Into the Dark (Until Dawn, Book 3)

by J. N. Baker

  I hoped the beast was burning in Hell where Alec had sent it.

  “The wound is far too deep to be any animal I know of,” I pointed out.

  “We cannot jump to any conclusions,” William said calmly as he descended into the courtyard, his deep sapphire eyes locking onto mine. It was damn near an order. Apparently, we were going with the ignorance is bliss route. I guess there was no need to stir everyone into a panic just yet. To William’s clear surprise, I kept my mouth shut.

  “The rest of you,” William continued, turning his attention to those still lingering in the courtyard, “we will alert you if we receive any news. There is nothing more we can do for now. I suggest you all return to your chambers and try to rest.”

  When our people didn’t immediately move to leave, Jade split in two—because one Jade just wasn’t enough—and started ushering people away with her charming personality. “You heard the man, go the fuck to sleep!”

  I rolled my eyes. Her people skills were impeccable.

  “Sneak attack,” one of the forest nymphs hissed once only his comrade, Godfrey, Sloane, and the six of us remained. I glanced between the two male nymphs, their solid black eyes sending a chill down my spine. They were an odd, quiet sort of creature. I’d rarely heard them speak more than a couple words at a time.

  When I’d found out that forest nymphs were real—and nothing like the beautiful creatures from storybooks—I automatically assumed they must all be women. But that wasn’t the case. Much like the vamps, they broke all the stereotypes.

  “They said she was still in her wolf form when they found her,” Ryuu explained. “She had shifted back by the time I got there.”

  “She used a wolf?” I asked, trying to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. One of the forest nymphs nodded. The irony in that almost made me laugh. Shifts were often confused with werewolves, which apparently didn’t exist. It was why Markus had a strict rule against shifting into wolves. It probably would have been funnier if there wasn’t a dying woman lying at my feet.

  “Did anyone see what attacked her?” Annie asked, kneeling beside Sloane. I noticed she was fully dressed whereas William was wrapped in a plush, fur-lined robe befitting his Viking lineage. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she really was out training.

  Sloane handed Annie a sterilized cloth. “Put pressure on the wound.”

  Annie gave a small nod, doing as she was told. She was getting better around blood. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

  “No,” the second nymph replied to Annie’s question, flashing a row of jagged teeth.

  William nodded solemnly before dismissing the nymphs to go back to their home amongst the trees. We wouldn’t get much else from them as far as information.

  “What was she doing out there in the first place?” I asked.

  “She was hunting,” a familiar voice answered. I turned to find Cody leaning against the mouth of the stairwell, one hand holding his broken ribs, the other holding up the wall. Holly was right beside him. I thought I heard Alec growl.

  “I told you to get him to bed,” I snapped.

  Holly looked exasperated. “He insisted on knowing what was going on.”

  “Cody is correct,” Ryuu said. “She knew the forest nymphs were planning a hunt and wanted to go with them. She thought she could be of use.”

  “Who the fuck sanctioned that?” a gravelly voice bellowed from somewhere above us. Rhett stormed down the stairs, obviously eavesdropping. His hard eyes scanned over MaryAnn and the nurse before locking onto Cody. My alpha asshole sensors started tingling.

  “I did,” Cody said, raising his chin. He might not have been an “alpha” type like Rhett or Markus, but he wasn’t a pushover. “She came to me about it,” he added, an unmistakable jab at Rhett’s leadership position.

  Based on Rhett’s clenched fists, it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  “MaryAnn is over three hundred years old,” Cody continued. “She’s a good shift. Strong.”

  “And that’s exactly why she shouldn’t have been allowed to go,” Rhett roared. “We can’t afford to lose powerful people like this!”

  “We’re losing her,” Sloane announced, her normally subtle Irish accent more pronounced. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she sat back on her heels, her steady hands resting on her thighs.

  Annie’s own hands began trembling against the shift’s side. “Is there nothing else we can do?” she asked.

