He had to be the biggest, ugliest, and without a doubt the smelliest mutt she’d ever come face to face with. Unfortunately, standing on the dock from which she hung, he was right there in her face, fangs bared, eyes wide and full of danger and darkness. As if this mutt knew about darkness.
“They told me to keep an eye on you.” His heated breath floated towards her face. “And I can do whatever I want. Just as long as you don’t die. And if I can get anything out of you, even better,” he said with glee, his big meaty fist landing into Suri’s solar plexuses.
Air rushed from her lungs. She would have curled over but her arms tied above her head and her feet a few inches above the water, curling over wasn’t an option. She sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils, her mouth gagged. Hopefully they hadn’t used a dirty sock. If they had…All. Hell. Would. Pay. All hell would pay anyway once she was free. She’d leave none alive. Let death prance through this place and take all. Except the children. She wasn’t that far gone. Yet.
She left her head, stared him in the eyes, and rolled them. Her way of saying his punch was like a bitches.
His nostrils flared. “Stupid bitch. You think you can just kill my brother’s and go on like nothing ever happened? I’ll make you suffer ten times what you made them feel. I’ll leave you all but dead, and let me Alpha kill you in front of your dragon.”
His change was swift and gruesome, his wolf taking over. Fur grew where it shouldn’t have. His fangs elongated. Saliva rolling out the corners of his mouth. Muscle packed his arms, legs, shoulders. When the change completed, he howled like the wolf he was. Then slashed his claws across her chest. She screamed, the gag muffling her voice.
This was going to be a long, long night.
“You want to help, bring Suri home,” Sage said to his sister. “She’s not safe out there.”
Jime choked back a laugh. “I want to help Sage. I love Suri. I’d do anything for her. Except that. You can’t lock her away again. That’s why she ran off in the first place. Luckily, she left with me last time. If I persuade her to go home and you do it again, next time she’ll go off on her own, or worst.” Jime shook her head.
“If she stays where everyone can see her, where anyone can find her, she’s easy prey. I won’t have her run around with a sun obsessed vampire. My daughter is smart, but she’s naive in the way of our world.”
“No thanks to you,” Jime said. “Siti was crap as a mother. We both know that. She could have been far better, more caring and protective of you, certainly. In effort not to be a horrible parent like your mom, you’re too protective of Suri, too involved in her life. Let her live Sage. She’s not as naive as you think. I forget that sometimes myself. She’s constantly calling me out on my bullshit.”
“When it comes to my child I’ll do whatever is best for her. Your opinion is not needed.”
That’s why they couldn’t be around each other for more than a few seconds. They never agreed on anything. She’d been in his life since his birth and he always had to be so damn stubborn. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll do whatever I must to protect my niece, even from you.”
“How about you protect her from yourself,” he snapped. “And while you are at it, figure out how to protect yourself from yourself.”
Brow arched, Jime shrugged. “What the hell does that mean? Don’t be cryptic, little brother. It never was your thing.”
“Then let me be blunt. Are you capable of seeing mother again without your judgement being clouded? Really are you? I won’t lose my daughter or wife because you can’t see what’s in front of your dead eyes.”
Jime pursed her lips determinedly. “I can handle it. Besides, I don’t like being lied to, and according to you,” she looked at Jack,” and you, she’s done a lot of lying. A lot of it for what?,” she muttered the last beneath her breath. When she looked back at her brother, Sage had pierced Jack with a look of utter disdain before glancing back at his sister.
“What about him? You remember what happened the last time you tangled with him, don’t you? Or do you need another reminder?”
Jime’s face closed off going stone cold. That’s what she always hated about Sage, his holier than thou act, as if he had no past full of mistakes and regrets. Knowing the callus bastard, he probably didn’t regret a single thing. “Mind your own damn business. My mistakes are my own to make and fix.”
“Oh yeah. Well, you haven’t done a good job fixing it. That fucking bastard is still chasing after you and you continue to hold you ass in the air like a bitch in heat, leading him on.”
“Did you just compare me to a mangy wolf?” Jime said disgusted.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to this last year.”
“I have not been leading him around,” Jime said defensively. “He’s been stalking me, following me around and no matter what I say or do he doesn’t go away.”
Jack cleared his throat. “Standing right here, you know.”
Sage ignored Jack. “Stealing his car isn’t the best ‘go away’ sign, now is it? It’s more of a beacon. A come ‘catch me if you can’ than anything else. And you have my daughter mixed in with that fucker!”
“I have nothing to do with your daughter, Mage,” Jack said. “My only connection to her is through Jime.”
