The Burning Claw: Book 10, The Grey Wolves Series (41 page)

Jacque gasped as the reality hit her and her hand snapped up to her mouth as if she was holding a scream in. “Why did he do it, Jen?” she asked through her hand.

“I think she started out as an asset for the Burning Claw, and he was the means in which to draw her in. But somewhere along the way, he fell in love with her. And he took it too far.”

“When Costin gets here it’s going to be bloodbath,” Jacque said. Jen nodded her agreement.

P
eri didn’t go straight to the wolves. First, she went to visit the Warlock King. She appeared in his great hall and yelled for him.

“Did you have to scream that loudly?” Cypher said as he came storming in. “Is Lilly okay? And Jacque is she—”

“Pipe down, warlock. They’re fine. I need your size and your fighting skills. We’re getting Sally out. Costin will be coming which means it’s going to get messy. I’m thinking we will need extra manpower to hold him back when it’s time for that. You game?”

“Of course, anything to help the wolves. Lead the way,” he told her.

She grabbed his arm and flashed them both to the bridge where she’d left Decebel, Vasile, and Fane. She needed to move fast. The clock was ticking and she didn’t like leaving Sally with Jericho. The rogue wolf was obviously getting desperate. He had crossed a line and she wanted him to pay. To her shock, when she arrived, the three males were standing there talking to none other than Costin himself.

“I know where she is,” Costin growled.

“Cypher,” Vasile nodded to the king.

“Yes, yes, say your hellos and then let’s go. Costin, you look crazy as hell, which at the moment is a good thing. Crazy people make other people nervous. And nervous people do stupid things. So own the crazy, bar boy, own the crazy.”

She motioned them to gather around and gave a very, very watered down version of the events. She didn’t even touch on the whole
Sally slept with Jericho
piece of the puzzle. She needed Costin crazy, not a complete berserker—at least not at first.

“Okay, so now that you’re filled in. Let’s get going.” She held out her arms and each of the males, even crazy Costin, placed a hand on her. As soon as each of them was touching her, she flashed back to Oceanside, a.k.a., the place where Jericho was about to meet his fate.

Jen felt like Peri had only been gone for a couple of minutes when the fae reappeared on the sidewalk with a handful of very pissed off looking wolves and, to her surprise, the Warlock King to boot. Jen imagined that Peri must be using some serious fae voodoo to block them all from sight if she was able to appear like that in broad daylight.

Decebel was in front of her a second after they appeared. He took her hands in his face and cupped her cheeks. His eyes soaked her in hungrily and his wolf growled. “Too long,” he told her. “We’ve been apart too long.”

Jen didn’t have time to agree because Decebel’s lips had crashed into hers with bruising force. Good thing she healed quickly.

“Please move,” said a voice thick with the need for violence and Jen pulled back from Dec to look around him. Costin stood about twenty feet from the door. Vasile and Cypher stood in front of him.

“I can smell her.” Costin and his wolf were so in sync with each other that both of their voices came out at the same time. It was freaking scary.

“Costin,” Jen spoke up. His eyes snapped to hers and Decebel tried to block her from the feral wolf. She pushed around him. “Let me and Jacque check on her first before you go in.” Jen was motioning for Jacque to go to the door.

She looked at Jacque and mouthed “open it, peek in.”

Jacque did, then pulled her head back out and the fear in her eyes told Jen enough. Jericho still had Sally wrapped in his arms. Then Jen remembered Jericho’s scent in her best friend’s room, the bracelet that allowed him to persuade her into bed with him, and the bite mark on her neck.

She stepped aside. “You know what, on second thought, by all means. Go.”

Decebel shot her a look.
“I’ll fill you in.”
Apparently, Peri hadn’t told them anything.

Jen watched as Costin started forward. Vasile and Cypher flanked him on either side and Decebel and Fane stood next to her and Jacque. Peri was the first to enter. She flinched when she saw the position Jericho and Sally were in.

She was seated up on the back of the bar and Jericho was between her legs with his arms wrapped around her. This was going to be bad.

As soon as they were all in, Peri spoke loudly. “If you look at this man,” —she pointed to Costin who looked eerily calm— “and don’t know why he wants to kill
that
man,” —she pointed at Jericho— “then get out.”

There were only a handful of patrons and they looked confused.

“NOW,” Vasile boomed. They no longer looked confused. Now they looked like scurrying mice that had just realized that there was a herd of cats in the room.

As soon as the last person was out the door, Costin put his hand on the deadbolt and turned it, locking them in. The clicking of the lock seemed to echo in the quiet room.

“I think I’m going to pass out,” Jacque whispered to Jen.

“Don’t you dare. Suck it up. Sally needs us.” What she didn’t add was,
and we need to get Sally the hell out of the way now.
Jericho was going down and Costin might not have enough control to keep from accidentally hurting his gypsy mate.

