Heir of Night (The Thorne Hill)

“The pack was out for a run,” Mama Wolf starts. “Things were normal until the energy shifted. It felt like it does during a full moon, but the moon is far from full, as I’m sure you know.”

“Were you by the Old Stone Fort Park?” Ruby asks.

“Yes,” Mama Wolf replies, brows furrowing. “H-how did you know?”

“A Ley Line runs nearby. It wasn’t a hot spot,” she adds, meaning the local coven didn’t gather to cast a protection spell.

“What happened after the energy shifted?” Tabatha goes on, calm as always.

“Nothing. We kept running like normal, but then Noah didn’t come home this morning.” She looks at the wolf on the floor. “He was found in a cafe, covered in blood, and his eyes…his eyes were black.” Her own eyes fill with tears. “He’s still in there. He has to be.”

“Yes, he is.” Tabatha pats her hand.

“It’s been over twelve hours,” Lucas says, being the voice of reason we don’t need right now. “How long can a demon possess a human before they start rotting?”

I press my lips together and glare at him for half a second before answering honestly. “It depends on a lot of things. The physical and mental health of who they possessed, as well as how powerful the demon is.” I inspect the wolf on the floor. He’s in good physical shape, as most wolves are. He doesn’t have any sores on his flesh that I can see, and I’m not getting hit with an overwhelming scent of sulfur.

“If the demon doesn’t have powers, then it’s most likely a lower-level demon. I’ll talk to it when he wakes up. The best thing right now is to let him rest as long as he can to preserve his strength. Then we can figure out exactly what we’re dealing with and where we can go from there.”

Mama Wolf’s eyes fill with tears. “You’ll help us?”

“Of course,” I say, much to Lucas’s annoyance.

“Thank you,” she says, voice filled with relief. “Sorry.” She wipes away a tear. “I’m running on no sleep.”

“I’ll make some tea.” Kristy takes the blanket from the back of the couch and drapes it over the sleeping wolf. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” one of the brothers replies, and his mother shoots him a look.

“We don’t want to impose more than we already have,” she counters.

“It’s fine,” I promise. “I have a lot of leftover food from that party that got interrupted. You can come with me into the kitchen. He’ll be fine.”

The younger brother starts in my direction, but his brother grabs his arm. Eyes narrowed, he looks at Lucas, the distrust obvious on his face. To be fair, my dear husband is looking rather menacing, standing there in the corner of the room, arms crossed against his muscular chest. Now that the wolves are aware he’s a vampire, they’re able to sense just how old he is. Vampires over a thousand years old are rare and give off a different kind of energy than a vampire Eliza’s age.

It’s part of what made me so damn curious about Lucas when we first met. I knew he was dangerous. I knew he could eviscerate me in five seconds flat. Being with him was risky, and it excited me in a way I didn’t want to admit. Plus, knowing that he was the strongest being I’d yet to come across opened up a whole new world for me to be myself around him.

“He’ll be fine,” I press, automatically getting a little annoyed and a lot defensive of Lucas. “Even if the sleeping spell wears off soon, he’s not getting out of the circle. I’ll have my familiars watch him.”

“We’ll stay too,” Naomi says, head tipped to the side. “He’s cute enough for me not to mind being a babysitter.”

The wolves look at each other nervously. I’m not sure what they were expecting, but this definitely wasn’t it. Though, really, they should consider themselves lucky. They came for one witch and instead got a house full of them, along with two vampires and a demon-hunter.

“I will as well, since I know Latin,” Ruby says. “Just in case he wakes up feeling chatty.”

“He’s in good hands.” Tabatha gets to her feet. “From one mother to another, I know how hard it is to see your children suffer. But in order to take care of them, you have to take care of you as well. Come, get something to eat and drink while we wait.”

Scarlet, who’s been avoiding the wolves like I asked her to, is waiting outside the library and gets excited when we leave the room. She greets me like a normal dog would. “Why don’t you go outside?” I whisper, since I have a tendency to speak Enochian to her. She gives me puppy-dog eyes, which surprisingly works, even though she’s the size of a pony, but she bounds away.