by Sierra Dean
“Genie?” Wilder’s voice echoed through the room, over the din from the clashing bodies and guttural violence. “Genie?”
A moment ago I’d been standing next to him and now I was all the way across the room. No wonder he was frantic.
“I’m okay,” I called back, though it wasn’t entirely true. My cheek stung badly and I was pretty sure my eye was starting to swell shut. Thanks a heap, stupid werewolf.
Wilder forced his way through the crowd until he was standing in front of me, and took one look at my face before letting out a snarl so vicious it made fingers of ice crawl down my spine. That snarl promised an agonizing end to whoever had done this to me.
“It’s not that bad,” I said.
He didn’t have time to reply because a man’s body was thrown through the air and collided with the both of us, knocking me back to the ground, this time with Wilder on top of me. This was happening to me a lot lately. He’d been prepared for it, because he braced his body over mine and took the worst of the falling weight onto himself.
“This is a lot worse than I thought,” I admitted.
“We shouldn’t have come here.”
“You can say I told you so when we get out of here, okay?”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
He grabbed me and rolled us over as another body came tumbling to the floor. We both scrambled to our feet and Wilder immediately pulled me out of the way of a wolf charging straight for us. The man collided with Wilder like a linebacker whose sole mission was to take down the quarterback. I think. I don’t watch football.
The two of them sprawled onto the floor and began brutally pummeling each other. It was sort of amazing how little thought was going into these fights. No one was planning their attacks or using any kind of precision. It was all fists and teeth and anger.
This was the very definition of a knockdown drag-out brawl.
I’d been in fights before, and I’d had to resort to violence to save my own life, but I’d never seen anything like this. We’d come in here so terribly sure of ourselves, and the second we got through the door our entire plan was shot to shit.
Desmond, whose face was smeared with blood, took hold of a man by lifting him off the floor using only his hair. The man squirmed and grunted, but Desmond was oblivious to his struggle.
“You dare to turn against the pack? You choose to follow a false leader? That’s treason.”
The man spit in Desmond’s face.
The king blinked several times, then fixed a cold stare on the man before him. In a flash he threw the man against the wall, still holding him firmly by the head. The contortion and force was too much. I heard the man’s neck snap before he even hit the floor.
Desmond didn’t give him a second glance.
“The price of treason is death,” he said coldly.
I knew perfectly well what happened to lone wolves or those who went against the pack. There wasn’t a fairy tale happy ending for anyone who challenged the longstanding structure of the wolves. But still, I’d never had to witness the fallout for myself.
When Callum had gone into the bayou to eliminate the Loups-Garous, we knew what he’d done to them. Seeing it firsthand, though, felt especially brutal.
Still, these men had known what the risks were when they chose to follow Mercy, and they’d known what the outcome might be if they attacked the sitting King of the East. Like Lucas before him, Desmond wasn’t about to take a challenge to his throne lightly.
A man grabbed me by my ponytail, yanking my head back brutally. I let out a surprised yelp and my hands went back, trying to free his hold on me. He began to drag me towards the stairs, and I was suddenly very aware of what his particular mission in all of this was.
He was supposed to bring me to Mercy.
Like hell. I’d face her on my own terms, not hers, thank you very much.
I swiped my hand backwards and clawed him hard where I suspected his eyes might be. The man grunted, and his hold on me lightening just enough I was able to wrest myself free. He did manage to keep some of my hair in the ensuing tussle, but at the end I was standing facing him, and he was blinking stupidly at me.
He was probably in his mid-thirties, and had the kind of stringy, disheveled look about him that spoke to a lifetime of hardship and neglect. This was how Mercy worked, she found those without connection, without hope, and she took advantage of it. She was so uniquely capable of spotting peoples’ weaknesses the second she met them, that she could often manipulate them into doing her bidding with very little effort at all.
Just look at Ben.
He thought he was smart and independent, but she had seen right through to his jealous heart and his desperate need to be someone’s favorite. She’d twisted him around her little finger with almost no resistance whatsoever.
And Ben was an Alpha werewolf.
This guy was some beta who had probably never known he could belong to a pack. I would feel sorry for him if he wasn’t still holding long black strands of my ponytail in his right hand.
“You’re coming with me, girlie.”
“Not in this lifetime, pal.” I swung out with all the force I could muster, and right before my punch landed my hand flared red.
The hit sent a wave of bright red light like a small explosion across the room. The man went flying over the heads of the others fighting and landed half way up the staircase, where he lay without moving. The moment the flash expanded away from him, everyone within ten feet of him was knocked to the ground, except for me. The force of the blow ruffled my hair and warmed my cheeks, but I stayed on my feet.
Wilder and Secret, who had just dispatched their own sparring partners and were far enough from the blast to still be standing, stared at me with unmasked surprise. I looked down at my fist, which was no longer glowing, then back up to them.
“Are you some kind of superhero now?” Secret asked.
I shook my head, but as I fanned out my fingers I couldn’t think of how to explain what had just happened. I hadn’t been enraged, I hadn’t been thinking of my magic at all. I’d just wanted to punch the guy.
