Keeping Kaitlyn (14 page)

Sorrow choking the words from her throat, Kaitlyn reached out and took one into her hand. The pendant was made to look like three figures, forever entwined. A ruby winked in the center of each.
 

Lucas took one of the necklaces from Rafian’s hand, unclasped it, and placed it around her throat. Brushing her hair away from her shoulder, he dropped a kiss to the side of her neck. “To remember us.”

Closing her eyes, she drew a deep breath. It didn’t help. She didn’t have enough strength for this. Reaching up, she fingered it. “I’ll never take it off.”

Something tingled through her body. A pulling sensation tugged at her and a sudden wind came up. Her body tensed. “No! I’m not ready!”

The wind increased, blowing her hair around her head and yanking on her clothes. She reached out toward Lucas, but her hand just went right through him. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was shifting out of their reality, back to the train station platform, out of their lives forever.

Lucas yelled something, but she couldn’t hear it. Her gaze locked with his, and then with Rafian’s. “Goodbye,” she said, even though she knew they couldn’t hear her. “I love you.”

Her hand dropped to her side and the wind picked up again. The scene before her—Rafian and Lucas—began to go hazy. The L stop in Chicago flashed into view. Soon she’d be home.

Except, it wasn’t home to her anymore.

The scene flipped back and forth, the clearing, then the station. When the clearing was visible, she glimpsed something black behind Rafian and Lucas. Her attention seized on the form. It was a horse.

It was a Magica hunter.

Just as the wind increased, growing more and more powerful, Rafian and Lucas whirled to face the oncoming Magi. In the background, she glimpsed more of them. A whole hunting party… and they’d taken her men by surprise.

The blood in her veins turned to slush. They’d be slaughtered.

Involuntarily, thinking only of stopping the hunters from killing her men, she stepped forward when the clearing scene was up. It didn’t matter that she was even more defenseless against the hunters than Rafian and Lucas; it was a gut level reaction to
protect
.
 

The swirling vortex that was trying to push her through the veil violently spat her out. She stumbled forward into the clearing, landing on her hands and feet. She shook her head to clear it of the ringing. After a moment sounds began to softly register again, growing louder. Snarling and growling mixed with shouts filled the air. One of the silver pendants winked in the grass in front of her.

She pushed to her feet. Rafian and Lucas stood in the middle of the clearing in full dire wolf glory, hackles raised and baring teeth at their attackers. Four hunters on horseback surrounded them. Two of them brandished sticks that had some kind of lasso attached to the end. The other two hunters had objects that seemed to be act like cattle prods. They were trying to capture them.

Bastards.
Rage rose from her gut. How dare they hurt Lucas and Rafian!

But what could she do to stop them? She had nothing. No weapons. No magick. She couldn’t turn into an animal and fight. She had nothing. Then she remembered the pepper spray. Slipping her hand into her pocket, she turned the small trigger to the on position so it would be ready.

Still, she had no illusions. The leader of this group had magick. Her little container of pepper spray was nothing against that.

Crouched in the grass, she watched the hunters circle the wolves warily, while Rafian and Lucas lunged and snapped at the horses. If only she could distract the hunters, maybe Lucas and Rafian could find a way to break through their line, head for the forest.

She stood, waving her arms. “Hey, guys, over here. Look at me!”

Every single Magi head snapped in her direction, looks of total disbelief on their faces. Apparently they assumed she’d traveled back over the rainbow.

“Come on, assholes!” she yelled. “See if you can catch me!” She darted to the right, headed for the trees. If she could tempt them into breaking rank, the men had a chance of escape.

She slammed straight into the chest of an enormous man. Taking a step back, she looked up into the face of the hunter she’d glimpsed the day she’d arrived, the one who’d clearly wanted to kill her.

His facial expression hadn’t improved.

Rafian and Lucas’s snarling and snapping grew louder. One of the hunters screamed in agony. There was the sound of a body thumping to the ground, accompanied by pounding hoof beats. One hunter down.
Good.

The hunter in front of her had narrowed his eyes. “Human woman,” he snarled.

She took a step backward, trying to distance herself. “Oh, good, you speak English. I was so worried we wouldn’t be able to chat.”

His eyes grew a bit colder, if that was possible. “Why didn’t you leave?”

“I love them. Why do you want to kill me?”

“Because you love them.”

She supposed that made a horrible kind of sense. Of course the Magica didn’t want the Lycaon to procreate. She was not only part Lycaon, but a vessel for Lycaon babies.

The hunter’s lips curled back and a low murmur peeled from them. Her body tingled, alien fingers raking her skin as the words poured forth from his mouth. She didn’t have to guess that the man was using magick; she could feel it.

Ripping the pepper spray from her pocket, she used the only weapon at her disposal. The stream hit him right in his narrowed, cold eyes. The hunter screeched and clawed at his face. She hoped like hell the Magica weren’t uber strong like the Lycaon, and that he wouldn’t just brush off the chemical the way Lucas had, and just go back to attacking her.

To ensure he did no such thing, she kicked him the balls.

