Page 62 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

“I can’t leave him,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.

“Huh? Your friend is right here in the back, don’t worry. I’ve got him.”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t leave Leo.”

“Leo? Are you talking about your insane battle tank? He’ll be fine, I promise.”

“There’s no way you could know that.”

I pressed my foot down on the gas, and the truck lurched forward as I drove through a fence and over the garden display that me and several other staff members had spent the past week working on. It broke my heart a little, but Leo was more important. I careened around the side of the estate, aiming for the party area.

“Whoa, slow down. Are you crazy? The exit is the other way!”

“We’re not leaving him.”

My arm was throbbing, my entire body hurt, and my adrenaline was through the roof, but somehow my voice remained steady. My entire focus was on making sure Leo was all right.

When I rounded the corner, I expected to see more blood and Leo tearing people limb from limb. That wasn’t what was waiting for me, however. Instead, my best friend and current nightmare was facing off with none other than…

Chadwicke?!

“How is he even alive?” I blurted, slamming on the brakes. Surely I was hallucinating?

“Did you think he was dead?” The strange shifter mused, sounding surprisingly unfazed. “Yeah, he’s one lucky son of a bitch.”

“I saw Leo ripping his throat out! There’s no way he could have survived that!”

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong. Like I said, he’s lucky. It’s his bread and butter.”

“That doesn’t?—”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “Luckis literally his magic. He has a pact with some spirit or something who deals with probability and chance. He can manipulate the fabric of reality to skew to impossible odds. And that’s on top of all the other natural stuff most witches can do.”

“Luck isn’t a power.”

“Oh, I assure you, it most certainly is.”

I was gobsmacked. The man I’d very much watched die right in front of me was currently sending Leo flying into a table, the decorations that had been so neatly piled on top of scattering in a thousand different directions.

Ricky leaned forward, one of his slender, dirt-caked hands reaching between the front seats to point at the warlock.

“Him,” he growled, voice barely more than a breath. “Chadwicke.”

That somehow seemed more like a warning than an accusation, and I followed his pointer finger to see what looked like a spell circle beginning to glow beneath Leo as he tried to pick himself up from the splinter remains of the table.

No.

Fucking.

Way.

Something unlocked deep inside me, and I hit the gas again. I reacted without thinking, my body making decisions before my mind could catch up, but I was at peace with it as the truck shot forward.

Chadwicke, bastard that he was, barely had time to look over his shoulder before we collided with him at fullforce, sending him sailing even farther than he’d managed to fling Leo. Never one to miss an opportunity, the alpha jumped on top of Chadwicke before he could recover and tore into him.

This time there was no chance he was surviving. Not with his guts lying scattered in bits around him, and his heart in Leo’s mouth.

Holy shit.

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