Sage turned deadly eyes on Jack. “Did I give you permission to speak to me?” His voice was arctic cold, his fingers tingling with spell after cursed spell he readied to throw in the bastards’ face.
Stepping around the vampire to face her brother, Jack’s eyes sparkled with challenged. “You wanna go up against me, Mage?” It’d been a while since Jack was involved in a good fight. Helping the dragons with the knights hadn’t even scratched the surface. In fact, it just made him crave a good fight even more.
Jime watched her brother and ex-lover square off. One dark. One light. Neither on the side of the angle. Both equally deadly and destructive, and total Neanderthals. “Sit down!” she voiced. Both men remained standing but stilled, their bodies locked. Jack glowered. Sage cursed.
“If you two are done waving your testosterone around in the air and comparing the size of your balls, I’d seriously appreciated it if you could please refrain from trying to kill one another.” She looked at Sage. “I don’t think I’m up to explaining to Angie why her idiot husband is busted up.” She looked at Jack. “And I’m definitely not picking your ass up off the floor. Sorry, blood doesn’t come out of cashmere.” She ran a hand down her top.
They glared. She sighed.
“I left Suri at P and S before Jack, the car, went take over on me and brought me here. We’ll go there, Sage. She planned to be in there for a while.”
No words. Sage opened a portal and walked through. It closed behind him.
Jime through Jack a glance. “You owe me an explanation. Later.” She vanished, leaving Jack alone in silence.
His ringing phone broke the silence.
There had to be a witch around. There just had to be. There was no other way Suri remained awake the entire time the mutt beat, stabbed, and broken bone after bone. Her rib cage rested in her stomach somewhere by now. Her eyes cried blood. Her lips so busted and swollen she no longer needed a gag to keep her voice in. Her torturer spoke. Too bad her ears no longer work. All she could hear was her internal screaming.
Through the one eye she could open a little, she watched the wolf wipe the knife clean or her blood, most of which dripped into the lake below. If there was one good thing out of this, it was the lack of sharks or piranha in the body of water below.
Her body blazed hot, her only relief the cool slip of metal that hung from her neck. The necklace she found sitting on the basin mirror when she stepped out the shower back at the safe house. She figured Jime must have grabbed it when she delivered Toren to River. She didn’t care how it was returned to her. Right now, it was her only life line, the cool touch of metal.
Faintly, she could just make out the sound of heels clicking along the wooden dock. With her good eye, which was slowly healing, she watched the Alpha wolf mate stand next to her torturer.
“How’s our little friend behaving?” she asked.
“She’s not talking. Can’t get anything out of her. Thought I’d trying a bit harder. Was just playing around ’til now.”
If Suri could raise her eyebrows at the “playing around” comment, she totally would have. But she couldn’t.
Eva rolled her eyes. “Take the gag out, stupid.”
It never dawned on him that she was incapable of talking because she couldn’t. She watched his face light up before he stepped forward and yanked the clothing from over her mouth and practically digging his entire dirty ass claw into her mouth to get the cloth stuffed inside out, cutting her lip in the process.
Her mouth was as dry as a noon, Nevada, sunny day in July. She’d give her right leg for something to drink. Anything. She’d even go for a dunk in the lake if it would wet her mouth.
“There now.” Eva raised a hand, stroking Suri’s face. “Such a pretty face all bruised,” she cooed patronizingly. “We can make it all better as soon as our other guest show up. That sounds nice, doesn’t it?”
Suri licked her bottom lip and spat a mouth full of blood in Eva’s face. “Go jump off a cliff, Bitch!” And just because she could speak, she muttered a spell that send a ball of flame exploded before Eva’s face. That was all she managed to get out before that meaty fist she was becoming oh-so acquainted with slammed into her jaw. He stuffed the gag back into her mouth.
“Maybe that’s why she was gagged,” he said.
Eva straightened, having been knocked to the side. “She likes playing with fire. Lets see her burn.” She pulled a lighter from her pocket and tossed it to the werewolf. Then she reached into her back pocket to pull out a cellphone. “Lets see what VOOtube thinks of this little show.” She pressed record. The video would go viral on the website for the kind. “You killed my wolves. Did you think nothing would happen in return?”
The wolf smiled dangerously, flicked the lighter and held it to Suri’s face.
This time, even the gag couldn’t muffle the scream.
Joslyn flew up out the bed startled from her sleep by a pain so intense her limbs trembled. Beside her, Ren hopped up, grabbed his jeans from the floor and pulled out his cell. Joslyn reached over to snatch it from his hands. She unlocked the screen, and held the “3” button that called River’s phone, and launched into rapid speech as soon as he answered.
“We felt-“
“I know,” River replied.
“Is he?”
