Magic Side: Wolf Bound Complete Series: Books 1-4, page 72
Her claws dug into my skin. “Why do you say he’s out of his mind?” she pressed.
“I haven’t met him. But the guys he hasn’t brainwashed say he’s batshit crazy. Argues with his wolf aloud. Fucking acts like some kind of prophet.”
Damn. It had to be Dragan.
Harlow didn’t miss a beat. “You two know this guy?”
Savannah’s eyes burned with emotion. “Victor Dragan. My aunt killed him decades ago, but he won’t stay dead. His ghost possessed Ulan Kahanov, and he’s been hunting me. Seems he’s found a new host.”
“Possessed?” Harlow asked. “And Kahanov? The prisoner who escaped Bentham several months ago?”
Savy nodded. “He’s dead.”
Sam tensed. “Time’s up, boss! The fuzz are on their way. I can hear them.”
“What?” Harlow asked.
I perked up my ears, catching the faint noise though the cars were still miles away. “Sirens in the distance. You’ll hear them soon enough.”
“Shit! We’ve got to wrap this up before more humans arrive.” Harlow turned back to Big Red. “Where can we find this Dragan, the Dragon, whatever he calls himself?”
“I don’t know.”
I gripped the biker by his vest and pulled him forward so his cuffs caught on the pole, his shoulders straining in his sockets. “Where?”
He growled and clenched his teeth, but at last, he spoke. “There’s supposed to be a rally up in Michigan three nights from now. I’m certain that he’ll be there. I wasn’t going to go. Those two-headed freaks are involved and pushing it hard.”
I let him slump back.
Harlow glanced at Savannah. “Two-headed freaks?”
Big Red glared at us. “Yeah, they’ve all got these freaky two-headed wolf tattoos. I think it’s like some sort of doomsday cult. There’s a few in every pack and MC around.”
Harlow’s eyes burned. “Have they ever approached you? Told you what they wanted?”
For some reason, he looked at Savannah. “They say the Dark Wolf God is coming back. That we won’t have to live in fear of humans anymore. We won’t have to hide. I told them I’m not afraid of any human. I just want to sling dope, get paid, and get laid.”
Harlow looked over her shoulder in the direction of the approaching sirens. “I hear them. I’ve got to get this prick back to the Hall of Inquiry. Laurent, you three better get your bikes and ride. The cleanup crew is going to have a hard enough time setting all this straight without you getting caught.”
Savannah knelt and looked Big Red in the eye. “Where and when is the rally?”
He trembled in front of her and looked away. “Monday night, an hour before midnight at Pere Cheney Graveyard. Too fucking freaky, if you ask me. That’s all I know, I swear.”
I could feel the truth of his words.
Harlow pulled Savannah back. “You’ve got to go, now. I’ll let you know if I learn anything else. For now, this guy needs to take his nap for transport.” With that, she pulled a potion bomb out of her pocket, uncorked it, and splashed a little in Big Red’s face. He flinched, but as the liquid began to steam, his head lolled forward. “He won’t be begging to call his lawyer anytime soon,” the agent muttered.
Savannah turned to go but paused at the door. “Thanks for the bailout and for not busting us.”
Harlow nodded. “You three aren’t out of the woods. Don’t go vigilante again. If you do, I don’t care what friends you have up top—I’ll throw you in lockup myself. We’ll help you get Dragan, but you’re working with us, under our rules.”
Savannah nodded. Fucking hell.
“Let’s go, boss!” Sam shouted from inside the building.
The three of us raced through the bar.
“Don’t come back, now!” the bartender said meekly from the back corner.
I turned and took a step toward him. “If I hear you open your mouth about our role in this or say anything to the cops, I’ll come back and gut you myself.”
They’d wipe his memory, but it was deeply satisfying to see him start trembling.
I followed Savy and Sam through the broken front door. Our bikes were still outside and in one piece.
Savannah wiped her eyes and started fiddling with her helmet. I could feel her strangled sense of despair pulsing through me, a deep melancholy that was not my own. “Are you okay?”
