Alpha Pack 1.5 - Black Magic (8 page)

“Then I really can’t accept this!”

“Listen to me,” he said firmly. “I can’t always be nearby, and this pendant will protect you.”

She paused, still obviously not convinced she should take it. “How?”

“To make a long story short, it’s ancient, and blessed. It will protect you from any evil in existence, trust me.”

“But what about you?” she asked quietly.

“I’ll be fine. The important thing to remember is to never,
never
take this off. Not to shower, or to work out. Not to party

with Amy and Shannon. Not for any reason,
ever.
”

“What—”

“Promise me. Please.” He took a deep breath. “Do this for me.”

She stared at him for a minute before nodding. “All right. If it’s that important to you, I won’t take it off. You have my word.”

Relief nearly buckled his knees. Mackenzie would be safe now. For the first time in his adult life, he cared about another

person more than he cared about his own survival, and it felt good. Right. He couldn’t save the world, especially from himself.

But he could save
her
.

He could ask for nothing more.

Stepping close, he gave her one last kiss. Cupped her face, and gazed into her blue eyes for a long moment.

“Kalen? Can’t we—”

“Don’t, honey. I can’t be what you want, or need.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

The laugh that escaped his throat was bitter. “I’m not. The sooner you realize that, you’ll be much better off.”

“Maybe someday you’ll believe in yourself as much I believe in you.”

To make her point, she reached out, buried both hands in his hair as she loved to do. The wonderful sensation reminded him

of how she’d done that as he made love to her while he held her tight. How damned good it had felt, how right.

How the earth had fucking
moved
as he came inside her.

Now she took control, brought their mouths together, and it was every bit as fantastic as before. Their lips meshing, tongues

dueling, tasting. He pulled her against his body, needing to draw her under his skin. Keep her there forever.

But he couldn’t. Regretfully, he broke the kiss and pulled back. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I can’t do this.”

“That kiss says you can. Someday.”

Eventually he had to look away from the hope he saw flickering there.

From his own futile wish that he’d someday be a man worthy of her.

Opening the door, he led her out to the waiting Escalade, ushered her inside, and tossed her car keys to Ryon.

When the SUV pulled away, he didn’t look back at the place where he’d lost his heart and soul.

It just hurt too fucking much.

Tired to the bone, and disheartened, Kalen took a long, hot shower. It erased her scent from his skin, but not the memory of

making love to the most beautiful woman in the world.

The woman he’d let go.

Would it always feel as though he’d ripped off a limb? Like he was bleeding out all over the floor to become nothing more

than a shell? How could she have so completely burrowed under his skin, into his heart?

Stepping from the shower, he toweled off and stared at himself in the mirror. It was odd to see a bare spot where the pentagram had rested for as long as he could remember. His grandmother had given it to him shortly after he’d come into his

power as a Sorcerer, and had coached him. She’d been his biggest advocate, his cheerleader.

And then she’d been gone much too soon, leaving him alone in a world where nobody understood him, or gave a damn about

him. He’d done so many things he was ashamed of, things his new brothers would find abhorrent if they knew.

That’s why they could never know he’d been a filthy whore. And so much worse.

Before Alpha Pack.

Before Mackenzie.

He cared about them, couldn’t lose them. No matter what he had to do. As if cued by his churning thoughts, a male voice

slipped into his head.

“I knew you’d give your precious pendant to the doctor, to protect her from me.”
A low, amused laugh sounded in his

head.
“How far would you go, my pet, to make certain your lover remains safe?”

“As far as I need to,” he rasped, fists clenched. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear, boy. You please me already.”

Insidious. Seductive. He’d heard those words before, on so many lips. He’d never responded then as he did now—with a

rush of dark pleasure. Like a designer drug injected directly into his vein. One he knew would eventually kill him.

But not before he rode the ecstasy to the end of the line.

Shaking himself from the fog of desire, Kalen walked from the bathroom into his bedroom and got dressed. Put on his armor

and prepared to face the day, and his demons, without his pendant to shield him from the evil already working its way into his

soul.

Outside, thunder rolled. A storm on the way.

When
his
storm arrived, he prayed he’d be ready. And that he’d have the courage to do what he must.

“Mackenzie,” he said into the stillness of his room. “I’m so sorry.”

Walking out, he told himself he wouldn’t think of what might’ve been. If only he hadn’t taken off the pendant, that one other

time before.

If only Kalen Black wasn’t already far past redemption.

Click here for more books by this author

Read on for an exciting preview of

SAVAGE AWAKENING

an Alpha Pack novel

by J.D. Tyler.

Available from Signet Eclipse in April 2012.

1

Aric Savage gripped the chains as the silver-barbed lash tore into his back with unmerciful precision. Fire licked over the flayed skin, soaking deep to burn his guts, steal his breath.

Still, he found the strength to snarl his rage between strokes, his wolf clawing desperately to be free. To rip Orson

Chappell’s minions to shreds, starting with the bastard currently wielding the whip, and then moving on to Beryl, his malicious

bitch of a stepsister. The pair of them were an open sore on the world’s ass. He’d take great pleasure in tearing out their throats, but not before making them scream as they’d done to him. And then he’d track down the big boss himself. Drag him

from under the rock where he was hiding, and butcher him, too.

