Magic Side: Wolf Bound Complete Series: Books 1-4, page 97
Casey sighed audibly. “I know. I get it. I’m here for you, fur and all.”
4
Jaxson
I pressed my cell phone to my ear and headed toward the highway. “What do you mean, you’ve made no progress?”
“Exactly what I said,” Sam muttered back across the line. “I’ve interrogated half of the cultists the Order has locked up in Bentham. Seems like Dragan didn’t tell them shit about what will happen when the Dark God returns. Most won’t say much, and the really crazy ones just keep repeating gibberish about how the Dark God is liberating our kind from the tyranny of men—and I don’t think they mean gender inequality. I’m pretty sure none of them have any idea what they signed up for.”
I ground my teeth. “Dragan must have told at least one of them what was going to happen when the Dark God returned—what they’d need to do to prepare. A location, signs, somewhere to meet, anything.”
“I’m trying everything I can,” she said sharply. “But feel free to get your ass back here and ask them yourself.”
A long silence stretched between us, and finally, Sam sighed. “Sorry, Jax. I was out of line. I’ll keep trying.”
“Good,” I growled softly. “I’m heading up to Pere Cheney with Savannah to tie up some loose ends, so it’s on you. If there’s anything to learn, I know you’ll find it.”
After another pause, Sam asked, “Is Savannah willing to meet with the council? We need to get ahead of this before the pack finds out about her.”
I already knew that proposal wasn’t going to go over well.
“I’m working on it,” I said, pushing some low brush out of the way. “The prophecy has her spooked. The first step is getting her back to pack lands and around others of our kind. She needs support. Then we can bring up the council.”
With that, I hung up and followed Savannah’s intoxicating scent to the highway.
Frustration clawed at me.
I’d called pack loremasters all around the Great Lakes, and so far, all I’d discovered were hazy warnings and ancient legends. Whispers about how the Dark God would return and reduce the world of man to ash and stone. How he would purge the earth of its human plague and restore it to the way it should have been—wild, with werewolves on top, of course.
Just threats and myths. No specifics. No clues how to stop it from happening.
Sam was the only one I’d told so far about Savannah’s connection to the prophecy. I hadn’t even mentioned it to Regina, but that would have to change. We needed help.
I stepped to the edge of the tree line and admired the woman standing beside the bed of my truck.
My mate. Herald of the apocalypse.
The brightness of Casey’s headlights made her hair look like flowing fire, and the backlighting, combined with her cocked stance, gave her plain white shirt and cutoff jeans shorts an almost exotic effect. I drank in each curve of her body with my eyes, desiring everything I saw. The one night we’d spent together was burned in my mind, and seeing her naked again on the beach and sensing her desire had need screaming through me. It had been all I could do to stop myself from taking her right there.
Unfortunately, a repeat of that one night wasn’t going to be an option. Her idiot cousin was here—and standing, for no gods-damned reason, in the bed of my truck.
I stepped into the beam of his lights. “Get. Off. My. Truck. Now.”
Casey went white for a moment, then hopped down, muttering, “Fucking alphas,” under his breath.
I let my claws slowly slip out and stepped very, very close.
He inched back and raised his hands. “Whoa there, Wolverine. I was just helping Savy.”
She turned and gave me a pleading glare. Please be civil.
Sighing, I retracted my claws and fished my keys out of my jacket. “Thanks for your help, LaSalle. We’ve got it from here.”
Casey shook his head. “Oh, hell, no. You’re not getting rid of me so easily. I’m coming with. Do you know how much trouble it was to get a freaking tombstone enchanted at the last minute?”
Savannah touched his arm tenderly. “And we really appreciate it, Casey. I mean it.”
“You owe me big time,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth.
I glanced at the gravestone lying in the bed of my truck. It was red granite with an ornately carved trim, and inscribed, Here lies the witch of Pere Cheney—remembered forever while her accusers are long forgotten.
