Guardian (6 page)

A deep sigh slid out of him. “We are all monsters, Peter. Even the humans. It’s just a matter of what depth and how we control those dark sides. So you need a little help. Maybe one day you’ll be able to help someone else.”

Without another word, Peter faded from the dream and Liam woke.

Lying on the snow in the middle of a Russian forest, he knew he was in the right place. Rylee slept, her steady breathing and the beating of her heart all he needed to know that they would work out this newest kink in the path they followed. First thing in the morning, he would get her as far away from the pack as possible, though.

Just in case any of them decided she looked tasty after fighting with the hunters. Of course, if any of them tried anything, he would rip them apart.

With that decision made, the worry in his mind eased, he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

Chapter Seven

The next morning
was icy cold, and the only reason I knew was because the edges of everyone’s hair had frosted over night. Everyone but mine, because of the blessed opal. Doran was earning serious brownie points.

Liam shifted and slid back into his clothes.

“I thought Peter was going to teach you how to do that without having to strip. Not that I mind the peep show.” I winked at him, but he didn’t smile.

“We’ve got to go now. Right now.”

Surprised, I let him all but drag me through the snow until we were jogging. “Northeast,” I said, letting this strange behavior slide. Mostly because I wanted to get going anyway and find the fur-covered asshats.

We had jogged for about four miles when Liam finally slowed his pace. “The pack is not what we thought.”

Without preamble, he told me all he’d seen in his dream with Peter. The blood, the gore, and the unmitigated attacks on humans, the vows they’d made and the consequence of those vows.

I rocked back on my heels, knowing my eyes were wide. “That was why Peter stopped me. He thought I would bring down the wrath of this element thing?”

“I’m guessing. But we are not a part of their pack. We were welcomed as guests, not full members.”

“The children didn’t make those vows, I’d lay money on it,” I said. “But they aren’t going to make it to adulthood. And that’s what they need to do.”

“No, they aren’t. But Peter is hoping the next generation will be strong enough to overcome these desires. Or they won’t be born with them at all.”

We picked up a jog again in tandem and the energy flowed between us, a give and take of strength and stamina. Was this because we were mates? I wondered, but didn’t question it. Just another perk to being with Liam.

Liam pulled me out of my thoughts. “Why would it matter if they were adults or not?”

“If they grew into adults”—I jumped over a log and landed in a snowdrift on the other side—“they could protect their families without worrying about the vows. They could keep them all safe.”

Except for the sound of our footsteps in the snow, silence echoed around us. “Maybe we need to find werewolves who would be willing to protect the pack.”

“You think that’s possible?”

He didn’t answer and I knew what that meant. We both did. Becoming a werewolf only accentuated traits you already had. Which was why Liam had become über protective and a champion of justice. His police training and true belief in right prevailing had only heightened with becoming a wolf.

But how many of those kinds of people got turned into werewolves? Not as many as the assholes who were looking for power, looking to find a way to destroy their enemies and rule with an iron fist.

Shit. “We start with the hunters,” I said. “That will at least buy the pack time.”

“You still want to help them.” It wasn’t a question, yet I knew what he meant. The things they’d done were hardly things one could easily forgive and forget. But I also believed that people could change.

“Look at Milly. She tried to destroy us both. And now she is with us and even you see that, you can feel it. People can change.”

He grunted and I smiled to myself. They had a short, if extremely bad, history. Yet even Liam saw how much she had changed. How much she wanted to make right the things she’d broken in the past.

“Redemption is possible for anyone?” That
was
a question.

I’d never put it into those terms before, but it followed suit with the core of who I was. “Yes, I believe so. Otherwise, you never would have had a shot with me.”

Laughter spilled out of him. “Well, I suppose I should be glad. I would have hated to miss out on you.”

“Me too.” I smiled at him and then put on a burst of speed, feeling his energy flood through me, the power of his wolf floating under my skin. We sprinted through the snow, scaring up rabbits and small creatures that barely managed to scamper out of our way.

As we ran, I thought about the missing child, Catya. I sent out a thread, tried to locate her. Still nothing. Shit, I wished that Fedya had had a better picture. I touched the spot where it sat inside my coat. With missing children like Catya, there wasn’t much I could do. Not when I got nothing back from Tracking her. For no other reason than the fact I could, I left open the threads I sent out looking for her. My talents with Tracking were shifting and strengthening, and this dual thread of following Dimitri and trying to track Catya didn’t tire me out like it would have even a few months past.

We ran like that for hours, and it took far shorter than I’d thought to reach the home ground of the hunters. What we stumbled on surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. At that point in my life, surprise should no longer have had a home in my head, yet it still happened from time to time.

Well before the sun set, the forest opened into a wide, barren field. No snow lay on the ground. Instead, it looked as though someone had burned all the plant life away and somehow made it so the ground wouldn’t accept the snow. In the center of the field was a building that was seriously old school. In fact, it reminded me of the castle we used for jumping the veil. Made of stone, it was three stories high with turrets and everything. Hell, there was even a drawbridge and a fucking moat that was at least twenty feet wide. Getting into that castle was going to be interesting.

Dimitri’s threads hummed to me; they were on the other side of that moat. Boy was he about to get a shock.

Liam put out a hand, stopping me as I crouched down to get a better look at the burned dirt.

“I know you won’t be affected by a perimeter spell, if there is one. But it would tell the hunters we are here.”

