Page 36 of Coven Relics
It was eerily quiet out here, but I didn’t think I was alone at this cave. Three people came out of the cave, but it wasn’t Valentine and those girls. It was Church, Balthazar, and Loki. When the light got close enough for me to pick up their faces, something was wrong. Even if Valentine wasn’t in there, we could still stop this. Shifters were immensely powerful, but they were limited in what they could carry when they were their animal. They usually didn’t at all if they were hunting because it took away one of their weapons.
Reyson appeared with my sister and her people. There were a lot more witch lights in the area. Especially when Killian appeared and shifted back. He snapped his fingers and magically put on the clothes in my bag.
“The fucking bones aren’t here,” Loki snapped. “Hehidthe fucking bones. What a shit-ass werewolf.”
“He can lead us to them, though,” Killian said. “I’ve been experimenting with partially shifting when I’m alone cooking. I can use echolocation like this and track him with sound while the vampires and shifters use scent. My range is a bit longer with sonar. I can get us in the right direction. He’s going to be chasing them towards where he stashed the bones to save time.”
Killian wouldalwaysbe my hero. No matter what kind of shit I had gotten myself into, he never freaked out. He had a rational solution to fix the problem. Everyone here was in a bad mood for different reasons. They were running on emotion, and not all of us were here for the same reasons. Yeah, we all wanted to stop the cult from returning and save those girls, but some of us really wanted Valentine to pay for starting all this more than others.
“It reeks of fear and arousal here,” Bram said. “He must have kept up the ruse there would be sex involved right up until the eclipse started. See the branches broken by the tree line? They would have tried to runoutof the forest, but he blocked their way and chased them deeper in.”
“Look at the scorch marks on the tree,” Felix said. “The witch tried to get him to move with magic, but her aim was slightly off. I’m guessing he started chasing before she could try again. If a spell makes contact, even a young, untrained witch could ruin a werewolf’s day.”
“We need to move,” Killian said. “They are still in range of my sonar, but someone is slowing down, which isn’t a good sign.”
“What direction?” Kaine asked.
“Through that thick cluster of trees and brush. I’m getting less bounce off in the distance. There’s some kind of clearing. I’m guessing that’s where the bones are, and he’s been leading them for the ritual. We need to hurry.”
Bjorn hopped off Sleipnir and helped me down.
“Sleipnir is too big to fit through those trees.”
Sleipnir shifted back and didn’t ask for his clothes. Instead, he went charging after Killian and the others, totally naked. Shifters weren’t shy, and supernaturals weren’t prudes, but most of them would have wanted clothes to go through that brush. There were probably thorns, and it was too dark to tell if he was going to end up with poison ivy on miserable places.
Still, he didn’t care, and Valentine was too far ahead of us for him to stop for pants. I could do something about that. I snapped my fingers and put the clothes in my bag on his body. Sleipnir didn’t notice or slow down. We were all following Killian and trying not to trip in the dark. I could see a clearing up ahead and a bonfire. There was a large box in the distance thathadto have the bones. We made it. He had to be close.
Killian and Loki were towards the front, and I saw them both go down. I rushed over when neither of them got up right away. I was devastated when I saw what tripped them. We were too late. Both of those girls were dead with big, gaping holes in their chests where he’d ripped out their hearts.
Loki jumped to his feet. Any promises he made to Kaine were probably long out of the window. Fuck, even Kaine might have changed his mind. Those girls were mutilated and died with sheer terror on their faces.
“Valentine!” Loki roared.
We all formed a line behind him and moved forward with him. When I decided to get revenge on Valentine after I found out he was coming back, it didn’t involve physical harm. When I found out he was planning to bring the cult back, I always thought we’d stop him, and he’d go to jail. I thought this even while we were searching the woods tonight.
I didn’tthinkI wanted him dead. Beating the shit out of him was temporary, and Kaine was right. His lawyer would have a field day with that and use it to get him out of the charges. Throwing him in a concrete cell was the ultimate punishment for a wolf. He’d be in magic dampening cuffs and only able to shift when the prison allowed him to. That was going to be miserable for him.
Now? I wanted him to feel the terror I saw on those two girls’ faces. Except he wasn’t. There were two gods and a team of extremely powerful supernaturals here, and that motherfucker was laughing like a movie villain.
“You’re all too late!” he yelled.
A naked woman streaked with dirt rose from the box. Weren’t there supposed to be two of them? Thorunn was the leader, and Asfrid was the one who was good at magic. Everyone who knew them said Thorunn had charisma, but she was pretty dense when it came to writing spells. Even if she was dumb enough to think she’d get her grimoire back, those were ever evolving. Even if she were a hybrid, she’d have to know she’d need new spells in a new century.
Witch necromancy brought people back exactly as they were right before they died. It was considered highly disrespectful to bring someone back who died of an illness or old age just to ask them a question because they’d come back at that same age and still be in pain from their sickness.
The same seemed to have been done with Thorunn. Her clothes had completed rotted away, so she was naked. Most people came back clean if they were clean when they died. Something wasn’t right. Loki, Sleipnir, and Bjorn all told me she had terrible hygiene and rarely combed her hair. Ishouldhave been looking at her and smelling that now, but I wasn’t.
Thorunn cracked her neck and stretched. She also appeared to have learned English when she was a ghost.
“Hello, Daddy. Miss me?”
Loki hesitated. He could have ended this, but he stopped.
“Asfrid?”
Hold the fuck up. I thought Asfrid was supposed to be the nice one out of all these asshole hybrids. She creeped me out, and she’d only uttered one sentence.
“Expecting Thorunn? She served her purpose. Now, I want my Gemini twins to step forward and join me.”
