As he pulled his pickup truck next to Troy’s, he scanned the line of parked vehicle’s hoping like hell to see Rachel’s car.
But it wasn’t there.
He was filled with a very grim sense of doom.
***
Angel Mercer waited in the dark field of the old Halsey land.
It was quiet and so still that she felt anxious. The dark, dome sky overhead, though it was filled with twinkling stars, seemed to be pressing in on her. This was the last place on earth she wanted to be.
She had argued with Jack terribly. He hadn’t wanted her to come. He hadn’t wanted her to agree to this plan. Jack was terrified that Dante would manage to get his hooks in her all over again. They’d fought so long and so very hard to free her, and here she was, trying to conjure him out onto the old Halsey land all by herself.
She hadn’t wanted to fight with Jack. He was the love of her life. Angel wanted nothing more than to be with him. They’d managed to find peace since their union. Theirs was a happy, simple life. But they both knew that nothing would ever be truly simple and that there could never be peace so long as Dante Alighieri roamed the Fist.
That’s why she’d agreed when Kaleb and Lucy had approached her with the plan at Angel’s Food.
But she wished, wholeheartedly, that she and Jack hadn’t fought before she left their house. He hadn’t hugged her. He hadn’t told her that he loved her. He’d looked bitter and hurt and downright furious. That’s all he had given her. If this plan of Rachel’s went terribly wrong, Angel would be left knowing that Jack was furious with her. If she didn’t make it, if she died, or worse, if Dante seeped into her all over again and made her his slave, she would have to live knowing that Jack was mad at her.
It killed her.
But she had a job to do. She would do it for Jack, for herself, and their love. She would do it for the Quinns and for every innocent resident who deserved to go on living in Devil’s Fist without the invisible threat of a devilish werewolf who was trying to take over the town.
With that aim in mind, she closed her eyes again and tried to mentally and energetically reach Dante, wherever he was.
She focused and strained and then, suddenly, a chilling burst flooded her veins. It felt like ice water and was too horrible to acknowledge. Her eyes popped open and she immediately started willing the sensation away, thinking only of Jack Quagmire and her love for him.
Dante appeared before her, materializing from out of nowhere.
It took her breath away and her hands immediately began trembling so she clasped them together, determined to stay strong and steady.
He grinned at her, his handsome features twisting into a grotesque expression.
“You came,” she breathed.
“There’s not a day that goes by I don’t think of you, my darling,” he said in a smooth, deep voice that was instantly hypnotic.
“I can’t shake my loyalty to you,” she lied. “I feel indebted to you that you let me go.”
“It was some trick, wasn’t it?” he mused with an edge of resentment. “You conspired with Troy Quinn to free yourself from my loving protection just so that you could marry some low-rung werewolf.”
Every cell in her body was fighting the urge to cower and tremble, but she focused hard and proceeded with the plan no matter how badly she wanted to run and hide.
“You were betrayed,” she stated.
“So you admit it?” he asked, responding to the wrong thing.
“Not by me,” she corrected.
“That’s debatable.”
“Your arsenal,” she stated boldly, and Dante’s dark eyes sparked with interest. “The weapons you’ve been storing in the basement of Adelaide Marple’s house. The ones you need in order to ambush the Quinns and all of Devil’s Fist.”
“What about it?” he demanded, flying into a sudden rage.
“It’s all gone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I conjured you here to show my loyalty to—”
“Answer me!” he insisted.
“The two you trusted,” she began, “Larry Hardcastle and Ronnie McDowell, they stole the entire arsenal. They loaded up their cars. They’ve fled town.”
“You’re lying! I would have smelled it from a state away!”
“Go and see for yourself, Dante,” she urged him.
It was the first phase of the plan. With all of the Quinns already in position in that basement they’d emptied, if Angel could instigate Dante showing up there…
This would all be over soon.
“If you don’t believe me,” she pushed. “Then go and see for yourself.”
“You have reconnected with me,” he warned. “The second your energy touched mine, the cord was sewn back in place. If you’re lying to me now…”
“I’m not,” she promised and her mouth was instantly filled with a bitter taste. “Like I said, I’m loyal.”
“So you don’t mind our reconnection,” he surmised, and a slimy grin spread across his grotesque face.
She tried not to look nauseous as she agreed, “I don’t mind. Far from it, Dante. I’ve missed you and I want you to win this war.”
As she lied to his face, betraying her own heart, Angel reminded herself that it didn’t matter what she said to him so long as she got him into that basement. He would have no ties on her, no dark connection, so long as the Quinns succeeded.
Soon, this would all feel like a horrible nightmare, but like all nightmares, it would remain trapped in the space of dreams and would never again be able to reach her.
“Go,” she told him as she mustered a smile.
Dante vanished before her very eyes, and Angel feared that the nightmare was only beginning.
***
Conor waited in the dark shadows of the empty basement his brothers had cleared out. Dean and Shane had worked tirelessly right after the meeting to move every box, every assault rifle, and every case of silver bullets from the late Adelaide Marple’s cottage. There were enough support beams throughout the basement to hide behind. Conor stood poised with his bow and arrow. His hands felt steady and he trusted his aim. The second Dante Alighieri appeared, he would strike.
