“I … I … guess. I mean, Goddess, stranger things have happened. May I just say that you are very paranoid for someone so powerful? And how could any enemy of yours have possibly known we were looking for you? We only found out we were looking for you minutes before I scried in the first place.”
“That druid knew—”
“And he wasn’t a mage!”
“Then you were being scried from the start.”
“I was warded—”
“This place was warded!”
“I don’t know what to tell you about that. I scried and I saw it. It’s true I’m a good scry. I’ve put a lot of effort into this. A lot of energy and prayer. Don’t you think it might just be possible that I did see through defenses for one targeted scry here? It could happen. Another possibility: if your enemies are trying to send people your way, they could have a scry feed connected to this address. If any caster uses a scry to say, ‘Where are the Paris wild mages?’ they might see the address because it’s a deliberate plant—like what you’re saying, but permanent. How would you even know? When was the last time you tested your own defenses?”
He turned away from me to discuss the matter with Tayron.
They talked until Jason woke up and there was another round of note-taking. Then me begging Tayron not to have him change anymore, that it would kill him and they would lose any more work, that he was so messed up they wouldn’t be seeing results of a regular change anyway, it couldn’t help his data to keep this up.
Tayron allowed him another break, gave him water, but told him he must change back to skin once more and that would nicely wrap things up for the day. Tomorrow he would finish with the ear experiments: how far down did one have to cut away the fur ears until the skin ears would also be cut away? Wouldn’t that be interesting? And try the bones. What exactly did happen if they changed with broken bones or an amputated tail?
Eager as he was for this exciting phase three, he was happy to conclude phase two today. This entailed more flesh wounds, seeing how large patches of skin knit together versus cuts or deep wounds or burns or minor amputations—like parts of ears and fingers.
After more recordings of the condition of his right paw and overall status, Tayron skinned back the flesh across his ribs with a knife and Jason changed—triggering another seizure.
They were packing in, Tayron checking Jason’s vitals, Milo looking for the key for my handcuffs, when Milo spoke to me again and I could hardly hear him.
My shield had failed. I couldn’t even remember what he was talking about when he said, “The fellows in Scotland might interest you. We had a scrawny Englishman studying a couple years ago. Nosy, bookish thing, didn’t like Paris. He wasn’t going back to England. I think he traveled when he left here. No idea where he is now. But there were two Scottish fellows from the Highlands. Back to back, how these things happen, one coming in as the other went out—ended up going off to work together and continue their studies.”
Milo clicked open the cuffs and shoved me back into the doorway while I was trying to get to Jason on my hands and knees, room blurred with tears again.
“Jason? Jay?” I couldn’t even tell if he was alive.
Tayron seemed to have to ponder the matter as he listened but finally made another note.
Milo pushed me back more. “They were here … a year past? Certainly able to summon reavers if they wished. Quite interested in Tayron’s work. One was an animal collector. And … you could be right.” Grudging tone. “It probably takes a wild mage. I’ve never heard of any other caster being able to summon a reaver. A highly advanced and unusual skill, even looking at history—much less today.”
Milo hung the chain on the wall and threw the handcuffs on the table with his paper dragon. “If they’re still in the Highlands now, one might ask the Scottish caster community for them. They were the sorts one cannot fail to notice. They may have decided to slay shifters and vampires. Or they could be hired mercenaries only doing the summoning work and guiding the reavers as a chance to stretch their powers.” Milo shrugged.
He and Tayron each grabbed a wrist to drag Jason to the bathroom.
The motion roused Jason, who groaned and rolled his head around. Blood ran from his ears and nose and mouth now in skin, with traces coming from newly closed and raw wounds across his body.
I quickly set the plate in the dark bathtub so they wouldn’t see, then grabbed for Jason, pulling him against me and the bathmat on the floor as the two mages heaved him in more or less on top of me—the room was so tiny.
