Silence: Jed not looking at either of them.
“He was sniffing for you,” Jason continued. “Trying. He tracked out from the sheep and back, all around, too drunk to follow his nose. He couldn’t even run when the farmer started shooting in the dark. I had to bite his fur and lead him. But he followed. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t walk. Not as if you couldn’t have brought him home if you’d wanted to. You chose to leave him to be killed by a human.”
“Why would I try to get my only pack killed?” Jed still didn’t look at him. “I didn’t lead Kage to that farm—”
“But you went!” Jason shouted. “You went, willingly, and you left him to die. One time of many times that you did. Either hoping someone else would finish him off or using your own teeth. When you weren’t busy trying to kill him, you went for me. When neither of us were around at least you could run with your father—get you and Gabriel into the tabloids for the escaped pet wolf story.”
“I only attacked Kage because of you. Not some—”
“What difference does it make why? Moon and stars, you’re just like the elders—letting it all slide due to difficult circumstances. Never mind justice, never mind common sense.”
“So you think it’s wrong to go for a fellow wolf now?” Jed shouted back. “Come a long way, haven’t you? You think there’s no excuse for what I did? Is that how you felt about it when you tried to have me killed every chance you got? But you were too much of a bleeding coward to take me on so you did everything you could to build a case against me for the silvers? Eager to buy tickets and show up early for a good seat to watch the pack tear me apart…”
“Whereas you want the blood in your own mouth whenever possible.” Jason’s voice was soft again. “You grew beyond being a coward, right? From leaving your packmate to take his chances with a shotgun to maturing enough that you’d go for his throat with your own teeth. Such progress. Wouldn’t want to accuse you of being the sort who only likes to watch. Big, brave wolf here.”
Jed’s jaw worked, he turned as if to leave, then faced Jason again, finally spilling out what he hadn’t been wanting to say. “He wouldn’t run, all right? I tried. You think I lured him into traps for a laugh? He was into sharp ice those last couple of years. I couldn’t always stick with him.”
His growing agitation seemed to make Jason calmer. “Sure. I know. You were a bloody shooting star and he was a raving terror. Not your fault. He made you dump him, leave him, and go for his throat. You were just minding your own hunt. He was the one singing to the wrong Moon. So I’ve misjudged you?”
“I don’t know what you expect from me.” Jed’s voice also dropped. “You got what you wanted. Yet you kept trying to get the silvers to come down on me, trying to get me killed. Now you’re still at it. Saying Moon-cursed sterk like I’m biding my time until I can murder him when no one’s around. But you’re the one who won’t rest until I’m dead. So what is it you want from me?”
“I want you to keep clear of us.” Jason’s voice was even softer. “Some memories are too blood-stained to leave in another Moon. I’m staying with him. Not you. You run along and find someone else’s life to trash and reputation to ruin and skin to bite—then blame them for your actions and save yourself. Make sure you’re extra courageous while you’re at it.”
The hush was to a normal conversation what a forge fire, melting iron, is to a normal camp fire. A burning silence mixed with heavy breaths and air thick as soup, clamping over my body so my extremities felt numb while my chest felt crushed.
Zar swallowed, looked at Jason, started to speak, then clearly changed to another topic, pausing, stammering back a word, looking around to me and the others instead. “Isaac could stay. He knows the area.”
“Here with Madison?” Andrew gave him a look. “You could stay, but you’re the only one who knows anything about reavers. Isaac and I can deal with people. This is going to another city, worse than London—French, having to interact, staying in skin. Taking Jed would be mad anyway. He doesn’t want to go other than to be with Cassia. And someone has to stay. He’s right in this case. We’ll leave him a phone and he—”
“I’m staying,” Jason repeated.
