Witch Interrupted Read online

  Nor were witches who looked like Lars. Toward the back of the group, Katie spotted several tall men who could have been Frank’s brothers. She noticed Marcus eyeballing them too.

  “Why would I release anyone?” Lars said. “I believe I’ll keep you all, and you’ll tell me what I want to know when I start cutting off fingers.”

  “Psycho,” Zhang Li muttered. “I’m the only one he’s still got.”

  Lars’s calculating gray eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened so much his lips vanished. “Shut up, old man, or I’ll shoot you. You’re of no use to me now that I’ve found her.”

  What did Dad mean? Had Lars killed Vern and Tonya?

  Katie’s anger, already hot, began to fume. It boiled into her brain, which clicked furiously through scenarios that involved fighting, blood, gore and death.

  Unfortunately, logic insisted most of the blood would be hers.

  “This discussion is going nowhere. Search them,” Lars directed his team. “Be thorough. She’s treacherous.”

  “Whoever hurts her dies,” Marcus informed the room at large. Everyone ignored him. She hoped they continued to do so, because that would give him a chance to come up with…something. Anything. She was drawing a blood-soaked blank. The only thing she could think of was to pretend she’d bounced the poppy intentionally instead of it being the luck of the alpha draw.

  The keepers began patting them down. With a vicious grin—the closest he’d come to acknowledging Marcus was more than a statue, Lars added, “Don’t forget her genitals. They’re probably diseased.”

  “Oh, good fucking grief.” Katie refused to hide her contempt. Did Lars think she’d quail because he ordered a cavity search? A rape? Torture? She would never break for him. His insults meant nothing. “Ba, don’t watch.”

  Her father already had his eyes closed. His posture had deflated, as if he expected to be killed at any moment. He might know something she didn’t, but she refused to speculate.

  He wasn’t dead yet. Marcus wasn’t dead yet. She wasn’t dead yet.

  When the keepers began stripping her as Lars commanded, she smiled her widest smile. “Do what he says, children. He’s the boss and you’re the peons.”

  One or two paused, but not for long. More professionally than she expected, they undressed her and Marcus to their underwear and searched for weapons and spell components. Marcus, needless to say, received a desultory inspection, since wolves couldn’t do magic—but he did receive several shoves and cuffs.

  He didn’t fight much. He, like her, seemed poised for a different action. His brands appeared tribal in the harsh spotlight, primitive and striking. No one commented on them, despite it being unusual for a wolf to wear ink.

  Marcus could do magic. Katie’s magic had accrued too. How could she get her hands on some herbs? How could she convince Lars she had information he wanted so he’d postpone whatever murderous fantasies he’d concocted?

  Her bra and panties provided no warmth in the cold, dank factory. She shivered but didn’t cower as the female keeper called Yasmine inspected her privates.

  “She’s clean,” the woman said. Marcus watched them with death in his pale blue eyes.

  Pale eyes. He had the wolf in him, rising up, reaching out.

  And how much witch did he have?

  The keepers sure as hell wouldn’t be expecting that.

  “Almost disappointing,” Lars commented. The nature of the witch and wolf relationship meant keepers with brutality on the brain didn’t rape their target wolves for fear they’d transform themselves. Katie—not a wolf—wasn’t sure what to expect. “The great Chang Cai trapped so easily, without so much as a trick up her sleeve. I’d hoped for a better show. I’ll give you one more chance to tell me the truth, Chang Cai. Is there a recipe to prevent wipes?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Vernon Harrower cast it on me. Too bad you killed him or he could have shared it.”

  Lars grimaced. “He’s not dead.”

  Not dead? Then how was her father the only prisoner Lars had left? “Where is he?”

  His grimace deepened. Wherever Vern was, it pissed Lars off. “Do you have the recipe or not?”

  She could fake one. They’d test it before killing her. Possibly. She glanced at Marcus, and he shook his head.

  He’d taught her about defenses for many spells, including monkshood, magic drain, calming mix and pack bonds, but had admitted there was no defense against a wipe. Did he have a plan—hopefully a better one than hers?

  She trusted Marcus.

