The wolves growled as I stepped forward. The strength of the wards bowled over me, causing me to grit my teeth. It felt as if a thousand tiny needles prickled along my skin, not going deep enough to draw blood, but close. They were good. Much better than I expected them to be.
To their credit, the witches looked worried, taking a step back as if they thought I would burst through the wards regardless. Either that or they didn’t like the sound of pissed-off Alpha wolves. They were smarter than they looked.
And it should have ended there. We would have threatened them, they would have retorted uselessly, and then we would have left. The whole point of showing ourselves, Ox had told us, was to make sure Michelle Hughes understood we knew about her. That we wouldn’t be cowed. That she had brought this fight to our door, and once we were done here, once we’d found a way to cure Carter and Mark and had taken care of the hunters, we were going to come after her.
But instead, a figured appeared on the bridge.
For a brief moment I thought it was my father, and my heart stumbled in my chest.
Mark heard, and he crowded close to me. My Alphas brushed against me, tails twitching dangerously.
But it didn’t feel like him. I would know my father’s magic. It wasn’t in these wards. It wasn’t in these witches. Whoever they were, they didn’t belong to him.
It didn’t stop the fear, however brief it was.
A fear that soon changed to disbelief when I saw who it was.
A disbelief that turned to rage when Mark stiffened beside me.
“Dale?” he asked, voice choked.
Dale walked out from the bridge, snow crunching underneath his feet. “Mark,” Dale said, nodding in greeting. “Hello.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snapped.
Dale glanced at me coolly. “I’m here as the witch to Alpha Michelle Hughes. To make sure the wards hold. It’s my job.” He reached up and tapped against them. A deep pulse bloomed in my head as the wards burst in color, and I felt just how far around us they stretched. They didn’t encompass the entire territory, but all of Green Creek was surrounded.
Before I could stop him, Mark half shifted and launched himself at Dale, fangs bared, eyes blazing orange. He crashed into the wards, which echoed brightly with the deep sound of a heavy bell. He fell back into the snow.
The Alphas snarled as they paced back and forth in front of us while I knelt down beside Mark. He groaned, eyes fading into ice blue. “You idiot,” I said, helping him up. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “Fine.” He glared at Dale. “How the hell are you a witch? I didn’t smell magic on you.”
Dale shrugged. “There are ways to hide one’s true self, Mark. It’s not that difficult. Isn’t that right, Gordo?”
“When we get out of here,” I promised him, “I’m coming for you first.” I didn’t know how he’d managed to get inside my wards without me knowing, but it didn’t matter now. He’d made a mistake in revealing himself.
Dale wasn’t impressed. “Michelle gave you the opportunity. She told you what would happen if you allowed the infected wolves to live. We do what we must to survive. Surely you can appreciate that.”
“All this time,” Mark said, sounding dazed. “You were working for her all this time.”
Dale looked almost regretful. “I did care about you, Mark. More than I thought I would.” He glanced at me. “Even if your mind was… elsewhere. If that offers you any sort of solace. To be that close to a Bennett, to know you intimately.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.”
Oh yeah. He was going to be first.
There was the familiar snap of muscle and bone, and Oxnard Matheson and Joe Bennett stood nude in the snow.
Now the witches took a step back.
Even Dale.
“You’re here because of Michelle Hughes,” Ox said slowly. “Because she told you to come.”
“She wanted—”
“That was rhetorical,” Joe growled.
Dale’s face took on the color of the snow.