“And he can check in,” Andrew continued. “Show him how to use your phone and leave it.” Jerking his head at Zar. “What, Jay? What do you want?” Suddenly raising his voice over more interruptions from Jason. “Huh? What the fuck are we supposed to do? We’re all a part of this pack and we’re doing the best we can. Even when that’s breaking off the dark side of perfect. You are wanted in Paris. Jed is not. He’s not going to hurt Kage. For Moon’s sake, the three of you need to let this shit go! Nobody here thinks he would actually throttle Kage in his sleep. You don’t even think that! You just don’t want him with Kage because you hate his guts as much as he hates yours. It’s understandable that you want to be with Kage, but he’s going to be all right with a little rest. He’s out of danger. Madison’s minding him. In the morning, it’s time to go. There’s nothing more you can do for him. Jed is perfectly capable of feeding—”
“I don’t need to be in Paris either! You’re all raving to think this makes more sense than me staying—”
“This is bigger than you and your personal dramas!” Andrew shouted over him while Jason continued. “Or vendettas or grudges, or what’s easy or comfortable! We have to do this!”
“Kage and I will keep helping when he’s back on his feet!”
“No! We are going in the morning! You are part of this pack! You will help now!”
“Help what? We’re going in verus circles!”
“We’re finding who the killers are!”
“We’re not!” Jason threw open his hands. They were standing close now, a few feet apart beside Zar at the desk. “This is all sharp ice! It’s bullshit! One more lead or clue or funny feeling, and what have we really done? We’ve almost been killed and we’ve seen the world? What the fuck kind of investigation is that?”
“We have to keep trying, Jay. We’re the only ones who have a shot at stopping this—”
“It’s taken this long. What difference does it make to wait on Kage?”
“While people are dying? While we know which way to sniff next but we do nothing?”
“Why are you so urgent?” Jason dropped his voice. “Moon knows the rest of us have a lot more to lose—even Cassia now. They got your mate seasons ago.”
Andrew punched him.
Jason fell nearly onto Kage but twisted and hit the floor at the foot of the daybed with Andrew following, pounding his face. Andrew pinned his legs and bashed his head repeatedly into the floor. Jason fought through his adopted brother’s arms to get a hold of his neck. He slammed Andrew’s head into the daybed post, but it didn’t phase him. Andrew had all the leverage and his weight behind the blows.
Jason released him, only trying to protect his own face while, again and again, Andrew punched him.
Zar and Jed stood by the desk and in the doorway, watching.
Kage rolled onto his chest. Already right beside them, he still had to struggle—weak, teetering—to find his feet on his own, then reach to wrap his jaws around Andrew’s neck.
Kage’s head and muzzle were so large—and Andrew bent forward in a hands and knees position over Jason—that Kage only opened his jaws wide and closed them with lower teeth to Andrew’s throat and upper across the back of his neck. He held on, as if clasping hands, his teeth pressing into the skin.
Andrew stilled, gasping. His Adam’s apple convulsed against Kage’s teeth as he swallowed. Jason held his hands over his face, covered in blood from his nose and a cut by his eye, which was already swelling shut. Andrew’s hands were also smeared in Jason’s blood.
All three were motionless besides the panting breaths of the two in skin. Kage did not appear upset. His ears were relaxed, dropping a bit down the sides of his head as if still enjoying his brushing. His eyelids sagged with lethargy that both the pain and meds gave him. He seemed to be fo
cusing all his power in standing and holding. He had none left for any outburst of emotion.
It was as if he said, Sorry, I can’t let you do that. But no more.
Andrew tried to draw back, pulling away from them both. For a second, he pulled Kage’s head along with him. Then Kage let go and Andrew scrambled away on his knees and stood up. Puffing through his mouth, he held his hands—also swelling, not bloody enough to be dripping—out in front of him to keep them from touching anything as the pain signals caught his brain.
Jason heaved harsh breaths through his mouth while the blood ran down his face, into his hair and the back of his neck, dripping to the flat carpet.
Kage leaned carefully over him to lick his face. Jason flinched, his eyes shut while blood flowed over his skin and into his sinuses and down his throat. Kage gently licked the streams off the far side of his face, then lay down on his elbows at Jason’s left, where he licked the near side, across the trickling eye, into his hair, mostly for the flood from his nose.
