Bound in Death (Bound #5)(58)

Liam had never challenged him for alpha status. He’d always stood at Alerac’s side.

Until now.

Now the challenge was undeniable.

Alerac’s head lowered over the water. He eased away from the stream. Liam’s scent went back to the north. Higher up the mountain.

His head lifted. Alerac looked behind him. He could just see the roof of his home.

A wolf howled from the woods.

A battle waited.

***

Mina gasped when Ryan’s teeth sank into her skin. Zoe surged forward.

But Ryan was already drinking. Mina’s eyes had gone wide and glassy, and she stood stock-still, as if caught in a nightmare.

If Lorcan had been feeding on her for years, this probably was a nightmare for her.

“Stop, Ryan,” Jane demanded.

He didn’t.

So she made him. “Stop!” Jane shoved him away.

He swiped the blood away from his mouth and frowned at her.

“Do you just drink from everyone?” Zoe snapped. “Control yourself!”

Jane touched Mina’s shoulder. “That’s not the way.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ryan’s voice was shocked. “She’s his witch. She’s not going to help us! We have to make her reveal what she knows.”

Mina’s stare was still lost. No, blank.

“It’s okay,” Jane said softly as she tried to reassure the other woman.

“The hell it is,” Ryan fired right back. “I’m dying, and you’re somehow blood linked to a sadistic SOB who won’t stop until he sees your werewolf cold in the ground. How is that ‘okay’ in any way?”

Mina’s lashes lowered. “I’m sorry that I made your werewolf hurt.”

She’d said that before. No, she’d mouthed the words as she attacked Alerac. “What did you do to him?”

“Squeezed his heart, cut it, with my magic.”

Ryan whistled. “Using black magic. But else would Lorcan’s witch use?”

Mina shook her head. “I wasn’t always like this.” Then her eyes were on Jane. “I don’t think I was, but I can’t really be sure.”

Jane swallowed. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

Mina risked a glance at Ryan.

“He just wants to live,” Jane told her, trying to make Mina understand. “Is that so wrong?”

“I-I told him how…the only cure I know.”

Biting a caged beast. One that he’d in turn destroy.

Mina shook her head as her eyes flickered toward Zoe. “It’s not like you can even shift, anyway. Why not let the beast go in order to save him?”

Zoe’s lips parted in shock.

Then Mina was staring back at Jane. “If I tell you what you need to know, will you let me go?”

“Yes,” Jane said at once.

Even as Ryan bellowed, “No!”

Mina nodded. “It’s easy, really.” But her smile was sad. “If you want to sever the link with Lorcan, you just have to die.”

Ryan swore.

“The link he created with you endures until death. Your blood. Your vow. There is no way to break it.” Sadness whispered in Mina’s words. “You will be linked to him, you will share his pain as you share his life. Until death,” she said again, voice even softer.

This information was not helping.

“Shonna wrote about the bond. It was the last notation in her book.” Mina’s smile was sad. “A witch’s spell book is supposed to be sacred.”

“Why did Lorcan keep her book around?” Jane was surprised that Lorcan hadn’t destroyed the spell book when he’d killed Shonna.

“Because he wanted to make sure those spells lasted. If any of that magic started to weaken, he just made sure the new witch—”

Yeah, currently Mina was that new witch.

“—did her best to reinforce the magic.” Mina exhaled on a long sigh. “I’m telling you the truth here. If you want your wolf to be free, if you want Lorcan to die, then you must die.”

That solution sucked.

“Now I get to go.” Mina hurried for the door.

Ryan blocked her path.

“I don’t know any more than that!” Mina said, voice high and scared and angry. “Please! Let me go!”

“No.” He shook his head. “You won’t—”

Zoe curled her fingers around his arm, stopping his angry words. “Did you see the scars on her neck?” Zoe’s words were quiet. “The scars that go up her arms? That probably cover her entire body?”

Jane had seen the scars. Bite marks. They’d pushed compassion through her. “Let her go,” Jane said, her voice as soft as Zoe’s. “She’s told us all that she can.” Jane believed that.

Zoe nodded. It seemed the werewolf believed Mina, too.

But still Ryan hesitated. His gaze had softened, but he wasn’t moving. “We need to know where Lorcan went.”

“You don’t have to go find him.” Mina’s smile was bitter. “He’ll be back here, the moment he thinks you’re at your weakest.”

“Sounds like him,” Ryan muttered. Then he stepped aside.

Mina’s shoulders slumped. “Thank you.”