“He’s been giving you something harmful and he’s a wizard. You might say I have a serious problem with witches and wizards. It might be fair to say that, as a rule, I hate every last one of them.”
The women gasped and Molly, one of her few friends in the pack grabbed Scarlett’s arm. “You know this man?”
“He’s my mate.” Scarlett pretended she didn’t feel the pride at being able to say that.
Molly raised an eyebrow. “And he wants to keep you?”
“He does.”
Michael turned his head, still holding the wizard and looked at Molly. “I am just going to say this one more time and you can all tell whoever needs to hear it. Mates are determined by fate. I am more than thrilled with mine—I’m humbled and grateful—and anyone who suggests I might do anything to alter my circumstances is going to get pounded in the face. That goes for men and women. Am I clear?”
Silence filled the room until Todd spoke. “Crystal clear, Michael.”
Michael shook his head and Scarlett could feel the sudden amusement coming off him. “Thanks, Todd.”
Scarlett moved to the center of the room where Michael held the wizard off the ground. “Do you think it’s remotely possible that you are overreacting because you are hungry and tired?”
Flaring his nostrils, he stared at Joe. “No.”
She arched an eyebrow. Alright, he wasn’t going to be reasonable. She’d have to take a different approach. “If you kill him you won’t know why or how he convinced Nero to start drugging us. You won’t know what he drugged us with.”
“I’m not going to kill him before he tells me what I need to know.”
Joe’s feet dangled in the air. When he spoke, his voice sounded choked, as if he couldn’t get enough air. “Help me. He will kill me. The Kanes kill witches and wizards.”
Michael shook him so hard his teeth rattled. “We killed one witch. She was the one who cursed my family thirty years ago and her work made our Alpha, Tristan, try to kill his mate. And if you want to be accurate about it, Cullen Murphy killed her, not a Kane.”
“Everyone knows he’s the Alpha’s right hand man. No way did he do that without orders from a Kane.”
Michael walked with him over his head, pressing him against the back of the wall. Scarlett didn’t turn around as the rest of the wolves they brought with them came down the stairs.
“You seem to know an awful lot of my family business.” Michael’s eyes turned wolf. “For the record, I ordered her killed. At that time, I was Alpha of Westervelt.”
In the way that she could see things when people spoke, Scarlett could see the scene almost as if she lived it herself. Michael had been stressed, beyond stressed—he was wiped out—his brother, Tristan, had returned to Westervelt with a mate. That had made all of them thrilled. Maybe it meant the curse was lifting. But Tristan still wouldn’t acknowledge he was Alpha.
Gasping, she could feel Michael’s pain as if it was her own. This had never happened with one of her visions before. She didn’t know why it was happening now. She blinked to try to clear it but couldn’t. No, Michael knew he wasn’t Alpha. Knew it like he knew his name or what color his wolf was. He didn’t want to be Alpha, had never wanted it, but he was determined to hold the pack together for Tristan. He would keep it in tact until his brother claimed it.
And he had. But he still felt so much shame. Why? She couldn’t understand. It wasn’t clear and the scene was changing. Ashlee, Tristan’s mate, with red hair and sad eyes, had dragged back a witch. They needed to kill her to get the curse off the island.
He never liked having to order a fatality. It felt dirty, wrong. It wasn’t the wolf way. He liked to fight, to hunt, to challenge. Not to order one of his wolves to kill someone. But for Tristan, their rightful Alpha, his little brother…he’d do anything.
She watched as he turned to Cullen and gave the order with a nod of his head. That quickly it was ordered, that quickly it was done.
Finally, Michael’s memory cleared from her mind and she was back in the basement watching him hold above his head the man who most likely had been poisoning her for most of her life.
She walked toward them. “Joe, the best thing you could do to reach my mate’s compassionate side right now would be for you to stop screaming for help. It’s not coming. Why don’t you try, instead, to tell him what you’ve been doing, why you’ve been doing it and anything else you think might be relevant.”
