Chosen by Sin Read online

  They scanned the print together.

  Protect the wolf whose ancestry none can see.

  Protect the one who can gift immortality.

  Cast him out before you let him be found.

  He’ll drive hell’s demons back underground.

  His…will give eternal life to a… ther

  But only if he’s gifted his…

  Obserwować Demonie Krawcy.

  “The last line means ‘Watch The Demon Tailors.’” Dex explained. “Amanda said the solstice gate in the U.S. is near Death Valley, near Bodin’s compound. That the pack is gathered there, prepared to drive demons away until the gate closes again.”

  “Dex, you can’t know for sure you’re this prophesized were! Besides, even if you are, you don’t know how to gift immortality to anyone. Plus, how are you going to choose the right were? How do you know he won’t abuse the privilege? And according to the legend, you need to have gifted something to someone before you can give someone eternal life anyway. This is all crazy!”

  She had valid points. It was all crazy. But something was driving Dex. A feeling that, whether he was part of the legend or not, he had to be part of this battle. “Look, to gift immortality, I’d probably need to be in my immortal wolf form. If that’s the case, how can I gift a piece of myself? Blood, semen, body, or bite, right?”

  “I—I guess. I mean, that part sounds logical, at least.”

  “Jes didn’t find anything in my blood that showed signs of an immortal gift, but she confirmed I’m half-vampire and half-were. If I am the were spoken of in the legend, the most logical way for me to gift anyone anything would be through my bite.”

  “Haven’t you ever bitten another were while you were in wolf form?”

  “Several times. And I killed them afterwards, so my bite obviously hadn’t turned them immortal. But maybe that’s because the solstice gate wasn’t open. And I wasn’t near one at the time. Plus, if I’m supposed to have gifted someone something else, look at everything I’ve given in the last few months. Even to you,” he tried joking. “Maybe that’ll be the key.”

  “You’re reaching, Dex. This is all speculation! That piece of paper is so faded and ambiguous, we can’t know a damn thing for sure.”

  “You’re right, but I have to try, Lucy. And I’m going to.”

  Lucy bit her lip in indecision. Then she held out her hand. “Give me the paper,” she said. “Let me try a spell to make the faded words more clear.”

  Instinctively, Dex held the paper away from her. “Have you done that before?”

  “No, but you haven’t gifted anyone with immortality before either, have you?”

  With a snort, Dex handed her the paper.

  Gingerly, she held it between her fingers, closed her eyes, and started chanting. Bar patrons had already been shooting furtive glances at them, but now they stared. Since the paper in Lucy’s hands had started to glow, Dex didn’t blame them.

  Dex peered over Lucy’s shoulder. “Shit! It’s working.” The faded print wasn’t reemerging, but the paper itself was glowing so the surface revealed a faint imprint from where the ink had been. Dex silently read the words.

  His bite will give eternal life to another

  But only if he’s already gifted his heart to a lover.

  A quick glance confirmed Lucy’s eyes were still closed. What a cluster fuck, he thought. He’d given Jes his heart. Granted, she’d taken it and sliced it open, but it didn’t matter. She might be the key to accessing his gift, after all. “It worked,” he said quietly. “You can stop.”

  Lucy eyes abruptly opened and the paper stopped glowing, returning to its original form. She scanned it with an impatient frown. “What did it say?”

  “I was right. I need to bite another were.”

  “But what about the condition? What did you need to already have given?”

  Dex shook his head and glanced away. He didn’t want to think about Jes again. Didn’t want to think about those fleeting days where he’d basked in her attention and love. It had all been a lie. She’d been a lie. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve already done it.”

  “But—”

  “Drop it, Lucy. We need to go. Amanda has already contacted a volunteer. He’ll be waiting for me at the gate. Even if I don’t gift him anything useful, I’ll be there to guard the gate myself.”

  Lucy stared at him with uncertainty, then nodded. “I’ll go with you—”

  “No. The gates are werewolf domain. They won’t let a non-were close. But come to California with me. We’ll postpone the meeting with the shape-shifters and check into a hotel. I’ll report back as soon as I can.”

