Twelve
My bedroom door slams open just as I’ve finished talking to Katie Wilks. She runs our extortion operations, targeting politicians, billionaires, lobbyists, anyone and everyone in power from all over the world. She’ll know whose arm to twist to get every government agency in America to crack down on the Death Hunt without digging further into our own crimes. While the wolves are distracted by the police, we’ll go after Micha.
I jerk my head up as I stand, expecting it to be Khalid in my bedroom. He made a soul doll of my wife a few minutes ago and has been watching and hearing everything that’s been happening to her. I tried to order him to let me listen in, but he refused, so I have been imagining the worst ever since.
“Is she –”
I start before I clock it’s Dayne.
His eyes cold with fury, he lunges for me, but with a burst of speed, I tackle him into the hall. If he’s going to beat the shit out of me, I don’t want him damaging the room. All of Micha’s things are in here, our memories. And Bambi sits on my bedside table. Although she’s protected by magic, if he even gets close to harming her, I don’t give a shit if he’s Micha’s best friend or not. I’ll kill him.
As we hit the ground, he elbows me in the face. My head cracks to the side, and he uses the momentum to roll me under him. Kneeling between my legs, he tries to punch me in the jaw, but I raise my left arm to block him at the same time I throw my right fist into his liver.
He falls forward from the pain, but he takes that as an opportunity to headbutt me in the face. Stars explode in my vision, followed by a sharp pain as his teeth scrape across my cheek. He would’ve torn a chunk out rather than just damaged my flesh if I hadn’t managed to shove him back. Godsdamn, the fucker fights dirty. The fact he isn’t using his magic, though, tells me he doesn’t want me dead… Yet.
But as much as he deserves to kick the shit out of me, and as much as I want to let him punish me for my sins, I don’t have time for this. I have a dozen people I need to call and a hundred arms to break until I get my fucking wife back.
So I shove my elbow into his throat, pushing him back to free up space to move my legs. Swinging out from under him, I stand, grab the back of his head, and then knee him hard in the face.
He falls back, and I jump into the air, having expected him to try to kick at my legs. I twist horizontally and land beside him. He arches back to jump to his feet, and my eyes narrow at how fast he’s recovered. He isn’t a healer; that knock should have kept him down.
“Wait,”
I order. Despite his grievances, I am still his Boss. There is a moment, when Dayne lands on his feet and looks at me, that I don’t think he’s going to listen, but then he stills. The rage in his eyes doesn’t die, but it is controlled. Family brawls aren’t punishable; disobeying a direct order is.
“I know it’s my fault she’s gone,” I say.
“We could have had a chance if she didn’t have to keep going for that stupid wand,”
he growls.
I have seen how fast Antonio can move, but Micha’s fire could’ve actually saved her. It eats magic, and it can burn through a werewolf’s natural resistance to spells. She could have had time to get to the safe room in the basement if she hadn’t had to run upstairs first for her wand. Or she could have stood outside it, standing behind a line of fire Antonio couldn’t cross.
“I know,”
I say, feeling that guilt harder than anything he could ever pack into a fist. “But right now we need to focus on saving her.”
“Which I could’ve done already if you hadn’t removed my fucking tracker.”
“We know where she is.”
Roughly, but when we go in, I can lead us directly to her.
“How?”
I think about lying and just telling him Khalid made a soul doll of her, but my paranoia is what got her into this mess. I didn’t trust my brothers enough to tell them we had bonded, so Talon thought she’d be an easy patsy. I didn’t trust her when I tortured her for Khalid’s whereabouts. And I didn’t trust any of my men to watch her while we went after Antonio. It’s about time I trusted someone other than the reaper. If Micha trusts him, then so will I.
Breathing out slowly, I say, “We’ve bonded.”
“You sonofabitch. You’re not happy enough just ruining one of her lives? You have to ruin them all? So what the fuck are we still doing here?”
I start to tell him the plan when I sense Khalid hurrying down the hall. I turn just as he reaches us. The look on his face makes my stomach drop. “What is it?”
“Terra Harrison is alive, and they’re using Micha’s blood to target yours.”
I start to push past him to go find Aleric, but the vampire phases in front of me, his eyes on Khalid.
“Do they know Cara is here?”
he demands.
“They didn’t mention her.”
He disappears, hopefully to bring her here. If Terra really is alive, Cara’s the only one who has a chance of countering her diseases.
“It will take her a few weeks to create something,”
I say, forcing myself to concentrate on the news rather than my imagination as I think about every vile way they could be taking her blood. Cutting off her limbs. Hanging her upside down with her throat slit, healing her just enough she stays alive. “So that gives us a deadline.” I turn to Dayne. “I need you to take Maddox’s face until we rescue Micha. Antonio thinks you’re dead, so your absence won’t cause suspicion, but his will.”
“Where will he be?”
“With Zita. He’s plan one. If she isn’t killed on sight, she will smuggle him in. He’ll then take Micha into his shadows and get out.”
He shakes his head. “They have a witch. They will screen for –”
“They won’t find him.”
His eyes narrow as he tries to figure out how Maddox is going to pull that off, but I don’t have time to explain it to him, then argue about the statistics of it actually working. I am already worried I’ve just given my youngest brother a death sentence; I don’t need to see his concern too.
