Authors: Judy Teel
My contraband Glock went flying, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the biggest of them hit Cooper as I went down under the weight of what I guessed was a male — a young one, based on the high-pitched grunt of pain when I drove my elbow into his ribs. I rolled with the momentum of his weight as he bent into the hit and we tumbled across the leaves and rocks, fighting to get the upper hand.
We came to an abrupt stop with me straddling him, the heel of my right boot dug into the ground to stop our momentum and the sharp edge of my knife pressed against his throat. "Nothing says 'welcome to our home' like an ambush," I muttered.
From under the shaggy bangs of his dark blonde hair, his yellow wolf eyes met my angry gaze, then slid down and focused on my chin. Younger than me, he still carried that thin, whip-like build that teenage boys have, though already showed signs of being the kind of guy that women looked twice at. There was also something vaguely familiar about him, though I had no idea why.
I glanced up and saw Cooper standing in the middle of the path, a big stocky male with short dark hair and almond-shaped hazel eyes on one side of him, and on the other, a woman with a thick braid of silver-white hair down the middle of her back aiming her SIG Sauer P320 at him. She wiped the blood off her mouth with the back of her other hand. "Stand down, Cooper."
Cooper's beautiful face blazed with anger. "Ryker summoned me."
"He wouldn't have done that. Not now." She backed up until she was a couple of yards from the kid and me. The barrel of her gun swung around and pointed at my head.
I felt Cooper's urge to rip her apart roar through him, and the core of energy in the center of my chest flared, sending a whisper of the first stage of a shift tingling across my skin. His gaze locked with mine as the edges of my vision softened to white. I grit my teeth and fought for control, trying to force the energy of the shift into the ground like Cooper had taught me, but the sweet pull called to me.
Under me, the boy gave a frightened squeak, yanking me back from the edge. I looked down horrified to see a strip of blood across his throat and I eased up on the knife.
"Have you all lost your minds?" Cooper asked, and I could feel the effort he made to calm himself.
"Stand. Down," she repeated, her aim never wavering from my head. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."
A low growl rumbled through Cooper's chest and the boy's eyes got even bigger as if suddenly my knife on his jugular was the least of his worries. "She's mine to protect, Rosalind," Cooper snarled.
The woman turned pale, but she held steady. "Don't—"
I gasped as a wave of thick energy rippled over his body and he exploded into light, his form compressing, shrinking and remaking itself into a shape like something a toddler would create when attempting to make a dog the size of a small pony out of Play Dough. A second later, with a loud
pop
, a fully-formed silver and black brindled wolf lunged at the woman with a snarl.
His teeth snapped inches from Rosalind's throat as she stumbled back in alarm, bringing her gun up, point blank with his chest. Her finger tightened on the trigger and I sprang off the boy, ramming my shoulder into her side as the gun went off. The explosion of sound shattered into my ears as we went down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cooper twist away from the shot, blood splashing the air as the bullet sliced across his bicep.
The female Were and I hit the ground. I landed on top of her and quickly drove three hard strikes of my fist into her solar plexus. She gasped and wheezed, trying to refill her lungs with air.
Before she could, I slugged her across the chin and went for her gun. Something hit me from the side like a freight train, knocking me off of her and sending me tumbling through a bush and slamming up against a tree. My head struck the trunk and stars exploded across my vision, stunning me for a moment.
On the path in front of me, I saw the blurry form of Knox rolling to his feet next to the kid and then springing at Cooper at the same time as Rosalind and the stocky male. The three Weres bore him to the ground, Knox keeping Cooper's teeth from their throats as Rosalind struck him in the head over and over with the butt of her gun.
I got my arms under me and tried to push myself to my feet as blood soaked the fur behind his ear and fear and anger clawed through me. A wave of nausea twisted through me, and my arms buckled. Cooper's head lolled back, giving Rosalind the second she needed to unhook the PRC from her belt and snap it around his neck.
Cooper shuddered and collapsed and they jumped away from him, watching as he melted into light and reformed as a man. His back bowed in agony and the muscled chords of his neck stood out as he clenched his jaw. A blinding stab of pain hit me in the center of my chest and shot down into my stomach. I rolled to my hands and knees in time to vomit up everything I'd ever thought about eating.
When the torture had passed, I spit into the leaves and willed my trembling legs to support me as I got to my feet. Reaching out with my heart for Cooper, I followed the thread of our bond like I'd learned to do in the weeks we'd been traveling. And hit a dead end. I pushed harder, searching for him in that nebulous other world beyond time and space where I'd always found him before.
There, just out of reach, a whispered breath of his soul....
Our gazes locked and I saw the same grief reflected in his now hazel-green eyes that knotted in the center of my chest. He'd once told me that only death could separate us, and sometimes not even that. Yet somehow, the PRC had severed our bond. My throat tightened.
His presence in me was gone. I was alone.
*
*
*
Cooper swallowed a sharp wave of nausea and focused on the burning discomfort where the bullet had grazed his shoulder. As long as his Were DNA was suppressed, healing would be a long and painful process. If infection from rolling around in the dirt didn't kill him first. Or the agony of losing his connection to Addison, his bonded mate.
He still couldn't believe they'd dared to snap a PRC around his neck.
Memories flickered through his mind and he latched on to them, desperate to keep the desolate emptiness in his heart at bay.
The first time he'd been collared was as a cadet with the Bureau as part of their training. He'd promptly thrown up his breakfast in front of the entire squad. PRCs, the lecturer that day had informed them, were the first great invention for humans after the war. A technology that started with the collaborative development of a special microscope.
