“Who are you? Show yourself!” I yell into the woods with my back to Maia.

  I need to protect her. She hasn’t had time to learn how to fight properly with her new mated abilities. And neither have I, for that matter.

  What was I thinking coming out here with her?

  A tall dark-skinned woman with short maroon colored hair steps out of the shadows. She is wearing a long black dress and her eyes are completely silver. She has to be a witch.

  Before I can ask the intruder any questions, her mouth purses to throw out a high pitched whistle. In seconds, the thudding of footsteps fills the wide opening, and we are surrounded from all angles by the lupercus.

  One thing I notice immediately: they planned this encounter, somehow knowing we’d be in this exact spot at this exact moment. Also, we are seriously outnumbered.

  Chapter 40

  ⟣⟡⟢

  Maia

  We’re surrounded by lupercus, and some really creepy witch lady is leading the attack. We only just arrived in the forest, and somehow the lupercus saw us coming. All of my friends surround me, shielding me from the threat, but I don’t need protection anymore. The lupercus already got what they wanted from me.

  “Let me through.” I squeeze in between Seth’s broad back and Sasha’s glinting sword. Seth side-eyes me but he doesn’t stop my progression, and I’m grateful. I stare at the silver-eyed woman, and try to keep my voice steady. “What’s your name, ma’am? And how did you know we’d be here?”

  The witch moves her lips to speak, but a familiar face appears beside her to talk instead. It’s the thin older woman who kidnapped me and held me while her lackeys drained my blood just days ago. A rage fills me, and I have to focus to control my shaking.

  “Your little pack of creatures isn’t the only one with a witch on their side. You have Priestess Aurelia, but we have Marian. She’s as old as your witch, and every bit as powerful.”

  Bree steps beside me with her fists clenched around two long daggers. “Nobody is as powerful as Priestess Aurelia. Age doesn’t make the witch.”

  “But experience does, little one,” the witch, Marian, says. “I saw you coming the moment your priestess cast the spell to find the cure.”

  I gasp, and my heart sinks. We have no advantage, and we’re trapped from all sides. “What do we do, Seth?”

  Seth reaches for my hand, squeezing it like he does to comfort me, though this time it doesn’t quite hit the mark. “We fight, my love. But we stay together.”

  I nod, and ready my mind to prepare for battle. Before I can act, though, the witch makes the first move. I don’t even see her flinch. She whispers something under her breath as she launches a ten-foot-tall wall of fire straight at us. I nearly scream, but the faeries have our backs, using their power to erect an invisible shield.

  The witch’s fire hits the invisible wall and dissipates upon impact with a sound like crackling fireworks. “Oh, how I hate faeries,” she says with a pout.

  Wilk snorts behind me. “And I cannot say I care much for witches like you.”

  Ooh, Wilk-burn.

  “Thanks Wilk. I’ll take over the smack talk, if you don’t mind.” Bree sticks her middle finger in the air, flipping off the witch, and turning it toward the surrounding lupercus with a sneer. “Back the hell off now, or you will all die. Final warning.”

  That’s my girl.

  The lupercus leader crosses her arms with a cocky smile. “That’s sweet, but your words don’t hurt us, dear.”

  Bree sheaths her daggers and scoffs as she flicks her hair over her shoulder. As her fingers slide off the ends of her red locks, a bolt of golden lightning shoots from her fingertips, hitting the lupercus woman square in the chest. The woman drops to the ground, her whole body shuddering as the electricity travels the length of her.

  “Was that enough hurt for you, dear?”

  “Ay, that was incredibly sexy,” James says with a wicked smile, and he winks at my best friend.

  “Enough!” Marian bellows loud enough to shake the ground we all stand on. She snaps her fingers and points to my friends and I, inciting a full on attack from the fourty or so lupercus.

  Everything happens in a blur. The lupercus shift to their animal forms, like large rams with sharp horns on their heads and yellow eyes. They stand on two legs like humans, but their feet are large hooves and their bodies are covered in goat-like fur.

