It was just after noon on the third day, and I had stepped into the kitchen to grab a water bottle from the refrigerator. My mom and Henry were arguing about something in the living room, some pointless thing that I had tuned out the instant it began. Maze, Dylan, and Landon sat at the kitchen table, playing an old-fashioned game of poker. Or some kind of card game. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that it was not go fish.
Go fish was about the only card game I could play.
Forest stood at the counter, working on cleaning his coffee pot. For all of the differences between humans and shifters, one thing stayed the same: an intense need for caffeine.
As I closed the refrigerator door and took a sip from the water bottle, I couldn’t help but chuckle as I watched him, a smile growing on my face. Forest, the big, serious alpha, a slave to caffeine. Who knew?
He glanced at me, meeting my stare the same way he always did—with an intensity that made my insides do half a dozen somersaults all at once, my heart skipping a beat or two. Or maybe it sped up. It was hard to tell. Plus, anytime I looked at his face, I remembered it leaning above mine, making me squirm, his hands…
Okay. Not the time to think about that.
“What’re you smiling at?” Forest asked, cocking his head.
I shrugged, saying, “Nothing at all.” Aware that he watched me, I moved to the table beside Maze, adding a little extra sway in my hips. Had to put on a good show, right? Since we couldn’t exactly get down to any more business yet, not without Sarah exploding from rage.
A reasonable rage, since most of human society would look down on me anyways for having multiple mates, but it was one I would have to learn to handle, because I’d be damned if I let this sever the bond, the friendship my mom and I had.
I’d just started watching the card game, taking a peek at each of the guys’ hands, when every single wolf in the room tilted their head, turning an ear to the front door. In the living room, I could hear my mom and Henry quiet, ceasing their bickering.
“The warlock bastard is back,” Henry muttered.
The warlock bastard, referring to Arthur. For once, I was inclined to agree with him. Arthur, getting all high and mighty, thinking he could tell me what to do. He hadn’t been a part of my life. He had no right.
Just like Henry had no right, but that elder shifter was another story.
I heard the slamming of a car door, jumping out of my seat and practically tripping on my own feet to reach the door before Arthur did. I flung it open, watching as he walked up through the grass sluggishly, taking his good old time.
Wearing the same clothes he was three days ago, Arthur actually looked tired. Worn out. Like the assembly had been actual work. Whatever. I didn’t feel bad about it, because this was life or death where the shifters were concerned, where I was concerned. Arthur could handle some sleep loss.
The moment he set his foot on the lowest step of the porch, I asked, “What happened? What did they say? Did you tell them—” I stopped when he moved beside me, holding up a hand.
“Let me sit down, first,” Arthur said, shrugging off his jacket as he went inside the house, heading straight into the living room. “Believe it or not, even the high warlock of power gets tired.” He paused only a moment when his emerald stare landed on Henry, his scowl deepening. “I don’t want you here.”
Henry’s stare was murderous, so sharp and stinging I recoiled, even though the stare was not directed at me. “I have a right to be here, warlock.” Utter disdain, venom pure and simple, dripped off his voice.
Behind me, my mates filed in the living room to hear the news. Forest was the last one in, holding his hands across his chest. “He’s right,” he said, not backing down as Arthur turned his scowl on him. “Henry has the right to be here. He’s part of the pack.”
Arthur let out a chuckle, laced with bitterness. “Right. The pack. Everything for the pack.” He tossed his jacket on the arm of the couch, sitting on its center cushion, closing his eyes for a bit, as if he was unaware of the crowd of shifters watching him.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Well?” I questioned, tapping my foot on the floor.
Arthur sighed, slow to open his eyes and look at me, saying, “The assembly wants proof.”
My jaw nearly fell to the floor. “Proof? You were gone three days and that’s all you have to show for it?” I glanced at my mom, to see if she was as outraged by how ridiculous it was, but Sarah was too busy glaring at Forest. Still. Ugh. When would she get over it? There were more important things to deal with.