I raised my eyebrows. “No name?”
Savannah bit her lip apprehensively. “Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem. She didn’t give me one. She just asked for a beautiful, unbreakable gravestone that would last forever.”
I looked over at Casey, who seemed lost in thought. “Will it?”
He shrugged. “Hey, forever is a long time. Let’s not get into specifics. As far as you folks are concerned, it will.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You did the enchantment yourself, didn’t you?”
He glared back at me and ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I mean, where else was I going to get an enchanted gravestone on the weekend?”
I wasn’t sure how much I trusted his prowess as an enchanter, but I unlocked the truck anyway. “Fine. Let’s just get this tombstone up to Pere Cheney before it explodes in a ball of flame. It’s going to be a long drive.”
As it turned out, the four-hour trip was longer than I could’ve possibly imagined because Casey didn’t stop talking.
He’d spent the last decade messing with our business and manufacturing wolfsbane, and now, I couldn’t get him out of my car. His incessant questions had my blood pressure soaring, and I had to dig my claws into the steering wheel to keep calm. With the gas pedal pressed to the floor, I uttered a small prayer to the moon mother for patience as each mile marker flew by.
Sitting in the back middle spot, Casey leaned forward between our seats. “So, okay, I’m still wrapping my head around this whole mates thing.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Casey,” Savannah moaned.
“What would happen,” he continued, completely unfazed, “if you got pregnant? Would you have babies or puppies?”
I spun around. “Why, for the sake of the fates, are you here?”
Casey leaned back and tucked his hands behind his head, and I turned to the road. “I’m not letting my favorite cousin face a dead witch without magical backup. What if the old specter goes off the rails? No way I’m letting Savy get possessed.”
“Too late.” Savannah sighed. “I’ve already been possessed, just not by her.”
“What? Really?”
“It was Dragan,” she spat. “He was a fucking asshole.”
“Wow. Okay, this is all news. Either way, I’m not letting my cousin get possessed again,” he grumbled. “What I don’t get is why all this is such an emergency. Dragan’s dead. You obliterated his soul. Then, according to Mom, you just panicked and ran off.”
Savannah bit her lip, and I shook my head subtly.
“You guys aren’t telling me something,” Casey said in a suspicious sing-song.
“It’s nothing,” I muttered. “Let’s just focus on the—”
“I’m the herald of the apocalypse,” Savannah blurted, and darkness crowded in around my vision.
“What?” Casey yelped.
“This is wolf business,” I growled. “Stay out of it.”
But Savannah turned her fiery eyes on me. “I’m a wolf, he’s my cousin, and the rest of my family are going to be dead if we don’t stop what’s coming. So frankly, wolf business is everybody’s business right now.”
“Holy shit…are you serious?” Casey squeaked.
My claws extended fully into the wheel. “She is not the herald of the apocalypse.”
“The werewolves have a prophecy,” Savannah told Casey. “A twin-soul—me—will make a sacrifice that releases the Dark Wolf God. Apparently, obliterating Dragan’s soul counted as that sacrifice. I know that because the Dark God literally told me himself. We have a little less than six days until he returns, and when he does, he’s going to spread madness among the living and wipe human civilization off the map.”
Casey grabbed the seat backs. “Fuck. Prophecy be damned, but if you have a psycho-murderous wolf god speaking to you, we’ve got to tell Mom and the Order, ASAP!”
I slammed on the brakes and jerked the truck to the side of the road as my fury boiled over at last. Casey screamed, and Savy clung to my arm for dear life.
When the truck finally rumbled to a stop, I turned around and let my presence fill the cab. “You will not speak a word of this to anyone. Prophecies are unreliable. We thought Dragan would be the one to release the Dark God, so we took the bastard out. If the wrong person hears of this and puts two and two together, they might decide to do the same thing to Savy.”
Casey sank down into his seat. “Oh, fuck.”
Savannah looked out the window. Her raging emotions vibrated through the air—despair, terror, fury. I wanted to comfort her, but I had to lock this down, once and for all.
