Not what I planned.
“What the hell?” Came Dane’s snarl. “He’s not dying!”
Lucas’s gaze was on Sarah. She knew he saw the knowledge there. “I . . . am,” he said. Soft. Not sad. Not afraid. Not Lucas.
Her cheek was wet. Blood or tears? Or both?
“Who can help him?” Piers asked, voice breaking.
Sarah couldn’t look away from Lucas.
Piers grabbed her upper arm. Shook her. “Who can help him?”
She pressed her lips together to control the tremble. The van hit a pothole and they all lurched, but Piers’s grip never wavered. “You know any witches?” she whispered, and she wasn’t kidding. “Because that’s what it’s going to take. Medicine won’t work. We need magic.” So much blood. Soon he’d bleed silver. “One hell of a lot of magic.”
She took a breath and smelled death. “You know anyone with that kind of power, Piers?”
His hold eased on her. “Yeah, yeah, I do.”
Her gaze flew up and a rush of wild hope had her choking on her breath.
“Dane . . .” Piers’s face could have been cut from rock. “Turn this bitch around and get us to Gaines and Hillray.”
Lucas stiffened against her. “Piers . . .”
“If Marie Dusean can’t help you, no one can,” Piers said. “Look, I been keeping track of her group since that vampire hell, I know where they are. Believe me, if anyone can help, she can.”
“If she will,” Dane called from the front, and the van swerved as he turned the vehicle around.
Marie?
A hard curl lifted Piers’s lips. “Tell me, charmer, have you ever heard of the mambo?”
Mambo. The hair on her arms rose. Mambo . . . voodoo priestess.
He nodded. “If anyone has power in LA, it’s her.” His stare dropped to Lucas. The alpha’s eyes had drifted closed. “You hold on, dammit! We got some power coming.”
It had just better be enough.
Because if it wasn’t, Lucas would die.
The sun had set when they reached the house on Gaines and Hillray. Men and women in white stood along the porch of the long, rambling house, and when the van squealed to a stop, they didn’t race forward, but they didn’t run away, either. They just turned toward the road. Watched. Waited.
Dane spun in his seat. “You think she’ll see us?”
Piers shoved open the back doors. “I’m not giving her a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, wolf,” a deep, masculine voice said. The voice rose and fell with the musical cadence of a Haitian accent.
The owner of that voice—a tall, dark-skinned man—stood just beyond the van. His arms were crossed over his chest. His head was cocked, and his too-knowing eyes were on Lucas. Like the others, he wore white. Loose white pants, white shirt, and even some kind of long, white scarf that had been wound around his neck.
Piers jumped from the van. “We need to see Marie.”
The man’s gaze drifted to him. “Mambo don’t want to see you, wolf. After the way you disrespected her last home . . .” He shrugged. “Take your dead and go. You’re not gettin’ help here.”
But they had to get help. There wasn’t another option.
“We were looking for our pack member.” It sounded like the words were gritted from between Piers’s teeth. “We weren’t after the mambo, just the vampires.”
“But you came on the mambo’s land. You came as animals and you attacked when the mambo was near.”
“Fine. I’m f**king sorry, okay? But we need—”
“Please,” Sarah whispered because Lucas wasn’t moving anymore. Didn’t seem to be breathing. “If she can help him—please.”
Silence.
Sarah lowered her lips to Lucas’s. She pressed her mouth to his. You’re supposed to be the strongest, the most bad-ass. You can’t go out like this.
Anger had her blood heating and her body shaking.
I won’t let you go out like this.
She kissed him again. Tasted salt and blood. Then she eased him carefully off her lap. His blood smeared across her clothes, but she didn’t care. She held his head carefully, easing him down to the bed of the van. Then Sarah hurried forward, her eyes going to the big brick wall of a Haitian who was between her and—
Marie Dusean. Voodoo priestess extraordinaire. Oh, damn but the stories she’d heard about ladies with power like Marie’s . . .
She jumped from the van, and would have fallen, if Piers hadn’t caught her so quickly. “Please,” she said again, looking up, way up, at the man’s face. Now that they were closer, she could see the scars that criss-crossed the right side of his face. “We need her help.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “You smell like wolf.”
“His blood’s on me.” Literally, figuratively, every way.
The Haitian’s nostrils flared. “Charmer.” He sighed out the word and his mouth curved. “Lost little charmer out among the wolves.”
“I’m not lost.” Not anymore. “I—”
A woman walked up behind the brick wall. A woman with long, braided black hair and skin that seemed to shine under the moon’s light. The woman wore white, too. A light, gauzy top and a skirt that barely skimmed the tops of her long legs. And a thin white scarf circled her neck—just like the Haitian’s. The woman pointed one slender finger at Sarah. “Marie wants to see her.” No Haitian accent from her. Just the soft rolls of the south.
Sarah’s shoulders slumped with relief. Okay, seeing Marie was something. If she could see her, talk to her, Sarah was sure she’d get the mambo to help.
Sarah brushed by Piers. The woman’s fingers wrapped around her wrist. Piers tried to step forward and go with her.
The Haitian shoved a hand against Piers’s chest. “Not you, wolf.”
Sarah kept her head up as she followed the woman in white. The wooden porch steps creaked beneath her feet, and the light from inside the house—soft, flickering light—seemed to beckon her closer. Candlelight. The whole place was lit with—
Sarah almost tripped as she headed into the house. She glanced down quickly at the doorway. Some kind of dark red dirt lined the entranceway.
“The wolf would never have made it past the door,” her guide said, her voice soft, but she didn’t glance back.
Sarah kept following the other woman, aware of the fierce tension in her shoulders and the blood that was literally on her hands. Have to hurry. Because Lucas didn’t have much time. Not much time at all.