27. Lycan #2
She gasped and fell back, landing hard on her ass. I wanted to be pleased that she’d gotten what she deserved, but my head throbbed and the beginnings of a migraine formed between my temples.
“Well?” Evelyn said.
“There is one sealed bond, but the male carries two marks. The female only one.” The witch clenched her eyes shut. “Your suspicion is correct. The bond is incomplete. The sacrifice will still be viable.”
“Perfect.” Evelyn cleared her throat and turned to the other vampires. “Prepare the other shifters. Be careful not to do too much harm. The silver has weakened their magic, but we can still wring them dry for whatever they have left.”
“What kind of fucked-up shit are you doing?” I stammered. “Using shifter blood as fuel? Are you insane?”
There was a reason her kind liked to feed on mine.
I’d heard stories of witches using shifter blood to enhance their magic, but those were old wives’ tales meant to keep us from offering ourselves to the highest bidder.
If it wasn’t wielded correctly, the magic’s power could backfire and become unpredictable. To use three of us at once…
Evelyn ignored my protest. “When the sacrifice arrives, kill her companions.”
Her imbeciles stalked off, leaving only me, her, and the vampire with the kink for violence. But I focused on what she’d said.
Her companions.
Ava.
Ava was the sacrifice. Of course she was.
Evelyn had been hunting her for weeks now.
But then, I put that together with what the witch had been looking for…
a bond. A mating bond. She found the one I had with Poe, but why would she say it was incomplete?
As much as I may have rebuked it, seething with jealousy, Ava was mated.
Unless…
Unless I had fucked it up. Unless I had altered things when I bit Poe.
An incomplete bond.
A half-formed bond.
Fuck. The realization sank into my gut like molten silver, churning my insides, setting my rage alight.
I had fucked up, but not because I’d marked Poe.
But because I hadn’t finished it. Because I’d been too much of a sentimental shit to do it to Ava or to let them complete it by marking me.
I’d been so focused on doing it the right way, I hadn’t thought about how sealing it would protect them from the rest of the world.
I’d brought Ava right to the edge, and now my stupidity was about to shove her off.
I was a fucking idiot, and now I’d probably watch her die because of it.
No, get your shit together, Mitchell.
Fight. Win.
The pack would come for me. If I focused hard enough, I sensed Poe getting closer.
The pack bonds shook with the fury of Orion’s rage and Ren’s familial devotion.
Aquila, Guin, Sol, Maeve, Mill…they were all there, beating down the doors of my salvation.
I only had to hold on a little longer. Distract her a little more.
And then the second we got out of this, the very moment I could, I’d complete the bond. I’d protect both of them with my magic, with each other’s magic, with the grounding stability of pack and family. I’d make both of them mine in every way possible, and then there’d be no going back.
“Alright, then,” Evelyn said, nodding to her pathetic sidekick. “Get him up. Bring him to the sanctuary.”
The vampire grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the chair, and I tried to put up as much of a fight as I could. But with the residual silver coursing in my veins and the possible concussion due to multiple hits in the head, I could barely see straight, let alone fight off a meathead bloodsucker.
They led me through an old manor, dust clinging to the antique furniture, wallpaper peeling from the walls, faded ancient portraits with long-forgotten people sneering down their noses in distaste at having a shifter in their home.
I stumbled over a rug, but the vampire gripped my upper arm tighter and tugged me forward.
We turned down a hallway and into the third door on the right, where my heart banged against my ribs and my knees nearly gave out.
Dark wooden walls shrouded the place in shadows, extending to matching floors.
A fireplace roared in the distance, huge and gaping, a relic of a time before central heat.
A circle had been drawn on the hardwood with tall white candles placed flickering around it.
Locust knelt at the far end, a rag wrapped around his mouth, his hands in silver cuffs by his waist. Moose sat to my left, similarly confined.
But when I met his gaze, his wolf responded with a bright green glow.
Wait, he seemed to say. Wait until they’re here. They’re coming.
“Now, now,” Evelyn sneered. “None of that. Don’t make me blindfold you.”
Meathead shoved me forward and pushed me down to my knees on the right, forming a triangle between my packmates and me.
Five women in white dresses appeared from the dark corners, taking their places in between me, Locust, and Moose.
More vampires appeared after that, chanting in a language I didn’t understand, but I understood the energy brewing in the tense atmosphere.
This was bad. Really bad.
Locust’s wild eyes darted over the space, wide and terrified. Moose sat like a predator on the hunt, ready to pounce at any second. And I looked for a distraction, anything to stall, to keep this fucking disaster from happening.
In the absence of anything substantial, I fell back on what I knew best.
I opened my mouth, and a deep belly laugh poured out, loud and boisterous, seeming to come from both my bone-deep horror and my shock at her audacity.
Evelyn froze and turned, looking more like a corpse with her rigid posture.
“Something funny, shifter?”
I laughed harder, rocking back on my heels, looking up toward the sky.
She wagged her fingers at Meathead. “Shut him up.”
“It’s just…all this,” I said, causing Meathead to stop. “Look at this spectacle. This fucking farce. You think this is going to fix you?”
Evelyn’s jaw clenched, her eyes hardening as they narrowed on me. I glanced at the witch to my right. She wasn’t a Harlot, which meant she was probably a mediocre witch at best. The Harlots had all the best magic practitioners in the world.
I swallowed against my aching throat. “If one little thing goes wrong, if your rented witches botch this…you think you’re in pain now? Whew, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
I expected her to tell Meathead to gag me. I expected one of the so-called witches to tear out my tongue or get inside my mind to shut me up. Instead, Evelyn hesitated.
“And why would they even agree to do this for you?” I furrowed my brows. “What are they getting out of it? You think whatever you paid them means anything to a group of witches? No, they thrive on power, on chaos and order.”
The pack bonds rattled inside my soul, reviving me, soaking up some of the silver. The agony of the last few hours faded into the background, bringing clarity, bringing a second wind.
Closer. Closer. Almost here.
“They’re just as likely to kill you after this is over as they are to do what you wanted in the first place.”
She looked sideways at the head witch, the one who stomped her clumsy-ass feet through my mind. Doubt flickered through her dull, crimson eyes, but the witch raced to the vampire’s side and whispered into her ear.
“I swore a vow,” she said before muttering something I couldn’t hear. I picked out syllables, mere fragments. “Work…cure the rebound…eternal greatness…”
“Bullshit,” I hissed. “Witches always have their own agenda. They’re bound by magic and blood, and nothing—”
The hit came from my right before I could brace myself for it, knocking me down to the ground.
“Shut your mouth, filth,” Meathead said. While I struggled to get myself upright, he wrapped a disgusting rag between my lips, knotting it behind my head.
Evelyn nodded at the witch and turned to face her horde of vampires. “We begin.”
The chanting grew louder. Magic spread through the room like an electric mist, suffocating and hypnotic, lulling me into a false sense of calm.
Steady now, my wolf said. Focus. Stay sharp.
I took one last breath before the pain shot down my spine like a lance, squeezing my bones, setting my skin on fire.