Throne of Oak (Maggie's Grove) (23 page)

Parker’s gaze went blank. “Yes.” He tilted his head. “I understand.” His expression grimly determined, Parker gestured toward the compound. “The ghosts are on the move.”

“Good.” The ghosts on their team would return once they’d accomplished their mission, taking out the cameras on the perimeter and messing with any electrical alarms.

Until then, it was a waiting game.

Noah and his wolves joined them, staring off toward the science facility. Half of them had already shifted, their noses lifted to the air. Were they keeping watch for Van Helsings, or could they smell their spectral allies? Dragos wasn’t certain.

Parker placed his arm around Brian’s shoulders, comforting his obviously upset Renfield. “It shouldn’t take too long, Brian.”

The Renfield was staring into the dark night, his expression filled with fear. “What if we’re wrong? What if they’ve got something that could harm ghosts?”

“Use your abilities. Feel him. If he’s in danger, I swear, I’ll swoop in and save him. Again.” Parker winked at Brian. “Trust me.”

Judging by the look Brian shot Parker, the Renfield knew a load of bull when he heard it. He closed his eyes and a frown of concentration appeared on his brow. “I can barely hear him.”

“Something about Maggie’s Grove amplifies your abilities. I have a theory about that, actually.”

“Gods, Parker, not now.” Dragos kept his attention on the Van Helsing compound.

“They’re in.” Brian tensed further. “He says there
is
something that’s interfering with his energies. They might have detected his presence when he scouted the place last and implemented measures to keep him out.”

“Meaning the other Van Helsings will begin ghost hunting.” Parker’s cheerful tone completely disappeared. The man did not take well to threats against his own, and Greg and Brian had both been declared his. “We need to make sure they don’t get too much information on our less-visible residents.”

“Agreed.” Brian shivered hard. “I just got him, Parker.”

Parker put his arm around Brian, hugging him close. “He literally waited his whole life for you. I think only the gods themselves could keep him from you.”

“Do you want to call him back?” Dragos wouldn’t force either Brian or Greg to suffer, and Brian was doing just that.

“No. I can’t. None of the other mediums have a connection the way Greg and I do.” He was rubbing his arms, his eyes glazed over. “They’ve disabled the alarm system. The cameras are off-line.” Brian relaxed—a huge, relieved grin covering his face. “He’s on his way back.”

“
Let’s go get Iva back.
” Mina’s voice echoed through his mind, her fear and her courage both filling him to the brim.

He covered Mina’s eyes as Noah took off his clothes, the alpha ignoring the twin growls coming from both Dragos and Parker.

And then something extraordinary happened. The alpha wolf changed, but instead of the normal wolf form he normally took, he became something far larger and massive. Something no one would mess twice with except another equally strong alpha wolf.

And since Noah was the strongest wolf in the country...

He was easily six feet at the shoulder, towering over all the other wolves that capered around him like pups. Except these pups were full-grown men and women—warriors in their own right, some of Noah’s most trusted people. They greeted their alpha’s new form with sniffs and gruffs of approval.

Dragos had seen this transformation before, in other alpha wolves who had lived in Maggie’s Grove over the years, but none had been quite so large or so formidable. He was literally double the size of all the other wolves around him, dwarfing them all.

Noah was a force to be reckoned with, and his alpha form proved it.

Trajan whistled low. “No wonder he could command me.”

Dragos had felt Noah’s pull once or twice himself.

Mina nodded once and gestured toward the compound. Her dryads fanned out, moving across the empty dirt that surrounded the compound at incredible speed, dodging here and there at unseen obstacles. “We have explosives in the ground. We can’t mess with them without setting them off.”

“Let me deal with that.” Rock cracked his knuckles. He spread his feet and set his stance, taking a deep, meditative breath. Within moments, muffled explosions—barely audible even to Dragos’s vampiric hearing—sounded off. When the last muffled sound died away, he opened his eyes and relaxed. “Done.”

Mina took off, sword in hand, following her dryads. Ash and Amara were slightly ahead of her, Amara taking on her weretree form as she went.

“Guess it’s time.” Parker saluted and took off after his
sotiei
.

Noah charged after them, his wolves streaming behind him. Overhead, the flyers, led by Trajan, swarmed over the compound, confusing both sight and sound with their calls and their aerial acrobatics. It was the signal they’d all been watching for, the one that told him that all three prongs of the attack were on the move.

Dragos shifted, joining his brother in the sky. He caught up to his
sotiei
and, keeping an eye on her, began to use his flame on the security guards that raced out of the building to confront them.

