Finally, wet, frozen, and exhausted, he reached his cabin. Inside, the fire blazed and the scent of rabbit stew permeated the air. In his arms, the female groaned. The sound was reedy, weak, and he had to hurry.
Carefully, he laid her down near the hearth, and then he peeled back the bearskin rug near the south corner of the living room. Knots and natural wood grain concealed the hatch he’d had installed and concealed by a sorceress, but with one well-placed strike with the side of his fist over one particular knot the door popped open. Instantly, a blast of icy air blew his chin-length black hair away from his face and dried out his eyes. He’d have to get a fire going down there or Kar would freeze to death before she had a chance to bleed out.
Gently, he picked her up and carried her down the steep steps. The room beneath was dark, stealing light only from the slats in the floor above. He lay her on the straw pallet, lit a fire in the hearth that had been cleverly vented through the fireplace above, and ran back up the stairs.
After grabbing his jump bag and a couple of blankets, he kneeled beside her and gloved up. Her lightly freckled face was pale, her short cap of strawberry blond hair matted to her skull, and she no longer looked like the tough-bitch Guardian who had gone toe-to-toe with him during battle-lust-induced werewolf sex. She looked vulnerable and fragile, and right now, he was her only hope of survival.
Working rapidly and with precision, he went through the standard ABCs—airway, breathing, circulation—ritual and was not thrilled with the results. Her pulse was rapid and thready, her breathing labored, and, damn, he wished he was a doctor instead of a paramedic.
He grabbed a pair of shears to cut away her parka, the sweater beneath it, and the thermal and silk shirts under that. The girl had definitely been prepared for the cold. Too bad she hadn’t been prepared for the two bullets that had torn apart her shoulder and arm.
The flesh was mangled, and bone thrust through the hamburger-like mess. Black streaks spread like evil vines from the wounds, through her shoulder and chest, lengthening and branching off as he watched.
Silver bullets. So the Aegis definitely knew what she was—a born warg. He’d seen her crescent moon birthmark on the sole of her foot when they’d been na**d. If not for that, Luc would have left her to die in the snow. He wasn’t taking any chances, so lucky for her he’d just gotten a call on his sat-phone from Con, who’d given him the latest SF update. Only turned wargs were affected. Wasn’t that just fortuitous as all hell for the bastard borns.
The wounds were bad. Kar needed to go to UG, but the nearest Harrowgate was two miles away, and in the blizzard it would take him hours to get there—if he could get there. He had a snowmobile, but it wouldn’t do much good in this weather, and the noise would attract any nearby Aegi.
And they were still two weeks from the full moon, which meant there was no hope for Kar to shift and heal her wounds.
If he didn’t get her real medical attention, these wounds would kill her.
He could buy her time, though. The silver bullets had to come out. The poison was spreading through her body, had already reached her abdomen, and at this rate, she’d be dead within the hour. “Kar?” He spoke in a low, soothing tone as he rummaged through the medical kit for his forceps. “This is going to hurt.” She didn’t reply, and he hoped she was too out of it to feel what he was about to do.
Drawing a bracing breath, he dug around in the deepest hole—the bullet had gone through her arm and entered between her fourth and fifth ribs. He eased the slug from her body and tossed it into the trash. Those Aegis bastards.
He’d despised them for more than ninety years, since the day one had nearly killed him as he shifted out of his werewolf form. But his hatred had hit a new level three years ago.
Ula.
Dammit. He didn’t have time to dwell on the female he’d wanted to take as a mate. She was dead, and her death at the hands of the Aegis slayers took up too much time in his nightmares anyway. The second bullet was harder to remove. He was forced to make an incision to widen the wound, and though Kar didn’t wake, she moaned. The silver slug was lodged in her humerus, and all around it, the bone had blackened with poison.
Cursing, he worked the bullet out with the forceps, and as it pulled free, Kar screamed in agony. Her body jackknifed, and he had to use his weight to hold her down.
“Almost done,” he grunted, as he pinned her and waited for her to settle. It took a minute, but she quieted and stilled, mercifully losing consciousness again. Luc worked quickly to finish, but it took forever to get the wounds stitched and dressed. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She’d lost a lot of blood, was probably bleeding internally, and if he didn’t get her to UG fast, she was going to die.
Kynan Morgan couldn’t believe he was doing this. No human in his right mind would knowingly walk into the building that housed the Warg Council. Especially not if you were a member of The Aegis.
But then Kynan wasn’t completely human, probably wasn’t in his right mind, and he definitely wasn’t without defenses. Nope, the amulet around his neck, Heofon, might have put the weight of the world on his shoulders, but it had also come with a cool invincibility charm that meant nothing but a fallen angel could harm him.
