Dark Wolf (Claimed by Wolves 3)

I nod. “Of course.”

“We’ve been discussing this particular obstacle,” he says, addressing the room. He glances at Marianne. “You’re not wrong that it will be logistically difficult. We’ll have to decide if we want to build out one of our existing communities or settle in an entirely new location, and that will depend partially on witch activity. If we…”

As he continues to speak, a small noise across the room catches my attention. It’s not loud, just a sharp inhale of breath, but something about it makes my skin prickle, some instinctual warning that something is wrong.

I glance over quickly, my gaze going directly to Sable.

Her face is pale, her eyes wide. I open my mouth to ask if she’s all right, worry flaring inside me as I start to take a step toward her.

But before I can speak, before I can move, the black sigils flare to life across her skin.

Her eyes roll back into her head, and she collapses.

28

Sable

I thought I was just tired.

I mean, we did just fight a war. I used magic to hurt people—to help kill them—and that’s not something that’s easy to bounce back from.

It’s not that I regret my actions. They were necessary for the good of my packs. But two months ago, I was a naive teenager living in an abusive home with an “uncle” who barely let me leave the house.

Now? I’m sleeping with wolves. Killing witches.

It could get to a girl.

And if I slept last night at all, it was scattered and light and full of nightmares about a woman with long red nails like claws. So the fact that I was dizzy and hot, swaying on my feet like I drank a heavy pour of whiskey before coming here, didn’t really strike me as that odd. I just thought I needed this meeting to wrap up so I could go back to Archer’s house and sleep for a week.

But then the dizzy, hot feeling morphed into something even stranger. A tickling at my senses, like static between my ears. I shook my head, trying to chase away the fuzzy feeling, but it only grew stronger.

It grew and grew, until I couldn’t even hear Ridge speaking anymore. I watched his lips move, watched him forming words as he addressed the elders about the logistics of joining the packs, but I couldn’t hear a damn thing.

This wasn’t like my panic attacks. This wasn’t coming from inside me, from my own insecurities and anxiety. It was an attack from some outside force.

I wasn’t alone in my own head.

Someone else was there.

Then, with a sharp and painful jerk, imaginary claws sank into me and wrenched me from my body.

Now I’m… I don’t know where I am.

For a long moment, everything around my consciousness dips and swirls. I’m tumbling head over heels, arms and legs flailing even though I’m no longer in my body. Those sharp claws keep hold of me, tugging me through time and space into a dark, cavernous place.

The claws release me, and I land on my feet, stumbling several steps across slick rock. I catch my balance, my breaths coming hard and fast, and glance quickly at my surroundings.

I’m nowhere and everywhere, stuck in the ether between my body and somewhere else. I have a form, though it isn’t my living body as I know it, and there’s something that feels like solid ground beneath my feet. Darkness presses in around me, suffocating. I get the distinct feeling of a cave, though I know innately that I’m not really here.

Just a fraction of me exists in this space. My essence.

And I’m not the only person here.

A woman stands before me, her head slightly tilted and her face twisted in irritation. I know who she is without needing an introduction. Cleopatra is a stunning woman—tall and trim and dressed in clothes that hug the lean curves of her body. She has black hair that hangs nearly to her waistline, framing the pale angles of her face. At first glance, I think she’s hardly older than me, but then I notice the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. She’s older than she looks, and I know without a doubt that she’s much, much stronger than me.

The coven leader eyes me like a predator sizing up her dinner. Ironic, considering I’m the wolf.

“You’re smaller than I expected,” she greets me in a deep, throaty purr that sounds like black smoke.