Chapter 17
Victor
Leaving Taryn again so soon makes my chest tight.
But this is necessary in order to protect her. I have to give the book to the fucking Witch Hunters so they’ll leave Covington. Then this should all be over. I can spend the rest of my life with my mate, wherever we decide to build it.
I won’t be returning to Silver Pack. They will always be the family I chose, but I’ve found my mate now. It’s time to forget about traffickers and criminals and all the things single wolves amuse themselves with. In the name of the greater good, I need to focus on Taryn.
I’ll have a family soon. My own family.
My knot is already trying to form. The instinct to breed is simmering beneath the surface.
It’ll be boiling by the time the frenzy hits.
I’ll knot Taryn until I’m absolutely certain I’ve put a baby in her belly.
The first pup of my new pack. I’d even bet money he’ll be an Alpha, like I’ll become when I form my own pack after the frenzy.
Maybe we’ll pick up some stray wolves along the way as our pack grows. Wolves that want a quieter life. Maybe Saul will even join us, if he ever retires.
There will be time for that. Time to plan. Time to watch our family grow. First, I have to get rid of this fucking book.
I take the Land Rover back to the warehouse and park outside. The book is in my backpack. I should probably have Saul here, just to be safe, but I think the mating bond has me itching for a fight, especially as violence is the more permanent solution to a threat to my mate.
I step out of the SUV, but as I do, everything around me freezes. Even the birds go silent. I look around in confusion. Then a seam appears near the front of the warehouse. It’s like the frozen image of time is opened, and behind it is nothing. What the fuck?
A man steps through, wearing jeans and a plain black shirt, similar to what I’m wearing. His hair is blond and his beard is thicker than mine. As soon as I catch his scent, I tense up. He’s not a man at all.
“You’re a wolf,” I exclaim, testing whether I can move before walking closer.
“A little more than a wolf,” he responds flatly. “I’m one of Mother Fate’s emissaries. The highest honor a wolf can achieve. My name is Finn.”
“You stopped time?” I ask, still looking around in amazement.
“Yes, so we can have a conversation. One you’re not going to like,” he warns. “You can’t give that book to the Witch Hunters. You need to return it to your mate.”
I growl under my breath. “My mate cast one spell and now we’ve got five Witch Hunters in Covington. She’s not going to actually use the book to cast spells, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“It’s not a book of spells,” he clarifies. “It’s a book of rituals. Seven of them. She did one… poorly… and it rattled her fate-block enough for Mother Fate to sense her. Once her druid sight improves, she will need to do all of them, in order.”
“Why?” I grind out, already calculating my attack. I really don’t like fighting wolves, and I like killing them less, but I will if I have to.
“I can’t hold this time-lock long enough to explain it,” he hurries to explain himself.
“You’re splitting it into too many potential timelines with your thoughts, and since you keep doing it, I’ll tell you that none of them end with you winning the fight.
I can see your moves coming before you think them.
You’ll never see mine until they hit you. ”
I listen to him, still considering my options.
If he can manipulate time, he may be right.
But my wolf won’t let me believe him until I actually see it.
One spell has caused enough trouble. I have no interest in putting Taryn in that kind of danger.
Mother Fate may have brought us together, but she also left Taryn in that moldy basement.
If she wanted to find her, she could have.
Besides, we don’t answer to her. Or her messenger.
I toss my backpack to the ground, leap at him, and shift.
He stands exactly where he is, and right before I clamp down on his throat, he’s gone.
I hit the ground and spin just in time to get punched in the throat so hard it sends all seven hundred pounds of me flying into the air.
I thud against the ground, gasping for my next breath, my windpipe as close to fractured as it’s ever gotten.
“Can we stop now?” he asks. “You can keep missing and I can keep hitting you, but we’re just wasting time.”
I’ve never met anything I can’t kill before. I’m a little rattled, but I can admit when I’m outmatched. And smart enough that I don’t need it punched into my head more than once. I won’t be any use to my mate if I let this fucking emissary beat me unconscious.
“You can waste time while it’s frozen?” I grunt, chagrined as I shift back into my human form. I’m glad I brought a change of clothes as I dig into my backpack. “If you can’t tell me about the rituals, tell me what we’re going to do about the Witch Hunters. They want this book. Today.”
“We can kill them together or I can take care of it myself,” he answers succinctly, like he’s discussing the weather.
Okay then. Maybe I’m going to like this guy more than I thought.
Time unfreezes around us and it’s kind of startling how every sound and scent comes rushing back instantaneously. Finn is still standing in front of me, so I straighten up and pay attention.
“They’re preparing their weapons already,” Finn says. “They never intended to let you walk out. I’ll handle them.”
“No reason for you to have all the fun,” I grin. “Give me a minute. I don’t want to tear up my clothes again.”
Finn waits until I put everything away, toss the backpack into the SUV, and shift.
He doesn’t call his wolf. Maybe he can’t do his time tricks if he’s in wolf form.
Either way, I’m a little giddy, because I need to rip something apart after getting humbled by this fucking emissary of Mother Fate.
