Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 (22 page)

His mate was alive, and the witches had underestimated her. He couldn’t blame them.
He’d
underestimated her again and again, tiptoeing around a fragile woman who just needed someone to believe in her strength.

He did. Maybe part of him always had, because for all the panicked need to protect pounding in his veins, he wasn’t afraid for her. Not really. The witches had underestimated Lorelei, and they’d regret it.

They were trapped.

Lorelei had smashed every damn thing she could think of into the windows and the oddly open doorway. Every time she thought she might break through, the glass or air crackled with energy that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

Magic.

She tossed the heavy iron poker down beside the hearth, abandoning the pursuit in favor of another round of pleading with Colin. The cut on his forehead didn’t look that bad, but the fact it was scabbed over instead of healed—combined with her inability to rouse him—scared her more than that open door.

“Wake up,” she whispered, stroking his cheek and jaw. Her fingers moved automatically to the base of his throat, feeling for the pulse that beat there, strong and slow. “You have to wake up.”

He stirred this time, at least, pressing into her touch as his lips parted around a sound. A groan, or maybe the first part of her name.

It shoved aside every bit of fear she felt for herself. “Colin, please try.”

“Magic,” he muttered, and his eyelids fluttered. “Spell. Binding.”

Whether he was talking about the cabin or himself, she didn’t know. “We have to get out of here somehow.”

His eyes cracked open, but his gaze seemed fuzzy, as if he couldn’t focus on her. “Touch helps. Talking too. Gives me something to follow…” The words trailed off into uncertainty.

“They bound his magic,” a familiar voice offered from behind her, a voice that froze her in place. “Two witches.”

Lorelei whirled so fast it made her head ache and left her dizzy—but not too dizzy to focus on the man in the corner, standing with his hands in his pockets and a somber expression on his unshaven face.

Her heart shot into her throat, pounding with renewed terror. She couldn’t smell him, sense him, but then she wouldn’t be able to, would she? He wasn’t there, couldn’t be—because she’d helped put him in the ground herself. “Quinn.”

“Hey, Lorelei.” His smile was everything she remembered, though she hadn’t seen it in ages, since long before he’d taken his own life. He watched her now as if her reaction had been the punch line to one of his off-color jokes. “You’ll be all right, I promise. You just have to stay calm.”

“Calm,” she repeated blankly. As if
calm
was an option with one man possibly dying at her feet and another quite literally dead
on
his feet. “This isn’t happening.”

He crouched and studied Colin. “They hit him hard. More than one spell, I think. Something about him scared the stronger one, though she didn’t want to show it. You need to help him fight through the magic.”

“I know.” And she
did
, so maybe that’s what this was. Her own subconscious, telling her what to do in a way that would sure as hell get her attention.

It had happened before. All those long nights in the hospital, behind a locked door, she’d taken comfort in her hallucinations. They meant she was never really as alone as she felt, and she’d clung to them for exactly that reason.

But she’d gotten better, and she’d sworn to herself—
never again
. Only Colin was hurt, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to get help for him, even if meant crawling headfirst back into the darkness of insanity.

She touched his cheeks, framing his face with her hands. “Open your eyes, Colin. I need you.”

He blinked once. Twice. This time his gaze snagged on her face, and she thought perhaps he really saw her. He wet his dry lips…

And apologized. Of course. “I’m sorry, Lorelei—”

“Later,” she said. “When we get out of here.”

He nodded faintly. “Help me sit up?”

He looked like he might pitch forward on his face, but she slipped his arm around her neck and started to ease him upright. His muscles twitched and cramped under her hands, but he struggled to sit in spite of the obvious pain. “They didn’t do this to you?”

“No,” she said. Colin didn’t seem to notice Quinn, which only confirmed her suspicions. “Maybe they thought I wouldn’t wake up.”

“Stupid.” He lifted a clumsy hand to her cheek, stroking her with warm fingers. “They’re stupid. I’m stupid. You’re not stupid. You’re strong.”

So woozy and confused. “Can you get up? We have to get you moving…”

He gripped her suddenly, both hands tight on her shoulders, and his eyes all but glowed. “No, Lorelei. It’s important. I trust you.”

“Don’t.” The plea came out thin, reedy, and she hated herself.

“I trust you.” The words were raspy, hoarse, but they didn’t sound confused at all. They sounded intent. “I trust you.”

“He loves you,” Quinn’s voice came from behind her. “It’s not much of a fairy tale, and he’s not much of a prince…but there’s an evil witch and a big bad wolf. If you can find him.”

Love. Her subconscious wouldn’t flirt around the subject, would it? No, it would strip away all pretense and lay out the core of her, her deepest desires and needs.

It almost distracted her from the rest of the words.
If you can find him.
She shivered. “I trust you too, Colin. I thought I didn’t, but I think…I didn’t trust myself.”

The golden glow in his eyes strengthened.

“I can’t stay,” Quinn whispered, his voice wavering. “Kathy can’t hold the doorway open for long. But you don’t need me. You know what to do. Kiss Kaley and Mae for me.”

“I will.” If she looked at him, she’d break, so she kept her eyes on Colin, who blinked at her in confusion and glanced around the room.

She guided his gaze back to hers. “I didn’t trust myself. I still don’t, but I know that I
can
. I can do it someday, Colin, because you’ll help me.”

He heaved a shuddering breath and nodded jerkily. “We’ll trust each other.”

Magic surged along with the prickle of awareness she always felt around him, the innate recognition of the wolf inside him. “But first, we have to get out of here.”

Colin closed his eyes. “How?”

“She bound your wolf.” She leaned her forehead against his. “We’ll set him free.”

“I can’t feel him at all.” His hands settled on her hips, fingers clenching as if she was the only solid thing in his world. “I can barely feel anything. Like being drunk. Numb.”