Milo kicked at his legs, trying to shut the door, talking again. “There was another Englishmen recently. He died four months ago—before he ever left here. No … unless they were older students than that, or nothing to do with Britain, the one young English scholar and the two Highlanders are the only ones.” He gave Jason’s legs another shove, drummed his fingers on the door, pursing his lips again, and gazed upward. “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are mercenaries. You could buy their favor with a couple of beers, so worth your time to find if you really want to track down who’s making reavers up north. Calum and Frim were their names. Damned mess Frim used to make around the place with the badger and the kestrel and all that. Hmm…” He slammed the door and left us alone in the dark.
Chapter 40
Shortly after they heaved him into the bathroom, he had another seizure. I held onto his head as he grew rigid and would otherwise have slammed it into the side of the bathtub. He rocked, shuddered, neck strained back, silent.
I’d heard that any stimuli could make a seizure worse. I’m not sure if that was true but it seemed this one in the dark and quiet passed quickly—his body subsiding back to limp in the cold, void room. Only that abysmal dripping—which seemed ten times as loud as it once had.
There was still the light on under the door. Someone would be back later to clean up and feed the animals, possibly look in on us. Or not.
As he was coming out of the spasms, Jason vomited blood and bile over his own arm and my thigh and onto the tile. I held him until I was sure it had stopped, then moved enough to run the hot tap to warm up.
With a tiny light from my palms, no brighter than a glow-in-the-dark sticker, I wet one side of the vinegar hand towel with hot water, squeezed some out, and cleaned blood from across his face—ears, eyes, in his hair and smeared over his skin. It kept flowing from his nose, defeating the towel. I struggled to hold it against his face while I groped for the bath towels and his jacket to pull around him.
He’d started shivering violently, lingering after the seizure. No fur to insulate his body from the tile this time.
“Jason?” I said as I worked. “I have a feeling you should stay awake. Can you hear what I’m saying? Wait, don’t turn like that. All the blood will run down your throat. I wish you could get some clothes on. You’re going to freeze in here. Jay? Stay awake, okay? If you’re in a coma you won’t be able to get out of here with me.”
His lashes fluttered, trying to turn his head again.
“That’s right. We’re going to get out. We had to wait to be alone, remember? But not right this second. Right now, we need to get you warm and awake.”
I had no plans to get out. I hadn’t the faintest idea how such a thing might be possible. But I wasn’t troubled by that. I was troubled by Jason.
Very softly, I talked to him while I waited for his nose to stop bleeding and tried to use a hint of fire element to warm the towels against his skin and the tiles below.
Drowning out the dripping tap, fighting to keep him awake, I talked about the night Helah and Noah had come over to their place for a story before bed. Remembering how the story had turned into one game after another, Jason in fur, the pups all over the place, yelling and screaming, Kage narrating and sometimes participating in the adventures.
It seemed like half an hour before Jason’s nose stopped bleeding and I used the towel to clean up the rest of the blood on him, wipe his face with warm water again, then wipe
up my own jeans and floor and drop the hand towel mess in the sink.
Then I talked about food, all the restaurant meals I could remember having in my life, all the foods I enjoyed in Portland, particularly trying to recall seafood dishes; telling of Seattle’s Pike Place Market and San Francisco’s waterfront eateries.
It must have taken another hour—with Jason sometimes responding with small movements, trying to lift up or help, but mostly out of it—to get him even partly dressed and insulated against the floor by lying on the bathmat and wearing pants.
Drip … drip… Once a whisper, now a scream. Even dripping onto the hand towel hadn’t ended it, but I wadded up the bloody cotton until it almost touched the faucet itself, finally deadening the noise.
I pressed my hands to the side of the bathtub and warmed it like a heating pad. But I had to stop. The magic was draining me, and I needed that strength. For what? How to get out? I still had no idea.
I got on his socks and motorcycle boots, gave up on the shirt and made a pillow for him with it, then covered him in his jacket and the two towels, getting him finally resting with his back pressed to the tub and me in front of him, insulating. Even when the tub cooled down from magic the surface would hold his body heat.