  Taking a deep, shaky breath, Katie said, “No. I don’t have the recipe.”

  Lars rolled his eyes. “Of course you don’t, because there isn’t one. Now you’re of no use to me either. You, you, you—” he pointed at members of his team, “—throw them in the holding tank and bring me the berserker bomb. I’d like to see her ripped apart by the same animal she’s been consorting with. Right before she dies, we’ll shoot him in the head, so she can enjoy it.”

  “No!” When Marcus started struggling, one of the keepers restraining him brandished a spell pod. Black as tar. The only black pods she knew were monkshood.

  “Marcus, stop.” He couldn’t fight monkshood.

  He growled—but he stopped. The keepers didn’t kill him.

  The keepers wrestled her and Marcus through the storage areas. Lars handed her father off and followed them, chuckling to himself.

  Like a crazy person.

  Time was running out.

  The berserker spell, no matter how much Marcus loved her, would take him if cast specifically on him. He would try to slaughter her.

  She was pretty much naked and defenseless.

  They reached the huge holding tanks, twenty-foot-high metal silos with tall rims. She didn’t have to see the inside to realize there was no way a witch could hop out of one, else Lars wouldn’t be laughing himself sick over the thought of trapping her with a feral. Goddess, to force Marcus to do this to her! He’d never forgive himself.

  A ladder had been propped against the first tank. They pushed her toward it. Another spotlight clanked on, throwing the tank into stark relief. Center stage. Two men climbed to the tank’s access hole, waiting for her so she couldn’t hurl herself off the other side and run.

  “A little poetic justice, dying at the hands of a monster, considering how I almost killed you the first time.” Lars’s rheumy eyes gleamed with excitement. He clutched a giant wad of herbs in his hands—an unnecessarily large dose of berserker mix considering his target was a single person.

  “How you almost killed me the first time?” Lars had always loved the sound of his own voice. Time to rile him up so he’d shout and make mistakes. “Your guy shot me in the arm. Barely. You didn’t even come close to killing me.”

  “Not in Alabama, you dumb whore.”

  “Do you mean when your son Frank attempted to capture me in Kentucky?” She took a stab in the dark. Perhaps her hunch about Lars’s one-man breeding program was true. “He was simple to outwit. Just like you will be.”

  “Frank?” His laughter was phlegmy. Somewhat strained. “He’s not convex. That makes him a failure. I don’t care what happens to failures, as long as they serve me.”

  None of the flunkies uttered a word—perhaps they weren’t allowed to speak. She did, however, notice a few glances. Did Lars make them call him Sire too?

  “But no, this has nothing to do with Frank. Did you think the wolves you’d been sent to neutralize twenty years ago lusted after you so much they fell into that much of a frenzy? You were arrogant. Convinced all you had to do was flash your cunt and everyone would fall at your feet.”

  Ah, Lars was talking about her final assignment for the keepers—the one where she’d nearly died because the ferals she’d been sent after had gone crazy. Crazier. And her team hadn’t arrived as scheduled.

  When they’d finally shown up, Katie had been in huge trouble—bruised, naked, defenseless, ferals ripping into each other over who got to fu
ck her to death and then, apparently, devour her internal organs. She’d remained alive as long as she had by pitting them against one another.

  Lars had been with her team. At the time she’d been too intent on survival to notice whether he’d seemed disappointed to find her in one piece. But since then, she’d wondered.

  Yasmine, her back to Lars, scowled. She was close to Katie but not one of the keepers gripping her arms. When the man to Katie’s left began to speak, Yasmine gave a tiny, but decisive, headshake.

  Had the other keepers not realized Lars had tried to kill Katie—Chang Cai? Or how? Was this about Frank?

  It could be anything. They maintained blank expressions, but Katie could read posture. Nuance. The four burly keepers on Marcus were starting to have trouble keeping him in one place. They seemed distracted. And her guards were definitely showing signs of disquiet.

  Lars’s team was uncomfortable right now, whether due to Lars’s confessions or his intent to have Marcus butcher her under the influence of berserker herbs.

  “What are you saying?” she asked, to make him clarify aloud. “I don’t understand.”

