Wolf Marked (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 1)

Savannah

I clenched the wheel with both hands and watched the black silhouette slowly approach in the rearview mirror.

I’m a goner.

He paused beside my window, placed both hands against the car, and bent low. I slowly turned my head to meet his gaze.

Gold flickered in his dark-brown eyes. “Ms. Caine, I thought I told you to stay in Belmont.”

I was so scared that my hands trembled on the wheel, but his silvery voice still sent shivers down my spine. There were times for pride and there were times for figuring out how not to end up at the bottom of a lake. This was the latter, so I begged. “I’m sorry. I know that maybe I saw something I shouldn’t have, and that I shouldn’t be here. Just please let me go. I won’t say anything. Please don’t kill me.”

A long pause hung in the air as the man stared, dumbfounded. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

I turned away and kept my gaze locked straight forward. “I know this definitely isn’t some kind of secret facility, but if it was, I sure as hell wouldn’t be dumb enough to mention it to anyone. Ever. Swear to God. I just really want to live.”

“What?”

I flicked my eyes toward the city at the far end of the bridge.

He leaned closer. “If you’re implying that this is some kind of government black site, it’s not. It’s a city like any other. The police are here. You’re safe.”

His voice was calm and soothing, and a compulsion to meet his eyes again came over me. They were now a deep honey gold, and an inexplicable wave of relief relaxed my muscles.

Then a cascade of sensations overwhelmed my senses. The rich scent of moss and pine. The taste of fresh snow and smoke. And I could almost hear a brook running over smooth stones. It felt like my heart was trying to leap out of my chest.

What the shit was happening to me?

A part of me was suddenly certain that everything was going to be okay. I was safe, the cops were here. I was probably the safest I’d ever been. But the other part of my mind knew something wasn’t quite right. “The city’s not on the map.”

Jaxson pulled out his cellphone and opened Waze. “It’s on my map. You might need an update.”

I wasn’t sure if my bargain-basement cellphone could even be updated.

Reality sank in, and blood rushed to my face. I’d let Alma’s paranoia make an ass out of me. Again. Shit like this was why high school had nearly driven me crazy and I didn’t have friends.

I channeled my embarrassment into anger. “Then why are you here, stalking me? And why is there an alert on my plates?”

“Beside the fact that you stole my truck keys?” he growled, releasing a spark of restrained fury.

I blushed deeper. “If I had, which I didn’t, that’s not the reason why you’re after me.”

Jaxson gave a deep, God-give-me-patience sigh. “You’re a witness. We need your help. You’ve been targeted. You could be in danger. All of which I explained when I told you not to leave town.”

“But why me?”

“As for why you were targeted, I don’t know. As for why we need you, you’re the only person who can identify the assailants.”

“So you tracked me all the way to Magic Side?”

He looked me up and down with a stony gaze. “I think the bigger question, Ms. Caine, is what are you doing here?”

Suspicion made the hair on my neck stand on end. There was a question beneath the question, but I didn’t understand it.

This man seemed adept at discerning lies, so I hedged. “I’m visiting family. For the first time.”

“Who?”

“None of your business,” I snapped.

His eyes turned a deeper gold. “I have many friends here in Magic Side, Ms. Caine. Who are you visiting?”

I considered that for a moment as those eyes of his pulled me in. Alma had said my family was extremely dangerous, but it might be good to have a second opinion. He might know of them.

“I’m visiting my aunt, Laurel LaSalle.”

Jaxson jerked back as if I’d slapped him in the face, and I yelped as the car tilted slightly. His eyes dilated and blazed like twin suns, and I could practically taste his emotion.

Abject hatred.

Jaxson

Of course.

In the twenty-four hours since I’d laid eyes on Savannah Caine, she’d killed a werewolf, disobeyed every request I’d made, stolen my keys, and led me on a two-hundred-mile wild-goose chase.

Of course she was a LaSalle.

I should have known just from the bittersweet-orange hair. To think that I’d found it beautiful at first sight. Now the only thing I could see in it were the flames that had consumed my sister as she’d choked to death on wolfsbane.

Fucking LaSalles.

“Is everything okay?” the bridge cop began, approaching.

I sucked in a sharp breath and looked at where my hands rested on the edge of the roof. They’d shifted to claws, and I was pushing so hard against the car that I’d inadvertently tilted the driver’s side so that the wheels were three inches off the ground.

“We’re fine,” I growled out of the corner of my mouth.

She halted and averted her eyes in submission. She was from my pack and would do exactly as ordered.

Unlike the LaSalle woman.

Savannah stared up at me with wide eyes. She couldn’t have seen my claws on the roof, but she knew something was up…probably because I had the car tilted off the ground. I fought to rein in my emotions, relaxed my arms, and let it settle.

“What was that?” Savannah gasped.

I looked deep into her eyes. “Nothing to worry about. Just a gust of wind.”

“A gust of wind?” she asked incredulously.

I intensified my signature. “We’re on a bridge over Lake Michigan. The wind hits hard. No buildings to stop it.”

It was the best I could come up with in the moment. Also, the winds could be hell.

She nodded slowly, her mind finally submitting to my intentions. “I guess that’s why they call Chicago the Windy City.”

Wrong.

Savannah was unusually resistant to my power. It still worked, but not as well, and not nearly as long as it should have. Maybe it was her accursed bloodline.

I drowned the hatred in my chest and forced my claws to retract. I couldn’t let my disgust cloud my vision.

It wasn’t her fault my sister was dead. She hadn’t poisoned Stephanie with wolfsbane or caused the fire that burned her alive. Savannah wasn’t truly a LaSalle, just a woman related to the monsters. I couldn’t hold that against her.