“Not really. I messed that guy up pretty good. If you hadn’t stopped me…” She looked away, in the direction of the approaching cop cars.
I reached out and brushed away a tear, then gently traced the bruise on her cheek. “Don’t cry for that prick. He and his friends were planning to abduct you and drain you dry. Do you think you’re the first girl he’s hurt to get what he wants? Harlow knew him by name, and she’s got a dossier on him. The beating you gave him—he probably deserved worse.”
She pulled away and tugged her helmet on, concealing her face. “And I’ve done worse, Jaxson—I’ve killed people, for heaven’s sake. But today—that wasn’t me, and it wasn’t my wolf. I was so angry. For a moment, I was just…somebody else. I’m becoming something I’m not. A monster.”
I grabbed her by her shoulder and spun her toward me. “No. You’re a wolf, and you’re fighting to survive. You’re not alone, Savannah. You’re part of a pack. We all wrestle with our beasts, but I swear, you are not a monster.” I let my presence wrap around her, soothing her emotions.
There was so much more I wanted to say, but the sirens were almost on us. I glanced down the road as my fists clenched in frustration. “Fuck. We’ve got to go.”
Sam gunned her Harley and rumbled out of the lot. I swung my leg over my bike, and Savy hopped up behind, just like I’d taught her. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tightly. Her magic and signature flowed through me, and although I could sense her despair, for one second, in a bloody fucked-up day, everything was all right.
I fired up my bike, and with Savannah pressed close against my back, we rumbled out onto the open road.
17
Savannah
By the time we got back to Magic Side, my despair had turned to numbness.
Although I’d been pretending nothing was happening, the truth was that I was no longer that naïve girl from Wisconsin. I’d become a werewolf and a killer and had made my bed with criminals. I could command shadows and darkness, and I could summon a knife from thin air that would tear out your soul.
Despite what Jaxson had said, there was no doubt I was a monster. Something dark inside of me was growing every day. Something that wasn’t my wolf, and that wasn’t my magic.
Maybe it was just me. The real me—the part that hated my parents for dying and wanted to strangle every one of the bastards who’d ever laid their hands on me.
I wrapped my arms tighter around Jaxson’s waist just to have something solid to cling to as the daze took hold and the city streets passed by.
Finally, Jaxson’s bike rolled to a stop in front of Savage Body, and I looked up in surprise.
“Your car’s done,” Jax said.
My heart leapt as I caught sight of my Gran Fury sitting in the front lot, freshly washed. I eagerly slipped off the bike and hurried over.
The rear wheel had been replaced, and the bullet holes had been patched and painted. I let my fingers drag along the restored side of the vehicle and trunk, savoring the moment. I could almost feel the magic tingling beneath my fingertips.
My father’s magic.
A sense of limitless freedom rushed through me like wind on a warm summer’s day. And the darkness that had consumed me on the ride back from the bar evaporated.
Footsteps approached from behind, and I turned to face Jaxson.
“Everything in order?” he asked.
More than ever.
I nodded. “Yes. Thanks.”
I hoped he could sense my gratitude because words couldn’t explain what my Fury meant to me.
“Good,” Jax said laconically, and crossed his arms. He looked like an absolute hunk in his biker jacket. Tall. Strong. Confident.
His signature mixed with the intoxicating scent of his sweat, and I drank it in as a comfortable silence stretched between us. Comfortable, that is, until I became aware of it.
Aw, shit, was I staring?
Heat crept across my neck, and I suddenly felt hot, sweaty, and grimy. I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror, but I was betting my face was covered with blood and bruises and my hair was wild and wind tangled from the road. Add to that the stink of exhaust, blood, and perspiration, and I probably seemed like one hell of a catch.
I awkwardly gestured to the car. “I’m going pay you back. I owe you a lot of hours at the bar for this.”
An indecipherable smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he shrugged. “As you wish. But not tonight—I certainly have had enough of bars for today.”
I let out a deep breath. “Tell me about it.”
Sam strode over. “I, unfortunately, have bar duty tonight. But before you two get lost staring at each other’s eyeballs, I want to know what the plan is.”