  My body begins to shake as I fight back my wolf who wants to take control. Fear floods me as I think about getting lost inside myself during this battle.

  “Maia, let your wolf out. It won’t be like last time, okay? We’re mated now.”

  Seth’s black eyes find me as he calls his wolf forward. I can feel the power from him as he shifts in less than a second, suddenly standing on all fours, large and ferocious. Holy crap!

  I’ve never seen him shift that fast. I watch as Seth, Horas, and Sasha charge the lupercus in their wolf forms. Horas is the biggest wolf, but it’s clear who the leader is. Seth tackles one of the goat-creatures to the ground and tears its throat out so fast that I gasp loudly, bringing attention to my terrified self.

  Dammit!

  I decide to trust Seth and open my mind up, welcoming my wolf to take hold of me. The shift is instantaneous, just like Seth’s, and I sigh when the wolf’s power fills me. I turn my head from side to side, assessing the incoming threat and I smile internally. I have control, right alongside my wolf. We are one, powerful and strong.

  We got this, girl.

  My wolf growls in response to my encouragement and together we leap away from the lupercus man that charges us with his sharp horns. He runs right past us like a bull running through a red cape, but he quickly turns to try a second attack.

  I press my wolf claws into the dirt and jump right at the creature’s chest before he has time to bend forward again. My canines chomp down on his flesh, and I’m filled with the coppery taste of blood.

  Hey, that’s not too bad.

  My wolf likes the taste, and it spurs her on. She takes another bite out of our attacker, dropping his lifeless body to the ground, and then she whips our head around for more. I spy a dome of magic holding back a hoard of lupercus while the faeries face off back to back against five of them. They’re trying to control the attack as they keep throwing the elements at the creatures, but it’s not fully clear who has the upper hand.

  Bree and Marian stare one another down, looking like they’re fighting in their minds, and James fights off the lupercus surrounding the witches, protecting Bree.

  I find Seth and the other wolves tearing into lupercus, taking down one at a time while helping each other like the pack mates they are. It seems that the fight is surrounding my friends and nobody is paying much attention to me. Of course, they’re all protecting me again.

  I spot the lupercus leader, recovered from Bree’s electric shock. She steps out of the fight to face me, and I growl back at her. My wolf flashes our fangs at the woman, and she snarls back at us with her creepy goat face.

  “Come here, little wolf. I know we got off on the wrong foot back at my camp, but I won’t hurt you.”

  I laugh internally at the psycho chick, and I charge toward her, fast and strong. The woman surprises me as she does nothing to stop my attack, and it’s not until I’m in the air, aiming for her neck that I see the glisten of metal in her hand.

  A sharp needle pierces my wolf’s side and I let out a pained howl as my old poisoned blood enters my body once more. I’m still able to knock the woman down as I fall, and I use the last of my strength to clamp my sharp teeth around her skinny neck.

  I hear a crack as I tighten my bite, and then I fall to the earth with a thud. A faint screaming fills my ears, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s me that’s screaming.

  I look down at my human body, and I already begin to mourn my wolf as I feel the shifter cure burning through me, killing my shifter side once again.

  No, no, no!

  I grab at the magic clothes that cover the puncture wound from the shot. Tearing the clothing off of my hip, I rub at the small hole, but it’s useless. I can feel the heat burning through my veins already, like liquid fire.

  My head whips from side to side, watching my friends in a life or death battle against the advancing lupercus. They’re amazing as a pack, but it’s not enough.

  “Maia! I can’t feel you!” Seth shouts at me as he shifts back into his human form, pulling the sword from his hip. He slices through a lupercus fighter, and then turns to me with wide eyes. “Maia! What happened?”

  I want to cry from the pain traveling through my body, but I try to keep the tears back. “It’s the cure, Seth. It’s inside me.”

  My voice is quiet, but I know he heard me. Seth’s face hardens and his eyes turn black again. Two more lupercus appear behind him and I scream for him to turn around. He whips his head around just as both of the lupercus attackers are blown back by a gust of wind.

