There was a bit of a scramble during the ranting.
Jacques threw out his arm again and—without touching him—hurled Jason across the room toward the fireplace.
Milo and André descended on us, holding up energy shields with all four hands so we could not approach them but were forced back.
They were trying to get us to retreat down the stairs and, since that seemed a great idea, it didn’t even cross my mind to fight them. The trouble was, we weren’t together.
With a white light shield of Nana’s in my mind that I’d never actually tried to use to counter magic, I threw this invisible orb over Jason. The magic tore silently through the barriers against us while all three of the others held onto me, pulling me between them, keeping me back from the mages.
It worked. The magical hold around Jason was broken. He twisted, kicked Jacques’s feet out from under him, and bounded up behind André and Milo in a flash befitting a wolf. Also with the strength of one, he grabbed and bashed their two heads together, sending the cowboy hat, cigarette, and splatters of shaving cream flying.
So fast, it was as if the three mages toppled at once. We tore down the stairs, amidst shouts of pain and yowls of the cat while her master yelled about the noise.
I couldn’t try for a barrier behind us. If there was any tiny hope of me getting us through that door, I needed all my energy for it. And I could get us through that door.
Thinking of getting back to Kage and Jed, of saving the lives of Isaac, Zar, Andrew, Jason, and an unborn baby, I hit that door with everything I had. It rattled, glowed a pale blue as I reached for it, the internal mechanisms shuddering, and … wham.
A concussive force like a rifle shot made of air hit the back of my head, throwing my forehead into the door while I was already running at it. The last light I saw was white stars over a field of deadly black.
Chapter 35
Hard floor, soft hands—the first two things I knew. Someone warm, living, holding onto me, keeping me safe. So we were all right after all. Only … that pain. My arm had been the worst remaining pain. Now the front part of my head felt like a bolt had been driven into it. Radiating back from that, my whole head hurt, all down my neck, my back, shooting through my right arm with an achy throbbing, out to my sore legs.
Smells of smoke—various kinds—mold, cat and some other animal, like hamster cages, someone against me, and a rusty, damp sort of smell of once-flooded basements. Something was dripping. A tiny, distant sound, yet right in my ears. A three-second drip: a leaky faucet.
Every tile of the floor felt clear and unyielding through my jeans, each indentation of the grout a noticeable line. That was not mostly what touched me, though. The person holding onto me surrounded me like a hug. His hand cupped my jaw, giving me a pillow of support as I leaned back into him, his warm fingers pressed up the side of my face, below my ear and into my hair, while his thumb softly rubbed my cheek.
My right arm remained in the sling. Otherwise, my body felt elusive, like a bowl of spaghetti. I wasn’t lying down. But I wasn’t sitting up…
“Where are we?” I whispered, mouth so dry I coughed weakly. This hurt my head so much I recoiled into his chest with a gasp and tried to grab my temple with my right hand. Stopped by the sling and his arms around me, I nevertheless jerked the arm and sent fresh waves of pain up that as well. I still had a few more days on the antibiotics. Back in the hotel room. Somehow … I doubted I’d be taking any soon. What about right here? I could take a painkiller, I could get a drink. My purse must be around.
“Shhh, they’ve locked us up.” Jason gently held my arms down until I came to my senses enough to stop flopping and hurting myself.
“Where are the others?” It finally dawned on me to open my eyes. I blinked. Even so, the room was dark. There was a shut door ahead, a little light filtering underneath, and a very smooth, pale wall in my face which, after blinking a few more times and touching it, I discovered was a bathtub.
“Downstairs,” Jason said, also in a whisper. “The mages took them down behind the first staircase. There were more stairs. Some sort of cellar. They brought us up here. Top floor, and had a big debate about where to put us. Apparently only that bloke with the bird on his shoulder lives up here.”
He had his arms around me and legs beside mine the way you would get on a carpet slide, one behind the other, so his back was against the wall and mine was against his chest. My shoes were still on, coat off and resting over me along with a musty bath towel like a blanket.
