Page 75 of Cold Sacrifice

I was worried about Jared. He hadn’t returned my call or my text. Finally, I’d called his beta. “Have you heard from Jared, Leonard? He left for Long Shadow hours ago and hasn’t checked in since.”

“He let me know what was going on when he found where the injured wolves had lain,” he told me. “He called for more wolves because he needed some to stand guard while he and the others shifted to search. We don’t believe the wolves are ours, which brings up a whole new set of questions, doesn’t it?”

Unlike Eli, the beta before him, Leonard didn’t think twice about sharing pack information with me. As far as he was concerned, as his alpha’s mate, I was entitled to everything I asked for. And I had proven more than once that I was their alpha, as well, and would only ever protect them.

That certainly made things easier.

“Yeah,” I said. “The last thing we need is more interlopers and another rival alpha to fight.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said.

“If you hear from the wolves with Jared—or Jared—send me a text?”

“Absolutely, Kait.”

The start of my night was bogged down with phone calls. I explained things to Joe, and though he grumbled, he didn’t throw a fit or argue overmuch. After we hung up, I called Bastien to tell him about Trinity’s offer.

I didn’t get the chance, though, because Alexandria was under attack.

While I was preparing to leave Bastien a voicemail, Farrow texted me.

Necromancer is coming for me. I’m trying to resist, Kait. I can’t. I can’t.

“I guess that answers my question,” Remy said.

“Kick it, Remy,” I said. “We have to get there before Jolene takes Farrow and hides.” Then, “Dammit. Will the methods of keeping a ghost inside a circle work on a vampire-dead necromancer?”

“She’s not a spirit,” Zach said.

“No,” I agreed. “I need to talk to Trinity.”

So while Remy sped toward Alexandria, I got Trinity on the phone.

“Kait,” she said. “Bastien wants the spell?”

“No time for that right now,” I told her. “Jolene is in Alexandria attacking as we speak. Is there a way I can trap her inside a salt circle and keep her from going into the ground?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” she said, bursting my bubble. “But there’s a possibility you can do it with your magic.”

“My magic was sucked out of me by a siphoner,” I told her. “I no longer have magic.”

“Don’t you?” she asked. “I think you do have magic, Kait. Your blade, and something else that I can feel…and if I can feel it, surely you can, too.”

I narrowed my eyes, thinking about it. Sure, my blade was powerful. But could it trap a necromancer and keep her on the ground instead of inside it?

“I guess I’m about to find out,” I said.

Zach leaned up from the back. “I called Sam. He’ll meet us there as soon as Trinity is on her way to Silverwood.”

“We’ll need him,” I said. We wouldn’t be fighting only the necromancer. We’d be fighting the vampires she controlled.

When we arrived at the master’s property, it looked surprisingly quiet, which meant Jolene had gotten inside the house. With wolves and the master’s humans guarding the place, that couldn’t have been easy.

But as we ran across the large yard toward the front of the house, I saw bodies strewn across the grass.

There was blood around them all, but not nearly as much as there should have been. Jolene had devoured them as she killed them. I believed she was getting hungrier and needing more blood the longer she was “alive.” And she was not shy about taking what she needed.

My blade began to heat in my hand long before we reached the front door. I heard the thumps, now, and the yells, and what sounded like distant thunder coming from deep inside the house. Jolene was causing chaos. She was causing the vampires to kill each other, and that was the reason she’d fought so hard to survive and get strong enough to climb from her grave.