At long last, he stopped shivering.
I kissed his forehead, combed his hair with my fingers, and told him about every style of pizza I could think of in the States.
With the light gone from my hands, but the under-door light still helping, I retrieved the plate from the tub and lay down so our legs touched, while the plate was between our chests.
“I have your dinner. Sounds crazy but it’s delicious. It’s a cheese sandwich—only way better than that sounds. You’re not going to be strong enough to walk out of here on your own unless you eat something.”
He tried to eat this time, taking a thumb and finger pinch of bread and cheese that I pulled off and pressed to his lips. I couldn’t tell if it was the pain he was in, if he couldn’t get his body to respond, if he couldn’t understand what was happening, or something else, but he didn’t seem able to bite into the remaining bit or chew properly—weak and coughing. A smoothie … if only I had a smoothie and a straw for him.
I chewed up a small bite myself and gave him that on my fingertip. It went down with no problem so I tried again, then just a bit of the cheese on its own. All fine. It seemed he was figuring this out, or his mouth was responding to what his brain told it. He was gradually able to take more and chew the brioche, which I still gave him only in little pinches.
A long, long time to eat also. We must have spent an hour for the remaining part of a sandwich and half of the next one, but Jason ate it, even gradually seemed to welcome it. I finally set the last half aside to give him later, then changed my mind. I’d heard vermin scuttling about in the bathroom. Besides, aging quietly in here with us wasn’t doing that sandwich any good. There would be no food hoarding in our captivity.
I fed him the rest, eating a few bites myself, and was so relieved that he could eat, I thought maybe it would be okay to let him sleep and heal. No coma if he fell asleep?
I ran the warm water again and, having to shift onto my knees to do it, filled the plate with water and lowered it very carefully to the floor in front of his face.
Jason was able to press his lips to the dish and drink. I did it again, then drank some myself and set the plate back in the bathtub.
“Jay?” I whispered, kissing him. “I wish you’d say something. Just to know you can…” I worked to settle on my side with him again, pressing as close as I could. “Food and water and sleep should all help you heal. I’m just scared about you going to sleep. Do you think you’ll be okay?”
His left hand was uppermost, the good hand. The right now missing the first joints of the last two fingers, though already healed over after the many changes, while his right forepaw in fur was even more crippled, missing the claw and most of the pad of the two outside toes.
I pressed both hands around his and held it up below our chins, my head on the bathmat, nose to nose with him.
“Jay?” I rubbed his hand. “Can you say—?”
“Love you,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes as some trapdoor slammed shut on my throat and I wanted to throw up also. My breaths shook through my chest like autumn leaves in a gale as I struggled and answered, “I believe you.”
Chapter 41
We slept. It seemed the dripping went on, yet I kept reminding myself it was quiet now. People came and went in the work room. The animals were fed and scuffled around, both inside and outside their cages. The light vanished.
Mostly, Jason slept. I lay awake, praying, trying to sleep, to get my strength back in order to … something.
Someone came and went again: left. A light was on. A light was off.
A day or a night had passed. Or one of each. No one came to look in on us.
I finally had to get up for the toilet. By the time I returned to him, Jason was awake—part to my regret, for waking him, part to my utter relief and gratitude.
“Where’s Kage?” he murmured.
“Back in Ambleside, remember? He’s safe.”
“Right… I … couldn’t think… It seemed like he was downstairs but…”
“Isaac, Andrew, and Zar are trapped downstairs. We’re going to help them get out.”
“Cassia? Is there more water?”
With a bit of light from my palms, I got some for him with the plate, then lay down, pressing close, shivering, holding on with my right arm out of the sling.
“How do you feel?” I asked. “Does your head hurt?”
“Cassia?” Again, looking into my eyes in the tiny glow. “I won’t survive another one.”
“We only need to figure a way out.”