This was unlike anything I’d ever done before.
First my magic had ruled me. Then I had learned to rule my magic. Now, it seemed, my magic was becoming such an engrained part of me that there was no control one way or the other, it simply was.
Though, it would be pretty awesome to be able to do that super powered punch thing on command.
Before I was able to answer her, another six men appeared at the top of the stairs, further skewing our numbers, and in their midst stood Mercy.
She looked different than she had when I last saw her in the woods. There was nothing ghostly about her, and it was obvious she wasn’t some ethereal figment of my imagination. She wore a simple black dress, and her dark curls were pinned up on top of her head. With the dramatic makeup she’d opted to wear, she looked severe and imposing, but also beautiful in a scary way.
Mercy appeared to be precisely the kind of magnetic figure that could draw men like this to her.
“I don’t care what you do to the men,” she said, her voice calm and unwavering. “But the girls are mine.”
Without another word, the six new wolves scrambled down the stairs and into the fight. Mercy kept herself at a safe distance, watching us from atop the staircase, as if she was too good to bloody her hands in the fray.
I saw the expression on Secret’s face, and even though she wasn’t looking at me, I was afraid of my sister for the first time. I’d always known what she was capable of, but until now I had been stupid enough to believe that becoming human had made her less frightening. I knew she was still a good fighter and a strong opponent, but seeing the way she looked at our mother, I knew she was so much more than that.
She was a killer.
She was ready to do what it took, and there was no one in this room that could stand in her way.
Even without her supernatural strength, she was hol
ding her own against the wave of werewolves without so much as a pause. She turned her gun towards one of the charging men and fired it into his chest. The sound he let out was that of a wounded dog, not a human male. The yelp echoed in my ears.
Secret stepped over his body and started moving towards the stairs, her focus only for Mercy know.
“You want me?” she asked. “I’m right here.”
Mercy observed her first born with the kind of mean indifference that would send lesser people into therapy for a lifetime.
“I never wanted you,” Mercy sneered.
Secret was unfazed by the cruel words. I guess at this point in her life there wasn’t much Mercy could say that would surprise her. Considering the woman at the top of the stairs had almost killed Secret at least three times, the room for being shocked by her had probably long since run out.
“This is getting so old, Mercy. You lost. You were so fucking mad about losing you came back from the dead. And you know what? You’re just going to lose again.”
Mercy tilted her head to the side, her arms behind her back, and stared at Secret for a long time before smiling. There was nothing maternal or friendly in that smile.
“You can’t be mad at me for coming back. I’m not the one who asked for this. Your dear sweet little sister is the reason I’m here, so I hope she’s happy with what she’s done. Do you think, when I kill you, she’ll know she’s the one to blame?”
“Do you think, when I kill you, she’ll be even the slightest bit sad to see you go?” Secret replied.
“I think,” I interjected. “That when this is all over and done with, I’m not going to have even the slightest bit of guilt left in me about any of it.”
“Ah, there now. Now I know you’re my daughter,” Mercy replied.
I didn’t particularly like how proud she sounded of me in that moment. Most kids want their parents to be happy with them for good grades, but my mother was beaming with pride at me over how malicious and unfeeling I was suggesting I had become.
She really was a monster.
Suddenly I didn’t want Secret to be the one to kill her. A fine, simmering anger that had been lurking just under the surface of my skin was started to rage into a full boil, and damn if I didn’t want to be the person looking into Mercy’s eyes when she took her final final breath.
For a long time she had believed she could kill Secret because she had brought Secret into the world. Now I felt the same thing. I had brought Mercy back to life thanks to my own unconscious guilt, and I was going to be the one that took her back out of it, once and for all.
Dark? Sure.
But at this point I welcomed that darkness.
Mercy wanted me to be more like her?
Well I was about to make my mother proud.
Chapter Thirty-five
“Wha-?” Secret barely got the question out as I took the stairs two-by-two past her.
Mercy, too, seemed stunned by my unexpected surge of energy. She stood at the top step for a moment watching me come, as if she couldn’t believe was she was seeing, and then pivoted on her heel and bolted in retreat.
She was fast. Faster than me. I came within mere inches of grabbing her dress but then she was gone, slipping through my fingertips like smoke. I swore as I skidded across the tile floor, taken by my own momentum, and hit the back wall.
Now she had a head start.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Secret asked, coming to stand next to me. “She could kill you.”
“She could kill you, too, but you don’t see me lecturing you about it. I’m an alpha wolf, Secret, I have my own pack now. I know you think I need to be protected, but Callum thought I was tough enough to handle that, it’s time that you and everyone else believe I’m tough enough to handle this.”
She stared at me for a second and then nodded. “Okay.”
“Plus, I’m the only one here with magic powers, and I think we pre-established that we kind of need those to put the dead back where they belong.”
“Speak for yourself, I was looking forward to trying things the old fashioned way.”
“I promise the next time one of our relatives comes back to life you can shoot them as many times as you want.”
“I’m sure Grandpa Elmore will appreciate you saying that.”
