Burn Bright (Alpha & Omega #5)(84)

Charles stirred, then staggered to his feet. The sensation of his pain added to the pain of her change made her gasp. He looked up to where Anna and Wellesley were, and she could feel his consternation.

Anna, he told her, and she could feel his despair, run, my love. This thing cannot be killed.

I found a holy man, she told him a bit smugly despite her worry. He’s a little broken, I think. But he believes he can do this. If not, I have gasoline and a lighter.

Behind him, the beast’s form blurred, shrank, and a little girl, no more than six or seven, rose to her hands and knees where the bear had just been. She wore a ragged dress of unbleached cotton, and her dark hair was matted. She looked around her with wide eyes, and her mouth trembled.

“Don’t hurt me,” she said, scrambling away, her eyes on Asil. “I ain’t done nothing to you. Don’t hurt me.”

Sometime, somewhere, the skinwalker had killed and skinned a child. For a moment, Anna could barely breathe.

Charles had turned at the child’s first words. Like Anna, he froze momentarily.

Warn them, said Brother Wolf as their pack mates were pulling out of battle mode. It’s not a child. Anna, warn them.

“It’s a skinwalker,” she called out. “A shapechanger, a witch. It’s not— Watch out Asil!”

Flowing out of the child’s form, the bear, now unharmed, rose again, mad blue eyes sparkling in a stray bit of sunlight. He swatted at Asil, who, warned by Anna, ducked under the swat and went for the bear’s underside. But the bear had seen Wellesley. Ignoring the huge wound that Asil had made in his abdomen, which left entrails escaping, ignoring the werewolves attacking him, the bear began running up the side of the mountain toward Wellesley and Anna.

? ? ?

SAGE DIDN’T KNOW what had distracted Leah. She had hunted with the Marrok’s mate for two decades or more and would have sworn that nothing could pull that one off a trail once she’d chosen it—but Sage wasn’t going to look gift horses in the mouth.

Her car was parked next to Asil’s Mercedes—though someone—Anna, by the scent of the blood—had broken the window. Just as well, because Sage would have had to do the same thing. She took the token that hung from the leather thong around her neck and bit it again.

The speed of the change made her grit her teeth and shudder. She didn’t make any noise, though. She didn’t know where the werewolves were and had no intention of drawing their attention if she could help it.

Hopefully, they would be fully occupied with Grandma Daisy. Shivering and naked, Sage opened the door of her SUV and grabbed the backpack from the backseat. She pulled on the spare set of clothing she kept there.

Dressed, spare key to her SUV in hand, she drew her first deep breath since she’d looked into Jericho’s eyes and realized what Grandma Daisy had done. She was an old creature—Sage didn’t know how old because her own grandmother had called her Grandma Daisy. Old predators knew how to be patient. But evidently, her patience had run out at last.

Ironic that it had happened on the day that Sage had finally found their quarry. Decades of searching because the Marrok kept his wildlings secret from everyone except for his mate and his two sons. Then Asil had come to the pack—and he also had been sent to deal with the wildlings. She’d attached herself to him to see if he could be persuaded to tell tales—and because he was beautiful.

And he was beautiful.

She would regret Asil, she thought. Maybe once her grandmother had the pack under her control—assuming she could torture the secret of the collars from Wellesley, and Sage never underestimated her Grandma Daisy—maybe Sage would take Asil and use him for a while.

The thought made her smile.

She had worried when Grandma had outed her, worried that she somehow had displeased the skinwalker. But when Grandma had detonated the stink bomb in Charles’s face—Sage had understood. If Grandma Daisy could get Charles alone—if she took Charles—then she could take the whole pack, Wellesley and all.

Grandma Daisy wouldn’t mind throwing away Sage for a chance at the pack, at the Marrok himself. Sage couldn’t blame her, really. But since the chance presented itself to not be a martyr, Sage intended to take it.

She tossed the backpack into the rear seat and started to get into her SUV.

A low growl stopped her.

She grabbed the knife she kept in a sheath beside the seat and turned to face—

She had worried it might be Asil or Charles, but the wolf who had broken through the greenery next to her car was skinny and ragged, his ribs moving harshly with the exertion of intercepting her.

Devon. And he was alone.

Gunshots sounded, a roar rose in the forest—Grandma Daisy’s bear. And Sage had her explanation for why the pursuit had broken off. Evidently, everyone except Devon had gone to fight the bear.

Sage was realistic enough to know that she wasn’t a match for Bran or Charles. Still, sometimes in her dreams she plunged this very knife into their bodies and heard them scream in payment for the pain she’d had to suffer for their actions. If they had not interfered in Grandma Daisy’s plans, Sage would have simply been one of the many children who had no magic and therefore served as helpers. Grandma would not have picked Sage to be her werewolf spy. Her life would have been normal.

The pain of the Change, the torture of being the plaything of Grandma’s picked group of rogue wolves—that was all the fault of Charles and Bran Cornick, who had robbed Grandma Daisy of her prey and hidden him away. Even using his hair and blood, they could not find him.