  Sloane reached over and pulled Annie’s hand and the blood-soaked cloth away, letting what little blood there was left flow freely from MaryAnn’s body. “No. She’s lost too much blood already. There’s nothing more I can do for her but let her go quickly.”

  All eyes were on MaryAnn as her ragged breaths became fewer and her chest rose and fell for the last time.

  “Fuck!” Rhett’s voice echoed throughout the hexagonal courtyard. His eyes flashed yellow in anger, turning his attention back to Cody. “This is your fucking fault!” He cocked his fist and reared back to strike.

  I reached out, catching his fist mid-swing and squeezing it until I felt the bones grind together. He hardly flinched, narrowing his eyes on me. I contemplated actually breaking his hand just to prove a point, but we didn’t need to be another fighter down if a battle was coming our way. Which, based on the clearly Sythen-inflicted wound on MaryAnn, was a good possibility.

  “Enough,” I snarled. When Rhett didn’t back down, I increased the pressure on his fist until I heard the first bone snap. A gentle warning.

  “That’s my dominant hand, you bitch!” he spat, trying to pull away from me. I didn’t let go and another small bone cracked.

  Alec stepped beside me and I held up my free hand to stop him. I could handle one bullheaded shift on my own. I had plenty of practice with Markus. Though, he was much more pleasant. God, I missed that asshole.

  “You might be an alpha,” I said, my voice dropping low, “but don’t you forget that this bitch outranks you. Back off, Rhett, I mean it. I’m not going to tell you again.”

  Shoving Rhett back to cradle his minorly broken hand, I looked deep into Cody’s bloodshot eyes. He was emotionally fragile enough without having to think he was the reason she’d been killed.

  “And you don’t even think about listening to this asshole. You heard Ryuu. MaryAnn wanted this. She wanted to help. This was her choice; you allowed her the freedom she deserved.”

  Cody nodded but didn’t look entirely convinced. Shit.

  “For a shift of her advanced years to be taken down, Baldric’s men must have caught her off guard,” Godfrey speculated, subtly trying to defuse the situation. He was standing a foot behind William, always loyal to his Chosen friend. Godfrey was a vampire, but he had been with William for over a thousand years. He was the first vampire I’d ever befriended, the one who showed me they weren’t all bloodsucking demon spawn. Good to know, seeing as we had so many on our side.

  “Let’s be real,” Jade said, picking at the dirt under her fingernails. “We’ve all let our guard down to some extent with Baldric’s little disappearing act. A false sense of security can be deadly, point in case,” she added, motioning to MaryAnn’s lifeless body.

  I wasn’t sure what compelled me, but I took a step toward the stretcher and knelt beside MaryAnn. I rested my hand on the shift’s forehead, already growing cold, and the world around me transformed.

  The trees were alive, groaning as they swayed to and fro in the wind. A white rabbit scurried across a pile of dried leaves, startling the large gray wolf creeping through the night.

  No. Not just a wolf.

  MaryAnn.

  She was on edge as if she already knew she was being watched. Somewhere in the distance, a branch snapped and she froze, her wolf ears twitching as she listened. Something big moved through the trees overhead and she let out a low growl in warning.

  “They cannot save you now,” a voice hissed.

  Saliva dripped down from the treetops, splattering against MaryAnn’s sho
ulder. She whined as it burned straight through fur and flesh like acid.

  “Tell her we are coming for her,” the voice said. “She belongs to him.”

  MaryAnn whipped around to run but she wasn’t fast enough. A flash of teeth cut through the darkness, tearing through her flesh as if it were no more than tissue paper.

  Blood splattered across the forest floor, forming a puddle around her body. Her howls echoed in my ears.

  I withdrew my hand from the shift’s forehead, backing up until my body bumped into the stone wall nearest Cody. Alec’s eyes followed me. He knew something had happened, that I’d seen something. He wasn’t the only one.

  William watched me for an unnerving minute before his gaze shifted to Sloane, still crouched beside the deceased shift, her face hard. “Take the body to the medical chamber until a proper grave can be dug.” He turned his attention to a still-fuming Rhett. “You will help her.”

