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Chapter Twenty-Six

M arric fought to stay conscious. He only needed to get outside with Zinnie’s poisonous concoction, release it, and then get out of the area.

But he could feel his body giving up. The heaviness of his muscles weighed him down, making each step feel as though he wore barbells for shoes.

And his vision blurred at the edges, tunneling with each step.

But he saw Riley and Griffin ahead of him.

His hearing was just fine, though. He heard Emery say she would go instead.

Marric shook his head as he walked toward Riley and Griffin. They wanted him, not her.

Her pleas turned to sobbing. “Let me go!” she yelled on repeat. Zinnie, or maybe Maggie, must have been holding her back.

He had the tube and bottle in his arms, clutching it as though it were his baby.

It was a suicide mission because chances were he wouldn’t be able to get out of the way of the poison in time.

Not with how sick he was. He had a lot to lose, but death was no longer in the distance.

It stood in front of him, asking him to take its hand.

Marric refused. He had Emery and Regan to protect.

He and Iven had just gotten started. He wasn’t ready to give up yet.

He worried about his dad the most. His dad had lost a lot. Marric didn’t want to add to the pain.

Griffin caught him as he stumbled forward.

“Shit, man. You look terrible,” Griffin lifted him off his feet, carrying him as though he were a baby.

Marric lay his head against Griffin’s shoulder and closed his eyes, taking the reprieve while he had it. “Thanks. I worked hard on my makeup this morning.”

Griffin chuckled. “Yeah, well, it’s doing nothing for you.”

Marric smiled, but it didn’t last long. “I’m supposed to deliver a spell to the wolves.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Riley asked.

“By giving myself up to them. They’ll isolate me by taking me into the barn.” Marric lifted his shirt, showing them the bottle with the poison inside and the tube he would need to spread it around. “Then you freeze everyone once we’re contained.”

Riley sucked in a breath and then turned to look toward the house. His expression was stoic. When he spoke, it was to someone on the porch. Most likely Zinnie. “This isn’t the way.”

If Zinnie responded, Marric didn’t hear her.

But it wasn’t any more than a few seconds before he heard shoes on gravel and then her voice.

“This wasn’t my plan, Riley. I simply wanted to poison them.

The poison is nonlethal. Painful but not deadly.

It will incapacitate them for a long while.

We might be able to fight off the rest.”

Riley rolled his eyes. “I can just freeze them and deliver the pois—" Riley screamed as he held his head.

One minute Griffin was holding him and then the next Marric found himself unable to take in air as he hit the ground. It took his lungs longer than his brain to work again. The panic dissipated when he started breathing.

Griffin grunted in pain. He lay on the ground next to Marric. Riley wasn’t very far away.

Before Marric could see what was happening, a gunshot blasted his eardrums. He covered Griffin with his body and then tried to pull Riley closer, so he was out of the line of fire, covering Riley’s head with his arms.

A body fell feet away. Marric saw fur out of his peripheral vision.

Emery appeared next to him. She tried to pull him by the arm, but Marric shook his head.

“Maggie’s the shooter. She’s killing the wolves. We need to get you to the house.”

“Take Riley or Griffin first. They’re injured.” Marric wasn’t sure what was happening to Riley and Griffin. Whatever it was, it came on suddenly.

“A witch is doing it.” That was the last thing Emery said before she grabbed Riley by the arm and began dragging him across the yard.

Zinnie ran to help her.

Marric told himself to get up. It took him three pep talks before he came to his feet. He swayed.

It took him a moment to realize what had happened. Even with Emery trying to explain, he still hadn’t fully comprehended.

But he recognized the witch. The witches name was Marcus, but everyone in the pack called him Merlin. He was the only witch pack member. He’d come to the house in the middle of the night a few nights ago claiming he needed help for his neighbor but obviously, that had been a lie.

Marric remembered them talking about the wards when they hadn’t thought him and Dad were listening.

It made sense why they’d been concerned about them.

They wanted to make sure they could get onto the property easily when the time came.

But they had come before Iven reenforced them.

It had taken them a while to get past them.

He could have conjured the curse alongside Esmelyn. His discontent within the pack was enough of a motive. But why kill Marric and Emery just so Kinnison wouldn’t get his way? It seemed extreme.

