are still searching, but no signs of Silas. The girl from your pack, Fran? She’s good. Caught a possible signature common to a bunch of the tracks we found over the past week—it’s not the sorcerer’s scent, but something about the magic behind it. We think we can start getting close to him once the sorcerer shows up.”
“Good.” Henry nodded and steeled his nerves. He didn’t like the feeling of Ophelia getting farther away. He just had to convince the wolf that they would be on the way to protect her soon. As soon as they could convince Evershaw to get his shit together. “We need to get moving. Is Smith... ready?”
“He says he is.” Todd shrugged, glancing at his cousin as Miles finally lumbered to a halt, chest heaving as he struggled to breathe and gray fur sprouted on his arms as he fought an uncontrolled shift. “So we’ll go with it. Ready, boss?”
Evershaw snarled, “Let’s get this over with,” and headed for the door.
Henry traded looks with Todd, issued the last few orders to the rest of the pack before they dispersed into the yard, but paused as he caught sight of Cricket sitting in the front window. The cat yawned and cleaned his paw, tail thrashing with disapproval, and watched them all with his unblinking gaze. Henry had to believe the cat would have been energized if anything was going to happen to Deirdre. Maybe that weighed in their favor.
He jogged to catch up with the alpha as Evershaw set off on foot. Henry was confident that Nola would take care of Ophelia, and had asked his sister to get Ophelia away from the scene if it looked like the sorcerer would steal his mate. Henry could deal with the fallout later if Ophelia objected to him stacking the deck in their favor. He was confident that Ophelia could hold her own, but if her magic began to act up or she lost control...
Henry pushed away the thought. She would be fine. She and Deirdre would confront the sorcerer with their magic, and Nola was there to rip the bastard’s throat out the moment she got the chance. Tracking Silas down would be easy once Smith got a look at where the sorcerer showed up from; apparently the old fae could see through the rip in whatever that Rocko would use to find the original location. Or something like that.
Ophelia just had to keep the sorcerer distracted long enough for Smith to do... whatever it was Smith was going to do.
He jogged after Todd and Miles, thoughts on the multiple backup plans they’d come up with while the witches were communing in Deirdre’s secret workroom. He would have preferred being at Ophelia’s side during the confrontation, but he couldn’t argue with her reasoning, as much as he wanted to. The sorcerer would underestimate her, and would not take Nola or Deirdre seriously either, from what Ophelia said about him.
Henry had learned very quickly after meeting Deirdre that any man who thought he knew more than the women in his life was probably getting his ass handed to him on a regular basis and didn’t even know it. Like Evershaw. Henry snorted and shook his head, ignoring the sideways look that Todd gave him, and concentrated on the task at hand.
They kept to side streets but received regular updates from the various wolves who stalked the blocks around the empty lot. Evershaw had settled into an icy rage, no longer gnashing his teeth or making noise, which meant he’d passed through the “just dangerous” stage and into the “about to go nuclear” stage. Todd kept an eye on him and Henry focused on keeping his ears tuned for any signs that Ophelia needed help. There wasn’t much time left. The two hours ticked away too fast, and it was a matter of minutes, if not seconds, until the sorcerer showed himself.
Henry braced himself for the next few minutes to feel like an eternity. The rest of his life hinged on the decisions of a few people in the space of a few heartbeats. His wolf growled and raged for control, and he held on with his fingernails. He needed to be in control, for Ophelia’s sake.
Chapter 37
Ophelia
I almost told them to turn back a dozen times before the car rolled up to the broken concrete pad that had once been a driveway on the abandoned lot. Deirdre didn’t look impressed. “This used to be a restaurant, from what