Chapter 2

TWO

Asha

It’s a cold morning. It’s so early that the grey dawn has just barely streaked the sky over the trees with light, giving the strangest feeling of the hours before a storm, even though I don’t smell rain in the air. It makes me uneasy, but I try to push the feeling aside. It’s just an early morning while working, nothing more. The clouds are clouds. Not some sign of trouble to come.

Max is inside questioning the waitress and some of the townsfolk. He’d told me to wait outside. Because, according to him, I get bitchy when people don’t answer our questions well enough.

Okay, so he didn’t say bitchy, but his, “You’re not experienced with interrogating,” was code for, “Stop shoving people against walls and screaming at them until they cry and tell us useless information, because they don’t actually know anything about your pack members.” Which, alright, he has a point about. But part of me also wonders if him wanting space away from me has anything to do with my freak out in his arms this morning.

But who knows with that guy…?

The thing is it feels like Max wants me walking on a tightrope. Like we’re playing some kind of game. He wants me to follow the fucking Enforcer’s protocol when finding my pack, whereas I want to burn the world down if it helps me reach my people sooner.

So, basically, we have a difference of opinions on how this mission should be handled. But, hell, it’s better than how things were. When I was first captured by the Enforcers, I was little more than a prisoner. Slowly, they’d let me off my fucking “leash” and allowed Max and I to work together to explore leads about my pack while reminding me that if I slip up, I’ll be thrown in a deep, dark cell for the rest of my life, and they’ll just kill my pack members rather than try to gather them peacefully.

Assholes. But then the Enforcers, basically the top cops for supernatural, aren't exactly known for being likable.

So, when Max asked me to give him some space so he could gently ask the townsfolk questions, I’d done as he asked. No matter how much it upset me. Because I might be good at a lot of things, but interacting with people, especially humans, is not my strength.

And I want to save my people enough to put my pride aside.

I take another deep breath, inhaling the scents of greenery all around me. I wish I could close my eyes and see trees and rivers and sunshine instead of blood and death, that every time I relax, even for a minute, my ears aren’t filled with the sounds of screaming. But this is my cross to bear. One I deserve.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot something dark. My spine stiffens, and I refuse to look at it. Refuse to acknowledge it. Even when it whispers. Even when it calls for me, promising me things that would only ever destroy me. No matter how much I want to look at it and just do as it asks.

“You’re investigating the strange shit, aren’t you?”

I whirl around, breathing hard. My hands curled into fists. How the hell the weird old woman snuck up on me without me smelling her is beyond me. But as I inhale slowly, breathing in the scents of herbs and fire, I know.

“You’re a witch.”

She cocks her head. Her eyes, almost entirely white, somehow seem to stare into my soul. “And you’re some mixed breed freak, aren’t you?”

My teeth grit together so hard the sound is audible. “Guilty as charged.”

“And yet you don’t seem to be crazy, foaming at the mouth, or filled with a desire for blood…”

“Well, I am one of those things,” I tell her, narrowing my eyes.

To my surprise, she laughs, throwing back her long grey hair as she does so. “You must have a value if you’re working with the Enforcers… one that’s more useful than a clever mouth.”

“Yeah, I do have a use. And if you know I’m here with the Enforcer, and here about the strange shit, I’m betting you know something that might help us.” I try not to sound too sarcastic, but I can’t help it, it’s my nature.

“Perhaps.” She purrs the word like she’s a cat, but given all the short, pale hairs on her flowery dress and the scent of feline on her, I’m guessing she’s got at least a dozen of them. “But if I tell the Enforcer what I know, he’ll also learn things… things that Enforcers might not like knowing. Things that might cause problems for me. And yet, I don’t like the trouble that’s come to my town.”

I take a step closer to her, and those strange eyes of hers focus on me. At least I think they do. “Let me be frank. I’m not an Enforcer. I want information that might lead to people I care about. That’s it. I don’t care if you’re crafting love spells on the whole fire department and fucking them like rabbits every day, I just want my information. The guy in there doesn’t need to know anything else.” I gesture toward Max.

She studies me, then gives a nod. “Follow me.”

This is probably a bad idea, but worst-case scenario I end up dead. So, no real loss there.

She leads me across the street from the little diner and off the main road that runs through the shitty little town. We enter the dark woods, and the hairs on the back of my neck instantly stand on end. I freeze and look around carefully, feeling wary. Early morning light streams between branches and the typical flowers and plants are all around us. Everything looks normal, but I don’t think this feeling is because of the woman either. Something just feels wrong in these woods. It’s off in a way I can’t explain, but plan to figure out.

We keep going deeper into the woods and away from town, her walking with more energy than I would have imagined possible given her age. But then, witches have always been strange to me. Even my own mother.

My mother who I killed.

Fuck, focus.

Speaking over her shoulder, she says, “It started a few weeks ago. I felt it one night like a storm brewing, but the skies were clear. Eventually, I went to bed, and then a storm really did pick up. It woke me up. The wind was blowing. Clouds covered the moon, and my cats were going crazy. And then, everything grew quiet once more. But I knew it wasn’t over. I knew something bad had come to my little town.”

