Vice (Fireborn Wolves Book 1) (18 page)

“Don’t call Laina a ho.”

“Your girlfriend’s a dog and you’re going to ride me for ‘ho’? I can do worse. Do we have a deal?”

Kyle grasped his meaty hand and shook. “You know we’ll probably die trying.”

With a shrug, Nate shifted his beady eyes toward Nickelova. “I always wanted to die on top of a beautiful woman.”

Reaching down, Kyle snagged the sharpest rock he could lift from the ground. Nate strapped his flask back onto his ankle. With one last nod to each other, they faced their enemies.

Then Kyle raised the rock above his head and ran toward the red wolf, thinking of no one but Laina.

A
s the first
rays of sunlight broke the horizon, Laina’s human brain became aware of a few things. Kyle was shredded, scratches and bites reducing him to a bloody piece of meat. But still, he beat on Alex’s wolf as if it wasn’t his blood that had turned the grass red. Silas was trying his best to insert his snout in between the two without hurting Kyle. All he managed to do was cause a distraction that allowed Alex to gain the advantage.

“No!” Laina yelled. It came out as a growl. Her wolf form battled her human one for control. Flashes of lucid thought drove her forward, but her breaking bones betrayed her. The pain was excruciating. She yelled for Gerty, but the fairy had problems of her own.

Gerty and Nickelova were battling to the death, resorting to physical blows as fatigue set in and their magic grew weak. A shower of sparks flew from the rolling mass of shredded sequins, fists, and teeth. The spell carved a path above her head toward Hunt Club. Laina couldn’t tell if the source was Gerty or Nickie, but she heard glass shatter in the distance.

As Alex raised his open jaws above Kyle’s head, Laina cried out. Her wolf’s paw shot forward, dragging her toward him as patches of human skin erupted like boils through her fur. Although the process of shifting was inhibiting her, she dreaded its completion. She needed the wolf. She needed to be strong to save Kyle.

Suddenly a blur of tawny brown rushed past her. Milo! One hundred sixty pounds of mastiff plowed the red wolf off of his owner and straddled Kyle’s bloody body. In her half-shifted state, she could see the purple aura surrounding the dog, the same aura she’d seen over Kyle’s residence. Milo was enchanted!

Alex swiped a paw toward the mastiff, only to have his massive claws bounce off Milo’s protective barrier. He growled in frustration. This was her chance. On half-shifted limbs and breaking bones, she army-crawled toward him, each inch more excruciating than the last. Alex was shifting too, faster than she was because he was older. Closer. Closer. He spasmed in the bloody grass. She raised her head and with a howl sank her teeth into Alex’s belly, a belly quickly shifting from wolf to human. Her wolf teeth tore through liver and spleen, human blood flowing over her tongue.

His human eyes met hers, even as his blood dripped from her now human lips. It was a fatal bite and he knew it as well as she did. His dark eyes flashed. He coughed and a drop of blood stained his bottom lip.

An unseen force tossed her aside. Nickelova stood over Alex, dress torn. She peered at Laina, one of her eyes swollen shut. Deep scratches marred the flesh around her neck, but the dragon fae amulet was still in place.

Laina tipped onto her side, her fingers elongating in the bright glow of the rising sun. Nickelova scooped Alex’s shivering body into her arms. “This isn’t over,” she said through her teeth. The amulet pulsed and she was gone.

Laina spit the taste of his blood from her mouth. “Kyle? Kyle!” Milo stepped aside, as Laina dragged her body toward him. “Good boy, Milo. You did a good job.” She knelt next to Kyle feeling hopeless. There was so much blood, so many wounds.

“We have to get him help,” Gerty said. The old woman was missing one shoe, her gray hair was completely loose from her chignon, and several large rips in the leg of her pantsuit ran high enough to expose an unfortunate pair of granny panties.

“Are you well enough to gather the wounded together? I can only transport us if we are all touching.”

“Transport us? How will you transport us?”

“Fairy magic, dear.”

“You can do that?” She didn’t know much about fairies and was still getting used to the idea of Gerty being one. Her wolf memories flashed back to her.

