Vice and Void (The Savage Wolves Brotherhood #1)

38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Dakota

If Dakota hadn’t been on the back of the motorcycle, she had no doubt that Callum would be slinging through red lights, taking corners as sharp as he could, and speeding along the shoulders of the road when the cars backed up in afternoon traffic. He was pissed—royally pissed. She could do nothing to calm him, could only hold on tight as he tore through town.

She knew it had taken all his strength to rein in his fury. When Callum went silent as a graveyard, his shoulders stiffening and his gaze shuttering to nothing…that’s when whoever was on the receiving end of that stare was in trouble. Not when he was throwing tables and punching holes in walls. No, when he went completely and utterly still.

Dakota half-expected for the motorcycle to pull up outside Red McCoy’s house, and she briefly wondered if the sagging porch had ever been fixed. Or whether it was frozen in time from the day of the graduation party. Perhaps the beer keg still sat in the corner, forgotten and untouched. It was silly to think that at all. Time had moved on, and so had she.

Surprise filled Dakota when the clubhouse came into sight, only for dread to sink a heavy stone in her gut when she noticed the line of motorcycles parked in the lot. The telltale red one was there—she could still spot Red McCoy’s bike from a mile away.

Callum parked his motorcycle with a lurch and tossed his helmet on the ground as soon as the engine was killed. Despite his anger, he held a hand out to help Dakota off the seat, though he said nothing as he did so.

Then, he was a thunderstorm as he stalked to the clubhouse’s front door, and Dakota could almost envision forks of lightning skittering across the dead grass in his wake. The devastation he could—would—cause had a chance to change the Brotherhood forever.

“Callum,” Dakota said so softly that she didn’t think he heard her at first.

But he paused at the door, his chest heaving from forced breath and his hand resting on the metal handle. He didn’t look at her and, besides his stillness, did not indicate that he was listening at all.

“We have to be smart about this,” she went on, stopping at his side to look at him. His face was half-cast in shadow from the awning above the door, only enhancing his deathly fury. “Raven, she’s—“

Callum yanked the door open, stepping past her to enter the dimly lit hallway. His footsteps fell heavy against the old carpet, and he paid no attention to Rocco or Kane seated on the couch, their eyes glued to the television screen. Red didn’t see it coming, but Dakota did. She winced as Callum drew back a leg and kicked the chair out from under Red, sending him sprawling to the floor.

Red sputtered his confusion before struggling to stand, his neck and face flushed as he set his stare on Callum. “What the fuck, boy?” he growled, tracking Callum’s pacing movements.

Rocco and Kane looked away from the television, taken aback at Callum's fury, but the news story caught Dakota’s eye. Her chest tightened when Dominic Sinclair’s official Ranger photo flashed to the corner of the feed. A team of Iron Guard in wet suits were climbing from the quarry’s murky waters. Her father was in the background, his hands planted on his gunbelt as he watched the procession from the rocky shore. As he turned toward the camera, his stern gaze locking with the lens, she was certain he was staring straight into her soul.

“ I will do everything in my power to find who did this ,” a male voice said through the speaker. The feed panned to a man Dakota didn’t recognize. He seemed to be a few years older than herself. She was willing to bet he was wealthy from his suit and the combed-back style of his hair. “ I will throw every penny at this investigation until we uncover the answers. And trust me, we will uncover them .”

The journalist behind the newsdesk reappeared on the screen, her perfectly coifed brown hair shining under the bright light just off-screen. Dakota couldn’t breathe, couldn’t pull in the air fast enough to unhook the claws that buried themselves in her chest.

“Dakota?” The voice was canned and far away. She couldn’t tell who was speaking, not as her head was spinning and her vision was beginning to sparkle at the corners.

“I…I need to sit down.”

“Tell me about Raven and Maverick Malone,” Callum said calmly as Dakota dropped onto the couch cushion Rocco had vacated, her hand propped near her mouth to cover her parted lips.