“Listen… I thought this was it. I never heard of anyone living through six or seven changes in half a day. A few more… I’m messed up already. Something hurts like hell in my gut. Like a knife. Like some organ traded places with another, or something ruptured. A couple more and either brain damage or internal hemorrhage will kill me.”
“Jay—”
“So, while I was under the table earlier, I thought … you didn’t know and … that wasn’t right. You’ve given us your whole life and what I said to you was so unfair before—”
“No, it’s okay. You were upset about leaving Kage—”
“You’ve done your best for us no matter what. Jed was savage to you from the start, Kage tried to attack you in fur, Isaac lied to you, I was awful to you, and … you’re still here. Trying to save our lives. I thought … the next one’s going to kill me. And all you’d wanted from us in return all along was to know us, be on our side … to love us. So I wanted to tell you what happened. And you to know I’m sorry…”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me. You just need to be well enough that we can get out of here. That’s all.”
Jason didn’t seem to hear. He went on with his deathbed confession through short, painful breaths, his words mere whispers in the dark.
“I told you I baited Kage and Jed to breakup their friendship because Jed was hurting Kage and I wanted Kage. Only there was more to it than that. The full story … it started long before Kage ever touched alcohol and got into trouble, and before it ever crossed my mind to want to run with him.
“It started when I was still a pup, just going into Moon’s transition. Not changing yet, but training for it. I was in love with Gabe. Gabriel, you know? Everyone called him Gabe then because their father was Gabriel. I guess he’s used to going by his proper name now, though.”
My jaw was open. I almost made a sound, lips working, but managed to slowly shut it without saying a word. This was not an interrupting sort of story.
“Not love-love, not like deep love. It only seemed like it then. The humans call it a crush. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Some of their slang… Could be because you feel like you were crushed with this love
and then it fades and you heal and don’t think about it anymore. There are so many sorts of love.
“Then, though, when I felt it, it was everything: madly in love. I’d daydream about how we’d have our own den and he’d be top core—he was just the sort—and look after me and I’d look after him. Only … he was practically a generation ahead of me. I didn’t have anything to do with their family. Jed was older and vicious, he and Kage already working through their transition, and Zar was younger and so shy—didn’t matter we’d all known each other since we were born.
“So I spent my time with Andrew and Sarah and Zipp—Zipporah—when we were that age. No one in the Mugraturs family. I had no reason to be around Gabe. He was already grown, wanting to leave the pack, restless, constantly fighting his father—proper independent. He knew my name. He threw me a marble that he found in the grass one day and … that really hurt. Part good, that he was giving me something, right? Looked up, saw me there, tossed a marble. At the same time … you’d give a pup a marble. It hurt that he thought of me that way when I had all these plans for us.
“No one knows this, mind. Kage doesn’t even know. Only, when I’m gone, maybe you could tell him? Kage, I mean. Not Gabe. Moon, please don’t tell Gabe. I was just a pup. It makes me smile now—so daft. But it mattered to me then. It was the first time I ever had a hint of that sort of love. Even though it was only a hint.
“It was a freckled marble. Not a good one. Not the sort you could trade to another pup for a posh cat’s eye or two-tone, even if I had been young enough to still be doing sterk like that. Even so … I kept it for years. Probably still around at Mum and Dad’s.
“That was some of the most interaction I ever had with Gabe. He was friendly with Kage, his cousin. Those two families were close and Kage was best friends with Jed. But I wasn’t friendly with Kage yet so that didn’t help either.
“Then … things got worse and worse for Gabe. Over the years, he got more unhappy. I heard him with Jed one day. Jed was proper grown then also. I was in fur, skulking around because I was supposed to. We had homework about fur. Reporting about experiences and talking things out, understanding differences and mastering the change. If you didn’t, you could be thrown off by something new you didn’t understand in fur, or change when you didn’t mean to, or not change when you did mean to… So I was doing rounds in fur at the territory and I heard Gabe telling Jed he was wrong: that there was more than this.
Moonlight Whispers: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 8) Page 28
