A howl shivered through the air, plaintive, desolate, aching. Lost and lonely.
A creature stepped from the darkness of the trees. It stood there, limned in the night in his Mithran vision. A silver wolf in half-form—bipedal, standing upright on clawed paw-feet, naked except where wolf-pelt covered her, she carried a silver athame in each half paw/half hand, and an amulet necklace of wood beads lay around her half-wolf shoulders, marking her an earth witch. She had a full-wolf head, ears pointing high, wet nose, lips drawn back in a snarl.
Had he not seen Jane Yellowrock achieve a half-form of a panther/human hybrid, Linc might have been tempted to spin away and run for his life. But he could handle this werewolf witch just fine.
Out of the woods behind her, another werewolf stepped. Then a third. All female. All in heat. All insane. All three were witches, wearing the amulets of their power around their necks. The Rule of Three as Bedelia had spoken it, but perverted, evil. They were here to claim the Coraville circle and kill anyone who stood in their way. Kill Bedelia if she fought back. And his Bedelia would always fight back.
The wolves raised their wolf heads and howled. His skin shivered.Holy hell.
Lincoln glanced back. There was no protective ward around Bedelia and the witches. Nohedge of thorns. The circle was defenseless. If the witch-wolves attacked the circle, the rising circle of power where Bedelia sat, it was likely they would break it. The rising energies would backlash.The sitting witches would be injured. They would be unable to protect themselves. They would be killed easily or infected by the attacking werewolves.
Rage thundered through him. His heart beat. Beat.Beat.
He drew on all the power gifted him as Master of the City. Drew on the connections he’d made through drinking the blood of his people, from allowing them to sip of him. All the things Bedelia had hated about his life as a vampire clawing his way to the top of a vampire clan, all these things would now save his love. His family. Raising his head, Lincoln Shaddock screamed the battle cry of his old human self, a ululation of rage. He called his people to war. “To me! To me! Silver. Fire at will!”
Shotguns blasted. But the werewolves were as fast as his kind.
Muzzle open, fangs dripping with the contagion of were-taint, the gray wolf leaped at the circle. Stretched out. Claws sharp as knives and black as the night sky.
Bedelia
“To me! To me! Silver. Fire at will!” Lincoln’s battle cry echoed over the grassy land and rolled down the cliff to the water. At the sound, something brittle as glass shattered within her. Icy power rushed through her and back out again, leaving her cold as the undead. His fear and fury pounded through a bond she hadn’t known was there. Fear, fury, and...love.
Shotguns discharged. The concussive force made her instantly deaf.
Her eyes opened. Linc was in midair, leaping higher than was possible. Ten feet off the ground. Something hit him. Bowled them both toward the circle. Bedelia’s entire body clenched, ready for the pain that would come when the magics—
Somehow, Linc rolled into a ball and spun to the side. Missing the circle. A creature she had never seen before had clamped its teeth onto his shoulder and neck. Savaging him.Werewolf.Half-human, half-wolf, fully a monster.
The shotguns boomed again and again. Two other werewolves fell, full of silver. Writhing in agony on the ground. Bee knew they’d been takendown with silver because they didn’t start to shift back to human to heal and live. Two vampires disappeared into the darkness, watching for more, on guard. Another finished off the downed wolves with multiple head shots before reloading. Bedelia was glad the darkness hid the gore from her.
Linc, however, was still fighting the gray wolf. There was blood. Too much blood. He was injured. Fear spiraled through Bedelia.
Clara Anne waved her arms to get their attention. She pointed at the fighting werewolf and mouthed the wordsShania Mayhew.
“Oh no,” Bedelia said. “We called her. We called them.”
“She’ll want to get in here with us,” Clara Anne said, heard over the clamor still sounding in Bee’s ears.
“Linc won’t let that happen,” Bedelia said, knowing that he would protect her to his last breath. Tears pricked beneath her lashes.
Linc rolled across the ground, the wolf snapping, body whipping. Trying to get another bite on his shoulder, flank, or into his gut. Nubit raced close and aimed at the fighting pair but couldn’t get a shot that wouldn’t injure Linc as well. Were-creatures weren’t the only ones for whom silver was lethal. Silver could be fatal to vampires too.
The werewolf dodged to the side, aiming for the circle and the power they had unleashed.
Linc moved faster, cutting the wolf with silver blades. He stabbed straight out, into her left jaw. She squealed. Jerked back on four paws as if to run away. Faster than Bedelia could see, Linc picked the wolf up and threw her against a tree trunk.
She landed hard.
A crunch even Bedelia could hear indicated broken bones.
The wolf was still alive, but she was stunned. Lincoln cut down and hamstrung her before he stepped back. He was breathing hard. Bedelia had never seen him breathing hard. Ever. He was covered in blood.
Nubit, the vampire who had been watching the house and who’d brought them the items of calling, approached the wolf and fired a shot point-blank into the wolf’s left hip, the shot so close that it stole most of her hearing. Nubit handed Linc the lead-lined box, and Linc applied three silver cuffs around the wolf’s neck like a dog collar. Without human thumbs, the witch would be unable to remove them, and with her body full of silver, she couldn’t shift to human and heal.
Bedelia tapped a healing amulet on her necklace and her ears improved enough to hear Linc.
“Watch her. Kill her if she manages to shift. She’s a witch and a werewolf, and might have tricks we don’t know about,” Linc said. To the others, he said, “Two of you, attend me.” They approached and one of them turned the garden hose onto him, washing off the were-blood. Another swiftly cut Linc’s clothing away and left it in a pile. Linc was... still beautiful. So very beautiful. Naked in the faint light of the moon just beginning to rise. And so very wounded. Gashes and bite marks were all over him, dark in the night.