  Seth spins to his left and a dozen faeries fly into view, covered in shining armor. Wilk shouts over the sounds of battle. “Brethren!”

  Relief floods me, even through the miserable pain of being burned inside out. We’re safe. The faeries have saved us.

  I watch as the Fae army attacks the last of the lupercus with a force like none other. Blasts of wind and water tear through the goat creatures as the earth bends to the faeries’ will. They defend their prince with so much power. I don’t know how they knew we’d be here, but I’m grateful nonetheless for our incredible allies.

  Exhaustion fills me, clouding my mind, and I drop my head back to the ground, trying not to look at the dead body beside me. My vision blurs, but I can still hear shouts around me, or maybe at me.

  “Step back, mate. I’ll drain it before it reaches her heart.”

  Silence, and then, “Are you sure you can handle it?”

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” Is that James?

  Silence fills my mind as another stinging pain hits my hip. Another shot?

  I’m not sure what’s happening, but a comforting warmth covers me like a blanket and I drift off into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 41

  ⟣⟡⟢

  Maia

  “Is she going to be okay? She’s still a shifter, right?” The voice that wakes me is Sasha’s, and she sounds panicked, not at all like her usual snarky self.

  Someone grunts and Horas says, “Careful, Sash. You might give us the impression that you care about our little Maia.”

  “Shut up. I have a heart just like everyone else.”

  Sasha cares about me? Ha, yeah, right.

  Someone moves beside me and I reach out to grab onto them like a lifeline. It’s clear that I’m positioned somehow on Seth’s lap, and when I finally open my eyes I’m staring right at his neck.

  I smile at the sight of my mate and the yummy scent of him that fills me. I moan as I snuggle in deeper and I lean forward to kiss his warm skin.

  Seth flexes underneath me and clears his throat. His voice is hoarse when he speaks. “You better stop that, Snow. We have a bit of an audience.”

  Someone laughs, and I turn my head away from Seth to see at least twenty pairs of eyes watching me. My friends are smiling down at where Seth and I sit on the ground together, and behind our little group are the faeries that saved us from an attack we were sure to lose.

  I reach down to the spot on my hip where I was injected with the shifter cure. It’s sore, but I feel fine otherwise. Oh no. I try to call on my wolf, but nothing happens and panic floods me.

  “Is my wolf dead? Did the cure kill her?” Tears fill my eyes and I want to go back to sleep to escape the thoughts of not being a shifter anymore.

  Seth squeezes me tighter and shushes me. “Hey, let’s not think about that right now. Time will tell, and I’m just glad you’re still alive.” He kisses me gently, and I can feel the sorrow he has dealt with for the past hours.

  It’s dark out, so I had to have been asleep for at least two hours. I turn to the small Fae army and slowly rise to my feet, still feeling weak. “You all saved us from the lupercus attack. I want to thank you for your kindness, and for whatever you did to stop the cure from killing me.”

  Wilk speaks for his people. “The witch priestess, Aurelia, called upon my father after we left her home. I think we must all thank her. My warriors fought bravely and killed the last of the lupercus, but they did not heal you, Maia. That was James.”

  I spin my head to the right, where James is standing with a handsome smile, looking wicked with his fangs glistening in the moonlight. “James? How on earth did you save me from the most deadly thing known to shifter-kind?”

  “By doing what I do best, love…”

  “Sucking,” Bree interrupts with a goofy smirk and the group laughs at her joke, though I still feel pretty lost, like I missed the punchline.

  James shakes his head and glares down at Bree. “Oh, little witch. I think it’s best we keep the dirty remarks to the bedroom, eh?”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh at the bright blush in Bree’s cheeks, matching the color of her hair. Seth steps close to me and lifts the torn hem of my tight black tank top. There are three puncture wounds on my pale skin, and I swear my eyes look like saucers.

  “You literally sucked out the poison, James?” I look up at Seth who nods, and then to James.

  His usual smile is softer, and he shrugs, very unlike the sexy vamp that once kissed me. “Turns out that wolf shifter blood with a hint of deadly cure is entirely intoxicating.” He winks.

