Page 85 of Wicked Witch of the Wolf

“Stupidbook? That book is what made everything you wanted possible.” Desmond’s rage flowed into thesoil. “And take the moral superiority down a notch, Alpha. You asked the coven to kill your own son.”

“He’s a danger to the pack.Nothingcomes before my pack.” He shifted his weight. I felt it in the way the soil moved. It didn’t seem to have the same revulsion for Floyd that I did, but it carefully tracked his movements, nonetheless.

Probably because it sensed I wanted to know exactly where he was.

Desmond didn’t respond, but his feet sank into the soil a foot or so away from my head. I’d propelled myself a good distance, though I hadn’t felt myself move.

“Try anything, and I’ll have my wolves separate your head from your body the way you did to those witches,” Floyd said.

Witches. I spared a thought for Carolina and Aldrich and discovered I didn’t have the empathetic capacity to feel bad about their fate. I’d given them a fighting chance, which was more than they deserved.

Unfortunately, Desmond hadn’t been so fair-minded.

One of the other wolves spoke. “Who did he kill?”

It was growly and rough, so the wolf speaking was in hybrid form, but his identity was apparent. Mason godsdamned Hartman.

The guy was like the Siete Saguaros’s water bill. He kept showing up in my life at the most inconvenient times.

“Who the hell cares, Hartman? They’re witches,” Floyd said.

“We have an agreement with the coven,” Mason said. “We protect them. Even from themselves.” He ended the statement on a growl, a sure sign that he was furious. Mason didn’t show emotion like that in my experience.

Unless it was frustration. He did like to show that emotion—specifically to me.

“There’s no deal anymore. That agreement was with Margaux Ramirez, and I’m told she’s no longer a coven member. As far as I’m concerned, the coven can all fuck off and die. Mace here took outthree of them himself. Only a matter of time before we find the last two.”

“Which three?” Mason’s tone crystallized into cold, hard rage.

If Floyd had picked up on his second’s anger, I couldn’t tell it by his attitude. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Not the one you like to play with, second alpha,” Desmond said. “Notyet.”

Floyd growled his impatience. “Bring me that book, Mace. This is your last chance. If you bring my son, too, I’ll think about allowing you to live.”

Ronan. It all seemed to come back to Ronan.

“But if you screw this up, you’re dead. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that. Do you think?” Desmond laughed, the sound shaking the earth. He sank deeper into the soil above me.

“Sir, he’s up to something,” Mason said.

“Figures. Can’t trust a witch,” Floyd said, almost lazily. “Wolves.”

Desmond rocketed deep beneath the soil, so far down I lost the feel of him.

Panic furled in me like a tightly coiled spring. I opened my mouth to chant a protection spell. Soil poured into my throat and mouth, and I choked.

Goddesses save me.

I couldn’t find the enemy I was sure was lurking below. Couldn’t chant or reach my magic. Couldn’tbreathe.

Darkness teased the edges of my consciousness.

Abuela’s voice filled my oxygen-starved, aching head. “…you must show the soil that you’re willing to trust it—that your trust is stronger than your fear.”

Fingers—Desmond’s—tunneled through the soil beneath me, wrapped around my ankles. Yanked. The hands dragged me into the earth, through layers of rock and water and organic matter. We’d passed some sort of barrier—either hydrogeological or magical—and entered a world closed to anyone not of our element. The soil went from wet and cold to dry and hot.

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