Lost in Prophecy: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Ascension Series) (Volume 5) (17 page)

Rylie’s wolf surged within, sweeping over her with fury. This was one of her pack, a submissive, and he had attacked her. There was only one way to handle such an attack: quickly, decisively, and messily, making sure that no other wolf would be stupid enough to repeat his sin.

Abel was shouting in the other room. Bones popped and ground as he shifted. Her wolf wanted to join him.

She could feel the massive, furry body waiting to overtake her, like the wolf’s flank was rubbing against the inside of her ribcage. Her fingernails had already fallen out. Blood slicked the sheets as she struggled against Felton’s grip, trying to bring her new claws to bear. Just a few more seconds, and she would have werewolf jaws, too—perfect to rip out Felton’s throat.

Her spine ached, threatening to extend into a tail.

No. I can’t change.

It was hard to think rationally while flooded with adrenaline, listening to her mate’s yelps as other werewolves beat at him. She could smell silver—they had come armed to restrain Abel.

But she couldn’t change. She needed to calm herself down. Needed to hang onto her human form, no matter how much it hurt her to do it.

She could tell by Levi’s smirk that he knew Rylie wasn’t going to change.

“Your sister will never forgive you for this,” Rylie said. She wasn’t sure he could understand her. Half of her teeth had already become wolf-like, and it made her lisp strangely.

Levi shrugged. “Bekah’s never been all that interested in pack politics.”

“Is that all this is? Politics?”

“That, and I just don’t like you.” He turned, raised his voice. “She’s over here!”

A pair of men came into the room. They were wearing Union black and they carried silver chains. Rylie’s heart felt like it was going to explode out of her chest.

“Don’t use those on me,” she said.

“Do you hear this?” Felton scoffed. “She’s
begging
. Some Alpha.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Levi said, cuffing him with a hard swipe. He knocked the werewolf off of Rylie. Even without Felton’s weight on her chest, she couldn’t seem to breathe. “We don’t have to use the chains if you come nicely.”

“Where are we going?”

His eyes glimmered. “Northgate.”

She hesitated a second too long. They moved to restrain her, and Rylie jerked out of reach.

“I’ll come,” Rylie said. She couldn’t fight them anyway—not unless she succumbed to the Alpha wolf’s brutal rage. And if she did that, then she would never be able to hang onto her human skin. She would lose control. She would shapeshift.

And then she would kill every single one of these people.

Rylie wouldn’t do it. She stood, and when Levi grabbed her arm, she didn’t try to break free.

Her gut twisted at the sight of Abel in the living room. He had gone down hard, and now his animal body was bound in chains. He was a huge, majestic beast with sleek black fur, almost more of a bear than a wolf. They had muzzled him and locked it with silver. His eyes were glazed with pain.

“Take that off of him,” Rylie said.

Levi ignored the command, shoving her out the door.

There was an SUV waiting. The back door was already open. Even chained with silver, it took four men to toss Abel into the cargo compartment.

“Get in the backseat,” Levi said.

Rylie obeyed quietly. They had Abel—she didn’t have any other choice.

The sounds of a fight hadn’t gone unnoticed. The door to the cottage across the street opened, and Trevin stumbled out, hiking sweatpants over his hips. The instant he saw Levi, anger flamed in his eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing, dude?”

“Stay out of this, Trevin,” Levi said. “My problem isn’t with you.”

Crystal shoved out of the cottage behind him. Her jaw dropped open. “Oh my
God
. Is this a takeover?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Rylie, change me!”

Only Alpha werewolves could change on command, but they could also force other werewolves to transform in between moons. If Rylie made Trevin and Crystal shapeshift, then the Apple would attack them, too. The cult had come with silver chains. Who said that they hadn’t also brought silver bullets?

How determined was Levi to get rid of Rylie and Abel?

Rylie couldn’t allow her pack to get hurt in this. There was a peaceful resolution here, somehow, somewhere—Levi wasn’t a great guy, but he wasn’t a madman, either. He was just an egomaniac with a grudge.

But even though she hadn’t reached out with her power to change Crystal and Trevin, both of their skins began to ripple.

Apparently, the silver chains hadn’t knocked Abel out hard enough to keep him from using his Alpha powers on them.