Marric didn’t know what to do about Merlin. The witch was much stronger than him.

Fortunately, Maggie knew what to do. The gun cocked, and then the shot exploded in Marric’s ears again. He covered them, but not fast enough.

Marric watched as Merlin fell. He clutched his shoulder. Two pack members pulled him away and into the barn.

The gun going off was the thing Emery and Zinnie needed to get Griffin and Marric to safety. But they tried to take Marric first.

“Griffin next.”

Griffin had stopped moaning in pain and started to come around. He still couldn’t walk on his own. Zinnie and Emery supported him as he made his way back to the house.

Marric focused on Riley, who had recovered quicker than Griffin. Riley had hellfire burning in his gaze.

Marric turned back to the wolves, who were waiting for him to do something. What they expected from him was anyone’s guess. But they clearly thought he had an ace up his sleeve.

Marric hoped they were right.

By the time he got to where the wolves stood, he was huffing from the exertion. A wave of fatigue took over. All he wanted to do was lie somewhere and shut his eyes. The ground was sufficient.

It was the witch’s mate who gave direction. Hubert was his last name, but everyone called him Hubie because he’d been a star football player in high school. Everyone on the team had gone by their last name. The shorter version of his name had stuck.

Maggie got another shot off. A wolf not even two feet from Marric fell to the ground.

“Grab him.” Hubie was already running for the barn. They must have made it their impromptu command center.

A wolf on each side of him took him by his arm and dragged him into the barn. Once they were inside, they threw him onto the ground.

He had to roll onto his back to keep the bottle from breaking open.

Hubie squatted next to him. “I see Merlin and Esmelyn’s curse is working. Marie did a good job of administering it. And that dark witch maintained it. For a while, anyway.”

Marric tried to work the plug out of the tube without being obvious about doing it. It was a slow process. “They put a failsafe in the curse.”

Hubie smirked. “Bonding with your mate will end your life.”

Marie came up beside Hubie, putting a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes were colder than Marric had ever seen them. Of all of them, her betrayal hurt the most.

She shook her head. “Don’t look at me like that, Marric. I didn’t want to do it. If your father would have agreed to the voting system, I would have let the curse die on its own.”

“You made Regan hurt us.”

Marie shrugged. “He has evil magic.”

Marric had the plug halfway out. “He isn’t the one who’s evil.”

She growled. Her fingers turned into claws. “You’re just like your father. Far to accepting of others.”

No one had ever compared him to his dad before, but if the comparison was the last thing he heard, he would be okay with that. But he only had a few more pulls of the plug. “Who killed Hattie?”

Hubie smirked. “That would be me.”

“Why?”

“She was a loose end.”

When the plug came off, Marric wasn’t sure the poison came out of the bottle.

Hubie kept talking as if nothing was amiss. The arrogant shit didn’t stop telling Marric how Hattie had tumbled down the stairs after he shot her.

The air in the barn worked in Marric’s favor. Between that and the way he aimed the tube, the poison drifted away from him.

The poison was a silent killer. It was as though it was an airborne invisible snake striking at everyone as it slithered through the air.

Hubie lasted until the beta, who stood in the poison’s path, fell to the barn floor, writhing in pain. Hubie landed next to him seconds later.

Marie lifted her skirt and ran for the barn exit. She didn’t get far before Riley came in.

Marric got to his feet.

Everyone stopped moving, even the poisoned wolves. Time stopped, or so it seemed, for everyone else except for him and Riley.

Riley met his gaze. When he spoke, it was as if each word turned to glass. Each shard was sharp, ready to pierce the nearest heart. “Give the bottle to me.”

The glass didn’t cut Riley as he came closer. He took the bottle from Marric and then created some sort of poison-repelling dome around himself and Marric as he helped Marric out of the barn.

Griffin stood outside the door, waiting for them. He lifted Marric in his arms.

Riley went back inside with the bottle, shutting the door behind him. They were halfway across the yard when the screams started.

Marric tried not to picture the carnage that was happening to his pack. He tried to think of them as the enemy. They had tried to kill him and might still because they didn’t have a cure for the curse yet.

Tears lodged in his throat, gathering on his lashes. He shut his eyes.

It was then that all hell broke loose outside, too.