Secret touched my face, wincing in empathy as she looked at my growing bruise. I know it wasn’t a great indicator that I was ready for a showdown, but in my defense I really hadn’t been expecting to be punched as soon as I walked through the door.
Now I was ready for anything.
I was surprised it was just Secret and I up here, but as I looked down at the main foyer it became clear the men we’d come with were otherwise occupied. There were bodies strewn all over the floor, some writhing in pain, others obviously dead. In the midst of the melee, Wilder, Desmond, Lucas, and Dominick were holding their own against the surging defenders Mercy had sent to attack us.
I didn’t have the time to worry about them. They were all strong and capable, and they’d watch out for each other.
Besides, Wilder had made me a promise, and he wouldn’t let anything keep him from staying true to his word.
We’d get out of this, and he could say I told you so until the cows came home. I wouldn’t even argue about it.
“You ready for this?” I asked her.
“I already killed her once, I don’t think there’s anyone alive who is quite as ready for this as I am.” She grinned, but I saw a flash of nerves beneath the surface and knew she wasn’t as self-assured as she was pretending to be.
I couldn’t blame her. Bravado was essential, but underneath it all I was more than a little scared of what we were going into. Mercy might have more men up there. In fact I’d be shocked if she didn’t. She wasn’t going to make this easy on us.
So we wouldn’t take it easy on her.
She gave my cheek a pat, which stung more than I’d care to admit, then she checked the chamber of her gun and swapped out the clip for a full one. There was no turning back.
We silently climbed the second set of stairs up to the third floor. Secret had her gun at the ready and I was trying to concentrate on the hot feeling in my blood that I was sure I could channel into a spell to blow Mercy apart when the moment arrived.
The third floor of the museum was dark except for the backlighting on several glass cabinets, displaying artifacts pulled from the rubble of this building and the others that had been destroyed. Whatever light Mercy had turned on up here to gather our attention was now off.
Secret, who could no longer see in the dark, showed no signs of slowing down as she stayed in line with me and we moved between the rows.
I’d expected there to be men up here waiting for us, but the entire room was dead quiet, only the sound of our footsteps on the tile floor rose to greet us. My pulse throbbed and I squinted into the inky blackness trying to get a sense of what was ahead.
Nothing.
She couldn’t have gone far unless she went to the roof, which meant she had to be here somewhere, but I couldn’t hear or sense her at all. Her scent was in the air, but it was hard for me to tell where she was now since she’d been all over this room.
Secret was moving with patient, precise steps, and her gun raised. Her finger wasn’t on the trigger, but she was absolutely ready to shoot at anything that moved. There was no one up here we needed to worry about hurting.
“I want you both to know something,” Mercy’s voice came from behind us.
We spun around simultaneously, but she wasn’t there.
“I want you to know this wasn’t my idea.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Secret asked. The voice was impossible to pin down. Every time she spoke it was from somewhere else.
“I was gone. I had no wants. It wasn’t until I came back that this all was put into motion.”
“Here we go again, blaming the girl who accidentally pulled you out of the after life. Oldest excuse
in the book.” I snapped.
She laughed, and the sound bounced all over the room, echoing in my head. If I wasn’t angry before, she was doing everything in her power to make sure I was mad as hell. Whether she knew it or not, she was helping me, and hurting herself.
It was only then that I realized what Mercy’s weakness was.
She never truly believed she was at risk. It was the thing that allowed Secret to kill her for the first time, and her bravado would be the thing to take her down now.
You might think you’re invincible, but it’s the surest way possible to make someone want to prove that you’re not. Every Alpha worth their salt knew that much.
“Quit hiding and come out here, you cowardly bitch,” Secret snarled.
“Okay.” The voice, again from right behind us, but this time with the kind of chilling clarity that we knew it had to be real.
I spun around a moment before Secret, and just in time for Mercy to grab me by the throat. Even as she held me, I could feel her fingers shift, the nails elongate. Mercy had a rare gift for wolves, she was able to partially shift her body even when the full moon wasn’t around. Secret had inherited the same gift, but had obviously lost it when she’d chosen to become human.
Now, those half-human, half-wolf claws were digging into the skin on my throat, and first one, then two more pierced the flesh. Hot blood trickled down my neck and all I could do was gasp.
Secret immediately took action, tugging at Mercy’s wrists, trying to break her hold on me, but the more Secret struggled the harder Mercy held on, until I couldn’t even manage to the tiniest breath.
As pinpoints of light started to dance over my vision I tried to remember what my plan had been, what I had intended to do here. All I could hear was the wheeze of my lungs where air drew up short at the back of my throat and the faint sound of Secret screaming my name.
Pop.
My face was covered in something warm and wet and after a moment, the grip on my throat was released and I was able to suck in a deep, long inhale.
Mercy had ruptured the skin, but had managed not to pierce any arteries by some luck, still it felt like I was drinking glass through a straw each time I swallowed. Mercy had done some damage that wouldn’t heal immediately, and I was in no position to figure out what was wrong with me right then.
