Shadow Of A Mate (14 page)

Clearly Merrick wasn’t inclined to elaborate either. “Yes. I was able to put a sort of psychic plaster over the alpha energy. It won’t last for long. When it ruptures or you pull it free, you’re going to go nuclear. There won’t be anything I can do.”

“So be it.” Kyle secretly wasn’t holding out much hope of making it home.

“I know what you’re thinking, cub. Don’t. There is no guarantee you’ll be able to take Katrianna even with that kind of power. It’s dangerous and unpredictable. And so is she. For all we know this is playing directly into her hands,” Merrick cautioned, waving a hand around them at the forest.

“Just remember your promise to keep them safe,” he said barely above a whisper.

Merrick stared at him for a long time and Kyle had no idea what was going on inside the lynx’s head. Then the shifter grudgingly nodded.

“Okay, then.” Kyle climbed to his feet and set off without a look back at the others. Part of him hoped they wouldn’t follow, but he heard them run to catch up.

He knew his friends were expecting some sort of pep talk, but Kyle had nothing left to give. It was all he could do to keep moving.

What happened earlier scared him.

Merrick and Papa had warned him alpha power was wild and primal, but nothing had prepared him to be so thoroughly washed away. It was like everything that he was hadn’t existed anymore. The only thing he’d felt was need. Need to dominate, need to destroy and a violent need for Jay that terrified him to the bone.

One thing was certain, he didn’t want Jay anywhere near him when he was like that. He didn’t trust himself. If in some miracle he came out of this, he would have to do something drastic to make certain it wasn’t a danger to anyone he loved.

“Kyle?” Tryst tentatively tapped his arm, drawing him to a halt.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not though, are you?” Mack’s stare bore into his soul. They knew him well enough to know he was lying through his teeth.

Without answering, Kyle dropped his eyes and continued walking.

After another hour of fast walking, they didn’t dare risk running in case the jungle closed up and they became separated, Logan pulled them all to a stop, his face pale and thunderstruck. “Her house is just up ahead. There was a river running through here, it was hundreds of years old. How is it gone? Something isn’t right.”

“I know. It’s too easy,” Kyle said, voicing his own concerns.

Hearing that, Tryst butt in, waving his hands about animatedly as he ranted. “How is a fake person, a giant snake, a jungle that uses time and paths to trick you and trees and plants that reach out to grab you and make impenetrable, unclimbable walls easy? Our phones and GPS don’t even work.”

“And you going cuckoo, let’s not forget that,” Mack added helpfully without even looking in his direction. Both leopards wouldn’t look at him. They took orders and did their duty, but they hadn’t tried to engage in conversation since Kyle had lied about being fine.

The betas knew he was hiding something and they were hurt. He couldn’t tell them the truth about everything, though, or they wouldn’t leave him when the time came. They were too loyal.

Merrick raised a brow and tipped his head in Tryst and Mack’s direction.

He shook his head and turned back to Logan.

“Logan?”

His jaguar lifted its head inside him, sniffing and growling. Logan was still pale, but his eyes were wide open and unfocused. He snapped fingers in front of the wolf and got no reaction.

Pushing him aside, Merrick unsheathed a long sharp knife. The blade was a dull black colour with dark embellishments. It was elaborately decorated and a fine piece of craftsmanship.

However that wasn’t what had Kyle so interested, it was the fact that there were no shiny bits, nothing to reflect light. Why would Merrick need an assassin’s blade? It was one to be used in combat, too, from the straight grip of the hilt. What the hell did Merrick do when he wasn’t being a pain in Kyle’s ass?

Knots of apprehension tightened in his stomach.

When Merrick hustled closer and pressed the blade at Logan’s throat, Kyle grabbed the man’s arm. There was no way he was going to let Merrick kill Logan.

“What the hell are you doing?” He tugged at the arm holding the blade, hauling Merrick back. Damn, the bastard was strong.

Turning his head Kyle motioned for Tryst and Mack to take up protective positions around Logan. Rogo stayed still approximately ten feet away, watchful of Kyle and Merrick. He’d noticed before that Rogo tended to stay out of any altercations.

The lion claimed to owe Jay a debt and seemed to honestly want to help, but there was something in the way Rogo watched Merrick that made him cautious. As if Rogo’s loyalties would be torn.