Seeing his blood under that microscope had been an amazing experience. The extra DNA coiling up through what otherwise resembled a human's genetics had looked like a glowing strand of white light, normally invisible. The Were scientist leading their group had told them that the genetic addition was what bridged the third and fourth dimension, enabling their species to shift. The collar suppressed that DNA and made their baseline human genetics dominant. As long as the PRC was activated, any paranormal in contact with it was human.
Between Weres, the synchronizing resonance of that special DNA was what created a bond. Now temporarily pure human, Cooper felt like someone had taken a melon scoop and dug a hole out of his heart.
"On your feet," Rosalind ordered him.
He carefully stood, feeling the effects of the fight like he'd never felt anything in his life. "Ryker sent for me." He cradled his side, where he was pretty sure Rosalind had cracked a rib, and gently straightened up. "If you don't believe me, why am I still breathing?"
Because of who he was, if he'd breached Bone Clan territory without a summons, he automatically became rogue. Rosalind and the others should have killed him as the law demanded. Why hadn't they? And if Rosalind knew about the summons, which she should have, why hadn't she peacefully escorted them to the compound as soon as they'd reached the bone markers?
"Our orders are clear." She glanced at Noah. The poor kid looked like he was about to pass out. "If the human tries anything, shoot her," she said, handing the teenager the Glock that Addison had taken from the Blood Clan Were.
Maybe Ryker had changed his mind and rescinded the summons. But then why hadn't Rosalind met them at the border to present his apologies and alternative accommodations, again, as protocol demanded?
Cooper's stomach knotted. What had happened to his brother?
"Disengage your PRC," Rosalind ordered and Addison's gaze flashed with anger. She looked on the brink of launching into a killing rampage, but she glanced at him and he shook his head, so she reluctantly complied. His brother's Captain took the collar from her and hooked it onto her own belt.
Stripping out of her shirt to the sports bra underneath, Rosalind wiped off some of the mud that she'd covered herself with to hide her scent and then ripped off one of the sleeves. After tying it tightly around his wounded arm, she handed him what was left of the shirt to tie around his hips. At least she hadn't forgotten all of her manners.
Brushing the tips of his fingers across the cool metal of the PRC, Cooper caught and held her gaze until the Bone Clan's Captain of Security glanced away. He then swept his gaze over Addison, noting the bruise on her arm, the small cut on her lip, the gash on her forehead.
"I'll remember," he growled, scowling at Rosalind to hammer the point home. There were good reasons why he wasn't allowed to cross their borders without an invitation. She needed to be reminded of that.
Facing forward, he supported his injured arm with his other hand and started down the path, trusting his captors would follow. Once he met with Ryker, he'd find out what was going on and together they would solve whatever was making his Clan act like paranoid lunatics. After that, he'd pursue the real reason that he'd accepted his brother's summons in the first place. If he still could.
The empty sorrow of losing the bond hit him again, but he refused to give in to it. There was no reason to believe that the severing of his connection with Addison was permanent.
He had to hold on to that.
Rosalind and her minions marched us up the skull path as it wound through the woods. I kept a sharp eye on Cooper now that I couldn't sense how he was and tried to ignore how empty I felt. I reminded myself that we'd done fine before my Were side awakened and we'd be fine now. When I wasn't giving myself a pep talk, I stared a hole in the back of the white-haired bitch's head, the Were Cooper had called Rosalind. If she had a good reason for treating her own Clan mate this way, I was looking forward to hearing it.
After a couple of miles, we came around a bend and the path dumped us into a cleared area of scattered rocks and weeds. Directly across from us, the gates of Hell rose up — the doorway to Cooper's hometown, so to speak.
Thirty-foot high stone walls stretched to the right and left until they curved out of sight. Standing between were the gates, made entirely of bones. Thick bones of varying prehistoric-level sizes that looked like they'd come from animals that had died out thousands of years ago, if they had ever existed outside of a fantasy book.
Fear trickled down my back as I studied the patterns the bones made. They reminded me of the patterns I'd seen in the city, particularly the intricate runes running through the gate and fence of a certain Jacob Laswell, leader of the Charlotte practitioners and probably something even scarier than that. I looked away. Sometimes magic symbols could give you a blistering headache or even make you pass out if the spell was strong enough.
Two nasty looking Weres stood on guard duty, a female who looked like she ate scrap metal and pooped nails, and a bald guy who was built like a professional wrestler, or maybe a bull. His shaved head was covered with tribal tattoos that ran down his neck and over his arms to his wrists and he glowered at me as he stepped aside to let us pass.
Past the gate was a large grassy area with a long, low building to the left, some of the ground around it fenced in with a few cows, goats and chickens roaming around, plus a pig or two. There was a grove of trees on the left side of the compound, some with bright red apples hanging from the branches, and in front of that, the biggest garden I'd ever seen. Rows of corn rustled in the breeze, plus maybe wheat and a lot of things I didn't recognize. In front of that was a small pond with more buildings and trees nestled up against the mountain beyond that.
The place was huge and sweeping and looked like it was designed to withstand a lifetime of sieges without batting an eye. And it was nothing compared to the sheer face of the mountain at its back and the stronghold carved into it.
"Welcome to
Cha'dana
." Bald Guy shoved me in the middle of the back, forcing me to stumble forward. "Keep moving."
"Where the wolves live," Cooper said behind me. "Direct translation."
"Imaginative." My gaze swept over the fortress.
Stone pillars with huge flat rocks lying across their tops marked the three tiers of the fortress, their structure reminding me of pictures of Stonehenge that I'd seen as a kid. Behind them, decorative arches had been carved from the cliff face with elaborately engraved doors that flashed and glistened as sunbeams flirted through the wisps of clouds drifting overhead. Windows glittered at regular intervals along the back of the breezeway of the second and third tiers.
On the ground floor tier, there was only solid rock. No surprise — that's what they pushed us toward.