Doyle (Sky Stead #2)

1. Doyle

CHAPTER ONE

DOYLE

THE PAST

Cocooned in the warmth of William's embrace, I didn't want to get up. I knew I had to. Zane was expecting me in his study.

Ivan wanted to discuss our next step against Liliana Payne's coven. But was it a sin to want to spend a few more moments with the man I loved?

William reached out, tucking aside a stray strand of hair that had fallen across my face. I took William's fingers and kissed them fervently.

The gesture made William laugh, the sound music to my ears.

Never in my long life had I imagined finding contentment in the arms of another, of a sweet and pure soul like William.

"Will you tell Zane and Ivan about my plan?" William asked me.

"Your plan?" I scoffed.

William looked hurt, and that didn't sit well with me.

"William, black witches cannot be bargained with," I reminded him.

"Look what Liliana's coven has done so far. They've taken shifter children, even white witches and warlocks apprentices, from their homes only to turn them into familiars to use and abuse as they please." I couldn't keep the hatred out of my voice.

I'd been part of black magic user eradication teams and had seen firsthand what these so-called magic users had left behind—broken minds and broken bodies that were unsalvageable.

William, though, still believed good existed in everyone.

"Doyle, you must trust in me and my abilities more. To avoid further bloodshed between the shifters and witches, allow me to negotiate," William said, a plea in his voice.

I cupped William's cheek and gazed into his dark brown eyes.

"You are too good for this world, do you know that?" I asked him.

William laughed. "Will you tell Zane and Ivan of my proposal?"

Every fiber in my being didn't want to. William was selfish, asking such a thing of me. Taking such a terrible risk.

"What if I end up losing you?" I asked, hating how weak I sounded.

This was what William reduced me to. He made me weak and in this war, our enemies could exploit that weakness easily.

"I'll always be with you, my love," William said, placing a hand over my heart, and when he pulled it away, he left the shadow of his handprint there.

"I promise," William said, giving me a quick kiss on the mouth.

Later, I met with Zane and Ivan in Zane's study.

"I propose a raid to take out members of Liliana’s coven and perhaps Liliana herself as quickly as possible," Ivan said.

Typical Ivan. He always thought with his teeth, claws, and flames rather than with his head.

"The captives would be caught in the crossfire," Zane pointed out.

"They are lost to us anyway," Ivan said with a shrug. "Consider them unavoidable casualties."

"Ivan, that would make us monsters, no different from these black magic users,” Zane said dryly.

"I--or rather William has a proposal," I said.

Every instinct in my body screamed against the idea. Even my inner dragon rebelled against it, but it was William's request, and I respected his wishes.

"William wants to try negotiating with Liliana," I said.

"Fool," Ivan muttered under his breath.

At that moment, I snapped and came at him, partially shifting my claws in the process. Ivan, merely dodged my blows, a smirk on his arrogant face.

Zane got between us, easily shoving the two of us apart.

"Enough. We cannot have the two of you fighting now. Doyle, explain," Zane said.

"William has a proven track record of mediating between two supernatural groups," I pointed out. "Let him try. William wants to avoid further bloodshed. We've lost a lot of shifters on our side."

Zane considered me a moment.

"This is foolishness," Ivan grumbled.

"It is worth a shot," Zane admitted. "We'll send a messenger to Liliana and proceed from there."

I touched the mark William left behind on my body. Right now, it was hidden under my clothes, but I could still feel its warmth.

Keep your promise , I desperately thought. Because if William was taken from me in this war, I would be lost. William was my heart. If he disappeared, I doubted I'd ever find my way back.

THE PRESENT

The pain woke me up. Tangled and covered in sweat in my bedsheets, I briefly touched William's handprint over my heart. The pain was irrelevant.

I welcomed it because it was a reminder that William was still watching over me, even now.

I turned to my side, half expecting to see William's face, his smile, but there was only empty space.

A century had passed since they took him away from me, and yet I have missed his presence every single day.

They say a shifter who lost his mate lived a half existence, and it was true enough.

Some days, I could barely get out of bed, let alone function properly. Revenge for William was the only thing that kept me going.

Otherwise, I would be rotting in the grave by now.

The sound of a child's laughter, followed by a thud from downstairs, made me sit up. Vengeance and family, I reminded myself. I scrubbed at my face, wondering what day it was.

After I returned to Sky Stead with Draven, our newest pack member, and his mate Tobias, Zane had been concerned for my mental state.

I couldn’t blame him. As the lead alpha of the group, it was his job to look out for everyone.

He thought seeing Draven with his newfound mate would make me think of William and thus, make me feel suicidal again. So Zane asked me to stay with him and his family for the duration.

I appreciated Zane's concern, but some days, he really needed to mind his own business.

A knock came on the guest bedroom door. Before I could tell whoever it was to go away, it opened, revealing Zane's kids, Ariel and Porter.

Both kids were, thankfully, in their human forms. They pounced on me without reserve, and I soon forgot about the dream I had about William.

"Uncle Doyle, Daddy made pancakes for breakfast," Ariel announced.

She slid next to me and flashed a toothy grin. While she had Otis' hair and eyes, she had inherited Zane's dragon. She was a miniature of him in some ways.

"Will you eat with us?" Porter asked anxiously.

He was the shyer and more reserved of the two.

"Yes, I'll have breakfast with your dads," I told the kids.

I thought of William again and wondered about what might have been. Unlike Otis, William was not an omega shifter but a white magic user.

He'd once remarked about adopting a child or two.