I let my eyes go brilliant gold as I pressed Casey with my full power. “You’ll tell no one until we understand what’s going on. Got it, LaSalle?”
He swallowed hard. “Got it. I’ll be as silent as the grave. I promise.”
“Good,” I said, pulling back onto the highway. “You start now. For the rest of the drive.”
5
Savannah
We bounced down the old trail, Jaxson’s headlights sweeping the darkness ahead of us. Finally, we rolled to a stop at the entrance to the Pere Cheney cemetery. It was little more than a clearing in the woods, with patchy grass and crumbling gravestones.
This place was as forgotten as the people buried here.
Well, all but one.
Hopefully, this works.
I wasn’t quite able to shake off the menace in the warning she’d given me: I will hunt down that missing sliver of your soul and make sure you never sleep again.
So yeah, not someone to be messed with.
I opened my door and slid out of the truck, and Casey followed.
“This place doesn’t look like much,” he muttered. “I thought it would be, you know, spookier. Cobwebs and shit, and grotesque statues.”
The cemetery wasn’t so much sinister as neglected by time. Then again, I could sense the ghosts lurking here, and that made it eerie enough. I shrugged as I dropped the tailgate. “To be fair, last time we were here, this place was teeming with possessed werewolves trying to summon the Dark God.”
Jaxson heaved the granite stone from the bed like it was a sack of feathers, and Casey’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Where do you want the gravestone?” Jaxson asked.
I bit my lip as I scanned the overgrown clearing. There were a few standing markers, but nowhere that felt special. “I don’t know. She didn’t have an actual grave. Somewhere prominent, so anyone who visits can see.”
Walking out across the strange, crunchy, moss-infested grass that grew in the cemetery, I searched for a spot. I put my hands out like my godmother, Alma, used to do, trying to feel the energy of the place, but I sensed nothing other than mild creepiness. That sixth sense of hers wasn’t something I’d ever been able to cultivate, though it brought back good memories to try.
Finally, I reached a spot that felt a little more right than all the others. “Here, I think. I don’t really know.”
Jaxson brought the stone over, raised it over his head, and slammed it into the ground like a pile driver.
It sank about four inches into the earth. Damn.
He packed the dirt around it with his foot as I tried to ignore the way his shirt stretched over those broad shoulders.
“So, what now?” Casey asked as he approached. “Do we wait for Bloody Mary to show up, or do we do voodoo to summon her?”
“I’m not sure, really,” I admitted. “Last time, I just shouted a lot until she came out.”
“Cool, cool, cool,” Casey said doubtfully.
Giving him a dirty look, I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Ghost of Pere Cheney! We brought your gravestone!”
We waited. Nothing happened.
Jaxson raised his eyebrows, and I motioned the men back. “Be patient, and give me some space.”
Wishing I knew the ghost’s name, I shouted again, “Ghost of Pere Cheney, I’m here to fulfill our bargain! I’ve brought you a headstone that will never break, will never weather, and will last long after these others have turned to dust. You’ll never be forgotten.”
Casey made a guilty, hedging expression, and I rolled my eyes.
For a long time, there was nothing. Then suddenly, my wound began to itch. I held up my finger to my lips in warning as a soft chill deeper than the night air washed over my skin.
We were no longer alone.
Slowly, I scanned the cemetery until at last, a pale, spectral light emerged from the woods. I held my breath as the witch of Pere Cheney slipped from behind the trees and drifted effortlessly across the grass. Her long, ratty hair framed a youthful face, and her threadbare dress trailed in wisps behind her on wind that I couldn’t feel.
Anger tightened my fists. She couldn’t have been more than a teenager when they’d hanged her, probably because she’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock or broken some archaic religious laws.
Humans were monsters.
The ghost approached cautiously, as if somehow, I were a threat. “I remember you, shadowed one. We had a bargain.”