They bound his magic.
His magic,
him
…but not his wolf. Maybe they couldn’t, and that was why they had to keep him incapacitated. “Can you trust me enough to let go?”

Comprehension came slowly, but when it did, his brow furrowed. His eyes popped open, and he made a low noise, almost a growl. “Do you trust
me
to let go?”

She nodded, and that was all it took. The muscles trembling under her hands tensed as power ripped through him. It felt like the magic that accompanied a change, but Colin didn’t shed his skin. In fact, nothing about him seemed different until he opened his eyes.

The whites were gone. Dark pupils contracted to a tiny circle inside a sea of pure gold, and they studied her without a speck of humanity.

The wolf, in human form.

Lorelei fought tears as he inhaled deeply before leaning in to nuzzle the spot just below her ear. “There has to be a weakness in the magic, Colin. Some way out of here.”

“Mate.” The word shivered through her as he lifted a thumb to brush her jaw. “You’re the man’s mate. Our mate.”

“If you want me,” she whispered.

He frowned, as if the question was foolish and not worth comment, and flowed to his feet. There was still something of Colin in the way he prowled the confines of the cabin, but his deadly grace seemed less contained now. This was a trapped animal pacing a prison, not a logical man searching for a way out of it.

She walked over to stand beside him, stroking his shoulder. “The windows and the door are secure. Can we go through the wall?”

He tilted his head and studied the paneling. She wasn’t sure what he saw, but after a moment he extended one hand to hover an inch shy of the dusty boards. His lips curled in a snarl. “Magic.”

“Through the walls too?” She could barely feel it, just a low buzz that could have come from anywhere—or from Colin himself.

His snarl deepened into a growl. Colin was a coiled spring, and he snapped without warning, flinging himself against the wall hard enough to rattle the window.

Wood creaked. Cracked. He ignored her attempts to stop him and slammed into the surface again, snapping two of the long boards. They bowed outward, but Colin didn’t follow. He bounced off the space left behind with a sizzle of magic and staggered back.

He was gearing up to charge again, so Lorelei stepped between him and the shattered boards. “Colin, stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”

He lunged again.

She only had a heartbeat—less, a fraction of one—to wonder if she’d made a mistake. He hurled toward her, only to stop when his palms slapped the wall on either side of her head. His body froze just short of hers, trembling with the effort of checking his momentum.

She held her breath, afraid to break that tenuous control. “Stop,” she whispered again, finally, and reached for him, combing her fingers through his hair.

Trembling, he turned to catch the edge of her hand between his teeth, and Lorelei shivered. He was there, behind that fierce, golden gaze, and he would never hurt her.

But he would defend her, just as she would defend him.

“We’ll wait until they come back,” she murmured. “When they lower the wards holding us in, we’ll catch them off guard.”

He shuddered and nuzzled his way up her wrist before making the short jump to her jaw. “Lay a trap?”

“We have to warn the others.”

That brought his teeth back, closing on her throat this time as he growled a warning.

Safety. Though he didn’t say it, she knew well enough the motivation behind his animal anger. But she’d seen Stella do things, deadly things, and these witches possessed magic that eclipsed hers. There was no time for selfishness, not when the pack was in danger. “You’re a good beta, Colin. You know this is bigger than just us.”

He studied her, his eyes stripped bare of any humanity. The essence of Colin, all his impulse and instincts, and all of that fierce attention focused entirely on her.

She laid her hand on his cheek. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.”

Wetting his lips, he nodded once. “We wait. The witches die.”

But they didn’t have to wait. Power shuddered through the small cabin in a wave that heralded a tall woman’s appearance in the doorway. “Looks like someone’s up.”

Colin’s eyes narrowed. His jaw clenched under her hands, and she felt the winding tension, his entire body readying for an attack—

One only she could release. The wolf inhabiting Colin’s skin would protect her to his last breath, but the beast fought its instincts because he’d given over trust to her.

One word from her would do it, and she gave it eagerly. “Now.”

And then he was gone. The witch was raising her hands when Colin collided with her. Magic ripped through the cabin, shattering the windows. Glass rained to the floor, the oddly musical sound almost covering the sickening crack of bone as Colin jerked the witch’s head sharply to one side.

Some of the power permeating the cabin went dark along with the fading spark of life in the woman’s eyes as she slumped to the floor, unmoving. The absence of so much magic left an odd echo reverberating through Lorelei’s head. Mere moments, a handful of heartbeats, but it felt like an eternity before she reached Colin, gripped his hand and pulled him through the open door into the sunlight.

Silence gripped the forest, but she plunged into the trees with Colin right behind her. “Shed this body,” he growled, tugging at her shirt. “She’s safer from spells.”

Her wolf. She left her shirt to him and reached for her pants, tearing the fabric in her hurry. He could run ahead, but trying to convince him to leave her would be useless. Instead, she measured her breaths, each one loud as a shot in the quiet of the woods.

As she knelt to change, Colin’s fingers brushed her bare shoulder, the touch sparking with power. “Run,” he whispered. “Especially if the witches come. You bring the pack.”

Colin had been fighting like this his whole life, and stood a far better chance than she did of successfully facing down a witch. All Lorelei had learned was to survive, to do what was necessary—even if that meant running in the opposite direction. Her stomach roiled, but she nodded shortly before closing her eyes and reaching for the flicker of magic deep inside.

Leaving him was unfathomable, and she knew she might have to do it.

Colin had always been fast as a human.

His wolf was faster.

Lorelei ran on four legs, her paws nearly silent beyond the soft slip of damp leaves, but Colin had no trouble keeping up with her as they careened through the forest in the direction of the farmhouse.