Kaleb was tucked behind a support beam with the professor, who had memorized the commands and Latin chants. Shane hid behind another, and Troy stood with Lucy behind the only other beam in the basement.
Everyone held their breath, lying in wait to ambush the devil of Devil’s Fist. This would all be over soon.
But Rachel wasn’t there.
It concerned Conor.
Immensely.
He couldn’t allow himself to think about it though. Given Dante’s powers, he anticipated the dark lord would appear from out of nowhere. He couldn’t allow himself to get distracted, but he hated pushing Rachel out of him mind.
Conor flinched, jumpy and sweating, when he heard the front door of the cottage open upstairs.
He locked eyes with Troy, who was hiding behind a beam across the way.
“Get your hands off of me!” Rachel yelled from upstairs, and Conor’s heart instantly skipped a horrified beat.
“Shut up,” a man said. “Get moving.”
Was that Larry Hardcastle?
A second, younger-sounding man asked something, but his voice was too quiet, too muffled through the floorboards to make out what he was saying.
Larry must have given Rachel a shove, because Conor heard her yell, “Watch it!” as footsteps clomped across the floor above his head.
“This is a big day for you,” Larry told her. “You’re going to become one of us.”
Conor rushed out from behind the beam, charging towards the stairs to save Rachel, but Troy sprang out and caught him.
Troy hissed, “Stay in position!”
It was the last thing Conor wanted to do, but when he heard footsteps clomping towards the stairs that led to the basement, he rushed back behind his beam and waited. He clenched his jaw. If they turned
her…
He couldn’t bear the thought.
The door to the basement creaked open and then the sounds of three sets of stomping feet descending the stairs filled the empty space.
“Don’t worry,” Larry said easily. “Dante wants you to be a general in his army. That’s how much he respects you—”
“Go to hell!” she snapped.
“Your first job will be organizing the artillery, loading all the weapons,” he explained.
As Rachel spilled down the stairs and came to pad across the cement floor, Conor fought every urge that was screaming in his body to rush out and protect her.
“What the hell?” Ronnie exclaimed, seeing the empty basement.
“Where are all the weapons!” Larry blurted, massively confused.
Rachel laughed and tried to jerk free of their grasp as she asserted, “Neither of you are going to make it out of here alive!”
Larry and Ronnie didn’t have time to react.
Without warning, the temperature in the room plummeted and a dark energy sucked the air out of the basement. Conor felt the amethyst in his pocket ignite so hot that his jeans began smoking and not a nanosecond later, Dante appeared.
Larry and Ronnie gasped and immediately dropped down to their knees in front of their dark lord, releasing Rachel.
Conor stepped out fast, took aim at Dante’s chest, and snapped the arrow.
The arrow sliced through the air. Dante’s eyes widened. Conor glared at him but then the dark lord burst into wall of black energy that was strangely blinding.
Gaylord stepped out, prepared to recite the Latin he’d memorized.
Rachel gasped, and the next thing anyone knew the arrow Conor had shot was plunged into her chest.
She dropped to her knees, stunned, her eyes white all around as Dante laughed.
He had used his dark energy, the forcefield of his black soul, to deflect Conor’s arrow, and it had ricocheted straight into Rachel’s heart.
“No!” Conor yelled as he charged out towards Rachel.
She fell sideways, gasping for air, and he caught her in his arms.
The world around him disappeared as he held her. What had he done?! His lap grew hot and damp with Rachel’s blood. He didn’t know what to do.
“Stay with me,” he begged as the battle swelled all around him.
Lucy flew at Dante, glowing with light, as the Quinns surged out from their hiding places and attacked. But Conor was consumed with Rachel, panicking at what to do. He didn’t notice Lucy battling Dante with light. He didn’t see when Troy grabbed the bow and arrow and began desperately firing at Dante’s heart, hellbent to execute the plan to take him out.
As suddenly as he’d appeared, Dante vanished and the icy chill in the air left with him.
Shane and Dean apprehended Larry and Ronnie.
Lucy rushed to Conor and Rachel and insisted, “You have to let me take her.”
“She’s slipping away!” he cried.
“I know. You have to let me take her,” she demanded, but Conor wouldn’t let go.
Troy pulled him away from Rachel, who flopped into Lucy’s arms and then Lucy, her slender arms wrapped tightly around Rachel, flickered out of this dimension and into the next.
“Where is she taking her?” Conor demanded, and Kaleb helped Troy to lift Conor to his feet.
“To Sasha’s,” said Kaleb. “Let’s go!”
***
It felt like an eternity was passing as the Quinns raced through the field to their parked pickup trucks. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Though Troy was driving with the pedal to metal, tearing through the Fist, to Conor it felt like they were crawling as he riled with extreme fear and anxiety in the passenger’s seat.
