The three witches stood in asemi-circle, holding hands around the map.
“This casting is blessed. Protectus from harm or prying eyes. With the power of three, I invoke thee!” Mistpoured out of the three witches’ hands and I inched forward. There was a circleof mist hovering above the map.
Sylvia took a deep breath andchanted. “A wrong has been done, help us make it right. Find this girl, on thisnight. The vampires stole her from her bed, we offer these hairs from her head.Point out her location, show us now. Help us find her, show us how!”
She hovered the pendulum over themap and it spun wildly. The witches were holding hands in a circle above themap. The last witch had a hand resting on Sylvia’s shoulder to complete thecircle while she held the pendulum. Mist was starting to move in a funnel abovethe witches’ heads.
“We’re being blocked,” Sylviagrumbled.
“Dark witches aid these vampires.Black magic keeps their location secret,” another witch said.
“No!” I shouted and the miststarted seeping out of my skin. This wasn’t happening. Emma would be the first werewolfin our pack to have a child. She brought so much hope and happiness to thispack. She was such a sweet person. She had become my best friend. We weren’tgiving up that easy.
Sylvia’s eyes met mine andsomething unspoken passed between us. I walked towards the circle and placed myhand inside Sylvia’s and held the pendulum with my other. I felt another handclasp over my shoulder. The new circle was complete.
“Emma is ours. We’re not givingup on her. She’s a good person and no amount of dark magic can conceal her fromme!” I shouted. A blast of mist shot out of my hand and the spinning pendulumstilled. I heard the wolves suck in a breath and I glanced over to Kai.
He looked disappointed.
‘I’m still a werewolf. I’m just awitch, too,’I told him.He pursed his lips and nodded.
I looked down to where thependulum was pointing: Los Angeles, California. “Gotcha,” I said. If she washurt, heads would roll. Who was I kidding? Heads would roll either way.
Just then, I saw the face of adark-haired witch in my mind’s eye. I grabbed my head and shrieked. Sylviabroke the circle and tossed the pendulum into a pile of white salt. “Be gone!”she shouted and the pressure in my head eased. The dark-haired witch was gonefrom my mind.
***
Kai and Shamus stood togetheraddressing their packs. Everyone had come together in an effort to go afterEmma. Kai had ordered forty-five wolves to stay back and protect the territory.If this was a trap, we didn’t want any more wolves getting taken while we weregone. Sadie was out of town on her honeymoon. Kai tried to get me to stay backbut I insisted on going. Devon was healing nicely and Kai allowed him to go. Kaiwent into the basement and returned with two large duffle bags. He unzippedthem and pulled out a crossbow, silver stakes, and various other weapons.
“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “You’ve hadthese this entire time?”
Kai nodded. “We have never neededthem before. Vampires and werewolves generally leave each other alone. Guess wewill be carrying them more often.”
He began tossing them out toselect wolves in the pack. He gave a bag to Shamus. “I want half the rescueparty to be human with weapons and half on all fours. These bloodsuckers willpay for taking Emma.”
Duff
We were on the way to the airport,seventy-six wolves in all. Kai had his hand protectively on my thigh. I playedwith my engagement ring that I had strung on a silver chain around my neck.When I had shifted at the council meeting, it had fallen to the ground, laterretrieved by Kai. I didn’t want that to happen again. Most of the mated wolveshad rings around their necks and tattooed rings on their fingers. Since I wasimmune to silver, I thought it might make a nice secondary weapon.
“If I could lock you up in thecloset and leave you behind, I would. But then you wouldn’t trust me and Icouldn’t live with that,” Kai told me.
I glanced at him and took a deepbreath. He smelled so good.
“We’re getting Emma back,together,” was all I said. Truth was, I had a horrible feeling. There was a pitin my stomach and something told me we should turn back.
“With all of the flying we havebeen doing, I might invest in a plane. Luke has his pilot’s license.”
We had pulled around to a privateentrance of the airport, where the private planes were kept. One of Shamus packmembers was going to sneak all of our weapons on our private chartered jet. Wedropped the bags off with him and made our way to the main entrance. It waslate and this part of the airport was all but deserted. A man in a nice suitapproached us asking for our names and the name of our private pilot. Therewere about fifteen SUVs in our party. I glanced in the rearview mirror at theline of cars behind me. As Kai rolled the window down, I got a whiff ofsomething. Vampire. Kai must have smelled it too because instead of talking tothe man, he gassed the car and charged the gate. The metal doors scrapedagainst the car and I heard a thump on our roof. I glanced behind us to seedozens of vampires raining down on the cars from the roof of the airports smallside building.
“What the hell! Can they fly?” Iasked Kai as he swerved hard to the right and the vampire holding onto the roofof our car tumbled off. Kai, myself, Devon, Max, and Isabelle were all in ourcar.
“They can jump really high, kindathe same thing.” Kai got on his phone. He started speeding towards a long planeon the tarmac. The cars behind us made a barricade by parking themselvessideways to block the vampires from coming near the plane.
I looked at Kai. He nodded. Wewere going to have to save Emma alone. Just the five of us. “Go! Start down therunway!” he screamed to the pilot over his phone. Luckily Kai had told me thepilot for hire was a wolf or this might be hard to explain. The plane startedrolling and Kai slammed on the breaks. We opened the doors and got out of thecar and started running. The door to the plane opened and a stewardess put herarm out and lifted Izzy up into the plane. Next was Max and then Devon. Maxreached his arm out for me and I was about to take it when I heard Kai scream.I turned around to see a vampire on Kai’s back; he was biting Kai’s neck. Ishifted instantly and changed direction. Max was screaming my name as I lungedthrough the air and pulled the vampire off of Kai as he shifted into his wolfform. The vampire took one look at me and smiled. Then he glided into the airaway from us and back into the bigger fight. What the hell? Since when do theyrun?
I could hear Max screaming nowand looked to see the planes wheels just barely leave the tarmac about 100 feetaway from us. The door was open. Kai and I shared a look. We took off running.I had never run so fast in my life. I almost tripped over my own paws, I wasrunning so fast. I reached the plane first. With one giant leap, I lunged inthrough the small opening and scraped my back. I rolled and tumbled, smackingmy shoulder into an interior seat.
I quickly moved out of the way asKai soared through the air and landed hard. He whimpered but seemed okay. Thevampire bite on his shoulder was bleeding. It oozed a blackish fluid. I beganshifting back into my human form when I noticed that the female stewardesssmelled like a human. She pulled a first aid kit from an upper cabinet and laidit in front of Kai. Once we had both shifted I looked at Max. “Get us someclothes. Did the weapons make it on the plane?”
