When I came back inside the living room, nothing had changed. Zeke was still dancing with Breyona while Giovanni watched with a mixture of irritation and adoration on his face. Tristan continued to glance at Holly, who was curled up on the couch watching the two dance with blush-stained cheeks. Clara and Mason looked like they wanted to join in, while Cassidy laughed at Kendrick’s terrible moves.Only Asher noticed me come back in, his dark stare soft as it turned to my face. There must’ve been something—some fragment of truth in my expression because his eyebrows slid into a grimace and his jaw tightened.“What is it?” He asked, coming to my side.I held the papers in my grasp, still trying to process what the hell I’d just read. The envelope with Breyona’s name on the front sat at the very top, another hole in my heart because I knew this letter would dampen her mood. It was from her parents, a last farewell to their only daughter before they were murdered.The single envelope felt
There wasn’t much of a sleepover after that, though it wasn’t for a lack of trying.Cassidy and Clara could feel the tension in the room and knew from the looks on our faces that what we talked about hadn’t been good. Soon after wrapping up, Breyona came downstairs, her eyes raw and red with the opened envelope clutched in her hand.I knew Breyona needed space, but I also knew that leaving her alone wasn’t the right thing to do. It didn’t take much convincing to get her to say, but I think deep down she wanted someone to confide in, someone who understood.After promising Cassidy I’d show up to training tomorrow, she and Kendrick left, following Mason and Clara. The four planned on going out for drinks, and I was glad they were able to continue their night. Staying here would’ve just meant drowning in all of our foul moods.Holly decided to stay, and I found I was genuinely glad she did, even if she had to leave early the next day for a therapy appointment.Late in the night, Breyona,
“A curse. Now there’s a damn curse we have to deal with?” Zeke sputtered, his voice flooding the cars speakers.I turned the volume down a notch, wincing as I glanced over at Asher. He was chiseled from stone, his arm rigid as he held the wheel, eyes narrowed on the highway ahead.“I told you what the Shadows said. There’s no way to ‘deal’ with it. Even if there was, Cordelia and Rowena can’t sense anything on him. You’d think two powerful witches could sniff out a curse.” I grumbled, sinking deeper into the seat.My bottom was on the verge of becoming numb, but we didn’t have much longer to go before we’d hit our meet-up point. Fifty miles away, at a small gas station with one of our own wolves posted as cashier, we’d find the others. Breyona, Giovanni, Tristan, Sean, Mason, and Clara had taken a different route to avoid suspicion. Going off of Breyona’s idea when she rescued us from Ember and Tessa, we borrowed a work van from a local company in the pack for them to use.There wasn’
“Glad to see you survived.” I commented, my attention sliding to the woman that clung to his side.Bridgette met my stare, her eyes strong and slender nose upturned as she nodded respectfully. She’d once looked at me like I were the enemy, analyzing the way I stood and moved as though she were searching for weak points, but not anymore. She seemed completely at ease in this quaint little house, perched on the arm of the antique sofa with a glass of what I knew to be blood in her hand.She wasn’t the only one in the room, though. There were a few other Vampire’s, most of which had been here for a few weeks now. Two men around Asher’s age, one with hair as pale as snow and the other with curls that mirrored Giovanni’s, though they were a tad bit more unruly, were situated on a set of recliners just off to the side.“Well, when you told me this one here was alive, I had no choice but to get back to her.” Deacon grunted, his ice-cold gaze thawing when he turned it towards Bridgette.Asher
Several seconds passed, flitting into the ether as we all stared at one another, shock written clear across our features only in different fonts. Any and all laughter vanished from the room, it’s absence letting silence leak in like a drug.Asher and Deacon were the first to break free of it’s hypnotic gaze, barking out orders that were both awe-inspiring and terrifying.“We must’ve been followed, but I’m betting it was Lola’s appearance that made them act so soon. It would’ve been smartest to attack during broad daylight. We’d be sitting ducks that way.” Deacon snarled.Asher’s eyes momentarily glazed over, caught in a mind-link that left him biting back a growl.“Witches are close to the border of town. They’re close to breaking through. I’ve got six wolves stationed here. Four are currently fighting, two are rounding up every child and elderly person in town.” His grimace deepened, and my blood ran cold from the sheer harshness of it. “There’s a witch setting things on fire. That w
This was bad.The battle was no longer waging on the outskirts of town, not with our lack of numbers and the witch’s arsenal of weapons.Many of the Vampire’s here weren’t hardened warriors but families without a home, desperate for somewhere safe to raise their children and watch them grow. Seeing as Asher and I refused to force anyone to fight, fearful they’d be killed and ripped away from those they loved, it left us at a huge disadvantage.Deacon had been right. That much was clear in the feverish way the witches fought, banding together in small groups as they used both magic and human weaponry to take us down. There had to be over a dozen of them, possibly more. They could’ve waited until the sun had risen and claimed this town as their own, but there was always that chance I wouldn’t be here.It was a risk they chose not to take, and probably our only advantage.The witches had silver, and plenty of it. Clutched in the hands of many were guns with plated bullets, daggers etched
I didn’t hesitate to bound into the forest, chasing the sound of Breyona’s voice, the taste of her fear ripe on my tongue.There was something wrong, something so very wrong with the way her voice coiled around my thoughts and squeezed the life out of them. It wasn’t through mind-link that I was hearing her, I was sure of it. No matter how hard I tried to dig past her wailing, to the connection that spanned between us, I just couldn’t.Thoughts refused to form, each and every one shattering under the grip of her pleas.‘It hurts, Lola! It hurts so bad—so bad.’ She sobbed and screamed.I couldn’t think, not even to figure out where the hell I was going or whether or not I should slow down.The forest cracked and trembled beneath my feet. Limbs like outstretched arms reached to grab me, tearing away bits of my fur and drawing blood. Even the pain was dull, like it too was smothered by Breyona’s voice.Suddenly, she went silent.It should’ve occurred to me that the wrongness in the air w
It was dark magic, it had to be.Invisible claws latched onto a part of me that was much deeper than mere flesh and bone, wrapping and coiling like the scaled body of a snake. The pleasure soured, and as spasm after spasm rocked my body, I tasted its foulness on my tongue.I was entangled in it’s grasp, powerless even though mere seconds ago I killed an entire group of witches with my mind.The way it split my thoughts like a deck of cards, shuffling through them before turning each one over to inspect it felt like a violation.Everything hurt. The pain was so consuming that I couldn’t tell which parts of me were still intact. My skin burned from the silver tipped arrows, stung from the slices in my flesh, and burned because every movement I made jostled the quills protruding from my back.The forest was growing darker, the shadows dancing around the edges of my vision. They thrashed and writhed, their whispers just out of reach. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t the forest tha