Gideon zoomed by on his broom. He raised his hand and chanted something low and angry sounding.

Every window in the building blew inward, and Dragos understood how the man had become the coven leader. He was strong, probably stronger than most of the local witches, but what he’d done had the possibility of harming someone inside the building. He would pay for that display of power at some point.

But it wouldn’t be now. The witch swooped down and leveled a man who’d had his rifle pointed right at Rock. A bolt of blue—white energy, the likes of which Dragos had rarely seen before, sent the man flying. Rock saluted Gideon in thanks before both men continued the fight.

They’d need to make sure Gideon made it back to the vans, even if they had to carry him. He’d be exhausted by the energy he was expending.

In fact, Dragos made a mental note to fly over the entire compound and pick up anyone left behind. Better to risk bringing in a Van Helsing than leaving behind an exhausted, passed-out witch.

Parker, Amara and some of the dryads climbed into one of the first-floor windows. Mina and Ash clambered through another. Dragos landed, shifted back to human and followed his
sotiei
.

The rest of the dryads stayed outside. He watched for a moment as they all looked up.

Gentle rain began to fall. The water elementals had arrived, and were giving the dryads what they needed to grow the plants surrounding the building.

“We need to move.” Mina was watching as well. “Once the ground is saturated enough my people have orders to begin.”

Dragos nodded once and raced down the corridor. “Watch for traps.”

His
sotiei
raced at his side, her sword strapped to her hip. “And
no dying
.”

He would do everything in his power to keep that promise.

Chapter Seventeen

Well. Other than the gods’ awful smell and the cages lining the walls, this didn’t look like a den of pure evil. It sort of looked like a badly run animal shelter.

If the animals weren’t her friends and neighbors, that was.

Mina raced through the building, growling as fiercely as Dragos when she saw the devastation the Van Helsings had wrought on the supernaturals. They were in cages barely fit for dogs—men and women who couldn’t shift were forced to huddle until their ankles were swollen and their knees locked. There were no bottoms to the cages, and from the reek they weren’t allowed out for basic needs. Which meant that, when the poor person couldn’t hold it any longer, whatever was let loose rained down on the person below them, fouling not only their own cage but others as well.

She felt most sorry for the ones on the bottom.

Her dryads were quickly opening the cages, their rage at what had been done giving them strength. They pulled power from their trees—even this far away—allowing them to do feats they would not normally be capable of. A lot of dryads would be communing in the next couple of weeks, dealing with the unusual strength they were being forced to call upon as well as the trauma of seeing people they knew caged like beasts.

Mina would fight anyone who sought to reprimand them for it.

The wolves and witches who’d come in behind them began assisting her dryads, and soon the clanging of doors and cries of either relief or horror filled the room. But it wasn’t over, not by a long shot. The Van Helsings had to know they were here by now. It was only a matter of time before they—

A gunshot rang out, and one of the dryads went down, the back of his head completely gone. Mina felt the death deep in her bones, her connection to one of her people permanently severed. She stumbled, nearly falling against one of the cages.

A low growl sounded off to her left and one of the wolves raced off. Before she could track where he’d gone a scream of terror was suddenly cut off. More wolves raced through the building, tracking the Van Helsings to where they’d managed to hole up.

A Van Helsing stepped right out in front of her, his gun in her face. He pulled the trigger before Mina could dodge.

It failed to fire.

The confusion on the man’s face didn’t last very long, as Dragos drove his claws through the man’s back and out the front. He dropped the very dead guard at her feet. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Mina drew her sword.

They fought the Van Helsings that began pouring into the corridor, each one falling to a different supernatural. Even her normally peaceful dryads were reacting, using tricks taught them by Amara to dodge and weave. Silver daggers, similar to her sword, flashed in their hands as they defended themselves, keeping alive long enough for one of the stronger warriors to lend them aid.

She couldn’t have been prouder of her people. They weren’t fighters, but they stood side by side with the wolves and held their own.

Noah was bashing in doors, barely acknowledging they existed as he went from room to room, pointing out captives or dispatching Van Helsings with savage, efficient brutality. His wolves streamed into the rooms behind him, freeing the prisoners held there and handing them off to her dryads, who would get them out of the building to the waiting witches and safety.

Mina closed her eyes. Iva could be missed in all the chaos, and that wouldn’t do. She couldn’t allow that, couldn’t lose her to the madness surrounding them.

There. The pull of a ruling dryad for their queen was there, but faint. Mina began to follow it, heedless of where it led or who was with her.