Damn it. Part of me wants all of this to mean I’ve closed in on one of my old pack members. But the other part of me just wants her to be crazy. Flashes, memories roll through my mind of those of us who were imprisoned by the Blood Mages alongside me. We were tortured. Experimented on.

We became… something else. Something wrong. Capable of magic as cruel and awful as the Blood Mages themselves. Magic born from dark magic.

The night we escaped, I was one of the last to be released. I’d been recently experimented on. My head was messed up with the drugs they’d forced through my body. My vision was spinning. It was like jumping off an OR table into absolute chaos. By the time I figured out what the hell had happened, my pack was gone. I’d tried to find them, but all I’d heard were stories. Stories of the awful things my remaining pack members were doing, blinded by the call of the dark magic woven within them.

I want to believe it’s all an exaggeration. That my pack wouldn’t really do those things. But the couple I’d gotten close to, well, they had done awful things.

I just don’t know anymore. If one of them coming to town brought such a dark omen, I can’t keep pretending that any of what I’ve heard is an exaggeration. Maybe my pack members really are as twisted as the Enforcers think.

But either way, I want to find them. I want this lead to bring me to them so badly that my soul aches at the thought.

“Then, the animals started disappearing,” she says it quietly, but it still feels loud in the woods. Too loud, because not a single creature’s sound stirs the silence. “A deer was found slaughtered in town. Then, a bear. People didn’t know what to think, but I did. Something evil had come to our town.”

She freezes up ahead of me, and I take a few steps to catch up to her, but the scent hits me even before I see it. In the trees, a bunny hangs from a few vines like a bug caught by a spiderweb. Only, fuck, someone shredded the damn thing.

Shredded. The. Bunny. What the hell can do that?

We keep going, but there are more and more animals hanging from the trees. Rabbits. Squirrels. Birds. Dogs. Cats. And their killings look… pointless. Nothing ate them. Nothing skinned them. Whoever, or whatever, the fuck did this did it for pleasure, that I know.

As my mind goes through the pack members who were tortured alongside me, I can’t imagine a single one of them who would do this. None of them were capable of doing something so awful. This has to be something else. A demon maybe.

Not someone I love.

The old woman stops and turns around to face me. “This is as far as I’ll go. I’m sorry, but the scent of dark magic is overwhelming.” I can’t smell the dark magic yet, but I believe her. Witches are more sensitive to magic, after all.

Those pale eyes of hers meet mine again. “Just get them out of my town. There are children here. Families here. My magic has made this a safe haven for all. There are no murders. No kidnappings. It’s protected. I’ve done this. Placed a blanket over all the humans, even though it’s against the rules. But fighting this? This is too powerful for me.”

Something softens in my heart. Is that her secret? That she’s used her powers to protect the humans here? As far as secrets go, it’s a pretty damn good one, even though she’s right that the Enforcers would have an issue with a witch interfering in the lives of humans in such a huge way.

“I’ll take care of it.” I don’t promise her, because I’m done with promises, but I mean what I say. No matter what I find in these woods.

She smiles, and then, her eyes widen. Her mouth opens and blood comes pouring out. Vines suddenly slam all the way through her chest, four big ones, and then she’s dragged back like a rubber band snapping. I don’t have time to think; I just start chasing after her. My feet pound on the ground beneath me. My heartbeat fills my ears.

I barely stop in time as I come to the edge of a massive blackened space in the middle of the woods. It curves down like a bowl, and animals hang from every space around it like sickening decorations. The witch has been brought to the center of the bowl where a woman stands. Not just any woman, but Abby. Abby , the shifter who taught our entire pack. She’s a woman in her early thirties with an easy smile, wild outfits, and dance moves that made the whole town laugh.

But she’s not standing in a bright orange outfit with Halloween cats on it now. Her auburn hair is darker, tangled, and falling about her shoulders like she hasn’t seen a brush in months. Her grey clothes are stained with blood and dirt, and she stands barefoot. She doesn’t seem to see me, just stands with her hand outstretched, bringing the witch closer to her by the vines that came from the center of the bowl.

My mouth feels dry as I breathe in the new coppery scent, but I swallow. Blood. Fuck. I didn’t mind the dried blood from the animals, but the witch is dripping with fresh blood. And now that I’m a fucking Blood Mage, I’m drawn to blood like any vampire. Not just that, but deep inside I know it’ll fuel the powerful magic within me.

Not that I would ever feed off of an unwilling person. Not that I’ve accepted that dark side of me yet.

But is that what this is all about? Abby is getting blood to fuel her magic? I can fix this. I can tell her that although we want blood and need it for our magic to work, unlike with vampires, we don’t need it to survive. She can just stop. She can be free of all of this.

The vines draw the witch to Abby, and Abby reaches out, smears blood off of the old woman’s chest, and licks it off her fingers. Her expression is far away. Lost.