Coming to understand how settled we were merged into the building panic already bubbling through my system.
“How long has it been?”
“All night.” Jason shifted a little against the wall and buried his nose in my hair. “I think it’s morning but hard to tell. There’s no window and those loons keep their own hours. Some went right back to bed, others stayed up banging around, now they’re off to bed. Maybe they all get up in the afternoon and start the whole show over. Or they sleep at random. They’ve got us here next to some office of the bird bloke’s. He was singing for ages, tidying up, putting away cages, to make room for new tests he’s wanting to do. Smell the rats? He must have a dozen cages out there.”
While he spoke gently, his breath warming my skin like the rest of him holding on, the panic kept coming. The doom, the horror for what I’d done. I hardly heard his words.
“We’ll have another chance to try talking when they bother to come back and get us out,” he went on, stroking my cheek again as if holding a puppy. “This Tayron is interested in shifters for some reason. Plus, they all want to know how you found the place. We only have to get them talking. Those younger two blokes, not the singing madman with the crows. They want something from us and we want something from them. Proper place to start negotiations. And they don’t hold all the cards they think they do. That Jacques arsehole can read your mind one Moon to the next and still only know as much as you do: which is that you scried and saw the place. They’ll have to discuss it if they want to figure any more out.” Talking like he already had the blueprint before him, ready to run the maze.
I shut my blurred eyes, unable to see in the dark anyway. We were locked in a tiny, windowless bathroom. Nice and convenient and all that, but there wasn’t much to see. My tears ran over Jason’s thumb on one side, dripped off my jaw to his arm on the other.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I was wrong to bring us here. Wrong all along the way. But this most of all. I knew better. I was blind with just … pushing on, no matter what. After Henry … the people they’re capable of going after… I panicked when we didn’t know where to turn next. So the first lead, first idea we had … I didn’t stop and I should have. I’m sorry, Jason…”
Jason stroked tears away while more fell. He kissed behind my ear.
I painfully twisted onto my hip so I could press my face to his shoulder, afraid to make noise and draw their attention.
What if Isaac and Zar and Andrew were already dead? What if the mages’ desire to know something about Jason and myself only lasted until they grew bored and killed us also? What would happen to the others without us? To Kage trying to recover and Jed waiting with him? To Melanie trapped with a bunch of shifters she could not comprehend? To the Sable Pack, slowly dying? To the Beeches and the Greys, now being hunted by Sables and Aspens? To the rest of the world? The faie and vampires, the wolves in the east and north and south?
Who paid the price because I had led us here? Would hundreds die? Would thousands? Without knowing why?
I kept mostly silent but couldn’t stop tears as these thoughts and more about how Jason and Andrew and Stefan had tried to stop me, and about my unborn baby, swirled around like the carousel, pooled with blood. Round and round—a ride I could not step off of. But I would soon. They wouldn’t keep us alive since apparently they believed no one could find them and they couldn’t tolerate outsiders knowing where they were. I was next onto the ride after Henry. It didn’t m
atter that the reaver got my arm instead of my throat after all.
Jason simply held on, for a long, long time while I cried and my head split.
Then, stroking back damp hair from my face, he kissed my head and told me a story.
“In the time of Moon’s first phases, while wolves and humans learnt to walk the Earth, a great gray wolf stood up from his people and said, ‘I shall lead the way from this gray land into the giving light of Sun and Moon. Who shall join me?’
“Now, naturally, all the wolves sprang up with him. ‘Yes, right away, the sooner the better.’ They sang songs in praise of him. They ran hunts in honor of him. They named their pups after him. He was such a splendid fellow they could not fail.
“So all the wolves of the lightless land set out, following this great gray, and they proclaimed him silver for bringing them to Moon’s light. The first silver of wolves.
