Dark Lies (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 3)

Savannah

Since Jaxson’s truck was out of commission and all the Order’s transport charms had been used to move captives and prisoners, we rode back to Magic Side with Harlow.

Exhaustion and defeat weighed on us all, which made it an awkward ride. When we pulled over for gas at a Mobil station after only an hour, I practically barreled out of the vehicle.

Only three and a half miserable hours to go.

“You okay?” Jaxson asked as we exited the vehicle. “You’ve been quiet.”

Because I didn’t want to talk about the next step. I knew what I needed to do: call Laurel. She’d killed Dragan and was the only one who might know where we could find his bones.

But it was a call I was loath to make.

I’d spent the drive reflecting on each interaction that I’d had with my aunt and uncle over the past month.

All that time, they’d said nothing. Swept the truth under the rug.

I couldn’t shake the sense of having been violated, like a piece of me had been taken against my will. The fact that it had been my parents and aunt who’d done it…that cut the deepest, like rubbing salt in a festering wound.

But there was no way around making the call.

I coughed to loosen my parched throat. “I’m all right, but I need to call Laurel, and I don’t want to do it in the car. Can you have the cops wait?”

Jaxson looked at his watch. “It’s nearly two in the morning.”

“I have a feeling she’ll answer, and we don’t have time to wait.”

He nodded, and I headed around the side of the J&H convenience store and leaned back against the red brick wall.

I pulled up Laurel’s number on my cell phone, my finger hovering over the call icon on the screen. Suck it up, Savy. Stopping Dragan is more important than your personal beefs.

The phone rang four times, and just as I was about to hang up, Laurel answered drowsily, her voice a mix of relief and concern. “Savannah? I’m so glad you called.”

Uncle Pete’s voice came over the line. “Who the hell is that?”

I could envision him lying in bed in his silly nightgown and eye mask, trying to figure out who would call at this time of night. I’d gotten to know them so well in just a few weeks.

A staticky sound came across the line as she muffled the phone, and I heard her whisper, “Shh. It’s Savy. I’m going in the other room.”

Her voice returned a second later, and I could hear her walking on the creaky floorboards. “It’s two a.m. Are you okay?”

My gut twisted, and tears burned the back of my eyes, but I kept my voice steady. “Let me be clear: I haven’t forgiven you for what you did to me, and I don’t want to talk about it. I’m in a bind, and I’m afraid that you’re the only one who may be able to help. That’s why I’m calling.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“I understand. I’ll help any way I can.” Her voice was hard and measured, and I could practically feel the push of emotions she was holding back.

I swallowed the budding ache in my throat. “Dragan is back. His ghost took over the leader of a werewolf biker gang. We stopped a blood ritual tonight, but he escaped by jumping into a new host. A friend.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s worse than I feared. How can I help?”

“To stop him, we need his bones. Do you know where they are?” My heart pounded in my chest, and I dug my nails into my palm while I waited for her answer.

“My.” Laurel’s voice was distraught, and I could easily picture the familiar furrow that cut her forehead. “That might be tricky.”

“Tricky or impossible?”

The long silence on the other end didn’t give me hope.

Finally, she spoke. “When I killed him, I disintegrated him. His body was nothing more than ashes that are surely long gone by now.”

The last thread of hope I’d had unraveled, and I rubbed my tired eyes. “We’ll have to think of something else, then. Thanks.”

“Wait!” she said as I was about to hang up. “Don’t go. Let me think for just a second.”

I held my breath.

After a moment, she spoke again. “Victor Dragan had a nickname: Ninefingers. Years ago, a vampire cut off one of his fingers as punishment for stealing from him. If you could find it…”

My mind raced. A finger? That was all that was left?

The vampire could have fed it to his dog or thrown it in the trash, or anything. It would be impossible to track down.

The hope that had welled up in my chest collapsed into a black hole. “Shit. What’s the chance that the vampire kept the finger?”

My aunt sucked her teeth. “Well, better than zero, so that’s something. He was known as a collector of odd things and art, so maybe he kept it. Hell, a sorcerer’s finger probably could be used to make a powerful potion, for all I know. I could ask Uncle—”

“Do you know his name?” I interrupted, not wanting to even know that Uncle Pete could potentially answer that question.

There was a long pause. “No.”

Shit.

“He was a dealer of magical artwork and artifacts. I think he resided in Mexico. I’m trying to remember what Dragan tried to steal…”

A car door slammed, and I looked up. Harlow and the others were waiting. “Thanks. I really appreciate it. Text me if you can remember his name.”

