Trixie found Boss sitting on the same barstool he’d been on nearly fifteen years earlier, fourth one down from the right side of the bar, near the register. The layout of the bar and the location might have changed since then, but the old rickety stool the warlock favored was the same. He was stooped over the cash drawer and the bar’s open financial books. Whatever servers he’d hired in her and Dani’s places hadn’t managed to keep the place up to snuff when it came to cleaning, and the air reeked of stale beer like it was a busy Friday instead of a dead Wednesday weeknight. The purple and orange on the new jukebox screen flashed, glaring and bright among the bar’s shadows.
Trixie had entered through the front entrance, not the service door, using her key with Dumplin’ at her side. The choice had been intentional. It was well past nightfall, and she was thankful her car had managed to make it from Wolf Pack Run over Idaho state lines in record time with little more than a hope, a prayer, and a bit of magic. The bar closed early on Wednesdays, and she’d hoped to find Boss here counting the drawer, exactly as he was.
The old warlock raised his head at the sound of her approaching heels clicking against the hardwood floor. He took one look at her and raised the brow above his eye. The green one, not the blue. “Didn’t know you had a thing for animals, cher.” He nodded toward Dumplin’ beside her.
Trixie placed her hands on her hips momentarily before giving Dumplin’ the signal to stay. The dog sat obediently. “Apparently, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” She made her way around the bar top, slipping her hands into the pockets of her short cutoff jeans. Her ass cheeks were nearly hanging out, and they’d been freezing since she’d stopped for gas at the Marathon station and changed on her way in, but the distraction the look created was intentional.
It always was.
She rounded the bar top as Dumplin’ waited obediently by the door. “Like the fact that I don’t take kindly to being sold out to the supernatural Mafia,” she continued. She grabbed one of the clean mixers and scooped some cubes from the ice bucket into it. “I’d thought Stan saw me cast the spell. But he didn’t. You told him it was me. You knew he’d kill me and still you told him, sold me for dead like I’m nothing to you.”
“It was me or you.” Boss watched her, yellowed eyes weary. “It was business, cher. Nothing personal.”
Of course. Boss was always the opportunist. She’d never really meant anything to him, not truly. She’d tried to convince herself she had, only because it’d made things easier, made the way she was stuck with him easier to bear, made her feel a little less alone. But she’d been lying to herself. Now she knew what it was like for someone to really care for her, and it wasn’t someone who cut shady deals with her only so he could use her for her magic.
Trixie stood on the tiptoes of her heels, grabbing down the white rum from the shelf. She poured it into the mixer. A generous enough share to cover up other tastes. “Of course, it’s always been business with you, Boss. That shouldn’t be news to me.” She shook her head and sighed. “The problem is that I was ever foolish enough to hope it was anything different.” She added the simple syrup. She pegged him with a hardened stare. She’d cleaned up her makeup for this specifically and she knew she looked good. Better than usual even.
Self-worth could do that for a woman.
“Kindness, compassion: you don’t have it in you, do you?” she asked. She’d hoped once he had, convinced herself for her own comfort.
Boss’s brow drew low before he flashed her a white-toothed grin and laughed. “’Course I do.” He chuckled and picked up his ledger pen. “For the right price.”
From beside the door, Dumplin’ let out a growl, sensing the tension between her and the warlock, but Trixie shook her head at the sweet Rottweiler. Dumplin’ was eager to protect her, but this fight was hers. It always had been. She just hadn’t realized it.
Boss looked back down at the books again, as if she and her troubles were of no concern, and Trixie poured the final ingredient into the shaker. Twisting the top closed, she made a show of rattling it around for a few moments before grabbing a highball glass to pour it into. “Is that why you did it?” she asked Boss. “Power? Money?”
She shouldn’t be surprised. That was his usual way, of course.
The necromancer turned his attention back toward her. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, girl. Money talks.” Boss wrote down a figure in the books, then looked back toward her again. “But you forget… That pack is responsible for moving the Coyote out here to this hellhole.” His mismatched eyes flashed with dark rage that been suppressed for too long, and Trixie could see his magic emerge like dark tendrils, born out of the bar’s shadows. But he wouldn’t hurt her.
Not any more than he already had anyway.
“I liked Billings better,” Boss said in explanation.
So this had been years in the making. Figured. Trixie shook her head, trying to hide her disappointment.
Dumplin’ let out a whimper followed by a growl. The scent of Boss’s magic snaked throughout the bar. There’d been a time when she found the familiar scent soothing. Coconut and mango mixed with anise, like licorice. But now the sick sweetness of it made her stomach turn.
“If you ever cared for me, then let me out of my contract,” she said. “Please. If you do, I’ll turn around and walk out of here. You won’t hear from me again. We can let bygones be bygones.”
Boss lifted a dark brow toward her. “We both know I won’t do that, cher. You’ve asked plenty of times before. You’re too valuable.”