“He’s fine. It’s not him you’re feeling.”
“But his necklace?”
“Is missing, remember?”
On the night stand her own cellphone started to ring. Ren answered. “So he’s not hurt?” she asked River.
“He’s standing beside me. You want me to hand him the phone?”
Joslyn let out a pent up breath she hadn’t realized she held. “No. He’s fine. We need to find that necklace. You think someone figured out how it works?”
“Hopefully not, but we can’t exclude that as an option.”
“Send it over,” Ren said to into the phone and hung up. “According to Gabe, we just got a very interesting, if not confusing, email message from outside.”
Her phone pinged. Ren handed her the phone. She tapped a few screens, typed a couple of passcode’s to open the message. There were no words. Just a video file. She clicked it open and her room was filled with muffled screams.
You killed my wolves. Did you think nothing would happen in return?
Over her shoulder Ren watched the video. “Who is that?”
Joslyn had a pretty good idea who it was. “It’s from the wolves. I can recognize that bitch Eva’s cackling ass laugh anywhere.”
“Okay. Why’d she send this.”
Joslyn sat the phone damn and put the other one back to her ear. “Lackey. I’m sending you something that just came through to me…It’s for Toren.”
She texted the video to River’s phone.
River ran a hand down his face as Toren hit the replay button for the fourth time.
You killed my wolves. Did you think nothing would happen in return?
This was the last thing they needed at the moment. His lord needed to focus on one thing, finding the hatchling. A distraction of this sort was of the worst sort. If it was up to him, River would let the witch fend for herself. Saving a member of the clan was more important. But it wasn’t up to him. It was Toren’s decision because Toren decided to mate with a fucking witch who deserved nothing less after what she did to his scales.
“What are you going to do?” River asked quietly. They stood a distance away from the other’s, but he didn’t want them to overhear. “We’re closing in on the Knights. We can’t stop now.”
“Shall I just leave her to this?” Toren held the phone up, his eyes a luminescent white. “To be the wolves plaything?”
“At the cost of saving one of your own who will possibly be killed by your enemy after they finish doing whatever they wish to the babe. Yes. Leave her. She has the vampire, her parents to worry about her. You need to worry about the child.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Sometimes I don’t think you remember anything whenever she’s involved.”
“Sometimes you seem to forget exactly who you are?” Toren replied steadily.
“I know who I am. I am your friend. Your confidant. The person who kicks your ass in the right direction when you’re obviously about to make the wrong decision,” River replied, eyes locked with Toren’s. “We can’t just leave the kid out there.”
“And we won’t. You know I won’t abandon the child.”
“But you’re going to anyway, aren’t you?” River could see it in his leader’s eyes.
Toren turned away. “Go after the kid. Stick with them. Don’t let them get away. When you see the opportune moment to strike, do so. I’m trusting you with this River.”
River shook his head at Toren’s back. “Can’t believe you gave her that necklace.”
“I hope I’m there the day you give you necklace away to some poor unsuspecting person,” Toren tossed over his shoulder. “Then you’ll understand.”
“Understand what?”
“It’s not about the necklace. That’s just security.” He walked away. “Call Joslyn back. Tell her to meet me at the Wolf’s den in two hours. I’ll meet back up with the rest of you in 24.”
Toren shifted to his Dragon form and took off into the air. River sighed and looked at the warriors now his to lead. At least for the day. What he wouldn’t give for a break from all the nonsense. If it wasn’t Toren it was Joslyn, or Ren, or the young ones running off to do something stupid.
River scrolled through his list of contacts until he found the Sinn-Jammer’s number.
Joslyn paced the sidewalk half a mile away from the wolf’s den waiting for her brother. He was half and hour late and with each passing second the metal chain around her neck grew hotter and hotter. She just spun on the left heel of her black calf high combat boots when a Taxi cab pulled up beside her, her brother stepped out.
“What? Did you shit, shower, shave, and bathe before you decided to show up?” she asked when he stood next to her in his Warlords’ finest of black leather and gold armor. He only wore the gold knee pad, the golden knuckles, his two swords rested on his hips. Joslyn was pretty sure that he had many more smaller blades strapped to him somewhere. “Waxed your legs? Shine your scales? Or what’s left of them.”
“Shut up Jos.” He looked around, saw nothing but empty street. “You came alone?”
“Psst! As if. I have two tropes on ground, one in the air. Naomi, Seung Hoo, and Jai will go inside with us. They're waiting at the front.” She stopped talking and looked deep into her little brother’s face. “You okay?”
He brushed off her concerned. “I’m fine. Let’s get this over with. I have a kid to find.” With that, he walked towards the Wolf’s den which in fact wasn’t a den at all, but a rather large mansion with a forest backyard.
