The Bone Coven Chronicles: The Complete Series Page 30

“This says,” I said, tapping my finger against the page, “that it grants the wearer immunity from werewolves. Mind explaining why you want that out of circulation?”

  The alpha frowned. “You’re capable of reading Latin?”

  The truth was, I couldn’t, but he didn’t have to know that.

  “Dorian often says people underestimate me,” I said. “Thought your pack here was different.”

  “Dorian.” The wolf’s scowled deepened. “You mean your vampire partner. If I were you, I’d be careful. Vampires are notoriously deceitful, just like shadow mages. His partnership is not one I would trust. You would do better working with another bone witch like yourself.”

  Interesting. So werewolves couldn’t smell coven loyalties after all. Then, why the hell had the werewolf run from me?

  More questions that had no answers. It was like we were trapped in a web that was impossible to unravel.

  “This is coming from the werewolf who wants to prevent people from having access to an immunity ring.” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Hmm. I’m not sure I made the right decision in choosing you to speak with,” he said, though I swore I saw a glint of amusement in his yellow eyes. “But yes, the ring gifts werewolf immunity to the wearer, but it does far more than that.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “I think we’ve answered enough of your questions.” The alpha snapped the book shut and passed it to one of his wolves. “Is it a deal? You’ll get the ring from whichever blood mage has it and bring it to us?”

  For a moment, I wasn’t sure how to respond. We had the ring in our possession now, but was it smart to give it up? Immunity was a pretty powerful kind of magic that could come in handy if we were going to go up against a murderous wolf raging through the city streets. Plus, the pack was clearly hiding something about the ring’s powers, making me wonder just how safe it was in their hands. The ring had obviously been meant to counteract the strength of werewolves. How could I knowingly put something like that right into their claws?

  The only thing that stopped me from saying no was the knowledge that many more could die before this was over. And I couldn’t let that happen. Besides, we didn’t have to hand it over to them now. They didn’t know we had it just yet.

  “Alright,” I finally said. “We’ll bring you your ring. Now, tell me what you know.”

  “There’s a stray,” the alpha said, looking far too pleased for my comfort. “A wolf without a pack. According to what I’ve heard, he’d taken to roaming around Boston. That was months ago. He was dating a human girl, and they had a fight. After that, he moved on. I think he’s on the west coast now, so he won’t be the wolf you’re looking for.”

  “That’s a pretty shitty piece of information to get in exchange for your ring,” I said with a frown. “Some stray was there, but now he’s moved on? It’s obviously not him then.”

  “No, but he may have left behind a mess that led to this situation with your blood mages,” the wolf girl spoke up. “He likes to scratch people and watch them turn. Gets some kind of twisted kick out of it. He doesn’t want to be part of a pack, and he doesn’t want to create his own. He just wants to turn people when he’s bored.”

  “Anna here would know,” the alpha said, jerking his thumb in her direction. “That’s how she got turned. Two years ago, she was human. Now, she’s one of ours. We don’t usually take in stray wolves, but what Caleb did was impossible to ignore.”

  I nodded, finally understanding where they were going with this. “And if he turned you, then he probably turned some people while he lived in Boston.”

  “Most likely the girlfriend.” Anna pressed her hands to her cheek where a light scar stood out from her pale skin. “That’s how he got me.”

  “You said this murderer is male,” the alpha said. “But are you certain of that? If you’ve only seen him in wolf form, are you sure you were able to tell?”

  I nibbled on my bottom lip, thinking back to Dorian’s battle with the wolf on top of his car. Everything had been a blur, and it had all happened so fast. There’d only been a split second where he—or she—had been standing still, and then he’d been off. I’d just assumed the wolf was male, partly because female wolves were so uncommon. But assumptions had gotten me into trouble before, and there’d been nothing to confirm this was the case.

  “No, I’m not certain,” I said with a quick shake of my head. “The wolf could have been female.”

  “I bet you anything it’s that ex-girlfriend of his,” Anna said. “New wolves don’t know what they’re doing. They haven’t been taught to control their fury, so they end up rampaging during their full moon turns.”