“You mean my magic is too valuable to you.” Anger built inside her then, quick and unexpected. Not the devastating resignation she’d felt so many times before. “Then call off the Triple S. Tell them the deal’s over with.” She’d give him this last chance to save himself, a tribute to whatever familial love she’d once felt for him. When she spoke, her voice sounded dark, the voice of a witch, not a sweet, southern seductress. “I’ve never tried to get out of our contract because a deal is a deal and you did help me, even if it was to serve your own means. But it’s one thing to hurt me. That I can take. I’ve stomached it for this long. But if you hurt the man I love or his pack, I’ll end you.” She leveled Boss with a hard stare. “Call them off.”
Boss laughed. “Where do you think you’re gonna get that kind of power, girl?” He chuckled.
Trixie smiled at him, soft and sweet. Pliable, like she’d once been. She’d been so used to bending to the will of powerful men so she didn’t break that she’d never dared to consider her own power. “I call it the Dolly.” She pushed the new drink she’d mixed across the bar toward him. “Try it.”
Boss eyed the chilled highball glass before he drew it into in his hand and took a hearty sip. How many times had she done the same for him before? She couldn’t count.
He nodded in approval. “It’s a good one,” he said, like she was still working for him, still his to control. She’d known he’d like it. She’d made it with all his favorite ingredients.
Custom to taste.
Blowing out a long breath of tension, Trixie strutted out from behind the bar, heading toward the jukebox. The credits from the previous machine had been transferred over, so thankfully she didn’t need the handful of coins she’d stored in her pocket for this exact moment. She pressed a few buttons, and a moment later, Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” started belting through the bar’s speakers. Dolly’s high-pitched soprano rang out for a moment, quickly leading into the chorus.
Trixie had played the song for Boss plenty of times before, but this time felt different.
Last calls always did.
She turned to face the old warlock. Boss had already consumed about half of the drink she’d given him, and he let out a rough, choked cough.
“You shouldn’t have come for the man I love,” she said.
Boss shook his head, coughing again. Smoking would do that to a person. Make their lungs weak. “Didn’t I”—another cough—“teach you better than to be so naive, cher?”
“You did,” she answered. She smacked her lips together, giving him an innocent look. “But apparently I never taught you that you should be careful who you let serve your drinks.”
Boss’s eyes went wide, darting to the drink in his hand and then back to her at the exact moment he started to rasp and cough again. Suffocation was an awful sound. Boss’s eyes bulged and he pawed at his throat, but the look of anger in his irises said he’d kill her if he had the chance. Too bad she hadn’t given him one.
“Hemlock,” she said, explaining. “You never took much interest in my love of poisonous plants.”
Boss fell from the barstool, clawing at his throat and twitching in a struggle for air. His hands pulsed black as he struggled to use his magic to get out of it. But it was no use.
Magic didn’t outpace nature.
It was why shifters rather than witches reigned supreme.
“You should have let me out of my contract,” Trixie said again. A stray tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped at it with the back of her hand. “Here, you can have these to remember me by.” Bending down, she slipped off the first pair of heels she’d ever owned, walking over and thrusting them into Boss’s curled arms as he fought for his last breath. “I’m never wearing those fucking death traps again.” Trixie turned on her bare heel, arches flat and ground against the floor, and walked out of the bar. She took her pride and dignity with her.
A moment after she left, with Dumplin’ at her side, she placed a hand on the dog’s head. She knew the moment Boss was gone, because a weight she’d felt for too long lifted and she smiled to herself. Finally, she breathed a sigh of relief.
She was her own woman.
***
The moon hung high in the night sky, casting her cool, pale glow down on the snowcapped mountaintops. A prickle of energy ruffled through Malcolm’s fur, down to his skin. He lay in wait for the pack’s enemies, the bustle of the other warriors cloaked in the forest around him nearly imperceptible. But he could feel them there, sense them like a part of himself.
Most of the pack had already shifted into their true form, their weapons hidden among the hollows of the trees and the surrounding brush. Tonight, they fought together as one, and for this, only fang and claw would do. They were as prepared for battle as they’d ever be.
Without warning, a rustle of leaves sounded to his right.
Malcolm snarled, harsh and fierce in warning, but a moment later, Blaze emerged from the brush on all fours. His packmate sniffed Malcolm, drawing up with him muzzle to muzzle in friendly acknowledgment before he shifted into human form. The air bent and folded around him as his fur gave way to human limbs and feet, his ability to use verbal language restored.
“Maverick thought you would want to know…” Blaze stared down at him, naked despite the surrounding snow. “Apparently the Triple S chickened out. The scouts out past the ranch perimeters said only the vampires and the remaining Volk are on their way.” The wry smile Blaze gave Malcolm was filled with more than a hint of twisted glee, like he couldn’t wait for what he had to say next. “And you can thank your mate.”
Malcolm didn’t need words to answer. He nudged his nose against Blaze’s hand in approval, snapping his jaws when Blaze laughed and tried to ruffle his fur. Malcolm jumped over some brush, spry and enthused, before he threw back his head and howled. The whole of the pack answered. Wes. Colt. Blaze. Maverick. Hell, even Rogue and so many others.
And for once, Malcolm didn’t feel so alone.