Chapter 22

“She takes my breath away. As soon as my hungry eyes land on her face, I feel my soul reaching for her. My wolf is desperate to get to her. She’s mine. We found her. Now everyone standing too close to her must die. Starting with the mangy wolf who had his hands on her.” ~Costin

S
ally was confused. As soon as she heard Peri’s voice, she had tried to get down off of the bar but Jericho wouldn’t move. He was standing in front of her like a shield, as if one of her friends would hurt her. She looked out at the other people—all very large men—who had entered with the girls. She felt as though she should know them, but the harder she tried to remember, the more painful her headache became.

Something was wrong, that much was very clear. Each of the men looked ready to murder, especially the one directly in front of the front door. He looked downright terrifying. And each of them were staring directly at her and Jericho.

“Move,” she told him, again trying to get down.

“No,” he snapped back. “Be still.”

Sally was about to tell him not to order her around, but the words froze in her throat at the sound of his voice.

“Sally.”

The dangerous one, the one with the dimple—he had spoken her name. Her named rumbled from his lips and filled the room as well as every empty place inside of her. Her breathing hitched as she began to feel the haze that had been there since the death of her parents clear.

“Sally Miklos,” he called again.

She had to look at him. She pushed Jericho’s upper body aside and he growled dangerously but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the man on the opposite side of the room.

Her mouth dropped open as the flood gate of memories opened and crashed into her mind. Her eyes were wide as she continued to stare. “Costin,” she whispered and saw his shoulders tense.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god.” It’s all she could say as her life before the weird alternate reality in Oceanside came pouring back over her. “Mate,” she said as the memory of their Blood Rites ceremony flashed through her mind. The moment that she uttered the word, she felt an invisible chord snap in place between her and Costin and the bond returned. How could she not have realized that it had been missing?

“No!” Sally screamed as she tried to erect a wall in her mind but she was too weak. Costin had complete access. She couldn’t control what was playing through her mind. It was like a sick movie—a documentary meant to destroy her. He saw everything.

Costin saw their first kiss, and then he saw her first kiss with Jericho. Costin saw every moment in his bar, playing and flirting. Then he saw her in Jericho’s bar, doing remarkably similar things. Costin saw the first time he touched her, and then he saw the first time that Jericho touched her. She couldn’t make it stop. She was like a child holding out her hands trying to stop a tsunami.

She tore her eyes from his; her shame was practically choking her. She couldn’t breathe. Sally grasped at her throat and tried to suck in air. Jen, Jacque, and Peri were at her side in an instant. They pushed Jericho out of the way and pulled her to a table. She could feel Costin’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t stand to see the pain caused by her betrayal.

“Sally, calm down,” Peri was telling her.

“I-I didn’t r-r-remember,” she gasped. How the hell could she have possibly forgotten her mate and that there were such a thing as werewolves? Then something clicked. Her head snapped up and her eyes landed on Jericho. She heard Costin’s growl and felt his anger at her giving Jericho attention.

“You knew,” she told him, grabbing his attention. Jericho was looking back and forth between Costin and her. “You knew, didn’t you?” she said again, pushing away from the table and taking a step toward him. She was stopped by Peri’s hand on her arm.

“YOU KNEW I HAD A MATE,” Sally roared. She felt her own magic well up inside of her, returning like a long lost friend.

“Sally,” Jericho began but she cut him off with a slice of her hand whipping out in front of her.

“All this time. Through everything,” she growled the word and she knew that Jericho understood what she meant by everything. “You knew and you did it anyway.”

She realized too late that when she’d said
everything
, she caused unbidden memories to flash through her mind. She tried to put up even a little bit of a wall but Costin was too strong. His wolf refused to let her erect any kind of barrier between them. She saw the minute that the memories of the night before registered. Rage like she’d never seen erupted out of him. She didn’t see him move; it was so fast. And then Peri, Jen, and Jacque were pulling her further away and down, wrapping their arms around her. Sally could hear muffled cries, but Jen’s voice was getting in the way.

“Don’t look, Sally. Don’t look,” Jen said over and over. But Sally didn’t have to look. She had a front row view of Costin’s emotions. Somehow he managed to keep her from seeing how he was doing it, but she knew he was killing Jericho. Jericho had signed his death warrant the second he’d laid his hand on her in full knowledge that she had a true mate.

Sally thought about the things that Costin had seen just before he attacked Jericho and she vomited. Right there, with her best friends wrapped around her, she wretched over and over.

“Let it out, sweetie,” Jacque soothed.

Her stomach churned at the memories of Jericho’s hands on her, undressing her, kissing her. “Oh, god!” she sobbed. It just wouldn’t end. She remembered Jericho lying on top of her, whispering in her ear, biting. She gasped. “OH SHIT.” It was then that she heard another roar from her mate, and Vasile and Decebel yelling for him to stop.

D
ecebel tried to catch Costin as he lunged for the two female wolves who’d come running out of the back of the bar. As soon as he’d finished dismembering Jericho, he seemed to calm a bit. But then, out of nowhere he attacked the girls.

“Whatever Sally is thinking about, tell her to bloody stop,”
he snarled into his mate’s mind.
“Costin is tearing apart a she-wolf from Jericho’s pack.”

