Shadow Kissed (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 4)

Jaxson

I pressed my cell phone to my ear and headed toward the highway. “What do you mean, you’ve made no progress?”

“Exactly what I said,” Sam muttered back across the line. “I’ve interrogated half of the cultists the Order has locked up in Bentham. Seems like Dragan didn’t tell them shit about what will happen when the Dark God returns. Most won’t say much, and the really crazy ones just keep repeating gibberish about how the Dark God is liberating our kind from the tyranny of men—and I don’t think they mean gender inequality. I’m pretty sure none of them have any idea what they signed up for.”

I ground my teeth. “Dragan must have told at least one of them what was going to happen when the Dark God returned—what they’d need to do to prepare. A location, signs, somewhere to meet, anything.”

“I’m trying everything I can,” she said sharply. “But feel free to get your ass back here and ask them yourself.”

A long silence stretched between us, and finally, Sam sighed. “Sorry, Jax. I was out of line. I’ll keep trying.”

“Good,” I growled softly. “I’m heading up to Pere Cheney with Savannah to tie up some loose ends, so it’s on you. If there’s anything to learn, I know you’ll find it.”

After another pause, Sam asked, “Is Savannah willing to meet with the council? We need to get ahead of this before the pack finds out about her.”

I already knew that proposal wasn’t going to go over well.

“I’m working on it,” I said, pushing some low brush out of the way. “The prophecy has her spooked. The first step is getting her back to pack lands and around others of our kind. She needs support. Then we can bring up the council.”

With that, I hung up and followed Savannah’s intoxicating scent to the highway.

Frustration clawed at me.

I’d called pack loremasters all around the Great Lakes, and so far, all I’d discovered were hazy warnings and ancient legends. Whispers about how the Dark God would return and reduce the world of man to ash and stone. How he would purge the earth of its human plague and restore it to the way it should have been—wild, with werewolves on top, of course.

Just threats and myths. No specifics. No clues how to stop it from happening.

Sam was the only one I’d told so far about Savannah’s connection to the prophecy. I hadn’t even mentioned it to Regina, but that would have to change. We needed help.

I stepped to the edge of the tree line and admired the woman standing beside the bed of my truck.

My mate. Herald of the apocalypse.

The brightness of Casey’s headlights made her hair look like flowing fire, and the backlighting, combined with her cocked stance, gave her plain white shirt and cutoff jeans shorts an almost exotic effect. I drank in each curve of her body with my eyes, desiring everything I saw. The one night we’d spent together was burned in my mind, and seeing her naked again on the beach and sensing her desire had need screaming through me. It had been all I could do to stop myself from taking her right there.

Unfortunately, a repeat of that one night wasn’t going to be an option. Her idiot cousin was here—and standing, for no gods-damned reason, in the bed of my truck.

I stepped into the beam of his lights. “Get. Off. My. Truck. Now.”

Casey went white for a moment, then hopped down, muttering, “Fucking alphas,” under his breath.

I let my claws slowly slip out and stepped very, very close.

He inched back and raised his hands. “Whoa there, Wolverine. I was just helping Savy.”

She turned and gave me a pleading glare. Please be civil.

Sighing, I retracted my claws and fished my keys out of my jacket. “Thanks for your help, LaSalle. We’ve got it from here.”

Casey shook his head. “Oh, hell, no. You’re not getting rid of me so easily. I’m coming with. Do you know how much trouble it was to get a freaking tombstone enchanted at the last minute?”

Savannah touched his arm tenderly. “And we really appreciate it, Casey. I mean it.”

“You owe me big time,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth.

I glanced at the gravestone lying in the bed of my truck. It was red granite with an ornately carved trim, and inscribed, Here lies the witch of Pere Cheney—remembered forever while her accusers are long forgotten.

I raised my eyebrows. “No name?”

Savannah bit her lip apprehensively. “Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem. She didn’t give me one. She just asked for a beautiful, unbreakable gravestone that would last forever.”

I looked over at Casey, who seemed lost in thought. “Will it?”