“No!” Rylie cried. “Don’t!”

Abel had never been as good at changing the werewolves as Rylie was. He didn’t do it quickly or painlessly. Tonight, though, he practically wrenched the wolves out of Crystal and Trevin, like he ripped open their human flesh and tossed it aside.

In a torrent of blood and fur, the two of them changed.

Levi shoved Rylie into the back of the SUV and slammed the door behind her.

She twisted to watch her wolves attack the members of the Apple. Crystal was brutal. Fast. Downright
mean
. She snapped her jaws shut on the leg of the nearest man and twisted her head, severing the limb at the knee.

Another man lifted a gun, aiming it at Crystal’s head.

A shriek tore from Rylie. “
No
!”

But Levi gunned the engine of the SUV, tearing down the road. He turned a corner before Rylie could see what had happened to Crystal.

Her stomach clenched. She was going to be sick. Rylie clapped both hands over her mouth.

It took a few minutes to gain enough control to speak. “Abel told me that he talked to Stephanie. She promised to ask you to stop messing around with my wolves.”

Levi didn’t look back, focusing on the sliver of road they could see through the headlights. “She did talk to me. I ignored her. Stephanie might be in charge of the Apple, but she’s no werewolf. She has nothing to do with pack matters.”

“This isn’t just some pack matter, Levi,” Rylie said. She leaned to touch his shoulder in the front seat. “You know you’ve always been welcome in the sanctuary. We’re not enemies.”

He elbowed her away. “Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t hurt my wolves.”

Levi’s eyes were reflected in the rearview mirror, glaring at her. “Your wolves? The ones that you’ve mismanaged and gotten killed at the mouth of Hell?”

“My wolves,” Rylie whispered. They had always been her wolves, always would be. She was Alpha. Nothing Levi did would change that.

Right?

Levi parked the
SUV right in front of the statue of Bain Marshall, inside the barricades that the Apple had erected. Storm clouds roiled overhead, concealing the gash to Shamain that hadn’t quite healed.

He jumped out. Pulled Rylie into the wind with him. They were right against the edge of the fissure.

“Why here?” she asked, pressing her whipping hair against her shoulders with both hands.

The question answered itself. There was a crowd gathering, even bigger than the one Rylie had seen around the fissure earlier. People had come out to see what Levi was going to do to the Alphas.

Levi hauled Abel out of the back of the SUV. He had shifted back to human within the chains so that the muzzle hung loosely around his neck. Bright red burns crisscrossed his skin, leaving blisters where they had dug into him. Levi dropped Abel on the lawn then shoved Rylie to the ground beside him.

She didn’t think twice before unhooking the chains. They sizzled against her fingers, but she bit back a cry as she released Abel and pulled him onto his knees. The sight of the wounds made her want to cry.

“I can’t change,” Abel groaned against the top of her head, gripping her shoulders tightly. “The silver. You have to do it.”

He wanted her to shapeshift and kill Levi.

She bit her bottom lip. She
wanted
to change and protect Abel, but…she couldn’t. And it had nothing to do with silver.

Rylie glared up at Levi through the blaze of firelight. Hell reflected on him, casting his features in stark shadows. “What’s the point of this? What do you possibly think you can accomplish?”

“Join my pack,” Levi said.

“
What
?”

“I’m Alpha now. Swear to join my pack now, while everyone is watching, and I’ll let you both stay.”

His
pack?

Rylie’s eyes swept over the clearing. The number of witnesses was growing. She had initially assumed that the people watching them were members of the Apple that had never left Northgate, but then the wind shifted, carrying their scent to her. She smelled pine trees and cold stone. Open air dotted by starlight. Old cabins, rotting wood, wet soil.

This was the pack. Over twenty of them, at a quick count.

More than half of Rylie’s werewolves were standing with Levi.

This wasn’t just Levi taking over. This was an organized revolt.

There were so many familiar faces standing behind him. Some people who had been with her for years—people who had faced down the Union on Gray Mountain the night that she became Alpha in the first place. But they weren’t there to defend her. They were there to throw in their lots with Levi.

Levi, who was willing to bite more people and turn them into werewolves.

Levi, who was a member of the same cult that had made Rylie’s life a living hell.

