Deceived By the Others

by Jess Haines

  It was even funnier when the kid realized we weren’t having some kind of wacky family reunion. He gaped when he spotted a pack tattoo and recognized it for what it was, eyes dilating and his pallor swiftly shifting into a flush of fear and embarrassment as he stammered out that it would take them a couple hours to get this many pizzas ready on such short notice. That would cut it close to sunset, but we’d manage. His relief at the lack of disappointed growls and sudden shapeshifts was so obvious, it was comical.

  I was surprised the kid was so nervous considering the Cassidy family lived out here. Then again, maybe the Cassidys were more private with their business than the Sunstrikers. After all, we were visitors from the big city, and the tolerance for things with fur and fangs was generally a lot higher there than out in the boondocks. Not to mention the Sunstrikers currently outnumbered the townsfolk on the street.

  They weren’t making an effort to hide what they were either. Many of them were in short sleeves, not bothering with jackets, showing off their pack tats on their upper arms. Some of the women had halter tops, and the few who hadn’t put their pack tattoo on their arms made sure they were visible on their shoulder blades. If the tattoos didn’t do it, the scruffiness and lack of warm clothing to combat the bitter October chill would have given them away.

  With this many of them together in public, I doubted anyone would try anything more than jacking up prices or whispering empty threats when they thought the Weres were out of earshot. Still, it worried me a little when the kid rushed off into the kitchen area as soon as he got the last payment, hiding back there with the two cooks. A handful of Sunstrikers lingered outside having a smoke or talking on cell phones while the rest of us were crammed inside.

  A couple of the girls casually mentioned they were going to window-shop while they waited for the pizza. As I was rubbing my sore shoulder, Kimberly lightly brushed my arm to get my attention. “Do you want to come with us?”

  I hesitated before answering, taking stock of who was going. Paula was sulking, off in one of the booths by herself. The other girls were smiling and waving me over, hoping I would come with them. Oh, what the hell. I needed new underwear anyway.

  “Sure, why not,” I said, hefting my purse up a little higher on my shoulder and giving Chaz’s hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go and joining the group of women gathering at the door.

  It was surprisingly enjoyable walking up and down the tiny boulevard, talking with these women, finding out who they were and exclaiming over some of the hiking and ski equipment in the windows of some of the shops. Though it was cold for me, none of them seemed bothered by it. The exertion of walking around kept my blood circulating, keeping the worst of the cold at bay. And it was nice to be accepted into the fold. Either they weren’t aware of, or didn’t care about, the drama-fest that had taken place with Paula or the fact that I’d once been bound to vampires.

  I did pick up a couple of new T-shirts and pairs of jeans while we were out. Sadly, the only shop in this part of town that carried underclothes wasn’t open and looked like it was closed for the season. Looked like I’d be going commando for the rest of the trip. Lucky me.

  At one point, I pulled Kimberly aside to ask her about Paula. Since they were friends, I hoped that she might be able to shed some light on why Paula had such a beef with me. After some hedging on her part, I finally asked her directly if she knew what the problem was.

  “Look,” she said, with a tone of finality, “it’s nothing you can do anything about. She’s got issues with vampires and anyone connected with them. A lot of us do. Ignore it if you can, because she’s not going to let it go, and I don’t think there’s anything you can do to change it.”

  With that lovely piece of advice, things stayed strained between us until I pointed out a fur-lined ski jacket on display in a picture window that we agreed would look adorable on her. She smiled and relaxed, oohing and aahing over it with the other girls.

  Dropping the subject did seem the safest bet—for now. I’d dig into the problem later, when I had some of the bigger issues surrounding this trip sorted out.

  After a bit, one of the guys hanging around outside the pizza parlor waved us over, and we all returned to our respective cars as the pizza boxes were piled into trunks or backseats or held on the laps of eager, hungry Weres. No doubt, there would be pizza crusts under seats and grease on door handles before we made it back to the lodge.