The left side of Andrew’s head was also bloody, a few drops running down in front of his ear. The smack into the bedpost had broken the skin at the side of his head.
He was shaking visibly. So was Jason. So was I.
Kage returned to licking across Jason’s upper lip after a pass across the rest of his face again. Jason winced and shivered, pulling away when Kage touched his broken nose. Instead, Jason wrapped his arms around his neck, resting the side of his face into the still long-furred area of Kage’s ruff, turning his body toward Kage.
“…said I’d look after you.” Jason’s voice was muffled and distorted in fur and his blocked nose. “Not going to leave you, Sparky. I love you. You know I won’t.”
Kage licked his black hair, slow and gentle while Jason held on.
Andrew leaned back into the desk, not quite sitting on it, his hands still out. He breathed hard through his mouth, chin tipped down to his chest and eyes shut. His hands trembled worse than ever, blood from his own cracked knuckles mixing with Jason’s on his skin, swollen and red even below the blood.
Zar stood beside him, watching Jason and Kage.
“You’re my silver, Kage.” Only audible because the room was now so quiet. “Neä amaus Vinu. I’ll always look after you. Whatever you need. I’m sorry you’re hurt. Min polaan, Kage. I would trade places with you if I could. You know I’d do anything for you. Neä amaus Vinu. Vinu se min amaus, min poulsotor, min Lunae.”
Kage lay still with him for some time until Jason was quiet and the shivering had eased.
Then Kage stood up, struggling, fur newly bloody on his neck. Again, he licked the blood off Jason’s face, going softly over both eyelids, one now completely swollen shut, with light taps of his tongue.
It was too mammoth a task to step over him so Kage made his shaking, paw-dragging way around him to the daybed and me. Leaning his side into the bed by my legs, he looked up into my face, then around at Jason, on his back on the floor. Again to me.
I shook my head, feeling the touch of cool air on tear tracks down my face, saying nothing, having no idea what to do for him.
Again, Kage looked over his shoulder at Jason and back to me.
“He wants to know why we need Jason to come,” Zar said after a moment.
Kage looked into my eyes.
“I have…” I stopped, had to cough and go on. “I have no idea, Kage. I’m sorry. He can stay with you. It’s fine. It could be nothing at all.”
“That’s really what you think?” Andrew panted.
I hesitated. “We might spend the whole time in Paris doing nothing. I don’t know, Kage. I only got a strong feeling about it. It could be that our lives rest in his hands over there. I just don’t know.”
For a long moment, he stared up to meet my eyes, his own still dull from the drugs, but focused on me, making himself deal with this through the pain and haze—seeking something more from me or only reading something in my eyes in return. He looked around at us, including Isaac at the doorway, though I wasn’t sure how long Isaac had been there.
Kage glanced back to Jason, then me. He touched my knee with his nose.
He walked painfully over to Jed at the door. Head drooping, Kage leaned his shoulder into Jed’s legs and rested his right forepaw on Jed’s socked foot. He looked back at Jason with his tired eyes and gently wagged his tail.
Chapter 27
One of the most famous opening lines ever is Tolstoy’s “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
I’d never wished so much to be a conformist as we made the all-day journey to France. I’d never felt less like one.
The pre-dawn day had started badly: having to say goodbye to Kage while he clasped my hand in his jaws and my eyes blurred. We’d previously split up for small things—a trip into London, robbing a grave. Andrew had stayed with me alone in Portland while the rest were only minutes away. Nothing like this. Not going to another country to find potentially deranged casters.
Everything in me rebelled at the idea.
Kage had tried to stand, to come with us, as if he could show he was all right, while I pleaded with him not to risk changing until he was absolutely sure. At least until the stitches were out and both Jed and Madison thought he could—though I hoped we’d be back to give our opinions before such time anyway.
Jed had refused to change at all. Lying with his chin between his paws at the foot of the daybed, over where I’d cleaned blood off the carpet with sprays for pet messes that Madison had under the kitchen sink.