My cheeks burned, and I glanced away.
Jaxson, always the confident one, was totally unperturbed. “Well, it appears that Dragan is back, and he’s possessed Lucius Grayling. That, or Grayling is trying to use Dragan’s old network for power—but given what we know, I’m going to bet he’s possessed.”
“So how do we stop a ghost?” I asked.
“Instead of killing him, we’ll have to capture him,” Jaxson said.
Sam checked her phone. “Sounds like he’ll be at the rally on Monday night with all his minions. If we can catch him there, along with a bunch of his drug-crazed cultists, we could potentially knock out the threat to Savy in one fell swoop.”
“What do you think they’re up to?” I asked.
Jaxson’s face darkened. “I don’t know, but we need to find out before we go in, guns blazing.”
A slow, sinking feeling of trepidation weighed down on me. “I think it’s time I talked to my aunt.”
Jaxson’s eyebrows rose.
“She killed him the first time,” I explained, “and she and Uncle Pete went off looking for more information. If anyone knows, it’ll be her.”
“Or my father,” Jaxson said flatly. His voice was level but dripping with an emotion I couldn’t quite place. Resentment? Frustration? Wariness?
Whatever was there, at least he wasn’t going to have to tell his father he was a wolf.
Of the two questions I needed to ask Laurel, I knew which terrified me more, and it wasn’t, What’s Dragan up to?
It was, Was I born a werewolf—and why didn’t you tell me?
Half an hour later, I pushed through the front door of the LaSalles’ house and dropped my car keys in the brass bowl by the door. I’d quickly changed out of my biker clothes and washed most of the magic dye out, so my hair was almost back to its normal color.
My sweaty hands were practically shaking, and I wiped them on my jeans as I reevaluated my plan. Maybe I’d wait to ask Aunt Laurel about being a werewolf until after we’d sorted things out with Dragan. And although I wanted to know what she knew about my mom, the potential fallout could be catastrophic.
Things were too up in the air. It was best to wait.
Better to rip the band-aid off, Wolfie murmured in my mind.
Easy for you to say. You don’t have to look her in the eyes.
“Savannah, is that you?” My aunt whipped her head out of the kitchen and smiled. The smell of cinnamon and butter wafted down the hall. Cinnamon cookies.
At times, she could be positively warm and domestic. But I’d seen her other side—one as hard as iron. A woman who could command demons and disintegrate monsters with a single flick of her wrist.
“Welcome home,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“It’s good to be home.” My aunt pulled me into a warm embrace, and I awkwardly wrapped my arms around her.
A part of me wanted to just get it done with, to scream, I’m a werewolf! Did you know?
I knew she was hiding something from me, but I couldn’t believe she knew the truth. She’d welcomed me into her home—why would she have done that if she knew what I was? Any time someone mentioned werewolves or the Laurents, I could feel the heat of her hatred, like standing next to an open fire.
The odds were fifty-fifty that she’d lose her shit and kick me to the curb or chain me in silver.
We’ll claw her eyes out first, my wolf said defiantly.
Laurel handed me a heaping plate of warm cookies. “Take these into the drawing room. I’ll be right there. We should talk.”
Oh, yes, we should.
I set the cookies on the coffee table and took a seat on the antique couch. Laurel swept in with two steaming mugs of milky tea. She handed one to me and sat. “Casey tells me that you didn’t come home last night.”
I nearly choked out my half-eaten cookie. That snitch!
Not that it mattered. I was going to have to tell her. I wiped my mouth. “I was attacked, and I stayed the night with a friend.”
The mug froze halfway to her lips, and I could see the fire in her eyes. “Attacked? By whom? Are you okay? Should I call in Uncle Pete? And why, for the sake of the gods, didn’t you come back here where it was safe?”
I reeled from the impact of the rapid-fire questions, though I recovered quickly. I had answers to all of them except the last.
“I’m okay. It was a bunch of werewolf bikers.”
She leapt to her feet, and magic crackled around her. “Werewolves? The Dockside pack? I told you not to get involved with them or Jaxson Laurent.”
