Ensnared in Shadow (Blood & Bone Book 4) Read online

  ENSNARED IN SHADOW

  C.C. WOOD

  Copyright © 2022 by Crystal W. Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by C.C. Wood

  PROLOGUE

  MERRY

  I had no idea what I was doing.

  None.

  Okay, so that's partially a lie.

  I did know I was packing up my meager belongings and my computer. Then, I was getting the hell out of town.

  Where to?

  No clue.

  I laughed to myself at the little mental rhyme and then shook my head in disgust. I'd been alone for so long that I was beginning to talk to myself, not just out loud, but in my own head. And not in the ordinary way that a person might talk to themselves silently.

  No, I had to be amusing.

  Or slightly creepy.

  As I stuffed the last t-shirt in my suitcase, I glanced around the sterile studio apartment that had been my home for the last six months. There was little more than a bed in one corner, a kitchenette in the opposite corner, and a garage-sale sofa in front of a giant big screen TV from the 1990's that had to weigh a couple hundred pounds. I assumed the owners left it there because it was too heavy to move.

  I'd already packed up my small supply of non-perishable food and eaten the last two bananas I had. My clothes and laptop were all ready to go.

  The only thing missing was a destination.

  But I had to leave. There was an instinctive part of me that was screaming I needed to run as fast and as far as possible. That someone, or something, was coming for me and I wanted no part of it.

  Considering what had happened to me nearly a year ago, I wasn't going to question that instinct.

  Being held hostage by an insane witch with a scary pet vampire that drank life force instead of blood had cured me of any skepticism when it came to sixth senses.

  Magic existed. Evil existed.

  And both had promised to return for me.

  I sure as hell didn't want to be easily found when it did.

  As I stared around the crappy apartment, it came to me.

  Austin, Texas.

  It was as if someone whispered those words in my ear, calling me to a safe haven.

  Again, I didn't question the gut feeling that I should head in that direction. Logic had no power against the sort of magic I'd faced.

  Seeing as Austin was several states from St. Louis, maybe it would make it even more difficult for Rhiannon to find me when she came back.

  And I didn't doubt that she would return. Though she was a powerful witch, I'd dealt with women of her sort before. The kind that were cold inside, cunning, and cruel.

  Somehow, they always got their way.

  Probably because they didn't care who they destroyed on the path to success.

  While I might not have the magic to fight her, she didn't have the technological know-how to track me, which was why she'd kidnapped me in the first place. She'd needed my computer skills.

  I made sure to pack every item I owned and donated my single sheet set, blanket, and small collection of mismatched dishes. Every other piece of furniture, cabinetry, and even the walls, had been wiped down from top to bottom. Then, I intended to cleanse the room with burning sage just to be on the safe side.

  A year ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of cleansing a room with smoldering dried herbs, but after watching Rhiannon do it on more than one occasion, I wasn't going to discount it any longer.

  Once that was done, I would be on my way to Austin.

  And, hopefully, to safety.

  CHAPTER ONE

  MARCUS

  She's coming.

  My eyes flew open as the words echoed in my head.

  I sat up and threw the blanket off my legs. The room was still dim, but I could see the first watery light of dawn slipping around the edge of the blinds.

  Rubbing a hand over my sternum, I leaned over and tried to take a slow, deep breath.

  As always, the dreams made my chest feel tight, as though I couldn't take in enough air. Then, there was the headache that accompanied it.

  I winced as the first throb hit behind my eyes. I knew Ava would have cuffed me on the back of the head for calling them dreams when, in reality, they were visions. As a powerful sorceress, she would know the difference, I suppose.

  But, still, if they happened in my sleep, what else should I call them but dreams?

  Mostly they were nightmares that featured the same woman. A woman who'd been trapped and terrified by Rhiannon.

  I tried to take comfort that the woman was no longer in danger because Rhiannon had been imprisoned in a magical realm by a deity, the Goddess herself. But from the dreams she shared with me, I doubted that the woman knew.

  Rhiannon had wrought so much pain the year before she was caught and sent elsewhere. She'd tried to destroy Macgrath, a man I consider a brother, the one who had turned me into a vampire to save me from death on the battlefield. When that didn't work, she went after his mate, Ava.

  Unfortunately, she'd underestimated Ava's powers. And her connections to the Goddess.

  In the eleven months since she'd been banished, Ava and Macgrath had worked to heal the damage Rhiannon had caused not only to them, but to others.

  Like Caleb.

  In her quest for more power, Rhiannon had used ancient magic to create an animavore, a soul eater.

  Once a normal man, Caleb now required the life force of others to live. Through Rhys, the only other animavore in existence, he'd learned to feed without hurting or killing humans and he'd learned to control his power.