“Here is your gravestone, as promised.”
“Who are you talking to?” Casey whispered, his eyes as wide as I’d seen them. “Is she here? I don’t see—”
I quickly shushed him. “Yes. I told you, I see ghosts. Now be quiet.”
The ghost paid our exchange no heed, floating instead to where the gravestone stood. She put her hands over her mouth in a way that made a lump of sorrow form in my throat. “It’s beautiful. Perfect.”
“No one will forget your story now,” I said softly, stepping over.
She wrapped her hands around the stone, a sob hovering at the edge of her voice. “Those people hanged me in the woods, and they let the wolves and birds fight over my bones. This is all there is to remember me.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Like the shadow of the earth passing over the moon, her eyes went dark. “The fools should have let me live. I cursed that town with plague and disease until not one of their offspring was left breathing. Until it was nothing more than a desolated patch of earth, and all of them rotting in the ground alongside me.”
My skin crawled at the sudden venom in her voice. She was possibly a little unhinged. I began to back away.
She flicked her infinitely dark eyes on me. “It doesn’t have my name. Why doesn’t it have my name?”
Aw, shit.
Somehow, it didn’t seem like arguing you didn’t tell me your name was going to be a viable defense.
My mind spun like Robin Arzón, and I swallowed hard. “Of course not. That’s, uh, part of the mystique. People who come here and see this stone will want to know who you are, and they’ll go crazy hunting through books and archives searching for your story. The harder you make them work for it, the better they’ll remember you.”
Practically purring, she traced her fingers over the granite slab. “What is in a name, anyway? They will remember who I was. What I did. Let them look.”
I licked my lips. “We had a bargain. I brought you your eternal gravestone, but you still owe me another answer.”
Her eyes flared with unearthly light, and she disappeared. My stomach dropped. Shit, shit, shit.
I spun around, looking for her. “Please, don’t go!” I shouted as I ran toward the woods. “You promised you’d help me! The Dark Wolf God is coming back, and I need your help to stop him! We had a bargain!”
As I stepped into the dark shadows of the trees, she was suddenly there, looming over me. “It’s dangerous to ask boons of the dead, you know.”
All traces of her earlier gratitude had vanished, replaced by the cold menace of her floating, ethereal form. My skin lost its warmth, and I began to recognize the depths of her madness and how dangerous the specter might truly be.
But I stood my ground. “How do I stop the Dark God from returning?”
Her face contorted into an expression somewhere between disgust and pity as she floated backward. “It’s too late. You released him. You can’t stop him from returning now. He’s already got his claws in you. Now, do not call for me again.”
Dread seeped into my soul. “What do you mean? Please! Help me.”
Like a viper, she lashed out and jabbed her finger into my wound. I gasped as her touch sent ice racing through my veins.
“You’re broken, and your defenses are breached,” she hissed. “Can’t you feel him prying you apart from the inside?”
Every muscle in my body knotted. “The Dark Wolf God?”
“I can feel it. He lives in you now. You are doomed to serve his will.”
She slipped away, but I stretched out my hand in pleading. “Wait! I don’t understand. How is he inside of me?”
An ethereal wind buffeted the spirit as if to blow her away, but her head turned back, and she locked her hollow eyes on me. “You’re a broken ship, and he is the sea. He’s spilling through the cracks, and soon, he will consume you. I can sense him here, even now. I’ve lingered too long.”
With that, the ghost vanished into a stream of glowing mist. Terror and despair pulled on me like heavy chains, and I let my outstretched hands drop.
“What’s going on?” Jaxson growled. He wouldn’t have heard her half of the conversation, but he would have certainly sensed my fear.
I instinctively grabbed his hand and started tugging him toward the truck. “We should probably get out of here.”
As we stepped out of the woods, Casey started to blurt something out, but I froze in place, hand raised to silence him and straining to hear. The air was unnaturally quiet, and the only sound I could make out was the drumming of our heartbeats.