They had found Dominic Sinclair. How had they found Dominic Sinclair? The hum of the lights above her seemed louder than usual, closer to a warning bell than a hum. Air sawed at her dry throat with each breath.

“Dakota?”

The hand on her shoulder made her jump. Like a rubber band had snapped in her mind, Kane’s furrowed brows and downturned lips came into focus. Her gaze dragged up to meet his, and whatever he read in the depths of them made his flash wide.

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Red replied to Callum. His lip was bleeding beneath his fingers, crimson coating the tips where he prodded at the split. “You shouldn’t put your nose where it doesn’t belong, Callum.”

“The Brotherhood is my business,” Callum answered as he shook out his right hand, the hollowness to his voice cracking open enough for the anger to seep through. “Ace is my fucking business, Red. Raven was—you haven’t denied it.”

Rocco’s muscular body was wedged between them, his arms spread wide to force the two men apart. “Callum, Red. What the fuck?”

“Callum,” Dakota said quietly, her gaze leaving Kane’s face to land on the television screen. While the news story had shifted, she could imagine phantom Dominic’s picture still floating in the corner. Mocking her. Glaring at her.

Callum wiped his knuckles on his black pants, smearing a streak of blood across his skin. “How long have you known?”

“Known what? What are you talking about?” Rocco asked, his hands still splayed on both men’s chests. “What is going on?”

“How long have you known?” Red retorted. He abandoned his lip, and the blood ran down his chin, dripping onto the collar of his leather cut.

Callum didn’t reply. He snatched his gun from his side, cocked it with a sharp clack that ran through the room, and pointed it square between Red’s eyes. What little breath remained in Dakota’s lungs froze. Callum’s stare remained haunted .

“Are you going to pull that trigger, son?” Red said quietly.

“You let him believe a lie.” Callum’s hand was steady, enough of an oath that Dakota couldn’t be sure whether he could be persuaded to lower the gun. “You let him stay here. You watched as he got so fucking addicted to distills that he barely registers as a godsdamned person anymore.”

Rocco’s gaze flicked between the two, though realization began to dawn on his face.

“No.” Red vigorously shook his head, sending the trickle of blood to create a new path that split a second track of red down his chin. “No. I let him think that this club had his back. I let him keep his belief that this club means something. He didn’t have anything left to give—“

“That wasn’t your fucking choice to make!” Callum roared with a ferocity that clamped Red’s mouth shut. Dakota swallowed hard. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it. “How many times did he work side-by-side with Maverick? How many times did you see them sitting by each other, knowing that he killed your daughter?”

Rocco’s eyes went dark, a menacing shadow passing over his stare. “What?”

Red paid him, and Kane’s gaping expression, no mind. “It was my sin to bear. Not his.”

Callum’s low, mirthless laugh cut a hole through Dakota’s heart. His knuckles tightened around the gun, still pointed at the Sergeant-at-Arms. “An innocent man fucking died, Red. Your son killed him.”

Red blanched as Rocco’s gaze dropped to the worn carpet, his tanned skin fading into a concerning shade of gray. “What?”

“Dominic Sinclair.” Callum jerked his head toward the television, the first piece of evidence that he had seen what was painted across the screen. “Duke let him think that Dominic-fucking-Sinclair pulled the trigger.”

Red began to pace, lacing a hand over his hair before letting it drop to curl around the back of his neck. Callum tracked him with the gun, not letting up for a single second. “Duke put the order out on me! He—he knew what I had…what I needed to…” His gaze cut through the tension, piercing Callum with an unblinking stare. “I’ve got to go.”

Callum lowered the barrel and pulled the trigger. The bullet bounced off the hard flooring at Red’s feet, lodging halfway up the drywall near the wet bar. Rocco swore loudly as Kane jumped. Dakota’s phone buzzed a second time. Callum only cocked the gun again.

