She met his gaze, aware of the flash of red that came and went in his pretty eyes. “I can handle Boyce.” To Boyce she said, “Go ahead.”
He walked over to her, leaned down to be at eye-level, and put a finger to her temple.
She didn’t see it, but she could feel Kraft’s stillness.
Isn’t that interesting?Paz murmured.
“What?”
Boyce answered, thinking she was talking to him. “Now concentrate on that image for me.”
She did, recalling exactly what the sorcerer had done.
“Witness the truth.” Boyce reeled back and flung out a hand, projecting a magical image of what she’d seen. A replay of what she’d encountered had the room quiet as a tomb.
They all watched as she battled with rogue Torn-Fang dires and others she couldn’t identify. They tangled with her while Kraft watched from a distance, a dark figure standing back.
She hadn’t realized he’d seen that much of her fight, or that she’d subconsciously known he was there. Had he considered her a strong dire or a weak one for not paying attention to the sorcerer who stabbed her in the back?
Her cousin frowned. “You got knifed?”
“With a silver blade,” Kraft said.
The picture grew murky when her memory faded, but she focused on the sorcerer’s face.
Boyce gasped. “That’s Sebastian.”
“Hold on,” she said, excited to finally get a hit on that name. “Seb DM. What does the DM stand for?”
“It stands for Dark Mist coven,” Boyce’s master said. “Sebastian Castle, once a member of the Dark Mist coven, was excised with the rest of them for going beyond the practice of the dark arts and sacrifice.”
“What’sbeyondthe dark arts?” Riley asked, curious.
“He supposedly made a deal with the devil.”
Everyone pondered that.
“Which devil, exactly?” Kraft asked and shot a side-glance at Paz. “Because some are worse than others.”
“What? They’re all bad,” Freddy said, realized who he was talking to, and swallowed a ball of fear everyone could scent.
“You know who else is all bad? The Torn-Fang pack,” Riley said, vindicated.
Uncle Jack smiled through his teeth, his gaze spearing Beatrice and her son. “Did you also happen to see those dires attacking my niece? Why, I believe one of them belongs to you.” Jack turned to the mage who’d been quiet thus far. “Neal, aren’t you missing a few mages from your guild? You know, we took pictures of every body before we burned them. Seems to me that we can place a few of those corpses as yours.”
“That’s a lie!”
Accusations flew as Jack, Beatrice, Freddy, and the prickly mage traded barbs and digs about loyalty and guilt. No one knew exactly why the lycans had been acting against their own. Beatrice claimed her dires had been lost and enspelled, while Freddy seemed to recall a few excised from the pack not long ago. Neal was positive the unidentified mages had been enchanted to go dark as well.
How convenient.
“I take it you’re no longer under guard since it’s clear you are not at fault here?” Kraft asked, leaning closer.
“She’s free to go,” Ivan said loudly, and after getting a nod from Uncle Jack, turned to say in much lower voice, “But she’s not free from the hell coming for her.” He nodded to several interested dires watching her from their position along the wall behind them.
Kraft grew very still. “Oh?”
“Yeah, she’s got some mating to get to. Tick tock, Riley. Your time is getting close.”