  “I set you up, of course. You were supposed to die. The wolves were supposed to take care of you since our incompetent director frowned on culling unworthy keeper whores from the ranks. Spell components are easy to dissolve in alcoholic beverages, and wolves will drink and eat anything. Even humans.”

  “Wolves don’t eat people,” Katie said, though the ferals had certainly discussed it. If Lars had given them tainted food…

  “That shows how stupid you are,” he declared. “Precious little Chang Cai, groomed to bring the keepers into a new era. A modern era. No one…no one…is a worthier keeper than I am. No one is more devoted. No one is better suited to issue in a golden age for witches, one where the stench of animals no longer taints our bloodlines.”

  She’d heard it before—Lars was the most fanatical purist she’d ever met. In the larger coven network, it was considered backward to maintain such a belief, and on the council, many keepers had simply wished to do their jobs.

  At least some of Lars’s ranting seemed to be news to his team. Their increasing unease, evidenced by shifting weight, downcast eyes, hunched shoulders and frowns, was obvious to her.

  How could they not have known about his extremism? She knew. Marcus knew. Or was the team’s discomfort more about his other disclosures?

  Lars seemed to sense his team’s reaction too, because he addressed them next, the herbal bomb held aloft like a sorcerer’s crystal ball. “Look at her. I told you how impure she was, and now you can see. She fucked her way into Harrower’s inner circle and nearly destroyed the council. Everything we stand for. Everything we stand against. She is a traitor. A mongrel abettor. It’s our duty to make sure she gets what she deserves. Such treachery cannot be tolerated.”

  Lars’s motives shouldn’t matter to her. If he hadn’t tried to assassinate her, she might never have fled the council. Why be upset about the act that had inspired her to escape her despised existence? Especially not if she could use it to confuse his team.

  “Still ranting that purist claptrap?” she said to him. “You’re stuck in the Dark Ages. A keeper’s purpose is to protect the existence of all shifters, not just witches. Or did you forget our creed as well as our honor?”

  He scoffed. “Get in the tank or I’ll shoot off your papa’s fingers one by one.”

  The men restraining her father brought him to Lars and pressed him to his knees. One yanked up his arm. Lars stuck the herbs under his arm, took his gun out of the holster and made a show of cocking it and holding it to Zhang Li’s hand.

  Shit. Fuck. Damn. Katie reluctantly approached the ladder, keepers shoving and jostling her. Marcus growled and snarled like a chainsaw in the background. There were too many keepers, and they were too obedient…or too afraid. Lars’s fuming hadn’t fazed them enough.

  She, Marcus and Dad had nothing. No weapons. No ideas.

  No goddamn clothes.

  “I will never hurt you, Katie,” Marcus said suddenly. “Don’t be frightened.”

  Considering he had to realize she was furious, not frightened, it seemed like unusual advice.

  “Shut the animal up,” Lars said.

  One of Marcus’s guards punched him in the mouth. His dark head rocked back and straightened. Blood trickled down his chin. With his strength, if he wanted loose, he could get loose, but the keepers had monkshood.

  He licked blood off his lip and smiled. “Lars is the one who’s terrified.”

  Lars’s jaw worked. “Drop her into the tank before I get angry. We have other business to attend.”

  The keepers prodded Katie up a few more rungs. This gave her leverage. She kicked the one closest to her, and he muttered, grabbing her leg. Yasmine took out a knife. She offered it to the man Katie had kicked.

  He promptly jabbed her calf. Blood poured down her ankle.

  Dammit! Before he could cut her again, Katie climbed. The metal ladder was uncomfortably cold. Her father’s head bowed. He’d given up.

  “Hiram is terrified,” Marcus declared. “I can smell him. His fear is like piss. And he’s dying. If the rest of you are hoping he’ll succumb to his illness soon, you haven’t long to wait.”

  “Liar. I am not weak.”

  “Most of all, Lars is terrified of me.”

  “I’m not frightened of a degenerate wolf,” Lars raged instantly.

  Instantly and…predictably?

  “Do you know how many animals I’ve eviscerated?” He stormed toward Marcus, jerking the gun forward. “I’ll kill you now. We’ll find another beast to kill her. It will give me time to poke knives into her. Say goodbye, mongrel.”

