Page 2 of A Touch of Flame
His head dropped back to the rocks.
Machine gun fire. Rocks pelted his legs, what he could feel of them.
Footsteps running.
An engine gunned.
The blood loss took its toll and he suddenly felt his wife’s presence. Laura. He loved her so much. He could hear her voice in his head,Braden, what are you doing in the Graveyard? You’re supposed to live another two-hundred-years.
Love swelled over him.I love you so much, but I did something stupid. I trusted a warlock.
I know. He be-spelled you. I’m afraid you’ll have to go back, though. I’ve had word from On High. The witch needs you and you’ll come to need her, too. You’ll see.
He didn’t want a witch. He wanted his alpha-mate, Laura. He wanted her back in his arms.
He felt her fading.Don’t go.
I have to, my love. Heed the witch.
He would have given anything to hold her again. He’d never even seen her body after her murder. A dark coven had tortured her to death then disposed of her remains. At least, those were the rumors.
His grief slammed through him once more.
His thoughts slid around loosely then fell into a black pit.
~ ~ ~
“Do you have any idea who this is?”
“Not a clue.” Maeve glanced up Alfonso. He was her biggest support at Hard Landing. He was a beautiful African-American man and his dark skin glimmered in the moonlight. She’d found him in the Graveyard in a similar condition over a year ago. “But they sure wanted this one dead. The handiwork looks familiar as well.”
“It does. Gammet, no doubt.” Maeve heard the hard edge to his voice. “Looks like a shifter from Savage.” He squatted and carefully turned the wolf over, face up. “Lost a lot of blood. His face is swollen from the blows as well. Jesus.”
Maeve didn’t care who the shifter was. She made few discriminations in her rescues. Unless the victim was a criminal she recognized, she took as many still-alive people to her facility each night as she could manage.
Assassinations weren’t common, so in that sense the brutality of the attack was unusual. Most of the people thrown out here at night were women, both human andalter.Very few looked like this massive shifter.
The rogue squad they’d chased off was made up of a dark warlock of some power, and shifter security types. Looks like they’d ambushed the wolf, though she had no idea why.
She sniffed the air. She scented emerald flame, one of the most powerful of the flame drugs. Ely Gammet, a warlock attached to the dark witch, Veyda, was a heavy user. She sniffed once more and detected the spell the warlock had used.
“Let’s get him on the stretcher. Something tells me Gammet is desperate for the wolf to be good and dead. He and his squad will come back if they can, especially if Veyda gave the order for the kill.”
Alfonso settled the stretcher on the ground next to the man. She picked up his ankles. Alfonso slid his strong arms beneath the shifter’s shoulders. With some difficulty, she helped heft him onto the stretcher. The man had muscle and then some.
An odd tingling worked through her brain and left her dizzy. Then she understood. “He’s an alpha. What was he doing out here? And who is he?” His face was too bloody and bruised to be recognizable.
Alpha wolves had something extra, a powerful signal they gave off through their pheromones. It warned lesser wolves to keep their distance but encouraged the females to flock.
Though she was a witch, and not ordinarily attracted to wolves, even she felt the powerful alpha call this wolf exuded.
She hustled with Alfonso, keeping pace with him. Alfonso was also a big shifter. Dark eyes, black hair he kept cropped short. She’d gained some physical strength over the past year when she first began her rescue work. It was that, or leave the dying behind.
Alfonso had been her first rescue. It had taken her two hours just to figure out how to transport him. She’d lost valuable time, yet despite her lack of muscle or skill she’d strapped him to a cast-off, wood door then slowly dragged the set-up behind her Jeep.
His recovery had been swift, he’d dedicated himself to serving at her place she’d named Hard Landing and he’d been a huge comfort to her. He wasn’t exactly happy about still being alive, but then few were who resided in the hellhole known as Five Bridges.
“They’re coming.” Alfonso picked up the pace as he tracked toward the back of the jeep.