“Laina,” Silas called. He was crouched naked by Jason, one arm hanging at an odd angle at his side. Even from a distance, Laina could see bone protruding above the elbow, and Jason wasn’t moving at all. Scooping Kyle into her arms, she stood, her thighs straining with the effort of carrying him to Jason’s side.

“One more, Laina,” Gerty said, pointing to a dark mass across the clearing.

“Who is that?”

“Nate.”

Laina shook her head. “He did this to us. He was working with Alex.”

“He saved your furry neck! Tried to tear the amulet right off Nickelova, and if I might add, delivered a few impressive blows before she knocked him out. I’ve never seen a man take so much magical abuse and continue breathing.”

“But, I thought—”

“Alex may have bamboozled him into being his tool, but Nate did the right thing in the end. He needs help. I can get us to Bojingles Fae Hospital but I have very little energy left. I can’t do it twice.”

Laina hobbled over to Nate, desperately wanting to ask where Bojingles Hospital was. She’d never heard of it, but then, she knew very little about fairies. There was no way she was going to be able to lift Nate—the man weighed 300 pounds if he weighed an ounce—so she hooked her hands beneath his rounded shoulders and dragged him to the others. If the process hurt him in any way, it was not enough to rouse him. Laina only knew he was alive because his chest rose and fell at regular intervals.

“Very good,” Gerty said, pressing a hand to her belly. “Now link arms and pray this old tree has another ring in her trunk.”

With a wave of her silver wand, Gerty gave Laina her first taste of fairy magic.

* * *

P
erched
on the edge of the chair beside Kyle’s hospital bed, Laina focused on the weave of the white blanket that covered him. The craftsmanship was exquisite as if woven from spider’s silk by the spider herself. Then again, maybe it was. One of many marvels of the Bojingles Fae Hospital.

The doctor, a blue man not more than two feet tall, had told her that if Kyle’s supernatural side weren’t dormant, the fire lily juice they normally used on wounds would have healed him in no time. Jason, whose injuries were twice as serious as Kyle’s, had already been healed and discharged. But because Kyle’s supernatural inheritance was buried deep within his human form, the fire lily juice helped very little. They were counting on human medicine—stitches, antibiotics, and painkillers—to heal him and his brother, Nate, something the fae doctors had very little experience with.

Kyle wasn’t doing well. He’d lost too much blood and his skin was pale to the point of harboring a subtle gray tinge. As she stared at him, memorizing his profile, the line of his body under the spiderweb blanket, she was surprisingly numb on the inside. On an intellectual level, she understood she might lose him and that this loss would be similar in magnitude to losing her parents. But she observed the situation from a distance with an icy, cold detachment, a stranger in her own body.

“How’s he doing?” Silas said, entering the room.

“Worse. I think he’s dying.”

“Gerty and Arthur won’t let that happen.”

Laina focused on her brother. “What is she? Why couldn’t I sense she was supernatural?”

“She’s Kyle’s fairy godmother, a woodland fae. From what I understand, Kyle’s father offered to buy and protect the land where she and her husband’s host trees grow in exchange for her protection of the boys. All woodland fae must return to their trees at regular intervals. Arthur didn’t have knee surgery, he’s been rejuvenating there. Apparently the property is still owned by their family.”

“The cabin in Red Grove.”

“Kyle and Nate wondered why their father went there to die. That explains it. It was Gerty’s enchantment over Kyle’s house and Milo was a gift from her people.”

“What happened to Kyle’s real mother?”

“No one seems to know. I’m a detective, but if Gerty knows, she’s an excellent liar.” Silas scratched behind his ear. “What are you going to do about this, Laina?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you love him and it is painfully clear he loves you. But you are a werewolf princess targeted for assassination by a rogue wolf with a dragon fae girlfriend, a dragon fae strong enough to slip through a woodland fae’s protection spell and live next to her undetected for two months.”

Laina said nothing, but hung her head and stared into her lap.

“If you love Kyle, truly love him, you have to end this now. You can’t walk away from who you are and if Kyle tries to be a part of your life, he’ll always be a pawn in this violent game we’re playing with Alex.”