“No!” I snapped—more harshly than I should have, seeing as all she wanted was to protect me. “Jaxson and his people chased them off. The jerks who jumped me were part of a biker gang, and I think they work for Dragan.”
My aunt went ashen as she slowly sat. “Dragan…”
“The bikers were supposed to hand me over to the leader of one of the Michigan packs, who’s suddenly calling himself the Dragon or Dragan. I think he’s possessed, just like Kahanov was. And he’s up to something.”
Her eyes were wide. “What?”
“We don’t know,” I said matter-of-factly between overflowing mouthfuls of cookie. “Whatever it is, it involves me and a bunch of cultists with tattoos of a two-headed wolf. So my question is, what did you and Uncle Pete find out on your trip, and what was Dragan up to before you disintegrated him?”
My aunt let out a sigh and ran her hands through her hair. “This is very bad. Dragan…Dragan was a monster. Part sorcerer and part wolf. He had access to forbidden magic—and it seems he has unfinished business.”
“Why did you hunt him down?”
“I was called in to help solve a string of murders. He left his victims in the middle of pentagrams inscribed with sorcerous runes. It was all part of a ritual we didn’t understand, but the werewolves seemed to know about it. Something about releasing an ancient evil, though they wouldn’t tell us what.”
The Dark Wolf God.
My skin prickled as a cold draft moved through the room.
Laurel looked me in the eyes and continued, “Your uncle and I are afraid he’s trying to do so again—except this time, he intends to use you as a sacrifice.”
“What about the cultists? Or the two-headed wolf tattoo? What do you know about those?”
“Little. Dragan had cultists to help with his rituals back then, which scaled up and became more elaborate with time. Your uncle and I returned to the place we killed him, an ancient graveyard in what was Czechoslovakia. He’d collected a dozen people to sacrifice and murdered six by the time we killed him.”
“Why go there?”
“I wanted to know why he was able to come back and possess Kahanov. Ghosts are rare, and with the spell I used to disintegrate him, returning shouldn’t have been possible.” She looked down at her hands. “I still don’t know why or how he came back.”
"You and the Laurents worked together to bring him down?”
Laurel tensed and snapped her head up. “Yes, but it was a mistake. If that’s what you have in mind, hanging out with Jaxson Laurent, you can forget it. He’ll betray you the same way they betrayed us in the end.”
I sat on my hands to pin them in place. “What happened?”
My aunt’s eyes burned, and iron replaced the bitterness in her voice. “Nothing that can ever be changed.”
Her words were final, and silence filled the space. A silence that begged for a question and was leading me there, step by step.
I took in a shaky breath. “So why is Dragan after me?”
Laurel shuddered, and the fire in her eyes disappeared, dowsed with sorrow. “To inflict revenge on our family for killing him, I suspect.”
My voice approached a whisper. “But Casey hasn’t been attacked. Your own son. Wouldn’t Dragan attack him first?”
She looked away, toward the hall and stairs that led to Casey’s room. “Perhaps he thought you were an easier target—though thankfully, you’ve proven him wrong on that.”
I dug my fingers into my jeans and fought down my trepidation.
“Do you think that maybe it’s not because of who I am, but what I am? What my mother was?”
Her pupils shrank to laser points, though a fake smile hung on her face. “What do you mean, dear?”
Before I knew her, I would have been fooled. But not now. I’d lived with Laurel for weeks, and I’d learned a few of her tells and tics. I could smell the fear that her lie would be uncovered.
I knew that she knew.
Narrowing my eyes, I slowly set my mug down. “Let’s cut the bullshit, Laurel. Tell me the truth, starting with my mother. I know what she was.”
Way to rip the band-aid off.
Laurel flinched. “Excuse me?”
“A werewolf.” I paused, watching the shock roll off her like heat waves above hot asphalt. “She and Dad left because she was pregnant with me, but you already knew that.”
“How—who told you this?” Anger flashed through her eyes, and I sensed her alarm. Defensiveness. Fear. Shock.