“For weeks they traveled, until many were footsore and many turned back, disheartened they had not yet found the place of endless light from either Moon or Sun. Then for months they loped on, through gray days and gray nights. Wolves began to complain, to fall behind. They hadn’t known it would be this long, they said. Or they hadn’t known they would have to cross that lake or climb that mountain. The great gray wolf trotted on. He knew his way. It was up to them if they desired finding the land of Sun and Moon’s endless light together with him or not.
“Seasons passed. Snows came, and rains, hot, and cold, hunts were few and even wolves who would have pushed on could not always keep up. Only his mate, the gray she-wolf, loped on and on at his side, never retreating from the mountain or shying from the rain, never complaining of hunger or the ache in her pads.
“The day came when Sun rose and the flowers bloomed and the rivers ran clear, the birds sang and the deer grazed and the wolves had come home.
“The great gray wolf stopped and took it all in. He sucked in a breath to his great chest and said, ‘This is the place, my wolves. This is the land we were meant to roam, to hunt, to sing for, to raise our young and share Earth’s bounty.’
“Sun smiled at him, warm and bright, and said, ‘Great gray wolf who found the endless land of Sun and Moon, you are wise to come. It is only a shame you were not wise enough to bring your people.’
“‘My people?’ said the wolf, turning about. ‘Why, my people… My people are right…’
“But he scented and listened and looked in vain. Only his footsore, weary mate, her ribs staring, her coat matted, padded through lush grass after him.
“‘Why,’ he cried, ‘what has happened? Where are my wolves? I brought them home. I brought them to the land of eternal Sun and Moon and out of the gray.’
“‘My dear,’ panted the she-wolf, ‘they followed an idea. They never followed you. Would that we could have all our people here to see this glorious day with us. Would that they knew how much they had to gain at the end.’ And she sighed, her nose right down in the fresh grass.
“Sun set to send Moon to her children, for this was a matter Moon must look to herself. Moon rose on the two gray wolves curled as one in their new home. She was naturally joyful to see them, yet saddened when she shone her light across the valleys and meadows, mountains and forests, and saw not another wolf.
“‘What has gone wrong?’ Moon asked. ‘Where are our people?’
“So the great wolf told her that he had set out with all. That there had been songs and hunts, pups named in his honor, and much joy at the commencement of the trip.
“‘Yet they grew tired and footsore and lazy and fell away,’ he said. ‘What am I to do? I did the best I could to lead them here. They proclaimed me silver.’
“‘So they proclaimed,’ Moon answered. ‘But were you? How were you silver?’
“‘I walked in front. I watched for danger. I made the path through the snow and up the mountain and through the endless desert for others to follow.’
“‘I see,’ said Moon. ‘When did you look back?’
“‘Look back? I was leading, I was guiding my people. I had no time to look back.’
“‘You looked back when you reached this land of plenty, did you not? When there was no one left to follow? And did you ever pause to ask yourself if there was another way?’
“The great gray wolf was feeling uncomfortable and did not answer Moon. The she-wolf, however, sat up. She said, ‘There is Moon’s way.’ Then she walked off through the land of endless Sun and Moon and vanished into the gray. Her mate ran after her.
“Years later, in another spring of warmth and plenty, of endless life in the land of Sun and Moon, the wolves returned. All of the wolf people arrived, a pack of thousands, to spread across the globe and form their own clans in Sun’s or Moon’s light.
“Sun smiled on them for he had long looked forward to this day, but he set quickly so Moon could be there. Moon rose and found the great gray wolf and his mate. They were not sore and hunched and starving, but fed and happy, if tired from the journey.
“‘So,’ said Moon, ‘you found your missing people.’
“‘I did not,’ said the great gray wolf, ‘my mate did. She did not lead from ahead like the sprung deer. She found each wolf and walked beside him. She talked of the path and made the most of the hunt. She brought our people together in the same way you, our Moon: by casting light to all.
“Yet the she-wolf hung her head and could not meet Moon’s eye. ‘So many I failed,’ said she. ‘Many pups and elders could not make the journey. Many hunts I could not bring in for them, many dangers I could not stop for them, many pitfalls I could not sniff in time along the way—for I was not in the front, not in control as my mate was when he led our people.’
