CHAPTER 4
After spending a couple of hours at Winter’s, analyzing everything that had transpired with Carol, the possible-mage, the man that Chris was looking for, and the Alpha meeting, I meant to head home, but what she’d said earlier about Steven thinking I would challenge him still vexed me. I needed to see him. I made nine calls and lost count of the number of text messages I sent before I finally got a response from him. Each unreturned call or ignored text was like him pushing the knife I felt like he’d plunged in my back in a little farther.
I should have known he wouldn’t have chosen one of the many apartments near his school. Most were-animals enjoyed privacy and the outdoors, often sacrificing convenience for the ability to roam at our leisure. When Steven was still my roommate, during the weekends when he didn’t have school or other obligations, I would always find him wandering the vast, crowded woods behind the house. His new residence, a small ranch house, would work well for him, surrounded by acres of trees that made it difficult to see his neighbors. If I couldn’t see them, then they definitely couldn’t see the young man with the unruly red curls and vibrant green eyes change into an oversized coyote larger than anything they would ever see in nature. To them he would be the sweet guy with the big dimples and lazy Southern drawl.
He opened the door, pushing back said unruly curls as he looked past me rather than at me. That knife hurt like hell. I waited for him to invite me in. He didn’t. “What’s up?”
Even his voice was different, cool and despondent, and it was getting harder to pretend that his reticence didn’t bother me. I looked away and blinked several times. As much as I fought them, tears formed. I hated crying, but Steven was like a brother to me, something I had never had before, and it seemed like our relationship was going to end over something as ambiguous as the relative dominance of our animals. It was a mere fraction of who we were but controlled so much of our lives. Werewolves, were-animals, the pack, and magic were my life—I accepted it, but just then it seemed like acceptance came at a price greater than I was prepared to pay.
“Sky?”
“Forget it.” I turned around and started toward my car.
“Sky, please don’t go.”
I turned around but stayed close to my car. “Things can’t be weird between us. I can handle it with anyone else, but not with us. Things can’t change between us. I won’t accept it . . . I . . .”
“It’s fine. We’re fine.” He was the worst liar in the pack, but I’d take whatever he had to offer because it was what I wanted.
He stepped aside and let me into his home. I wasn’t sure he’d finished unpacking. Or at least it looked like he hadn’t.
“Have a seat?”
Where? On the sofa was a pile of clothes, headphones and a bag of chips next to it. The large television on the entertainment center was surrounded by glasses, empty cups, and a plate with a partially eaten sandwich. He’d obviously had breakfast, because evidence of it was still piled in the sink. When I stood in the middle of the room looking for a place to sit, he grabbed up the pile of clothes from the sofa and tossed it on top of the pile of clothes, sheets, and whatever else was covering the love seat on the opposite side of the room. I wished his housekeeping skills could have been one of the many things that had changed in my life.
“Organized chaos.” He grinned, taking a seat next to me. Relaxing back against the sofa, he offered me the chips, his favorite dill-flavored, which was bad enough, but next to him was a bottle of hot sauce. I didn’t even bother considering his offering. Instead I sank back into the sofa and stared at the TV screen like I’d done so many times before. Thirty minutes had passed before we’d slipped into our place of comfort. We didn’t have to speak, it was just us—comfortable and easy.
“You know I would never challenge you?” I ventured. “Even though I’m supposed to be more dominant.”
He grinned. “More dominant? I couldn’t change you, which means I’m not more dominant than you, but we could possibly be even. If you challenge . . .”“I’m not going to. I don’t want to be a ranked pack member. I don’t want to fight
anyone . . . . Well, that’s a lie. I kind of want to punch Ethan, he can be a real Betahole sometimes, and then he does that thing with his face, so smug, so arrogant, and so very punchable . . . but not you. Never you.”
“I know you want it to be that simple, but your relationship with the pack has changed. You care about it and the people in it and that’s the way it should be. Part of caring about it is caring about the strength of it and making sure it is able to protect the members.”
“I don’t care about it more than you. I’m sure that’s not something I’m supposed to say or feel, but it’s the truth. Those are not the beliefs of a ranked pack member. And that’s exactly what I would say if anyone tried to force me to challenge you.”
He responded with a faint smile. He’d been changed into a were-animal after life-threatening injuries, but you’d never have known he was a changed were-animal and not a born one. The primal instincts, hierarchy, and doctrines by which the pack lived and died were ingrained in him as much as in the born were-animals. I was constantly learning and still felt like there was a disconnect. I was linked to the pack, but by a fragile tendril, and I suspected that it would always be that way.
He didn’t push the issue, and once again we slipped into a comfortable silence—until I broke it by telling him everything that had transpired over the past couple of days. If he knew any of it, he certainly had a great poker face as he listened intently as though it was all new to him.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about Logan,” I ended.
“I don’t, either,” he admitted. His hand scrubbed over the light beard on his face. It didn’t fit him, but it was one of the many things he did to downplay his cherub features and pretty-handsome features. Those features were the most deceptive weapon he had. They made people underestimate him, to their detriment.
“I saw Josh yesterday, he looks like he hasn’t slept in days,” Steven said, frowning. “Can’t you do a reversal spell the way you did when the witches cursed you?”