She bit her lip in a way that made my heart miss a beat. “You looked like you knew my family. I don’t. Can you tell me anything about them?”

They’re murderers. Monsters and practitioners of the dark arts.

What was I going to do with this woman? Simple truths were best. “They’re dangerous.”

She turned forward and glared at the city ahead. “I’ve heard that. What does dangerous mean?”

“Do the names Dillinger or Capone mean anything to you?”

One eyebrow inched upward as she looked at me again. “You mean the gangsters?”

“That’s what the name LaSalle means around here.”

She swallowed. Trepidation, but not surprise. That was interesting.

Why Savannah was trying to get in touch with the LaSalles, if she already knew they were dangerous, was anyone’s guess. But I couldn’t let her meet with them—not before I’d had a chance to talk to her first. Not ever, if I could help it. They would twist her mind and turn her against my kind. They’d teach her hate and mistrust.

The moment Laurel LaSalle got her hooks in Savannah would be the moment she would never work with me again. She’d disappear into the Indies—the neighborhood the LaSalles controlled—and she’d be out of my reach for good.

I needed to convince Savannah to help me before she looked up her family. And I’d need leverage in case she refused.

“You have to be very careful here, Ms. Caine. Those people might be your relations, but you’re not their family. They’ll use you. Reaching out to them would put you in far more danger than you’re already in. They’re wrapped up in a very bad line of business.”

She studied my face, probably searching for any sign of a lie. She wouldn’t find one, because I believed every word I’d said.

It was possible that the werewolves were hunting her simply because they’d discovered she was a LaSalle. Every pack around the Great Lakes region hated the family. It didn’t explain the other abductions, but it could explain why she was targeted.

Savannah crossed her arms and slouched down in the seat. “Well, I’m not going back to Belmont. Not with those freaks running around hunting me.”

I nodded in assent. I’d given up that plan the moment she’d split town. Not many had the power to resist me like she had, and apparently, she was very invested in being in Magic Side. I shouldn’t be surprised. Magic Side was one of the largest supernatural cities in the world, and it called to its lost children with a siren song that few could resist. That might explain everything.

Maybe the fates wanted her here. With any luck, the wolves would come for her next, and I could spring a trap. I could control the entire situation. All I had to do was keep her in pack territory, out of the Indies, and away from her family.

The problem would be getting her to play along. So far, my power had worked on her when I pushed her in a direction she wanted to go. As a last resort, I could threaten to prosecute her for Dane’s death under pack law. But that would make everything public, and I’d cede control of the situation to the elders. That, and she’d never trust me again. Three things I couldn’t afford right now.

I leaned close to the window and drew her in with my eyes. “I have no intention of preventing you from being here, Ms. Caine, but it’s late. If you don’t know the LaSalles, you definitely don’t want to look in on them at night. A tow truck is already on the way. I’ll set you up with a good mechanic and a decent motel in a safe part of town. It’s a big city.”

She considered my words. Her eyes were weary, and I could sense her exhaustion. Finally, she nodded, submitting at last.

I’d put her up in the Full Moon Motel on pack land and send her car to the pack repair shop, Savage Body. The truck was already on the way.

I took my hands off the car and leaned back. “It’s been a hell of a day. How about I buy you dinner? You must be starving.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” she muttered, but her stomach grumbled, betraying her lie, and she blushed.

Gods. How obstinate could one person be? She didn’t trust me—that much was clear—but she might trust a female cop. I turned to the patrolwoman and gave her a look. “Hey, what’s the best place to eat in Magic Side?”

“Eclipse! Best food I’ve ever had,” the cop shouted back. She’d known the answer I wanted. Eclipse was my restaurant, after all.

I looked back at the skeptical woman in the car. “How about Eclipse for dinner? It’s the least I can do. Usually, it’s impossible to get a table, but I can pull a few strings.”

She gritted her teeth. “Fine, but only if you give me answers about the case. And tell me what you know about my family.”

I nodded. “Not much about the case. But I’ll tell you about your kin. And more. Far more than you ever imagined possible.”

Her eyes blazed with hunger. Starving for information, not food. I could use that.

“Deal?” I asked. I didn’t even have to use my power. She was hooked on the promise of answers.

It took a second, but she finally nodded. “Doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere else.”

Well, that was close enough to a yes. She was as prickly as a hedgehog and as stubborn as a badger.

I was glad I’d left Regina back in Belmont. This was a risky game, and she’d have been pissed that I was taking a LaSalle out to dinner in the heart of pack territory. If anyone found out, things could get violent. I leaned on the car. “Just a word of advice, Ms. Caine. Don’t mention your family’s name to anyone in this city. There’d be consequences, none of them good.”

She tensed, and the scent of fear rose off her.

The Savage Body tow truck arrived, lights flashing. I walked away to make arrangements with the driver, but I had keen ears and could hear the LaSalle woman chatting with the patrolwoman.

“Look, I don’t know anyone around here. Is Mr. Laurent, you know, to be trusted?” Savannah whispered.

The cop pitched her voice low and conspiratorial, but she knew that I’d hear. “I’d trust him more than any other man in Magic Side. If he says you’ll be okay, you’ll be okay. But I can give you a lift somewhere else if you need it.”

There was a long pause, and I held my breath.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Savannah said at last.

“I know you will,” the patrolwoman said.

I turned and nodded thanks to the cop, though I was certain she’d meant every word.

She started to walk away, but Savannah leaned out the window and hissed after her, “Hey! Is the food at Eclipse really that good?”

The patrolwoman winked. “It’ll make you howl at the moon.”