When they reached the little stone house on the outskirts of Yellowstone, Conor sprinted inside, Troy and Kaleb at his heels, and the professor lagging behind.
Conor sensed more than knew that Shane and Dean had stayed behind to deal with Larry and Ronnie. They didn’t pile in to the back room of the stone house along with Troy and Kaleb, and Conor hoped his brothers had it in them to kill Larry and Ronnie for what they’d done. For the fact that they had forced Rachel onto the wrong side of that ambush. If only Rachel had shown up on time, she wouldn’t have been shot.
But Conor couldn’t blame anyone but himself. It had been his arrow that had plunged into her heart.
Oh God, he breathed, what if she didn’t make it?
Rachel was lying unconscious on the stone slab where Kaleb himself had once been healed.
Conor rushed to her, but Troy quickly pulled him back and warned, “You have to let them do their job.”
Sasha was murmuring a healing chant over Rachel and Lucy was glowing, her palms blindingly bright, as she wrapped them around the thin arrow that was protruding from Rachel’s chest.
“Trust them,” Troy whispered in his ear.
Conor had never known regret like how he felt watching Lucy prepare to extract the arrow from Rachel’s heart.
In that moment, he promised himself that if she lived, he would never leave her side. He would do whatever it took to be with her. He would propose and spend the rest of his life with her. He would do everything within his power to make her happy, no matter what.
But Lucy didn’t pull the arrow out. Instead, by some Astral magic, with her hands wrapped tightly around the arrow, Conor watched her dissolve it, turning the fatal arrow into thin air before his very eyes.
As soon as it vanished, Sasha was ready. She placed her healing palms over the wound as blood bubbled up. Lucy skirted in, slipping her hands over Rachel’s chest where Sasha’s had been, and in an instant, the entire room glowed white, turning so blindingly bright that Conor couldn’t see.
He felt his heart expand in the warm glow of that light as it filled him.
And for a soaring moment, he knew that whether Rachel lived or died, he would never stop loving her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
RACHEL
Rachel stirred. Her chest felt hot and sore. She opened her eyes and strained to look around. Where was she? She didn’t recognize her surroundings. She listened out and heard the gentle flow of traffic outside. Main Street. She was somewhere on Main Street, but it wasn’t the apartment she rented from Jack and it couldn’t have been the apartment above Devil’s Advocate. It would have smelled charred and burnt if it was.
It smelled like pancakes and bacon, dark roast coffee and warm apple pie.
Was this Lucy’s old apartment above Angel’s Food? It had to be. But why was she here?
She took great care to roll onto her side, facing the bedroom door, and it took so much effort that she let out a grunt. Man, it felt like a knife was stuck in her chest.
Then she remembered. The arrow. The look on Conor’s horrified face.
He hadn’t meant to shoot her, but Dante had been too fast.
She heard footfall coming from the next room and then Conor filled the open bedroom doorway.
He looked remorseful but also elated that she was up. A sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he neared the bed and gently sat beside her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like you shot me,” she ventured to tease.
He let out a soft laugh and said, “I’m so sorry.”
“What happened?” she asked him as he took her hand. “How did I survive?”
“Lucy saved you with my grandmother’s help,” he told her. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.”
“That makes two of us,” she said, offering him a smile.
“Rachel, I never meant for—”
“It’s okay,” she interrupted. “I shouldn’t have placed demands on you.”
He let out a rocky breath. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks or says about us. I want to be with you.”
“I do, too,” she breathed, squeezing his hand. A heavy weight fell over her heart, but she had to know, “Did we get him?”
It was disappointing. But she was alive. And so was the love of her life.
“Angel says you can live here as long as you like,” he mentioned.
“Yeah?” After a moment she asked, “What about you?”
He let out a soft laugh and said, “I think we both know you need your space and you love living on Main Street close to the station and close to the action.”
“That’s true,” she allowed. “But I also love living with you, Conor.”
“You do?”
“Of course, I do,” she assured him. “I want to be with you, too.”
The sigh of relief that came out of him hearing that told her that a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
“I don’t know,” she went on, speaking honestly, “that I’m ready to become a werewolf.”
“You don’t have to,” he said quickly.
“I might want that one day,” she told him, “but for right now, being with you feels like it’ll be enough.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” he said as he shoved his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small, black box that she knew contained the kind of ring that would mean forever. As he opened the ring box and presented a sparkling, diamond engagement ring, he asked, “Rachel Clancy, will you make me the happiest man in the Fist and marry me?”
Her eyes misted over with tears and she laughed, ignoring the burning sting in her chest, as she exclaimed, “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!”
He scooped her into his arms, lying down with her, and kissed her with all the love and passion he’d held in his heart for her.
“Thank God,” he said in a humorous tone, “because I need a date to my grandmother’s wedding.”
“What?” she breathed, laughing. “No! Seriously?”
“I’m afraid so,” he laughed. “Very, very afraid.”
“Sasha and Gaylord?” she asked as though the punchline to a very long joke between them had finally landed.
“Good ol’ grand-step-daddy Gaylord,” he mused. “What has the world come to?”
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