And the witch? Her head is rolled to the side, her eyes wide in shock.

“Stop!” I say, my voice shaking.

Abby jerks, and then turns to me. But instead of looking at two pools of green eyes that are always filled with laughter, they stare at me blankly. So blankly that it makes my stomach turn. She lifts a hand toward me, and more vines explode from the ground and barrel toward me.

I leap easily out of the way of them and hit the ground once more in a crouch. Before the vines can strike again, I’m running. I dive off the edge of the bowl and head right toward them.

But Abby isn’t watching me. Instead, she’s feeding on the witch’s throat, and I think I might vomit because this isn’t the way vampires feed. She’s feeding like a fucking wild animal. She’s torn out the woman’s throat, and I know without checking her pulse that the witch is dead.

Dead . Abby killed her. Abby the schoolteacher. Abby who had the kind of laughter that was infectious. She killed a random, innocent woman.

“Abby!” I scream as I reach her.

She pulls back from the witch, staring at me, and there’s a flicker of intelligence in her eyes.

My heart aches. “Yes, Abby, it’s me. It’s Asha.”

Her head tilts. “A-sh-a?”

Tears sting my eyes. “Yes, little Asha. You taught me my whole life. Remember how we used to laugh at my poetry?”

“A-sh-a?” she repeats again. But there’s something in the way she says it. Does she remember me?

I feel like I can’t catch my breath. “Yes, it’s me. I’m Blood Pack, just like you are. We’re family. And what those mages did to us was wrong, but you don’t have to live that way any longer. Let me help you. Let me get you out of here.”

“A-sh-a,” she says again and turns back to the witch before beginning to feed on her again, her sickening slurping sounds filling the air.

I’m trying to ignore the pressure in my chest and behind my eyes. “Abby, let her go. Come with me. Let me help you.” I reach my hand out, but she doesn’t respond, just keeps feeding. “Abby, please! They ruined our home. They hurt people. But that doesn’t need to be the end of the Blood Pack. I’m trying to find the others. I’m trying to help all of us. We can be a pack again. We can be family again.”

Finally, she drops the witch, and the old woman’s body hits the ground with a thud that makes my skin crawl. Abby turns and looks at me, and I stretch my hand out further, praying that she’ll take it.

There’s one second of warning, and I roll without thinking, just barely in time to avoid the piercing vines that slam into the place I was just a moment before.

I leap back to my feet, shocked. “Abby! Stop!”

The vines come for me again, and I keep moving, leaping, trying to avoid the bastards stabbing through me, because I just got an up close and personal view of what Abby plans for me if I’m not strong enough.

Not that this means I’m giving up on her. I can’t. No matter what. She might not remember me or care about me yet, but I have forever to save her. To remind her.

I’m springing around the darkened bowl of earth faster and faster as more vines slam toward me. But as much as I might look like I’m just jumping around, I have a plan. And when I see the opportunity, I leap and knock Abby to the ground. The vines freeze for a moment as I pin her to the ground.

“Abby! You have a daughter, Stacy. Do you remember her? Do you remember your own child?”

“S-Stacy!” Her daughter’s name is a broken sob as her gaze moves to my face, and tears fill her eyes. “Stacy died. They killed her. In front of me. Just like everyone else. She screamed for me. She begged me to save her. But I couldn’t.”

“I know,” I say, choking on my own tears.

Then, her face twists. “Because of you. You did this to us. You’re the reason she died.”

Each word is like a blow. A blow I deserve. “I know. And you never have to forgive me, but let me help you. Stacy wouldn’t have wanted you to be a murderer. She wouldn’t want you to be this person.”

Her gaze holds mine. “It’s too late. The blood calls. It calls for you too. And none of us can resist.” She smiles, blood on her teeth. “You already killed us all.”

Suddenly, a vine slams through my shoulder. I gasp in shock and taste blood, then reach behind me and yank the vine right back out, half toppling onto Abby as I try to shake off the pain. She grabs for me, revealing her fangs, trying to feed on me, but I shove back from her, rolling to my side.

And then, faster than I could’ve imagined, she’s on top of me. “You killed us all,” she whispers, and then she flashes her fangs and dives down toward me.

It’s like time pauses. I can pull away, but I don’t. She’s right: I killed her. I killed all of them. If I can’t save them now, then I shouldn’t be the only one to survive with my mind intact.

So, I just stop.

Above me, a dark shape slams into Abby, and I let my head fall to the side in shock. A wolf with dark brown fur squeezes Abby’s throat as she claws at him, and then a snap vibrates through the air, and Abby’s eyes dull. Her head falls to the side, and the dark wolf slowly pulls off of her.

The wolf turns and looks at me. Pale brown eyes are filled with anger.

Max. Of course, it’s Max. Here to save me. Even when I don’t want to be saved.

Closing my eyes, I fight tears. How many of my pack members are left? And in trying to save them, will I just end up killing the last of them?

I scream. Scream my frustrations into the sky. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.

I failed. I can’t fail again.