Slowly. Painfully, so that the fucker squealed like a piglet as Aric’s wolf devoured him alive.

Here, Piggy, Piggy, let me in!

Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!

No problem, asshole. I’ll just incinerate your door, come right in and watch you piss your pants as I unleash my beast—

Another blow fell, shattering the inner dialogue as liquid agony scored him from shoulder to hip.

“Ahhh! Fuck . . . fuck this . . . b-bastards . . .”

With every stroke, it became harder to retain his hold on sanity. Beryl’s efforts were beginning to pay off. After weeks of

this hellish trip into Psycholand, the unbelievable pain, he was close to the breaking point.

He never dreamed there were so many methods of brutal torture. Or that he’d be forced to sample every fuckin’ one of them.

He wasn’t aware the whipping had stopped until a hand cupped his chin and thrust his head up. Beryl’s flat, soulless eyes

bored into his, searching for weakness, for the knowledge that brother dearest was finally a broken husk. A gibbering pile of

shit.

“Sorry to disappoint, bitch,” he whispered, his throat raw and aching. “I’m still in here.” His mind might not be gone just

yet, but screaming had stripped his voice during a session with Beryl’s handy silver knife. If he should get out of here, he might

never recover, in more ways than one.

“Good. I’d be terribly put out if you gave up too quickly.” One corner of her mouth curved up. “As it is, you amuse me. So

tenacious, my fierce brother.”

Her touch made his skin crawl, but he didn’t have the strength to jerk his chin out of her grasp. Even if she did set him free,

he had nothing left. Despite his longing for vengeance, he didn’t have the strength to let loose his raging wolf, let alone summon

his gifts of fire or telekinesis. Pathetic.

“I’m surprised Chappell lets you play with his test subjects,” he taunted.

A flash of something that might’ve been unease interrupted the deadness in her eyes, then was gone. “That isn’t your

concern.”

He huffed a laugh that was more like a strangled rasp. “He doesn’t know.” This kept getting better.

“What?” There. Again the flicker of alarm.

Despite the pain assailing his battered body, he sneered. “Chappell doesn’t know what you’re doing to me down here,

screwing with one of his lab rats. Wonder what he’d do to his pet witch if he found out?”

Flicking a lock of long, auburn hair over her shoulder that was a shade darker than his own, she affected a look of complete

disinterest. “He has more important concerns than one shifter.”

“I’ll just bet.”

“Whether you’re here or in the lab doesn’t make a difference to you anyway.” Giving his face a hard squeeze, she shoved,

snapping his head to the side. “You’ll be just as dead when I’m done with you.”

He didn’t bother to answer. He knew his chances of escaping from either place dimmed with each day. Spinning on her heel,

she turned and left, the gloom beyond his small patch of light swallowing her form and the click of her boots until he was once

again alone with his grim thoughts.

How was Beryl involved in all of this? And why the special torture reserved for the older stepbrother she’d barely bothered

to know, and vice versa? Why the all-consuming hatred?

True, she’d always been a self-absorbed bitch. From the day Aric’s mother had remarried and his stepdaddy had brought

that strange, sullen teenaged nightmare home to play house, Aric had done his best to steer clear of her. Not always

successfully, either. Joining the Navy SEALs, getting out of that pressure cooker of a house, had been a blessing.

Right up until his unit had been attacked by rogue wolf shifters in the mountains of Afghanistan and his world had been

completely fucked. Forever.

If he was honest, he would have to admit that he hadn’t been happy since he’d lost his humanity. He loved his brothers on the

Alpha Pack team, but when that last op had gone south, they’d given him up fast enough, hadn’t they?
Jax gave me up. To save

his mate.
When the chips were down, Aric was alone. As always. No one had come for him, and no one would. His throat tightened with emotion, burned with the tears he would never allow to fall. Maybe he was better off dead.

But he couldn’t bring himself to give up. No, he wanted to live long enough to slaughter every single person responsible for

his being in this hellhole, suffering this endless goddamned agony.

General George Patton had it right. He was going to strut through the valley of the shadow of death—and he’d be the

meanest motherfucker there. Make them all pay.

Then, and only then, would he willingly let the Reaper take him.

Rowan Chase jerked the wheel in a hard left, brought the car skidding to a stop in the filthy, garbage-strewn alley between two

run-down buildings, killed the ignition, and was out before her rookie partner, Daniel Albright, even got his seat belt

unbuckled.

One glance at the situation told her things had already gone FUBAR—fucked up beyond all recognition.

A crowd of about twenty Hispanic men of varying ages surrounded two guys rolling on the ground, the edgy group shouting

obscenities, egging the fight on. Quickly, her brain assessed the struggling pair, taking in the information, rapid-fire. One stocky

male, six feet, about two hundred twenty pounds. The smaller one younger, slender, five-seven, about one-sixty. She

recognized him as Emilio Herrera. Both wore the East Side Lobos’ colors. Family fight. Over what? Drugs, a girl, or some

imagined slur? Who knew?

Sunlight glinted off a sliver of metal between the combatants, and blood blossomed on the smaller guy’s shirt.
Knife.
Shit.