I look up at Jasper and Leif, and we all fix our gazes on the breach. I can feel their agitation at our impotence, but all we can do now is wait.
Wait and hope.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Cora
We’d been split up somehow. Maybe that was how these rifts worked. It didn’t matter. I needed to find the others. I was on a rise with forestland below me, and beyond that, to the east, were lights. It had to be their town or settlement or whatever.
I headed down the hill and into the trees, moving silently and swiftly, senses on alert for any movement that wasn’t mine. Any snap of bracken or shadow that indicated a threat.
For the first time since coming to Grimswood, I was in my element. Working solo, relying on me.
This was what I did best.
It was liberating.
Yeah, I was so not a team player. Not that working with The Elites wasn’t nice, but working solo, making spur-of-the-moment plays without having to consult anyone or look out for them, was freedom.
An empty stretch of land was visible through the break in the trees up ahead. A wooden fence came into view around eight to ten feet tall. I hurried forward and crouched behind a tree trunk, surveying the barrier. It was too dark to see how far the fence stretched out from the open gate. Fire pits spat sparks on either side of the entrance, lending enough light for me to see two hulking men standing inside the gates chatting.
This had to be the place.
Had Sloane and the others found it yet? I needed to get closer to do a survey. Thank goodness the moon was hidden by clouds. It provided enough cover of darkness for me to cut across the flat land, keeping low to the ground and upwind of the guys to avoid being spotted or sniffed out by their shifter senses.
I kept my eyes on them until I was up against the fence, and then sidled along toward the entrance. Not too close. I didn’t want to be spotted.
“We should kill them,” one of the guys said.
“Not up to us. Up to Vax. He decide.”
“Intruders are bad.”
“Yes, bad. Mean that more come.”
I recognized the voice of the stilted speaker. The huge blond guy who’d spoken to me when the varga had us surrounded at the hunt.
“We kill them, and it’ll be over.”
“No. More come.” There was annoyance in his tone.
My pulse raced. They were going to kill the shifter females? Why? What did they mean more would come? They’d brought the shifters here. The women hadn’t come willingly.
“The witches need to die. We can’t hold them in a null forever.”
Witches? Wait…Fuck. The Elites…They had The Elites.
“We wait for Vax.” There was a don’t-fuck-with-me edge to blondie’s tone now.
“Not long now. He should be back within the hour.”
“Hmmm.”
And then this Vax dude would make a decision on what to do with The Elites.
Shit, shit, shit.
I needed to get to them and get them out, and I needed to do it now.
The gate was a no-go, but…I rubbed my fingers together, calling my power forth. Strands of lightning danced between my fingertips. Okay, power was online. Now all I needed to do was get inside the settlement.
It was a risk. I had no idea what lay beyond, or if I’d be seen, but I closed my eyes and willed myself to a safe spot, a shadowy hidden nook.
I made the jump and landed on something soft and prickly.
Hay.
I was on a hay bale. There were several piled up against the inside of a fence and away from the many huts and fire pits that dotted the inside of this camp.
Damn, this place was old-fashioned. No electricity here. These were cob huts made of mud and straw. One of the random facts I’d picked up somewhere.
How primitive was this place?
Never mind, I needed to scope it out and find The Elites and the dire wolf females, and I needed to do it fast.
SLOANE
The room we’re in has one window with bars on it, a single exit that’s locked, and no furniture.
The fact we can’t use our magic means there are varga surrounding this building.
“Do you think Cora and Jasper made it?” Poppy asks from her position at the window. “They must have been spit out elsewhere or they’d have been caught by now.”
We entered smack bang into the camp and have since surmised that the rifts must have random drop-off points. We stepped through together and so we came out together. Cora and Jasper came after us. Hopefully they haven’t been spotted.
“You think they’ll find us,” Poppy asks.
“I’m hoping they don’t,” Jessie says. “Or if they do, they have the smarts to get the fuck out of here. You saw the camp. It’s fucking huge and filled with varga. There’s no way out.”
I’m not optimistic about our situation but I refuse to lose hope. All we need is a break in their security, a moment to tear a rift and we’ll be out of here, because now that they know we’re here, searching the camp for the female dire wolves is too dangerous.
Jessie keeps holding up her hands to test her magic, and each time nothing happens her expression darkens more.
“What I don’t understand is why they haven’t killed us already,” Poppy says. “They don’t seem to have a problem with killing people.”
She’s grinding her teeth again, eyes bright with tears over Danny. In usual circumstances I’d never have dragged her onto a mission this soon after a bereavement, but it’s not like we had a choice. We didn’t have a choice after Brie either. We have to keep moving forward. Keep fighting. It’s what we do, what we’ve always done.
“Don’t knock it,” Jessie says. “Maybe they’re not hungry.” Her smile is grim, trying to defuse the tension.
Poppy wipes at her eyes and shakes her head. “You’re a dick.”
They’ve both hit on a point, though. “There’s no reason to keep us alive…” But there’s more. Something that’s been needling at me since we were captured. “There’s also no evident reason to take dire wolf females. They have plenty of their own. You saw, the camp is filled with them.”