  Rampaging? That certainly wasn’t what these kills had looked like. They had been methodical, planned, ritualistic. While I’d never witnessed a rampaging kill streak myself, I suspected it looked a hell of a lot different. Still, it was the only lead we had, and we needed something. And the coincidences were far too much to ignore.

  “Do you know her name? Where she lives?” I asked. “Any way at all that we could find her and check things out?”

  “Her name is Juno. And she lives in an apartment above a bar called Blue Moon Tavern.”

  Chapter 12

  “We’ve got a problem,” I said when I hopped back into the car and slammed the door. With a flick of my finger, I jabbed Dorian’s stereo, and heavy metal music blasted through the speakers. Dropping my voice to a whisper, I said, “But we need to talk privately, and they can hear every word we say.”

  With a nod, Dorian cranked the engine and U-turned in the woodland clearing, aiming the nose of the car back toward civilisation. As soon as I was certain we were out of earshot, I filled Laura and Dorian in on what I’d learned. Juno, the girl who lived in the apartment above the bar, the girl who had asked us to take care of her non-banishable demon situation in her shop, was a werewolf.

  “Are you fucking serious?” Laura leaned forward and gasped, her hand pressed tight against her chest. “Nathan’s girlfriend is a rampaging werewolf?”

  My lungs shuddered as I tried to force down the panic. All this time, Nathan had been in far more danger than any of us had realized. I’d thought that Juno had been helping him, pulling him out of his depression from the realization that the entire world operated over a dark layer of supernatural activity. When in fact, he’d been thrust even further into danger without even realizing. And if Juno was in fact the one killing blood mages? And she now knew we were investigating? We needed to get to Nathan fast.

  Dorian nodded and pushed his foot to the gas pedal, reading my mind before I’d even said a word. He could tell by the tense clench of my jaw and the way I clutched at my sheath just how worried I truly was. Nathan was kind, sweet, and generous. He organized charity runs and volunteered at the local animal shelter in his spare time, in between acing every single one of his courses in his senior year of college. Three months ago, he’d risked his own neck to help me and Laura, and he’d never asked for anything in return.

  “This explains that fucking dog howling at all hours of the night. And her trashed apartment. The table legs being chewed. All of it. She’s a werewolf. No wonder the blood mage was killed outside the bar. That’s where she lives.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and pressed Nathan’s contact info, listening to the ringer on speaker phone. Each passing moment compounded my fear as the ringing continued on and on until Nathan’s voicemail picked up.

  “Nathan, it’s me.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, hoping my voice didn’t reflect the panic in my gut. I didn’t want to scare him, though it was probably inevitable at this point. His girlfriend was a rampaging werewolf who might very well end up trying to kill him. “Listen, call me back as soon as you get this. Something’s happened, and you need to get somewhere safe. Go to my apartment if you can. The wards there are strong enough to protect you. And for goddess’s sake, go alone. Seriously. Don’t even take Juno, no matter what. I’ll explain when I see you.”


  Dorian nodded and spun the car back onto the main drag of Seaport. “The wards will keep her out. No supernatural creatures can get past them.”

  “Let’s just hope he actually listens to his voicemail,” I said. “She knows we’ve seen her now. And she was in full wolf form at the crime scene. If she realizes what we’re up to, she could go straight to Nathan and use him as leverage somehow.”

  “But surely she won’t expect us to come to Seaport and talk to the pack,” Laura said. “So, there’s no reason for her to believe that we have any idea she’s the werewolf.”

  “True,” Dorian said. “But we can’t take that chance.”

  Shaking my head, I slumped into my seat. “I can’t believe it was Juno all this time. I feel like it was obvious, and I should have seen it. I mean, she lives right over the bar. How could I have thought a dog was making those sounds?”

  “Because you don’t expect a werewolf to be living in the city, especially not right over your head.” Dorian’s hand found my knee, and he squeezed. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  “After everything that’s happened, I just don’t know what I’ll do if Nathan isn’t okay.”