Her eyes burned, and it wasn’t with the pain of transformation. She swallowed down tears. She had given everything for the pack, even the things she never thought she could give. Not just money and the time required to build the sanctuary, but her life. The lives of her children. The lives of friends, like Toshiko, and even Seth himself.
 

All for the pack.

“Have I been that bad?” she whispered.

Levi’s brow creased. “You’re not a leader, Gresham. You never have been. You’re just some dumb kid that survived getting bitten.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I’ll be able to make the pack a force to be reckoned with.”

Rylie would have given him the ability to be Alpha if she could have. If it meant that she and Abel could live without being bothered—fine. She had been willing to let Elise exorcise her to reach that end.

Having it taken from her felt so different from giving it up willingly. It hurt.

She looked at each member of her pack in turn. Cassie had been a resident of the California coven’s werewolf sanctuary. Sanjana had been at her wedding with Seth. Antwan had helped Rylie fix the fences at the Gresham ranch after the bad snowstorm in 2012.

Not just friends, but family, too. Rylie caught sight of Abram over Levi’s shoulder. He was on the outermost edge of the lawn, almost to the street. His expression was inscrutable in the night.

What would Levi do if Abram attacked? Her son couldn’t defend Rylie against an entire mutinous werewolf pack.

She caught Abram’s eye and stood up. “Run,” she whispered, hoping that he would read her lips. “Get out of here.”

“We’re not joining your pack,” Abel said, struggling to stand beside her.

Levi’s fingernails had been replaced by claws. The bones in his face shifted under the skin, popping faintly. “You don’t have any choice, Wilder. There’s nowhere else for you to go.”

“All you assholes want Levi in charge of the pack? Whatever. We’ll go to Hell,” Abel said loudly enough for everyone to hear him. “Moon’s in three days, asshole. You ready for it?”

Hell?
Rylie gaped at him. “Abel, we can’t—”

“Okay,” Levi said. “If you’re happy to turn tail, then go to Hell. Get out of here.”

Abel pulled Rylie hard against his side as he walked up to the edge of the bridge. She gazed up at him in silent questioning. There was no trace of doubt in his face. Abel was, in his own way, an immovable force of nature—something that used to terrify her. The twisted left side of his scarred face didn’t bother her anymore. But the hardness she saw in his eyes…that frightened her.

It reminded her of the man who had once hunted her, threatened to kill her. He was back.

And for some reason, he was retreating.

“Abel?” she whispered.

“Trust me,” he said.

She did trust him. She trusted him with everything.

Rylie glanced back at Levi. He looked so damn smug. She swallowed down her pride and asked, “Will you feed Sir Lumpy until Summer comes back for him? Please?”

“Yeah,” Levi said. “I can do that.” Even he wasn’t so much of an asshole that he would let the cat starve.

Rylie stepped over the edge of the fissure with Abel, leaving the pack and the Earth behind.

Smoke consumed Rylie
. She gagged on it hard enough that she slipped to her knees, her only anchor Abel’s strong arm trapped between her hands. She had been fighting the urge to vomit ever since she had seen Crystal and Trevin shifting on the mountain. Now she lost the battle. Everything she had eaten the day before spilled out of her.

Abel jerked her to her feet again. “Don’t stop moving.”

She cupped her hand under her mouth, trying not to get sick all over her clothes. Throwing up didn’t make her feel any better. The illness had taken root deep in her soul.

Sand blasted her skin, exposed by the long white nightgown she had been sleeping in. The healing fever swept over her again and again, struggling to heal her as Dis inflicted damage.

The judgmental faces of her pack haunted her. She could see them in the shape of the smoke as Abel dragged her down the crystal bridge.

“They left us,” she choked out, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Fuck them,” Abel said. His voice was quickly going hoarse as his throat dried out in Dis’s climate. “Fuck every last one of them.”

The wind blew harder, clearing the smoke long enough for Rylie to see the bridge stretching down to the tower and the city beyond. Dis was huge, sprawling, and just as frightening as Rylie remembered. The jagged black mountains looked sharper, meaner, like Levi’s teeth when he was in his wolf form.

There were people advancing toward them from the bottom of the bridge. The guards had spotted their approach and were moving to intercept.