by Alisa Woods
Jaxson nodded. “You think Jared’s still in there.” The bad guys wouldn’t bring new shifter victims to the warehouse, if they’d already decamped from that location. “What do you think they’re waiting for?”
Jace shrugged. “Maybe they think Jared is the extent of our plans for assault?”
Jaxson frowned. That seemed unlikely. “More likely they don’t have a good place to go. Biding their time until they get a new prison set up.”
Jace nodded his agreement. “Either way, someone is still there. And I’m betting Jared is, too.”
“Agreed.” Jaxson glanced at the late-afternoon sun. “Time is still against us. I don’t think we can wait until nightfall.”
“I thought you might say that.” Jace smirked and waved over Taylor. He brought a handful of gear—thick rubber gloves, a long metal rod, and jumper cables. No doubt his electrical-fence-breaking kit.
“Hey, boss,” Taylor said. “I’m ready to take ‘er down whenever you say.”
Jaxson looked askance at the equipment. “We’re not going to have much surprise on our side. Which means we need overwhelming force. Shock and awe.”
Jace cocked his head. “What are you thinking? Just ramming the gate?”
“We’re going to have to do that regardless,” Jaxson said. “Cutting through the fence and going on foot is too slow. Too much time for them to react. On the other hand, the distance between the road and the shack is pretty small. They won’t see the truck coming until we’re breathing down their necks.”
Taylor looked disappointed.
“However, I’m worried about shocking the vehicles and dragging a ton of electrified razor wire with us into the compound.” He tipped his head to Taylor. “So I still want you to blow the fence, but I need you to wait until we’re about to ram. That means you’re sitting this one out, Taylor. And watching our rear flank.”
Taylor nodded. “You got it, boss.” He flicked on his headset and spoke through the mic. “I’ll be set up in ten.” Then he trotted off with his gear toward the warehouse.
Jace winced as he watched Taylor go. “I wish we had more manpower on this.”
Jaxson glanced at the crew they had remaining. He and Jace were ex-military—Jace was an Army medic, but he’d seen more than his share of combat—and all rest of the Riverwise pack had military experience of one kind or another.
There was one shifter he didn’t recognize mixing in with his crew.
“Who’s the grunt?” Jaxson asked, gesturing with his chin to the dark-haired kid chatting it up with Murphy. He was young, probably no more than twenty-two.
“Daniel Wilding. He’s Army, active duty, stateside between tours. Son of a lieutenant colonel in the Wilding pack. After what went down with Cassie, he wanted in on anything we were planning.”
Jaxson nodded. “All right. Brief everyone on the plan. We’ll head out as soon as Taylor gives the go.”
Jace gave a quick nod and jogged off toward the group of shifters gathered around the vans. Jaxson knew they had all tallied up the odds when they signed up for this, but he still didn’t like it. They hadn’t tried a direct assault from the beginning due to lack of intel… but also because it was dangerous, and it tipped their hand, exposing who they were and endangering the entire pack. But more importantly, they still didn’t know who they were up against.
And an unknown enemy was the most dangerous kind.
But they didn’t have a choice at this point. He wasn’t going to leave Jared to rot in their cells, enduring whatever went on in that warehouse. His brother had already been through too much—more than any man or shifter should have to. Jaxson wasn’t going to let them slice into him any further, physically or mentally.
They piled into the vans and waited for Taylor’s signal. When it came, they formed a two-van caravan, gaining speed until they took the turn toward the gate. Jaxson drove the lead van with Jace riding shotgun. Jace gave the thumbs up that Taylor had blown the fence just before they reached the shack. The surprised guard couldn’t get off a shot before they crashed the gate, but gunfire quickly followed after.
Jaxson sped around the back of the warehouse, gaining cover behind the square aluminum-siding building and also seeking out the rear garage door. Dust clouded around the van as he skidded to a stop. The second van was right beside him. His shifters spilled out of both vehicles and sprinted toward the building, taking up stations, weapons at the ready, on either side of the garage door. A small human-sized door to the side was an ambush waiting to happen, and they didn’t have time for Murphy and his munitions to blow the garage door. It looked flimsy enough, and he hoped like hell it would give way to the van, because that was all they had for a battering ram. He threw it in reverse to gain some distance, slammed to another stop, then gunned the engine and popped the clutch, spinning out rocks behind the van as it barreled toward the door.
