Bitten by Treachery (Hadley Werewolves) (11 page)
Read Bitten by Treachery (Hadley Werewolves) Online
Authors: Shawntelle Madison
Tags: #Paranormal Romance
“At a cost that includes innocent men, women, and children, right?”
“The casualties of war, Charlene. What the blood demon can do is far worse.” Her mother huffed. “You really believe this piece of shit town is more important than protecting the world?”
“There’s always another way. I won’t let you do this.”
“Then the blood demons win. Or maybe you don’t care or you’re just as blind as Amelia. Do you love your wolf, too?”
Charly didn’t hesitate and a warm sensation filled her chest and gave her strength. “I do. I wouldn’t stand here if I didn’t care for him
and
the people in Hadley.” She growled again, sensing elongated incisors in her mouth.
The time for talking was over. The wolf within her took a confident step forward as she tested her grip on her blade, making sure her thumb was tucked in for a solid hold. It was time to hunt. And she had the advantage: she knew the most vulnerable places to cut.
Instead of rushing her mother, Charly used the weapon to cut her wrists. No more negotiations or chit-chat. She needed to end this. She ran to the cluster of werewolves off to the side. She waited for the pain—even welcomed it. If she was going down, she’d damn well do it standing on her feet fighting.
There’d be no blowtorches like in the police station. Five came straight on, while two approached from each side to make sure she didn’t slip past them. They were all shapes, colors, and sizes, but each of them had wild eyes and gaping mouths with bloodied teeth. All she could do this time was use the knife and her sheer will to survive. She was stronger this time. Faster.
The first wolf came at her with claws raised. She managed to dodge him and slit the side of his throat. Right at the jugular. A second attacker was far more nimble than the first. A woman, one who had to be no older than Charly, tackled her from the right. They rolled across the lawn with two more werewolves coming for her. Death’s perfume filled Charly nose, a harsh odor of putrid flesh and coppery blood. The woman grasped Charly by the shoulder and extended her teeth to bite her throat.
“Damn it!” Charly ignored the spark of shearing pain and plunged the blade into her attacker’s gut. The weapon slid into the flesh between the ribs without yielding. She stabbed again and again. The bleeding woman on top of her shrank back and then collapsed a few feet away.
Another crazed wolf, this time a thin man, took the abandoned woman’s place on top of her. His claws rained scratches along her sides. They came quick, faster than the pricks from bloodletting needles. Damn, those bastards were fast! With her right arm tucked under his chin, she managed to keep his hissing mouth from her head. His eyes darted back and forth, looking at her and then collapsing into madness.
“C’mon, bitch!” he taunted.
“C’mon then!” she screeched back. She jerked to the right, bringing her blade down hard into his chest. She came up quickly, but she was only one woman against many. Another werewolf with fur lining his face and hands bit into her leg while another found her thigh. What little strength Charlene had faded with the blood that flowed from her neck. The temptation to use a defensive spell was strong, but she held tight to what she must do. What she had to do: shed enough blood for the final spell.
“Get off her.” The sharp command from her mother ended the melee. The infected werewolves slinked back, their eyes still hungry and mouths opened wide.
Charly’s mother leaned in to peer at her face. The woman who had touched her gently as a child wiped away a trail of blood from her cheek. The gesture broke Charly’s heart even more. “I’m giving you a chance to make a choice right now, Charlene,” she murmured. “You can stand with me when I return to the coven. You won’t be a witch anymore, but you can serve them without question, like I do. If you’re my daughter, you will stand with the coven.”
Charly opened her mouth. A bit of blood at the back of her throat made it difficult to speak. Her feet went numb. Then her legs. Her body fought to heal itself, but she’d spilled too much blood. She could go back—as a servant to the crow coven and live her life protecting everyone from the blood demons, but that wouldn’t fix the wrongs committed here in Hadley.
Somebody had to end the madness—and now she felt she had enough of her essence to do it. While her mother glowered down at her, Charly used her ring finger to draw three glyphs into her palm. She’d never used them in this combination before.
“That’s where you and I…differ.” Charly slapped her blood-splattered palm on her mother’s chest.
One final spell.
Charly had bled more than enough. There shouldn’t have been hardly any magic left, but with a final drop of blood, what had been bound was now unbound.
“No more,” Charly whispered. Black spots danced in front of her eyes. She had to hold on just a little longer to finish what she started—one more small detail for her mother.
The crazed wolves around the house collapsed where they stood. Those who weren’t too far gone might survive. Her mother staggered backwards as if hit and then fell to her knees.
Charly sucked in a breath, but her lungs wouldn’t fill all the way for some reason. Each inhale was wetter than the next and then she couldn’t feel her fingertips anymore. Cold settled over her, yet she didn’t shiver.
Wistfully, she managed to murmured. “If you weren’t my mother, I would’ve given you to the Hadley werewolves. Since you are, I’ve taken away what you value the most: Your memory of blood magic.”
I’m still alive.
Instead of expecting the end, Charly drew another shallow breath. Then another. She sensed her slowing heartbeat was now picking up again. The power of the werewolves astounded her.
Somehow she had done it and survived. She’d unbound the enchantment, yet one task remained, one that she had to do immediately even if she was weak. She had to tell the witches her mother had failed. That they couldn’t send anyone here again and put an end to the killing. From her front pocket, she slowly managed to yank out her cell phone. After she dialed the number for Ophelia’s home, the phone rang again and again. Too many times. When it finally clicked over, there wasn’t a sound on the other end.
