Chapter Nine #2
Latoya looked up at Marcus and smirked. “The bastard was under the covers eating my pussy when he Bit me.” She tapped the inside of her thigh. “Right here.”
My stomach churned.
She didn’t choose this.
“Now, don’t get me wrong,” she added, “if you told me I had to croak or go back to being human, I would load the gun myself—just give me the damn silver bullets.” She laughed, throwing her head back as if what she’d said was funny.
The rivulets of blood that had haunted my dreams for five years were not funny.
The empty coffin buried next to my mother and father was not funny.
I ground my jaw, knowing I should refocus on the uprising but struggling with my need for answers. “There was so much blood the night you disappeared…”
The smile on Latoya’s face vanished, and her gaze dropped to the stone floor. She ran her hands over the wrinkles in her dingy tunic. “Let’s see if the pureblood can guess why.” The lack of emotion in her voice made me wince.
I’d been thankful Marcus stood behind me. That way, I didn’t have to witness the disappointment in his eyes as I strayed us farther from the mission. But I faced him then, without hesitating.
Latoya held his attention. His eyes burned with distrust, and the scowl on his face rivaled the one on Maya’s.
“Why?” I repeated.
Finally, his eyes flicked to me, softening when they met mine. He sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. “When an alpha Bites a human, he does so while considering the next full moon. Ignoring the lunar cycle adds more risk to the transformation…”
The sharp jerk of my head urged him to continue. This wasn’t the time for him to be stalling.
“Our Essence… the moment it enters the bloodstream, it begins to…” He cleared his throat. “To—”
“Kill the human it’s infected,” I declared. “I know that part.”
My directness drew Marcus’s eyebrows together, but his voice remained calm. “It’s not that simple, Joanna.” A strange sadness clouded his features. “The new moon is usually what we aim for,” he said quietly.
I conjured a mental image of the lunar calendar.
“The full moon is the final stage of transcendence for the human spirit… If a Bite happens too close to it while in the first half of the lunar cycle, the Essence has no time to settle. It’ll panic.
Death is often quick and rarely looks supernaturally caused, but it’s still very painful.
” He swallowed hard. “A Bite too late in the lunar cycle can also be fatal. The Essence has too much time. So, it all becomes…”
“Messy,” Latoya finished. “Because there’s almost no life left. There’s little for the Goddess to hold on to, to complete the transformation. So, the wolf must fight to survive—each time tearing through the flesh of a vessel that wants to cease existing.”
Maya must have clocked the confused look on my face.
“The wolf spirit is, of course, supernatural, whereas until the transformation completes, the vessel isn’t,” she explained, taking a step toward me.
“The first shift is excruciating. Muscle shredding. Bone breaking… And when a vessel is weak, the shift fails. So, the wolf spirit heals the vessel to try again. And again. Either it succeeds and takes over… or it eventually gives up.”
“We didn’t give up.” Pride shimmered in Latoya’s eyes. “Despite being Bitten on a full moon.”
Her words careened around in my head. Being Bitten during a full moon would’ve been the most volatile time. I could’ve lost my sister that night… Instead, I had a month to witness her silently die…?
I swallowed suddenly remembering to breathe. My eyes flicked to Maya’s. “Do all purebloods know the dangers of an ill-timed Bite?”
Her shoulders slumped as she nodded.
“There’s only one reason an alpha would be so reckless.” Marcus crossed his arms. “He doesn’t care if it failed.”
I wiped my clammy palms on my jeans. A bead of sweat ran down my temple as my body shook with anger. “You joined a werewolf uprising with the bastard who turned you against your will and didn’t give two flying fucks if you survived?” I hissed.
Latoya jumped to her feet. “Hell no,” she exclaimed. “Silas is nothing like that asshole.”
Marcus and Maya exchanged furtive glances. Marcus raised an eyebrow, and Maya shook her head in response.
“Who’s Silas?” I asked, grateful for a lead.
Latoya’s eyes burned with admiration. “A visionary.”
I shivered with disgust. “Spare me with that cult shit.”
She frowned. “You wouldn’t understand, little sis. Not yet. Not with what you’ve been through—what I’ve put you through.” She flung her locs over her shoulder, raising her gaze to Marcus. “But you…” She smirked. “Would you like to meet him, Alpha?”
Marcus’s eyes were slit with suspicion. “How?”
“I don’t think I’ve been a guest for long, right?
I didn’t miss the supermoon?” Latoya waited until he reluctantly nodded.
“Silas celebrates the first supermoon of every year. House party the day before. Orgy in the forest, night of the apex. Only the werewolves he trusts get an invite. You can be my plus one this year.”
“Why the hell would I trust going anywhere with you?”
Latoya walked closer to us until her shackle pulled against her ankle. “You can think what you want about me, but the one thing you can’t do is call me a liar. I promised to tell you what you wanted if you convinced Joey to see me, and I’m holding up my end.”
