Carter turned toward the circle, not sure what he expected to find. He immediately tensed when he realized the green glowing shield was gone. Hell, the ring that had been gouged into the ground was completely obliterated too. But Strickland was just lying there in that unnaturally still way that suggested he was already dead.
But any sense of relief he might have been feeling disappeared the moment he saw the pile of dirt that had been in the middle of Kat’s circle start to move and sit up.
“What the hell…?” Carter murmured.
As he watched in disbelief, the man-shaped blob of dirt began to stand, gaining more definition by the second. There were no clothes or hair, but the big, low-slung jaw and wide-open mouth made it obvious that the creature was somehow connected to Strickland.
“Kat transferred the combined skinwalker essences into the simulacrum,” Lydia said, hovering protectively over a still-unconscious Kamden. “She thought it’d be easier to deal with a dirt monster than a living, breathing skinwalker.”
At her words, the man-shaped pile of dirt turned toward them, its eyes glowing so vividly red that Carter could hear the hum of raw power coming from them. The simulacrum took a clumsy step forward at the same time its mouth opened wider and it let out a loud roar that shook the ground around and rattled Carter’s teeth in his head.
“I think she might have been wrong about that,” Carter muttered as the creature headed straight for the four of them, its body shaking in rage. “How the hell do you fight dirt?”
Not waiting for an answer, Carter stepped in front of Hadley and Lydia, ducking under a surprisingly fast swing of the creature’s arm to deliver an awkward but powerful left-handed punch to the thing’s chest. It was like hitting a three-hundred-pound sandbag. The monster didn’t even wobble. Before Carter could even think about trying something different, a backhanded blow sent him flying through the air.
Carter braced for impact, realizing Strickland’s current form was even stronger than it had been before, which was a terrifying thought. When he finally hit the ground, it was to land on something hard. He reached around to see what it was and found his 9mm digging into his back. Saying a quick prayer of thanks, he scooped up his weapon and started running toward what was left of the warding circle even as he heard Hadley scream. Beside her, Lydia was standing there with her arms crossed again like she was trying to build up the energy for another magical blast.
Carter got there just as the simulacrum was taking a swing at his soul mate. Sliding to a stop just in front of Hadley, Carter lifted his weapon and put four rounds through the center of the dirt monster’s chest, only to see them have absolutely no effect. He didn’t even think the 9mm rounds made it all the way through.
As the simulacrum continued lumbering toward them, Carter started to shift his aim for a headshot, but then decided against it. He doubted putting his last few rounds in the thing’s head would cause much more damage than the ones in the chest had. Going with his instincts—a whispered word from his inner omega—Carter dropped his aim much lower.
Squeezing the trigger, he put three rounds in the dirt creature’s right knee and then the rest of the magazine in the left knee. Ducking under another swing so hard that it whistled through the air, Carter kicked out with his booted foot, his heel slamming into the dirt monster’s right knee. There was a crunch and then the leg simply started to crumble. But before it completely fell apart, Carter shifted and lashed out with his foot again, this time at the simulacrum’s left leg.
The dirt monster’s legs collapsed, and the simulacrum crumpled to the ground with an anguished, rage-filled roar.
“If you can make it rain, now would be a good time to do it!” Carter yelled to Lydia still standing there with a green glow surrounding her crossed arms.
There was another one of those audible thuds in the air, wind and water appearing out of nowhere, and then it turned into a total downpour, buckets of water dropping to the ground on and around the dirt monster.
The simulacrum that was Strickland roared again, louder this time, trying to push itself upright. For one tense moment, Carter didn’t think the deluge was going to do anything to slow it down, but as Lydia kept bringing on the rain, the dirt making up the creature slowly turned to mud.
Strickland’s roars turned to a gurgling, choking sound as the already misshapen figure began to disintegrate right in front of them. There was a part of Carter that wanted to feel bad as the creature turned into mud—until he remembered all the people the skinwalker had killed and eaten. Remembered what Strickland had planned to do to his soul mate. And he couldn’t find it in him to care.
Lydia continued to make it rain until she finally dropped to her knees in exhaustion. By then, even Carter—who knew nothing about magic, skinwalkers, or simulacrums—knew that Strickland and everything he’d been, was gone for good.
Then Hadley was at his side, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Carter hugged her back just as fiercely. His right hand and arm were a bloody mess, but he decided it didn’t matter. The two of them were alive and together. That was all that was important.
It was as Hadley started fussing over his injured hand, examining the wound, that Carter felt his omega watching over the scene in calm acceptance. He should have been terrified at the thought of the two parts of his werewolf coexisting in his mind at the same time. But right then, he was too tired and too content to care. So instead, he bent his head and kissed Hadley.
“I love you,” he murmured against her mouth.
She smiled up at him. “I love you too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I understand we have you to thank for getting this party moved inside,” Lydia said with a smile as she and Kamden carried paper plates piled high with carved Thanksgiving turkey and all the fixings.
Hadley laughed as they joined her at one of the picnic tables that had been set up inside the training room at the compound, matching the ones in the break room at the front of the building and all those lining the hallway in between. Turned out you needed a lot of tables to fit everyone from the SWAT team and all their friends and family, affectionately known as the extended pack—of which she was now officially a member.
“I can’t take all the credit,” she said, reaching down to pet Tuffie, who was keeping her company while Carter was getting them food. She’d wanted to help, but her soul mate insisted on getting it for her. “Kat had to help me explain that eating outside when it’s forty-five degrees and cloudy is not fun for anyone without werewolf DNA. They agreed to move everything inside, though I’m not sure they really believed either of us about it being too cold.”
Both Lydia and Kamden laughingly agreed. Hadley watched out of the corner of her eye as Kamden slowly cut his turkey and ham into smaller pieces. Even though it had been almost four weeks ago, he was still recovering from his ordeal at the Eastman Manor. Going from a skinwalker back to a human had left him so weak he wouldn’t have been able to manage something as simple as holding a fork a week ago, but he was getting stronger and that was all that mattered.
The events of that night were seared permanently into Hadley’s mind. She’d stood there with Carter near the puddle of mud that had once been Strickland, freaking out over her soul mate’s injuries while he’d kept telling her not to worry and that they’d heal up soon enough.
Kat had come to soon after that, then Kamden regained consciousness a few minutes later. Both had been woozy but for drastically different reasons. Kat had been forced to admit that it had taken way more magic than she’d expected to shove Strickland and his double load of skinwalker essence into a pile of dirt. The unexpected drain hadn’t been too bad for her, but the backlash of the warding circle collapsing had knocked her out cold.
Eastman Manor had turned into a madhouse soon after Kat and Kamden had awakened as dozens of police cruisers and unmarked vehicles had crashed through the main gates. Gage had been the first one to find them, along with several other members of the SWAT pack, including Connor, Kat’s soul mate. The guy had hovered around her for a long while, as worried about her as Hadley was about Carter.
