Page 55 of Blood Magic

The titterer was a woman who continued to snicker, even as she leaned into the man who sat next to her, and they exchanged a short, contemptuous conversation that neither of them attempted to keep to themselves.

As everyone in the building had extremely sensitive hearing, we all heard their remarks about the elders’ senility and bird bones, among other insults.

I wasn’t sure if the elders were getting angry—they didn’t seem to be paying attention to the couple—but other audience members were paying attention. The man and woman were wolves, and the elders were vampires. So every vampire in the audience, sitting on the opposite side of the room from the wolves, of course, was taking offense.

Things were about to get out of hand, and I didn’t think more about it. I strode from where I’d been stashed against the wall, leaped off the edge of the platform, and jogged toward the troublemakers.

They saw me coming and the female wolf jumped up to meet me—she looked vaguely familiar, and just before I reached her I realized she was one of Adam Thorne’s wolves. Elaine was her name. I couldn’t remember having much interaction with her or the man at her side. Thorne should have been the one controlling his unruly wolves, but he stood against the wall and smirked at me when I glanced his way.

Maybe he wanted a fight.

Elaine put her hands on her hips and curled her lip, then took a couple of steps to get in my face. “Bitch, are you coming at me?” she asked. “I’ll take your traitor ass out. I will—”

I punched her in the face. Our world was violent, and fighting was how we handled things. I’d have tried talking to her if I’d thought it would do any good. I could have ordered her and her buddy to leave, but neither one of them would have listened.

I put a lot of muscle behind that punch, because I didn’t want her getting back up—not for a while. Even before she flew backward and slammed hard against the bench upon which she’d just been perched, her boyfriend jumped me. And I was ready for him.

I ducked his blow, drew back my fist, and then…

He was gone.

“Dammit, Jared,” I yelled, as my alpha—or sort of alpha—slammed the guy to the floor and began to beat the hell out of him. The wolves and vampires milled, unsure, and the elders simply watched quietly.

But then my ex-alpha, the asshole one, pushed himself away from the wall and came for me. And finally, one of the elders interfered.

“Stop,” he said, his voice booming throughout the room. And there wasn’t a person in the place—wolf or vampire—who would ignore that command. The power washed over me, taking my breath, surrounding my heart with ice.

Therewas the terror.

They were the council of old, the council feared, the council revered. It didn’t matter that they rarely showed themselves or interfered in supernatural business. They were interfering now, and we all understood they could kill us if they decided to. They could do whatever they wanted, because they were the Council.

We froze in place, bowed our heads, and waited.

“Sit down,” he said. “Ms. Silver. To me.”

I strode back to the stage, pride creeping into my heart as I stood behind the elders, and honestly, it just felt right.

The elder turned to face me. “Will you be our wolf, Kaitlyn Silver?”

I nodded, and that was good enough for him.

I was already their wolf.

“I will take that as your word,” he said, satisfaction in his ancient eyes. “Come here, wolf.”

I hesitated. It was hard to trust the vampires, even the elders who wanted my help. But as the audience watched, and the air seemed to grow heavy with expectation, I went to the elder who beckoned me. He gripped my arm and pulled me to my knees beside his chair.

I half expected him to bite me, and I stared with both dread and fascination at the fangs peeking between his thin lips. But he didn’t bite me. He did something that was somehow…worse.

He lay a wrinkled hand over my heart, and then, without warning, he drove a pointed, yellow claw into my chest. The pain was immediate, shocking, and incredibly disturbing. I had a flash of such huge despair that if it had gone on for more than a few seconds, I would likely have thrown myself on my knife in an attempt to escape it. But it was just a flash, as was the pain, there and gone. But the memory of it lingered, as I believed it probably would forever.

Had the elder marked me, or was it something more?

“Blood magic,” he murmured, just for my ears. “Activate it, Wolf, and you will know power. You will be ours.”

I could only kneel there, frozen, trying to grapple with whatever had just happened. But then my mind cleared, and when I looked at my chest, there were no wounds. No pain. No vampire claws digging into my heart. It was as though I’d imagined everything.

“You are the hand of the councils,” he said, almost gently.

I got to my feet, unsure.

If my former pack had hated me before, they were really going to hate me now. A wolf didn’t just hand herself over to the vampires. She didn’t become the vampires’ wolf, even if they were the council.

But I just had.

Apparently, I belonged to no one, and I belonged to everyone.