In his distraction, Merrick yanked himself free and moved toward Logan again.

Blocking him, Kyle caught the arm again and growled threateningly. “Don’t.” He was getting tired of the ass ignoring him when they didn’t agree.

There were two different Merrick’s. The one like this that drove Kyle up the wall and the other that talked about Jay’s father with warmth.

In a real fight with no one to break it up Kyle wasn’t sure who would win. And if he had to guess, he would say Merrick didn’t know either. It might be the only thing stopping the older shifter from coming at him seriously when they scuffled.

The more he saw of the lynx the more he wondered if the male was stronger than he led people to believe. Maybe even alpha strong. There was a section in Jay’s book that Merrick had given him saying that red lynxes were outside the hierarchy. That could be dangerous.

“Stop it, Merrick. I mean it.” Kyle shoved his weight at the shifter to move him back a few steps.

“Magic is interfering with him, I can smell it. The bitter lemon and the crackle of power tickling my senses is unmistakable.” The coldness in Merrick’s eyes was scary. If he let the lynx go, he knew without a doubt that Merrick would kill Logan.

He scented and smelled the same things, there was just no way to be certain it was Katrianna doing whatever it was to Logan until the wolf acted. Then the choice of words struck him. “Does tickling really sound like something that hag would do?”

That gave Merrick pause and the lynx stopped pulling away from him. When Kyle was sure Merrick wasn’t going to charge at Logan again, he released his grip, hovering close in case he was wrong.

Lowering the blade, Merrick turned to him and nodded reluctantly. “Then what other explanation is there?”

Why was everyone expecting him to have all the answers? “I don’t know. This magic crap is supposed to be your area of expertise. You figure it out—” he nodded at the knife “–
without
that.”

“Uhh, guys? Is Logan supposed to have white eyes like that crazy snake thing? Wait...he’s mumbling something.”

Kyle gave Merrick one more warning look and resisted the urge to punch him in the face when the lynx rolled his eyes and shrugged him off. One of these days Kyle was going to have to make up his mind whether he trusted Merrick or not because this back and forth was beginning to make him seasick.

“Asshole,” he said under his breath, smiling innocently when Merrick’s head cranked around.

“The sentiment is mutual,
cub,
” Merrick retorted with deliberate emphasis at the end, staring him in the eye.

The age thing was a low blow and he narrowed his eyes as they shifted to cat and felt pressure at his fingertips where his claws wanted to come out. “At least my age will change eventually, you being an asshole isn’t likely to.”

Merrick opened his mouth to no doubt throw an insult back at him, but another shout from his betas stopped him.

“Guys! Seriously, he’s getting really weird.”

Kyle dropped Merrick’s gaze and turned away. Pack came first.

Tryst and Mack were still in their defensive positions in front of Logan and Logan was still standing with the same weird expression on his face. But the eyes...the eyes really were filled with white and moved under the filmy surface like billowing smoke.

“Get back, guys.”

His betas backed up only until they were in line with him. It worked out that their back was to Merrick. Ordinarily, turning their backs on someone was one of the biggest insults in shifter culture because it meant that you did not view that person as a threat.

Right now however, it was signifying that they were a united front.

“Enough with the theatrics. Fine. I promise I won’t hurt him, happy now? He’ll probably kill us all,” Merrick grumbled as he sheathed the blade and shoved Tryst out of the way so that he could get a look at Logan.

“Logan?” Kyle snapped his fingers again and jerked back when Logan reached out with surprising speed, capturing his wrist.

Everyone tensed and he could feel Mack and Tryst about to tackle Logan. Merrick moved as well, probably reaching for the blade again.

“Don’t. He’s not hurting me,” he said calmly to reassure his betas.

“Kyle, he’s not himself.” Mack edged forward and subtly placed himself closer to Logan. His beta was probably trying to weigh up his options of ripping Logan away from Kyle now or waiting until he attacked and throwing himself between them.

Sometimes Kyle didn’t envy his betas. He would hate being trapped by someone else’s orders. It was why he didn’t give many and took care when he did.

“He also hasn’t hurt us. My instinct is not to hurt him. At least...not yet. Now give me a minute to think.” Kyle stared at the wolf shifter and tried to figure out why he wasn’t picking up on any anger or fear.

