Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
In the entryway, I took two steps, fell against the wall, and shook my head to clear it.
My wolf showed his teeth, his eyes gleaming. Mate has power, he said with approval. Beauty and power.
Alice’s wards on both her own home and this house were strong and masterfully made, but now was not the time to admire them.
“Alice!” I shouted. “Alice, I’m here!”
Still no answer. I lurched through the foyer, bumping into the wall twice and knocking several framed photos askew.
One staggering step at a time, I made it past a living room full of kitschy cat knickknacks and art and down a long hallway, following the odors of magic, fire, and burned flesh. My stomach churned.
Finally, at the back of the house, I found Alice.
She lay face down, unmoving, in a large bedroom near a doorway that lead to a small library.
To my horror, most of Alice’s clothes had burned away, except for her leather jacket, which she’d somehow had the presence of mind to pull up and over her head and face.
Her exposed skin had what looked like second-degree burns.
The agony must have been overwhelming. She’d likely gone into shock. Passing out had been a mercy.
Nearby, a strange fire had left a six-foot circle of charred hardwood floor between a queen-sized bed and a closet door. A thin, red-haired woman lay crumpled and motionless just outside the circle. She appeared unconscious but otherwise unharmed.
At first glance, it looked like despite her injuries, Alice had managed to crawl from the burned circle to reach her shoulder bag and call for help. Her phone lay beside her outstretched hand with blood on its screen.
“Jesus,” I breathed, going to my knees beside her. “Alice?”
She made a tiny sound that ripped through my heart like blades.
Her phone screen read Wolf-Call Ended. Our call must have cut off when I crossed the house wards.
She’d kept my number after all.
Suddenly, I no longer minded that she’d tagged me as Wolf. My wolf certainly didn’t mind; even through his boundless rage and worry, he seemed smugly satisfied.
Gently and carefully, I rolled her onto her back. Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. I pressed my fingertips to her wrist and started to breathe a little easier when I found her pulse was weak but steady. She moaned.
With the most tender touch I could manage, I scooped her up and rose. Her cry of pain made my guts twist, and my wolf howled in rage and grief.
“I’m taking you to a hospital,” I said, unsure if Alice could even hear me in this condition.
She startled me by attempting to fight. “No,” she wheezed, kicking her feet. “No hospital. Malcolm…”
“Who is Malcolm?” I demanded.
Something cold gripped my right bicep, and I felt a strange tug on my shifter magic. For the first time, I sensed the telltale chill of a ghost nearby. I’d been too focused on Alice earlier to notice.
I snarled at my unseen companion. “Who’s here?”
“Ghost,” Alice whispered. “Help Malcolm.”
My wolf tried to shove me toward the door, toward my car and the safety of a hospital or my home, but I needed to focus on making the right decisions.
I pushed the wolf back and demanded, “Help him how?”
The reply came not from Alice, but out of thin air. “Help me save her.” The very strained voice sounded like it belonged to a young man who was maybe in his twenties.
I’d never spoken to a ghost before. At any other time, this would have been a novel experience, but my concern for Alice and anger about her injuries overrode everything else.
“Where are you?” I asked, my wolf’s growl making my human voice rough.
“I’m right next to you,” the ghost said, clearly irritated. “I need to pull energy from you.”
I didn’t understand why Alice didn’t want to go to a hospital, or why this ghost needed some of my energy, but my instincts told me to do as they asked—at least for now.
“Do it!” I snapped. “Help her!”
In my arms, Alice let out another wheeze, and then said, “No hospital, Malcolm.” Her voice was little more than a wisp, and yet it sounded like a command. What was the relationship between Alice and this ghost?
“I won’t let him take you,” Malcolm assured her.
My wolf disliked their dismissal of my desire to get Alice medical help as much as I did. His growl escaped my human mouth.
Malcolm’s cold hand gripped my upper arm again, and this time he drew urgently on my alpha magic and energy.
“I need power so I can try to heal her,” the ghost said before I could ask what he was doing.
Alice suddenly stopped fighting to escape. As Malcolm siphoned energy, I adjusted her position in my arms. Her head flopped against my chest.
“Alice?” I called. “Alice!”
She didn’t respond. She must be drifting in and out of consciousness again.
A painful surge of natural magic rolled over me. It felt like the kind Alice had, but it wasn’t her own power prickling painfully on my skin.
Green earth magic pulsed and sparkled over her burned skin. I watched closely, hoping it would heal her injuries immediately, but saw only minor improvements.
I growled in Malcolm’s general direction. “Do more.”
“Stop distracting me!” the ghost snapped.
With a raspy sigh, Alice went completely limp in my arms. Her racing heartbeat pounded so loudly I could have heard it from the next room.
“It’s the healing spell,” the ghost explained without needing to be asked, his voice even more strained now. “They hurt like you wouldn’t believe and they’re hard on the heart. Keep checking her pulse. If it gets worse, I’ll have to stop using them or she’ll have a stroke.”
My wolf howled again. “Then we’re going to a hospital,” I stated and headed for the bedroom door.
A blast of cold air washed over me, as if the ghost had flown through or around me to get between me and the bedroom door. His anger and magic crackled against my skin. I stopped short, growling.
“We are going nowhere,” Malcolm said flatly, from what sounded like inches away from my face.
“If she said no hospital, then it’s no hospital, period, end of discussion.
Use your head, whoever the hell you are.
She’s a strong mage and she lives in a house with more wards than Vamp Court headquarters.
She said she can’t go to a hospital. That means she’s in hiding, numbnuts. ”
For one of the rare times in my life, I found myself so full of both rage and surprise that I was at a loss for words.
“So if you try to take her out of here,” Malcolm added, now with menace, “I will drop your ass with a sleep spell, keep using your energy for healing, and leave you snoring on the floor instead of actually doing things that will help Alice survive this. Capisce?”
The ferocity of Malcolm’s voice made two things clear: first, this ghost felt fiercely protective of Alice; and second, he was perfectly capable of following through on his threat to knock me out.
If Malcolm was right and Alice was in hiding, I couldn’t take her either to the hospital or a mage who might be able to heal her.
Nor could I call on my pack for their help, because I didn’t know exactly who posed a threat.
That meant Alice’s life—the life of the woman my wolf wanted as his mate—was in my hands and those of a ghost I couldn’t even see.
“Then you keep her alive,” I said, my voice harsh with my wolf’s anger and frustration. “And tell me what the hell is going on.”