Boston.
Shock rippled through me. I’d never been able to pinpoint a thread so accurately, down to the city. Usually, I had a pulling sensation either north or south, east or west, and a vague distance.
But this time it came through loud and clear, the place visible in my head as if I were looking at a picture. Boston. Shit on sticks, if we were going to deal with Orion’s black covens once and for all, I would have to go to my hometown.
Where my adoptive parents were, and the chance, with my luck, I would end up having to deal with the past, as well as the present. I slumped into the hay, my head swimming.
Erik touched my elbow, getting my attention. “How bad is it?”
How bad? Fuck, it couldn’t be worse.
Nope.
Wrong again.
Chapter 8
THE DARKNESS HAD swallowed him whole and there was no way back. A whimper slipped out of his muzzle and a voice rippled inside his head.
Stay with me wolf, she will peel my hide and eat me for breakfast if I let your furry ass die.
He tried to focus, to put the pieces together.
Demons, unicorns, ogres, and a dragon. Everything was so fuzzy. There was a witch, she’d tried to heal him….
Pamela tried to heal you, that’s true. But she is battling something on her own right now that is getting in the way of her ability. Witch hormones are the worst, almost as bad as Tracker tempers.
Another time, that would have elicited a laugh from him. He tried to open his eyes, gave up when they proved too heavy and the darkness curled around him. He struggled against it; not his time, it wasn’t his time yet. There was too much left to do.
Rest easy, wolf. The druids should have a way to heal you.
Rylee.
She is waiting for us in London.
Louisa was closer, though. The shamans should be able to heal him.
Excellent call, wolf. We go to Louisa first. Keeping you alive will keep us both in good standing with Rylee. Better that she sees you all put back together.
Blaz banked hard, and the world lurched around Liam. A relieved sigh rippled out of him. That would have to be enough for now.
Liam was going to be pissed when he figured out we weren’t following him. At least, not right away—we’d catch up as soon as we got the kids out of the black coven’s witchy hands.
With the violet skinned book strapped to Erik’s back under his cloak, we headed out of the barn. Sunset was only fifteen or so minutes away and I marked it in my mind. On instinct, I reached back and touched my hand to the grip of my sword. My fingers curled around it, but the pain was bad, enough that I knew I’d never hold up in a fight. Fuck, this was seriously not good.
Alex moved quietly beside me, more demure than I’d ever seen him, and it pulled me out of my own thoughts.
“Buddy, are you okay?”
“I feel funny.”
I stopped and cupped his face, looking deep into his eyes. “What do you mean by funny?”
He gave a roll of his shoulders. “Twisted up inside.”
What the hell did that mean? “Let me know if it gets worse, okay?”
“You gots it.”
Of all the people in my life, Alex was one of the few constants I could depend on no matter what. I ran my hands down his cheeks and scratched his neck.
He grinned up at me and gave me a wolfy wink. “I is good. No worries.”
Nothing I could do other than keep an eye on his behavior and hope it wasn’t anything serious.
Outside the barn, Eve stood at the edge of the burnt outhouse, her head lowered almost to the ground. A flutter of long blonde hair in the wind gave Pamela away.
Zorro, or Marco as he insisted his name was, ruffled his feathers. “Your young witch is going through a hard time.”
“Funny, I didn’t pick up on that,” I said as I walked toward the two girls. One feathered; one full of magic with no one to train her. Shit, even Milly had Giselle to guide her. With Milly dead, who did I trust to continue Pamela’s training? Deanna could do it, but there would be no training in the ways of fighting. It would be healing and growing plants and shit like that.
Marco stepped in front of me, blocking my way. “You need to help her deal with it before you go further.”
I glared up at him, would have liked to pull a blade and have him at the end of it to make my point. “Listen, we are all dealing with shit right now, every single one of us. She’s going to have to just figure it out.”
He shook his head, feathers literally ruffled. “You can’t ignore this. This darkness will grow in her until there is nothing left.”
Jaw tight, I stepped around him. Fucking bird brain, what did he know about witches?
A soft voice, one that sounded suspiciously like Giselle’s, whispered to me. And what do you know? Not much, other than what little we gleaned from Milly.