“Don’t fucking walk away from me, Red.” Callum’s tone was chilling, dangerous. Full of promises that Dakota knew he would keep, even if it destroyed him .

But Red turned to look at him, that once fatherly gaze hardening into unbreakable steel. “You’re either gonna pull that trigger again and blast my brains across this club. Or you’re not. And knowing what you know about my son, you won’t fucking dare.”

Callum’s jaw tensed, and his lips pressed into a thin, white slash buried within his complexion’s paleness. He opened his mouth to reply, but Dakota’s phone buzzed a third time. Brows knitting together, she reached into her back pocket to retrieve it and toggled to her home screen with a quick thumb swipe. Whatever Callum replied with had Red growling in the background, but she could only focus on the messages lit against the bright screen. It was from a blocked number. Untraceable.

The first message was a set of coordinates.

The second was the thumbnail of a photograph.

The third was the sentence: Come alone .

Dakota tapped on the thumbnail, ignoring the sinking stone of dread that settled like a boulder in her stomach. Then her belly twisted, nausea threatening to send bile crawling up the back of her throat. The photograph was a set of hands, familiar hands with familiar chipped, red polish that had grown out to the tips of the nails. The wrists were tightly bound and dirty. Deep gouges were set into the flesh, once angry and now infected.

“Dakota?” She felt Kane’s gaze locked on her temple.

Whatever was written on her face couldn’t be explained away. Another gunshot cracked through the air, this one embedding in the wooden frame of the doorway leading to the hall. She didn’t even flinch. She was about to angle her phone toward Kane—to show him the photograph setting her skin to crawl—when a fourth message sprang onto the screen.

Alone .

Like whoever was on the other end of the line knew exactly what she was about to do. Desperation became determination as her eyes fixed on the set of car keys casually tossed on the communal table. Without thinking, without considering that this might be the worst idea of her life, she surged forward and grasped the keys before whirling around to aim for the clubhouse’s back door.

“Where are you going?” Kane hissed. “Those are my keys! Dakota!”

No one else paid attention as she slammed a hip against the metal bar of the emergency exit. She gulped in the rain, the cold humidity, and the smell of freshly fallen wet leaves as she shoved the key into the old truck’s door. It unlocked after some hesitation. Dakota pulled herself into the cab and slammed the door shut with a squeak of rusty hinges .

She pasted the coordinates into her map with one hand while shoving the key into the ignition and starting the truck with the other. The engine roared to life, and the wiper blades cleared away the water droplets settled on the cracked windshield. She didn’t wait for the directions to load before she peeled out of the driveway. She knew she needed to escape the clubhouse as fast as possible. She couldn’t risk another second of Kane alerting Callum and Rocco. She couldn’t risk Lyra.

The coordinates took her away from the city bounds and toward where she and Thalia had found the water hemlock. As she drove, a shiver went up her spine, and she fisted the steering wheel with every passing thought of that thing in the swamp. Her phone buzzed again and again and again.

Callum: text message. Callum: missed call. Callum: missed call. Rocco: text message. Kane: missed call. She let every single one go and didn’t take her eyes off the wet pavement. All of her focus was pinned on the afternoon sun reflecting off the puddles and the sound of the tires tearing across the thin layer of water. The truck slid on every curve, and though it was an amusing thought, she couldn’t quite smile at the vision of Callum reaming Kane for letting his tires get so old.

Any quirk of her lips was squashed when the photograph of Lyra’s hands dashed to the forefront of her mind.

This was a terrible idea. A terrible fucking idea. This was what happened in horror movies when the lead character drifted off into the forest alone, looking for her shitty boyfriend. And, somehow, Dakota felt a kindred connection to that lead character as she pushed the old truck past its limits. She never understood the motivation until that moment.