  “I don’t know, Dex. What’s this really about? Why not go to the meeting and see if Mahone’s plan worked?”

  Agitated, Dex ran his fingers through his hair. He tried to explain the mix of urgency, restlessness, and purpose he was feeling. “I just—I need to fight, Lucy. I’m a were. I’ve rejected my heritage all my life, but if this is what I was born to do, if I really am meant to fulfill some kind of legend, I need to know. And I need to act. Can you understand that?”

  She searched his gaze for several seconds before nodding. “Yes,” she whispered. “So when do we leave for California?”

  Dex pulled two tickets out of his backpack. “Right now.”

  ***

  ALABAMA HILLS, CALIFORNIA

  JUST OUTSIDE LONE PINE & DEATH VALLEY

  Dex stared unflinchingly at approximately thirty werewolves standing in front of him. They stared back with expressions ranging from suspicion to disdain and from hope to envy. Amanda had told him they wouldn’t use guns because of the tight quarters and the danger of friendly fire. Nonetheless, the werewolves were armed to the hilt, dressed in leather and gripping axes, maces, or clubs. At the moment, their guns were holstered and knives sheathed, but they looked like they had itchy fingers. If Dex was wrong about being able to trust Amanda, he was shit out of luck. He wouldn’t go down without fighting, but he was definitely going to go down in an extremely painful way.

  His gaze flickered beyond the werewolves, to the hills that stood like silent sentinels guarding the gateway to the snow-capped majesty of Mount Whitney. All around him, the prevalent colors of nature were grey and brown, complimenting the black hair and dark skin of the full-blooded werewolves. Although the colors should have reminded him of barrenness and death, they didn’t. Energy pulsed off the sharp granite edges of the Sierras, filling Dex with determination. At this moment, he truly felt he was facing his destiny head on. If that resulted in his death, so be it.

  A flicker of doubt invaded his mind along with an image of Jes cradling a baby. His baby. If he died, he’d never see her again. Never see his child.

  But as he’d told Lucy, he knew this was the right thing to do.

  “So what’s it going to be,” he called out. “Was I wrong to trust Amanda? Do you want my help or not?” He deliberately glanced at his watch. “Because according to my sources, the solstice gate is going to open in just over an hour.

  A broad bulky male holding a wicked-looking scythe, stepped forward and kept coming. The guy towered over Dex by several inches and probably outweighed him by fifty pounds. Dex didn’t back away and respect softened the other male’s features. His gaze flickered to Dex’s hunting knife, sheathed at his waist. “I’m Hal. You came with a pretty small weapon, were.”

  “Big or small, it’ll get the job done, just like I will.”

  “That’s what Amanda says. Bodin, too.”

  Dex frowned but refused to utter one word about his grandfather.

  Hal continued. “Your grandfather has a message for you. One I’ll deliver after—if you’re still alive, that is. Agreed?”

  “Fine,” Dex gritted out. “Now tell me, who am I going to bite?”

  “You’re not biting anyone.”

  “What? Amanda said she’d arranged for someone to—”

  “It was Bodin’s order. He said the gift of immortality coul
dn’t be given lightly, not even to one of his own, unless you were sure it was meant to happen. Are you?”

  Hell no, Dex thought. He didn’t even know if defeating hell’s demons was conditioned on him gifting immortality in the first place. That’s what they’d all assumed, but it wasn’t like the legend spelled it out. Plus what his grandfather had said made sense. Years ago, Bodin’s own weres had tried to kill Jes and her parents, forcing Bodin to intervene. What if one of those weres had been immortal? How ironic that he had the very thing Jes had spent her whole life searching for, but when it came to dispensing it, he was as cautious as his grandfather. “Damn it, I’m not sure of anything except that I need to be here. That I need to fight.”

  Hal shrugged in a movement that reminded Dex of Cy. “Then fight. Fight next to us the way you always should have. Not as a legend, but as a were.”

  Dex glanced at his watch again. “We’re wasting time.”