He ducked behind the cover of the dashboard just before impact.
The shock threw him against the seat then knocked him hard on the van’s oversized steering wheel, but the van kept going, so he blindly jammed his foot on the brake. The van skidded to a stop. His vision was doubled for a moment, and he couldn’t see into the murk inside the warehouse anyway, but he heard the shouts of his crew as they spilled into the building after him. He blinked away the blurriness and checked the side mirror, which was shockingly intact—they had definitely breached the door, which was a blown-out wreckage of sheet metal behind him. The van was still running. He tensed to use it as a weapon if there were forces inside the warehouse… but as far as he could tell with the dusty, dim light, it was empty.
Jaxson blinked, put the van into park, and climbed out.
His crew were likewise standing in the middle of the warehouse with wary but amazed looks on their faces. The place was two stories tall, with darkened rafters filling the upper half, but it was the ground level that attracted their attention. Steel-barred cages, ten by ten, stood empty except for mangy cots and what looked like buckets for toilets.
“There’s the van,” Jace said over his helmet mic. He was at the front of their crew, pointing to a white van at the far end.
“So where’s the driver?” Jaxson replied, pulling his weapon out and sweeping along the empty cages. But he couldn’t see anyone in the entire building. As he crept forward with the rest of the crew, checking each cell, he heard a muffled grunt.
Jaxson said over the mic, “Everyone hold.”
They stilled and listened. The muffled sound came again, with some rattling this time.
“It’s coming from the van,” Jace said, hurrying forward. His men were already on it. As they got closer, a medical station was revealed behind it. Cabinets and tables and gleaming metal instrumentation that was obviously used for some kind of medical procedure on the inmates. Jaxson picked up his pace, but just as a shining silver table swung into view, and he saw someone strapped to it with hand and foot restraints, he heard one of his crew shout, “It’s Jared!”
Jaxson screeched to a stop as dread washed through him. “Jace!” he shouted.
But it was too late.
A popping, like firecrackers, filled the warehouse—Jaxson recognized the sound of tranquilizer darts just as his men started dropping like flies. Jaxson swung his weapon around wildly, looking for the source, realizing too late the ambush came from above. He fired off several rounds at the shadowy figures filling the rafters, but darts pinched his shoulder, legs, and chest simultaneously. A half dozen bee bites that blurred his vision and clattered his gun to the floor.
He shifted to wolf form, dislodging the darts and leaving them behind with his clothing, but his paws scrabbled ineffectively on the concrete floor. The tranq was already turning his limbs useless, even in wolf form.
A trap. The whole thing was a trap.
Jaxson only got a few feet toward his fallen brothers before the darkness took him.
“Why do I have to be involved?” Olivia asked.
Aunt Gwen pursed her
perfectly shaped lips. “Well, we could invite your shifter friend here to help us determine whether the curse is still in effect. But that probably wouldn’t end well.”
No, it wouldn’t. Plus Olivia didn’t want Jaxson to know anything about this until it was complete… and irreversible. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “What do I have to do?”
“I need some essence of the man, something to help me find him in the magical world.”
Olivia frowned, suddenly uncertain. “You’re not going to do anything to him… are you?”
“Well, of course not, dear.” Gwen’s face twisted up like Olivia had suggested she take a dip in the dumpster outside the coven’s high-rise office.
“It’s just that… I know shifters and witches are mortal enemies.” Olivia bit her lip, hoping she wasn’t crossing a line here.
“Unless we’re in bed together.” Gwen’s face transformed from horrified into a smirk in no time flat.
“And maybe even then,” Olivia countered. “I’ve heard the stories, Aunt Gwen.”
She just rolled her eyes. “Do you believe every story you hear about shifters?”