“Jericho used magic to get Sally to sleep with him. He mated with her last night and he marked her,”
Jen thought the words so fast that he nearly missed it.

Decebel saw red. Sally wasn’t even his mate, but she was his because she was pack. He couldn’t imagine what Costin was feeling. His Beta would have seen the memories in Sally’s mind. That’s why he was attacking anything that moved. His attention snapped back to his Beta and he saw that he had killed both females and was now ripping out the throat of another male wolf.
Damn, how many were there?

When all of the enemy wolves, that they could see anyway, laid at their feet, he turned on them. Costin eyed the females wrapped around his mate. “Vasile!” Decebel managed to yell as he lunged at the exact moment Costin did. It took, Vasile, himself, Fane, and Cypher to hold him back from attacking the females.

“MINE,” Costin said as spittle flew from his snarling mouth. He was gone. If he was willing to attack his own female pack members, then his control was gone.

“Get her out of here,”
Decebel told his mate.
“Costin is trying to kill you all.”

Jen stood up abruptly and turned her angry glare on him. What the hell had he done now?

“Of course, he’s trying to kill anything that is between him and his mate!” she yelled at him. “And you want me to take her further from him? Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

“But, he’s—” Decebel started, a growl forming as his mate refused to submit.

“He doesn’t need to be further from her, fleabag. He needs to be closer.” To his utter shock his mate started crying. “He’s been separated from her for months without the bond. He didn’t know where she was or what was happening to her and now he’s found her. But he found her unknowingly in the arms of another wolf. And you want me to separate them again?”

Peri stood up then and patted Jacque to do the same. “We will walk over to the other side of the room,” the high fae said calmly. “We will leave Sally right there with nothing stopping him from getting to her.”

Jacque looked down at her friend and it was obvious that she didn’t want to let Sally go.

As soon as the females were out of Costin’s line of sight, the males released him and he went straight to his mate.

C
ostin fell to his knees as he wrapped his arms around
his
Sally. He pulled her shaking form into his lap and curled his body around hers. His wolf settled as soon as his flesh touched hers. He wanted to console her but he, himself, was weeping just as deeply.
Mine,
his wolf rumbled and rejoiced at having their mate in their arms again. He buried his face in her hair and breathed. He ignored the scents that weren’t hers and pulled in the scent that only he could smell. All of the rage and chaos faded from his mind as the light of his mate penetrated all the darkness that he thought had destroyed him. His hands shook as he ran them down her back and arms. “You feel so good,” he said out loud. He wanted so desperately to hear her voice and he wondered if she wanted to hear his. So he continued to speak out loud instead of through the bond. “I’ve been lost without you, Sally. Please, beautiful, talk to me.”

She laughed and it sounded cruel. “What do you want to talk about, Costin? How I’ve been unfaithful to you for months? About how another male touched me, kissed me, took me to be—”

“DON’T,” his wolf warned her as he lifted her chin to look at him. “Now is not the time or the place. I love you. Nothing. Nothing, is going to change that. Just—” He paused and hated that he sounded insecure. “Do you still have feelings for me?” He needed her to confirm that her heart was still his. He needed to hear her say that she wanted him.

Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. “Why would you ask me that?

“Because all I can feel through the bond is that you don’t want me to touch you. I feel your need to get away from me, and I need to know why you’re feeling those things?”

Sally glanced over his shoulder and Costin growled at whoever was intruding on their time.

“Costin, I’m going to take you and your mate home. This is not the place,” Peri said. “I’ll need to touch you, as well as Sally. Can I touch your mate?”

Costin’s wolf wanted to say no. He didn’t want anyone else’s hands on his mate. He didn’t want anyone else’s scent on her. But instead of saying no, he nodded. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to go home and be alone with his mate.

He felt Peri’s hand on his shoulder and saw where the fae placed her other hand on Sally’s shoulder. She flashed them and the next thing he knew, they were in their suite at the Serbian pack mansion.

“Before I go, Sally,” Peri addressed the healer. “You need to know that the bracelet he gave you was covered in a magic. Its purpose was to cause incredible desire for the person who presented it to you. Simply put, a monkey could have handed it to you and you would have laid down willingly. It wasn’t you. You didn’t want him, not like that.” And then she was gone

Costin knew they’d have to talk about Peri’s words at some point, but first he needed to know the answer to his original questions. Though her lack of response was killing him, Costin was scared of pushing her when she seemed so fragile.

When he pulled his face back to look down at her, he saw the bite mark that wasn’t his. His wolf surged forward. Costin tried to stop it, but the beast was not having it. She was theirs. “I’m sorry, Brown Eyes,” he told her and then he struck.

Costin’s teeth sank down into her tender flesh and he drank her blood—her very essence. Her scent mingled with his own. When he released her, he heard her whimper. He licked the mark and watched in awe as the power of the true mate bond negated any other claim by a male that was not her true mate. The bite Jericho had given her was gone. The scent—the foreign scent, the tainted scent—that had been left on her vanished and all that remained was Costin’s claim.

She sobbed even harder and tried to pull away from him.
Like hell
, he thought.

“I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I needed to mark you. My wolf he—”