  When we arrived back into the city, Nathan was nowhere inside of my apartment. Grams was tucked up in bed, blissfully unaware that anything was happening. After a quick look around, we popped back down to the streets, turning our eyes toward the bar a couple of blocks away.

  If we couldn’t find Nathan, we needed to find Juno. And I had a sneaking suspicion that once we found one, we’d find the other.

  Blue Moon Tavern was quiet and dark when we pushed through the doors. The bar had been closed for the night, the owner deciding to give things a few days to cool off before opening it back up to the public. We headed to the back stock room and pulled the kegs aside, looking down into the depths of the musty basement underneath the bar. Laura and I had spent an uneasy half hour in there hiding from vampires, and it was the perfect place to lock up a werewolf, as long as we could catch her first.

  Dorian dropped down and fastened a thick set of chains around a metal pole before joining Laura and I back in the stock room. “It’ll hold. A werewolf couldn’t get through that, not even a young one during a full moon.”

  “Any idea how we can catch her?” I asked. “I haven’t exactly had a chance to brush up on anti-werewolf spells.”

  “Entrapment wards,” Laura said, giving me an apologetic smile before saying the next few words. “The kind that the Enforcers used on your dad when they arrested him…Sorry, Zo.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, though my heart squeezed tight. “You don’t have to tiptoe around it. My dad was a criminal before he fought in the war. I know it, and everyone else knows it. Besides, I got a taste of those wards myself when Dorian arrested me. They were pretty strong. Would they work on a werewolf?”

  “I’ve never tried it, but they should,” Dorian said with a nod. “The only problem is, neither one of you is a bone mage. I don’t know if I can hold her myself.”

  “I could try to cast it,” I said, knowing full well it was a horrendous idea. I’d never been good with bone magic. Without the coven powers running through my veins, I could only harness a hint of it. Sometimes. When I’d had a full night’s sleep and had practiced it dozens of times. None of that really applied in this situation.

  “I’ve been practicing some blood magic wards,” Laura said when Dorian didn’t so much as glance in my direction. He knew as well as I did that my powers were useless unless I gave in and opened up the gaping maw of my shadow self. “Blood and bone combined should give a serious punch, don’t you think?”

  “Alright,” Dorian nodded before he moved his gaze to me. His eyes pierced into my soul, begging me to open up and surrender to what he knew I was. I couldn’t though. I had to keep up those walls. “Zoe, shadow magic works particularly well against werewolves. It would be useful for you to try and use it.”

  I pulled my dagger from my sheath. “I’ll have this just in case. Seemed to scare her before.”

  “Your call,” he said, but I could hear the disappointment hanging in his tone. He, of all people, should understand why I didn’t want to give into the darkness. But he didn’t. He thought it was a mistake for me to turn away from it, to try to get by on minimal magical ability. So far, it had worked out just fine, but he didn’t see it that way.

  Little did he know, I wanted nothing more than to be like Laura, practicing my magic until I had it perfected, until I could do it in my sleep. If I were a bone mage, I would. But I’d been cursed with a dark gift, and it was better for everyone if I never touched it again.

  Upstairs, we heard Juno’s soft voice drifting through the thin door. Frowning, I glanced at Dorian. This was…unexpected, to say the least. The full moon still hung heavy in the sky, its bright beams casting a glow on the city buildings. A new werewolf would still be in total wolf mode at this time of night unless she had full control like the ones in the pack we met in Seaport.

  Were we wrong? Did Juno have full control of her wolf nature? It would explain the more methodical kills, the more purposeful choosing of victims, though we still hadn’t found anything linking her to the blood mages who had died.

  Without another word, Dorian banged his fist on the door. The voice stopped abruptly, and rustling sounded from within the apartment. A few moments later, Juno cracked open the door, staring out at us with an alarmed pair of eyes.

  “Zoe? Dorian?” She frowned and glanced between us all. “Laura? What are you guys doing here so late? Does it have something to do with the demons?”