Dakota drove for another two hours. The sun had dipped below the tops of the trees, casting a pink glow against the underside of the dark clouds. Sunsets were coming earlier and earlier now that autumn was in full swing, but they were almost imperceptible in the depths of the swamp. The leaves hadn’t quite begun to shift yet, though the long grass and undergrowth had taken on a yellow wilt since the last time she was in the area..

How was it possible that Lyra ended up all the way out here? Grief gripped Dakota—a tightness in her chest that refused to loosen. While she was wading in the depths of her rekindled…whatever the fuck it was…with Callum, her best friend was tied up. While she was joking with Callum about his terrible cooking, her best friend’s wrists were grinding into welts and infected sores. While she was inching toward destruction with Callum as her downfall, her best friend was…

Dakota didn’t want to think about it but forced herself to. Every outcome ended with grief and regret as two blades splitting her open, bleeding her dry. She should have looked harder. Shouldn't have allowed Callum and the Brotherhood to take the reins on something as important as Lyra.

The truck rolled to a stop on the side of the two-lane road as large raindrops plunked against the windshield. The wipers squealed as they cleared the glass, only to be immediately replaced in the next breath. Despite the remnants of the sun filtering long strips of dim light through the trees, the swamp’s interior remained dark and foreboding. She could already taste the sweet rot of vegetation in the air.

Swallowing past her fear, Dakota hopped from the truck and shut the door with a loud squeal that echoed into the vast black around her. She shielded the phone screen with one hand, stepping around the lit tail lights bathing her in red before blinking out entirely. It was quiet, save for the rain against the leaves. She didn’t know what she expected—another car? Someone to meet her in the swirling mist?

Dakota peered down at the map again, noting that the coordinates were a decent distance from the road. She glanced around again, waiting for what? She didn’t know. But when Callum’s name bubbled onto the screen in the form of a text message— Where the fuck are you? —she sharpened her resolve into a weapon and forged into the swamp.

It was just as sticky and uncomfortable as the last time she was in the swamp, though the cold rain forced a cloud of mist with each breath. Humidity coated her like a second skin, and it seemed her body was unsure whether to shiver or sweat. So she did both—heating and cooling in the same number of minutes.

The twigs that snapped under her sneakers were neon signs pointing whoever was waiting amongst the moss-covered trees toward her. The squelch of mud was the flashing arrow. She couldn’t help but notice the heavy silence, the lack of movement rippling across what she could still see of the standing pools of water. It was as though the swamp was frozen in time, as though it held its proverbial breath to see what would pass through its gates.

It didn’t take much longer for Dakota to reach the coordinates. Only another half an hour of battling the pending darkness, the silted banks, and the chafe of her wet clothing. The rain fell heavier, and the coverage from the trees above gave her just enough protection that she wasn’t soaked to the bone. But just.

Dakota flipped on her cellphone’s flashlight, scanning the scummy water for something, anything, that would explain the text messages she received. She almost flicked the flashlight off and almost turned around to head back to the truck. Had already begun to rifle through excuses to Callum and apologies to Kane when she saw it. The flash of bright purple against the beam of light nearly ten feet away.

Heart leaping into her throat, Dakota surged into the still waters, not caring that the silt slid into her sneakers. Not caring that the algae felt like slime against her bare legs. No, her eyes were set on a body floating face down in the swamp. She choked out a sob as she grasped the arm, the flesh unnaturally cold under her touch.

And she let out a primal, otherwordly scream that echoed through the trees as she turned Lyra over.

Mottled, gray skin covered Lyra’s corpse, and black necrosis gathered at her cheeks and the tip of her nose. Her curly hair was matted and plastered to her temples. Where her vibrant and full-of-life gaze once was, only a fogged, lifeless stare remained. Someone had taken the time to crudely sew her lips shut with a thick, black thread. Black smoke curled from the gaps in her lips, dancing with the evening fog of the swamp.

Dakota pulled Lyra from the water, her breath coming out in sobs as she slipped up the wet rocks and mud on the bank, her hands tucked tightly beneath Lyra’s arms. She didn’t want to think about how cool Lyra’s body felt under her grip, how her flesh was an odd mixture of too soft and too hard.