Marcus clenched his teeth.
“There’s a list on his phone,” Latoya continued with a sigh. “It has names and positions of humans and werewolves in the government that support our cause.”
I stiffened. “Humans,” I echoed in disbelief.
Latoya smirked. “All that shit that went down with the treaty? Yeah, that was a human. One smart enough to know the Bite would’ve been one hell of a reward, but… stupid enough to get caught.” She shrugged.
“Are there usually humans at the party?” I asked.
She picked at her cuticles. “Yeah, a few. Some know what’s up. Some don’t. That’s what makes it so fun.” She looked up at the Alpha. “Regardless, Mucus, I don’t need to trick you. I want you to hear what Silas has to say.”
“And he will. We both will.”
Marcus uncrossed his arms and growled, glaring down at me. “No, Joanna,” he said, at the same time Latoya snapped, “Hell no.”
“Good thing I’m a grown-ass woman, and neither of you are my parents,” I declared, addressing the werewolves before me. “We should go, Marcus.”
Latoya growled. “I know we established this, sis, but you are a hunter. Sister or not, they will kill you before we step out of the car.”
I shrugged. “I can dampen my aura. They won’t be able to tell.”
“Joanna.” Marcus grabbed my biceps, rocking me as he emphasized, “I. Don’t. Trust her.”
Latoya sucked her teeth. “Do you really think I’d let anything happen to her, you piece of shit?”
He ignored her as he spoke to me. “I’m not putting you in danger. We’d be outnumbered. And let’s not forget we’d be reuniting her with her corrupt pack.”
“I’ve been wanting to get back to my sister for five fucking years,” she snapped.
“My pack don’t mean shit where she’s concerned.
But how ‘bout we address the fact that your scents are all over each other? You don’t think they’ll find it odd that my human sister—the one I haven’t seen in years—happens to have a werewolf boyfriend? ”
I didn’t even have the strength to argue with the word.
Relief rushed across Maya’s face. “I hate to admit it, but the rogue has a point.”
Marcus’s frown deepened. Because he knew…
“I can mask our scents.”
Latoya chuckled. “Body spray ain’t gonna cut it, Joey.” She glanced at Marcus, noticing the knit in his brow. “She’s serious?”
He nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off me. “She’ll use magic.” The way I’d done to hide that Ethan and I had been sleeping together.
I realized Marcus was still holding me, so I shrugged off his hands. “I’d have to change the spell a bit, but it shouldn’t be that hard to do.”
Latoya squealed, clapping her hands. “Is my sister a badass witch?”
“Not in the slightest,” I mumbled even as fleeting pride flickered in my chest.
At that moment, I feared Latoya would ask me what so many others loved to ask: whether I could do tracking spells. The answer was always the disappointing same: No matter how many books I’ve read, no matter how hard I tried, the magic I possessed simply wasn’t strong enough.
It would’ve made my job as a hunter much easier if I could skip all the dangers of tracking and recon before a kill.
But over three hundred and thirty million people lived in the States alone.
I had a better chance of finding a needle in a haystack.
And if anyone needed proof, well… she was standing right in front of me.
“Can Grace come up with something to get me in that phone?” Marcus asked his gamma.
Maya gave a single, slow nod of her head. “I think so.”
I relaxed my shoulders. “What is Silas planning to do with the list?”
“Good old-fashioned blackmail, Joey,” Latoya answered with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“After the plan with the treaty failed, Silas figured maybe he should give a diplomatic approach a try. He wanted to give the fuckers time to adjust—time they needed to implement the new order in their pathetic lives on a schedule that was more than generous, if you ask me. But then…” Latoya shrugged.
“But then what?” Marcus barked.
The light in Latoya’s eyes vanished. “You stormed into our clubhouse and slaughtered my friends,” she sneered.
“Oh, is that it?” Marcus mocked. “I thought you were going to say something of value.”
Her face contorted. “You fucking—”
“Latoya,” I demanded, “what were you doing at the warehouse?”
Her scowl softened into a frown when she looked at me.
“We were the monitors. Silas was going to divide the names of our supporters. It would’ve been our job to give the ones assigned to us some…
inspiration, in case they planned on dragging their feet.
Some need reminding that there’s no use in fighting the inevitable. ”
She smirked, walking to her cot.
“As for why it matters, Joey… well, think of it this way.” She sat, flinging her feet up and crossing them at her ankles.
“You try to diffuse a bomb with ten minutes on the clock, and whoops, you fucked up and cut a wire you shouldn’t have.
What happens? That timer now says fifty-nine seconds.
” Latoya clapped her hands slowly, the gesture dripping with mockery.
“Congratulations, y’all. You cut the wrong fucking wire.
I hope y’all work well under pressure. Tick. Tick. Boom.”