Chapter 8

As I headed out of the kitchen, Charlie came around the side, and we nearly bumped into each other. Luckily, he had super shifter reflexes and was able to jump back before the loaded tray in my arms got knocked over.

Charlie looked down at my tray and all of the snacks on it, then glanced at me with a smirk as he said, “Of course it’s you coming out of the kitchen with about a million snacks. How are you even able to carry that much? It must weigh as much as you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ha, ha, ha. Hilarious, as always.”

He snorted and scooted out of the way so I could walk through. He gave my shoulder a light pat as we moved past each other, and it made me smile. He was such a lovable goofball.

Over my shoulder, I asked, “Do you and Ash want to come watch movies with Lilibeth and me?”

Charlie didn’t hesitate to say, “Oh yeah. That sounds like fun. Let me fix our drinks, and then I’ll go get Ash.”

“Sounds good.”

As he clinked and clanked his way through the kitchen, I made my way into the family room, set the tray on the coffee table, and took my place on the couch next to Lilibeth. I made sure to keep a few feet of distance between us, because she didn’t really like being touched. That had been a very difficult thing for all of my shifters because they always wanted to comfort and soothe people with touch. But even though it was difficult, every single one of them, even the kids, had respected her boundaries since she’d moved into the pride house with us.

I wasn’t sure exactly what happened since she’d clung to me when we first saw her. But I could only assume that memories haunted her dreams the way they did mine, and now that she was safe, things had cropped up that made her uncomfortable.

So the pride and I had to find new ways to show affection and make sure she was comfortable in our home. We wanted her to feel like she had a home here.

And of course that meant that everyone was offering her food. I was kind of worried that she thought we were trying to fatten her up for a good roast or something. But everyone seemed to be at a loss of how to help her. Everyone except Harriet.

Lilibeth and Harriet had formed a quiet friendship over the past few weeks, and I was glad for it. I’d even seen Lilibeth give Harriet a few hugs, so hopefully that meant she was getting the comfort she needed.

But right now, I was supposed to be having a nice relaxing evening with her, watching movies and eating snacks. And drinking lots of hot chocolate with tons of marshmallows—all the marshmallows.

I passed her a mug, and she quietly said, “Thank you.”

“Of course. We’re supposed to be drinking as much hot chocolate as we can today. Every time you get to the bottom of that mug, you better go get a refill. Better yet, I’ll get you a refill and top off mine every time.”

She chuckled. “If I drink that much hot chocolate, I’m going to puke all over the place.”

I waved her off. “Nonsense. You can do it. I believe in you.”

She snorted out a louder laugh that made me smile. She surprised me when she used her toe to poke me in the leg. “Thank you for hanging out with me today. I know you had other stuff to do.”

I shook my head. “Even if I did, I’d still want to do this. But, no, I didn’t really have anything to do. Cos is out leading all the shifters around the new property and exploring, so they’re going to be gone for hours. And Jude is hanging out with his mates.” I shrugged. “Since I didn’t have anything going on, I thought it would be nice to hang out. We haven’t hung out in a while.”

“Well, you’ve been pretty busy lately.”

I set my mug down and started playing with my tying rope. It was surprising how much of my forearm it took up, but it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. I actually kinda liked it, if I was being honest with myself. It felt like a symbol of my and Cosmo’s love.

Which, blech, that was a gross thought.

But… Cosmo, so I’d allow the sappiness.

As long as it stayed in my head and no one else ever had to know.

“Yeah, I guess I have. You’ve been pretty busy, too, hanging out with Harriet.”

She shrugged, but her mouth tilted up a little at the ends. “She’s really nice. After… everything that happened, I sort of thought I’d never be comfortable around any human ever again. But then you guys were all so nice and welcoming, and Harriet’s always sweet. Almost from the beginning, I didn’t think of her as a human. She’s just a… person. Like the rest of us.”

I nodded in agreement. “I know exactly what you mean.” Licorice hopped onto my lap, and I pet her and murmured, “Oh, you decided you wanted a cuddle, little miss?” I bent down and kissed her head before she settled, and when I sat back up, Lilibeth was grinning at me.

“Your cats are sweet.”

I smiled. “Thanks. I think so too.”

Charlie and Ash came into the room before I could continue, and Ash said, “Oh my goddess. There’s hot chocolate. Char, we need hot chocolate.”

Charlie huffed in amusement and rolled his eyes as he tugged Ash over to the loveseat. “I already made us mugs. I’ll go grab them.” He left Ash on the loveseat and ran into the kitchen, then came back with two big mugs full of deliciousness a moment later.