Shit, I hadn’t thought about that. I had to satisfy myself with leaning as close as I could without touching the charred land. I didn’t see anything that made me think there was a spell on the land.

Still. I didn’t test the theory. The ground had been burned, heavily, and with my hand hovering over the dirt (with Liam scowling away) the heat from the burn warmed my skin.

“This is recent.”

“Then why isn’t there smoke or the scent of burnt wood and plants?”

I shook my head. “Must have been a magic burn. Something that doesn’t leave traces of itself.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“There are a lot of things I don’t know about when it comes to magic. The evidence is here. This was no natural fire, which leaves only one option.” I stood and put my hands on my hips as I stared at the small castle. Those fucking hunters were in there, prepping themselves to go after the pack again. The cold and calculating part of my brain pointed out that perhaps the pack deserved it. They weren’t exactly model citizens in their former lives. I shook the thought off. Be that as it may, it wasn’t just the adults of the pack being hurt. There were a number of children there, and I’d seen clearly what happened to them in the middle of the fire-fight.

Liam touched my elbow and I turned to follow him. While we weren’t in the open, we weren’t exactly hiding ourselves.

“What do you want to do?” We tucked ourselves behind a small stand of trees. His question was excellent because I had no fucking idea.

No weapons, no Blaz, no way across the moat, possible alarms set into the earth, and quite possibly some sort of magic fire that could fry us to a crisp. Not really good odds.

A shuffle of feet spun us both around at the same time. Liam put himself in front of me and I had to shift to the side to see around him. A man stood across from us, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes wary as he took us in. Dark hair and blue eyes, a slim build and a fair muscle tone I could see under the layers of clothes. He would have been handsome if not for burn marks that melted his skin into wax art on the left side of his cheek and around his eye. Still, I’d learned that more often than not it was the pretty ones who would turn on you. Russian spewed out of his lips and I shook my head. “English or not at all.”

“Witch.” Liam breathed. Ah, shit.

I stepped around Liam. If anyone was going to get hit with a spell, it was going to be me. The witch lifted an eyebrow at this move, but didn’t lift his hands. Which meant, at the moment, he wasn’t trying to spell us.

“You two, you are not with those ones?” He tipped his chin toward the hunter’s fortress.

“No. You?” I queried, knowing he might lie. Also knowing Liam could smell the lie on the witch.

The witch spat on the ground, a grimace twisting his face. “Bah. They are scum. Steal a book of spells and use it to torment those weaker than them. I am Val; I belong to the local coven. But more than that”—he drew a slow breath—“are you the Tracker?”

Liam growled quietly under his breath and my eyebrows shot up. “I am.”

“I believe we have a friend in common, then.”

I waited for him to continue, keeping my surprise to myself.

Val tipped his head from side to side. “Doran said I might run into you; that you might need some help, since you always seem to find trouble.”

I should have known. Beside me, Liam stiffened, but then slowly relaxed. Somehow, it wasn’t a surprise that Doran had his hand in this.

I didn’t hold my hand out. “Rylee, and this is Liam. He isn’t fond of witches, so I don’t suggest you come any closer.”

Val nodded. “Fine. You are here to rescue someone from the hunters like me?

“Who did they take from you?”

“My brother. He is not strong enough to become a full member of the coven, so the hunters, they took him. They did this.” He touched a finger to the melted skin. I wondered why the other witches didn’t heal it. But maybe that wasn’t possible with a magical burn like that? Or maybe he was just using it as fuel for the fire, so to speak, a secondary motivation to go after the hunters.

More thoughts whirled inside my brain. I didn’t know how much help Val would be if he wasn’t strong like Milly and Pam. Still, another set of eyes and hands wasn’t a bad thing when we were on unfamiliar territory. And since Doran sent him, I figured we could trust him. “We’re just here to kill them all.”

Val threw back his head and laughed, his hands clutching at his sides. We didn’t join him and it took a good twenty seconds for him to realize I wasn’t joking.

“Seriously?” He blinked several times as he calmed himself. “You are just two. I see the wolf would be full of power, but you, what can you do? I sense no power in you, no matter that Doran said to be careful of you.”

I smiled at him. “It’s a surprise.”

For some reason that satisfied him. “Well, perhaps we can surprise them together?”

“That burning of the field, was that you?” Liam asked, his voice remarkably calm. Maybe he finally had his wolf under control. That would be a bonus.

“No, no. That was the hunters. They burn it in timed flares to keep enemies at bay.”

Liam gave me a lifted eyebrow. “I told you it was booby trapped.”

I waved off his smug ‘I told you so’. “Timed, how?”

“They have it set for movement. Something touches the ground and the flare goes out in that direction, following whatever is there.” He waved one hand in a line in front of him to emphasize his point.

Shit, they had it motion-sensored with a magical fire. That was going to be hard to go around.

“Any way you can disable it?” Fingers crossed he was a powerhouse like Milly or Pamela.

“No.”

A thought began to form inside my brain, one I knew Liam would not like, nor condone.

“Who runs the fire? If they are as weak as you say, there has to be someone always watching to put the power into something like that.”

Val waved hand back and forth. “It is a little thing, simple. A spell lain on a pair of eye-glasses and set into a window. Break the glasses, spell is broken.”

My lips twisted around as I considered the possibility.

“Rylee, don’t even think about it,” Liam growled. But he was too late. Not only was I thinking about it, I was pretty sure it would work.