  When Dex looked up, Hal had already turned back to the others. “Brothers, we fight. Let us keep all the demon spawn where they belong. On the other side of the gate!”

  Roars and cheers came from the crowd. The werewolves no longer looked at Dex. They turned and marched toward the mountains behind them.

  Over his shoulder, Hal glanced at Dex. There was a question in his gaze. Dex answered by following him.

  Within an hour, they entered a canyon that dead-ended into a group of boulders and a small cave that looked like a pig’s snout.

  “That’s it,” Hal said. “The solstice gate is inside that cave. In order to get out, the demons must take their original form,” Hal explained, “The only difference is their red eyes and razor-sharp claws. With the return of their human form comes weakness. Mortality. If we kill it here, it goes back to hell and must wait months before it can be bridged again.”

  “And if it passes through the gate?” Dex had asked.

  “It loses form until it finds a host. Through life or through dreams.”

  Hal’s words were consistent with what the blond mage from Jes’s village had told him. The werewolf held out his hand. “Good luck.”

  Dex hesitated only briefly before shaking the werewolf’s hand. “Thanks. You, too.”

  The next twenty-four hours passed in a blur, one dominated by werewolf blood and pain and desperation. The werewolves were greatly outnumbered but somehow they were managing to hold off the masses of dark spirits who’d taken human form and came at them one after another.

  Screams and the clash of steel echoed all around him. Werewolf blood painted the floor of the caves—apparently, demons didn’t bleed even when in their human form. Hours passed before Dex caught sight of Hal again, caught in a corner fighting a demon. Using his scythe, Hal severed a demon’s head from its body. Instantly, the demon’s remains vanished, leaving no trace of itself.

  A demon came at Dex, swiping at him with his claws. Dex ducked and elbowed the thing in the neck. When it staggered back, Dex jammed it in the gut with his knife. It howled before disappearing.

  Another demon stepped in front of him. Dex slapped both hands against the demon’s face, then followed up with an elbow strike before snapping the demon’s neck.

  Next, two demons came at him, one on either side, and Dex leaped in the air, striking out at one with his knife while kicking the other in the chest. The one he’d cut collapsed, but the other regained its feet faster than Dex expected. It barreled into Dex and took him down to the ground. Dex dropped his knife and grunted when his head struck a rock, but he managed to stay conscious as he grappled with his attacker.

  In the distance, Dex saw a demon rip the arms off one werewolf, then another.

  There were too many demons.

  The werewolves were tiring.

  Even Hal was being driven back. Several demons pushed him closer and closer to the entrance of the cave. Dex screamed when the demon he was grappling with sliced his shoulder. At the sound, the demon grinned, certain of its victory.

  No fucking way.

  Bringing his knees to his chest, Dex pushed out with his feet and sent the demon flying. Immediately, it charged him again, scrambling on all fours like a spider. Dex rolled to his knife and just managed to grip the handle. Twisting onto his back, he held the blade up just in time to impale the demon as it threw itself on top of it.

  Scrambling to his feet, Dex glanced around. About half of the werewolves were dead. Even so, despite their exhaustion, they pressed on. Hal had managed to stop his backward approach to the cavern entrance and was cutting down one demon after another.

  Dex’s werewolf blood pulsed through his veins and filled him with a sense of pride. Finally, he was one with his pack. With a battle cry, Dex jumped back into the fray.

  ***

  Later, when Dex finally walked into Lucy’s cramped motel room in Lone Pine, he was covered in blood—his own and that of his fellow weres—but he couldn’t stop grinning. He’d killed before. Battled with others for a higher cause. But fighting with the werewolves in the midst of those bleak mountains had fed something in him. It had healed him in a way even his work on the Para-Ops team hadn’t. “We did it,” he told Lucy. “We held them off until the gate closed. A few got past us—I spoke to Amanda and the same thing happened in Europe—but the diabols won’t be a global threat for at least another year. The few diabols that escaped will be hunted down by the shape-shifters as they have been for the past few years and months.”