Then the four of us settled in for a movie and hot chocolate marathon.

In the middleof our third movie, everyone got a HID alert that beeped pretty loudly in the family room. I was about to just dismiss mine, but I saw the words Red Cloth in the alert and quickly clicked it.

I gasped at the vid. “There’s a Red Cloth attack going on. See if you can pull it up somewhere.”

The news crews were everywhere lately. It almost seemed like they showed up to every single attack in the city—witch or taragorian. It was weird because that meant I ended up on the news quite a bit. I didn’t like it. But there was also nothing I could do to change it.

Lilibeth was faster than anyone else, and she flicked the news vid up onto the large holoscreen in front of us, our movie automatically pausing.

On-screen, two TRD teams were fighting six witches. Those weren’t terrific odds, but our guys should be fine. I blinked as I took in the background. It looked super familiar.

“Um… where is this?” Almost as soon as I said it, I realized exactly where they were, and I couldn’t help but shake my head. “I swear they just fixed that mall enough for them to open. It’s going to end up getting destroyed again.”

Charlie said, “I was thinking the same thing, but it’s actually been open for, like, three years or something like that. Give or take a bit. I don’t really remember exactly.”

I glanced at him. “Has it really been that long?”

He shook his head. “Yep. That veil tear happened a long time ago, buddy.”

I shrugged because, apparently, I sucked at telling time. But whatever.

Refocusing on the newsfeed, I watched the two TRD teams battling it out with eight witches now. What the hell? Why were their numbers going up instead of down?

The news anchor decided to show the beginning of the battle, and I couldn’t help but widen my eyes. At the beginning, there had only been two witches. What in the world was going on?

They switched back to the live feed, and I counted the witches. Nine. Hadn’t there only been eight a minute ago? Shouldn’t their numbers be going down, not growing?

I stared and realized that the first two witches that they’d shown from the beginning were still standing. Why hadn’t our guys taken them out yet? What were they waiting for?

Another witch joined the fight, coming out of the mall and bringing their numbers up to ten.

As I watched, horror filled my gut. It didn’t look like the TRD magi were able to break any of the witches’ shields. Why was that? From what I could see, the magi were doing the right spells. Did they just need more power? This whole thing was looking really bad.

“They look like they need help,” I said quietly.

Ash said, “Do you think we should head over there?”

“We’re supposed to get a call if they don’t have enough people, but… I don’t think we should wait that long. It looks… bad.”

As if in response to our conversation, two more TRD teams showed up on the scene, jumping in immediately.

Unfortunately, their effort looked to be in vain. Even after a couple of minutes, they weren’t making any more headway than the first two teams.

Another minute passed, and two more witches joined in. The TRD hadn’t been able to take out even one witch this entire time, let alone twelve.

Our people were keeping the witches back, but they weren’t able to press forward. But if they weren’t breaking the witches’ shields, how long could they really hold them back?

Fighting witches wasn’t easy on a normal day. But fighting that many without being able to take down their shields?

I… didn’t even want to know what would happen if those TRD agents didn’t get more backup.

Charlie stood up. “I don’t think we should wait, either. We need to help them.”

Closing my eyes, I focused on the soul wrapped around my heart, feeling my mate and all the warmth he brought to my life every day. Since we started this tying rope thing, I felt even more in tune with his emotions than I had before, if such a thing was possible. Honestly, I didn’t know how much closer we could possibly get at this point.

I gave our bond a mental tug, pushing urgency into it so Cos would know that I needed him to come home.

Almost immediately, I felt a returning tug, and I knew without a shadow of doubt that he and the rest of the pride were heading back to the house. Hopefully they weren’t too far away.

When I opened my eyes, I immediately took in the battle on the screen, trying to see what I missed while I was inside my own head. Now there was at least fifteen witches… and not a single one of them had been taken out.

Our people were in serious trouble now.

“Goddess,” Lilibeth breathed out, and I could practically feel her fear from here. “No. He can’t… he can’t be… here.”

She noticed it before I did. But the second I laid eyes on the Red Cloth leader walking out of the mall, burning anger seared my bones. But then he came out from behind the Supreme Rose, and that anger mixed with a healthy dose of fear.

Anderson was there. The Supreme Rose was there.

Which meant I needed to be there.

I sent another dash of urgency to Cos, then tugged on my bond with Jude and felt his answering confusion. He’d obviously ignored the HID alert because he’d been too wrapped up in his mates. He was confused by me and my emotions, but he was coming to see what was going on. I was sure both Jude and Cos could feel my rage—and my fear—and I really freaking hoped they would hurry their asses up.