A fair point. “All right,” she conceded. “Back to the spell—what kind of essence of Jaxson do you need?”
“A memory. The more intimate, the better.”
Olivia scrunched up her nose. Sharing that just seemed… wrong.
“Well, it would be easier with a hair sample or article of clothing, but I’m assuming you didn’t bring any of that.”
Olivia sighed. “No.”
Gwen strode over to one of the burnished-wood bookcases that lined her office and plucked a pinch of something out of an iridescent glass box. She brought it back to Olivia and sifted the whitish powder with the fingers of one hand, letting it fall into the palm of the other.
“Would you like to learn how to do a seeking spell, Miss Olivia?” Aunt Gwen’s eyes were lit up with delight.
“I’m not doing any magic, Aunt Gwen.” Olivia scowled.
The delight faded. “My dear, you’re going to have to learn someday.”
“No, really, I don’t.” When Gwen looked unconvinced, Olivia added, “I mean it, Aunt Gwen. I’m not going there.”
“Very well.” Her lips pursed again and waved her hand over the tiny pile of white dust, whispering some kind of incantation. The words must have been from another language because Olivia couldn’t understand them. Returning to English, her aunt said, “You’ll only be a bystander in this one—providing a key ingredient for the spell, if you will. I’ll be doing all the magic.”
Olivia nodded her consent.
The dust in her aunt’s hand began to smoke, and a swirl of tiny blue sparks dove through the small cloud in her hand. Gwen held her hand up to Olivia’s face, and then gently blew the smoke her way.
Olivia did expect that, but her gasp only sucked the smoke directly into her lungs. She huffed it out again, thinking she might cough, but instead the world just got a little blurry around the edges. Her aunt’s face loomed large nearby.
“Think about a time you were intimate with Jaxson.” Her voice seemed to boom too loudly, like they were suddenly in an immense room, and her aunt had grown ten times her original size. The office walls warped in the periphery of Olivia’s vision. “Find a time when he touched your very soul.”
Images of Jaxson flashed before Olivia’s eyes—his smile, his deep chuckle, their lovemaking—but the image that zoomed up and stayed was him leaning close to her, forcing her back against the door of her apartment and whispering, You’re worth fighting for.
“Oh my,” Aunt Gwen breathed in appreciation. “I can see why you’re fond of that one.”
That made the image wobble a little, and hot embarrassment shot through Olivia, but she grabbed hold of the memory—it was also the reason she was trying so hard to lift his curse. Without it, Jaxson wouldn’t fight so hard and come so dangerously close to her.
The image was frozen before her now, and the blue sparks from the spell cloud swirled around his body, buzzing like bees looking for a place to land.
“The magic is strong with this one,” Gwen murmured. “His own, as well as another’s.”
The vision vanished, returning Olivia to the plain, reality-filled sight of the office. It was jarring to her mind, making her teeter for a moment.
She blinked away the vertigo. “Well? Did you get what you needed?”
Gwen’s lips were turned down. “I’m afraid the spell is still tightly bound to him.”
“How can we break it?”
“We can’t, dear,” Gwen said with a sigh. “Only the one who cast it can break it. Alternatively, we could let the spell fulfill its original purpose. Then it will dissipate of its own accord.”
“It’s purpose was to kill Jaxson’s mate!” She could hardly believe her aunt would suggest that as an option.
“I agree it’s an unfortunate turn for that particular female,” she mused. “On the upside, he would be free to mate again.” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Gwen!” Olivia’s mouth dropped open.
Her aunt shrugged like it was no big deal. “It was just a thought.”
Olivia’s shoulders slumped. “There has to be another way.” She turned away from her aunt, still horrified by what she suggested, and pretended to study the multitude of glass jars and boxes on her shelf. What other awful things had her aunt contemplated doing, much less carried out, with all these powders and the incantations that went with them? Jaxson was right to believe that witches were basically evil… and not just the one who cursed him. Although that witch definitely took it to a twisted level. How selfish would you have to be to deny someone a chance at true love simply because he wouldn’t please you in bed? Not that Jaxson’s pleasuring-abilities weren’t epic, but still.