Thinking about this would only dampen my mood, so I shrugged the thought away and focused on the present, on Ariel and Porter.

"Uncle Ivan's also here, along with Uncle Draven," Ariel added.

I scowled at that. Although the kids called me Uncle, I was technically Zane and Ivan's uncle by blood.

It just made things simpler for the kids to refer to me, and now Draven, as their uncles.

If Ivan and Draven were here, then it was easy to conclude Zane had called for an impromptu meeting. I sighed.

I had been looking forward to a pleasant and quiet breakfast with Zane and his family. Otis popped in and gave me an apologetic look.

"Sorry, Doyle. Did they wake you? Come along, kids,” Otis said.

"Not at all," I reassured him.

Otis reminded me a little of my William, and I was glad Zane had found such a kind and patient mate.

As Otis and the kids left, I took a quick shower before heading downstairs.

The kitchen was filled with the smell of pancakes and the sound of laughter. Zane stood by the stove, flipping pancakes with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times.

Ivan and Draven sat at the table, engaged in a heated discussion, likely about some minor matter.

Draven had been the victim of a black witch, and although we had gotten rid of her, we weren’t naive enough to believe that was the end.

"Morning," I greeted, taking a seat at the table.

The tension in the room was palpable, but I tried to focus on the warmth of the family around me.

Ariel and Porter were already digging into their pancakes, syrup smeared across their faces.

"Morning, Doyle," Zane said, placing a stack of pancakes in front of me. "Hope you're hungry."

I smiled faintly. "Starving,” I said.

As we ate, the adults made sure to keep the conversation kid-friendly. I listened to Ariel and Porter talk about school and their friends.

I found myself drifting, my mind wandering back to memories of William. His laughter, his touch, the warmth of his presence.

It was a constant ache, but being here, surrounded by family, by my pack, made it a little more bearable.

"I'll take the kids to school. See you later," Otis told Zane, kissing him on the cheek before leaving the house with the kids.

Now that it was just the adult dragon shifters in the pack, we moved on to why Zane really called us here.

“There’s been alarming reports that shifter children and teens had started disappearing,” Zane began. “Venom and I decided to look into it. I sent Ivan to work with the bears.”

Disappearances. This sounded eerily familiar. I sucked in a breath.

The exact same thing happened, a century ago. It couldn’t be, I thought and yet…wasn’t a part of me was waiting for something like this to occur?

Venom's group, the Grizzly Reapers MC, was the dominant shifter group in our area—and the only shifter group Zane trusted and called his allies.

The war against the black magic users a century ago had greatly reduced our kind's numbers.

Other supernatural groups had also begun hunting some of us down after the war.

The strong ate the weak. That was simply the way of the world, so we kept a low profile, but with the re-emergence of the Payne Coven, we simply could not stand idly by.

I could feel the room tense as Zane’s words sank in. The air grew heavy with a mixture of dread and anger.

Memories of the past resurfaced, unbidden and unwanted. A century ago, Liliana’s coven had orchestrated a similar series of abductions.

They preyed on the young and the vulnerable, turning them into familiars and using them as living batteries to fuel their foul magic. The very thought made my blood boil and my heart ache.

Ivan glanced at me, and my heart dropped, hating the sympathy in Ivan's eyes. The two of us had been antagonistic toward each other over the years.

While we disagreed on a good number of things, we came together when the pack was threatened, but I hated the look in his eyes now.

When I lost William, Ivan felt sorry for me. He still felt sorry for me, and that annoyed me to some extent.

“How many have disappeared?” I asked, trying to remain calm.

“Three, that we know of,” Zane replied, his expression grim. “All from small, isolated packs. The disappearances have been scattered across a wide area, which is why it took us some time to connect the dots.”

“It’s starting all over again,” I said. “We can’t let them get away with this.”

“This is unacceptable,” Draven agreed.

“But we need to be smart. We need a plan,” Zane reminded us.

“We can’t let history repeat itself,” Ivan said.

“I know,” Zane said, his voice steady.

There was a reason he was the lead alpha after all.

Zane continued, “That’s why we need to act fast but carefully. Venom’s bears have been gathering information, trying to trace the pattern of these abductions. They’re willing to help us, but we need to be prepared for what we’re up against.”

“Do we have any leads?” Draven asked, leaning forward, his eyes intense.

“We found animal sacrifices, bones, the usual signs of black magic activity at the areas where the kids were taken,” Ivan said. “But we haven’t managed to track down any of the witches or their followers.”

“Whoever is leading them, knows how to cover their tracks,” Zane said. “We need to be careful. We can’t afford to rush in blindly. We’ve lost too much of our kind already.”

I nodded, forcing myself to stay calm. “What’s the plan then?” I asked.

“For now, we keep a low profile,” Zane said. “We’ll coordinate with Venom’s bears, and continue to collect information. When we’re ready, we’ll strike.”

“And if they take another shifter in the meantime?” I asked, my voice shaking with barely contained rage.

“We’ll do everything we can to prevent that,” Zane said. “But we can’t let our emotions dictate our actions. We need to be strategic.”

Everyone agreed with that. Inside, I was a mess of emotions, and my gut feeling told me that whoever was in charge of this ghastly operation…it was someone I knew from the past.

Could it be Liliana Payne? We had set fire to every conceivable hiding place the Payne Coven had a century ago, but my instincts told me Liliana somehow managed to slip away. I’d never seen her remains.

Calm down, I reminded myself. For now, the best course of action was to wait.