“You’re safe here,” I told Lilibeth when I realized she’d started shaking. Honestly, I was focusing on the rage I felt toward both those disgusting witches so I didn’t join her in terror and horror. I wanted to place my hand on her shoulder or hug her to me, but she was giving off some serious don’t touch me vibes.

But she did take a big breath and blow it out slowly. “I… I know I am.”

“Good. I know River and Luce will be here for the rest of the day, so you won’t be alone.” I cringed a little. “I’m sorry I have to leave.”

She waved me off. “You need to go take care of”—she waved at the holoscreen—“that.”

I nodded, and I was about to yell for Luce or Riv, but Charlie murmured to me, almost too quietly to hear—likely so Lilibeth couldn’t hear him—saying, “I texted Luce. She’ll be down in a minute.”

I gave him a nod.

Jude came running into the family room, asking, “What…?” But then he saw the screen, and I didn’t have to answer him with words. I just gestured, and a frustrated sound came out of my throat. He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, shit.”

“We gotta go?—”

He cut me off. “Obviously. Let’s get our shit and get in the car.”

“Cos is almost here. I know most of the shifters will want to come with us.”

Maybe Cos had finally drilled that into my head after the last time. My shifters had my back and wanted to help. Always. I didn’t want them to feel obligated to come, but this was their fight, too. Of course it was.

Ash said, “So will Wren, Logan, and Haiden.”

I shot him a glare because the last thing I wanted was for those three to get anywhere near those two nightmares on the screen.

Ash lifted his hands in surrender. “They’re going to kick your ass if you don’t at least give them the option.”

I grunted, unwilling to put them in danger when I had another choice.

But of course, everyone had gotten the HID alert, so it was a moot point when the three of them trampled down the stairs, looking ready to kick butt, a few seconds later.

I sagged and admitted to them, “We’re going.”

“Then so are we,” Logan said, already narrowing his eyes at me and clearly prepared to fight.

I wanted to. Boy, did I want to. But… I knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t win this fight, and we didn’t have time, anyway.

Cos rushed inside a minute later, and Jude quickly explained the situation. Everyone ran to grab their spare uniforms, and we were piled in our pride van in record time. Ash called Simon on the way, just in case. I wasn’t surprised at all when he said he’d meet us there.

Harriet called HQ—since Cos was driving—to tell them we were on our way, and she said they were grateful. Apparently, they knew the fight wasn’t going well, and they were already trying to call in reinforcements. The fact even they knew it wasn’t going well didn’t bode well for us.

The mall wasn’t very far from our house, but it felt like the ten-minute drive took ten hours. Most of me was hoping that we’d arrive and it would be over because I didn’t want the other TRD agents—or any innocent bystanders—getting hurt. But a large part of me was hoping I’d get the chance to fight Anderson and the Supreme Rose.

I was hoping I could kill Anderson. Today.

And you know what? I wanted to kill that Supreme Rose prickhole, too.

When we arrived, the fight was in full force.

Now was my chance.

It almost looked like a scene from a movie or like the front line of what I pictured an old battle looked like. Both sides were facing off, standing in a line with a twenty-foot gap between them, although, even as I stood there, the now twenty-five or so witches were pressing forward and closing that gap—slowly, but definitely still moving. They were working together to get closer, and I had a feeling they’d be closing in on us very soon.

The magi had large wall-shields lined up beside one another, covering the entire squad of magi and shifters. They were shooting witch-bullet spells—a weave I’d figured out years ago and made sure every magi in the TRD knew it. Jude and I had spread that knowledge and made sure that others spread it to any and all magi since witches were so hard to kill without the right tools.

Of course, the magi had to open a hole for their spell to fly through, but that was the only hole in their shields. Which meant most of the shifters were simply standing there, doing nothing while they waited. Obviously, they had their own guns, so I didn’t understand why the magi here weren’t utilizing them better.

Well, one team was. They had a shield half as tall as the others in front of their team with a second shield over the top of them in a dome, leaving a large gap of space between the two. So those shifters had guns pointed through that gap and were shooting the crap out of the witches.

Their guns couldn’t penetrate a witch’s shield, not at first, but if they shot continuous bullets at one, it would eventually fail. Not to mention that bullets made for great distractions, and witches need to concentrate to cast spells. Too bad the others weren’t following their lead.

Unfortunately, knowing they’d been out here for so long already was proof enough that the witches were very, very amped-up on blood and life energy. Let alone the fact that I didn’t see even one witch on the ground.