She flopped against the bank, landing painfully on her ass before scurrying across the moss and mud until her back collided with a tree trunk. She sucked in air, ignoring the lightheadedness and the speckles of color that dotted her peripheral vision. Lyra couldn’t be…she shouldn’t be…

How was Dakota going to call for help? How would she get Lyra out of the swamp? How would she even explain this?

The one thing she knew for certain was that she couldn’t allow Lyra to rest as she was. Slowly, Dakota crawled forward until she knelt next to Lyra’s head. Hesitating for a series of heartbeats with her hand hovering above the stitches, she pinched and pulled the end of the thread.

It was arduous work, both mentally and physically. Dakota’s hand cramped halfway through unspooling the threads from Lyra’s lips. Her fingertips pruned from the water, making her grip nearly impossible to keep. She kept at it until only six holes remained on the top and bottom lips. Finally, Lyra’s mouth parted with a final release of gas and breath, the last of that black smoke unfurling in a thin wisp.

Something inside Dakota clunked into place at the sight of it, something heavy and primal and filled with despair that she knew she would never recover from. She lifted a hand to brush her fingers against the smoke, against the last tendrils of Lyra’s life. It coiled around her palm, as tangible as the threads she had dropped into the silt soaking her knees, and a thudding instinct told her what to do.

She pulled.

Lyra’s chin rose toward the sky like Dakota had turned her into a marionette. She pulled again, afraid that the tendril would give. It never did. She pulled harder, this time lifting Lyra’s chest from the ground.

“Come back,” Dakota breathed, mist clouding in front of her mouth with every exhalation. “Come back. You aren’t done. We aren’t done.” Every sentence came out as a heartbreaking sob, every plead and beg prickling the skin on her back. “Please. Whoever is listening. Please .”

“You’re too late.”

Dakota gasped, her chest seizing and her hand reflexively releasing the tendril of smoke. She made to grab it, but it dissipated into thin air. The last of Lyra fading away. She didn’t have the energy to dreg up any semblance of self-preservation. She didn’t want to know who, or what, was standing behind her. In fact, she hoped they would make her death quick.

“You prove to be difficult to track down, Dakota Montgomery.” The voice was low and husky, masculine.

Dakota softly snorted, not bothering to look back at the man behind her. Grief was a weight sinking her deeper and deeper into the mud. “How do you know my name?” When there was no response after a long minute, she dared a peek over her shoulder. Her head reeled back when there was nothing but the swampy terrain.

“I think,” the man said, “you’re asking the wrong questions.”

Dakota started again, whipping her head back toward Lyra. Her eyes landed on boots first, leather-covered toes peering out from beneath the hem of a long, black cloak. Her gaze shifted upward, taking in more of the cloak that seemed to billow on a phantom wind. Whoever he was—he had strong fingers and hands, though his wrists and arms were shrouded within the sleeves. She lifted her stare further, taking in the hood pulled over the man’s head, casting his face in complete shadow.

“You. Who are you?” She could almost feel the man’s smirk kiss her chilled skin.

“You know who I am.”

Dakota swallowed as she stood, her knees squelching as they dislodged from the mud’s suction. “I’ve dreamed of you. I recognize your voice.”

“Yes.”

“How are you here?”

“You should be careful where you venture. There are…things about.”

Dakota stilled as she searched the shadow of the man’s hood. “Nekros.” It wasn’t a question, and she took his hum of satisfaction as confirmation. She hadn’t realized she stepped beyond The Boundary. “Why are you here?

“For you. It would have been easier on you and your friend had you heeded my call the first few times. I wouldn’t have needed to resort to…this.” He spat the last word like venom.

Dakota’s stare dropped to Lyra. “You killed her.”

“I saved you. Once. You were just too young to remember.”

