“His alter ego,” Troy said flatly. “The one that eats werewolves for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Nico snorted. “Well, if you want to eat a wolf, how about chomping down on Andres, and sooner rather than later?? He’s a stick up my ass I can’t get rid of.” He glanced at Evan and Aiden. “I’d say it’s good to see you two, but I’ll hold that greeting until after you decide you don’t want to shove some silver in my heart. I assume you left your women home for the slaughter.”
“No one needs to get slaughtered but Andres,” Evan said with a chuckle and scrubbed his jaw.
“You’ve always had an exaggerated way with words, Nico,” Aiden said.
“Amen to that,” Evan agreed.
“A way of attracting assholes too, it seems,” Nico added grimly. “Andres specifically. He’s been after this.” He pulled the necklace from under his t-shirt and relief washed through Cassie. Troy was saved. And Nico was Nico, her brother, who she loved, and who she knew would prove the honorable, if not bossy and arrogant wolf, that he had always been.
“I yanked the chain from Sarah’s body,” Nico continued to the group. “I knew she’d stolen it from Aylia and I knew about the experiment, but talking about it only put the Coven at more risk. I spread the word that a rebel had the necklace and then that it had been destroyed. Andres chased the story for a year and I thought it was handled. I don’t have a flipping clue how he found out it wasn’t true.” He gave Troy a pointed look. “I damn sure didn’t know that the necklace had been used on you, man. I haven’t heard from you since Reno and the vampires and the wolves haven’t exactly been meeting up for Sunday football and beer since your attack.”
Marcus and Aylia appeared to their left. “You have my necklace?” Aylia demanded, charging forward. “Damn you, Nico. Why would you keep it from me? You know what it means to me.”
“Because I was protecting your sweet little witchy ass, that’s why,” he said, when she stopped toe to toe with him, not the least bit cowered by the alpha wolf. “Andres will slaughter you for your magic.”
“You can’t shift with it on without destroying it,” she said. “What if you had destroyed it?” She lifted her hand and the necklace glowed, then snapped from his neck and into her hand. She closed her hand around it. “It knows where it belongs.” She stared at him for several seconds, and Cassie could smell the sense of betrayal in the air waving off of Aylia, the hurt she felt that Nico had held something from her she considered so precious. Cassie had been right. These two had a history, all right. “And so do you.”
Aylia started to move away from Nico, and he gently shackled her arm, pulling her to stand beside him, lowering his voice. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you, wolf.”
“Andres has someone else on the inside of the Society,” Troy said, clearly not feeling any need to let these two resolve their issues.
“That insider has to have seen you wearing the necklace.”
Nico shook his head, rejecting the idea. “I didn’t start wearing the damn thing until Andres called me to a meeting with a threat that he would kill off The Guard, one by one, if I didn’t hand it over.” He glanced at Aylia. “Because I didn’t want to risk shifting and destroying it.” He eyed the entire group. “But Andres was too confident I had it for me to leave it where it had been. Up to that point, it was in my private quarters, in my safe. I really have no idea how he discovered I had it.” He glanced at Cassie. “He captured Ryan and was holding him for ransom.”
“Was,” Cassie repeated. Ryan was the king’s oldest son and the heir to his throne. She swallowed hard. “He’s dead.”
He nodded. “Yeah. He’s dead.”
“Magic,” Aylia said softly. “That’s the only way that Andres could have discovered the necklace was in your possession. The necklace imprints on anyone who touches it. When Andres invited you to a meeting, he used magic to find that imprint on you. He had to discover how to use that magic to make it work, which must be why it has taken him this long to make a move. No. He couldn’t have done it on his own. Someone is helping him.”
What happened next was so fast, so unexpected, Cassie could barely process it. The necklace began to glow and Aylia’s eyes went wide. “Run.”
But it was too little, too late. A bright light flashed like an explosion, crackling with something electric.
Troy grabbed Cassie and took her down to the ground, covering her body with his. “Hang on, baby, and be ready to fight when it ends.”
“Magic,” she whispered.
“Magic,” Troy agreed. “And magic is never a good thing. We know that. Try to pick out what is real and what’s not before we have to fight.”
Cassie stretched her senses, but she found nothing but emptiness as seconds ticked by that felt like hours, that shattered when Aylia let out a blood curdling scream of pure pain. “Help her, Troy. Help her!”
He never got the chance. A snarl sounded and a wolf pounced on top of them. Cassie rolled as Troy tumbled away with the attacker. She blinked into the bright light and reached for her weapons. But even with those silver blades in her hands, she was frozen, unsure where to go. She still couldn’t see and her sensitive wolf nose was failing her as well. She was about to flip to her feet when a hard mass of wolf came down on top of her. Her instinct was to shift but it was an instinct destroyed by instant pain that ended in complete darkness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cassie gasped and came awake to excruciating pain caused by Andres—in half man, half wolf form—ripping her shoulder open with his fangs. A second later, he was knocked off of her, and somehow, she knew it was Troy who was rolling with him, his clothes tearing as he began to shift. Oh no, she thought. Oh, God. Get up, Cassie! Help him! She tried to lift herself, but her leg was a pretty bad sight, and so were the dead werewolf bodies peppering the ground around her.
Marcus appeared next to her. “Help him,” she said. “Help Troy. Please. Andres and…” she gasped as pain shot through her shoulder.
“You’re the only one who is going to be able to help him when this is over,” Marcus said and bit his wrist. He held it to her mouth. “Drink quickly and deeply.”
She drew on the blood, shaking with the surge of his ancient power. Marcus bit his other wrist and dripped it over her shoulder. Pain rocked her body as the wounds healed rapidly, so rapidly it stole her breath.
The snarls stopped, and she shoved away from Marcus, not even sure how much time had passed, desperate to confirm Troy was alive. She found him squatted down over Andres’s dead body and his eyes, his skin, even his hair, were silver. He was beautifully lethal, and she knew she had to get to him before he hurt someone. She tried to get up, but Marcus held her. “Easy. We don’t know what he is capable of like this.”
“I do,” she said. “And he won’t hurt me. Let go.”