None of us slept. At least, no one in this cabin did.
I had my hopes up for a fight. I was raring for it, ready to make some witch heads roll. Literally. Now… the uncertainty isn’t something I’m used to.
Did Sable get the day wrong? Or did they trick us somehow? Is all our planning fucked?
Trystan stops in front of the window and peers out once more, then turns to settle back into his pacing.
“Trystan,” Sable says, and I can tell she’s as tense as he is. She’s just hiding it better. “I probably got the day wrong. Without Gwen helping me through the bond, I couldn’t get an entirely clear picture.”
“And if you did get it wrong?” he growls. “What then? Why are they taking so long?”
She sighs and looks back down at her cards. “I don’t know. I must’ve screwed up the connection somehow.”
Amora draws a new card. “The magic you did to reach Cleo isn’t an exact science. Nobody blames you.”
“Of course nobody blames you,” Archer adds, shooting Trystan a slightly annoyed look. “We’re all just keyed up.”
Sable plucks out a card to lay down on the shared pile. Her hand hesitates as she releases the card, and she glances up, worry in her expression. “Should I look into Cleo’s head again?”
“No. Absolutely not.” I shake my head, speaking up before she can run with the idea. “It’s too big of a risk. You know what happened last time.”
She grimaces but nods. “I know. And if we’re being honest, I don’t want to do it again. If I break the barrier and she figures out we’re connected, I’ll basically be handing her all our secrets on a silver platter.”
“Exactly,” Ridge agrees. “It’s not worth it.” He grunts, then cranes his neck to look toward the front of the house. “Trystan, sit down. We can’t do anything yet. You might as well rest.”
But even as he finishes speaking, a howl goes up out in the village. The keening cry is followed by a second, and a third, until a chorus raises an alarm.
I spring to my feet, already shifting to wolf, trusting that someone else will open the front door so I don’t have to break it down.
The attack has begun.
Trystan reaches the door a split second before me and wrenches it open. I barrel past him out into the yard as magic begins to shimmer over him, transforming him to wolf form as his clothes shred away from his body. I can hear Ridge shouting and Archer giving calm orders, but I’m already out the door.
We’ve gone over the attack plan at least a dozen times. Now is the time to do it.
All around us, East Pack shifters burst from their cabins—some in wolf form, some still in human form and carrying guns. Black smoke fills the air, and the sizzle of witch magic is so strong I can taste it with every breath.
When I catch sight of our attackers racing toward us, my stomach clenches.
Shit.
There are a lot of them. And they’ve already managed to breach the protective perimeter around the village, tearing past the sigils burned onto the trees as if we drew them on the bark with fucking crayon.
Chaos explodes around me.
The crack of gunfire fills the air as tendrils of magic reach toward wolves like hands. Shifters racing into smoke fearlessly, refusing to sit back under the force of the attack. Through the hazy darkness, I can see witches dodging jaws or being tackled by massive furry forms.
My entire body comes alive, and I launch toward the nearest witch with black smoke on his hands.
He doesn’t see me coming—too busy trying to attack someone else. The fucker crumples beneath me, his head slamming into the dirt. For a second, I stare down at his shocked face as magic billows around us, and I see my family. I see my pack, and the countless people I’ve lost to these fucking monsters.
Then I rip his throat out with my teeth.
The witch’s blood tastes sour as I race away from his twitching body. I could kill every witch in Montana, every witch in the States, and it will never bring back the people I love. But maybe it would fill the hole that still eats away at my heart.
I take down another witch—a big guy standing over a dead wolf. I’m not pretty about it. He’s standing over a dead shifter, and as far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t deserve to die with his head attached.
It seems like an eternity passes as I race through the chaos, but I know it’s only a few moments. There’s magic everywhere, and smoke hangs thick and heavy, obscuring my vision. The gunshots are fewer now, whether that’s because the shifters carrying the weapons are dead, or because they can’t see well enough to take a shot, I don’t know. There are witches all around me, but I’ve lost sight of the wolves.
Cleo was right about one thing—if it were just the East Pack against the coven, the witches would decimate Archer’s people.
As it is, we’ve given them a false sense of victory. Enough to hopefully make them cocky and stupid.
I barrel into another male witch’s legs and throw the fucker off his feet. Before I can dart in and finish him off, blinding pain slams into my haunches, and I yelp, rolling with the blow. Witch magic sparks up my body like there’s electricity beneath my skin, and I begin to shift back to human form unbidden. I stare at my hands in horror.
Motherfucker. They used a spell to reverse my shift.
I roll onto my hands and knees and reach inside for my wolf to bring him back out. But there’s too much witch magic still coursing through me, like a