Joe stared at her. “Who gave you a backbone?”
Behind her she heard Molly growl, but it was nothing compared to Michael’s snarl. Scarlett grabbed Michael’s arm. “It’s okay. His insults don’t hurt me. They’re just words.”
Real pain, to Scarlett, was a combination of the physical with the emotional. She could survive either of the two alone but combined, they beat her down.
“Let’s just say I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
Not when her mate could snap Joe’s neck anytime he felt like it.
She sighed. Maybe she should just back up and let Michael end this whole thing. “I’m trying to help you.”
“Okay, I’ll talk.”
Michael bared his teeth and as she watched urine slide down Joe’s pant leg through the opening at the bottom of his pants and onto the floor. Scarlett shuddered. The acrid smell wafted through the air and she wanted to gag. Disgusting.
She could see Michael’s teeth had elongated in his mouth. He was already starting to shift. Having never done it herself, she couldn’t identify with the sensation, but she’d heard that half-shifts were hard. That meant he held onto his human form by sheer will alone. Probably, he couldn’t be pushed much further without losing it.
Joe spoke. “When Nero heard what happened at Westervelt after Michael’s mother brought Angel here, he became convinced that his own females were going to revolt and try to take over the pack to protect themselves from the Westervelt fate. He hired me to keep the females weak. That’s what I’ve done. I was only following orders.”
Michael dropped him to the floor and Joe landed with an oomph and a groan. Sticking his foot on top of him to keep him down, he finally spoke. “Where’s the antidote?”
“No antidote. It just wears off. They go through a withdrawal and then they’re clear of it. None of it is lethal, just things to keep them weak, to keep their wolves from gaining in strength.”
Michael removed his foot and whirled around. She turned in the direction that he looked.
The women that surrounded the scene had a mixture of horror and sadness on their faces. She felt the same pain. They’d lost so many females over the years. Strong, healthy women who had suddenly succumbed to bouts of illness or been struck down in fights with humans, which should have been impossible. Some had chosen the ritual suicide to end their lives.
Scarlett closed her eyes. She wanted to vomit and she wasn’t sure she could hold it in. Michael swept her up in his arms and she was engulfed in his now familiar scent, feeling safe and secure even as the world fell to pieces.
“One more thing, Joe. How did you convince mated men to throw over their women?”
Joe sighed. “That’s a little more complicated. That takes a curse.”
Michael growled. “I hate curses.”
Scarlett opened her eyes. Michael turned to the men in the room. “Well, gentlemen, he did this to your women even if he was ‘just following orders’. I suppose I’ll leave it to you to decide what to do with him. I’d listen to your wolves in this instance. I’m going to take my woman somewhere where she can start withdrawing. Anyone who wants to rest should come to Cole’s.”
Michael took her up the stairs fast. Behind her she heard thirty some odd wolves start to growl. Whether her pack mates realized it or not, Michael Kane had just ordered another fatality. Her mate’s face was firm and stoic.
“You’re teaching them how to behave.”
“Someone had to.”
Chapter 7
MICHAEL snuck out the back door of C
ole’s former residence, hoping Scarlett was too distracted to notice. She was cooking when she should be resting, but since he’d gotten the impression that cooking for her was a Zen thing, he was doing his best not to pull out his inner caveman and order her to bed.
She’d made the rest of the pack, who had killed Joe—he was sure of it even without them telling him they did—a giant pot of gumbo, which they had devoured. For him, she whipped up something else. He wasn’t sure what but it smelled like meat.
When he’d asked where to go, Todd had pointed him in the right direction and had even offered to run the errand for him. That would have defeated the purpose. He was buying some wine to share with Scarlett and call him old fashioned, but he wanted to do it himself.
He couldn’t believe how hot it still was outside. Did the humidity or heat never let up in New Orleans? Wiping the sweat off his brow, he waited a moment for traffic to pass before crossing the street. Todd had said if he walked three more blocks and took a right he’d find a grocery store that sold wine.