  The rutted dirt road was far less frightening in daylight. Music was blaring out of somebody’s radio as we all gathered in the parking lot, snagging slices of pizza, laughing and chatting and generally having a good time. Somebody went inside and got Mrs. Cassidy and George’s girlfriend to bring out glasses and pitchers of beer and soda, and before I knew it, we had some of the other guests and the rest of the Cassidy clan joining our impromptu party in their parking lot.

  We swapped stories and jokes. Kimberly goaded me into trying the Hawaiian style (which was totally gross—pineapple chunks and tomato sauce were never meant to meet). Billy even got me to show him my scars. He, his small friend, and the half dozen other Weres watching me, were all suitably impressed at the neat surgical incisions the doctors had made to repair my ribcage and halt some gnarly internal damage caused by being beaten to shit by Rohrik Donovan over a year ago. The Moonwalker pack leader hadn’t wanted to kill me, so he’d bucked the command of the holder of the Focus by hurting me really, really badly instead. Afterward, he and his pack had helped pay a majority of the ungodly expensive medical bills.

  Some secret benefactor had paid the rest. I still didn’t know who was responsible, and was afraid of finding out whether it had been Alec Royce or The Circle. If it was Royce, he’d find a way to make me pay for it later. If it was The Circle, that meant the mage coven still wanted something out of me. Whoever it was wouldn’t let it stay a secret forever, but I was perfectly willing to turn a blind eye until they reared their ugly heads and demanded some form of recompense.

  Once a few of the guys got some alcohol in their systems, prompted by the stories I was regaling Billy with, they started showing off their scars and boasting about the fights they’d had. Mr. Cassidy was one of the first, proudly pulling up his shirt to show tanned, leathery skin puckered with an incredible number of scars, enough to show that life hadn’t been easy for the friendly old fart. Chaz surprised me by pointing out a few of his own. Guess they were playing a game of “who’s got the biggest cojones” for the sake of the few girls hanging around; we were giggling and whispering over what was revealed aside from a few imperfections on the men’s skin.

  I have to admit, it was a little disturbing when some of them got around to showing off the bites or claw marks that had led to their lycanthropy infection.

  As the sun drifted closer to the horizon, people started drifting off to their cabins to get ready for the shift. Feeling a little worn out, I sidled over to Chaz to find out what he was up to. If I was lucky, he’d come spend a little time with me back in the privacy of our cabin before he had to leave and join the rest of the pack in the hunt.

  He was deep in discussion with Dillon and Nick on what to do when Ethan shifted, and who was going to be responsible for keeping him from breaking off from the pack to hunt two-legged prey. Peachy.

  “Hey, you’ve got to get ready for tonight, right?” I said, dearly hoping he’d catch the hint. “You ready to go?”

  No such luck. “Not just yet. I’ve still got a little work to do. Dillon, can you take her?”

  I sighed as the other Were nodded and got to his feet, giving me a brief, tight smile. He hid his irritation well, but I knew he didn’t like babysitting me. He was the same Were who had fallen asleep when he should have been watching me while I was coming off the blood bond at Royce’s downtown apartment building. I’d snuck right out of the building and gone tearing off into nearby Central Park to find the missing pieces of myself and put some semblance of my sanity back together. It had been an incredibly stressful time, wha
t with being bound to two vampires simultaneously, having killed a bunch of people, and having watched others get murdered right before my eyes.

  Yeah, that had worked out real well.

  Chaz had never told me if he’d said or done anything to Dillon for slacking off, and Dillon had always been friendly enough when we went on group outings. The tightness of his mouth and faintest narrowing of his eyes was enough of a warning that he was still ticked at me for leaving him holding the bag at Royce’s last month. I’d never thought about how awkward that must have been for him, having to explain, not just to Chaz but also to the vampire, how I’d escaped their protection. Catching a few zees wasn’t a good excuse when your pack leader’s girlfriend might potentially be called to the side of a murderous, psychotic vamp but, hey, I was myself again. I wasn’t complaining.