To his knowledge, no one could completely suppress a host. So if Logan was in distress there would be outward signs his own jaguar would pick up on. He only scented calmness.

“Very wise, young Alpha Kyle CathFawr.”

The voice coming from Logan’s mouth wasn’t his, but Kyle knew it.

“Lorrie?”

Logan’s face crinkled into a wide smile that was definitely more feminine than masculine and even the way Logan stood reminded him of the woman. Logan’s stiff posture had fallen into a looser stance with one hip cocked out to the side a little and his hands moved to clasp in front of him.

“I must admit that I didn’t expect you to realise it was me this quickly nor protect your friend after being exposed to the spells and tricks meant to inspire descent that lie upon Katrianna’s land. People underestimate you, you are not the simple brawn to Jay’s brain that some people assume.”

“That’s the point,” Tryst muttered quietly, shooting Merrick a warning glare. Merrick simply looked away, which surprised him. Perhaps the lynx didn’t underestimate him as much as he had assumed.

They really didn’t have time for all this vagueness. “Logan is my friend and though he is Katrianna’s son he has stood with me to save my mate against his mother’s foul magic.”

The small smile froze on Lorrie’s borrowed face. “Her son?”

“Yes, Logan is Katrianna’s son,” Kyle said again, wondering why this bit of information had shocked Lorrie so much that Logan’s eyes temporarily cleared for a moment before clouding again.

“Logan.” She said it as a whisper filled with awe.

Something more was going on here, but Kyle feared they didn’t have time to go over it. He knew they were close to Katrianna, he could feel it like an itch on the back of his neck.

“Lorrie, what’s going on?” She didn’t react and Logan’s body didn’t move or even appear to hear him. “Lorrie!”

“I do not have time to tell you everything. Even now her magic is pushing me out and I only have a few minutes. Katrianna is plotting. She’s left a stain on the earth that spreads dark magic and kills everything in its path. She is attempting something that not even the darkest of witches has dared to before. Katrianna is trying to summon the power of a goddess,” Lorrie warned.

Now Kyle could smell fear. Logan and Lorrie were terrified.

At this Merrick stepped forward, looking urgent. “Can she succeed?”

Lorrie hesitated and Logan’s body jerked. “With a power like Jay’s anything is possible.” Kyle could tell this time it was both Logan and Lorrie’s voice.

Merrick had taken over talking to Lorrie for the last few minutes as Lorrie struggled to keep the connection. Kyle noticed the sweat beading on Logan’s brow and the shifter’s hands fisted. He wouldn’t call it a possession anymore because he knew Logan consented to it.

Hell, Logan was probably trying as much as Lorrie to maintain it. The mental connection was hurting and wearing both of them down.

“So she is raising a goddess’s power using Jay’s essence and if she succeeds she will be stronger than anyone on earth, able to destroy anything in her path and there is nothing we can do to stop her.” Merrick pretty much summed up exactly how fucked they were.

“Yes. I am sorry but I’m slipping away even with Logan’s help. I can’t fight her, she’s too strong. She’s supposed to be weak while she drains Jay, but she isn’t. We underestimated her and how well she planned this out.” Lorrie’s tone was final, resigned.

“What about Jay?”

They were all talking about the fate of the world and the most evil person he’d met. It might make him selfish but Kyle didn’t care. Jay was his priority. Mack and Tryst would be on his side no matter what and they proved that when they came to him without question, brushing their shoulders with his.

Logan turned to him with those white eyes and shed a glistening tear. “I’m sorry, Kyle. Jay is almost out of time. I don’t know if you can kill her or even if that would help Jay at this point. It’s too late. I’m so sorry.”

“I did not come this far to let Katrianna take my mate from me,” Kyle uttered harshly, not believing what he was hearing. He’d thought they understood. Evidently he’d been wrong.

“Stay out of my way,” Kyle snarled at the lynx, backing away. He’d believed that they had come to an agreement that Jay was more important than anything, but Merrick was thinking about what Lorrie had said, Kyle could see it on his face. In this case if someone wasn’t with him, they were against him.

Merrick caught his arm. “Kyle, you don’t understand. I’m not saying—”