Witch's Storm (The Bone Coven Chronicles Book 2) Page 9

  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 her 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.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dorian’s gaze locked on my face. He knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling. It wouldn’t even take our strange bond for him to understand how I felt about one of my closest friends turning into something like this.

  “We can’t let him be, Juno,” Dorian said in a softer voice, probably more to soothe my nerves than Nathan’s. “He’s killed two blood mages. If we don’t do something, he could kill someone else.”

  Juno shook her head, her red hair slapping against her neck. “He wouldn’t. He isn’t like that. Come on, you know what a good guy he is.” She turned to me, her eyes pleading with me so much that it hurt. “Right, Zoe? Tell him. Tell him what Nathan is like.”

  With a sigh that shook me to my very core, I glanced away. Every word that came next was like a punch in my gut. “Dorian is right. We need to contain him, at least until daylight.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she said, shaking her head as she stumbled back. “You’re his friend. He trusts you.”

  “I know.” I closed my eyes, hating myself almost as much as she did. Maybe even more so. “But it will be a hell of a lot worse for him if he hurts someone else.

  Dorian found me curled up on the floor of the stock room, a makeshift pillow thrown together from some clean towels I’d found on one of the shelves. I’d spent all night listening to Nathan’s howls, wishing my powers included the manipulation of time. What I would give to go back into the past and warn Nathan of things to come.

  “You doing okay?” Dorian eased onto the floor beside me and dropped a paper bag by my side. The scent of fresh bread drifted into my nose, but for once, I wasn’t hungry. Dread had taken up residence in my stomach, drowning out everything else. How could I eat when I knew what came next?

  Nathan would be found guilty of murder, and neither the Bone Coven or the Blood Coven would let him get away with that.

  And I couldn’t exactly blame them.

  “This sucks, Dorian,” I whispered, knowing that Nathan would be able to hear us if he was awake. He’d quietened down a couple of hours ago, the wolf finally leaving his body when dawn broke through the sky. I’d left him to rest, knowing the difficult conversations about to come. We both needed a chance to take a breath.

  “I know.” Dorian squeezed my shoulder and pressed his forehead against mine. His cool skin soothed me somehow, grounding me in the new reality we’d discovered. “And things are only going to get worse for him. You don’t have to stay here, Zoe. Go home and get some rest. I’ll handle this from here on out. You shouldn’t have to put your friend behind bars. Or worse.”

  In the covens, the penalty for murder was death. And Enforcers often carried out the sentence.

  “I think it would be better for him if I stayed,” I said. “He needs a friendly face. Someone who understands that he would have never done this on purpose.”

  Dorian gave me a sad smile. “I think we both know that these kills were done on purpose, Zoe. The victims, the cause of death, the arrangement of the bodies. I’ve worked with the FBI many times on cases like this, and when the murders check those boxes, it’s never random. I know you want to think this was all done in a fit of werewolf fury he couldn’t control, but it wasn’t. We’d be hearing about a string of bodies all over Boston if that were the case.”

  “I just can’t believe that he meant to do something like that. I’ve known him for years. He’s not that kind of person. He’s good. He’s kind. He’s not like…”

  He’s not like me.

  Dorian tucked a finger underneath my chin and forced my gaze to meet his. His eyes churned, the depth of his powers rippling in his irises. A yearning tugged me toward him, a sensation I’d felt for months but had pushed aside. Dorian saw into my soul and into my heart, and he understood me. He cared. Instead of viewing me as a broken witch with darkness brewing in my heart, he saw me as something else. Something better than what I really was.

  And I felt the same about him. He might be a vampire, but he conquered his curse in everything he said and did.

  “Don’t think like that,” he murmured. “Stop punishing yourself for something you have no control over.”

  “But I must have done something to make myself this way,” I said. “Something so terrible that the universe decided I needed to be marked. As a warning for everyone else.”

  “That’s not why we’re marked, and you know it.” Dorian’s fingers dropped to my neck, caressing the spot where my mark was etched into my skin. The illusion was faint, the lines drawn to identify me as a member of the Bone Coven. But underneath, the truth yearned to break through, the dark slashes that told the truth about my powers. I was a member of the Shadow Coven, though only a handful of people knew.

  “It’s meant to identify us to one another,” I said in a whisper. “And any mage who saw it would take it as a warning. Stay the hell away from the Shadow.”

  “Except I know what you are, and I don’t want to stay away from you.” His voice dropped lower, and a new kind of shiver caressed my skin, making the tremor of my heart go faster. Dorian’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck, and he dug his fingers into my hair. I sucked in a breath, my eyes fluttering shut. I’d been wanting him to do this for so long, to touch me, to feel me, to provide an exquisite relief to the overwhelming tension that charged between us.

  “Not everyone in the world is like you, Dorian,” I whispered, sighing as his thumb continued to trace slow circles around my mark. “You’re different.”

  “Why?” His voice was a growl as he shifted closer, and our bodies were suddenly chest to chest and eye to eye. His scent enveloped me. Iron and musk and leather. My mind whirled from this closeness, and my heart beat so hard I swore it might burst. “Because I’m a vampire? A cursed man, driven by his own darkness? Someone good couldn’t care for you? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Of course not.” Opening my eyes, I stared into the deep pools of his eyes, feeling myself getting
caught up in the current of his intensity, feeling myself drowning in this moment between us. “That’s not what I meant. I…”

  My voice caught, and I looked away.

  “Then, what did you mean?” His thumb stilled as he fell silent, waiting for my answer. I knew we were on a precipice here, perched on the edge of something I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready to explore. My body begged for me to give in while my fear told me to turn and run.

  “I meant…well, I meant that,” I stumbled. My cheeks flamed, and I sucked a sharp breath into my lungs. How could I explain how I felt to this man? To this vampire? He made me feel things I’d never felt before, but he’d never given an indication that he felt the same. Even when we’d been bonded, all that charged emotion seemed to come from me. Now, here we were, wrapped up in each other’s arms, and I didn’t know what to say.

  Because the last thing I wanted him to do was run away.

  “Shh.” He pressed a finger to my lips. “You don’t have to explain it. Not now. I can read you, Zoe Bennett. I understand how you feel more than you think.”

  With his hand still gripping my head, he dropped his mouth onto mine. A moan rose up in my throat as desire shot through me. His tongue slipped through my lips, teasing, exploring, tasting. Everything about his kiss was electric, full of heat and need even though his skin was rigid and cold.

  His grip tightened as his kiss deepened, and his hands began to scratch along my back. And then his fangs caught my lip. Sharp pain exploded in my mouth. Choking out a cry of shock, I pulled back only to see his eyes churning with a new kind of need. They were wide and dilated, shot through with a deep crimson red that matched the blood on his lips. A low growl escaped from his throat as he pulled me toward him once again. I put my hands up between us, heart hammering in my chest.