Then it clicked… Olivia turned back to her aunt. “You said the witch who cast the spell could break it.”
Gwen’s face twisted up in disbelief. “Well, the moon could fall out of the sky tomorrow… but it’s highly unlikely to do so.”
Olivia strode back to her. “You know who she is.”
“Yes,” Gwen said emphatically. “And I know the last thing on earth she would consider is revoking a spell of this kind.”
“Maybe I can persuade her.”
“You?” Gwen shook her head, eyes wide. “Olivia, my dear, you’re not even a fledgling witch. You shy away from the smallest of spells. Sybil would eat you alive.”
“You could help me.” Olivia edged closer. “Please, Aunt Gwen.”
“Oh, for the love of magic.” Her aunt gave her a look like her long-lost niece might be more trouble than she was worth.
Olivia rushed out. “I’ll do anything, Aunt Gwen. I’ll… I’ll even try some magic. Maybe. Nothing too crazy. Only because it’s dangerous. I’m dangerous.”
Her aunt’s green eyes softened. “You’re not dangerous, dear. You’re just… inexperienced. And you come from a very powerful line of witches. With the right training, you could become an amazing asset to our coven.”
“I… I would like to learn how to control it.” That was a complete lie. Joining a coven of witches was the last thing on earth she would ever do. But she could backtrack on her promise later. Or think of something. “Do this for me, Auntie Gwen, and I promise, I’ll give it a try.”
“It’s been my dream all these years to have you join us, Olivia, but… you have to understand. Sybil is very unlikely to grant your request. Even with my… persuasion.” Her aunt’s face pinched up with worry.
But Olivia already knew all that. And she was sure this witch, Sybil, was dangerous as well. “I have to try.”
Gwen sighed. “All right.” Then she wagged a finger at Olivia. “But let me do the talking. Sybil isn’t someone you want to cross.”
Then she twirled in her perfect red suit and lead Olivia out the door.
“Is this some kind of crass little joke?” Sybil’s disgust was palpable.
Aunt G
wen stood tall under the other witch’s glare.
Olivia lurked behind her aunt’s thin frame.
Sybil wasn’t part of her mother’s coven—in fact, she didn’t have a coven at all. As far as Olivia could tell, Sybil was flying solo in her one-woman consulting firm not far from Urban Damon Design’s office. Maybe even fellow witches couldn’t stand her? She was as beautiful as Jaxson claimed—mile-high cheekbones, long raven hair, porcelain skin—but it was a haughty kind of beauty, with eyes as cold and black as space. Her barely-there, cleavage-baring purple silk blouse clung to her ample breasts and draped over her pencil-thin black skirt, amping up the sex appeal. A small trail of smoke curled menacingly from the thin finger she had pointed at Gwen.
“This isn’t a joke, Sybil,” her aunt said evenly. “And in exchange for this small favor, I’m sure Urban Damon could toss a few clients your way.”
“I don’t need your clients!” Sybil’s voice deepened like a storm gathering power.
Olivia glanced around the office—the furnishings were all extremely high end, but that could easily be glamour. The office itself was in an older, somewhat shabby high-rise, right on the edge of downtown where it started to transition to the area with the homeless shelter. Sybil certainly wasn’t doing as well as Urban Damon, no matter what she claimed.
“What’s your price, then, Sybil?” Gwen’s voice was still even, but Olivia could tell she was already starting to lose patience. “Surely there’s something we can work out with this.”
“Why do you care what happens to this shifter, anyway?” Sybil peered around Gwen to cast a bone-chilling look upon Olivia. “And who is this fledging you have hiding in your skirts?”
“She’s my niece.” The friendliness of Gwen’s voice dropped two levels. “She’s in training. I simply brought her along to observe.”
“Training?” Sybil wrinkled her nose up in disgust. “Rather old for that. A little slow, is she?”
Gwen’s hands flexed, and a bit of smoke leaked from them as well, but she kept them at her sides.