LUCAS
I sat at the far end of the table, relegated to the outskirts of conversation, not good enough for my father to include me as more than an object he possessed. The Stockholm clan was a group of giants. All of the men close to seven feet tall, the women only a hair shorter. They were beautiful, icy, and different from us. Their royalty wasn’t decided by blood, but by dedication and willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. I stared at the vampire sitting across from me, Mattias. He wasn’t theirs by birth, wasn’t a born vampire. Mattias had been turned, and yet the clan brought him in and made him theirs. That was something my father would never entertain.
“So, Elias, you mentioned a pesky shifter pack has moved in next door?” Oskar, the head of the clan, said while swirling his wine goblet.
“Yes, they’ve been…an irritant. But we should be rid of them soon. Lucas is taking care of that.”
“Ah, I see.”
“He has to be good for something. Otherwise, I wouldn’t keep him around.”
Sorcha and Callie both focused their gazes intently on the table in front of them, while Cashel locked eyes with me. In his face I saw pity, and my stomach curled.
“Speaking of,” I started, getting to my feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a detail I must attend to.” An uncomfortable itch to be sure Briar was all right had started under my skin. I had to get out of this house and as close as possible to the Dumond estate.
“Right this moment?” Father asked, disapproval in his tone.
“Yes, Father. They’re on the move tonight. She told me. She trusts me implicitly at this point. It is imperative I complete this now.”
He sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. “Fine. Take your leave, but for God’s sake, don’t do anything stupid.”
I threw up every mental shield I could to keep him out of my head. If he knew I was going to give Briar my mating bond tomorrow night, he’d have me imprisoned in the well waiting for daylight to kill me before I could blink.
“Take Astrid along, Lucas, she’s never seen a shifter. It will do her some good to spend time with you.” Oskar’s words took me off guard.
“Why would that do her good?”
My father grinned. “Because, once you’re legitimized by the council, you’ll have to make a good marriage.”
Astrid was beautiful, there was no doubt. Ice cold and carved from stone. Not the warm, soft curves I craved. “I thought I wasn’t a good enough prospect for marriage to be your concern.”
“Things have…changed.”
Clenching my jaw, I stood and glanced at the woman I’d been paired with. “Coming?”
She nodded and silently walked to my side. Her slender hand slid around the crook of my elbow, and in moments, we were out the door.
“You don’t like me,” she said,
“I wasn’t prepared for you. I don’t know you.”
“I don’t like you.”
A bitter laugh was all I could muster. “Well, this is a match made in Heaven.”
“You are hiding something. That is clear.”
“And you are an ice princess. How would you know if I’m hiding anything?”
Her sly gaze moved from me to the tree line, then she bolted, running in the direction of the Dumond property.
“Astrid, wait!” She’d ruin everything.
I ran after her, searching for her scent, following it when I caught on. But she wasn’t headed toward the pack estate. She’d turned her course away from both properties, following the pull of wild magic.
“Fuck,” I muttered. There was no telling what she’d run into, but a pack of shifters against two vampires…it wasn’t good odds.
I stopped when I caught sight of her at the crest of a hill. She stood behind a tree, peeking out at something I couldn’t see. With careful steps, I approached, but she held a hand out behind her in warning,
“What is it?” I asked under my breath.
“Do shifters wield magic?”
Dread curled in my gut. “No.”
“Do they work closely with witches?”
As soon as I reached her, I followed her gaze down the hill to a circle of fire which housed three of the Dumond pack. The alpha, Niklas, and a man I didn’t know.
Five witches stood around the outside of the flaming circle, hands raised to the sky, their thin gauzy black gowns blowing in the wind that seemed to come from all directions at once.
“What are they doing?”
I listened hard to the murmured chanting coming from the five witches, but nothing registered as familiar. Until the name Briar filled the air. My skin felt tight and uncomfortable as possessive heat coursed through me.
“She will be yours,” the pack leader said, holding out his hand, which dripped with blood. Then he slammed his palm onto Niklas’ chest, and the witches’ chanting grew louder.
A low moan came from Astrid, the moan of someone whose suppressed desires were getting the better of them.
“Astrid, don’t,” I said, but she was already running down the hill in search of fresh blood.
I bolted after her. I wouldn’t be the one who got the daughter of our Swedish allies killed.
The flames of the circle vanished as she took down a witch and broke the spell they were casting, but the witch had done something to her, bound her with a green haze that had Astrid screaming.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Stop this and we’ll go.”
One of the witches laughed, a pure cackle that belonged in a Shakespearean play. “Your friend attacked Effie. She has right of self-defense.”
Effie stood, still holding Astrid bound in her spell.
