Blood Magic by Laken Cane
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Neither of us believed Axton had made it out of the woods. He’d holed up somewhere with his prize and was likely draining Zach at that very moment. He’d been through a trauma, had Axton, what with the council killing his seer and stealing his slave, and then sentencing him to three months in a grave where he would be forced to starve and suffer.
His reign of power was ending, and he knew it.
Jared didn’t shift until I did. He stood watching me like a teacher might watch a student, admiring, perhaps, the way I was growing. And I couldn’t help it—I preened a little. My wolf’s joy burst free as she did, and despite my huge worry over Zach and my rage over Axton’s mistreatment of my mother, my wolf shifted, then lunged at Jared and wrapped herself around him like she was a big cat instead of a wolf. She whined and chirped and nibbled gently on his arms and hands and fingers until finally he shoved her away, gently, and burst into his own shift.
I understood something at that moment. More than the others, perhaps, Jared thought of me as “his wolf” because he’d saved her. He’d freed her. And no matter if I was an alpha myself or if I told him a thousand times he was not my alpha, he believed otherwise. And maybe, deep down, so did I.
In a way, Jared would always be my alpha, because he would always be my wolf’s alpha. I was good with that.
His wolves and Axton’s vampires were still stalking each other through those woods, still fighting and killing each other, but when dawn crept closer, the vampires would be forced to go into the ground before something scarier than a wolf came to end them.
My only concern was Axton. He was my prey. I had to find him before dawn, before he took Zach into the ground. He’d take him so deep that I would be unable to track them, and Zach would be lost. Probably forever. He was a strong man, but Axton was going to find a safe place to rest, and he would either start the process of turning Zach or he would use whatever evil blood magic he’d forced inside the hunter and would take him down for three months so he could feed from him. And Zach wouldn’t be a human being after that. He’d be a braindead blood bag.
One way or another, Zach was about to die, and I was desperate to save him. I wasn’t sure why he’d touched me so deeply, but he had, and I could not let the master have him. I would not.
I ran through the woods, lifting my nose to the air to catch the cold currents and stopping occasionally to tease a scent from the dry leaves and debris that covered the ground.
The longer I tracked, the more deeply entrenched I became in the hunt. I heard screams and voices and smelled pain and blood, but they were background things that barely registered. I cared only about the goal of finding and killing Axton and retrieving Zach.
That knowledge brought with it the sudden realization that I wasn’t just the woman and the wolf, I was also the psycho who’d come to life in Scarlett’s. Something else inside me had awakened with the councils’ probing, and I believed they’d seen it before they’d come to recruit me.
So many secrets.
The wolf didn’t care.
I stopped suddenly, lifting my nose and playing with the scents that hung in the air. I opened my mouth, letting them slide across my tongue, tasting the bitterness, the sweetness, the power.
They were close.
My hackles rose and I slunk across the ground, my head low. They were close. Close enough to taste.
The alpha stalked at my side, his growl drifting from his mouth, letting me know he felt them too. Did they know we were here? Maybe not. The master would not smell us, his nose was contemptibly weak. Wolves and vampires were everywhere in these woods, and he would not be able to separate my presence from theirs.
No, most likely, he was even now feasting upon his slave, and his control of Zach would be in full force. Zach wouldn’t be able to fight it, not when he was held in his master’s arms. Axton’s dominance was complete. It was only when Zach gained some separation that he also gained some control. And until the master was dead—which could also kill Zach but I wouldn’t worry about that just yet—or the bond had been broken by time and distance, Zach would be helpless against it.
That was okay. I would fight for him.
The alpha pressed his body against mine, pushing me toward a recently turned patch of earth, and I whined when I saw it. They were in the ground—though with dawn not yet close, Axton wouldn’t be able to go deep.
There was only one way to bring him out.
I began digging ferociously, growling as I pawed at the earth, throwing clods of dirt and leaves and dried sticks and earth freshly wet by the blood of the human, and my alpha sat back on his haunches and guarded me.
When I’d dug about two feet down, Axton burst from the ground, and that explosion threw me through the air so hard I nearly broke my back on the tree trunk that caught me.
There was no time to recover, though. No time to think or feel or even breathe. I screamed in pain even as I bounded off the ground and slammed my wolf’s big body against the county master and the bundle of naked human he held to his chest.
The alpha leaped and crashed into him from behind, and in sync in intentions and actions, we sandwiched the county master between us. Zach’s cry of agony went straight to my heart and for a second, even the wolf was distracted with worry for the human.
Not so the psycho, as I had begun to affectionately think of that part of myself. She, it, I wanted Axton’s blood. He was the Goal. And the psycho, with her tunnel vision, would think of nothing but Axton.
The woman wanted to save Zach.
The wolf wanted to tear out Axton’s throat and then roll around on the ground with her alpha.
The psycho wanted to hear the master scream.
We would get what we wanted. All of it. Axton fought us, viciously and fiercely, but in the end, not even a county master could stand against two savage wolves. Two alpha wolves.
It was too bad I couldn’t separate myself into three different physical beings, because Zach landed on the ground and lay there, motionless, bloody, and pale, and maybe he was dead, I thought maybe he was just fucking dead, and I couldn’t do anything until the wolf and psycho killed the vampire.
In the end, the alpha stood back to watch as I fought the vampire master alone. He stood in front of the fallen human, protecting him, and all parts of me loved him a little more for that.
At last, the master gave one final scream, satisfying me, and I batted him away almost playfully, my wolf taking a moment to pounce on him and lick the blood from his destroyed face before I forced my shift.
There was no time to play. I needed to take his heart and head and tend to Zach. And I wanted Zach to see the master’s death and know he was free. It was important to be free, as I very well knew.
But after I shifted to my human form, naked and hurt and full of crazy, I was unable to resist running to the alpha. He opened his arms and watched me come, pride and something else, something I couldn’t identify, on his beautiful face. He wrapped me up in his arms and for a few seconds, we stood there, silent and victorious.
The pack slipped from the shadows and surrounded us, panting and tired, drawn automatically to their alpha now that the vampires had fled. As their wolves, they had no resentment of me. They simply threw themselves to the ground and rested, ready to shift to their human forms when it was time to do so. They would stay as wolves a while longer, just in case the danger returned.
I’d never felt more like I belonged than I did at that moment.
Finally, I pulled away from Jared and turned to Zach. He’d somehow managed to stand, though he looked like he was near death with his torn, thin body and the grayness of his skin. He stared at me, but I wasn’t sure he even saw me.
I found my clothes and re-dressed, then took Zach’s hand. “Help me end the bastard, Zach.” And I half held him up as he walked between me and Jared. When we reached Axton, Zach fell to his knees beside him. And as he’d done the first day I’d rescued him, he silently held out his hand for a blade. This time, it was the alpha who gave it to him. I hadn’t brought so much as an extra knife with me because that night, it was all about the wolf.
I knelt beside him, and when he found himself too weak from blood loss to decapitate the master, I put my hand over his, and we finished the job together. When it was over, he simply sat there, his shoulders drooping, and stared for the longest time.
“It’s done,” I said, gently. “It’s over. Let’s go get you healthy.”
But he growled like a feral animal and with one last surge of energy, he forcefully yanked a lock of hair from Axton’s skull and wrapped it around his hand. It would be a reminder to him of his survival. Of his strength, and of his vulnerability.
It ended there, not only for him but for the humans, some we didn’t even know about. The mind control magic died with the seer Kaloni and with the former Clinton County Master, Frederick Axton.
I hoped.