“Alex was dying. I tore his liver in two.”

“Nickelova will heal him. He’ll want revenge. He’ll want my head. As a human in the public eye, Kyle will be a sitting duck. Alex will pick him off at the first opportunity to circumvent Gerty’s defenses. And thanks to Nickelova, he now knows more about those defenses than ever before.”

“If I abandon Kyle, do you think Alex will leave him alone after what happened last night?”

“A madman’s thinking is hardly prone to logic, but it seems that Alex’s goal is revenge on our pack and the Lycanthropic Society. I think Kyle has a much better chance without you, don’t you?”

Everything Silas said was true. She’d known this day would come. Her pack needed her and it was well past time for her to return to her old life. She did love Kyle, loved him so much that she would sacrifice her selfish desire to keep him in her life, in order to keep him safe.

“Maybe someday, when Alex is truly dead—”

“What, Silas? Are you suggesting we could have a future if Alex wasn’t around?”

Silas shrugged.

The pain that radiated from Laina’s heart was unbearable. “Excuse me.” She stood and rushed from the room, plucking a Kleenex from the box at the nurse’s station as fresh tears poured from her eyes. She headed for the privacy of the bathroom.

“Laina?” Jason snagged her elbow, pulling her into the alcove of vending machines.

Laina stopped crying long enough to grab Jason’s upper arms and scan his dark T-shirt and jeans for any signs of the devastation his body had once endured. “Goddess, you’re as good as new.”

“Fire lily juice. Who knew?”

“Apparently, our pack needs to improve relations with the fae.” She dabbed her eyes.

“Why are you crying?”

“Oh”—she waved her hand dismissively—“just realizing that I should have listened to you. Kyle is lying in that bed because…” She drifted off, the tears running anew.

Jason pulled her into his arms. “I get it, all right? I slept with Nickelova. I’m the reason Alex was able to find us to begin with. There’s plenty of guilt to go around.”

“What?” Laina pushed him back by the shoulders. “Who told you that?”

“I did,” Silas said. He slipped a silver coin into the coffee machine and pressed the button for black. Laina had a moment to appreciate that the offerings in the vending machines behind him included sardines and chrysanthemum flowers but not a single bag of Doritos. “Nickelova was probably searching all the supernatural safe houses in the country when she came across Jason. She would have sensed he was a wolf immediately but she’d never met him in person. Once he got naked, the phoenix tattoo gave him away. Monty would have sniffed her out in an instant. So she took the job at Hunt Club, knowing Gerty’s magic would mask her own. Then it was just a matter of finding a way to lure you out of hiding. When Monty sent you to Hunt Club, he handed you over to the enemy.”

“But why didn’t Gerty sense what she was?”

“Gerty’s enchantment only extended over the east wing. Nickelova stayed in the west. She was only able to cross over the day you saw her because Gerty had to adjust the enchantment for Jason’s arrival.” His bushy eyebrows sagged and he fished the coffee from the machine. After one sip, his face twisted, and he frowned into the oddly colored brew. “Acorn coffee. I should have known.”

“So, you think this is Jason’s fault,” Laina said to Silas, incredulously.

“No. This is Alex’s fault. He’s a psychopath with a brainwashed, dragon-powered sidekick who will stop at nothing to have his revenge. We didn’t make him what he is. He did that to himself.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Jason said, his eyes finding Laina’s. A tortured expression marred his face. “I just want to go home.”

“Me too,” Laina said.

With a shrug, Silas tossed the full coffee into the garbage and gathered them both into a group hug. “Good news. Rivergate Manor is fully protected and open for business. Cameron has agreed to let us stay there, together, until we end this thing with Alex.”

“You mean until we find him and kill him.”

“There’s no other way.”

Laina glanced back toward Kyle’s room.

“Do you want to leave him a note for when he wakes up?” Silas’s tone was soft and kind.

“No,” she said. “I think the less that is said, the better. Besides, I’d never find the words.”

Silas kissed her on the temple. Without another syllable, they left for home.