Page 47 of Fire Bound

I hike my leather backpack up farther on my shoulder before taking the offered phone. “Thanks.”

“I’ll keep you updated if I learn anything else while you’re in the air.” He shocks me by leaning in and giving me a brief hug. “I haven’t forgotten about that information you asked me to look into. The second I find something, I’ll let you know.”

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve left Montana. Two of those times were to help my brothers and I’ve never gone alone. The nerves I feel are unexpected as I climb the stairs of the plane, but they’re also welcome. They’re new and after six months of feeling the same dull way, it’s a fun change.

Settling into the seat by a window, I think about how this moment is so full circle for us. I never wanted Jax’s help, but he ignored me and watched over me anyway. He doesn’t want my help now, but I’m coming for him whether he likes it or not. This is also the moment I finally understand Jax’s side of things.

It doesn’t matter we can’t be together; nothing is going to stop us from being there for each other—from protecting each other when we don’t think we need it.

Ican’t imagine how unnerving it is to be abruptly brought back to life. One second, you’re off somewhere in the afterlife hopefully at peace, and the next, you’re shoved back into your earthly body with energy that is foreign to you powering your existence. Especially for those who have been dead for decades, they’re going to have it really rough when they discover their humanity has been burned away after all this time.

Sterling is lucky that he’s always had Kaius there to bring him back within minutes. If he hadn’t, Sterling would be even more of a monster than he is now.

Two sets of footprints lie in the fresh dirt around the empty grave. One set, a pair of men’s dress shoes, the other much smaller. This grave isn’t the one I originally came to Seattle for. This one is new, it only happened about an hour ago. The groundskeeper at the other cemetery told me about it when I was questioning him earlier. No surprise, he didn’t have any information to offer me. He was just more perplexed by the perfect black circle seared into the ground.

He’s pointed at the mark with a gnarled, old, finger. “Witchcraft, I tell ya!” He’d wheezed through cigarette corrupted lungs. “These kids come in here and play with those damn Ouija boards.” He gripped the rosary beads hanging out of his jacket pocket like they’d save him from evil. “I swear, they’ll summon a demon if they’re not careful.”

At that point, I had doubled over in laughter because he truly didn’t see the irony in what he said. A demonwassummoned here. I wiped the tears of laughter off my cheeks as I stood back up to my full height. Slapping him on the shoulder, I thanked him for making me laugh. “Demons? Come on, old man. Those don’t exist.” I had slowly backed away from him, heading toward the metal gate not far away. And because I’m an asshole who finds humor in things I shouldn’t, I’d let my eyes shift into their glowing animal form. “Or do they?” The look of terror on his face is something I’ll laugh about for years. “You better say your prayers tonight,” I warned before mockingly crossing myself.

After that I’d casually walked down the street, following the muddy footprints left on the sidewalk and the lingering scent of death in the air. Doesn’t matter that Kaius brought them back, that scent will cling to the undead until they’re cleaned up.

The footprints eventually vanished but the scent remained. It led me here, to the abandoned and decaying textile factory located in the heart of the industrial part of the city. Standing in front of the dark building, my beast lifts his head and emits a warning growl. Whatever is in there, he can sense, and he isn’t a big fan of it.

I don’t bother going in quietly and stealth-like. My palms slam into the boarded-up front doors, breaking them open with a loudbang. The chains around the door handles snap at the force and clatter to the cement floor. Bending down, I snag a piece of the cold metal and swing it around in the air a few times before allowing it to wrap up my wrist and forearm.

The farther I walk through the building, the more I start to think this place isn’t as abandoned as I had originally assumed. A lot of work had been put into keeping the run-down appearance, but the new wiring hidden in the beams of the ceiling and discretely placed cameras tell me otherwise. When I spot a familiar-looking keypad hidden behind a stack of leftover factory supplies, it dawns on me. I’d accidentally wandered into one of Sterling’s buildings.

Whether this is a breeding facility like the one I was raised in or just an outpost he uses while it town isn’t clear, but it’s the first establishment I’ve been in that is still intact. He’s been systematically destroying the other ones. If Kaius is resurrecting bodies nearby, that means this building is the next one that is going to be cleared out or burned down. It also means I got here just in time.

We should have brought in the hacker sooner. At some point I’m going to have to apologize to the whacky little human. I’m ashamed of how I acted with him, but he had information that I needed.

Walking down a long corridor, I swing the chain back and forth, letting it clank against random objects lined up against the walls. “I smell dead people,” I sing loudly, my voice echoing down the vast space. “Come out, come out wherever you are.” The farther into the building I travel, the stronger the scent becomes.

They’re somewhere close, I just hope their maker is with them.

As I round the corner, a secret door that blends seamlessly into the grimy wall swings open and a man built like a brick shithouse charges out of the dark space. His dead eyes are wide and unblinking as he opens his mouth in an angry roar, his teeth are almost black from rot.

I jump into the action, backing up just before his giant fist swings at my head. Twisting the chain in my hand, I swing it at him. The metal collides with the side of his head, splitting the skin above his right eye open.

While one hand covers his bleeding eye, the other swings wildly at me. His knuckles collide with my chin, the force of it making me stagger back a bit. The pain of the blow fuels me and my wolf. He rages inside my body, craving the taste of his enemies’ blood on his tongue.

The large man charges at me once more, but this time I’m prepared. Just as he reaches me, I vanish into smoke and reappear behind him. Before he can figure out I’m now behind him, I loop the chain around his sizable neck. Throwing every ounce of my weight behind it, I pull the metal taut.

His hands tear at the chain as he falls to his knees in front of me. With him now below me, I have better leverage and I pull tighter. He gargles and gasps for air loudly.

I can’t hear the footsteps over his pained noises until it’s too late. Like a freight train, another body collides with mine, sending me sprawling onto the dusty concrete floor. Before I have a chance to recover, a booted foot slams into my ribs, knocking the wind out of me.

With a pissed-off roar, the next time the foot is slammed into my body, my fingers wrap around their ankle. As I infuse the body with hellfire, the new assailant screams in pain and falls to the ground.

While they writhe in pain, I clamber back to my feet, one of my hands holding my now broken ribs. The new attacker, a scrawny woman dressed in an outfit fresh out of the fifties, tries to get to her knees. Before she can stand up, I grip either side of her head.

Her mouth parts in a silent scream as hellfire fills her skull. Her pupils dilate until they look like they explode while blood pours from the corners of them. Blood begins to leak from her mouth and nose as her brain slowly melts in her head.

The faint sound of the metal chain scraping across the stone floor as it’s picked up behind me is my only warning before the cold metal wraps around my neck and I’m roughly pulled away from my new victim. As I’m forced to let go of her, she falls to the ground in a heap. Her dead eyes stare lifelessly at me as I struggled to pull the chain from my neck.

My power is just starting to hum in my veins as I prepare to vanish, but just before I do, the tension on the chain is released. The metal falls completely away from my body as the large dead man makes pained gasping noises, followed by an unpleasant gurgling sound.

When I turn around, I’m so shocked to see the sight in front of me that I have to blink a couple of times to make sure it’s really real and not a trick my mind has conjured up for me because it knows how much I want her here with me. But no matter how many times I blink, nothing changes or disappears. She doesn’t disappear.

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