A click at my back showed she had not forgotten me. I spun around to find she had crawled to retrieve her pistol. The bitch had tried to shoot me in the back.
I picked up Mike’s silver-bladed dagger and stepped toward her. She scrambled back through the sand, frantically trying to cycle the ejector with her broken wrist.
“How did you think this would end, Ariel?” I asked. “Even if you’d killed me, you’d still be stuck in the desert with a broken leg. Mike would have left you to die so he could complete the mission. There’s no way you could come out alive.”
“All I need is to eat your heart and drink your blood. That would have given me the energy to heal. With Mike as my golem, I could have made it home.”
Mike’s seizures halted. I held my breath while listening for a heartbeat.
After what seemed an eternity, a faint thump-thump came from his chest.
“He’s alive,” I whispered.
“If he lives, he’s my slave,” taunted Ariel. “My magician’s spells are unbreakable.”
3
“Luna, what the hell happened? I feel like someone hit me on the head with a sledgehammer,” groaned Mike.
Ariel snapped out a command in Hebrew. Mike furrowed his brow and said, “I don’t know what that means. Anyway, I don’t take orders from you.”
Ariel’s face fell and relief flooded my heart. I wouldn’t have to kill Mike.
“Unbreakable?” I said to Ariel. “Looks like my magician is more knowledgeable than yours.”
I stepped up to the kneeling Ariel and kicked the useless pistol out of her right hand. Oops—another broken wrist.
I held the silver blade to her throat. Tiny wisps of smoke rose from my hand where the silver tang touched my fingers. I ignored the pain and smiled down at her.
“I hate killing werewolves,” I said. Ariel’s eyes opened wider, and she smiled. Until I continued: “Usually. But in your case, I’ll make an exception.”
She froze as the blade touched the skin of her throat. The scent of her burning flesh was sweet.
“Close your eyes,” I whispered. “I’ll make it quick.”
“Luna, don’t kill her,” said Mike.
Without taking my eyes off Ariel, I said, “Mike, you’re too nice for this job.”
That slight hesitation was enough. Ariel flopped onto her back and tilted her chin back as far as possible. “I submit to Luna of Luna Pack!” she shouted desperately. “Please don’t kill me, alpha.”
“See? She submitted. You can’t kill her now.”
“Oh, yes I can.” I leaned over and touched the blade to Ariel’s throat. “It’s not like touching home plate. I don’t have to accept her submission.”
“But we can use her. She speaks the local languages. She can carry our packs. You said she can’t betray you once she submits.”
“She’s tricky,” I said, and pushed the blade deeper into Ariel’s throat. “Even with a pack link, I can’t trust her. She would be exiled from any other pack with the shit she’s pulled so far.”
“Please, Luna.”
I looked at Mike. His face was bloody from the slashes on his forehead and he looked exhausted. The battle for mental control had taken a lot out of him.
“All right.” I pulled the knife back from Ariel’s throat. “Stay down,” I ordered.
The capitulation took only a few seconds. I shared lunar energy with my new packmate, but just enough to allow her to heal her wounds.
She finally stood. With head bowed, she muttered, “Thank you, alpha.” She was trembling with rage, but there was nothing she could do about it now.
“This pack link feels weird. Not like my old pack links.”
“It’s not,” I said. “I added a little something special. It links our fates.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if I die, you die. In extreme circumstances, I’ll drain your life force to stay alive.”
“Links like that are forbidden. You’re a monster!”
“Says the woman who planned to eat my heart and drink my blood to survive. I’m just returning the favor.”
She opened her mouth to argue. I held up one finger and said, “Shush!”
Ariel clamped her jaws shut and cast her eyes down.
“Mike, sit down. Ariel will bandage your wound.”
“What? I’m not a fucking nurse—” Ariel’s voice choked off as I tugged at her mental leash.
“You’re whatever I order you to be. You’re lower than a runt in my pack.”
She gritted her teeth to bite back the bile she wanted to unleash. But she kept her eyes averted and hurried to open the first aid kit in her backpack.
After Mike’s wound was bandaged, Ariel stood. “How did you break the golem spell?” she asked.
“Your magicians gave you some magical trinkets for this mission. My magician did the same.”
“What ‘trinket’ did you use?” asked Mike.
“One of the gold coins Mason uses to prevent a remote takeover of our vehicles.”
“The ones we put on the hoods of all the pack’s vehicles?”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I took a chance.”
“You embedded a magic hood ornament in my skull to stop the golem spell?”
“It’s not what we made them for, but in an emergency…”
“‘If it’s stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid,’” quoted Mike.
An old military motto, but it fit. I grabbed my pack and handed it to Ariel. “Carry this,” I ordered.
She bared her fangs for an instant, then bowed her head. “Yes, alpha.” She took the pack.
Mike rose to his feet slowly and started trudging to the top of the dune. The rising sun limned his face with bright light.
“Sorry I can’t share energy with you, Mike,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he responded with a sigh. “The only easy day was yesterday.”
“What?”
“It’s a saying that got me through Hell Week,” he said. More military history I didn’t understand.
I took his pack and handed it to Ariel. “This bitch is our pack mule. She’ll make the trip easier for both of us.”
Mike looked like he wanted to object, but held back. He handed the heavy pack to Ariel, and she took it without comment.
I took a moment to orient