  It might not have helped much, but I gave him a weak, apologetic smile, doing what I could to muster up the courage to ask for forgiveness. His look of irritation faded, and he rose with the smooth grace that said his wolf instincts were urging him to shift and hunt. He came to a halt by my side.

  “Be back in a few,” he said to the others, who all nodded and turned back to their discussion. Chaz gave my hand a parting squeeze of reassurance before turning to answer a question from Simon.

  We stayed quiet, walking side by side on the way back to the lodge. I thought about how I wanted to word my apology to him, since he deserved more than my ignoring the fact that, even if he’d slacked, he had helped me out. Judging by what Paula thought of me, I was sure it had taken some convincing on Chaz’s part to get him to watch my sorry butt.

  Just as we reached the doors leading inside, a howl of pain cut the air. Both of us stopped in our tracks, looking back the way we’d come. Dillon didn’t hesitate long, shoving me behind him none too gently while he scanned the area for the source of the sound. People were shouting and shuffling around, either looking for cover or trying to locate the source of the cries.

  “Go inside,” he ordered, not waiting to see if I complied. He ran off among the cars, back the way we’d come.

  I clung to the door handle for a second, hesitating. What the hell was going on?

  Another voice sent slivers of ice threading through my veins, goading me into a run. “It’s silver! They shot him with silver!”

  I hadn’t heard a gunshot, but it was enough to frighten me into action. Chaz had once been shot with silver. He had survived it, but a wound inflicted with the pure metal guaranteed it would heal close to human-slow if it wasn’t removed immediately. Certainly it would scar. Who had been hurt, I wondered. Though, honestly, my worry was more about where the Were had been injured. If the damage was to something vital, he could bleed out or worse. I didn’t like thinking that way, and until I saw it I was going to do my best not to think the worst. I’d pulled bullets out of Chaz; I could do it for someone else if I needed to.

  A bunch of guys were going Were, luminescence glimmering in their eyes and fangs peeking out between their lips as they snarled in fury. About a dozen of them trotted off toward the tree line, I assumed to search for the culprit. To attack now, when the pack was together at the peak of their strength, took a depth of bravery or stupidity like nothing I’d ever seen. Whoever it was must be suicidal.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy were hovering where I’d seen Chaz and his buddies sitting earlier. There were too many crowding around to see who’d been hurt. As soon as Nick spotted me trying to see what was going on, he shoved a few people out of the way and took my arm, yanking me closer.

  I gave a high-pitched yelp at the rough treatment, giving him a mixed sheepish and rebellious look as he growled at me. “Get down! Whoever it is hasn’t been caught yet; they might make a go for you, too. Why didn’t you go inside?”

  “I thought I could help whoever was hurt,” I said, pulling out of his grip. Disgruntled at being dragged around and then hovered over by the concerned Weres, I gave him a belligerent poke in the shoulder. “I’m not a child. Don’t treat me like one. Who’s hurt?”

  Looking as mad as I felt, he pointed at the slumped figure on the ground, and I immediately understood why they were all so concerned.

  Chaz lay still on the ground, breath hissing out between his teeth and eyes scrunched shut as he clutched at his shoulder. An arrow shaft protruded from between his fingers, and the skin visible between the blood and tears in his shirt was raw and red from silver-reaction. The arrow hadn’t hit anything vital, but the silver could spread like infection through his bloodstream if it stayed there too long. As the blood drained from my face, I elbowed past the others clustered close to him to touch his cheek, a thread of fear twisting my gut as he opened pain-glazed eyes to look at me.

  Damn it all to hell, whoever was doing this was really going to pay.

  Chapter 14

  “Go inside, love; we’ll take care of this,” Chaz grated out, forcing the words. Someone had broken off the fletched end of the arrow, but the point was still deeply embedded in the muscle of his shoulder, and no one seemed to know what to do. It was obviously hurting him badly, because he was having a tough time speaking around the pain.