Maybe I should have known fighting a shifter who works for a goddess would be biting off more than I could chew.
Well, now he’s on my side. No harm, no foul.
The fear I smelled from the Hunters earlier is gone. Now the warehouse reeks of anticipation. Ambush scent. Men waiting to spring a trap.
I crash through a window, fangs bared. The Witch Hunters were expecting me to walk through the front door in human form. They scramble to reposition their weapons as I charge across the open space, hurling myself toward the kid. They said he was gifted. He dies first.
The kid nearly stabs me, but suddenly his dagger is gone and he’s just plunging nothing into my belly. It tickles as I clamp down on his throat and rip it out clean to his spine.
I spin around and the others are all looking around in a panic.
Their weapons are gone. I guess the time trickster took care of that.
Well, now this is sort of unfair. I feel a tiny twinge of remorse before they start running, but it doesn’t keep me from finishing them all off, one scream at a time.
The Witch Hunter problem is permanently solved. I shift and wipe blood off my mouth as I rise to my feet.
“Neat tricks,” I say. “Where did all their weapons go?”
“Far away from here,” he chuckles. “You wanted to have fun, so I just made it easier. Did you have fun?”
“I’ve had worse days,” I smirk, looking around. “Now that we’ve dealt with them, tell me what this is about. Why does Taryn need to do seven rituals or whatever.”
“When Ishtar was slain by Gilgamesh, she did more than shield one of her druids with a fate-block. She also created a spell divided into seven rituals,” he begins.
“You said it wasn’t a book of spells,” I interject.
“It isn’t, but when all seven rituals are completed, it will cast one. A reincarnation spell,” he continues. “Mother Nature will be reborn.”
My head snaps back slightly. “What the fuck? Reborn?”
“It’s taken a long time for the spell to find a druid. Even longer for that druid to finally understand enough to rattle the fate-block,” he says.
“Mother Fate couldn’t find one druid in the entire world, even if they were fate-blocked?” I ask, narrowing my eyes suspiciously. “That seems hard to believe.”
“Believe it or don’t. It’s the truth. Fate-blocks are designed that way and Ishtar used powerful magic to create the one that shielded her last living druid,” he says. “She needed it to last long enough that she wouldn’t have Gilgamesh breathing down her neck the moment she came back to life.”
“What happened to Gilgamesh anyway?” I ask. “Didn’t he take Mother Nature’s power?”
“No. He tried, but he wasn’t strong enough.
No human or shifter is strong enough to contain the power of immortality.
Only a god or goddess has that kind of strength,” he answers.
“Gilgamesh died alone and miserable. Mother Fate refused to take his life. She just made sure he never found a mate. He wanted to be a shifter so much… she thought it was only fair he should suffer like she knew many would with Ishtar gone.”
I process it all, trying to decide what the right move is. This is way bigger than me, but it involves my mate, so I will have to be bigger than I am.
“Will these rituals harm my mate in any way?” I question.
“No, they will not. She is a druid and with the fate-block broken, her magic should begin to bloom. Eventually, her druid sight will be good enough to see through the cipher,” he assures me.
“It’s not really a cipher, just a disguise to make the right person curious enough to investigate it further. ”
“Right now, we’re in the middle of a mating bond, as I’m sure you and Mother Fate both know,” I counter. “We’re not really in a position to do rituals.”
“Mother Fate does not wish to disturb that. The rituals can be done after the frenzy,” he says. “I’m only here to make sure you don’t give the book away. It needs to stay with Taryn until she can perform the rituals.”
“What would have happened if I’d given them the book?” I ask, gesturing to the Witch Hunters. “I assume you’ve already seen that possibility if you could see the attacks I was still thinking about.”
“They were planning to ambush you. They expected you to have Saul with you,” he replies. “They would have won if you went in there alone. The kid was more gifted than they let on.”
“Fucking hell,” I swear with enthusiasm, glancing at the kid’s corpse. “Well, he’s not gifted anymore.”
“No, he’s not,” he quips dryly.
I put my hands on my hips and stare at the ground, considering everything that just happened in the last few minutes.
The mating bond has me all screwed up. I could have walked in here and gotten myself killed.
I’m picking fights with emissaries of Mother Fate herself.
I don’t need to be anywhere, except with my mate. That’s the only place I feel sane.
I look up to respond, but the time-freezing wolf is gone. The only proof he was there is a thin seam in the air that vanishes before my eyes.
I need to explain all this to Saul. To Taryn. But now isn’t the time.
Instead of an explanation, I just send Saul a text that says things didn’t work out, and the bodies need to be disposed of. He’ll arrange that, even if he thinks I brutally murdered them for no reason at all. Then he’ll ask questions.
Right now, I just need to be with Taryn. I need her in my arms. On my cock. Writhing under me, chanting my name while her tight, sweet pussy milks me dry. The mating bond is pulling me to her, telling me exactly where I should be, and it isn’t in this fucking warehouse.
As strong as the pull is now, it may be impossible to leave her again before the frenzy hits. Good thing we have room service.