Somehow, our people hadn’t even taken out one witch yet.

I honestly didn’t even want to know what the inside of that mall looked like. They must’ve used a lot of people’s life forces to be this powerful.

I tried to hold in my shudder at that thought.

I had a shield up the second we stepped out of the van, and since my shifters knew the routine, they automatically let Jude and me lead the way. Cos was with us, just like old times, although, even if we were on duty, I was sure he’d join in on a witch fight this big—especially with Anderson on-site—whether he was supposed to as our captain or not. Not being in the thick of it was the one thing he disliked about his promotion.

We headed straight for one of the TRD trucks that had a human captain inside, and Ash and Wren led Harriet—under Ash’s shield—to another TRD truck so we’d have enough supplies.

The guy saw us coming, looking terrified for a moment before he realized who we were. He rolled down the window and asked, “You here to help?”

“Yes,” Cos answered. “And we need your extra guns and ammo. We came from home so we don’t have our kits.”

The guy’s eyes widened for a split-second before he nodded, and I heard the truck’s back door click. “It’s unlocked.”

“Thanks.”

We ran back there and grabbed whatever was left before we headed over to join in the fight.

Jude said, “Let’s line up beside the teams that aren’t using their shifters.” He pointed where he wanted us. “Go to the opposite side as the team that’s actually doing something since they obviously don’t need our help. At least not as much as the idiots who aren’t utilizing their teammates.”

As we got into position, I tried to scan the witches’ faces and grimaced.

The Supreme Rose and Anderson must’ve gone back inside the mall because I didn’t see them anywhere within the twenty-eight or so witches that were fighting. I clenched my teeth because I needed to get past this wall of enemies, but I didn’t know how to make it happen.

I needed to freaking get to Anderson. I fucking had to.

Ash and I created wall-shields and had the ends overlap with each other to make sure no witch magic found its way through and hurt someone.

Jude said, “Lo, stay behind Madeo’s shield. Wren, stay behind Ash’s. All five of us need to shoot bullets at these prickholes, but I don’t want to spread out too far, so we gotta stick between two shields, not four. Shifters, find a spot between Ash and Mads. Once everyone’s in place, we’ll open a space for your guns.”

Everyone quickly got into place, and I created a dome shield over the top of us while Ash did the same.

Jude said, “Guns up. Get ready.”

The shifters and Jude lifted their guns, and Ash and I moved our shields down until the wall-shields came up to my ribs, but we kept the dome shields flat against the top of them so there was no space—and no chance of a headshot—while we maneuvered everything into position.

Once set, Jude said, “Get ready. Mads, Ash, now.” Quickly, we opened the space up, and Jude yelled, “Fire!”

The shifters didn’t hesitate. They couldn’t see where the space was, but this was a practiced move, and they trusted us completely. Plus, they rested the end of their gun on the top of the wall-shield, just to ensure they weren’t aiming too low. We didn’t want to chance a bullet ricocheting off a shield and hitting one of our guys. And it allowed us to make the hole smaller and offer more cover.

Logan, Ash, Wren, and I all started shooting witch-bullets at the enemy while Jude used his carved runes to shoot energy balls, along with shooting the assault rifle in his hands. He looked really badass, throwing magic and shooting at the same time. That had to take a lot of concentration.

Anytime someone needed a break or needed to reload, they knelt down behind the safety of our shields. I honestly couldn’t imagine how scary that would be to just… trust that there was a shield there, one they couldn’t see at all. They’d be looking straight at the enemy with seemingly nothing between them. It was crazy that they were able to do that and trust us so much.

To Logan, I said, “Go make those other jerkhats let their shifters fight, then come right back here. Don’t… don’t get hit.”

He didn’t roll his eyes—probably because he was concentrating on the enemy so well—but I could hear it in his voice when he said, “Got it. Be right back.”

“Be careful,” Jude yelled after him, making me smirk at my dyad without actually looking at him—he was just as bad as I was with our kid brother. Jude didn’t look at me, either, when he said, “Shut up.”

I snorted. “Didn’t say anything.”

A minute passed, and I said, “Holy shit, these witches are too strong. What the hell did they… kill before coming here?”

No one had an answer to that.

Simon and his shifters joined us, taking their places behind my and Ash’s wall-shields with my shifters. They didn’t hesitate to start shooting—trusting us and our abilities to keep them safe just as easily as our pride mates had. If we weren’t under attack right now, I had a feeling my chest would’ve warmed at that.

After another slew of bullet shields didn’t work, Wren spoke into the HIDs, saying, “I think we’re going to have to try bomb spells.”