  “Like hell I will,” Rhett grumbled.

  All it took was one look from William and the shift’s jaw clicked shut and his spine straightened, remembering his military background. “Yes, sir.”

  As Rhett helped Sloane carry the stretcher from the courtyard, Jade sauntered over to Holly. “It’s time for bed, princess. Run along.”

  Ryuu stepped beside Jade. They were like Yin and Yang. “I’ll take care of him,” he assured Holly, pointing at Cody. “Don’t worry.”

  Holly hesitated for a moment and then nodded before disappearing up the stairs.

  “Godfrey?”

  “Yes, Lord William.” The vampire was already at his side, awaiting his orders.

  “Send out two extra guards for the remainder of the night. Have them sound the alarm if they see anything even remotely suspicious.”

  “Of course, Lord William,” Godfrey said, bowing before exiting the courtyard.

  “What I don’t understand is why the nymphs weren’t also attacked,” Ryuu said, thinking out loud. “Baldric’s men wouldn’t have singled her out, they would have attacked everyone. Besides, as Jade said, Baldric hasn’t made a move since the Great Battle. Why would he act now for some three-hundred-year-old shift? He has plenty of shifts that are just as good if not better.”

  “He was using her,” I whispered and all eyes turned to me. “She was supposed to deliver a message.”

  “Zoe, what are you talking about?” Alec asked, taking a step toward me. “Did you see something? Is it Baldric?”

  When I didn’t respond, Alec grabbed my shoulders and gave my body a good, hard shake. I locked on to those beautiful, rich honey eyes of his, losing myself in him for a moment.

  “Focus, Zoe,” he said, shaking me once more. “Is something coming?”

  “Not coming,” I breathed. “It was already here.”

  Alec released me as if my skin had burned him. “It happened again.” He wasn’t asking.

  I nodded.

  An uneasiness flashed across Alec’s face that had nothing to do with the attack. Something about my new powers unsettled him.

  It wasn’t just that I was getting stronger by the day or that I could—or at least had—been able to shoot lightning out of my hands. No, it was the change in my visions. Where I once could only glimpse visions of the future, I now sometimes saw into the past.

  It had started after the Great Battle, when I’d had a vision of Alec fighting off the Sythen behind Josh’s and Cindy’s deaths. Alec had chalked the change up to my blood loss. He was certain my near brush with death had thrown off my ability as a seer. I wasn’t so sure.

  I’d made Alec promise not to tell the others; at least, not yet. I wasn’t ready for William’s twenty questions. I wasn’t sure I ever would be. I hadn’t even told Alec the ass-backward visions had happened again. On a few occasions, actually. I didn’t want to worry him further. Whatever had happened to me in that ancient circle of stones prior to the Great Battle had changed me. It continued to change me.

  I felt William’s hard stare before I saw it. He wasn’t going to be happy to hear that I’d been keeping something of such importance from him for so many months. Oh well. What was he going to do, kill me? By all means, he was free to try.

  He came up beside Alec, one brow drawn up, his eyes hard. “What do you mean, ‘already here,’ Zoe?”

  Yep. He was pissed. Shit.

  “I, uh, have had a slight change to my seer ability. It’s not a big deal,” I added, hoping to ease the tongue lashing I was likely about to get.

  “And you are just now telling me?”

  Jade barked out a laugh. “Sparky’s keeping secrets.”

  I shot her a warning look which only made her laugh harder. She’d been calling me Sparky since I’d gained my new power. Unlike Ryuu, I didn’t think she’d realized I’d apparently lost the ability. Probably a good thing. I didn’t want to deal with her joking about plugging me in and charging me. Or using people I cared about to try to pull my power out of me. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

  William’s eyes never left my face and I sighed. “I can now sometimes see things that happened in the past. I didn’t think it was a big deal, okay?”

  “And this has been going on for how long?”

