My vision wavered, but I could still see Oliver raising his gun and pointing it straight down at my head.
“This is a mercy,” he said, and his voice had changed. It was softer and a little sad like he pitied me.
“Drop the gun, Oliver,” Jasper’s voice growled from somewhere deeper in the woods.
Oliver spasmed, and his fingers opened wide. The gun tumbled to the pine needles on the forest floor, just before my muzzle.
Quick as I could, I closed my mouth around the metal handle and flung the gun in the direction that Jasper’s voice had come from.
“Who the fuck are you?” Oliver growled. He jumped to his feet, and his boot came down on my neck, he pressed down, but not enough to crush my throat. “What the fuck is this?”
“Step away from the wolf, Oliver,” Jasper demanded as he stalked into my frame of sight.
Oliver stepped away, but only a pace, and Jasper came to stand between me and Kane’s cruel enforcer.
“How the fuck did you make me do that?” Oliver’s voice was one-part indignation and ten-parts disbelief like he had no idea how Jasper was controlling him. Meaning, that if this memory eater did eat Oliver’s memories, he took more than the recent ones. The man didn’t seem to remember that he was a werewolf.
“We don’t want any trouble with you, Oliver,” Jasper growled. “We’re just here to take our wolf home. She’s hurt, and we want to take care of her.”
There was a loud rustling, and then three more figures emerged from the woods. I could feel them before I could see them. Their magic flowed over me, a tingling warmth rejuvenating my exhausted form. They came to surround me, crouching down but facing Oliver.
“We’re going to take you home, Teagan,” Declan whispered just above me. His voice was harsh, like the big guy was holding back emotion. Fingers combed through the fur around my neck, and I realized that the men were wrapping their hands around my iron necklace. I’d forgotten that it was even there, but I could feel them hold on tight to the chain.
The implications of what they were doing were only just starting to click into place when a bright blue ball of glowing light ignited in the forest beside Oliver.
“Wha—what is that?” Oliver spun to the globe of soft illumination, his eyelids going wide.
“Come with me, Oliver Hunt, and I’ll give you power beyond your greatest fantasies,” a familiar female voice whispered. She’d spoken to me before in this very forest, promising to hide me where no one would ever find me again.
“Do…” Oliver staggered back a step and then looked over at Jasper. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah, I hear it. That’s Mab, the Queen of the Fae. She’s speaking to you,” Jasper said, and he crouched down before me.
“Oliver Hunt… come with me. I’ll give you everything you desire. Just follow my light.” The voice was soft and alluring, and I remembered with visceral clarity what it had felt like to be caught by the queen’s entrancing power.
Oliver stepped away from Jasper and toward the light, his eyes glazing over. “Everything I want…”
“Everything,” the voice promised. “You’ll be honored above everyone in my court. You will be the strongest, smartest, and most handsome. Fae will serve you, day and night. Your every desire will be fulfilled. My menagerie will center entirely on you. You will be treated with the importance you deserve.”
“Come here…,” Oliver reached for the glowing globe, stumbling after it. As soon as his fingers were inches away, the glowing ball bounced away from him and moved deeper into the forest. Oliver scurried after it, falling into a jog. Within the space of a minute, he faded from view as the deep shadows of the nighttime forest fell over him.
“Better fate than he deserves after what he did to Teagan and Chad,” Ace muttered from somewhere above me. Moonlight reflected off a tear that clung to Ace’s cheek.
Chad.
The name sent a pulse of pain through my heart.
Oliver had shot Chad point-blank in the head. A whimper escaped me before I could stop it, and someone ran a hand down my back trying to comfort me.
“Chad is alive, badly injured, but alive.” It was Lucas from somewhere behind me. I wanted to look at him, but I didn’t even have the energy to lift my head.
Jasper looked down over his shoulder. “Did Oliver give you any order that would make you need to stay here?”
My brain felt fuzzy, but when I thought over the orders Oliver gave me, I couldn’t think of a single one that would need me to stay here. His last physical order was for me to lay down, and I’d already done that. The only other order I had on me was to shut up. The order to look at Oliver was gone now. Nothing required me to stay here. I shook my head, and it was the last thing I did before darkness pulled me under.
Chapter Twenty
Two weeks later
Sweat dripped down my face and neck as I woke pressed between a massive man and an even more massive wolf.
“Too hot,” I muttered as I wiggled out from under the wolf and sat up.
Declan raised his large muzzle, yawned, and rolled over to the side of the bed, giving me another couple inches of space. I glanced between him and Chad, who lay to my other side.
“I’m thinking rub a dub dub, three werewolves napping in one bed is too hot for this lady…” I peeled my sweaty t-shirt away from my stomach.
Chad murmured something unintelligible and rolled over toward me, and his eyes slid open. The former rockstar’s head was wrapped in a bandage, and I knew beneath, the scars were still raw and red.
“Teagan,” he said, and
