Mated in Mist (Talon Pack #3)(4)

Roland lay at an odd angle, his face toward her. His eyes wide, unseeing in death. While the second gunshot had hit her in the side, his had hit him directly in the chest.

Her brother, her twin, her fellow witch.

Gone.

The darkness came, and she didn’t fight. She’d been running for so long, and now she had nothing left.

Only hollowness.

They had come for the witches…and they had won.




Screaming.

Silence.

Pain.

Numbness.

Breath.

Choking.

Drowning.

Leah couldn’t drown. She was a water witch. Drowning for her would be an insult to everything she was…or was it everything she once had been?

Was she dead?

She had to be dead. She couldn’t feel anything, yet could feel everything all at once. It didn’t make sense. If this were hell, she didn’t know how she would make it for eternity with this sense of unknowing.

Something brushed against her arm and she flinched.

Wait. She’d felt that. Felt her arm and felt herself flinch.

Maybe she was alive and merely had to open her eyes.

Never had the word merely been such a lie.

Her eyes wouldn’t work. How had she opened her eyes before? Why couldn’t she quite remember?

Murmurs of voices filtered in through the deafening silence and Leah froze. Or at least she thought she had. She didn’t know what was what anymore.

“I think she’s waking up.” A deep voice.

“Will she be dangerous?” Another deep voice.

“She was all but dead when we found her. Be thankful she’s alive at all.” This voice was just as deep, but it hit her like a sledgehammer. Her magic perked up, reaching out toward the man who had last spoken. She didn’t know why it was doing that, but just the sound of his voice let her body relax and her eyes feel lighter, not so heavy and weighed down.

“Did you see that?” The first voice asked. “Ryder, speak again. She stopped thrashing at the sound of your voice.”

Ryder.

His name was Ryder.

Why was that important?

And where was she? Where was Roland? What had happened? And had she truly been thrashing?

She pried her eyes open and promptly shut them at the bright light overhead.

“Turn down the lights, Walker,” Ryder ordered.

Someone touched her hand, and her eyes shot open again. Three bearded men stood over her, gruff looking and scary as hell. She did what any sane woman would do. She shot out her fist, knocked one of them on the chin, then rolled off the bed. They would not have her. They would not dissect her or study her. Use her. The humans chasing her might have called for her death, but if she was now with them, alive and captive, she didn’t want to know what “studies” they were planning. She’d heard the rumors, heard of the nightmares. She would not give in.

Her chest ached and her side burned something fierce, but she ignored it. Instead, she grabbed the scissors that lay on the counter beside the medical bed she’d woken up on.

One of the men blocked the door while the other rubbed his chin. The third moved toward her, hands out. She put her back to the wall, aware there wasn’t another way out of the room except her death.

But she wouldn’t kill herself.

Not if there was any fight left in her. As a water witch, she may not be inherently violent, but the will to live was stronger than she’d thought. After all that had happened…she still fought.

“It’s okay,” the one with his hands out said. “It’s going to be okay.”

She remembered that voice. This one was Ryder. Her inner witch pulsated at his voice, but she pushed that away, not understanding.

She licked her lips but didn’t lower the scissors. “You can’t have me. I won’t let you kill me.”

Ryder tilted his head, reminding her of a dog or cat. “Why would you think we would hurt you, little one?”

She narrowed her eyes at the term. “You took me to this…place, and now I’m in a medical room with three men I don’t know. I remember you following me, trying to kill me. I remember…” she trailed off. Her throat ached from speaking, but that was not why she’d stopped talking.

Flashes of memory came at her and she tried to make sense of it all. She’d been running from humans out to get her. She remembered that. But what else? What else had happened? Something sparked just out of reach within her mind, and she lost the fragment as quickly as it had appeared.

“We weren’t the ones chasing you,” the one rubbing his jaw said gruffly. “I’m Gideon, Alpha of the Talon Pack. We’re wolves. Not the humans who were out for you.”

Wait. Wolves? Would they try to rip her to shreds like the people who watched too many movies thought? Or were they like her, forced to live in secret for so long that no one truly understood? Unlike other witches, she hadn’t known wolves in person so she didn’t know how they worked. She only knew to keep hidden was to keep safe.

She frowned, her hand lowering somewhat. She’d just hit the Alpha of the Talon Pack. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but she hadn’t known at the time.

“If you’re wolves, then why do you have me here?” She let her eyes rest on the one they called Ryder, and her magic settled over her, wanting to know more.