“You don’t understand,” Arthur explained, “the assembly is made up of the seven high warlocks. One of them is the high warlock of death. I shouldn’t have to say it, but death priests are under his jurisdiction. If a death priest goes rogue—”
“Rogue?” I echoed, incredulous. “Clay isn’t rogue. He said his master, which I assume is the high warlock of death, sent him here. He wasn’t rogue. He did it on purpose, targeted this pack purposefully.”
“I know, but it’s a delicate situation,” Arthur said, shooting a quick look at Sarah, who, for the first time in three days, no longer glared at Forest. She stared wide-eyed at him. “It’s one only Odon and I know about.”
Landon spoke up, “Who the fuck is Odon?” The harsh language earned him a quick glare from my mom. Old habits died hard. He didn’t even act repentant, and he shouldn’t. He was an adult and could swear when he freaking wanted to. Sarah would drive us all nuts.
Somehow, I already knew. “He’s the high warlock of death.” These freaky death priests and their freaky names. Someone needed to tell them how annoying it was.
“He who is not a subject of death,” Arthur whispered. “He’d like to be, anyway. But just like us lowly warlocks, no one can truly escape death. Death comes for everybody, even death priests, once they’ve served their time.” There was a heaviness in his tone, something he knew but wasn’t saying.
Maze tried putting it together. “So, this Odon is tricking the assembly, yeah? Saying he had nothing to do with Clay and what he did here.”
I nodded once. “But there’s more, isn’t there?” A vein in Arthur’s forehead throbbed, and I knew I hit the center mark. “What more is there? What aren’t you telling us? Give us the whole story, Arthur.”
At least Arthur didn’t argue about the whole name-calling thing. He leaned his arms on his knees, hunching his back. “Odon and I have a history. He became the high warlock of death shortly before I rose to my position. We were…friends, once. He knew I came to Crystal Lake, and he knew why. When your mother left with me, they met at our safehouse. Almost instantly, he was obsessed.”
I didn’t know how to take this. Odon, the high warlock of death, obsessed with my mom? Why? She was pretty, I supposed, in a hippie sort of way, model-like in frame and body like all shifters were. But to become obsessed with her? Didn’t seem right.
“He tried to take her from me, but—”
“But I was already in love,” Sarah cut in. “Both me and my wolf had already chosen my mate, and there was no room in my heart for a second warlock.” She moved her hazel stare to me. “I turned him down. A proud man like that could only take it as humiliation.”
Something still did not add up. I asked, “If he knew about you when Arthur became the high warlock of power, why didn’t he bring you up?” High warlocks weren’t supposed to have families, and if they did, they were slaughtered thanks to some archaic tradition. It still made me sick when I thought about it, for how many lives had been lost over the centuries? All needless, all pointless.
Just like the twenty-four shifters who lost their lives here to Clay.
“He’s sadistic,” Sarah offered, but it wasn’t enough of a reason.
“He was waiting, plotting.” Arthur got to his feet, starting to pace the space between the couch and the coffee table. “He had Clay attack the pack because he was angry with your mother. He would’ve gone through them one by one until not a
single shifter remained.” He turned to stare at me. “Then you showed up.”
I didn’t like the connection. “Do you think he knew about me?”
“He had to, otherwise there would’ve been no point in waiting twenty years for his revenge. Odon knew you’d eventually come to the pack, but how? The younger teenage years are when shifters typically shift for the first time. If he was watching you, he knew you had no idea about that side of you. He knew…” Arthur paused. “How did you get here? How did you find out about all of this? It couldn’t have been your mother; I know she was careful.”
Ah, such faith in my mom, even after abandoning her all those years ago. How sweet.
I looked at Maze, and the shifter immediately gave me a dimpled smile. Now was not the time for my stomach to twist and heat up, but it did it all the same, as if it had a mind of its own when it came to my wolves. “Maze and Henry came to the house.”