All that mattered was getting to Iva.

Taking stairs down, Mina headed into the basement...

...And into something out of a horror film.

Bodies littered the floor, some chained to walls and tables, some dropped like garbage. Their skins stretched over skeletal forms, old bruises melding with new. Some even had needles in their arms, bags of...something slowly pumping into them.

The stench was so sickening, one of the wolves actually vomited in a corner, his sensitive nose unable to bear it.

It wasn’t until one of them moaned that Mina realized that all these skeletal corpses were actually
alive
.

She wanted to break something, smash this place so that the Van Helsings could never do this to another living being ever again.

“Shh, Mina. It’s all right. We’ll save them.”

She didn’t even realize she was crying until Dragos brushed away a tear.

His dragon’s eyes told her he would
not
let this go. The beast was roused, either by the sight of their people’s suffering or her grief—she neither knew nor cared. Dragos would kill each and every man and woman who had a hand in this atrocity.

Noah’s massive form padded past her, daintily stepping over and around the bodies on the floor. His people began to pick them up one by one, carrying them gently up the stairs toward Dominic and the healers.

“Holy fuck.” She had no idea when Gideon had entered the building. He was supposed to be leading the black, keeping the Van Helsings off the wounded. “I knew I was needed in here, but I wasn’t sure why.” His grip on his broom tightened as he swallowed convulsively. “I’ve got a life to take.”

“No.” Dragos stepped around Gideon. “
I
have a life to take.”

Gideon glared at Dragos, not the least bit intimidated. “No offense, Mayor, but this was done with the help of a Maggie’s Grove witch. It will be set right by a Maggie’s Grove witch.” He cocked an eyebrow at Dragos arrogantly. “Unless you plan on denying me that.”

Dragos took a deep breath and a step back toward Mina, but his eyes remained shifted. “Very well, Gideon.”

Gideon’s smile was pure evil. “Don’t worry.” He glanced around the room, taking in the bodies. “When I find him, I will make him
suffer.
”

“Selena!” Ash darted into the room and stopped before one of the gurneys.

“Oh, gods.” Mina followed, halting at the sight of Selena. It looked like she’d been there years instead of days. Her skin was gray and waxy, her pretty brown curls hacked short. An IV was in her, pumping gods only knew what into her.

Ash ripped the IV out and carefully lifted her in his arms. “Mina...”

His tortured expression told her everything she needed to know. His loyalty to her warred with his need to see to the well-being of his mate. “Go. Get her to the healers.”

She’d barely finished speaking before Ash took off, his speed making him a blur. The IV continued to drip to the floor. “Shit.” Mina shivered. “We need to find Iva.” If they’d done this to Selena, who they’d had for only three days, gods only knew what they’d done to Iva. They’d had her for
months
.

Dragos gently stroked her arm. “Do you know where she is?”

She closed her eyes again and concentrated, finally pointing toward one of the doors in the back wall. “That one.”

Noah must have heard her, because he smashed through the door as if it weren’t even there. He led the way into the room, but before they got very far he froze. Mina couldn’t see around him. “Noah?”

He quivered, sniffing the air and scaring the hell out of her even further. Behind her, the sound of movement ceased. His wolves must have reacted to their alpha’s scent, because they began to crowd behind her, forcing her farther into the room and closer to Noah.

Dragos pulled her to the side, and finally Mina could see what had Noah so transfixed. She cursed under breath at the sight of a human holding an emaciated Iva by the hair, a knife at her throat. Iva’s eyes were so blackened they could barely open, her skin so white Mina was surprised she still breathed. Her thick black hair was lank and dim, cut in ragged patches—some long enough to touch her shoulders, some exposing bruised and bleeding scalp wounds and scars.

Mina wanted to scream. Iva had loved her hair, had considered it her one beauty. It had been below her waist, a shining fall of black silk she’d brushed and cared for with the same enthusiasm she tended her tree.

The man holding Iva shook her. “Back off. Let me out and I’ll let her go.”

She could hear Gideon chanting under his breath, the witch preparing a spell that would more than likely obliterate the man holding Iva.

Noah growled so savagely Mina damn near pissed herself in fear. She’d never heard
that
tone from the wolf before. Even Gideon stopped chanting, the sudden silence filled with nothing but the sound of the alpha’s rage.

The knife moved, drawing blood. Iva didn’t even flinch—her gaze distant, her expression completely blank. She’d been away from her tree for far too long, and soon nothing anyone did would be able to save her. “Back.
Off.
”

“I don’t think so.” Dragos moved so quickly he was a blur to all her senses, coming in behind the man and ripping his head from his shoulders.

