He hated asking for help, and he hated it more when he had to ask for help from another wolf. Even with it being Rafe O’Shea, one of the least objectionable alphas Nick had ever met. The guy was hesitant to expose his mate to more craziness and even a hint of danger, particularly when Nick was the originator. Nick couldn’t take back what had happened at BadCreek, when Ray wanted to keep Meadow there by convincing her she was crazy. He couldn’t take it back, but he could make up for it the only way he knew how—destroying what remained of BadCreek and freeing the remaining hostages. He hoped that would be enough.

And then he would get the hell out of the city and Meadow would never have to see his face again. Neither would Lacey.

Nick drove the witch and the hyena queen through the city to the brownstone townhouses in a hoity-toity neighborhood. He didn’t want to think about how he would deal with the hyena queen once the drama with Smith was resolved. Lacey might never see reason. She might die there in the city, defending her mother’s legacy. It set his teeth on edge just to think about. He didn’t think he could stand by and watch her sacrifice herself for a bunch of ingrates with spots and tails, but the thought of walking away from her made his chest ache with an echoing hollow despair he’d never felt before.

He couldn’t leave her. But if Lacey persisted in wanting nothing to do with him, how could he stay?

“This must be it,” Deirdre said from the back seat, blinking owlishly when he glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “I can feel it.”

Nick parked at the curb, frowning as he leaned to peer out the windshield at the imposing but still rather anonymous building. He couldn’t sense anything about it, other than that it needed new paint on the shutters and the stick pulled out of its ass. “You sure?”

“It’s the correct address,” Lacey said, and kicked her door open. “There’s Ruby.”

Ruby O’Shea appeared out of the shadows, scowling already, and Nick resisted the urge to snarl. He didn’t like being surprised, and even knowing both O’Shea alphas would be there didn’t help settle the wolf. And he sure as fuck didn’t want them near Lacey.

The witch remained in the back seat, and a hint of amusement colored her words when she spoke. “Should I be concerned?”

“Why?”

“You’re easier to read than you used to be, Nikolai. You don’t like the ones who appeared. Are they not who you expected?”

His dislike of witches returned in full force. He growled under his breath and opened his door. “It’s hard to explain. It’s fine. We should get this over with.”

“As you like.” Deirdre exited the car with almost preternatural grace, raising goosebumps all over Nick.

Ruby looked about as happy as Nick felt as she faced him and the witch. The female BloodMoon alpha raised her dark eyebrows at the younger woman. “You sure pick ‘em young, Nick. Did you get this one out of high school, or what?”

Deirdre didn’t blink, only folding her arms over her chest, hands hidden in her sleeves. “You’re not nearly as brave as you pretend to be.”

Lacey sucked in a breath as Ruby rocked back on her heels, dark eyes narrowing and the piercings in her face and ears shining in the light of a street lamp. The wolf alpha’s eyes flashed as she looked at Deirdre. “You must be the witch.”

Deirdre smiled politely, pressing her palms together in front of her chest, and bowed very slightly from the waist. Nick wanted to laugh. Instead he nodded to Ruby and did his best not to groan out loud as he caught a whiff of Lacey’s scent on a slight breeze. “Let’s get in and out as quickly as possible, okay? We don’t have any time to waste.”

“A few ground rules,” Ruby said, and planted a finger in his chest. “Rafe is on edge because Meadow is jumpy. She’s worried about Smith, as are we all, and she’s worried about seeing you again. So be on your best behavior, or I can’t promise my brother won’t try to maul you. Got it?”

The wolf wanted to break her arm off at the wrist and smack her with her own hand. But he only set his jaw and inclined his head to acknowledge her concerns. “I’m just here to get whatever it is that Deirdre needs to find Smith. I won’t even look at Meadow.”

“I’m still not convinced you’re sane,” Ruby said under her breath. Nick remembered her and Rafe trying to hold him down when he heard about Lacey’s supposed death, and didn’t entirely blame her for wondering about his state of mind.

Lacey stood at the top of the brownstone’s stoop, half lost in shadow. “Would you all stop chitchatting and get on with this? We’re wasting time. He’s fine. He’s been fine. Can we do this?”

Ruby didn’t like it, but after a long silence, she nodded once and strode up the stairs. Nick exhaled and followed, though he made sure that Deirdre wasn’t lost in the darkness. The witch didn’t need any help getting to the front door, still moving like she was on wheels instead of feet, and she looked around with wide eyes as if she’d never seen a rowhouse like that before.

Nick kept his mouth shut as he ducked into the foyer and closed the door behind him, hanging back as Ruby introduced Meadow to Deirdre. Lacey explained very briefly what they were trying to do to free Smith, while Rafe growled in the corner and paced restlessly. Meadow kept close to Ruby, her wide eyes worried as she listened to Lacey and studied the witch. Nick wondered if her worry was because of him. He could have waited outside, but the wolf couldn’t let Lacey out of his sight just yet. Their time together might be limited enough; he wouldn’t give up a second of having her near.

He tensed as a silence fell over the group, standing there in the well-lit foyer to the ErlKing’s abode, and everyone looked at Deirdre.

The witch smiled very faintly, her hands folded once more into her sleeves, and addressed Meadow. “Does he have a workroom, a place where he casts magic or spills blood?”

“Spills blood?” Meadow’s eyebrows shot up, almost blending into her hair. “I…I don’t think so.”

Deirdre didn’t look ruffled in the slightest. “Then the room where he sleeps, I suppose.”

