Zodiac Aligned

17

Kaden bared his teeth. “Move."

“No,” Jordan said simply, meeting Kaden’s anger with unshakable calm. He’d been in the same situation days ago. He knew exactly what it felt like. Kaden had stopped him from killing Roxandra then, and now Jordan seemed to be returning the favor. They stared at each other for a long moment, and an understanding passed between them. For the first time, they seemed to be on the same wavelength.

Kaden's stance changed as he backed down. “This isn’t over."

“No, it isn’t,” Jordan agreed. “We won’t let her get away with it."

"I have a few more questions," I said, and both men turned to me. My voice dropped to a whisper. "We have to know."

"Ask them before the spell wears off," Kaden said, through gritted teeth. Like me, he had to be torn between wanting to know everything and wanting to bury his head in the sand and forget any of this had ever happened.

I gripped the arms of my chair as I turned back to Roxandra. “Did you make Kaden kill the Leos who attacked me and my friends?"

“Yes." At this point, she'd given up trying to fight the truth spell. "I had to make sure they wouldn’t reveal the Sun Witches’ secrets. It wasn't hard though. He wanted to do it anyway.”

"If you were here, why not just command Kaden to let Jordan go?" Ethan asked.

“I wanted to, but my mother wouldn’t let me. She believed that having Jordan as your prisoner would cause more conflict.” Her eyes flickered between Jordan and Kaden, and then back to me. “Instead, we got into Kaden’s head to sow discord, dripping a little more poison into his mind every time he left the hotel. We hoped it would destroy his relationship with Ayla, cause fighting within the packs, and make everyone turn against him. It was easy because he was already in a dark place. All we had to do was amplify those feelings." She gave me a haughty look. "Seems like it worked too."

I felt sick to my stomach. It all made perfect, horrifying sense. I should have known something was wrong with Kaden. No, I had known, deep down. I'd sensed something wasn't right with him. But I never could have imagined all of this.

“I’m going to kill you,” Kaden said to Roxandra, his voice deadly calm.

Jordan let out a snort. “Get in line."

But before either of them could act, a sudden ear-splitting sound pierced the air, making us all jump. The hotel alarm.

Shit, I thought. This can’t be good.

CHAPTER NINE

As the alarm continued to blare throughout the conference room, everyone snapped into action around me, preparing for battle. The two burly guards ran back in, and I whipped around to Roxandra, wondering if she’d done something to cause this, but she looked just as surprised as I felt.

"That's the alarm," Ethan said, as he pulled out his phone and started sending a message. "We must be under attack."

“Is it the Sun Witches?” I asked. Had they arrived to try to free Roxandra? Damn, I'd hoped we would have more time before they made a move.

“The wards are still intact around the hotel,” Larkin said, after frowning in concentration. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe it’s not the Sun Witches,” Kaden said.

Larkin's eyes grew wide. “Who else would it be?”

Jordan swore under his breath. "Whoever it is, they must be here for her. We can't let them get her."

Ethan snapped his fingers at the guards. “Take her back to her cell while we deal with this. Don't let anyone get near her. I'll send more reinforcements down too."

The two guards nodded and began to extract Roxandra from the chair. Her surprise had melted to amusement, as she watched us panic.

"I told you they'd come for me," she said in an awful singsong voice. "I can't wait to watch you all die."

"Kaden, bite her before I rip her f*****g head off," Jordan growled.

"With pleasure." Kaden grabbed one of Roxandra's arms, and though she fought him, she wasn't nearly strong enough to stop his poison fangs from sinking into her skin. She looked at him with absolute loathing for another second before her eyes closed and her body slumped down in her chair.

"Let's go," Ethan said, rushing out of the conference room.

Everyone followed him without question, and we raced down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. My heart beat faster as I tried to keep up with the alphas, while Larkin came up last behind us. We burst into the lobby, and I was instantly overwhelmed by the strong scent of blood. I choked on the smell for a few seconds, blinking as I took in what was happening in front of me.

It was absolute chaos, with shifters fighting all around us, and many already dead on the ground. A huge chandelier had somehow crashed to the floor, spilling shards of crystal everywhere, and they were covered in blood. The Christmas tree in the corner had been completely shredded too, the decorations scattered or destroyed in the fight. Wolves snarled and fought, and at first, I couldn't tell who or what they were fighting. Not Sun Witches, that was obvious. But not other shifters either. Impossibly fast men and women in black clothes clashed with our wolves, slashing with razor-sharp nails and tearing at throats with their fangs. My own wolf woke inside me with a vengeance, my instincts urging me to kill, kill, kill, like it recognized on some primal level that these creatures were our natural enemies, and there was only room for one of our kinds on this Earth. I'd felt this same urge only once before when I'd first met Killian, the vampire who lived with the Moon Witches.