Iva slumped to the floor as the man’s last convulsive movement made the blade slice across her throat.

Noah howled, the room shaking as the alpha transformed back into a man and raced to the fallen dryad. He picked up the knife and slashed his wrist, forcing his blood into Iva’s wound.

“What are you doing?” Mina tried to stop Noah but Dragos was suddenly there, holding her back.

“Look, my Mina. Look at them.”

Mina turned her head to find every wolf down on one knee, their heads bowed. A low, rumbling sound came from each of their throats as their alpha kept cutting himself and holding the bleeding wound to Iva’s neck. “Oh, fuck.”

Dragos nodded and held her close, no longer trying to stop her from getting to Noah. Instead, he was comforting her. “She’s his mate.”

She nodded. Noah would allow no other near Iva until he’d calmed his beast, not even Mina. At least she knew his wolves would defend Iva to the death, each and every one of them.

Iva was safe.

Now she had to find the motherfucker who’d done this to her and kill his ass. Then Gideon could blow the place sky-high for all she cared.

“
Let’s go find Mr.
Carpenter
,
my Mina
,
and show him how we really feel.
”

She smiled grimly. “An excellent idea.”

Still it took everything she had to walk out of that room, to leave her sister behind, even knowing Noah would kill anything or anyone that came close to her. As her mate, Noah’s blood would heal Iva’s wound, but there were a lot of others who would need to be tended to by the witches.

That was going to be a lot of fun. If anything happened to Iva while under their care...

She shuddered.

“I’ve asked some of my witches to come down here and help the dryads remove the victims.” From the look in Gideon’s eye he was just as angry as she was. “This is...”

“An abomination.” Dragos began opening more doors, appearing relieved when the other three seemed to be empty. The old bloodstains were testimony that it hadn’t always been so.

Most of the wounded had been taken out by the time they were done checking the rooms, the witches and dryads making short work of the rescue. They made their way back up the stairs to the main part of the building.

Mina looked around and prayed they hadn’t missed anything. Anyone left behind would die when her dryads pulled the building down. “Any idea how things are going in the server area and the housing section?” The building rumbled beneath their feet. A quick glance toward the window confirmed what she already knew. Vines covered everything so thickly that barely any light was getting in. “We need to go.”

Dragos nodded, then bellowed, “Noah! Time to go!”

The building shook again, plaster dust raining down on them as something deep inside the building groaned with a tortured metal sound. Dragos and Mina exchanged a worried glance before running toward a door.

Gods, let her people have left a way out. They were so upset by what they’d found in this building they might have forgotten not to close
everything
off. She could feel their grief and fury, could sense the energy they were pouring into growing the plants that would be the ultimate demise of the building.

The wolves, led by Noah, came running out of the basement torture chamber. Noah had an unconscious Iva cradled in his arms, his expression grim as he led his people to a blocked-off exit door. “Clear it.”

The wolves began tearing at the vines, leaving Noah enough room to carry Iva, then began shuttling the rest of the people out. Mina and Dragos were among the last to leave, making sure all of the wolves escaped before allowing the dryads to complete their work.

“Get back. When this goes down we have no idea what will happen. There could be hidden explosives.” Dragos shifted. “I’m going to go check on the othersss. Get your asssesss back to the trucksss.”

Noah barely acknowledged Dragos, but he obeyed, leading his people and the majority of the noncombatants away.

Mina stared at Dragos, waiting patiently until that massive head bent toward her. She rubbed her hand over his scales, delighted when he closed his eyes and purred for her. Who knew such a massive beast would purr? “Be careful up there.”

Dragos rubbed his chin against her palm. “I promisssse. Now, back up so I can take off.”

Mina moved away from both the building and Dragos, keeping one eye on him and one on the dryads. It was almost ready. The building was beginning to sway—her people joining Noah’s at a safer distance.

With a sudden kick of dust Dragos was off, circling the building once before he veered off to check on the area where the housing was.

A great cracking sound rent the air. The horrible building toppled, dragged down by the roots and vines that had infested its mortar-and-brick facade. She covered her eyes with her arm just as the dust that blew up from it billowed over them, coating them with fine red powder. Mina spit, trying to get it out of her mouth. “Ugh.”

“Mina.” Amara, once more human, touched her arm. “We need to get you in the car.”

“The others?”

“Loaded. Brian says Greg and the other ghosts have been keeping an eye out, running back and forth between the three areas. So far, we’ve only suffered minor casualties.”