  Seeing as how Rhys had found his way to Ava just before Rhiannon's reappearance, and met his mate at Ava's shop, I had to believe that it was fated.

  Rhiannon had also been the cause of a rift between Macgrath, Callum, and me. The three of us had fought side-by-side for over a thousand years, yet she managed to tear us apart with ridiculous ease.

  Those wounds were beginning to heal, but I doubted it would be as quickly or as easily as the ones between Macgrath and Ava.

  As the ache behind my eyes began to lessen, I turned my thoughts back toward my dream and the woman.

  She'd been in the car, driving through the night.

  Coming to Austin.

  And, though she didn't realize it, she was coming right to me.

  The knowledge was both heady and weighty.

  From her nightmares, her memories really, I knew that she no longer felt safe and that she feared Rhiannon's return.

  I hadn't told a soul about the dreams. They were too painful. Too intimate.

  I not only s
aw what she did, but I felt her pain, her fear...the utter helplessness.

  Also, there was the fact that she was the hacker who'd helped Rhiannon hide her tracks. The computer wizard that Callum couldn't track, no matter how hard he tried.

  That was saying something, because not only did his fingers move with preternatural speed, his brain seemed to as well. There were very few hackers who could outdo Callum and he'd been more than a little pissed at his inability to track not only Rhiannon, but the hacker as well.

  It also amused me because if he'd had any clue that he'd been chasing a woman, he would have been doubly irritated and even more intrigued.

  Despite the tight band of pain that still surrounded my skull, I found myself smiling.

  Maybe I could introduce them someday.

  My smile faded at the thought. I doubted that would happen. Ever.

  The woman in my dreams was coming to Austin and I would likely never meet her. Even if I did, I imagined she would fear me as deeply as she feared Rhiannon and Caleb. If not more.

  She was close enough to touch, but still far from my reach.

  I jumped at the fist that slammed into my door and bit back a curse.

  Consumed with my thoughts, I hadn't heard Callum approach. I hated when he surprised me, which meant he tried to do it as often as possible.

  "Ava called. There's a new vamp coming to town today and he's presenting himself to them at nine. She wants us both there."

  I sighed and stood. Callum smirked at me when I opened the door. He'd insisted we share a house when we came to Austin. Something about living alone making me intolerable. Or maybe it was insufferable.

  "Why does she want us there? We have no authority. There are no vampire covens or groups here because of the witches and the wolf pack. They tolerate us because we don't stir up trouble, hunt and kill humans, and we got rid of Rhiannon for them."

  Callum crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the jamb. "I brought up all those pertinent details, but Ava said that we were part of her family and this vampire wanted an alliance, which means we all have to be there when they meet so we can make a decision 'together'," he stated, lifting his hands long enough to make the air quotes sign. "I told her that it was six in the bloody morning and I trusted Macgrath to make the best decision, but she wasn't having any of it."

  "Well, have fun," I replied, reaching out to shut the door.

  Callum straightened and used an arm to keep me from closing him out. "Nu-uh. If I have to go, you have to go. I'm not suffering alone. All for one and one for all."

  "For the last time, we're not the Three Musketeers."

  "Don't care. If I'm going, you're going."

  "No."

  Callum lifted a brow and smiled. "So, you want me to tell Ava, the most powerful witch we've ever met, the creator of vampires, that you want your solitude and you're not coming? I'm pretty sure we both know what she'd do then."

  I sighed again. "Good point."

  In reality, neither of us knew what she would do, and it was better if it stayed that way. If my rotten luck held, she could teleport us both to her shop with a snap of her fingers. The sorceress was beyond powerful and she was the mother of vampires, even if she was a witch rather than a vampire herself.

  While she never lorded it over either of us, it wasn't a good idea to underestimate her.

  Callum didn't wait for me to say anything else. He tapped the door with a finger. "Be ready to leave at eight. I want to drink some coffee and eat a pastry before we meet the visitor."

  "Fine. Workout before or after the meeting?"

  He yawned. "After the meeting. I stayed up 'til three in the morning playing Skyrim. I'm gonna take another hour to nap before I get ready."

  He'd already turned and walked back down the hall to his room, so he didn't see me roll my eyes.

  I glanced back at my bed and considered trying to do the same, but dismissed it. There was no way I could go back to sleep now that I knew she was coming.

  I decided to spend an hour on physical conditioning before eating and getting ready to go to Ava's meeting. An extra workout wouldn't hurt me. It would clear the last dregs of my headache away and maybe help me focus on something other than the words that hummed in the corners of my mind.

  She's coming.