  There’s the devilish vamp.

  Seth growls quietly beside me, and I snap my head to him. “You okay, there?”

  He nods and rolls his eyes, but his loving smile returns as he stares at me. “I’m just so glad that the lupercus are gone for good.”

  “You mean, they’re all gone? Like extinct? They said there were hundreds of them, but we didn’t fight that many.”

  Bree speaks again. “Well, they lied to you. That old witch chick tried digging around in my head during the fight, so I reversed her spell and saw everything. The lupercus were a dying breed, and these were the last of them all. No children in the whole species anyway, so they didn’t have much of a chance for continuing on.”

  “Wow. I can’t believe it’s over.” A sinking feeling fills my chest. “But, wait! If they’re all gone, how will we find where they hid the cure? We can’t let it sit somewhere for anyone to stumble upon!”

  Bree waves her hands at me, as if wiping my worries out of the air between us. “Mai, I don’t think you realize how far I went into that psycho’s mind before I killed her sorry ass. I saw the actual moment that she lost her virginity… like a hundred years ago. I know exactly where the cure is, and we can walk there from here.”

  ♢♢♢

  Seth

  It takes us less than an hour to get to the spot where the lupercus hid Maia’s blood. Of course, the hike is rough in the dark, but not impossible thanks to all of our abilities to see at night, aside from Bree. Of course, James is more than happy to hold her hand along the way.

  Maia even makes it through the dark with ease, and it gives me hope that her wolf is still intact. Our small group stands under the stars beside a rocky cliff side, minus Horas and Sasha. I sent them to go back home to Stowe and tell Alpha Nate about the battle. Maia also asked them to hurry before her dad ends up in Canada. Knowing Mathew, it wouldn’t even be a surprise.

  The Fae soldiers were dismissed by Wilk after Maia woke up. We each thanked them, and I promised the faeries a lifelong alliance with the Shaw pack. I don’t know where we’d be without Wilk and Qadira, and luckily they chose to stay with us until we returned back to the pack lands.

  Maia releases my hand that she has been holding during our hike, and she looks around for any sign of the cure, desperate to end this chaotic mess. “This is the place? Where’s the blood?”

  James steps toward the smooth rock and smells the air around an overgrown bush. He lifts the thick leaves of the plant, and at its base is a small pile of disturbed dirt.

  “Jackpot,” says James with a click of his tongue.

  “Anyone got a shovel?” Maia’s voice trembles slightly, and I know it’s not from the cold. We’re right back with the cure that kept her hidden from the world for eighteen years. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near it.

  “It’ll be okay, Snow. Let’s end this.” I speak to her through our bond, and she looks at me with a beautiful smile.

  Wilk rubs his glowing hands together as he looks down at the pile of dirt. “We have no need for a shovel, Maia. You should know this by now.”

  Wilk stretches his hands out, and his blue hair lifts slightly as his power pulls the loose dirt from the ground. He continues to pull dirt out of the hole until a wooden box appears two feet below the surface.

  I drop to my knees and tug the rectangular box out of the hole. I move to open the lid but Qadira grabs my arm.

  She stares down at me with her bright pink eyes. “Wait. Please let one of us do that, Seth. The cure is in that box, and it is still capable of killing you.”

  I nod and step back, letting the others take charge. Maia loops her arm with mine, and her shaking subsides. Bree and Qadira kneel side by side and lift the wooden lid to reveal three mason jars full of red liquid.

  “Eww. I’ll never be able to look at homemade jam the same way,” Maia says with her nose scrunched up.

  Bree pulls out each jar and struggles to open the lids. “Seriously? Why do jars hate women?” She hands them, one at a time, to James. “Make yourself useful, and open the poison blood jars.”

  James laughs, but obliges. As the lids pop open, his eyes flash red, but his control is incredible. There is no other vampire capable of restraint like that. Bree lines the open jars up beside the pile of dirt, and the six of us stand around in a circle with no clue what to do next as we stare at the jars.