  “No,” Katie shouted. “He cured cancer.”

  All eyes turned to her. She’d nearly reached the top of the ladder. The men above her, extending their arms to drag her up, froze.

  “You have cancer, don’t you?” she said to Lars. He was third pass-through…but he shouldn’t have gone downhill so much he was jaundiced and gaunt. Her father looked better than Lars did. “Marcus cured it. If you kill him, the cure dies with him.”

  “Katie, no,” Marcus exclaimed. “Why would you tell him? Let it die with me. He doesn’t deserve treatment.”

  Lars shoved Marcus, and he allowed it. He slammed into a storage tank with a dull boom. The keepers closed on him. Several unsheathed weapons—assorted guns and blades.

  She couldn’t let this happen. Goddess, what could she do?

  Jump?

  And then what?

  “How did you do this thing?” Lars yelled into Marcus’s face. He slammed the butt of the gun across Marcus’s cheek. “You were incompetent. A puling coward. A soft, lazy fool. There is no conceivable way you cured cancer. Just like there’s no way she has a recipe to block poppy.”

  Before Lars had become sick, he would have been taller than Marcus, but now, his body had broken down. It was pathetically obvious. The contrast between his scrawny, jaundiced form and Marcus’s vitality was almost painful to behold.

  She hoped it pained Lars.

  “Is it a spell? What is the recipe? How did you do it?” He gestured wildly with the gun. “Tell me the truth. I can make you tell me the truth.”

  Marcus sighed. “I cured cancer. After I left the keepers, I constructed this lab. It was what I wanted to study all along. Not weapons. Not the berserker spell you cobbled together from my research. Healing was my goal. You know my sister had cancer when you—”

  “I don’t care about your bleeding heart or some stupid mongrel whore. There is no cure. You’re lying like she lies. Trying to buy time.” Lars raised the gun.

  But he’d gotten very close to Marcus while shouting and threatening.

  Katie’s vision blurred. No, Marcus blurred. He blurred into motion and struck Lars.

  Chaos erupted. Lars skidded across the ground, shrieking with rage. Guns fired. Bullets pinged off metal deep in the factory. Keepers
ducked. She hugged the ladder while the keepers above her plastered themselves to the top of the tank.

  Where was Marcus? Keepers pivoted, guns pointed. Several raised spell guns but hesitated to fire. Zhang Li crawled behind a piece of machinery.

  Where was Marcus?

  When she saw him, magnificent, triumphant, atop the other storage tank, she nearly cheered.

  Until she noticed he didn’t have a gun. He had the stringy wad of berserker herbs.

  What the hell?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Witch magic thundered through Marcus’s veins. A gun stopped one person at a time. If he could pull this off…

  Desperate, he focused the cayenne magic, his magic, through the berserker bomb. He hadn’t had much time to study the components in the past week, but he knew how to activate them.

  Power shattered through the herbs and into the surrounding area. The blast caught everyone present.

  Every…single…soul.

  He continued to pour magic into the spell. A wolf who was a witch. A witch who was a wolf. If the spell sucked up everything he had, if it evaporated the cayenne and ejected him from dual state forever, he didn’t care. He dredged up every smidgen of strength to drive the spell beyond what anyone could have imagined for it.

  Anyone except him. Its creator.

  Let this work. Let this work. Let this work.

  When he heard the first agonized howl, he knew it had.

  The howl resonated profoundly inside him. Rage, rage and need, gushed through him like it was gushing through the keepers.

  Panting, he dropped to all fours. The rusted metal of the storage tank creaked under his weight. He should leap down…but not yet. Not until he could verify.

  The spell was scattershot. Directionless. All-consuming. It was taking everyone. His vision misted with red. He stared through the haze at the people below as they convulsed and twisted, limbs contorting. Faces lengthened into muzzles with sharp, white teeth. Skin sprouted coarse, gray fur. Hands fisted, pads and claws emerged.

  Before Marcus lost himself, he spotted two people unlike the others. Two people who weren’t transforming into their other halves, perhaps their better halves.