“‘Yet your mate arrived with two. You have arrived with thousands,’ said Moon. ‘And still you do not sing?’
“‘Each loss is a pain to my soul,’ the she-wolf said, looking to the sky. ‘I cannot be proud.’
“‘Do I not weep for the loss of each life?’ asked Moon. ‘Does Sun not grieve? What is it you think the rain is, my pup? And what are the clear days and the laughing clouds and the brightest stars on the crispest nights? Your pride is up to you. About this, you have no more choice.’ Moon reached down to touch the she-wolf’s rough coat, so it burst into a dazzling silver.
“The wolves of the new land sang thanks and praise while their eyes reflected the silver glow.
“Then she ran with her people and went on seeing over the wellbeing of her pack for generations with her mate, the great gray wolf, following at her side, while she spread the message of Moon from that night: that moonlight reaches all. So for all time this knowing would be passed down among her kin, who to this day keep Moon’s light and find silvers who walk all paths, not only straight ahead.”
He paused a long time while I lay quietly, listening to his heart and the pulse pounding in my own aching head.
After a minute or two, he added, “Also, the wolf people learned that the most important paths to follow can take the longest to reach the end. But even longer if you mean to get there together.”
Jason sat up straighter and reached into the air with both hands. I heard a creaky tap and the drip became a flow of water. He wasn’t able to give me much of a drink with the angle, but even a few sips from his palm of the sulfuric water helped my burning throat.
He shut it off after a few tries bringing water down for me, and I turned my face back into his chest.
I kept still then, listening, remembering some of the things he’d said to me in anger when I’d said he had to leave Kage—and the many more times, far more common, when he’d held on, sometimes the only one, like now. Then about the others, what to say to the wild mages, how to get out. My purse was gone, I knew. Gone were my phone, passport, and all of the rest of our possessions that did things like pay for hotel rooms or get us back across the border into England. We couldn’t fight our way out. We had to talk. Had to talk when they came back and … what was it they wanted with us? Just in
formation as far as I could tell. Why did they care about shifters? Casters usually had nothing to do with them.
I moved against Jason, letting out a slow, level breath, ready to double-check, ask about wallets and purse and phone, when the door banged so violently open it whacked into the wall.
Chapter 36
A wash of electric light from the room beyond. A tall figure in a greatcoat made a silhouette in the doorway, chattering at us in French.
I was still jumping from the noise, recoiling into Jason from the light, when the figure was gone, sweeping away into the bigger room, still talking at absurd speed.
Jason got us moving, scrambling to his feet while leaving me sitting up against the bathtub, then holding my good elbow and back.
“Keep your eyes shut for a minute, it’ll help the dizziness.” He knew my head was messed up and he moved slowly to help lift me to my feet.
Eyes shut was a good idea. By the time I opened them, the bathroom still swayed but nothing terrible. Mostly, it was just the pain in my head and a bubbling nausea that might have been the return of morning sickness, might have been the blow to the head, or … might have been other things.
“All right?” he murmured in my ear, over what were now two voices in French.
Tayron, with the greatcoat and mostly gray beard and that big smile to see us, was the one who’d flung open the door. Answering him in the outside room was Milo, of the goatee and cowboy hat. Did he still have it on?
While Tayron was chipper and talking a mile a minute, the younger mage sounded bored, perhaps irritated.
Jason stepped as far as the doorway from bathroom into what must be meant as an en suite bedroom. There was no bed that I could see with my limited view. Cages for small animals were stacked against a wall beside a bookshelf. There was a huge table in the middle of the room. It seemed to have originally been a drafting table. A wheeled tool caddy stood at one side. Although the table was mostly cleared of debris, it was badly damaged—stained, burned, scratched with hundreds of claw marks, and discolored by streaks of something corrosive that had eaten the finish off, and something else that looked like old blood paths.
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 24