“I saw,” Jessie says. “Makes no sense.”
“Shit!” Poppy grips the bars on the window and leans forward, peering out. “I think…Oh shit, it’s Cora.”
“Keep it down!” Jessie orders as she joins her. “Do you want the furries to hear?”
I hurry and join them to see a flash of golden hair in the shadows. The figure moves quickly from hut to hut and my pulse quickens. Is it her? There’s a break in the clouds and a little moonlight lances through. Enough for me to make out the slender, petite form a little better.
It’s her. It’s fucking Cora, but she’s alone. Where the fuck is Jasper?
She’s scoping out the buildings. We need to signal her somehow. Shit. “Hey, Poppy, you got a mirror?”
She frowns at me. “Why would I have a mirror? Are you trying to insinuate that I’m vain?”
Jessie and I arch our brows at her.
She huffs and pulls a compact from her pocket. I take it, flip it open, and angle it out the window, trying to catch the light from the sliver of the moon. A circle of light bounces across the hut opposite ours and Cora freezes. She’s seen it. She turns her head, and her eye whites gleam as I bounce the light off her face.
She sees us.
Gruff voices drift toward us and Cora falls into a crouch, pressing herself into the shadows beside the hut opposite us. I back up, taking Poppy and Jessie with me as two figures pass close to the window. Both are bare-chested with shaggy golden hair.
Long seconds pass, the voices drift off, and I step back to the window, searching the shadows for Cora.
But she’s gone.
There’s a rattling, the sound of the lock being disengaged, and for a moment I think it’s her, that she’s found a way past the varga surrounding our hut, but then the door’s shoved open and a hulking man steps in. His hair i
“Welcome to Grimsa.” His voice is gravel and glass, pain and torment. “My name is Vax. Answer my questions and you’ll receive a quick, painless death. Thwart me and I’ll feed you to my guards…alive.”
Shit.
CORA
Five varga in wolf form surrounded the hut where Sloane and The Elites were being held. I circled back to the barred window in time to see a huge guy enter. Shit, was this Vax?
There was only one way out of this.
A rift.
But there was no way to make one while The Elites were trapped in a null circle. I needed to break it, which meant taking out two of the varga.
Yeah, that probably wasn’t gonna happen.
No. Think, Cora. I needed to lure them away.
I needed a distraction, a threat.
I needed fire!
SLOANE
Vax circles us, his huge frame eating up space, his magnetic presence sucking the oxygen from the room. Furs drape his shoulders, making his large, broad frame seem even bigger. I’m a tall woman, powerfully built, and there aren’t many men who can make me feel small. Tor comes close, but this guy is a whole other breed. All the varga we’ve seen are inhumanly large, as if born in the time of gods and titans. These huts seem too small to occupy them.
“Why have you come?” he asks. “Who sent you?”
I see no harm in answering both those questions. “We came for the female dire wolves you kidnapped, and we came of our own accord.”
He stills. “Dire wolf females were taken?”
Okay, he sounds like this is news to him. I narrow my eyes. “You took them.”
“We tried,” he says. “But we failed.”
“And then you tried again and succeeded.”
“You killed Danny.” Poppy’s voice shakes with suppressed rage. “You tore him to shreds and took the shifters.”
Vax’s arctic gaze narrows. “You believe we took your females?”
I tip my head to the side. “Didn’t you?”
“No.” He meets my gaze levelly.
I’m so fucking confused.
“Liar!” Poppy lunges at him and Jessie grabs her around the waist, tugging her back. “You killed Danny, you killed him.” Her voice cracks on a sob.
Fuck it, the last thing we need is an emotionally distraught witch. Danny and Poppy may not have taken things to the next level, but there’d been real feelings there. Fuck, she may even have loved the shifter. I hate that she hasn’t had the chance to grieve, that she has to be here, face to face with the creature that may be responsible.
May be.
Because I’m starting to doubt myself now.
I need to get to the bottom of this. “You say you didn’t take the female dire wolves from town, but you tried to nab them from the forest. You can see why we’d suspect you.”
His lip curls as he leans in. “I don’t care what you witches think. But I see now that there is another player on the field.”
“What do you mean?” Jessie asks.
“Six weeks ago, a pack of our females went into your world for a hunt escorted by two of our beta wolves. They never returned. We went looking for them and found our betas torn to shreds by what we then assumed were dire wolves. The females were gone. We can sense they’re alive, but we can’t locate them.”
Poppy is calmer now. “You thought the dire wolves took your females?”
“We’ve been scouting ever since, trying to locate them. Getting close to the pack houses to sniff them out, but nothing. So we decided to take their females and offer a trade for ours.”
“Why would the dire wolves want your murderous, human-eating varga females?” Jessie asks.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, witch,” he snaps, chest rumbling on the edge of a growl. “Not everything is as black and white as you think. Not everything can be separated into good and bad.”
“So you don’t eat humans?” Jessie challenges.
His jaw tenses.
“Yeah, you see, in my world, that makes you the bad guys.”