Anger lashed through her, wicked and vengeful. Nekros chuckled as though he could sense it.

“Why?” her voice cracked, the strain of her grief tightening like a noose.

“You have something I need,” Nekros said. He stood preternaturally still, his hands carefully folded at his front. “Something I gifted humans long ago, and now…”

Dakota’s heart pounded against her chest, in her ears, down to the tips of her toes. “You want to make a deal.” She'd been taught to never make a deal with the Banished Gods. To never step inside of The Boundary. But this was Lyra. She should run. She was anchored in place, her sneakers rooted in the mud. She felt her resolve slipping with every glance toward Lyra’s body.

“Yes.”

Alarm clanged through her, clenching her belly and wobbling her knees. “I don’t understand—“

“It’s quite simple. You agree to heed my call when the time comes, and I will bring back your friend.”

Dakota swallowed, though it was becoming tougher with every passing second that lump remained lodged in her throat. “What call? ”

“You’ll know when I’m ready.”

Discomfort tunneled through her, worming through her gut and wriggling against the pit of her stomach. “And you’ll bring back Lyra?”

Nekros reached into his cloak, his movements slow and deliberate. He withdrew his hand, a brass coin pinched between his forefinger and thumb. “On one condition.”

That discomfort grew, expanding into her chest.

“Gifting my power comes with a price.” He flicked the coin into the air, catching it deftly in his other hand. “A cost, if you will. An exchange.”

Dakota paled. “An exchange?”

“A life for a life. A Necromantic Contract.”

Her discomfort roared into a life of its own, a living entity inside her. She took a deep breath that smelled too similar to rot and decay to be reassuring. “Whose life?”

Nekros’s voice filled with amusement once again. “That’s entirely up to you. Spend the mark in the next two days, and your friend will stay alive. Fail to…” He trailed off, but the implication was enough.

“Why me? Why have you been in my dreams? Why did you lure me here? Why—“

Nekros lifted a hand, cutting her off without saying a word. Dakota took another long, slow breath.

“Your mother was—“ Whatever he began to say, Nekros seemed to think better of. He shook his head, only managing to shift the hood of his cloak. “Do we have a deal?”

“My mother was what?” Dakota urged him on. There was a shift in the air that Nekros seemed to sense as well. His head lifted just enough that she caught a flash of golden eyes against a beam of evening sunlight that cut through the trees.

“A deal, Dakota.” His tone indicated finality, any and all remaining amusement leeching from his voice. “Now.”

Dakota swallowed, eyeing the coin that he held suspended in the air between them. Against her better judgment, she grabbed it with a shaking hand. It was cold to the touch and lighter than she expected. Nekros waved a hand, and a whoosh of swirling wind coiled around them. Binding them. It plowed into the earth, displacing the mud and water, where it slipped over the toes of Dakota’s sneakers.

Nekros waved a hand again, and black smoke shot out of the ground. It rose faster and faster, shaking the trees and blocking what little Dakota could see of the clouds. Then, quick as a bullet, that black smoke cannoned toward Lyra, filling her mouth and nose. Her chest lifted from the ground, her back bowing away from the mud. Her arms outstretched, her hands curling into fists so tight that blood dripped from beneath her fingernails.

It stopped as abruptly as it started, leaving an eerie silence in its wake. Nekros had vanished, but Dakota still felt the brass mark against her palm. Seconds ticked by, each lasting a longer lifetime than the one before.

With a startling gasp, Lyra choked to life. Coughing, gagging, and retching as she rolled to her stomach to take in deep, gulping breaths. Dakota fell to her knees, her voice lost to the lump in her throat. Her hands grasped Lyra’s shoulders and rubbed her back, reveling in the warmth replacing the previously cool corpse.

Lyra stilled, her chest heaving, before she turned a set of wide and terrified eyes onto Dakota. Her voice was raw when she spoke, as if she hadn’t used it in quite a long time, but the words were clear enough. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”