Zar and I had been the only ones to say goodbye to him, both from the doorway. Jed didn’t even roll his eyes to us.
We thanked Madison. I’d tried to go over more concerns of watching Kage: that he’d listen to her as a vet. That she shouldn’t need to have much to do with either but if she could just tell him he wasn’t ready to change, check on him now and then…
She’d hugged me. “He’ll be all right, Cassia. He’s doing brilliantly. Better than I’d ever have imagined. They’re strong. I’ll text you.”
“Thank you.” My voice broke. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Isaac knew I would.” She sighed. “Just the sorts of women he goes for. Good luck in France. Au revoir.”
Then away, gone: five, not seven.
Six-hour drive, leaving the trailer in Ambleside, stopping only once for fuel and snacks, reaching the ferry by 1:00 p.m., no visiting the pack, no swapping out Kage’s Jeep for their bikes. Making the trip in near silence.
I texted Melanie and Rowan, Gavin and Madison.
I couldn’t gauge how Mel was, but she said Atarah and Tabitha had been kind to her. At least no total meltdown and she was safe. I admitted we were going to France for a quick visit to meet someone but no more information than that.
A little back and forth with Rowan. Why hadn’t I heard from Stefan?
When I wasn’t trying to communicate with people who weren’t in the Jeep with me, I thought about the people who were there and weren’t communicating. And who we’d left behind. Were they in just as much danger as us? What about Madison?
It wouldn’t have crossed my mind until Henry was murdered under our noses. But Henry and Melanie had never been warded. I’d taken no precautions with them and they’d been alone—Henry an easy mark walking back and forth to work on the same path at the same time each day. Kage was getting stronger by the day. Jed was perfectly alert and would stay in fur a lot of the time. I’d done everything I knew to protect them from magical viewing or interference.
Besides, not a soul knew we were splitting up. Someone might be keeping an eye on us, but they would still be following us out of Ambleside. Short of an armed gunman walking right to the door—in which case, why hadn’t they come to get me there in the first place?—which was totally not these people’s style, it probably wasn’t Madison, Kage, or Jed in danger. It was us, going to 77 Rue du Raccourci, Paris. The perfect reason for everyone in the Jeep to offe
r up the apologies they all owed one another.
No apologies were forthcoming—including from myself—by the time we drove off the ferry. Or once we hit the outskirts of Paris before 7:00 p.m. with the sun near the horizon.
I’d been in Paris before, visiting purely as a tourist with my sister. I’d been shocked to discover that the little bit of French I knew amounted to nothing more than greetings and saying I was sorry for not speaking French, the mind-boggling throngs of other tourists—summertime—and the cigarette smoke. I’d inhaled more tobacco smoke in a few days in Paris than I had in my whole teen life in New Mexico. Another shock? You had to book your space weeks in advance to go up in the Eiffel Tower during high season. Months in advance if you wanted a special view—like sunset. Needless to say, Mel and I only saw it from the ground.
I was glad now that I’d been before, even if I didn’t have any special connection to Paris. I had a vague idea about getting around and I could make polite requests and ask questions in French. It didn’t usually matter that I didn’t understand the rapid answers because the natives could tell by my accent I was clueless and would often start speaking English anyway.
With myself navigating, Isaac took us to the Hotel Residence Europe in a district called Clichy in northwestern Paris. It was a long walk from the address we were after: about half an hour to judge by the map, and across a bridge on the Seine into Asnières-sur-Seine. But it was the closest affordable place with two rooms available for a few nights and non-terrifying traveler ratings, so I made the booking en route. Maybe just as well not to be camped right next to number 77. The hotel had private parking with our reservation so we could leave the Jeep the whole time and stay on foot.
Two rooms, three and four flights of stairs up—no elevator—and that weird, European bed situation where they say it is a double bed, but it’s actually two long twins that are side by side, each made up separately with their own linens. That was in the third floor one. Fourth floor really was a queen bed. Better view, tiny room. The sort of room where one person has to stand by the window or the door for the other person to be able to walk around. Good thing we traveled light.
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 16