Arthur turned his stare to Henry. “And how did you come upon the address? I doubt you hacked into anything.”
Well, I wanted to say, it wasn’t like Sarah had kept a low profile on the internet. People came to our house all the time for readings and other fake psychic crap. But…Henry didn’t know how to use the internet, and I knew she used a fake name for her business.
My eyebrows came together, and I thought about it. All Henry had said was that he looked for me. He never said how he’d found us, all of a sudden, after nearly twenty years of silence. Mom and I had never moved houses, so it wasn’t like we made it impossible for someone to find us.
Come to think of it, none of it made sense. How did Henry find us?
Maze turned to Henry, shaking his head. “You never did tell me how you found them,” he said, running a hand through his blonde hair. He tossed me a worried look. “I drove, but you didn’t say anything on the way.”
“When you told me you were going to get her,” Forest spoke, locking gazes with the elder, who still stood tall, despite the questioning, “you only said you found her. I will admit, other things were on my mind. I didn’t think to ask.”
Now everyone in the room stared at Henry.
Henry started to take a step; whether or not he was trying to run away didn’t matter. Arthur held up a finger, stopping the elder shifter in his tracks. Arthur asked again, “How did you find the address?”
The elder was frozen, immobilized by Arthur’s magic. His face could move though, and he shot a cold glare Arthur’s way as he hissed, “It came to me in a dream.”
His explanation struck a chord with me, and I felt my breath growing short. A dream? It couldn’t be…but it was. It was the only explanation we had, and where magic was concerned, logic flew out of the window, never to be seen again.
Dylan echoed, “A dream?”
But the others in the room already knew. I simply put a voice to their thoughts, “He was given the address. Odon, Clay, whoever it was, wanted me here, and they planted the seed in your mind, made you believe you’d suddenly found me after all these years.” I hated Henry, so I wasn’t sure why I felt so betrayed. “You’re the one who led me to death’s door.”
Death’s door, Clay’s arms, the magic of death itself. It was all because of Henry.
Good thing he was never in the running for grandfather of the year.
Chapter Fourteen – Addie
“You saw it in a dream,” Arthur spoke, dreadfully slowly, over-enunciating each and every syllable as he moved around the coffee table, standing before Henry. I could hear his breathing, knowing he was trying to calm himself down. Sarah had been right before; as a warlock, his power only worked if he was calm and collected.
Henry struggled against the spell, but it was to no avail.
“And you didn’t think anything might be wrong about that?” Arthur went on, leaning down to Henry, hands trying to relax at his sides, though I could still see them trembling. “You didn’t stop to wonder just how your mind could’ve come up with an address, almost like you were psychic?”
Sarah moved beside him, grabbing his arm, pulling him back. She gently spoke, “Arthur, calm down.”
“I know, I know,” Arthur muttered, half turning away from Henry—though still holding him in place. “It’s just hard, because now Odon knows—”
“He knew before,” Sarah told him. “He would’ve gotten her here regardless. One way or another.”
I kind of wanted to see everyone beat Henry’s ass, but in the end, she was right. It didn’t matter. Things were far past the point of should have, would have, could have. We could stay here all day and well into the night pointing fingers. Now was not the time.
Letting out a deep sigh, Arthur said, “You’re right, of course.” He gave her a smile then, a smile I felt weird to watch, as if I’d stepped into my parents’ bedroom and was witnessing something private. “You’ve always been right.”
Before anyone could say or do anything that would only further the weirdness of witnessing my parents sharing an intimate moment, I said, “It doesn’t matter, because he got what he needed from me. A bucket full of blood.”