  “Um, not long,” I mumbled in response and I thought I heard Jade snort. I hated how sheepish my voice sounded. I wasn’t a child. I squared my shoulders and returned his gaze. “Since right after the battle. It’s only happened a few times. It didn’t seem that important.”

  “A few times?” Alec repeated and I groaned inwardly. In exchange for him not ratting me out, I’d promised to tell him if it ever happened again. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  William spun on Alec. “You knew about this and did not tell me?”

  The two men locked eyes, glaring daggers at one another.

  “So…” Ryuu said from the stairwell where he now held up a drunk and drooping Cody. Ryuu was good for him. Hell, he was good for me. He helped to fill a void, pulled me and Cody out of our funks after Josh’s death. Well, for the most part—the part that everyone saw, at least. “It was Baldric then?” he asked.

  I put distance between myself and Alec and William in case they decided to try killing one another. Rhett wasn’t the only bullheaded one in the group, not by a long shot. “Yeah,” I answered Ryuu. “One of the Sythen.”

  “You mean it wasn’t an animal?” Annie asked in her sweet voice. She was still trying to wipe the blood from her hands with a rag.

  Jade scoffed. “Don’t be stupid.”

  Everyone grew silent. Alec sighed, running fingers through his messy blond hair. We hadn’t had an attack since the Great Battle. It had been quiet. No one had died. No battles had been fought. No creatures had gone bump in the night. It had been almost peaceful in our little kingdom—normal, or as “normal” as it could’ve been for the end of the world. The thought of Baldric being back was unnerving to say the least. We weren’t ready for that. We probably never would be.

  “He’s baaack,” Cody said, waving one hand above his head like he was talking about some sort of ghost.

  “Get him to his room,” I told Ryuu, shoving a finger at Cody. “Make sure he gets to bed and stays there this time. Tie him down if you have to.”

  Cody smirked. “You gonna tie me up, Fido? Please and thank you.”

  Alec took a step forward and I pushed him back, shooting him a look that dared him to try something.

  “All right, buddy,” Ryuu said, turning Cody around, “let’s get you upstairs. Time to sleep this off.” He mumbled something else to Cody and my shift friend laughed as they rounded the staircase for Cody’s chamber.

  “Meeting in the great hall,” William ordered, his eyes glued to mine. “We must talk. It is important.”

  I sighed. Everything with William was important.

  “Explain,” William said the moment I stepped foot into the great hall. He wasn’t wasting any time. For being an immortal, he sure was impatient.

  “Explain what?” I asked with more attitude tha
n I had intended. William had that effect on me. “There’s nothing to explain. I sometimes see into the past, that’s it.”

  Ryuu entered the room, the large wooden door creaking shut behind him.

  “What?” I sneered. “Too good to reach out and close it yourself?”

  “Don’t want to risk getting a splinter,” Ryuu said with a smirk. “They’re a nightmare to get out.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I swear, you and Alec have the laziest powers of the seven.”

  “Hey,” Alec snapped. “I walked up the stairs with you.”

  Jade snorted. “How noble of you.”

  “Zoe,” William boomed, clearly not amused by our back and forth banter. In our defense, with the shit show that was now our lives, we had to take laughs wherever and whenever we could get them. It was that or scream. Then again, in William’s defense, we were dealing with an attack on one of our people, plus the possibility of a power-hungry maniac returning to kill us all. Shit. Show.

  “Explain what you saw in this vision,” William ordered. “Now.”

  I moved around the massive two-story hall to sit beside Annie at the round wooden table in the center of the room. She reached out and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. She was too good for this life.

  “It was one of the Sythen,” I said.

  William thought over my words, staring intently out the cathedral windows overlooking the courtyard below. One of the openings was still boarded up from when I’d sent Jade sailing through it before the Great Battle. She was basically asking for it. And we got over it. Mostly.

  “And you are certain?” William asked.

  I nodded in response before realizing his back was still facing me. “Yes,” I said. “I know what I saw. Well, I didn’t actually see it. But I know that’s what attacked her. All aspects of the attack point straight to Baldric’s beasts.”