Page 63 of Cold Sacrifice

“Maybe they were actual wolves,” Remy suggested.

I snorted. “In Jakeston? No. They were shifters. The hikers had to walk away from them to get a signal, and when they returned, the only thing left on the ground was blood.”

Jared reached for his phone. “I’ll call my beta. He can take a team out there. I’ll have Susan make sure everyone is accounted for.”

I grabbed his wrist before he could call his beta, then pointed at the black car parked across the lot. “You have some of your people right here. You don’t need to babysit me while your wolves could be in trouble. Take your warriors and go, Jared. If I need you, I’ll call for you.”

“I’m not leaving you, Kait.”

“Jolene is no worse than any other enemy I’ve faced,” I told him. “She’s not worse than Axton or Avis Vine. She’s not even worse than Adam Thorne or Gavin Voss or the demons I’ve fought.” Okay, maybe that was a lie, but still. I’d battled some crazy evil and lived to tell about it. “And no one is worse than Lucas. If I can fight an angel, I can handle a necromancer.”

And as I talked, I realized it was true. I’d fought a fucking angel. Why the hell would going into the ground scare me? Why would a tormented necromancer vampire creature scare me?

Even without my magic, I was a force.

And that time when I thought it, I truly believed it.

I smiled, and something changed in Jared’s eyes. “There it is,” he murmured. “Okay, Kait. Call if you need me.” He wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him, and he then kissed me like we were alone and about to fall into bed.

It was full of heat, that kiss, and at the back of it was relief and joy. He’d been waiting for me to lose the fear I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying. He’d been waiting to see my confidence return.

Zach and I got out of his car and hurried to climb into mine with Remy and Sam.

“Where to?” Remy asked. “If we’re killing time, I say we kill it in Mason’s bar with a cold beer.”

Before I could reply, my cell phone rang. I answered, because generally when it was a number I didn’t recognize, it was always someone I needed to talk to.

“Kait,” Wes Korda said when I answered. “I wanted to call you myself instead of going through the council and Saul just to ask you to come in.”

I didn’t ask him how he’d gotten my number. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop in to see you last night, Wes. And I don’t think I have time to see you now.”

“It’s important,” he said. “I need you here before I lose the progress I’ve made.”

“I don’t understand how you—”

“I know you don’t,” he interrupted. “And I can’t explain it to you. I just need you to come see me now.”

“Dammit,” I muttered. “I’ll try, Wes. If I can’t come right now, I’ll show up after my…my meeting. If I’m still alive.”

“You know,” he said, “if I’d scheduled a meeting that could kill me, I’d probably go ahead and cancel it.”

I laughed. “I can’t do that. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

Then I called Rick to find out if I had time to visit a strange wolf before I had to hunt down an even stranger necromancer.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“You have all the time you need, Kait,” Rick said. “You can come in long after we’re gone, if you need to. But we’ll be out of here in less than an hour.”

So we headed to the council building. They’d stopped playing musical buildings, at least as far as Korda was concerned. Maybe the elders were someplace else, sleeping or…whatever it was they did. I didn’t see them as I walked through the building to Wes Korda’s room, but I wasn’t there to see them.

I was let in and escorted back by two hulking guards, but I wasn’t sure who would have instructed them to allow me in or to take me to Korda. I didn’t ask, because they wouldn’t have answered.

Wes was waiting for me, standing beside his chair at the small table as I approached. Dark glasses hid his eyes, but the look on his face seemed particularly attentive. He wore a dark gray suit with a light gray shirt, and I paused for a second, feeling the wolf inside him.

I wanted to ask him questions. Like, where did he go to shift? Who accompanied him? How did he lose his vision? Did he have friends or ever leave the building? What was his story?

“You look nice,” I said, instead. “Really nice.”