Never Cry Wolf (Night Watch #4)(45)
Author: Cynthia Eden

The hair on his nape rose but Dane kept going. Lucas was in there, and he’d damn well better not be the living dead.

“Here!” Piers’s shout had him turning to the left. The candles were sputtering out, but his shifter vision let him see clearly. He hurried down the hallway, darted into the room, and saw them on the table.

Blood pooled beneath them. Lucas was on the table, Sarah on top of him. Her hair covered his face, and her arms hung limply, her fingertips nearly brushing that pool of blood.

They looked dead but he could hear—

Thump. Thump.

Their hearts. Beating in near perfect time with each other.

He has a weakness.

“Let’s get them out of here,” Piers muttered. “This place, man, it’s creeping me out.”

Dane hurried forward and reached for Sarah. He pulled her up against him, and her head sagged forward. The woman was out. Lucas was in no better shape. His eyes didn’t open when Piers shook him. His slow breathing didn’t change. But the gaping wounds on his stomach appeared smaller.

Piers inhaled. “You smell that?” He looked down at the bloody floor. “Silver.”

No mistaking that metallic scent. “Looks like Marie got it out of him.” The relief was obvious in his voice. He hefted Sarah higher against his chest. They needed to leave. Marie had said Lucas and Sarah would be weak until dawn.

Piers wrapped one of Lucas’s arms around his neck and lifted the alpha.

“I can . . . walk . . .” Lucas’s faint growl, but he didn’t open his eyes.

Piers froze. “Alpha, you back?”

A grim nod. His eyes were still closed.

“Damn man!” Piers burst out. “You scared the hell out of us! We thought you were dead when that silver got—”

“I was.” His eyes opened now, faded blue. For an instant, his eyes looked just like Marie’s. Then he blinked and the color deepened a bit. Became more like Lucas.

Piers’s eyes widened. “You . . . what?”

“Ask me . . . about it . . . another time . . .” His eyelids began to sag. “Now let’s get . . . out . . .”

That sounded like one fine plan to Dane. He tightened his hold on Sarah—her eyes were still closed, her heart still drumming slowly—and hurried out of that dark room. When they hit the porch, the two bodies were gone, as if they’d never been there.

The night was quiet. Too quiet. They climbed into the van. Lucas looked pale, but he was with them, dammit. And as soon as the alpha got settled into the back of the van, Lucas reached for Sarah.

“What are we going to do with her?” Piers wanted to know.

Dane gunned the engine.

“Keep her.” Lucas’s quiet response. Dane glanced in the mirror and saw Lucas gently brushing back Sarah’s hair. The alpha? Gentle? What. The. Hell.

“But we can’t trust her. After tonight, after what happened . . .” Piers heaved out a breath. “Man, I’ve got to tell you what she—”

“Later . . . Everything . . . later.”

Piers’s teeth snapped together but he gave a fast nod. A nod Lucas didn’t see. The alpha’s eyes had closed again.

Dane shoved the gas pedal down to the floor as he raced away from the mambo’s house. He didn’t think they’d be followed by Marie’s men, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

They’d have to watch out for the mambo until she collected her pound of flesh. Spells never came cheap. He knew. He’d sure bled for plenty over the years.

“Caleb.” Lucas’s voice rasped and Dane realized the alpha wasn’t out completely, not yet.

Dane’s gaze met Piers’s in the rearview mirror.

“He’s . . . dead,” Lucas said.

Maybe. “We don’t know for sure what happened to him. Our priority was gettin’ you out, we didn’t—”

“No.” Said with more heat. “To us, dead. If you see him . . . again . . .”

Caleb. A man who’d been like a brother to him for ten years. A wolf who’d attacked their alpha with fangs and claws.

Dane’s fingers squeezed the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Send someone . . . back for his body . . .” The alpha’s breath heaved out. “If he . . . lives . . . I want him brought to the pack.” A growl built in his throat. “Trial by pack.”

Oh, shit. That meant a fight to the death.

How the hell had this happened? Dane’s jaw locked. All these years, and he’d never known a traitor stood right next to him.

Chapter 12

Sarah awoke to the feel of rough fingertips sliding down her arm. She gasped, jerked, and a hand closed over her wrist. A light pain hit her at the touch—the flesh sensitive—and her eyes flew open.

She found herself staring into intense blue eyes. Lucas.

Sarah didn’t realize she’d murmured his name until his lips kicked up in a faint smile. The light of dawn surrounded him. “Not dead yet, babe.”

And she was so very grateful for that fact.

His fingers slid over the inside of her wrist. Her breath hissed out.

His gaze dropped to the jagged wound, a wound that had healed so much. Too much. “What happened?”

She sat up, and when the cold air hit her chest, she realized she was naked. Sarah snatched up the sheet with her right hand, feeling vulnerable. Nervous. Time for him to know everything. “I-I made a trade with a voodoo priestess.”

He didn’t blink. “What did you trade?”

Everything. “I don’t really know . . . Marie will—”

“How’d you know to visit Marie Dusean?” he asked, his thumb still caressing her flesh.

Sarah bit her lip. “I didn’t know—we just needed magic. It was the only thing that would save you. Piers—he knew how to find her.”

“Sonofabitch.”

“You were dying! There wasn’t a choice.” Her gaze dropped to his stomach. He was fully healed. The only sign of his ordeal was a raised line on his stomach. Shifter healing, got to love it. “The silver was destroying you.”

“No, it was burning me. Fucking burning me alive.” His fingers fell away. “You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”

Saved your ass.

“If Marie cut you, she used your blood in a spell. She did something to you, Sarah.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what. I can’t remember a damn thing, but she’s got power over you now. Power over you and power over me.” His eyes narrowed. “Marie is a very dangerous woman.”