Blood Magic by Laken Cane

Chapter Twenty

I dressed up for the meeting—after all, not only were they scary, powerful people, but they were potentially my bosses. If the werewolf council had been there—a council I’d never met and had barely even heard of—I’d have been even more nervous.

No nonhuman could remain calm in the presence of the panel who had the power to wipe them out with a single nod, even if that panel were shadowy and rarely seen. They did need agents working for them, and the world needed to be safer from people like Jakeston’s county master who had slipped his council’s notice for much too long.

I understood they had a lot to deal with, but come on.

The meeting was taking place in Alexandria. I sat in the back seat of the car that had come to fetch me, trying to see the driver through the partition that separated us. I could make out the shadowy outline of him, but that was all.

“Where are we headed?” I asked him.

He ignored me.

“Rude,” I muttered.

He drove deep into Alexandria and finally pulled into the parking lot of, shockingly enough, a huge, old, brick church. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Talk about a front.”

It was smart, though, to have a pretend church for secret meetings. No one was going to blink an eye at a bunch of cars in a church parking lot, and the human police weren’t going to investigate. But vampires in a church—even one that wasn’t actually a church—was just…weird. And wrong. The building would have been built specifically for the nonhumans, and no religious services would ever have been held inside it. If it had been an actual church, it would’ve been protected. No vampires would have been able to walk through its doors.

I got out of the car, eyeing the other vehicles in the lot—there was a mix of them from the expensive and sleek to the old and rusty. The area was well lit and there were no houses nearby, only businesses that had closed their doors at five p.m. The street was quiet.

Smart.

I climbed the wide steps to the huge double doors, growing a little more nervous by the second. I wasn’t sure what I was walking into, and I began to wonder if I shouldn’t have been a little more hesitant. These were vampires, after all. Vampires and wolves were enemies. They didn’t meet in fake churches to make deals.

And I had no one at my back.

But just before I reached the doors, someone—an attendant—pushed them open for me. It was all very dramatic. “Welcome,” he said, and I waited for him to add, “We’ve been…expecting you.”

Then I saw Jared Walker standing just inside the vestibule with a small group of people, and my sarcastic reply died before it passed my lips.

The wolves were here.

My alpha was here.

He stiffened and frowned, catching my scent, most likely, then turned and saw me. His eyes widened right before he blanked his face and strode toward me. He grabbed my arm and started to propel me back out the doors.

“How are you here?” he hissed. “You can’t be here, Kait.”

I dug my heels in. “I was invited.” I yanked my arm out of his grip, which had become just a little bruising, and rubbed my arm. I glared at him. “Damn, Alpha.”

“If you were invited, they’d have given you a marker.”

“This pretty little trinket?” I pulled the chain from where it was hidden beneath my top and shook it at him. It held a tiny but surprisingly heavy teardrop pendant. A small half-moon whose sharp ends were connected by a thin, jagged line was carved into the metal, and every time I touched it, I found it surprisingly warm. Hot, almost. I’d left the tiny leather envelope at home. “I was invited.”

His disbelieving stare went from the pendant to my face. “Why? By whom?”

I wasn’t sure what the big deal was, but he seemed to believe my presence was sacrilegious. I was a little insulted by his shock. “Three people came to visit me this morning. Nash, Olson, and a sweet girl named Lilah.”

He ran his hand over his head. “Sweet,” he muttered. “A sweet girl.”

And then someone else stepped forward. “Kait,” my ex-alpha said. “Why are you here?” He curled his lip at Jared. “You need to learn to control your pups. Even ones like her.”

My stomach tightened and I dug my nails into my palms, trying to get a grip on my reflexive fear. The alphas hesitated and turned away from each other to look at me, and I knew they were both reacting to my fear. Jared reacted with anger, and Adam Thorne reacted with satisfaction.

And because I would rather have died than let Adam think he could cause me fear, I shoved myself into his space. “I’m not afraid of you, bitch. I’m afraid of him. And if you were a smart man, you’d be afraid, as well.” Then I sniffed the air and smiled. “Oh…but you are, aren’t you?”

Jared pulled me away from the now glaring Adam and through the small groups of idly chatting people, trying to find an unoccupied space where we could talk. Finally, he backed me into a corner. “You shouldn’t be here, Kait. This place is dangerous. These people are dangerous. Tell me what happened.”

“They came to visit me because I called about Axton mind-controlling humans.”

“Called,” he said, confused. “How?”

“One of the vampires gave me a number.”

He looked heavenward and blew out a hard breath. “Fuck.”

“It’s okay,” I told him. “They didn’t come to me to warn me off, they came to ask for help.” I was reluctant to tell him exactly what they’d offered, though I wasn’t sure why. I just knew he was going to be very displeased. I hurried on. “I told them everything I knew about Axton and the humans he’d killed, and—”

“Kait,” he said, but he wouldn’t look at me, and from that alone, I knew he was either terribly upset or quietly raging. Both, most likely. “They don’t pay attention to anything that won’t get them something in return. And they don’tcare what happens to you.” Finally, he lowered his stare to mine. “I do. I am your alpha. You accepted me as your alpha. Your wolf is mine. You will listen to me, or I will discipline you.”

I was furious, but my wolf was cowering and wanting to drop to her knees and lick his hand. Finally, I settled on speaking my truth. “I don’t know how to be a wolf, Jared. Not anymore. She wants to obey you, but I…” I shook my head. “I can’t.”

He gripped my shoulders. “Why not, Kait? It should be natural to you to bend to your alpha. But you see yourself as—”

“Your equal.” I lifted my chin. “I’m a grown woman, Jared. I make my own choices. I’m sorry I can’t fit into your whole…pack situation. But you’re not the boss of me.”

And that was the damn truth.

An alpha cannot have an alpha, now can she?

Now I knew exactly what she’d meant. She’d seen that much inside me. I was not a good little wolf. I was not an alpha, not really, not officially, but inside…

Yeah. Inside, I was an alpha. My wolf, though, she just wanted to cry.

Jared simply nodded.

Because of the overwhelming sadness, I had to ask. “Does this mean I’m not your wolf? That I’m not Pack?”

He leaned forward to kiss my cheek, his lips just grazing the corner of my surprised mouth, and honestly, I thought it was about the hottest kiss I’d ever received. “I’ll protect you like always, Kait, although…” And his smile slid across his face, slow and hot. “If I’m not your alpha, anything can happen.” He walked away before I could think of a single thing to say, but then he turned back. “And you will always be Pack.”

Then he wound his way through the little knots of chatting people, people I’d nearly forgotten were even there, and I lost sight of him.

I wasn’t sure what I’d just done, but I remained torn between sadness and pride. I hadn’t had a choice, not really. I could have struggled to be what I was supposed to be, but that was what it would have been—a struggle.

I was no one’s puppy.