  “That’s wonderful, Dex.” Not caring about the blood or grime, Lucy threw her arms around him. He’d hugged her before, but this time, despite the rush of his recent battle and victory, thoughts and images of Jes bombarded him. Abruptly, he pulled away. “Don’t—please don’t,” he growled.

  After the battle, Hal had relayed his grandfather’s message to him. “Don’t repeat my mistake. Don’t throw away what’s yours because of fear.” But Dex hadn’t walked away from Jes out of fear. She’d pushed him away with her lies and deceit. Hadn’t she?

  “Dex?” Lucy whispered.

  A pit of desperation formed inside him, spreading and threatening to swallow him whole. How was he ever going to fill it?

  The feelings magnified while he was in the shower. By the time he was dressed and standing in front of Lucy again, he wasn’t sure he could survive his grief. Had he fought hell’s demons and won only to undergo a mental collapse as a result of losing Jes?

  No.

  He couldn’t give Jes that power over him. He wouldn’t.

  He gripped Lucy’s arms. “Would you do something for me, Lucy?”

  “What?”

  “Would you have sex with me? Right now? If I told you I needed to wipe my mind clean, that I needed a distraction, that I’d be using you just like I let you use me, would you sleep with me? No love. No feelings. No nothing.”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “I would. But I don’t want to. And I know you don’t want to, either, Dex.”

  “Maybe it’s exactly what I need,” he began, but the ring of his cell phone interrupted him. He hadn’t taken it with him, so it rang from his backpack. Lucy pulled away from him, retrieved it, and handed it to him. He checked the screen, frowning when he didn’t recognize the number.

  “Dex Hunt,” he said when he activated the call.

  “Dex, this is Cy. Thank God I finally reached you. I swear, we’re going to install a fucking satellite phone in the castle. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

  “I’ve been a little busy, Cy. You wouldn’t have been able to—forget it. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Jes. She’s gone into labor early. The baby’s coming, but it’s not going smoothly. She’s struggling, Dex, and she’s calling for you. I’m sorry, but—”

  The phone went dead. Dex cursed and redialed Cy’s number, but he couldn’t get a connection no matter how many times he tried.

  “Dex.”

  He barely heard Lucy’s voice, but he felt her hand on his arm. It was enough to jolt him out of his paralysis. He’d thou
ght today was about victory, but it might be about failure instead. The worst failure imaginable. “Help me, Lucy,” he said. “Please help me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “We need Knox,” Lucy insisted. “He used to live in France. He can meet us someplace close, then teleport you to Jes.”

  “He won’t do that,” Dex said. “He’ll worry about Felicia. Teleporting me will drain him of his powers so he won’t be at full strength, which means he’ll be less able to protect her. He won’t want to take that chance.”

  “You can’t assume that. Knox cares about us. About you. You need to ask him for help.”

  Dex knew that’s exactly what he needed to do. He just didn’t want to. He hated asking for help from others because he was always certain he’d never get it. That he didn’t deserve it. After all, Elliott had come to Dex for help in the orphanage, and Dex hadn’t done a thing. Yet what choice did he have now? Despite Jes’s warnings that leaving could hurt the baby, that’s exactly what he’d done. Now the baby was coming early and both of them were in danger. Jes needed him and all he could remember was the last time she’d come to him, begging for his forgiveness. Instead of giving it to her, he’d lashed out instead. And the sad thing was, he wasn’t sure he’d act any differently even if given a second chance.

  He knew Jes wasn’t a bad person, but she did bad things to feed her obsession, and someone like that could not be trusted. But that didn’t mean he’d abandon her or their child when they needed him.

  He turned to Lucy. “I need you to come with me.”

  She flinched in surprise. “What? Why?”

  “Your powers might be useful. You can enchant her so she’ll feel less pain. Or maybe you can move the baby out of her…”

  “Dex, I’ve never tried that. I don’t even know if it’s possible.”

  “I don’t care. I need you there with me, Lucy. Knox can teleport both of us. One at a time. Just like he did on that mission in Korea. Please.”

  She nodded. “Fine. If Knox agrees to teleport us both, I’ll go. But if he can only teleport one of us…”