“She’s new to the area. She didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Ah, so it’s your fault, then. You brought her out here.”
“What are you doing on our land?”
She laughed. “Your land? This is neutral ground. Don’t you even know your own property lines?”
The haze around Astrid flickered and died as I spoke to the other witch. And then it all went to shit.
Astrid lunged, baring her fangs, and all three shifter males came for her as she sank her teeth into Effie’s throat. The witch let out a piercing scream before falling silent. I charged after them all, desperate to stop the carnage before it began, but the shifter male I had yet to meet had his hands on Astrid’s head, and he snapped her neck before I could get to her. Effie crumpled to the ground, the other witches rushing to her side, I barreled into the group of shifters, knocking both Nik and Magnus to the ground as I tried to get to Astrid. The other shifter stood over her, hands turned to claws, ready to end her permanently, and I didn’t think. I shoved my hand through his sternum and straight into his chest. Then I pulled out his heart, warm and beating, and tossed it into the fire. He fell, shock on his face, and I scooped Astrid into my arms and ran.
BRIAR
I heard the mournful howls and knew. I knew something terrible had just happened. Setting my drink aside, I strode to the window. Everything felt wrong.
“Do you hear them?” my mother said, coming up behind me. “I knew I shouldn’t have let them go.”
“Who?”
“Your father, Nik, and Maxim.”
“Why shouldn’t they go for a run together? They always do at least a few times each month.”
She rested her palm on my shoulder, but I flinched away from her touch. “Darling, please don’t do that.”
“Just because I’m home, that doesn’t mean I’m happy with you. Everything is not all right between us.”
She sighed, and the tension in her body practically hummed. “No, everything is not all right.”
Her posture changed as she pressed her palms to the windowsill and stared intently at the tree line. I watched right along with her, praying we were both wrong. But my prayers weren’t answered that night. Nik came out first, bloodied, naked, with terrible pain in his eyes. I gasped and reached for my mother’s hand.
“What happened to him?” I asked,
She squeezed my hand, and a low whimper escaped her. It wasn’t because of the blood. It was because of the man who emerged from the trees this time. Father. But he was carrying my cousin, Maxim. Maxim, who’d only been here for a visit. Who’d been considering moving to the estate. Whose limp body was pale and motionless, eyes staring at nothing, his chest a raw wound.
“No, no, Maxim,” my mother cried. She ran to the door and met them, her hands fluttering over my cousin’s body.
“What happened? What did this to him?” I asked my father.
“The vampires.”
My stomach churned. No. We were so close to changing things.
“Why? Did something happen? Did the King—”
“His son. Those vampires ambushed us and attacked. He ripped out Maxim’s heart and tossed it into a fire,” Nik answered, burning rage in his eyes. Accusation hung unspoken between us, and I wondered what he wanted to say.
“Cashel,” I whispered.
“No. Not Cashel. The other one. The bastard.”
I was going to be sick. My legs turned to jelly, and a cold sweat broke out all over my skin. “Lucas.”
“He won’t get away with this. The High Council will have his head on a pike for this.” My mother was blind rage, her breaths coming hard and fast. She was about to shift. Her grief and anger were getting the better of her.
“Mother, calm down,” I said, but she turned on me.
“Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down when my sister’s child is dead on our doorstep because of those creatures?”
“She’s right, Rowena. We can’t simply charge them. We will contact the High Council and report our loss, report the vampires for the attack on us. Lucas will pay the price. For now, we must see to our dead.” My father walked inside with Maxim’s body still in his arms and nausea rolled through me. My cousin had been savagely murdered. His death had to have been terrible and painful. And the man I’d given my mark to, my bond, was at fault. My knees nearly gave out as he passed me.
Mother wailed, her heartbreak palpable, settling over the whole house, and Nik stood next to me, covered in blood and sweat and dirt.
“Are you proud of yourself, Briar?”
Shock hit me full in the chest. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, This wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you. Your stubbornness led us out to the clearing. You forced our hand and made us call the witches.”
“Witches? What were you doing?”
His jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’ll be rid of that disgusting creature who’s taken a place in your head—and defiled you.”
Cold tendrils of fear slithered along my spine. “Nik—”
“Don’t try to deny it. I saw you.” His words were filled with hatred. “I. Saw. You.”
My throat tightened, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t get a word out. He’d seen us on the balcony.
“You can’t be trusted. Clearly, you’re under compulsion.”
I brought my hand to my lips, trying to figure out what to say. Nik grabbed the neck of my dress and pulled roughly, exposing my throat and the mark Lucas had left on me.
