Chapter 10
HUNTER
Islowed my pacing to glare at the shifter-witch crowding my entryway.
“You know we only have until the next full moon to destroy the witch who cast the curse,” Constantine said, his eyes manic as he wrung his hands. “We’ve already wasted near two full days.”
This fucker stood in my house, wearing clothes provided by me, and then had the audacity to start demanding we take action.
“You were the one who informed us that Emme wouldn’t have access to her power without securing her quintet.
We will not rush this for them. They deserve their time together, and if you try to interfere, I can promise you that two dragons will tear you to pieces before you even set foot in the apartment. ”
Not that I’d let this annoying asshole make it that far.
Pursing his lips, he ran a hand through his hair, which was clean now but still tangled. He’d also refused shoes, yapping on about how the Earth energy was absorbed better through his feet. Fucking witches.
Not that I should be harboring so much animosity toward their kind when my mate was a quarter. But she was the exception. The rest of them could burn for all I cared.
“Since we have time to kill, explain it all to me in detail,” I said. “Everything you know about what Jewels did, and what will happen if this curse comes to pass.”
He let his hands fall to his sides, breathing deeply before rough words spilled from him: “Everything I learned is from gossip, and a few of my own spells. It’s not fact, but I think I’ve pieced most of it together.” Since he was the only witch I’d found since the attack, his word would have to do.
“Jewels has been planning this for near two decades,” he continued.
“She bided her time, worked with Fletcher to destabilize the shifter community, built up the allies she needed for her plan to work, while she waited for the harvest blood moon. It’s a powerful night for the Wiccans, and it’s the reason she hasn’t acted until now. ”
Hence why my former and now dead best friend showed up two nights ago. To kickstart her plan.
“So, she was waiting for the moon, building bonds with shifters—including my fucking pack—while cementing herself as an ally. She had Fletcher doing her dirty work in the background so he’d be the clear bad guy, and all the while she was moving everyone around like her own personal chess board… But not Emme?”
Constantine nodded, expression souring. “Yes, from what I’ve deduced, Emme was Fletcher’s plan, not Jewels. She doesn’t care about your mate. She had much bigger shifters to fry.”
Apparently, an entire fucking world of them.
“Why did she target us, then? If it wasn’t about Emme or our quintet?”
He shot me a look like he couldn’t believe I’d asked such a stupid question, but I needed him to give me every damn detail so I’d never be taken by surprise like that again.
“As I already said, she needed a shifter connected to Fletcher’s bloodline to end him.
That was the only way she could not only void the binding alliance her witch line had with him, but the energy of his death would be strong enough to power her curse.
Along with the moon of course. She was leaving nothing to chance. ”
“And this is such a strong, unbreakable curse, that the only way to stop it is to take Jewels out before it comes to pass. Since she’s harboring it in her body.”
He nodded, no hesitation.
“How does Emme unlocking her magic help us, then? From what I can tell, this really has very little to do with her. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when she got Fletcher’s attention, who’s dead now.”
Constantine squeezed his eyes closed, and when he opened them, they were shiny.
“Emme exists because I fucked up. I fell in love with a shifter—her mother. I didn’t expect we could have a child.
I was supposed to be an anomaly, a quirk in nature and genetics, never to be repeated again.
When she fell pregnant, I had no choice but to leave, weakening myself to keep them both safe. ”
“Wouldn’t it have been safer for you to stay and protect them both?” I suggested with a bite in my tone. The very thought of Emme not existing almost destroyed me, and more than that, the way she grew up alone was squarely on this asshole’s shoulders.
His citrus scent turned bitter. “Emme and I were a beacon together, as our magic bounced off each other. Even though she wasn’t in touch with that side of herself, it was there in her essence.
At that stage, I didn’t want to release her power, so I left.
I broke Morgan’s heart, and the best parts of her, since we were a scent match.
She at least heeded my warning to run for a few years, before it all wore her down.
When Fletcher got hold of her, I just placed more protection on Emme to hide her magical side and left them be. I always watched from afar though.”
“Even when she went into the human world?” I said, my rage a burning hole in my chest. “Alone and without any packs around her…”
He shot me another incredulous stare. “That was where she was the safest. Shifters and witches would kill us if they knew what we were. We’re not supposed to exist. We’d be viewed as a danger to them all.
” He eyed me closely. “Emme is an omega who could share her power without losing herself. From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t have the same weakness as other omegas. ”
He confirmed what we long suspected: “All omegas can share power with alphas?”
“Yes,” he said, “with bonds or scent matches. But if they share too much, it will eventually steal their beasts and will to live. They’ll lose their essences and become human.
Fletcher figured that out quite quickly in his experiments.
He powered himself and his pack for years on stolen omega energy as they simulated scent matches.
No real scent match would ever be able to drain their mate and live with themselves. ”
I sure as hell wouldn’t want to take a sliver of my mate’s energy. Not even if I was actively dying. “And you believe Emme will be exempt from these same limitations?”
His shrug told me everything. He didn’t know for sure, and I wasn’t willing to risk her.
“We’ll beat Jewels without taking any of her power,” I decided. “Just the simple act of sealing the quintet completely will increase all of our powers and beasts.”
His expression remained unreadable as he met my stare, before flinching at the dominance of my beast. “Yes, let’s hope it’s enough. If she could share her essence with you all, then you’d also share her resistance to magic. For the dragons especially, that would make them near indestructible.”
They were already near indestructible, which would have to be enough.
“Okay, so we’re working on the assumption that the witch, her coven, and any shifter allies will go to ground for the next twenty-eight days, correct?”
Constantine nodded, rubbing his right hand up and down his arm, as if he were cold. Pathetic. “Yep, absolutely. She knows she only has to stay alive until that curse is complete, and everything she’s been fighting for will fall into place.”
