Chapter 198

Russo’s POV

Five minutes later, we were on the road and on our way. I drove while Lisa tapped out another set of texts, probably updating all of our friends to our status.

Justin would be taking command of the warriors with Randy at his side. We managed to find the location of where the Huntsman was hiding. It was part of a planned community with walls around the outside and gates with guards, secure if one were just trying to keep out regular predators. More of a fortress when we knew what was lurking inside.

And our pixie spy, Freya, had left the night before, trying to get herself situated in a place in the house where she would be able to witness everything going on and give updates. Justin had taken possession of a small magical earpiece that she had made for Helen before Helen got abducted. Using that to communicate, she would verify that we had done our jobs.

Then Justin and Randy would lead the rest of the warriors in to clean out anyone who remained who was loyal to the Huntsman. We had, over the course of the videos, learned that the wizard who was able to control minds and now thoughts lived with them, and his name was Martin.

If Justin had anything to do with the cleanup, Martin would be the first to die. Part of me wanted to feel bad for him because he was a wizard, and they were an endangered species. But if keeping Martin alive was what it took to keep the species alive, I think even Lisa would agree that they needed to die out.

I let my thoughts run through all of the pieces that our group was trying to balance to take down this beast as I drove as closer to the church. I wanted to shake my head over the ridiculousness of it.

Over and over again over the last few days, all I could think was that I never wanted to meet a real demon in person. This man was only a half-demon, and it was taking the cooperation of three different kinds of magic creatures, plus a conjoined pack of werewolves, to take him down. And we hadn't even succeeded yet.

What would it take to bring down a full demon?

Just the idea shuddered through my entire body. With all the distractions in my head, we seemed to arrive at the church in no time at all. We parked around the back, where the car wouldn't be seen from the street.

The last thing we needed was some human law enforcement interrupting us and ruining the ritual. They would benefit from us taking down the Huntsman, but explaining what would make us lose our advantage.

It was going to take us hours to paint all of the intricate designs on the pentagram we'd be using, so even though it was still morning, we were going to need the full day to complete the designs. It had to be ready to start the ritual itself by moonrise. Because we would need the hours leading up to the zenith, the high point of the full moon, to power the start of the ritual.

In the basement of the church, we cleared everything away, swept the cement floor clean, and took out the ink that Lisa had spent the last week brewing. I took my paintbrush and my list of symbols, and she took hers. We started on opposite sides of each other. We would each draw the symbols clockwise until we met where the other one had started. Then we would finish the interior of the pentagram once those were dried.

Justin's POV

Randy and I spent the day gathering together the warriors and everything that we would need to take down the Huntsman’s henchmen. We had to slip quietly to the outskirts of the neighborhood where the Huntsman had settled in over the last few months.

Before she was taken, I had, on occasion, felt frustrated with how slow it felt things between Helen and I were moving. Yes, I'd been taking time to work on my relationship with Helen and work on my control over Beowulf, but now I was glad for all of the effort that I had put in.

Not only had all that work helped repair things between Helen and me, but now I was able to fight back the urge to shift into my lycan and run straight into the compound and shred every one of them or die trying. I was furious about what the Huntsman was doing to Helen. I was furious with Helen for going along with it, too, even though I knew I shouldn't be.

It wasn't like she had a choice. I had watched the Huntsman put the spell on her. Still, knowing that she kept sleeping with him, that she kept fawning all over him and desperately attempted to gain his affection, made me physically sick to my stomach.

The reality was I wasn't sure how I would look at her when we finally got her back. Would I be able to take her in my arms and make love to her without imagining the Huntsman between her legs?

But I had argued with myself over that very question since the first time that I saw the email containing the video of him trying to marry my wife. And I’d come to the conclusion that I didn't care how difficult it was for me. I refused to let the Huntsman win.

The Huntsman was using Helen to try and drive a wedge between us, to try and make me punish her, to try and make me hate her, in addition to hating him. But Helen was the victim, and so was I. And the only way that the Huntsman would continue to win is if I let him.

If I really wanted to get back at the Huntsman for what he was doing, the fastest way to do that was to take Helen back with no questions asked. Otherwise, even if we managed to kill him, the Huntsman would still win.

And that was completely unacceptable.

Far more unacceptable than trying to forget the images of him with my wife and my mate. But if I hadn't taken the time to start to repair the damage within myself, I wouldn't have been able to make this sort of rational decision.

Still, even with all the work that I'd done, holding myself back was difficult. I wanted to go charging in and just take care of it. But I knew that I couldn't.

Instead, I tried to focus on directing the warriors to where they needed to be, using Randy to help me position them all around the outside walls, just out of the range of vision.

Thank goodness the Huntsman didn't have werewolves working for him, or there's no way we would have been able to hide. They would have been able to smell us from a mile away, even though we had used a scent masker to cover up our presence.

We knew for sure that he had at least one wizard with him, but as far as we could tell, the rest of his forces were human. They might be mercenaries, but they weren't any match for fully trained werewolf warriors.

Once we were all settled in the woods, all we had left to do was wait. And as I sat there with nothing to do but think, I realized that this might be the worst part of what we had to do.

While we had been busy, I only had a little bit of time to think but not as much time as I now had to dwell on all the misery that the Huntsman continually pumped into my life.

He was wicked, and he needed to be removed. No one else deserved to have to go through this sort of misery on a regular basis.

The other thing I was sure of was that if I could control my lycan at this moment, then I could control him well enough to breed with Helen. And I was going to, as soon as we killed the Huntsman.

I didn't care whether or not we had my father in hand. We’d deal with him when the time came. But I needed to have a child with Helen because that was the other way that I could ensure that the Huntsman never won.

He wanted the lycans to be extinct, and if I bred with Helen, they wouldn't be. I used that, focusing on reuniting with Helen to try to get rid of the rest of the thoughts in my head.

All we had to do was wait for word from Freya. Her little pixie magic intercom sat nestled in my ear, just waiting for her to give the signal that the rite had been accomplished, that the ritual was complete, and that the Huntsman was dead.

The sun was starting to go down, and darkness worked its way through the trees, creeping back toward me. Soon night would fall, and so would the Huntsman.