“Back here,” Meadow said, and reached for Rafe’s hand as she walked up the stairs and over to the back of the house.

The stairs and floorboards creaked under their feet, and Nick found himself looking around as the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Something wasn’t right. The house didn’t feel abandoned, as if it had not been unoccupied for the months that Smith had been gone. “Has anyone been living here?”

Lacey stiffened when she heard his voice, but she didn’t speak. Rafe’s upper lip curled back from his teeth as he turned to look down the stairs. “No. It’s been empty since the ErlKing disappeared. Why?”

“Just feels off,” he said under his breath. He stayed close to Lacey as they all trekked into the back master bedroom, a neat if spartanly decorated space. Nick remained close to the hall, though, just in case. The wolf growled in his head, ready to fight to protect their mate, and Ruby shot him a warning look over her shoulder.

Deirdre wandered around the room, humming under her breath, and ran her hands close to the surface of every object in there. She didn’t touch anything, just got close to it before moving on to the next. There wasn’t much in the room to start with—none of the knickknacks most people collected, no toiletries or hair brushes, and very few clothes in the wardrobe. It was as if Smith had moved out, or barely lived there to begin with.

Meadow started to look worried. “There’s an office, a den. It’s a library with mostly books, but maybe there’s something there you can use.”

“What happens if you can’t find anything?” Lacey asked.

Deirdre absently peeked into a drawer in the wardrobe, then sighed and shook her head. “We can try the office. If we can’t find anything... I won’t be able to find him or remove him from the Betwixt.”

“We’ll find something,” Rafe said. He practically shouldered Nick aside to make room for Meadow to walk past, back down the stairs to a room on the first floor, and kept himself between his mate and Nick until they were safely past. Ruby shook her head and followed on his heels, Lacey right behind her, and Deirdre followed serenely after.

The witch paused halfway down the stairs to tilt her head back, eyes closed as she inhaled deeply, and Nick held back, the wolf even more uneasy as the air in the house moved. Tensed. With each inhalation, the witch dragged at the atmosphere inside until static crackled like lightning from the sconces on the walls. When her eyes opened, they were pure silver shot through with green. The bones in her neck creaked as she rotated her head, then Deirdre floated down the rest of the stairs. “This way.”

Growling rose up from the office where the rest of their group waited, but none dared exit as the witch drifted past and toward the back of the house. Nick didn’t like it, but he put on a brave face and just shrugged when Ruby started to question what happened. The walls creaked and crackled as the static increased in bright flashes, and as Deirdre raised her right hand in a soft gesture, the back door blew open.

Deirdre walked into the manicured backyard, her eyes still glowing weirdly, and went straight to a massive oak tree in the center of the yard. It seemed out of place compared to the landscaping in the adjacent backyards, and yet... it fit. The tree drew their eyes and their attention, and despite the time of year, the leaves had started to turn color.

“It’s dying,” Meadow said, a bare whisper that reached Nick from far away.

Deirdre walked up to the tree but didn’t touch it, then kicked off her shoes so she could sink bare feet into the earth around the tree. Her head tilted back and she held her arms up and out, power arcing off her hands in bright flashes. Nick held his breath and forced himself to stay there, a few feet behind her, even though the wolf knew better and wanted to run as far and as fast as they could manage. He couldn’t let Lacey see him flinch.

They waited until Deirdre lowered her arms, and the static slowly dissipated. The night felt even darker without those bright flashes. Nick blinked repeatedly, trying to get rid of the spots in his vision, and folded his arms over his chest as he faced the witch. “Well?”

“This is his touchstone to the Betwixt,” she said, and picked up her shoes. She walked over to a small stone bench in the garden, and started to brush off her feet. “This will do nicely. I can use it to find him, and to return him. But she’s right—the tree is dying. The ErlKing weakens on the other side. It might be someone there draining his power, or it might be something here. It’s too hard to say until we have him back in this world.”

“He’s dying?” Meadow went forward to the tree and pressed her hands against the bark. “He can’t be dying. We have to get him out.”

“We will,” Rafe said, and shot a dark look at Nick.

As if it was his fucking fault. Nick bristled, already at the end of his rope after a long-ass day. “Why do you think I called the witch?”

Deirdre glanced between them and checked her watch. “I will excuse myself before the animals take over. Tomorrow night, then. Midnight. I will meet you back here, hopefully with one or two of my colleagues. Try not to break anything or spill any blood around here.”

Without looking at any of them, she walked back into the house and disappeared into the foyer. The sound of the front door closing reached them, and Ruby frowned at Nick. “What the hell is her problem?”

“Witches think we’re more animal than people,” he said. “The fact that she agreed to help at all is a small miracle. I can’t begrudge her her prejudices. The witches have good reason not to trust us.”

“How do we know she’s not going to sell us out?” Ruby folded her arms over her chest.

“We don’t,” Lacey said. She practically glowed in the moonlight. “Except that the other witches refused to help us at all, and this one extracted all kinds of favors. She loses more than we do by getting outed.”

“We’ll see,” Rafe said. He stuck close to his mate, and Nick hated them both in a sudden surge of rage.

Meadow relied on Rafe; she needed him. It was just Nick’s stupid fucking luck that his own mate didn’t want anything to do with him. The wolf clawed at his control, a hot second away from taking over, and Nick headed for the back gate. He needed to run. He could deal with the car later.

Ruby called after him but Nick just waved a hand over his shoulder. “Later.”

He waited until the shadows swallowed him up before he changed and bolted, heading for the darkest parts of the city to work off some of that anger. He might as well start getting used to hunting alone again.