“Can we use magic to track her?”
He paused before letting out another one of those exaggerated breaths. Was this fucker deep breathing or some shit? Probably another part of his connection to the Earth.
“That’s my hope,” he said when he was done being Zen. “But we need to find an anchor for the spell. Something connected to Jewels or another witch she could be hiding with.”
That wasn’t going to be an easy find. Jewels was too smart and devious to just leave a trail of crumbs. I’d never fully trusted her, but she’d managed to worm her way in closer than any other witch. Her patience and overall affability had gotten her exactly where she wanted.
This was her home stretch after years acting as a sleeper agent in our cities.
I might hate the bitch, but I’d give her credit for a plan well executed.
“I’ll let you know when—” A twinge along the bond cut me off. I jolted as a surge of power flooded my veins, and my beast howled.
Constantine raised his eyebrows as if he’d felt the boom of energy, but I knew it was from my pack. As the entitled alpha, I was innately connected to all their essences, and with another surge of power, all five beasts stood beside my own in my mind. With Emme right in the core of us.
Kellan and Finley skidded into the room a second later.
“Holy fuck, did you feel that?” Kellan shouted, his hand pressed to his chest as he threw his head back. “So much power. And Emme is…”
My wolf stepped into the center with Emme’s white beast, and with that her thoughts flooded into my head. I lifted my hand to cut Kellan off, and when his tanned wolf tried to shuffle into the circle too, I crowded them back.
Slade’s dragon brushed over my flank. Snow briefly lost consciousness.
His voice in my head almost sent me spiraling, but I kept it together as my black wolf prowled up to the white one. Slade stayed with me, and while I had no idea how to communicate this way, I used the same approach as I had with my wolf: to talk like it stood in front of me.
Turning to the dragon, I asked, Is she okay?
I’m not sure if any of us are okay. But we are alive. The reply was in a register too deep for our bipedal form, and I knew I addressed them both.
His dragon backed up then and I focused on my omega. Little mate, are you okay?
There was a pause and then she replied, her voice growing higher with each word. Ah. I think so. Are we really communicating like this?
Instinct was all I had to answer that, along with the knowledge that our quintet was all but complete. Yes. I think this is part of our bond now. The power surge almost knocked us out, and Slade said you were unconscious.
She withdrew from me, and when I couldn’t handle the silence any longer, I tried again.
Little Omega? Can you hear me?
Her tone was rougher. I’m okay. But we need to figure out this mind-speak. It’s making me dizzy.
Without hesitation, I pulled away, but my retreat opened the pathway for Finley and Kellan. Their beasts poured into the bond, pushing through the circle around Emme.
I couldn’t hear what they said to her, as if we all held our own unique connection to our mate. Along with one to each of our brothers, since Slade had spoken in my mind too.
When my phone rang, I wasn’t surprised by the caller. “Get out of her head,” he snarled down the line. “The mental communication is hurting her, so until we figure out how this mind link works, let’s keep our essences to ourselves.”
As I hung up the phone, I relayed this message to Kellan and Finley in a harsh command, and they backed away from Emme too. Letting the quintet essence settle.
“They bonded,” Finley breathed, his cheeks flushed as he shook his head. “The power is fucking intoxicating, and we can mentally communicate now.”
He turned to me, and his bear approached my wolf at the same time. Can you hear me?
I nodded, and double checked I wasn’t linking to Emme again before I answered. Yes, you speak through my beast, and I can hear you.
“When I tap into the quintet power,” I said out loud, “I mentally see all six of our beasts. Emme is in the center of us, and we can all connect to one another.”
“Holy fucking shit,” Kellan crowed. “This is group chat on steroids. No one can pretend they forgot their phone or leave the chat. In. For. Life.”
“We couldn’t hear what you said to Emme,” Finley added, his expression concerned.
“I couldn’t hear you either,” I confirmed. “It appears that we have to direct our thoughts toward a specific member, at least for now. I get the feeling Emme is the one who will be able to open us up as a full group, if and when she gets used to the new bond.”
“This is a good sign.”
Constantine’s statement captured all our attentions; I’d forgotten he was even in the room.
“Your connection is stronger already,” he continued, and he looked pleased.
“You communicated across the city for starters, and it will grow with time. Even I can feel it.” He waved his hands, in the same manner most witches used to search for magic.
“Once you start to work on that bond, and keep building up your beasts with Emme’s magic, you’ll be near unstoppable. ”
“No one is building up our beasts using her magic,” I snarled, and he completely ignored me.
“Can you feel her magic?” he asked enthusiastically. “Push in behind her wolf and search for it. That’s where I had to bind it, since her beast was more dominant.”
Currently, the only thing I could feel from Emme was a surge of pleasure and need. “I don’t think she’s quite finished sealing the bonds,” I noted dryly. “I can’t sense any magic though—”
The jolt of her release cut me off, and the bond was flooded with a burst of energy, one filled with ice and fire at the same time.
My knees slammed into the ground, Kellan and Finley right beside me, and it took every ounce of my strength to keep from passing out. Constantine’s magic flooded the room, acting like a Taser, jolting us all back to reality.
“We’ve got to get to the apartment,” I bit out, hauling my aching bones up. “I think her magic finally unleashed.”
I was halfway to the garage already, with my brothers and Constantine right behind. I tried to connect with Emme through her beast, but there was no response, and Slade didn’t answer his phone.
No doubt they were unconscious after that surge, just as we’d have been if Constantine hadn’t been here to help us. My pack was unconscious, vulnerable, and possibly hurt.
We had to get there and figure out what the hell just happened.
And make sure it never happened again.