by a deafening roar. Adalyn turned quickly to see a massive brown bear slam into the feral werewolf.
“Go, Valen!” she called.
“So, he’s a shifter,” Easton murmured, watching as well. The massive beasts hit the wall, bringing dirt down on everyone’s heads.
“No, his power to shapeshift is just the only power he can use outside of the saloon,” she corrected. Then she swayed. “He can handle this. I was planning on asking Lawrence to come take care of it.”
“When? And who’s Lawrence?” Remy practically gr
owled the other man’s name, making her look up. She was confused. She was sure she had introduced them. He probably hadn’t cared enough to remember.
“The werewolf Alpha in Redstone,” Maxwell answered. “Good man. He used to assist William in this sort of thing. And I’m also wondering when you would have talked to him, Addy.”
“After I escaped, of course. I had already escaped once. I could have done it again.” She leaned back into the hellhound behind her as they all watched Valen finally get a solid bite on the feral werewolf’s neck and break it. “And there it is. Two problems dealt with, one we didn’t even know about!”
Adalyn smiled. She was slowly getting over the high of the spell, but nothing could make her take her mind off the hard chest behind her. She wanted. Wiggling a little caused Remy to wrap an arm around her waist, lean down, and kiss her neck.
“I worried about you,” he whispered in her ear as the bear walked back.
“Did you?” she asked softly. “You didn’t need to. I would have figured it out.”
“She’s good at it,” Valen cut in, looking them over after he shifted back into his human form. “Figuring out how to get out of the trouble she gets into. Let’s get home.” He helped Maxwell up, letting the warlock lean on him. “You going to be able to ride?” he asked softly. The warlock only nodded. She could relate to his issue. She was just more used to it.
“That’s a fine plan,” she said, smiling. “Thanks for coming. You expedited the process.”
The men all laughed, a couple even shaking their heads at her. She walked out with them and nearly jumped for joy at her Dark Prince waiting there for her. She would have jumped, if her leg didn’t hurt so bad.
“Hey boy!” she called. The horse’s head swung in her direction and he practically pranced to her. “Are you ready to head home?”
The horse’s head flew up and down. She managed to get herself up and leaned over, patting her stallion.
Bounty Hunters and Black Magic Page 19