Then the faint sounds of hoarse breathing filled her ears. Her grip on the phone faltered.
“Ophelia?” She tried to sound brave, but came off child-like.
A choked laugh was the response.
“Ophelia, it’s over now. I know what you did, but you failed to take over the werewolves.”
“Oh, did we now?” The voice wasn’t familiar and high-pitched anymore, but lower and guttural. “Don’t worry about them, Charlene. You should come home. We’ve been waiting for you, watching you, and we can’t wait for you to
return
.”
Charly hit the “end call” button as fast as her fingers could move. A cold sweat swept over her. “Not Ophelia. Not Ophelia. Not Ophelia.”
Things had just gone from bad to we-are-fucked proportions.
A blood demon had escaped the box.
The moment Trenton left the house, he surveyed the outside with growing dread. The garden right outside of Ben’s home was in shambles. He rushed down the steps, ignoring the pain in his side. Bodies littered the soft dirt—thank goodness, their chests moved—and he checked each, noting their names so he could report to any family they had in town. The sweet sounds of their faint breaths and heartbeats filled him with relief. When Liam had died, many rabid werewolves had passed away with him. A double tragedy.
With each person he checked, he expected to find her. Hoping she was among those alive. She had to be. Not far from a thorny thicket, he spied a familiar form and ran to her side.
“What have you done out here?” He cradled Charly’s head with his right hand and checked her for injuries with his left. Her jeans and shirt had been ripped to shreds. “To yourself?”
“I saved the day, buddy. I took out the witch.” Her voice was weak, but she’d live. A wound on her arm stitched itself closed right in front of his eyes.
“Leaving the house was foolish,” Trenton told her.
“And you had the strength to face down a highly trained blood witch?” Through her exhaustion, she kept up the smartass act with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. “Didn’t think so.”
He had trouble hiding his amusement. “I’d try. That’s all that matters.” He looked around. “There’s so much damage. So much death. I can’t fathom what we’ll have to do to rebuild.”
She twisted her face away from the palm of his hand. “I’ll understand if you need to take me into custody. You don’t have to take care of me.”
“What if I want to?”
“I can end the enchantment between us. None of it’s real anyway.” Gingerly, she got to her feet, pushing away his offer to help.
“How do you know?” Now she was starting to piss him off. Who was she to tell him what to feel? “If there was some kind of spell, I’ve yet to feel its effects since that night we made love.” Not once since the night she’d come to him had he felt coerced in any way. Everything he felt for her, it was real, spell or no spell.
He blocked a gust of wind from the west, but a tendril of her blonde hair had been tugged loose from her ponytail by the breeze. A single tear fell down her face. His fingers twitched. Damn it all to hell, he wanted to wipe it away.
“My powers are gone, but I could still try.” She reached for his chest, but he snatched her wrist in mid-air.
“What if I don’t want to let you go?” The words left his mouth before he thought about it. Did that mean the feelings under the surface were meant to come out?
“You might not have a choice,” she whispered. “We might be bound for life.”
“We always have a choice. Whether we make the wrong decision, or in this case, the right one, we always have a choice. And I choose you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Charly, I wanted you before you enchanted me. The minute you sat next to me in the car I was drawn to you. Magic doesn’t change that fact.”
He closed the space between them, using his grip on her wrist to draw her near. With tenderness, he pressed his lips against her brow, hoping to warm her chilled skin. “So what happens now?” she asked out of the blue.
“Emma and Ben will be coming out soon to help these people. In a few hours, Kyle will be here with more help.”
“And after that? What will happen to me and my mother?”
“I don’t think you two can stay here safely, and I refuse to let you go out there alone.” He chuckled. “Either way, I’m used to the road. What do you think about Canada?”
She offered a short smile that reflected a bit of sadness. “I’ve always wanted to see snow up close, but I have unfinished business to handle with the blood witches.”
He sighed and then grew quiet when he noticed her seriousness. “Are you sure about this?”
She nodded without hesitation. “I don’t think the other covens know the crow coven is in trouble. Since I’m on a karma kick, I might as well finish what I’ve started.”
“Fair enough.” He gently ran his fingers along her bruised cheek. “After we finish your business, we can make our own pack where ever we go. Just me and you.”
“Me and you,” she whispered back. Even with the challenges ahead, he’d never be alone again. Not only was she in his head, but his heart, too. Tucked away where no one could sever it, even with the most powerful magic.
The Hadley Werewolves trilogy ends with the greatest threat they have ever faced—an evil far more deadly than the witches…
COMING IN 2014
BITTEN BY VENGEANCE
Hadley Werewolves #3
AVAILABLE NOW
BITTEN BY DECEIT
Hadley Werewolves #1
BITTEN BY TREACHERY
Hadley Werewolves #2
Shawntelle Madison
is a Web developer who loves to weave words as well as code. She’d be reluctant to admit it, but if pressed, she’d say that she covets and collects source code. After losing her first summer job detasseling corn, Madison performed various jobs, from fast-food clerk to grunt programmer to university webmaster. Writing eccentric characters is her favorite job of all. On any given day when she’s not surgically attached to her computer, she can be found watching cheesy horror movies or the latest action-packed anime. Shawntelle Madison lives in Missouri with her husband and children.
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