Page 21 of Wild Wolf

I wasn’t afraid of what it might take to do this, but I was determined to succeed, so we had to be prepared.

In the attic of this little Oscura cabin, I’d located the arms cache and retrieved a handful of fire canisters from their depths. The small metal bombs had been created with a violent mixture of Faesine and fire magic – an everflame trapped behind a small, glass window within the metal contraption just waiting to be let loose on the incredibly flammable liquid. They smashed easily on impact with any hard surface and exploded instantly, but they were temperamental little bastardos and carrying them came with a fairly high possibility of going boom by accident.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to be letting Sin anywhere near them.

Alongside my nasty little friends I’d packed some food, a bottle of water and a shot of a potion my great uncle Marco called ‘jazzy eyes’. It was most definitely illegal as shit but he swore by it for any and all jobs he went on. I’d seen jazzy eyes in action and, in fairness to Marco, his shot of crazy potion worked a treat on anyone who happened to be in need of it. It was what Dante referred to as a later-than-last-resort tactic – basically a concoction of fuck knew what which would kick start even a Fae on their death bed. It would give them enough energy to run for their damn lives should they find themselves in a situation where their magic was tapped out and they needed to heal and escape. It didn’t do shit to heal anything magically, but it blocked out pain and gave a jolt of adrenaline which could rival a shock from a Storm Dragon, though the side effects included hallucinations, hysteria and the potential for a serious case of the shits - to name a few. My cousin Luigi had once run three miles on a broken ankle to escape the FIB while riding high on jazzy eyes so I knew it worked – but I hadn’t wanted to listen to the stories about the side effects all the same. Safe to say, I was hoping we wouldn’t be needing it, but I’d gathered a shot for each of us anyway.

“Are you ready, love?” Ethan asked, shouldering his own pack of supplies as he walked into the room.

I looked him over, inspecting the new, dark colour to his hair just as he took in the deep red of mine. He was still easy to recognise if you asked me, but it did make me look twice and I guessed someone who wasn’t so familiar with the curve of his lips, the sharp line of his jaw or the depth of his blue eyes might not realise who he was.

I said nothing. My heart was beating so fast that it was all I could do to concentrate on quieting it. Everything was riding on this. It had to work. Ethan moved closer to me, lifting a lock of my dyed hair between his fingers and inspecting it.

“It suits you,” he said as I lifted my eyes to his.

He ran his fingertips along my jaw, looking at the makeup I wore, the edges of his mouth lifting. I’d gone heavy on the eyeliner and painted my lips a deep red while pencilling a scattering of freckles over my nose and cheeks. Again, it wasn’t perfect but it was damn far from my usual style and the bare faced, dark-haired wild girl in all the mugshots.

“You look so…sophisticated,” Ethan teased and I snorted. “The others are waiting outside.”

I blew out a breath and took a well-worn deck of tarot cards from the coffee table, shuffling them slowly and letting my eyes fall closed as I began to deal them onto the table before me. My fingers tingled with each selection I made until I’d laid ten cards out before me.

My gaze roamed over the cards as I read them, Ethan’s shadow engulfing me as he moved to lean over my shoulder and take in their meaning too.

The first card I’d drawn was The Hermit reversed, representing isolation and a loss of direction. The following few seemed to whisper of Roary’s incarceration, the Nine of Swords, Justice reversed, the Wheel of Fortune reversed – basically a whole shit heap. But then I moved my eyes over the following cards, the ones indicating what the plan I’d made might lead towards; the Five of Wands whispering of struggle, The Hanged Man indicating sacrifice, The Tower hissing warnings of disaster, the Five of Swords which I took to indicate an escalation of violence but last of all, offering me the hope I so desperately needed, my gaze locked on The Devil who was blessedly, beautifully reversed. Freedom. Release.

Hope was a dangerous thing, but I’d been living for the flickering flame of it for too long to back out now and that little fire blazed brighter as I took solace in the message I’d gleaned from the cards.

“The cards hold good omens,” Ethan said gruffly, squeezing my shoulder in reassurance.

I nodded in silence, not wanting to jinx anything by breaking it and fastening my pack carefully before lifting it onto my back. Adrenaline spiked through my veins at the thought of the combustibles I was now carrying, but I lifted my chin and strode from the door like there was nothing at all to worry about.

Cain watched me as I passed him, and I searched his eyes, expecting to find a reluctant kind of acceptance there but instead I found blazing concern. He hadn’t said anything to me about the way I had clearly lost my shit over this, but the way he was looking at me made me think there was something he was holding back on.

“You don’t have to come,” I said, glancing at Hastings and including him in that statement too.

My little choir boy had dyed his hair black and styled his fringe to hang down over his eyes. He wore a backwards baseball cap and a leather jacket with a pair of jeans which looked like they might just fall off his ass. I wasn’t quite sure what he looked like, but I guessed it wasn’t the prim and proper guard with his finely pressed uniform anyway. Unsurprisingly, Cain had refused to alter his appearance at all.

I frowned. “I know you think the curse requires you to stick with me and help me or whatever, but I don’t think that has anything to do with how it’s broken. And I don’t want anyone following me into this mess if they aren’t all in. We might die out there. I’m willing to die if that’s what it takes to rescue Roary. And I can’t bring you with me if I’m going to have to worry about you grabbing hold of me and trying to whisk me away from there if things start going south.”

“You expect me to stay back here like some cowardice piece of shit?” Cain grunted.

“No. I think you’re a lot of things, Mason Cain, but I don’t think you’ve been afraid of a fight a day in your life. That doesn’t mean you won’t pull the same shit you did back at Darkmore and try to rescue me again though. So I want your word that you won’t and I’ll take a star vow on it too – from all of you,” I added, glancing at Ethan and Sin to make sure they understood this. I wasn’t going to be leaving that island without Roary. “I can’t leave him behind for a third time. If that means I have to go alone to get this done, I will. I entered Darkmore on my own, so it’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

I held out my hand, waiting to see which of them would take it.

Sin didn’t surprise me when he was the first to clasp my palm. “I’ll follow you into death before I steal you away from your Lion, wild girl,” he swore. “We leave with Roary in tow or we step through The Veil at his side – no more running away.”

I smiled darkly at that promise and magic flared between our palms, binding us to it. Sin’s eyes brightened with the thought of death. It didn’t surprise me in the least that he wasn’t afraid of it.

I turned to Ethan next, waiting as he looked me over, his jaw locked with tension. He met my eyes, the blue of his appearing brighter out here beneath the sky as if freedom from that underground hell had awakened a new spark of life in him. I knew it went against everything in his instincts to make me this vow. A Wolf protected their mate above all else, but that was also why he had to make it. Roary was my mate too. And Ethan had to know that I couldn’t go on without him any longer.

“Whatever it takes, love,” he swore, clapping his hand into mine, magic ringing between us. “He’s coming home.”

I nodded firmly, that oath lashing itself to my heart and giving me the strength I needed to face whatever it was we were about to go up against. Roary needed me at my best if I was going to pull this off and that’s what he would get.

I turned to Cain last, Sin and Ethan backing me on either side and the man who had been my guard, tormentor, enemy and saviour surveyed me with a look so powerful that I could feel the weight of it running over me.

“This is madness,” he said roughly. “You understand that, don’t you?”

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