You have a lot of energy considering you haven’t eaten today.
Michael laughed. Remembering his wolf’s earlier remark he couldn’t help but quip back. Now who sounds like my mother? But seriously, we’re going to eat, shortly.
You think Cole didn’t have any wine in the house?
I wanted to buy this for her.
His wolf rolled his eyes. It must be one of those human things.
Michael caught the scent in the air two seconds before his wolf growled. Shifters.
And not ones he knew.
That meant that they were from Zack’s camp. Michael’s eyes turned wolf and he crouched down to the ground letting his shifter senses take over without giving up his human form. It was the first lesson his father taught him. Know your enemy. If you didn’t it was the last mistake you made.
Considering his own sons had been trying to eliminate him for almost thirty-five years, it was a good bet that his father knew something about staying alive.
There were at least ten of them but he couldn’t see them. Moving fast, he saw the grocery store in the distance. It would have to serve as a safe haven until he could get some help. Three wolves were a piece of cake, even five he could handle, but ten was more than he was capable of defeating.
Without another thought, he took off running in the direction of the store. As a shifter, he was fastest in his wolf form, which he couldn’t shift into for fear of being spotted by people who shouldn’t know wolf-shifters existed, but he was still faster than a regular human on two feet as well.
Shift.
His wolf didn’t like the inactivity. He wanted in on the battle. As a human, Michael could manage most of the time to keep his fight impulses in check. Three more scents hit him as he got closer to the store.
Damn.
He swung around and did a quick head count. That was thirteen and they had him surrounded. He wasn’t getting into that store.
Raising an eyebrow, he inwardly shrugged. It looked as if despite his best efforts he was going to engage in a fight he could not win. Just a few days ago, he would have seen it as an honorable way out of a life spent caring for his friends and family.
Now all he could think about was his tiny mate alone in her kitchen waiting for him to come back. He’d promised to take care of her and more than anything else he wanted to love her too. Blinking, he reminded himself he’d had one morning and one night. The universe had blessed him that way. He’d gotten to hold her, to smell her warm aroma when he’d gone to sleep and opened his eyes. That was more than he’d expected to get.
They hadn’t mated, not sexually, and she might not have the compulsion to follow him to the next life right away. That was best. She deserved to live a long, full life. Gods knew he had gotten to have one.
“Which one of you is Zack?”
Unless Zack hadn’t bothered to show up himself. That wouldn’t surprise him. Men who used and abused women were cowards themselves. Otherwise, they wouldn’t pick on people smaller than themselves.
“I’m Zach.”
Well, Michael had to give him credit for coming. At least he was one step up from total slime. He was just the insect swimming around in the slime. Short for a man in his human form, he was only for five foot five inches tall, with brown hair and glasses. Michael raised an eyebrow. It was unusual for a shifter to wear glasses. Maybe Zack had spent too much time partaking of the products given to him by Joe.
It didn’t matter. It was likely that Michael wouldn’t survive this encounter, but before he left this world he was taking Zack with him.
The thought dawned on him that maybe that wasn’t enough.
“Tell me something, Zach, which members of your crew was my mate forced to service in order to stay alive?”
Zack laughed, it was a cold hard sound devoid of any emotion. “Oh yes, I heard you were mated to one of our latent females. Fate must hate you. For the record, both Justin,” Zack nodded to a shifter standing to the left of Michael. “And I have sampled your mate’s treats.”
So Justin was dead too. That was fine. Justin was going down first. With a growl, Michael shifted into his wolf form and leapt on Justin. The other shifter never had time to shift as Michael gave into every instinct he’d ever had and tore the man who dared to defile his mate to pieces.
The other wolves around him growled but nobody moved in time. In two bites Michael had Justin’s neck ripped from his body. He could taste his blood in his mouth and he had to admit it felt fantastic. Or at least it did to his wolf side. If the man side of Michael were in control, he wouldn’t be so happy with the sensation.
