“You found something.” And they’d tried to kill him because of it. “Was it Barend’s assassin? The man with the spear?”
“He carried Amal’s stench, so I doubt he belonged to Barend.” Julien shifted his position, drew his legs up, and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Have you read the journal?”
“Poured through it many times. Along with Laura. We found a design. Amal was obsessed. I don’t know how many times she drew it. Laura said it was runic, so I took the drawing to the witch in the Farmer’s Market. I thought she might know something.” I straightened, tried to rub the feeling back into my numbed legs. “She put a white crystal on the paper. The crystal turned black, then into ash, and the witch said it was because of the drawing, some ancient evil. But I thought it was one of her witchy tricks. Like flipping tarot cards and making up a message.”
The depth of Julien’s sigh should have made his shoulders move. “The rune is ancient, my lady,” he said. “No one knows what it means. But around the drawing, the marks like random scribbles?”
He waited until I nodded.
“Amal wrote in code. I deciphered four words. Repeated like the rune. Like she was afraid she’d forget.”
“What four words?”
“The nymph queen knows.”
CHAPTER 18
Grayson
I sprinted with Mace toward the passage. A contingent of Sentinel Falls wolves ran behind us. The Carmag rangers had returned to Westvale, and they’d make sure Ago left no hybrid behind. Fallon had gone with Anson. She would monitor the situation from his operational center. If pack members asked where the alphas were, she would come up with some explanation. No one needed to know the danger facing Noa right now. Only that we were close to finding her.
I heard the hybrids in the far distance, the unnatural calling from tortured souls. But as long as they were yowling, they hadn’t found their quarry. We stormed through the passage with no need for stealth. Let them know we were coming. Let the worry settle into their bones.
The forest after the passage was stark, with black trees and muddied snow, an easy trail to follow. Broken branches, skidding claw marks. Mace signaled to the men, giving them an order to shift. It took only minutes to find the hybrids—they were larger than most shifted wolves. Faster, with a vampire’s advantage. But wolves I didn’t recognize had cornered Ago in a rocky grotto. The vampire stood with his back to the cliff. An arrow had pierced his shoulder. The hybrids with him—the five that were left—dripped blood from their jowls and paced, restless. Uncertain.
But relief surged. Noa wasn’t here. I didn’t think she’d ever been here, in this grotto. Halfway between two passages I knew well.
“Who the fuck is that?” Mace snarled as a figure rose from hiding, perched at the top of rocks. She held a wicked-looking bow with an arrow nocked.
“Angel.” I picked up the mercenary’s scent. Other men appeared beside her with weapons raised. More arrows thwacked into the ground. Into the hybrids.
The vampire shimmered, but didn’t teleport away—because he couldn’t? I flashed to the report in the nymph cave, of vampire blood mixed with silver and magic.
Whatever was on that arrow, Ago’s reactions were sluggish. A second arrow slammed into his chest and he clawed weakly at the shaft, dragged it free.
Mace issued the order. We offered no mercy. But as the wolves attacked, trees in the distance cracked and bent. Unholy howls echoed as a second hybrid pack thundered down the hill—shock troops Ago kept in reserve for when his rotten life was at stake. They scattered the fighting wolves, turned to charge again.
I shifted the moment Mace did.
My wolf leapt into the fray, canines tearing into heated muscle and rancid blood. The wolf’s muscles flexed. He rolled in the snow, a tangle of legs, bodies. Hurdled up and attacked again. He left no living thing behind as he carved a path toward Ago.
The vampire’s eyes were wide. He scraped at the remaining arrow as my wolf launched through the air. The vampire screamed. Gurgled as the wolf spit out the thick, tainted blood flowing into his mouth from the gaping hole in Ago’s neck.
Then he shook his head, ripping apart what was left of Noa’s terror, the vampire who’d sworn to turn her. Destroy her.
In the seconds that followed, adrenalin pounded. Air bellowed through the wolf’s lungs as he stared at the carnage. Someone threw a lighted torch, and the smoke was indeed red when Ago’s remains disappeared, while the ash was one more dull taint in the muddy snow.
A low rumbling set in as wolves circled, making sure the dead remained that way.
“Alpha.” Angel stood with her bow against her knee, laughing at the wolf when he growled. We both understood I wouldn’t shift and stand naked in front of her. I’d never live it down. And my wolf was in no mood for her kind of conversation.
He pulled his lips back. Let her guess what he meant since we had no pack bond.
But the questions raced through his mind and I matched them.
Why are you here? Who the fuck are you? Some one-eyed mercenary named Angel who just happened to be close enough to join the fight?
With fucking arrows capable of nulling a vampire?