Arthur whirled on me, losing his calm completely, the spell on Henry breaking as he said, “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
Making an overly dramatic coughing noise, Henry straightened his back. “Perhaps because she knew you’d react like that. I say, let them have it, and let’s be done with it. What proof does the assembly require? Landon was taken, you could bring him to them—”
Landon, apparently volunteered for something he was extremely against, shook his head furiously. “Whoa, I don’t want to go in front of seven all-powerful warlocks. That’s…no.” Seeing Odon would only remind him of what Clay had done to him, I knew. Hurtful memories, which Landon was already full of. “I’m sorry, but I won’t do it.”
“It doesn’t matter whether he wants to or not,” Arthur said. “He’s too close to Addie. Odon might know of her, but the assembly doesn’t, and I’d prefer to keep it that way. No, it has to be something else. The bodies?”
“Burned,” Dylan said.
“And turned to ashes once Clay took Addie,” Forest added. A somber expression crossed his face, and I felt for him, knowing one of them, the one who’d taken me, had been Hannah. Now she was nothing but dust in the wind, literally. “There’s nothing left of them.”
I asked, “And they won’t accept your testimony? That’s not enough proof? Another high warlock, seeing the murder cabin for himself?”
“They’re already curious as to why I involved myself,” Arthur said. “I didn’t tell them anyone was locked in the cabin. If I did, they would’ve wanted to meet you. I will not bring you before them, Addie, because they’ll seek to rectify their oversight. They’ll kill you.”
Somehow, after everything I’d been through, death didn’t seem as scary. Death magic? Frightening beyond all belief. But death itself? I could handle that, though I knew Arthur wouldn’t let me.
“I said I intervened out of respect for the pack, because I’ve dealt with Crystal Lake before. They accepted it, but now they need proof of what Clay did, evidence of some kind.” Arthur crossed his arms, his mouth thinning as he thought.
And then it came to me, suddenly, as if I’d totally forgotten all about him. “Jack.”
“Ah, yes, the traitor,” Landon muttered.
“Traitor?” Arthur repeated, looking at me. “What do you mean?”
Had no one told him about the wolf chained in the basement? I wondered. Apparently not, given the worried and hopeful look on Arthur’s face. I said, “Jack has been with Clay for years, I think. He was under Clay’s spell, his influence. I don’t know how much help he’ll be, though, because he’s stuck as a wolf.”
“Stuck as a wolf? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Where is he?”
Almost universally, save for Sarah and Henry, me and my guys spoke, “Basement.”
Arthur headed to the basement, flinging the door in the hall open before going down. I was on his heel
s, almost sorry I’d volunteered Jack for something.
Jack lifted his head off the ground, the smell of urine dank in the air, causing Arthur to gag and cover his mouth with his elbow, as if it would save him from the stench. It just meant this wasn’t a good place for Jack. This was only a few rungs above what Clay was doing to him.
Too many people crowded into the basement behind me. Everyone had followed, though Sarah and Henry remained on the steps, peering down at Jack. Jack instantly got to his feet, lightning quick for a wolf who’d been chained up for so long, his light blonde hackles raising and his lip curling as a growl erupted from his chest.
So many people, some of them strangers to him. What else was he supposed to do?
Arthur let out a breath, holding his palm flat towards the growling wolf. Even my presence did nothing to calm him down; his claws scratched at the ground as his metallic stare moved from shifter to shifter, lingering on Forest. The alpha. His enemy, or at least Jack thought so.
“This won’t work,” Arthur spoke after a minute of silence, save for Jack’s growls. “I can’t bring him to the assembly—right now, there’s nothing shifter about him. Nothing human. He’s all wolf.”
“He has to be in there somewhere,” I said. “A shifter can’t just lose his humanity…” I trailed off, wondering it. “Can he?” The thought freaked me out—if it could happen to one shifter, theoretically it could happen to all of us.
A noncommittal sound left Arthur as he internally debated this. “I’ve never heard of anything like that happening before, but I’m not that well-versed in shifter history.” He looked to Henry.
All Henry did was shrug and say, “I’ve never heard of it before, either.”
Crystal Lake Pack: The Complete Series: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance Page 47