When they reached the gate entrance, his three other warriors joined them. Strong, level headed, and kick-ass fighters, he never worried when he had them at his back. If something happened with the wolves once inside, he had four excellent warriors to handle anything. His only goal was to get Suri. Get her then get out. He wasn’t ready to deal with her just yet. Not while he scales still grew in.
No need for formalities. The wolves were expecting him, so when he and his soldiers stood in front of the gate it opened without hesitation. Just inside the compound, a werewolf stood, growling, angry. Had Toren been his usual happy self, he would have yawned, maybe flash his own dragon teeth at the dog to show him who really had the bigger balls around here. Instead, he looked passed him and kept walking until he entered the house. His sister on the other hand was another story. For each wolf they encounter, she responded differently. A smile, a growl, an air kiss or batted lash. The mutts didn’t know what to do.
They walked outside, where Toren was sure to find Amor with his long, tanned body outside stretched out on the lounge, his red haired, green eyed, buxom mate resting beside him. He hadn’t expected this time to be any different. It wasn’t.
“Honey, look who finally decided to show up,” Eva said to her mate. “I was starting to think he wouldn’t come, that I would get a chance to play with the girl too.”
Amor smiled at his mate. “Of course he would come. I have something of his that he wants back.” They spoke as if he wasn’t there at all.
Toren rolled his eyes inside of shooting a ball of smoke into their face. “I don’t have time for this. Now what is it that you want?”
Amor wiggled a finger. “Not so fast. We should wait for all parties involved to arrive.” He gestured to one of his pack mates who disappeared into the trees.
“You know, all this could have been avoided if you would have returned my call in the beginning,” Amor said. “But you didn’t. You broke our agreement and have been dodging me since.”
“Sorry you feel that way,” Toren said, “However, you’re sadly misconstrued. Our agreement was completed.”
“You killed my wolves,” Amor said calmly, but Toren could feel the tension coming from the Alpha.
A dry laugh. “Our arrangement called for me to bring the witch to your pack mates. You were to give me what I asked for in return.” A slow smile tugged the corner of Toren’s mouth, one side a little higher than the other. “It seems to me the one who has broken our deal was you. Not me. I gave you the witch. She blew them up. You should have expected something like that to happen.”
Eva bared her fangs. Amor rested a hand gently on her shoulder. “Calm down sweetie. The Warlord is correct. We should have expected that to happen. That’s why we were better prepared this time.”
Two wolves walked out at the edge of the woods, one covered in blood, carrying a sack over his shoulder. It wasn’t until they were closer that Toren noticed that the sack wasn’t a sack, but a person. Suri. Thirty feet away, the one carrying her slung her from his shoulder and threw her towards the dragons. She hit the ground hard, and rolled to a stop when she crashed into Joslyn’s legs. She didn’t move. She didn’t make a sound. Smoke curled from his nose so thick it surrounded like a dense fog.
Joslyn squatted low to check for a pulse. “She’s not dead. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”
Back on the lounge, Amor smiled. “See. We were better prepared.” Amor turned to his pack mate. “Nice work.” Back to Toren. “Now it looks to me like we’re in need for a new agreement considering the last one was a botch job.”
His fist flexed and closed. Flexed and closed. She still hadn’t moved. The magic of his dragon wishing to come forth was overwhelming. It wanted to run free. To burn. To kill. To destroy everyone who dared to hurt it’s mate. Even a mate that didn’t recognize it. He would have done it too until his sister gripped his leg tightly. "Now is not the time for you to start a battle with the mutts. Save it for another day. Right now, focus!”
He shook his leg to dislodge her grip. She was right. That didn’t make him any less angry. The anger wasn’t the worst of it. It was the guilt. He handed her over. All she did was defend herself, and this is what happened. But Joslyn was right. Focus. One last breath of smoke. Eyes of the hottest fire leveled with the Alpha’s, the smile spreading completely across the dragon’s face.
“There’s no need for a new deal. As I said before, I completed my end of the bargain.” He waved a hand at Suri. “You obviously got what you wanted. I expect my payment and the contract by the end of the week. You’ve wasted enough of my time already.”
To his warriors he said, “let’s go.”
The pain had stopped. She no longer dangled over the lake. There was no fire, or claws, or blades. There was only an echo of what once was the most excruciating pain, humiliation, and darkness. So much darkness. If her eyes were open she couldn’t tell. All she saw was black. A cloud of black to smothered her, choking her until she gasped for air.
How weak. You’re pathetic. You let a punk ass pack of dogs defeat you. Break you. Make you scream like a little girl. The daughter of the Black Mage and a spirit guardian. You’ll never be able to show your face again. An embarrassment to your parents. To your aunt.