  Someone had once told me that the touch of silver to a werewolf was like putting your hand against a frying pan with the flame turned up full. The longer you kept it there, the deeper the wound and the more flesh it burned. Keeping it against your skin would almost guarantee permanent damage. By itself, it wasn’t a life-threatening wound, but if the arrow had come closer to his heart or some other vital organ, it could’ve been. The longer that little arrowhead stayed in there, the higher the chances the muscles around the wound would be too injured to heal properly, meaning he’d lose mobility in that shoulder or arm. A lesser Were might have bled out or had the silver taint their blood too much to recover, but as long as this was handled quickly, Chaz would be okay. He’d have nothing more than a scar to show for it.

  We didn’t have any doctors in the pack, and God alone knew where the nearest hospital was. If I could pry a bullet out of him, I could do this, too. I hoped.

  “Back up, please. Give me some room, guys.”

  “No, Shia! Get inside. Whoever did this is still out there,” Chaz said.

  “I’ll get inside as soon as I take that thing out. Guys, hold him down, please?” I turned to Nick and Dillon, gesturing for them to keep him still. They looked helplessly between me and Chaz, obviously not wanting to upset their pack leader, but also wanting to give me the chance to help him. None of them seemed interested in touching the wooden shaft of the arrow, as though that part of it would magically turn into silver and start hurting them too. “Come on, we don’t have all night.”

  Reluctantly, the two guys gripped Chaz’s upper arms, holding him down against the log we’d been sitting on earlier, muttering apologies as they did. Simon leaned on his legs without being asked, and I was grateful for the help. Growling soft epithets under his breath, Chaz shut his eyes and waited for the inevitable, his expression and the tension in his muscled frame telling me that he was steeling himself the way that someone else might for getting a shot at the doctor’s office. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself and put one hand around the shaft of the arrow. I didn’t know whether it was barbed or not. Yanking it out might do more damage than leaving it in there. Using the edge of Chaz’s ruined shirt, I gently brushed some of the blood out of the way and peered at the wound, trying to catch a glimpse of the silver head through the swelling, irritated flesh. Gross. Only the memories of having seen far, far worse from Max Carlyle’s handiwork kept me from being too squeamish to do this.

  The head of the thing didn’t look barbed, but I wasn’t sure. I had to move hair out of my face so I could see. The shifting shadows, as people behind me moved in and out of the light, also trying to catch a glimpse, didn’t help either.

  The arrow had lodged fairly deep and, though the silver was keeping the wound from closing, it was hard to see around
the swelling the best way to drag it back out. Setting my free hand against his chest a little below where the arrow had pierced his skin, I used my other hand to pull it out as gently as I could.

  There were a couple of times in the process of removing the stupid thing that I could feel it catch on muscle or tendon, making his breath hitch. I made every effort not to do any more damage on the way out than it had caused on the way in. Difficult to tell around the blood, but I was pretty sure I was pulling it out straight.

  It took a few intense minutes, during which sudden muscle spasms or jerks made me grateful that some of the guys had agreed to hold Chaz down, but eventually the arrow was freed. I grimaced as I looked over the blood-coated shaft, noting that silver lined about half an inch of it above the arrowhead itself, guaranteeing the wound would be more irritated and slower to close. To a low-ranking Were, or a new shifter like Ethan, it would have been fatal.

  Chaz lay there for a long moment, taking deep, shuddering breaths as the others stepped back, giving him room to recover. With a great deal of grumbling and groaning, he levered to his feet, waving off any efforts by the others to help. Keeping a hand pressed to the still-bleeding wound, he started off toward the woods, followed closely by the Weres who had stayed behind.

  Despite the pain lacing his tone, there was anger and hard command in Chaz’s voice. The promise of retaliation was almost enough to make me pity whoever had done this. Almost. “Do you know if the hunter has been found yet?”

  “No,” someone spoke up from behind us. “No one’s come back from the forest yet. They’re still looking.”

  Dillon touched my arm lightly as I moved to follow, giving me pause. “You should go inside now. Let us handle this.”

  “She can hold her own,” Chaz said, looking back over his shoulder. “We might need her help if there’s more silver involved. Just keep her safe.”