I hadn't set foot in Reese pack territory in years, and I'd planned to keep it that way.
But being kidnapped and cursed had a way of ruining plans.
Not that I was standing in their territory now. More like crawling. Hands and knees, dragging myself through thick, freezing mud under a storm-soaked forest canopy. Rain pounded my back, each drop sending fresh shivers down my spine. My soaked jeans clung to me, chafing every sensitive part of my body. Why the hell had I worn skinny jeans tonight?
Oh, right. Because I'd been clubbing—not expecting a kidnapping. Or magic.
Mud squelched between my fingers, seeping into my ruined ankle boots. I'd been careless. Arrogant.
My father—may he rot in hell—had been dead for two glorious years, and the magic he'd stolen from me was finally mine again. I'd thought I was untouchable. A powerful warlock, paranoid from years of surviving in his shadow.
And then? A few drops of witchbane in my drink.
Pathetic. My father would've laughed his ass off.
With a groan, I collapsed face-first into the mud. A rotting leaf stuck to my lips. I spat it out, gagging at the taste of mold.
I wasn't going to make it.
Where the hell were the pack's border guards? This territory was huge, with rival wolves nearby and a master vampire in the next town over. They had to patrol. Especially since one of those rival packs had snatched me from the club. Especially since they'd done it as part of some scheme against the Reeses.
At least, that's what I'd gathered while chained in that warehouse, listening to their shaman chant over a circle of burnt celandine. The ritual had been disgustingly familiar—just like the ones my father used to perform.
"The Reeses won't see this coming," one werewolf had muttered to another. "Once his magic's bound to ours, he'll be the perfect weapon."
The other wolf had hesitated. Smart. Because I had no doubts, this curse was going to kill me. My magic was draining away, my body withering into the mud until all that remained was a pile of bones in skinny jeans.
Then I heard it.
A growl.
Deep, primal, the kind that short-circuits human instincts. Every hair on my neck stood up.
I turned my head, squinting through the predawn gloom.
Two golden eyes stared back.
A massive wolf, teeth bared.
Finally. Jesus, did they ever patrol their borders?
"I'm Landon Grey ," I rasped faintly, drowned out by the rain. It didn't matter. With the wolf's supernatural hearing, I could have been twice the distance away and he'd have heard me as well as if I'd had a microphone. "I need to see Jace Reese."
The wolf stared me down. My head started to spin, and I dropped down, my cheek hitting the ground with a splat. "Take me to your leader." I started to giggle, my chest heaving as the laughter morphed into sobs, the curse draining more of my life away. I could feel it like a physical tug on every vein and nerve.
The wolf tipped his head back and let out a long howl, a call that probably carried all the way to the other edge of the pack's territory. And then he came a cautious couple of steps closer, sniffed me, let out a disgusted huff, and settled on his haunches a few feet away.
He was waiting for someone, then. Backup. Maybe, hopefully, someone who could find me a shower and a borrowed pair of boxers. At least he wasn't ripping out my throat.
I probably passed out for a few minutes, because between one second and the next, another wolf was prowling out of the forest. Even with the rising sun hidden behind clouds, and even with my vision as bleary as it was, I could see that he was enormous, easily half again as large as the first. Most of the werewolves I'd seen fully shifted had some shade of gray fur, but this one had a coat like a tawny owl, variegated hues of brown and tan, dappled like sunlight through trees.
The wolf came right up to me with a nonchalant saunter that was more than a little insulting. To be fair, if I'd been a giant predator with four-inch razor-sharp retractable claws, I probably wouldn't have been too terrified of the twink in skinny jeans lying in the mud like a lump, either.
He sniffed me like the other werewolf had, and then shoved one dinner plate-sized paw under my shoulder and flipped me like a pancake. An expression that in a human would be utter horror and disbelief was oddly clear even on that lupine face. His lips drew back, exposing a wicked set of fangs.
"I need to see Jace," I choked out, hoping to convince him before he ripped my guts out and had his minion throw me down a ravine. I hadn't meant to tell the details of the story to anyone but the leader of the Reese pack, for the sake of discretion, but...wasn't saving your own ass the better part of discretion? Or something? "I was kidnapped. By the Kimball pack, and it had something to do with your pack, and Jesus you don't need to kill me —"
My voice rose to a squeak as he leaned in, his teeth fully on display, his enormous muzzle way, way too fucking close for comfort.
But he didn't bite, just sniffed me again, from my head all the way down to my feet, pausing at my wrists. Finally he let out a surprised-sounding huff.
A second later his huge form blurred, rippled, and reshaped into a man nearly as enormous compared to other humans as his wolf form was compared to garden-variety wolves. Messy auburn hair curled around his temples, and his freckles might have given him an air of innocence if it weren't for the cold, pale blue eyes. Oh, and the shoulders and chest bulging with muscle. And the claws.
Either way, I knew he was the opposite of innocent, and I knew damn well who he was.
My heart sank. Lucian Reese. My dead ex-lover Jared's best friend and cousin, the pack leader's second in command, and one of the most feared werewolves in northern Astral. And he hated me.
The curse might still try to kill me, but now it would probably have to get in line.
Lucian flexed his hand, extended his gleaming claws, and laid them gently across my throat. My vision blurred as my heart rate shot into the stratosphere.
"What the fuck are you doing here? One flicker of a lie, and you'll be dead in seconds."
I had to struggle for breath before I could answer, and that was irritating as hell. Yes, I was less than thrilled to have a supernatural apex predator about to rip out my jugular, but mostly I was just cursed. And having him interpret my shortness of breath as pure terror was plain embarrassing.
"You can smell them on me, can't you? The Kimballs," I panted, and he nodded, his grip on my throat tightening a nearly-puncturing-my-veins fraction. "They kidnapped me. And they started some kind of —" Deep breath. "Ritual." I forced another breath into my lungs. "I need to see Jace."
Was the sun going down again? That wasn't right. It was just coming up. But everything had gotten darker.
Yeah, I was passing out. Everything went black, and Lucian's furious face was the last thing I saw.