Vax sneers, lip curling to reveal even white teeth. “Think what you want. We don’t have the female dire wolves, and if our females weren’t taken by your dire wolves, it’s obvious someone else is involved. Someone who has both our wolves, and we need to—”
Howls tear the air, urgent and loud.
Vax’s gaze tracks to the window and his expression freezes. “Fire…”
Cora.
It has to be.
CORA
The fire was spreading fast, drawing the varga to the fence. I used the huts for cover, shrinking into the shadows every time a varga ran past. Some were in wolf form, some ran as human. They seemed so…normal. Mothers ushered their children to safety, men yelled at their women to get inside. I almost felt bad. But they were hunters, predators who feasted on human flesh, and they had my friends and the dire wolf females.
A varga ran past and paused to clutch his belly. He looked up at the sky and let out a moan. I followed his gaze to see the clouds sliding back to reveal a bright round moon.
“No,” he whimpered. “Not again.”
What the fuck? The moon had been merely a sliver a few minutes ago.
Another varga ran into him, shoving him forward, then stopping to steady him. “No time, Bastian. Fire must be stopped first.”
They ran off, and I circled the hut and crouched behind a barrel that smelled like fish. The hut Sloane and The Elites were in was up ahead, and the varga guarding it were gone.
This was my chance. I needed to let them know the coast was clear, and with their magic active again, we could totally fight off the one varga who was inside with them.
Taking a deep breath, I ran toward the hut.
SLOANE
A prickle rushes over my skin, so subtle I almost don’t feel it, but the widening of Jessie’s eyes and Poppy’s soft gasp tell me I’m not imagining it.
The null circle has been broken. Our magic is back on.
Vax is staring out the window, though, and I note how the world outside is suddenly bathed in silver.
“You have to run,” he says, his voice thicker and hoarser than a moment ago. “Get out of here and run.”
“What’s happening?”
He turns to me, his arctic eyes too bright in his face, his jaw elongating. “The moon is about to fill and there will be nothing but hunger. Go.”
“Jessie, rift now!” Poppy yells.
Jessie’s hands are moving in the air, desperately trying to open a rift.
Vax backs away, doubling over, arms wrapping around his abdomen. “It comes early. Too early.”
His face is bubbling, changing, his bones cracking as he morphs. He makes a lunge for the door, but it’s as if some unseen force pulls him back to face us, and when his eyes latch onto me, there is no longer any humanity in them, just bestial hunger.
“Jessie!” Poppy screams.
The air crackles and pops, and the room is filled with silvery light. Vax roars and leaps toward me just as a figure barrels into the room, golden hair and cornflower-blue eyes.
Cora!
She slams into me, sweeping me off my feet and propelling me backward toward the silvery light of the rift. I throw out my arms and grab hold of Poppy’s cuff and Jessie’s arm, and then the world is rushing away.
My stomach knots, bile rushing up my throat, and for a moment Cora’s arms are no longer around me, and Poppy’s cuff and Jessie’s arm melt away.
And then I hit the ground with my back, and a weight lands on top of me.
Cora’s sweet vanilla scent fills my nostrils.
“Fuck!” Jessie sits up beside me.
Poppy groans.
I slide my fingers into Cora’s hair as she lifts her head to grin at me, but her grin turns into a wince of pain.
“What is it?” I sit up, bringing her with me, and she cries out, sharp and surprised.
“My back,” she hisses through gritted teeth.
Jessie shuffles into a crouch and brushes Cora’s hair over her shoulder to study her back. Her mouth parts in shock and her brow furrows in a frown I like to call her nice-knowing-you frown.
“What is it?” Cora asks, but her jaw is tight, her eyes bright.
She knows what Jessie is about to say, and Poppy’s sharp exhalation confirms it.
My gut clenches. Don’t. Don’t say it.
Jessie sits back on her haunches. “Vax caught her with his claws. Deep enough to draw blood.”
My heart sinks.
She’s been scratched.
Cora is infected.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cora
We were back at the cabin, everyone gathered in the lounge as I got a once-over.
“I feel fine. I’m fine, seriously.” Yep, no one was listening to me.
I sat on the sofa, bent forward, clutching my T-shirt to my chest, as Pippa, one of the Grimswood medics, examined the wound on my back. She’d sliced my shirt off to examine the varga claw marks. Her gloved fingers were cool against my skin as she gently prodded the torn flesh.
Tor crouched in front of me, his steel-gray eyes fixed on my face, his hands bracketing my thighs.
The guys had found us in the forest minutes after we fell through the rift, and Tor had insisted on carrying me home.
He hadn’t left my side since. Jasper stood by the kitchen, arms crossed, face an unreadable mask, but the tick in his jaw told me he was pissed.
Leif stood beside the malevolent spirit, his hands clenched to fists. Rune was stationed at the front door like a sentry, and Sloane was perched stiffly on the window seat, her electric-blues fixed on me.
Jessie and Poppy had left to inform Anna what had happened, to mobilize forces because… Because once the infection took me, the seal would be broken.
There was no cure for this infection.
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