wild as a teenager, and he let me because he was afraid of what I was. Afraid that if he didn’t let me be rebellious, I’d roll over and show my belly to the first coyote who came along. And I did. But if I’d been less rebellious, I wouldn’t have run away with him.”
All Franklin had ever wanted was to protect her, but he’d been so scared of driving her away that he hadn’t given her what she really needed. “The best of intentions, I guess, but it only proves Mom’s point. If anything you do, no matter how well-meaning, can fuck everyone up… why do anything?”
“Because that’s what life is about. Fucking up enough to maybe not be an idiot by the time you have grandkids, so you can shake your head about how your kids are raising them all wrong.” She pressed her forehead to his. “You’re alpha, baby. Your mom and even Wesley Dade could never get that. You can’t do nothing, because it’d break you.”
“Maybe,” he allowed with a grin. “And maybe I’m a self-important dick who thinks he can change the world.”
“It looks good on you.” Sera kissed his nose, then his cheek. “Unless being self-important means you’re going to drag me out of the hotel in search of a magic weapon
Because you’re half-dressed, and I’m your girl. And that’s hot.”
“No, I’ve got to make a call or two first. And find a shirt.”
“Shirts are overrated.” Her next kiss landed on his ear, soft and warm, before she pulled back with a sigh. “Wesley Dade is a mood killer. And don’t even tell me he couldn’t have picked up the phone and called. He wanted an excuse to hit a casino he hasn’t been banned from.”
He
Some of the light in her expression faded. Her shoulders slumped, and her gaze dropped to his chin. “I know.”
He had to lift her chin to meet her eyes again. “It doesn’t mean what you think it does.” That he’d lock down, go into super-alpha mode and choke her with good intentions. “You have to fight. Whatever he saw, whatever’s coming, you have to fight it.”
“That’s what everyone says,” she whispered, her eyes too bright. “They all say they want me to fight, right up until it matters. If you told Alec what Wesley said, he’d lock me in a steel room for the next decade. And who would blame him, if it’s the end of the damn world?”
“Because it’s the answer,” he told her firmly. “If anything any of us do can fuck it all up, then we all need to be prepared. Not just the alphas protecting the subordinates. Everyone, including you.”
“Okay.” She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. “Okay, I believe you.”
No, she didn’t, but that was okay too. “Who knows better where to get enchanted guns, Anna or Patrick? Want to make it a contest between them?”
That got him the ghost of a smile. “If we were on the west coast, I’d say Anna,” Sera mused.
“But the Southeast is Patrick’s area.”
“We could let ’em fight it out. They get off on it, you know.”
“Everyone has their own brand of foreplay.” She twisted away and leaned across the bed to retrieve her phone. “Let’s set them on the trail and go find some place serving breakfast.”
Breakfast. Such a normal start to what couldn’t possibly be a normal day.
The couple selling the guns looked like they needed their own cable television reality show.
Couple—or siblings. Patrick hadn’t been entirely sure and had warned Julio not to ask.
Malcolm and Molly Mitchell had names faker than Molly’s neon pink hair. Malcolm ogled Sera’s chest long enough to make the case for siblings, at least until he glanced at Molly and raised both eyebrows.
“Too big,” was Molly’s cryptic response, “unless you want me to give up bow hunting altogether.” She shook her head and pinned Julio with a fierce look. “You’re not going to buy her a bow, are you?”
He blinked. “I was thinking more along the lines of a pistol. Something semiautomatic, reliable and silent.”
“The McNamara special.” Malcolm grinned and walked from behind the counter. The building Patrick had directed them to looked like a basic enough hunting supply store, but Malcolm gestured for them to follow him through a beaded wooden curtain.
As soon as he crossed the flimsy barrier between the rooms, magic sliced through him like a frigid wind, chilling him from the inside. He reached for Sera’s hand and wrapped his fingers around hers.
The walls were lined with weapons, everything from assault rifles to swords to what looked like gnarled staffs of burned wood. “Impressive stock. Is it all enchanted?”
“To varying degrees.” He glanced over his shoulder and studied Sera again. Not a man looking at a woman this time, but a salesman judging his mark’s net worth. His gaze jumped to Julio, and he didn’t seem embarrassed to have been caught. “How rich are you, wolf? Because even McNamara can’t afford the really good stuff.”
“Pretty damn rich.” Having your evil uncle transfer all his wealth to you had its upsides.
“Something easily hidden too. I want her to be able to carry it without alarming anyone.”
Malcolm rubbed his hands together and turned toward a display of various-sized pistols.
“Molly, I need the athame, an enchanted holster and two kits. Invisibility and binding.”
Molly’s grunted assent drifted through the curtain as Malcolm selected a compact Beretta from the shelf. “This baby has all the standard features. Silent, with untraceable ballistics. It can take our whole range of enchanted ammo, from the bullets that’ll disintegrate an hour after being fired to the ones that’ll fire true, even through walls.”
Sera held out a hand. “May I?”
He handed it over, and she inspected it with a growing familiarity that meant Anna and Jackson had been doing a good job teaching her how to handle firearms. Julio watched as Molly delivered the requested items. “Do you have any rounds specifically designed to take down shapeshifters?”
“Sure, sure.” Malcolm retrieved a cardboard box of ammunition and nodded toward a door on the far side of the room. “Why don’t the two of you take this out back and let her fire off a few rounds while I set up the ritual? Make sure the gun feels right, because there ain’t no quick second chances with this sort of magic. I’ll be tapped out for a few days.”
Julio carried the box, and Molly led them not outside, but to a cavernous warehouse sectioned off into firing lanes. An indoor range, no doubt one fortified to contain and neutralize the magic released inside.
He hoped.
Molly pointed out the various features to Sera, then retreated the way she’d come. Sera stood studying the target for a long time before she sighed. “You’re going to spend more money than I’ve ever seen in my life on this gun. Tell me you’re doing it because of the dominoes, okay? Make me feel better.”
“Wouldn’t you, if Wesley Dade showed up preaching doom and gloom?” There was no ear protection on the surface before them, but he supposed they didn’t need it. “What do you want to try first? Something that goes boom?”
“Sure.” She slid the magazine free and studied the ammo. “Anna hasn’t said anything else to me about Josh, only that I shouldn’t worry. Does that mean she found him, or she’s pretty sure he can’t get to me while I’m with you?”
“She found him.” And she planned to stay on top of him, just in case he got any bright ideas about returning to New Orleans—or worse, tracking Sera down.
The tension in Sera’s shoulders eased. “That’s my big fear, you know. A wolf’s power isn’t the same. It’s close enough most of the time that I don’t feel all that different, but the dominance doesn’t hit me the same way. I still have a choice.”
Every time she mentioned Josh overriding her will, it made Julio sorry he’d fought to keep him alive. “Yeah, you have a choice.”
Sera began to load the magazine with careful, deliberate movements. “If he lays hands on me again, I’ll shoot him. I don’t care if it breaks my coyote. I’m not following the rest of my species down the road to crazy feral town.”
The urge to assure her she wouldn’t