I pulled my phone down to hang up, but her voice stopped me. “I know about you and Jaxson. He told me about the mate bond.”

My breath hitched as a cold sweat dampened the back of my neck. Her words hit me in the chest harder than a bullet.

Damn you, Jaxson.

“It’s not that simple,” I whispered as I shut my eyes tight with frustration.

As if I needed one more complication in my life. If either of us did. Hell, the moment he told me about the mate bond, I’d gone into a rage, and he’d said, “Do you think I’m any happier about this than you are? Do you think I want this? Because I don’t.”

Complicated would be an understatement.

“I’ve seen how he looks at you. I won’t tell you what to do, but you have to realize that it’s extremely dangerous to be with him. His father—”

“His father has nothing to do with anything. Nor do you. Or the fates. You and my parents took the choice of being a wolf from me.” I clenched my phone, almost to the point of breaking the screen. “If Jaxson and I end up together, it won’t be because three crazy old crones decided it was so. It will be my choice. Just like being a wolf is my choice now, despite what the three of you did.”

My throat seized up, and I disconnected the call.

The phone rang, but I muted it. I was certain an apology was hanging on the other line, but I didn’t want to hear it.

I’d had to funnel my anger just to hang up, because although we’d only known each other a short time, I missed her voice. Like my car, she was all that I had left of my parents, and I didn’t know how to face their betrayal, or hers.

I didn’t know how to face Casey. He was the closest thing I had to a brother or a best friend, but I knew he’d never get over what I was or that I’d kept the secret from him. We might make peace, but would he ever look at me the same now that I was a wolf? Now that I was the goddamned Dockside alpha’s mate?

I swiped away the tear that slipped down my cheek.

“Everything all right?”

I jumped. Jaxson.

His broad frame was silhouetted against the lights of the station. Powerful. Composed. Whole.

Everything I wasn’t.

Just being close to him made my body buzz with anticipation, and all I wanted to do was fall into his strong arms and sob.

Instead, I growled and narrowed my eyes. “You told Laurel about our mate bond.”

“I did,” he said calmly, but his jaw tightened. “She needed to know.”

A lie. Telling Laurel had just been a way for Jaxson to hurt her. A way to stake his claim on me. Fuck that.

I jabbed my finger into his chest. “Let me set one thing straight, Jaxson. You don’t own me. Got it?”

An infuriatingly confident smile ticked up at the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t dare. The insurance premiums would be too high, even for me.”

My jaw dropped as shock washed over me. “You ass. You think you can make a bad joke, and this all goes away?”

“It’s my second of the night. That has to count for something.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t.”

He held out his hand. “Gas station burrito? You have to be starving.”

The aroma of it was…all right. But it was food, and my treacherous stomach grumbled, just as it had on the bridge to Magic Side when we first met.

I took it defiantly. “Yes, I’m starving. But what is it with you and burritos? You own a world-class restaurant, and it’s the only thing you have in your freezer that even resembles breakfast.”

“I thought you liked them, so I stocked up.”

I bit into the warm burrito but managed to snarl at him between bites. “I ate them because it was the only thing you had.”

He shrugged. “They remind me of working the docks as a kid. It’s what I took for lunch. Things were simpler then. Grab a burrito, go to work.”

I chewed less aggressively at him. After all we’d been through, were we really arguing about burritos? Was he just trying to distract me from the shitstorm headed our way, like he had by making me work the lunch rush at Eclipse?

No way I was going to let him manipulate me that way, either.

A horn honked, and he looked over his shoulder. “Harlow wants to roll. Are you ready?”

I swallowed the last bite of warm, bean-and-cheese-filled goodness. “My aunt disintegrated Dragan, so there aren’t any bones, except—and this is gross—his finger, which a vampire art collector cut off ages ago. So we’re probably fucked.”

Jaxson’s eyebrows went up. “An art collector?”

“That, and magic artifacts, according to my aunt. He lives in Mexico. He also would’ve had to have kept the finger, which seems like a long shot. We probably need to find another solution.” I grunted as I wadded up the used wrapper, almost wishing I had another.

Jaxson rubbed his beard. “Maybe, but it’s something. Sounds like we need someone who knows the artifact trade to figure out who he is, as well as a Seeker to find the finger. Good thing I know the perfect pair—and they owe me a pretty big favor.”

With that, he turned and headed back to Harlow’s SUV, leaving me bewildered, with my emotions a mix of fear and anger and heartbreak.

And for a moment, the slightest sliver of hope.