Blaze nodded in the direction of the pasture, shifting back into wolf form to signal it was time for them to take their places. Malcolm followed his packmate into the dark, running with a wild abandon he hadn’t felt in far too many years.
When they reached the pasture, the packmaster and the other elite warriors were already waiting for them in wolf form, Maverick leading the small group at the helm. As they waited for the vampires to make their appearance, the packmaster took care to mark each one of them, sealing their kinship with his scent. When he reached him, Malcolm half expected the packmaster to turn away. He wouldn’t be one of the pack much longer after all, but instead, Maverick didn’t hesitate.
The packmaster drew up on him, marking Malcolm with his scent before exposing the vulnerable fur of his neck. The hair on Malcolm’s back prickled in awareness. For them, the gesture wasn’t without meaning.
We are one, and we always will be.
A sound from the darkness drew the wolves’ attention as their enemies swiftly approached. At the signal, they shifted into human form, Maverick and Colt standing naked at the front of the pack of elite warriors as they all faced their enemies one final time.
A large band of bloodsuckers stood across the pasture, looking toward them. Every leech and fanger in the state of Montana who counted the Grey Wolves as their enemies stood before them. By appearance alone, they outnumbered the Grey Wolves three to one. A handful of the older vamps, those close in age and power to Cillian, stood at the front of the crowd. One of them stepped forward, some nameless face Malcolm didn’t care to remember.
“This is what’s left of the Grey Wolf Pack?” he sneered. “A mangy ragtag group of mutts you call warriors and two of their bitches.”
Sierra and Dakota both snarled.
But Maverick raised a hand, causing them to fall silent.
Wes chuckled his amusement.
Colt glanced toward Maverick from where he stood at the packmaster’s side. A sparkle of chaos flamed in his eyes. “Should you tell them or should I, Packmaster?”
At least the vamp who now fancied himself their leader had the heart to look confused.
Maverick held the bloodsucker’s gaze, stepping forward as he flashed the gold of his wolf eyes. As if by magic, the deep thrum of his voice seemed to carry across the mountainside. “You forget, leech, that wolves circle before they go for the kill.”
At that moment, the darkness of forest and hills, the whole of Wolf Pack Run, seemed to come alive with movement as the rest of the pack and their allies closed in on the coming battle like the rush of an incoming wave. Chaos broke loose as the two groups charged each other.
The sounds of shouts, howls, and bloodshed rent the night. Malcolm charged forward along with his packmates, shifting into his wolf as he met the first bloodsucker in his path with teeth and claw. He showed not an ounce of mercy, ripping into the vampire with all his strength.
The bloodsucker took a cheap shot, going for the soft skin of Malcolm’s underbelly with his blade. But the leech didn’t stand a chance. Abruptly, Malcolm shifted back into human form, faster than he ever had before, gripping the leech by the throat and crushing his windpipe. The leech crumpled onto the pasture in front of him. He wouldn’t be the pack’s reaper for much longer, but watching his enemies fall would always be fucking satisfying.
Beside him, Malcolm caught a glimpse of Sierra as she tore apart a bloodsucker with her teeth.
Her human teeth.
She turned to him from where she crouched over the vamp and smirked before shifting back into her wolf. As he watched the fray, the triumphs of his other packmates quickly followed. Malcolm laughed. Maybe they don’t need an executioner after all.
A moment later, he was drawn back into the melee, only staying in skin once someone finally tossed him a blade. He dropped another bloodsucker with ease. Followed by the next. Another. Then another.
It was dawn by the time it was finally over, by the time they’d searched out every leech that hadn’t fled and finished them. For once, little of the blood shed had been their own. The vampires had fought as fiercely as they ever had before. Tactics that had worked in the past, but this time, they didn’t, because the pack knew a secret their enemies didn’t. Change was inevitable, and history was only kind to those brave enough to change with it.
Malcolm certainly had.
Now that his duties to the pack were fulfilled, he raced on all fours out the perimeter gate, the cold mountain air like a stark relief against the warmth of his fur. He shifted into human form, eager to leave the ranch and find Trixie, but he wasn’t at all surprised to see her there instead, sitting on the hood of her car, Dumplin’ at her feet beside her.
He padded naked through the snow toward her.
“You look surprised to see me here, sugar.” She smiled. She’d changed her lipstick from red to a subtle pretty pink. More natural.
It suited her. Though he thought she’d looked great in anything.
“Don’t worry,” she said, noticing the way he looked at her lips. “I’ll keep the red for certain occasions.” She gave him a sultry wink.
Malcolm growled his approval. Fuck, he loved her.
Trixie pushed off the car’s hood as he came to stand before her. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him against her in that less-than-subtle manner of hers. “You think I would miss all these naked men prowling about post-battle?” She nodded toward the mountainside and gave him a coy grin. “Not my style, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart, not sugar. Long ago, he’d noticed she reserved that one only for him, on the rare occasions he’d pleased her or showed her a glimpse of himself. He hoped there would be more time for that in the years to come.
“I’m not surprised,” he grumbled. “Just grateful.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she purred against his lips, pulling him down over her on the car’s hood. He was already naked and ready for her. “Why don’t you show exactly how grateful?”