Pretty awesome.
Okay, Lore could kill Ky, but they’d worked out their differences a while back. Mostly. The demon still liked to needle him, but that went both ways. Kynan stood at the threshold of the ancient ruin of a building that had likely, at one time, housed Russian nobility. Now it was in shambles, and when a dark-haired woman with wary eyes gestured for him to follow her inside, he noticed that the interior was in worse shape than the exterior.
Crumbling walls and chipped stone floors greeted him, though throw rugs in vibrant shades of crimson and gold had been laid out. Potted plants and trees that grew right out of the floor gave the rooms an earthy, outdoorsy feel, which made sense, given that wargs, especially the born ones, were basically wild animals.
The female stopped outside a room that might once have been a grand library. It still housed books, but most of them were yellowed with age and dust. Two males stood in the center of the room, and as Kynan stepped inside, he sensed movement behind him.
He didn’t have to turn around to know that he’d just been surrounded and trapped. The wargs definitely wouldn’t be taking any chances. The larger of the two, the one with the broad nose and shaggy, reddish hair, narrowed his eyes at Kynan. “You should know that no Guardian has ever set foot in Warg Council headquarters. How did you find us?”
“The Aegis has ways.” Actually, they’d been searching for this place for decades, and they still didn’t know where it was. Kynan and Wraith had tracked it down just yesterday—the demon could find anything, especially now that he was as charmed as Kynan. “Who are you?”
Red sneered. “Valko.” He nodded to the towhead. “This is Raynor. And your name so we can notify next of kin?”
Funny guy. “I’m Kynan.”
“And why are you here, Kynan?” Raynor asked. “Do you have information about the plague that’s killing our people?”
“If he did, do you think he’d tell us?” Valko scoffed. “The Aegis wants nothing more than to see us extinct.” “That’s not true.” Kynan removed his sunglasses and tucked them into his pocket. “The Aegis has been killing fewer werewolves than ever before, and you know it.” Thanks to Tayla and Kynan, The Aegis had gone through several changes, which included a capture-instead-of-kill policy for most werewolves. As long as they didn’t harm humans, werewolves were pretty much left alone. At least, they were supposed to be. Not everyone in The Aegis agreed with the new policies that made attempts to avoid killing nonharmful underworld species, and it was hard to police individual Aegis cells.
“So why are you here?”
“Because I need information about a new breed of werewolf.”
Valko frowned. “New breed?”
“One that shifts during the new moon instead of the full moon.”
Both wargs’ eyes went utterly flat. Valko’s expression turned to stone. “There is no such thing.”
“There is.” Kynan cracked his knuckles, prepared to crack heads, too, if that’s what it took to get some answers. “One of them is on the run with Guardians after her, and I’m trying to save her life.” And then some heads were going to roll for this. The Guardian’s father, an Aegi himself, had contacted the Sigil in a panic, worried that his daughter was in danger. Sure enough, after a little investigating, Kynan had learned that instead of bringing the matter to the Sigil, the Guardian’s cell had decided to ignore the new policies and mete out justice according to the old laws.
“We’ve already lost contact with a Guardian who was hunting her,” Kynan continued. “So I want to know what the hell is up with her and why she’d head to the Northwest Territories.” “Whatever she is, you need to kill her,” Valko said, surprising the shit out of Ky. “Abominations are always dangerous.” Raynor stiffened, and an undercurrent of tension spun up in the room. “You think anyone who was not born a warg is an abomination.”
“That isn’t what I said,” Valko said in a mockingly pleasant voice. “You varcolac are too sensitive. Not everything is about you.” He turned back to Kynan. “We know nothing about wargs who can shift during the Feast moon. I suggest you kill the female and let it go.”
Valko was lying, but clearly, he wasn’t going to give up anything. And since no one he’d spoken to, not even Eidolon or the R-XR, had heard of any kind of warg that turned on the new moon, Kynan was at a dead end.
Four
“Our species faces extinction.” The Warg Council’s Prime Enforcer made his grim pronouncement while leaning over the table around which nine other members sat, his fists planted firmly on the scarred oak top. Like many born wargs, Ludolf had black hair, brown eyes, and a penchant for drama.
“That’s an exaggeration,” Con said calmly, though inside he was anything but. Still in his paramedic uniform, he’d come straight to the Moscow hideaway after leaving Sin, and while he’d anticipated the usual flaring tempers between the born and turned wargs, he hadn’t expected them to pounce on him the way they had. Anxious for information from Underworld General from the only Councilmember with an inside track, they’d practically dragged him into the room, which was a large chamber in the basement of a building the Council had owned since moving from its Romanian stronghold more than a century ago.