“Who’s changing me?”
Dayne asks, and I like that he isn’t just agreeing to anything to get Micha out. It means he still has his head on his shoulders, able to calculate risk and return. He’s no good to me if he’s a slave to his emotions.
“Mother.”
Relief flutters across his face, followed by a grimace. This isn’t an easy thing I’ve asked of him. Changing one’s body with magic comes with a lot of risk. He could be killed or permanently disfigured or have his brain turned into mush. Talon used to handle these things, so Mother is a bit rusty in this area, but she knows the body well.
“Alright, but if I die, you tell Micha I survived Antonio. I don’t want her blaming herself for my death.”
She’ll just blame me.
So I might lose her anyway.
My throat tightens.
But at least she’ll be alive.
I nod at him, and he walks away. Taking a deep breath, I turn to Khalid. “What are they doing to her?”
His eyes bore into mine. “She bit off a guy’s nose, then ate it,”
he says instead. “She’ll survive until we get to her.”
I glance away, both proud of her and horrified. If she antagonizes them too much –
He clasps a hand on my shoulder. “Trust her to handle herself, Varius.”
She shouldn’t have to.
Swallowing hard, I nod. Tears burn my eyes, and I look away. He drops his hand. “Anything else?”
I ask, my voice rough.
“He wants to bring Siome back from the Underworld.”
My head jerks to him. “How?”
“Don’t know.”
But if we can figure that out, we can finally be one step ahead of him. “Get Rudy on this.”
It’s a job that’ll keep him away from everyone and give him a chance to recover.
Khalid looks at me, his face a mask. “You haven’t been to see him, have you?”
I tense, guilt twisting my stomach. When we attacked Antonio’s men at the crocodile park a few hours ago, Rudy fought one of the hybrids on his own. He was cut to pieces, mauled, bitten, damn near torn in half; if he were anyone else, he’d be dead. But he’s terrified of being stuck alive in a body that’s long since died, so he turned his own nightmare into reality. He won that fight, but it cost him too much.
When he helped me reach the site of Micha’s abduction, with one arm around my waist, practically walking for me, I could feel his magic boiling beneath his skin. Normally, he would hide in the Plane of Monsters for weeks, maybe even months while he regained control of it, but with my wife missing, he’s stayed here to help.
“No... How is he?”
I push out with my senses, searching for his heartbeat. It is easier for me to detect now with my curse broken, but I don’t relax when I find it beating calmly. It should be erratic like it always is when he’s on the verge of losing control.
“Stormie wrapped him in a shield,”
Khalid says, his jaw tight. He doesn’t need to say anything more for me to know what happened.
Stormie Green, the daughter of an old family friend (now dead), became engaged to Enoch for a political alliance. She grew up with the twins and was a firecracker, always rough housing with them before she hit her ascension and was taught how to be a lady. One day, after she learned how to control her shielding magic, Rudy roped her into helping him do something stupid. He damn near gave me a heart attack then, and I feel like I’m suffering one now.
Spinning on my heels, I head for his bedroom and enter without knocking. My heart is lodged so far up my throat, I am choking on it.
“Are you –”
I start to shout, but then I find him sleeping.
He looks peaceful for once.
I just know what that peace has cost him.
Breathing out hard, my body shuddering, I walk over to him. I sit down on the edge of his bed, knowing he’s out cold. There have only been two times in his life that I’ve seen him at peace. When Stormie shielded him as a kid and now.
“Fucking hel, Roo,”
I mutter as I stroke his red curly hair like I used to do when he was a kid. For once, his head isn’t damp with night terrors.
The first time I saw him sleeping like this, I was so happy for him. I finally got a night’s sleep myself, having been up in his room every night previous, protecting him from the horrors of his mind as his magic pulsed out of control. But then I found out how he’d been able to find such peace, and I nearly killed Stormie for it.
She’s a shielder, able to wrap her magic around people so nothing can escape the bubble – not their body, their own magic, or even any monsters they call forth. But she can only stop that power from escaping; she can’t stop it from manifesting.
When I cornered her for answers that first time, having found her shaking and vomiting and looking close to death, she told me that inside her bubble, Rudy had released every nightmare, every fear, every agonizing terror his mind could come up with.
He had lived a hundred deaths, watched us all die in a thousand different ways. He’d been raped and beaten and eaten alive – then all three at once. He was set on fire, beheaded, strangled with his own intestines. The entire bubble filled with rats and snakes, and when they ran out of space, they started to eat their way into his body. And those were all the ‘easy’ things.
When it got too much, Stormie turned the shield opaque to protect her own mind. She refused to speak of the last thing she saw. His torment went on for hours after that.
He did it then so I could have a single night’s rest.
He did it now so I could rely on him in the coming war, so he wouldn’t have to hide in the Plane of Shadows while we fought this battle without him.
“I’m supposed to be the one protecting you,” I mutter.
Yet another thing I’ve failed at recently.
Feeling so damn tired, I’m tempted to lie down beside him. I used to share his bed when he was a kid, jerking awake every time he flinched or whimpered. It was one of the most stressful times of my life, and yet, listening to him sleep was sometimes the only way I could fall asleep myself.
I give his shoulder a squeeze, then climb to my feet. As much as sleep calls to me, I can’t rest until I save my wife.