  “We need to come in and speak to you,” Dorian said in such a commanding tone that even I felt as if I needed to obey his every word. It was like a compulsion, a drive deep inside my bones. Do whatever I could to make Dorian happy. And, then a second later, I snapped out of it, realizing exactly what he was doing. Vampires had the capability of luring people to do their bidding with the power of their voice. I’d never heard him use it before. Or had I? It was impossible to know, especially if he’d directed that power at me.

  Juno nibbled on her bottom lip and flicked her gaze to something on her side of the door. “Now is a really bad time, you guys. Can you come back in the morning?”

  “No. We need to speak to you now.” I stepped closer to the door and pressed a hand against the wood, pushing just hard enough for her to know I meant business. It was met with a strong resistance. Strong like a werewolf? It was hard to say.

  “Zoe, stop.” She frowned. “I appreciate that you’re helping me, but you can’t just charge into my home in the middle of the night.”

  Suddenly, there was a rustling. Something crashed inside her apartment, the sound of glass splintering into a million pieces.

  “What’s going on in there?” Laura tried to crane her head around the door but Juno shifted fast enough to block her view.

  “It’s my dog,” Juno said in a rush of words. “You know how he is.”

  Her dog? Frowning, I stared at Juno. She didn’t look anything like a werewolf caught in the middle of a murder spree. For one, there wasn’t a single hair on her face, on her hand, on her neck. Yes, there was more than a hint of both panic and alarm, and she certainly acted as if she was hiding something. But it was something inside her apartment, not herself.

  Had the pack been wrong? Was Juno not the werewolf? And if not, then who was?

  “We know you don’t have a dog, Juno,” I finally said. “Now, let us in, so we can talk about what’s going on here. I promise we aren’t going to do anything rash. We just want to talk. That’s it.”

  Juno fidgeted with the doorframe, her perfectly-manicured fingernail carving half-moons into the paint. More evidence that the pack might be mistaken. A raging werewolf during a full moon wouldn’t have fingernails that looked anything other than dirt-caked and ragged, especially one who had been out slicing her claws against skin. Her upper lip trembled, and a tear sprung from her eye, slipping down h
er cheek before she could brush it aside.

  “You have to swear you won’t hurt him.” Her voice trembled. “He just doesn’t understand what he’s doing.”

  He? With raised eyebrows, I glanced at Dorian. His face was tight as he gave Juno a nod. So, we were dealing with a male wolf, one who Juno had been hiding in her apartment. Sighing, she opened the door and invited us inside, but I wasn’t prepared for what we found.

  The place was even more trashed than it had been a few days ago. Deep claw marks gorged the floorboards, and the dry wall was coming off the wall in long strips. It stank. Of body odor, of wet dog. A large creature perched on the coffee table, the wood bent underneath its weight. Yellowed eyes, claws the length of my entire hand, and sharp fangs that glistened with saliva. It was a werewolf alright, and as it stared into my eyes, I swore he looked familiar. There was something about the way his fur curled on his forehead and the way his body shuddered like a tree in the wind.

  When his gaze shifted to Dorian, his eyes sparked with rage. He rose out of his crouch, towering over us. My heart skipped in my chest, fear drowning out everything else. The wolf sniffed the air, long and loud, and suddenly, he dropped his head back and howled.

  My arms were engulfed by a swarm of shivers, and I stumbled a step back.

  “No, stop it,” Juno said, rushing quickly to the werewolf’s side. “Come on, Nathan. Calm down.”

  Nathan? My entire world tipped sideways.

  Chapter 13

  Laura sucked in a sharp breath and dug her fingernails into my arm. Tears burned my eyes as I shook my head, sorrow filling my gut. Nathan couldn’t be the werewolf. He just couldn’t. The nicest human I’d ever met in my life couldn’t be a creature of rage, killing innocent mages on Boston’s streets.

  He wouldn’t hurt an ant. I knew because I’d seen him sidestep them before.

  “You have to leave.” Juno glanced over her shoulder, hissing her words. “Wolves don’t like vampires, and it’s freaking him out. Just let him be.”