Growling, he dropped the now dead man and turned his attention to Zack. Three of the others shifted, however, before they could get in his way, he leapt onto Zack going straight for his jugular.
Mid-bite, Zack shifted into a tall grey and brown wolf. Growling, Zack foamed at the mouth. Michael lunged forward with only one thought in his mind: kill.
Zack was no pushover. For the first time since he’d arrived in New Orleans, Michael had a challenge. Zack didn’t let him advance without tearing back. Behind him, Michael was distantly aware that Todd, Barge and Seamus’ scents wafted over the group. He heard growls and wolves howling in the background.
It didn’t matter. Michael only had eyes for Zack. He’d had tough opponents before having grown up fighting Cullen and his father. It was good thing; it meant that he was never afraid of working hard to win.
His father always went for the kill, stopping only just before he ended Michael’s life. In his mind’s eye, he could see it now. It was Kendrick’s favorite move and unless you had personally endured it, you never saw it coming.
Leaping forward, Michael went up on two feet, keeping his front two paws in the air. With his claws extended, he swiped at Zack’s face as he pushed his whole body weight onto Zack’s face. The problem with the move was that you got bit on your stomach, which Michael had anticipated. It hurt and he refused to whimper as he focused on the next part of the fight. Kicking up with his back feet. he kept his front paw around Zack’s neck.
Using his mouth, he tore at Zack, now having complete access to the other shifter’s body. Zack might have gotten a bite in, but now Michael was in control of the fight. Piece by piece, he tore Zack apart. The taste of the other man was in his mouth, his life seeping out bit by bit.
Finally, he pulled back panting. He fell to the floor, expecting the blows to come from Zack’s group. He had no energy left to handle it. He’d done what he needed to do.
Todd’s scent filled his nostrils and he looked up at the other shifter who was in his human form albeit naked, which meant he’d shifted to wolf and then shifted back.
The other shifter’s voice was gruff when he spoke. “Wow.”
He wished he could speak to Todd telepathically only they weren’t pack. That was saved for post-mating ritual spouses and pack communication. With no choice, he shifted into his human form.
Groaning, he put his hand on his stomach and saw the blood that covered it when he pulled it away. Zack had really gotten him good. Two large teeth marks marred his skin. They bled and burned.
He looked at his wolf for one last second. Good work.
Michael’s wolf still panted. I live to please.
Finally, he spoke to Todd. “Where are the rest of Zack’s cronies?”
“We took out a few of them. The rest are in awe of you, they’re not going to risk a fight.”
Michael tried to stand up and fell back. Damn, he was really hurt. It had been a long time since he’d been this bad off. He needed food and then sleep or he was going to be in for a world of hurt.
Staring at Todd, he asked a question that had been brewing on his mind for some time. “Did you do it, Todd? When you were with Zack, did you and Barge and Seamus abuse female shifters sexually?”
Michael already knew they had participated in some of the beatings.
Todd’s eyes got wide. “Never. Zack is powerful. We wanted to be aligned with the most powerful shifter. If he said hit, we hit, but most of us didn’t participate in the ‘have sex with me to live’ mentality.” Todd looked down at the ground. “Personally, I’ve been waiting for my mate.”
“Alright.” Michael grabbed his head to stop the world from spinning. “Here is the deal, take everyone who wants to come back to the house back to the house, assuming they’ve never raped anyone. Anyone who did that may not come.”
“Where should they go?”
Michael shrugged even though it pulled on his stomach and hurt like hell. “I couldn’t care less.”
Extending his hand, he glanced up at Todd. “Help me up?”
Todd nodded and helped Michael get unsteadily to his feet.
“Thanks for coming to my rescue.”
Todd raised an eyebrow before grinning. “You’re welcome.”
Michael limped forward. “How did you know where I was?”
“When you didn’t come back in a reasonable amount of time, we came searching for you. The whole group wanted to come, but we convinced the others to stay with the women.”