As much as I didn’t want to—the destruction was always so bad when we used bomb spells—I knew the kid was right. I sighed and turned on my mic. “Yeah, okay. Good call.”

Then I activated the runes for my weave—two of each energy, shatter, enlarge, cut, fly, lightning, orb, and blast—and sent my first bomb spell at the witch I was trying to take out. Or rather, at her shield.

It blasted against her shield, and while it made her stumble back a step or two, it didn’t come close to breaking it. What the actual hell?

“Why are these prickholes so strong?” I yelled to no one in particular.

“They’re obviously hopped up on some strong blood magic. I… don’t even want to think about what the inside of that mall looks like,” Jude said as he reloaded his gun.

I cringed because he was right. But… if they’d been inside the mall killing people, why hadn’t the mall security called the TRD sooner? Surely, they’d picked up things on the cameras inside.

But… that was a worry for later. Right now, my only concern was neutralizing these witches.

Which was going to be harder than expected.

I weaved another bomb spell and chucked it at the same witch. Again, she only stumbled a little. Her shield didn’t even crack. So I slung another one and another one and another one.

Finally, the smallest crack ever appeared on her shield, and I didn’t hesitate to bombard her with more and more bomb spells. Jude focused on her, too, throwing energy balls and gunfire her way.

Together, after way too many long minutes, the witch’s shield finally broke. A bullet hit her in the chest, followed by three more before she finally fell to the ground. She was bleeding and out of the fight for good.

Jude and I didn’t hesitate to move on to the next witch. After seeing us finally take one out, it seemed to boost everyone else’s energy, and they all kept firing away, encouraged that we could win this.

We would win this. We had to.

If only I could figure out how.

“Fuck,” I murmured when another wave of witches came out of the mall. They were blocked by shields, so I ignored them for the time being and kept shooting the one I was focused on.

But then I felt a spell hit my shield, and I yelled out in pain as part of my shield was eaten away. I glanced up in horror, squinting through the pain, and watched a giant hole open up in my shield.

A hole right in front of?—

With all my might, I tackled Dare. He yelled out in surprise but didn’t resist when I shoved him to the ground and covered him with my body and another shield.

“Uh, can I ask what you’re doing?” he asked after he shook himself out of his surprise.

I let out a strangled laugh. “The witches burned a hole in my shield. Didn’t want you getting hit.”

“Ah. Thank you, little bro. But can we get back to it now?”

I nodded, then did my best to put a sort of patch over the hole in my wall-shield. As soon as it was fixed, I felt another spell hit me. I kept my groan to myself, and with gritted teeth, I felt another part of my shield melt away. Dare frowned at my obvious pain and helped me up to a seated position.

“You okay?”

I ignored his question and pushed to my feet, letting out an angry growl when yet another shield-melting spell hit my wall-shield.

I quickly made another shield and yelled, “Hold your fire,” then placed it over the top of us. Then I released the wall and dome shield with giant holes in them.

I groaned and glanced over to see that Ash had done the same thing as me, clearly in as much pain as I was. How had they figured out how to throw that spell at us? Before today, they’d always had to touch our shields in order to burn them away. This was bad. This was really freaking bad. Fuck.

Jude said, “It looks like only a few know how to use the shield-melting spell, and it’s taking longer to do the prep work for it, thank the goddess. But… there’s still enough of these prickholes to do some real damage.”

Another volley hit my shield, and I shuddered as it ate away at my magic. It burned so freaking bad.

“Oh fuck,” Jude muttered under his breath. “Mads.”

From the tone of his voice, I already knew what I was going to see when I searched the sea of witches.

The Supreme Rose had rejoined the fight.

Which meant… Anderson was standing there, right beside his leader.

They both stood behind their followers, obviously using them as shields—or cannon fodder—but Anderson had no problem picking me out of the crowd.

His ugly, sneering face found mine, and seeing the look of disgust mixed with… lust on his face made my heart squeeze in my chest.

The last time we’d been face to face, he’d assaulted me, tried to do… vile things to me, and then he’d left me for dead.

My body reacted to seeing him in a more visceral way than I’d expected, and bile rose in my throat. My heart raced, and fear held me frozen for a few precious seconds. I took deep breaths as we stared at each other, and even though I tried to keep my face blank so he wouldn’t know how… afraid I was, I had a feeling he could tell.

Last time we were together, he showed his true colors, once again.

Last time we were together, I’d promised to kill him. To make it hurt.

Here was my chance.

I could feel in my bones that I needed to take it.

Now was my chance.