“How long until sunset?” Logan asked, staring up at the sky above Smuggler’s Notch.
“Four hours.” Silas had his gun drawn and was following Logan away from the marked path. “Are you sure this is the right way?”
“Positive.” Logan plowed into the thick fog.
“The smell is… indescribable.” Silas covered his nose with his sleeve and breathed through his mouth.
“You called Grateful, right?” Logan asked.
“Yeah, but she didn’t answer her phone. I had to leave a message.”
“Fuck.”
“I have backup on the way from the supernatural police force and the Lycanthropic Society.”
“Should we wait? It sounds like this guy wants you dead,” Logan said.
“No. We’ve waited long enough. Alex is dangerous. We’re going to find Polina and then we’re going to take him down.”
Logan nodded. “Man, I wish just this once my mother was wrong and Polina is okay.”
“Hmm.”
Logan navigated between the trees. This was the way. As long as he kept heading uphill, he should run into Polina’s place, Aurorean House, eventually.
“So, you and Polina, eh?” Silas asked. Unlike Logan, who had to watch every step, Silas navigated the woods like he was born to be there. As a werewolf, maybe he was.
“Yeah,” Logan said. “I think she could be the one. I know it’s crazy, but I’ve never felt this way before. It feels, I don’t know, destined somehow.”
Silas laughed. “Or it could be the sex.”
Logan paused and looked back at his friend. “Excuse me? I’m over thirty years old. I think I can tell the difference between love and lust.” He hooked a hand around a birch tree and pulled himself up a steep incline.
“Yeah, but that was human sex. This is magic vagina. Magic vagina can tame the wildest of beasts. Take Soleil and me. I thought we were forever, then she dumped me like a hot rock.”
“Love isn’t always forever. I get it. But I intend to enjoy it while it lasts.” Logan ran a hand through his hair and continued up the mountain.
It took almost an hour for them to reach the front yard of Aurorean House and ten seconds to notice the blown-out front window. “Whoa. What happened here?” Silas drew his gun again.
Logan sprinted over the lawn and through the door that hung open on its hinges. “Polina? Polina?” He yelled her name and scoured the house. “Fuck. She’s not here. There’s glass all over the kitchen. He has her. I know it.”
A preternatural growl came from the front yard, followed by two gunshots. “Silas!” Logan rushed to the door. A man had Silas pinned to the ground and was kneeling on his arms.
“What the hell?” Logan charged at the attacker only to be stopped in his tracks by an invisible force.
The man turned to face him. He looked a hell of a lot like Jonah, enough that Logan did a double take. There was a slight difference in the length of his hair and he was dressed differently than his sous-chef had been just hours ago. Two gunshot wounds gaped in his chest. As Logan watched, the holes filled themselves in.
“Run!” Silas yelled.
Logan couldn’t move from the neck down.
“You must be Logan,” the man said with a wicked smile. “I’m Alex, alpha of the Bloodright pack. I believe you’ve already met my Zafka, Jonah. You’re in my territory.”
“Why can’t I move?” Logan asked.
“Oh, that. You should know, I’m not like other werewolves. I’ve evolved.” He lifted the dragon amulet that hung around his neck. Logan had seen a similar talisman around Tabetha’s neck once, a scarab beetle that accentuated her power.
“Yeah? Who gave you that pretty necklace?” Logan asked, voice thick with ridicule.
Alex’s smile morphed into a sneer. “I should thank you for leading Silas here. See, I recently marked this realm as my own, and when an alpha assaults another alpha, like me, inside their territory, werewolf law says I have the right to take his life.”
“Silas isn’t an alpha,” Logan said.
Now a genuine smile slid across Alex’s face. “Is that what he told you? He’s always so careful to protect his position. Let me educate you. Silas Flynn has not only been the alpha of Fireborn pack since the day I murdered his parents, he’s also head of the Lycanthropic Society. And now, I have the legal right to kill him and usurp his position in his pack. Oh, and with the size of the pack that will give me, the Lycanthropic Society will have no choice but to install me as their new leader.”
Logan looked at Silas, who had calmed beneath Alex, eyes dulling and staring right through Logan. At once he knew it was true. Silas was the alpha. A deep well of guilt rose within him, and his mind filled with questions. Why had Silas lied? Why had his mother told him to bring Silas when she must have known the truth? And worst of all, what had Alex done to Polina to mark her realm as his own?
“I’m sure you two can come to some arrangement,” Logan said. “Maybe, if we all sat down and took a deep breath, we could work something out without anyone getting hurt.”
“You’re thinking like a human. That’s not how werewolf culture works. Here’s what’s going to happen. I am going to take Silas here to my pack’s camp. As custom dictates, I’m going to chain him to the sacred totem of my people. Tonight, when the pack shifts, they’ll eat him alive. It’s how it’s always been done, and it’s how it will be.”
Logan’s eyes shifted toward the human camp.
“I hope you’re not counting on the other alphas to come to his rescue. They can’t. He gave up all rights to their protection when he crossed into my territory. Of course, he probably couldn’t smell my marking over Polina’s enchantment. That witch is the gift that keeps on giving.”
Bile rose in Logan’s throat. “What have you done with her?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
A sharp pain exploded at the back of Logan’s skull and then everything went black.