No matter how trapped she felt back home, she loved her parents. Her aunt. Suri’d never do anything to cause this embarrassment. She was to be the best. Always. Number one. And no wolf, werewolf of not, would make her fall.
Wipe out their entire kind.
That’s what she’d do. She’ll kill them off. Every. Single. Last. One. Of those fucking flea bags before she let them make a fool out of her. No one would do business with a witch brought so far down in their world.
Kill them.
She would bring so much death and destruction to the world even her father would fear her.
No!
She would not destroy the world. Not in retaliation of some mutts. The idea was ludicrous. The darkness would not make her into a blind killer.
He beat you.
Yes he did.
Made you scream.
She swallowed a groan.
While his bitch watched.
Wasn’t that the cream of the crop. Not only had she watched. She recorded it. To put on VooTube. A forever mockery she would become.
They made of fool of you.
And they would pay for that. The world may be safe for now, at least from her, but she’d kill them. He would scream twice as loud as she did. His pain would have no end from her. She’d make what he did to her look like child’s play. His soul would forever burn. That fucking mutt would have no peace. Ever. For as long as she lived she would show him who was his real master. And it wasn’t that bitch.
Blood for blood.
Flesh for flesh.
Pain for pain.
Double. Triple. Forever let it rain.
His soul no more
His life is mine.
To do with whatever I shall to the end of time.
A sacrifice I make to the goddess
I vow with my blood
She opened her eyes, both slowly rejuvenating now that the torture had stopped. With blurred vision she searched out her target who stood a few feet away near his leader, a pleased smile on his face as he looked at her.
“Hecate. Feed.”
With pleasure. The dark magic, rushed into her body like a tsunami wave crashing into land. It rolled in, throughout, and out of center shooting through the sky towards its target who never saw it coming.
The spell drilled into the wolves chest. His smile gone instantly. He kneeled over, screaming, clawing at his own chest. Cries of despair, and the worst sort of terror imagine, filled the back yard.
What little strength she regain, Suri used to push herself into a seated position, the cool grass and dirt a balm to her palms.
“Easy now. You'll have time to play in dirt later. Take it easy,” a feminine voice she didn’t recognize spoke into her ear.
Usually having someone unfamiliar so close to her, especially at a time of weakness, would cause her to attack. Yet, this time Suri only had eyes for the bitch.
Bones ached and it hurt to breath. She rolled to her knees. The pain of broken ribs slowly piecing back together knocked the wind out of her. But she didn’t stop.
Show that bitch who’s really alpha.
She would.
No pain. No gain, right? Sweat and blood ran down her face, the burns on her body were enough to make her call it quits, but she kept moving until she stood on her feet. Swayed. Righted herself, with the help of two strong hands on her shoulders. She looked up to meet the glowing eyes of her dragon. Her eyes narrowed in return. She shrugged his touch off, damn near toppled over doing so. She didn’t want his touch. He had become the bane of her existence. And it made her sick and frustrated that even now while she stood looking like a rag doll, after all that had happened, she still had that insane attraction to him.
Enough of that.
Suri toed off her shoes, her feet sinking into the soft earth. She wiggled her toes and allowed the magic of the earth slowly seep into her feet to help heal her.
Toren dropped his arms from her shoulders. She didn’t want him to touch her. Fine. If looks could kill, and he wasn’t immortal, he’d be so dead right now. Okay. He could deal with that. It was her walking towards the alpha pair he wasn’t sure how to deal with. Beside him, Joslyn looked at him amused.
His feet moved on their own. The closer she became to Amor and Eva, the further he followed her until she stopped directly in front of them.
“Wha-“ Amor started to say.
Suri back handed Eva off her chair. She stumbled and almost fell down but caught herself on the banister.
Amor jumped up and Toren closed the distance between he and Suri. "No way in hell will you live Amor if you so much as touched a finger nail to her."
Joslyn held up her hand to hold the others off. "Stay back. You don't want to bring home any ticks, do you? We'll have to cut off all your scales to get rid of them. Toren doesn't have any scales left so let him handle it."
His right hand went to the small of her back to keep her up. He didn’t care that she didn’t like him, what him to touch her, she’d hurt herself if left on her own.
This time she didn’t fight his touch. Her eyes, swollen, red, bruised, pinned Eva to the floor. Literally.
“I will send you and all of your flea ridden kind to the black abyss where it will forever float, to never be released, where you will starve to death and never die for all eternity you mutt bitch.”
Before she casted whatever spell on her tongue, a portal opened in the backyard.
Her torture’s screams continued.