  Callum smirked then yawned as we entered The Magic Bean, the coffee shop-slash-New-Age store that Ava owned. Technically, she carried items for witches, but the word witchcraft was still given a wide berth in the Southern parts of the U.S.

  Ava used the term "New Age", which fit in perfectly with the relaxed vibe often found in parts of Austin.

  "Oh, man. She made lemon scones," Callum murmured.

  I sniffed and closed my eyes in pleasure. Not only had she made lemon scones, she also had snickerdoodles, my absolute favorite.

  The perfume of lemon, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and coffee entwined to create the siren song of scent. My mouth watered even though I'd eaten eggs, toast, and tomatoes for breakfast just an hour ago.

  Before Callum and I could approach the counter and order food, Ava came through the swinging double doors at the back of the shop.

  "This way," she said, gesturing toward the back room.

  "But...but..." Callum sputtered.

  She gave him a stern look. "Get your ass into my office now. You can have a treat later."

  I'd never seen a grown man pout, but Callum did a damn good impression of one as he followed Ava into the storeroom then further back to her office.

  Now that she and Macgrath worked together more often than not, she'd expanded her office so that it held two desks that faced each other and a small four-top table where she could have staff meetings, a private meal, or rendezvous with Macgrath in the middle of the workday.

  Don't ask me how I knew the last one because the memories were still a little too vivid and disconcerting.

  So vivid and disconcerting that I had to suppress a wince when I saw a plate of scones, another plate of snickerdoodles, an insulated carafe, and coffee cups on top of the table. Considering what I'd witnessed the two of them doing, well, I wasn't sure I wanted to eat anything off that table.

  "Don't get crumbs everywhere," Ava admonished Callum as he reached for a scone. "The cleaning staff came through last night and gave the place a thorough once-over." Her eyes met mine and twinkled with amusement.

  Oh, yes, she knew exactly why I wasn't reaching for my favorite cookies and she was letting me know that my squeamishness entertained her.

  Shit. Now, I had to have one or she'd just give me shit relentlessly about being afraid to eat a cookie because the plate was sitting on the table where she and Macgrath had sex.

  I braced myself and grabbed one off the plate. Ava smirked as I bit into it, but I didn't look away.

  So what if Macgrath's bare ass had been on this table last week?

  "Why do we have to be here again?" Callum asked, his mouth still full of scone.

  "First of all," Ava began. "Chew with your mouth closed. Secondly, you're here because, like it or not, you're considered vassals of Macgrath. He is your maker, therefore your ruler."

  Callum grunted. "Ruler, my ass," he muttered beneath his breath.

  "We know that, but vampires from other areas don't work like that. The Council doesn't work like that."

  "There is no Council," I interjected. "Not anymore."

  Ava's responding look was dry. "You know better than that. As soon as the fallout settled after Cornelius, a new Council was instated."

  "Great, because they were so effective before."

  She lifted her hands. "You don't have to tell me. I know. Bureaucracy is as immortal as vampires."

  "You still haven't explained why we have to be here," Callum complained before he shoved the rest of the scone in his mouth and reached for a cookie.

  "As Magrath's vassals, it's expected that you'll be here as part of his entourage when he's meeting with another vampire leader. I don't want to
draw attention to ourselves and create an appearance of weakness."

  I nearly choked on my snickerdoodle. I knew for a fact that Ava, and Macgrath for that matter, didn't give a shit about what other people thought of them. Or appearing weak.

  Callum hooted, shooting crumbs into the air. "As if either of you give a damn."

  Ava stared at him with hard, purple eyes. "What did I tell you about crumbs?"

  He chewed quickly and swallowed hard. "Sorry. I'll clean them up before His Lordship gets here."

  She gave him the once over. "You might go out back and shake yourself in the alley first because you're a mess." She continued as Callum cursed and looked down at his crumb-covered chest. "And you're right, we don't give a shit about what Andre Dumont or the Council might think. But I don't want to invite speculation or even a possible attack because other vampires and witches think we're weak. I don't want that kind of attention or the headache that goes along with it."

  "Okay, that makes sense," Callum muttered. "I'll just, uh, go clean up and grab the handheld vacuum."

  He left the office and Ava sighed. She moved to the table and poured out a cup of coffee, which she handed to me.

  "How are you doing?" she asked.

  I shrugged. "Fine."

  Her expression told me that she didn't believe that for a second. "Even with the dreams?"

  I frowned at her. I'd never mentioned them. "Are you sneaking into my thoughts?"

  "You know better than that. But I see things sometimes. Things that are important to our future."

  "And what's so important to our future?" I asked, taking a sip of coffee.