The hunter dropped to his knees, his eyes shut tight, his hands to his groin, and a loud wail of pain coming from his throat. Never one to shy from kicking an asshole when he was down, she pivoted on the ball of her foot, swung around, and kicked him in the side of the head. He collapsed onto his side.

Finally, all those self defense classes had paid off.

Lucas strode toward her. “Bind his mouth,” he commanded, his bare legs eating up the distance separating them. “Hurry, Kaitlyn!”

She lunged for the man writhing on the ground and searched frantically for something on him she could use to cover his mouth. In his back pocket, she found a long, narrow piece of leather. It was probably made especially for gagging people. How convenient.

When she tore it from his pocket, the hunter got the memo. Squinting up through bleary, running eyes, he growled something unintelligible and grabbed for her.

She struggled with him, landing a solid punch to his jaw. Then Lucas was there, slamming the hunter to the ground. While Lucas held him down, she yanked the leather strip around his mouth and tied it.
Hard.

“Handcuffs,” Lucas shouted.

Kaitlyn glimpsed them glinting at the hunter’s belt. She grabbed them and Lucas held the man’s hands together so she could secure them around his wrists.

After Lucas secured the man’s ankles, he backed away. The hunter collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily and doing his best to shoot laser beams of death from his eyes.

Lucas yanked her into his arms, crushing her against his chest and twining a hand through her head to hold her firmly to his body. “You scared me, Kaitlyn. He’s the leader of this hunting party. His magick is fierce. He could have killed you with a sentence.”

She smiled. “I never gave him a chance.” Her smile faded and she jerked away from him. “Where’s Rafian?”

Together they scanned the clearing. One of the riderless horses roamed the area where Rafian and Lucas had fought the hunters. Forms lay prone on the ground; one of them was large, white and furry.

“Rafian!” She broke from Lucas’s grip and ran for him, coming to stop and falling to her knees beside the huge wolf. “Rafian,” she whispered, lifting his head into her lap and stroking her fingers through his fur. His eyes were closed, but she saw no blood anywhere.

Lucas knelt beside her, placing a hand on Rafian’s side. “He’s still breathing. I think he’s just been knocked out.

She buried her face Rafian’s neck, nuzzling his soft fur. “Be okay, Rafian, please.”

After a moment, Rafian stirred, his eyes coming open. A minute later and he’d shifted back to human form. He pulled Kaitlyn down and kissed her. “You’re still here.” His voice sounded thready and hoarse.

She swallowed hard, thinking of her sisters. They’d probably always assume she’d met with foul play, that her last minutes on Earth had been horrific and filled with pain. “I’m still here. Are you all right?”

He moved slowly, sitting up and putting a hand to his head, then winced. “Mostly.”

Lucas laid a hand on his shoulder. “We got the head mage. He’s trussed up over there.” He pointed.

“Alive?”

Lucas nodded.

Rafian looked at Kaitlyn. “Then you can go home.”

A surge of hope flashed through her, followed swiftly by despair. “What do you mean?”

Rafian grabbed her by the shoulders. “Kaitlyn, that mage over there has the power to push you through the veil.”

“But—”

“And bring you back again.” Lucas smiled.

A few moments later, the three of them were striding toward the mage. Rafian stood over him, while Lucas found the two pendants they’d dropped in the grass when the hunters had attacked.

Rafian spit on his face before speaking. “You’re sending her through the veil and making a doorway to bring her back. Once she’s home again, we’ll let your sorry hide go free.”

The mage gurgled incoherently, but it sounded like a
no
.

Lucas stepped on his throat. The man instantly stilled. “Of course, you have a choice. Don’t do it and we’ll take you back to our forge, where we have plenty of hot metal and ill will.” He flashed his teeth. “You won’t make it through the experience, believe me, but it will take you a long time to die.”

Chapter Eleven

It was the middle of the night. Kaitlyn had planned it that way. She let herself into Caroline’s house with her key and stumbled through the dark kitchen on the way to the stairs. She had two envelopes in her back pocket, one for Caroline and one for Paige. She planned to put each by their bedside as they slept.

She stopped short in the archway, blinking as she took in the unexpected scene. Paige and Caroline were both in the living room. Caroline was sprawled on the couch, asleep, and Paige was slumped over in an easy chair. The phone was on the coffee table between them, along with a box of mostly used tissues. Clearly they were waiting for a phone call that would never come.

Tears pricked Kaitlyn’s eyes, then began to roll freely down her cheeks. She wiped them away. She hated the hell she’d put them through.

She wanted more than anything to wake them up, hug them, tell them she was all right, but she couldn’t. What would she tell them? That she’d met her soul mates,
both
of them, and they resided in an alternate reality? Oh, and that they shifted into dire wolves upon occasion, couldn’t leave that tidbit out.

For their own sake, she couldn’t wake them.

Instead she tiptoed across the room, gathering two afghans from the back of the couch and gently draped one over each of them. Then she pulled both envelopes from her back pocket and propped them against the phone.