He growled. “Just as I thought. You’re in his thrall.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smirked. “That bastard has had you in his sights since the ball. He’s trying to corrupt you and turn you against your family. Why can’t you see that?”
Tendrils of dread worked their way through my veins, turning my blood ice cold “I’m not under his thrall.”
With terrible swiftness, he grabbed me around the waist, hauling me up the stairs and keeping me in his arms until I was in my chambers. “I can smell him on you, Briar. In you. You’re not the kind of woman who’d forsake your pack for the likes of him.”
“He’s my mate!” I screamed the words before I could stop myself.
Nik’s face went deathly pale. “What did you say?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“He’s your mate?”
Biting my lower lip, I fought the swell of tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. “Yes.” The word was barely a whisper, but he heard it. I knew from the sharp intake of breath, from the way the tension in the room built to a terrible tempest.
“No. I’m your mate. I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for your wolf to be ready to acknowledge her need for mine.”
“Nik, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this. It’s not something I set out to do.”
He punched the wall, and the plaster cracked all the way to the ceiling. “No! I do not accept this. It is against pack law.”
“I can’t change the truth.”
“They will kill you for this, Briar. Your parents won’t be able to hide it or ignore it.”
Nausea rolled through me. No. That couldn’t be true. “They wouldn’t.”
“The last shifter who paired with a vampire was decapitated and burned for his crime.”
Fingers playing at the mark on my throat, I tried to hide the trembling of my limbs. “They won’t. Times have changed. Females are too rare.”
“You’re willing to take that risk? Females are rare, you’re right, which means they’d want you to breed with your own kind, not poison our blood with that of a vampire. Any child you bore with him would be an abomination. It would be destroyed.”
I placed my palm over my lower belly and fought the urge to sob.
His eyes widened. “Tell me you’re not carrying his child.”
Was I? I didn’t think so, but I also couldn’t be sure. “No.” I lied through my teeth. I had to get out of here, get to Lucas so we could run.
“I’ll still have you, you know. If you sever ties with him, shun him, and help us bring them down. You won’t be ruined.”
He wanted me to kill Lucas, to hurt the man I loved, the man who wore my mark and held my bond. “No, I won’t.”
“You’re a fool, then. You’ll see. Once he’s dead, he’ll be out of your system, and you won’t crave him any longer. It’s not your fault. We should have been watching you more closely. I didn’t do my job as your protector.”
He left me in my room, bolting the door and taking the key with him. Once I was sure he wasn’t standing outside my door, listening to every move I made, I ran to the French doors that opened out to my balcony, but as soon as I spread the heavy velvet curtains, my heart sank. Barred. The windows were covered in heavy bars of silver. Had they been trying to keep vampires out or me in? When had they done this?
I screamed and grabbed the crystal vase on the small side table. Hurling it with all my might into the fireplace, I watched the glass shatter into a fine powder. Panic clutched at me, sitting heavy on my chest, making my breaths painful. I had to get out of here. They were going to hurt my mate. Kill him if they got the chance. As much as my father protested my mother getting vengeance, I believed strongly that was solely so he could dole out the revenge.
I pounded on the door, broke the panes of glass, and grabbed the silver bars, trying to pry them apart with every ounce of strength I possessed, but I’d given part of me to Lucas. I was weakened until I recovered fully.
Crumpling to the floor, I let out a bone-deep sob of frustration. If something happened to Lucas, it would be my fault. “I’m so sorry, Lucas,” I whispered.
Exhaustion rolled through me, heavy and harsh, weighing down my shoulders, making my muscles hurt where they shouldn’t. I looked around the room, searching for anything I could use to pick the lock and free myself. “Why don’t I have something as simple as a hairpin?” I grumbled.
But then something caught my eye. An irregularity of the wallpaper where the bookshelf was placed. Narrowing my eyes, I inched closer. There had been secret passageways at Blackthorne Manor. Perhaps I’d be lucky enough for there to be one here as well.
Running my fingers over the wrinkle in the paper, I shifted enough to turn my finger into a claw and sliced the line that went from the top of the bookshelf to the floor. A thin stream of cool, musty air escaped, and my heart leapt. I pushed, but nothing happened. The bookshelf didn’t budge.
“Dammit,” I muttered. Inspecting the floor and wall around the bookshelf, I saw the barest hint of scratches on the hardwood to the left of the shelf. “Does it slide?”
I grabbed the sides of the monstrous mahogany piece of furniture and pulled with all my might. Sure enough, the shelf slid. Giving it another strong pull, the furniture moved until it wouldn’t go another inch, but there was a two-foot-wide space where the shelf had been. There it was, my way out of this room. A dark passage thick with cobwebs and the scent of dust. It was my only chance.
I took it.