He shrugged. “Hey, forever is a long time. Let’s not get into specifics. As far as you folks are concerned, it will.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You did the enchantment yourself, didn’t you?”

He glared back at me and ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I mean, where else was I going to get an enchanted gravestone on the weekend?”

I wasn’t sure how much I trusted his prowess as an enchanter, but I unlocked the truck anyway. “Fine. Let’s just get this tombstone up to Pere Cheney before it explodes in a ball of flame. It’s going to be a long drive.”

As it turned out, the four-hour trip was longer than I could’ve possibly imagined because Casey didn’t stop talking.

He’d spent the last decade messing with our business and manufacturing wolfsbane, and now, I couldn’t get him out of my car. His incessant questions had my blood pressure soaring, and I had to dig my claws into the steering wheel to keep calm. With the gas pedal pressed to the floor, I uttered a small prayer to the moon mother for patience as each mile marker flew by.

Sitting in the back middle spot, Casey leaned forward between our seats. “So, okay, I’m still wrapping my head around this whole mates thing.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Casey,” Savannah moaned.

“What would happen,” he continued, completely unfazed, “if you got pregnant? Would you have babies or puppies?”

I spun around. “Why, for the sake of the fates, are you here?”

Casey leaned back and tucked his hands behind his head, and I turned to the road. “I’m not letting my favorite cousin face a dead witch without magical backup. What if the old specter goes off the rails? No way I’m letting Savy get possessed.”

“Too late.” Savannah sighed. “I’ve already been possessed, just not by her.”

“What? Really?”

“It was Dragan,” she spat. “He was a fucking asshole.”

“Wow. Okay, this is all news. Either way, I’m not letting my cousin get possessed again,” he grumbled. “What I don’t get is why all this is such an emergency. Dragan’s dead. You obliterated his soul. Then, according to Mom, you just panicked and ran off.”

Savannah bit her lip, and I shook my head subtly.

“You guys aren’t telling me something,” Casey said in a suspicious sing-song.

“It’s nothing,” I muttered. “Let’s just focus on the—”

“I’m the herald of the apocalypse,” Savannah blurted, and darkness crowded in around my vision.

“What?” Casey yelped.

“This is wolf business,” I growled. “Stay out of it.”

But Savannah turned her fiery eyes on me. “I’m a wolf, he’s my cousin, and the rest of my family are going to be dead if we don’t stop what’s coming. So frankly, wolf business is everybody’s business right now.”

“Holy shit…are you serious?” Casey squeaked.

My claws extended fully into the wheel. “She is not the herald of the apocalypse.”

“The werewolves have a prophecy,” Savannah told Casey. “A twin-soul—me—will make a sacrifice that releases the Dark Wolf God. Apparently, obliterating Dragan’s soul counted as that sacrifice. I know that because the Dark God literally told me himself. We have a little less than six days until he returns, and when he does, he’s going to spread madness among the living and wipe human civilization off the map.”

Casey grabbed the seat backs. “Fuck. Prophecy be damned, but if you have a psycho-murderous wolf god speaking to you, we’ve got to tell Mom and the Order, ASAP!”

I slammed on the brakes and jerked the truck to the side of the road as my fury boiled over at last. Casey screamed, and Savy clung to my arm for dear life.

When the truck finally rumbled to a stop, I turned around and let my presence fill the cab. “You will not speak a word of this to anyone. Prophecies are unreliable. We thought Dragan would be the one to release the Dark God, so we took the bastard out. If the wrong person hears of this and puts two and two together, they might decide to do the same thing to Savy.”

Casey sank down into his seat. “Oh, fuck.”

Savannah looked out the window. Her raging emotions vibrated through the air—despair, terror, fury. I wanted to comfort her, but I had to lock this down, once and for all.

I let my eyes go brilliant gold as I pressed Casey with my full power. “You’ll tell no one until we understand what’s going on. Got it, LaSalle?”

He swallowed hard. “Got it. I’ll be as silent as the grave. I promise.”

“Good,” I said, pulling back onto the highway. “You start now. For the rest of the drive.”