That’s how this mess had all started. Logan was cursed, restricted to his home and from inflicting his mayhem on the world by a ward. But in lifting a death curse placed on me by the witches, we’d inadvertently lifted a still unknown number of curses. It was the reason vampires could now walk in daylight without any consequences, and so many other things had occurred because of it. I was hesitant to do any global reversal spells.
“No, we can’t do anything like that, it’s too risky.”
He stood and started to pace the length of the room, negotiating the many things on the floor that were obstructing it. His so-called organized chaos was becoming increasingly distracting. As he paced the floor, he picked up a jacket that was in his way and tossed it near the love seat with the other pile of clothes. It hit the pile but then fell back to the floor. I walked over, picked it up, and hung it on the coatrack. “It goes here.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Your mom thinks you’re a pig, too. Remember she threatened to make you sleep in the barn during your last visit.”
He grinned. It wasn’t forced, it was the same one he always gave when I complained about his mess.
“Do you like living here?” I asked as I continued to put away things obstructing the living room.
Then I rolled my eyes in the direction of the kitchen. It was a task that was definitely going to require more than just picking things up.
“Mom has a cleaning person coming at the end of the week.”
“You need to put a little more shame in your voice when you reveal something like that,” I teased.
He laughed. “Only you and my mother seem to care about it. I’m fine with my organized chaos.”
“What you call ‘organized chaos’ is what most people call a messy house. A pigsty.” He hadn’t answered my question, so I repeated it. “Do you like living here?”
Considering the question for longer than I thought was necessary, he gave the room a once-over. It was nice. The large picture window in the living room gave an unobstructed view of the woods out back, which were full and lush and just several feet from the back door. It felt more like he was living in a cabin in the wilderness, and for that reason, I was sure he liked living in his new home.
“I do, but not more than living with you.”
“You can come back anytime.”
He made a face, a combination of a frown and a scowl. “That’s not an option anymore. Not now.”
“Because of the lease?”
“No, because of Ethan. You’re with Ethan now. He will not allow such impropriety.”
Allow? I was really getting sick of “allows” and “commands.” “Ethan doesn’t get to tell me who I can have as a housemate.” Anger and indignation pushed the words through clenched teeth.
“If that person is in the pack, he can. Your interactions with other pack members are going to be limited.” His wry smile and look of quiet resolve just fueled my frustrations. And he looked at me the way one would when they were watching a friend succumb to an inevitable failure. I hated that look.
“Ethan and I aren’t like that. Our relationship isn’t like that. I’m not sure how things are in other packs, but—”
“It’s the same way it is in this pack with you and Ethan. The way it would be with Sebastian and any woman he was dating seriously. There are boundaries and restrictions. Ethan can make those decisions whether you like it or not. If you’d have seen him after we found you injured, you’d know how serious what you two have is. He spent several hours caged because he wasn’t in control. Ethan is never out of control.”
“Ethan’s the only thing keeping you from moving back in with me?”
“Sky . . .”
“I asked a question. It’s just a yes-or-no answer.”
He grinned. “Yes, that’s the only thing keeping it from happening.”
After several moments, his lips twisted to the side—a clear sign that he was searching for the right words—and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “You think things are simple between you and Ethan and things are going to be business as usual because that’s what you want. After the Ares injured you, he didn’t just retaliate. It was carnage, uncontrolled. It took four of us to subdue him, and we had to lock him in the cage because he lashed out at us for stopping him. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to be okay with some guy living with you.”
“You’re not ‘some guy.’”
“To Ethan, I am.” He brushed his fingers over my face, the odd thing we did as an apology—but it wasn’t one. It was him asking me not to pursue this with Ethan. It bothered me. Things were starting to feel claustrophobic, and the tenuous hold I had on my old life was slipping away each day.
I sank back into the sofa. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Winter and I went back to the area where we found that odd-looking man, the one with the weird animal eyes.”
“Did you find anything?” he asked, rubbing his beard. I hoped it bothered him and then maybe he would get rid of it.
I shook my head and told him everything except the part about Chris being there.
“What happened between you smelling the medicine and running into Chase?” Steven asked.
I hesitated before I answered. “What do you mean?”
His eyes narrowed and he gave me a dry, faint smile. “There was a slight change in your cadence. And your heart rate increased slightly. What happened between then?”
“Nothing.”
With one look, he let me know that he didn’t believe me. I didn’t know why I even tried to lie to were-animals; it never worked. And I was fully aware that each time you met one, they were assessing you from the time you walked through the door, looking for variations in your heart rate, intonation, cadence of your voice, and respiration. In the brief moment it took for them to shake your hand, they had assessed all the things that were considered normal, your baseline, and looked for any variations in it to exploit or manipulate if necessary. Had your heart rate increased because you were scared? They wanted to know what had made you afraid. Despite being able to detect lies and seeming to be quite affronted by them, their favorite tactic was “getting people to see the reality which they wanted you to believe.” It was a very eloquent way of saying they were lying and feeding you BS.
I chewed on the secret and waited for a moment, debating if I should tell Steven. He and I were very close, but his devotion to the pack extended further than anything we would ever have. I knew that if I told him, it was as good as me telling Sebastian if he decided it was information that Sebastian needed.
“I’ll tell you, but it has to be between the two of us.”
“Sky, you know I can’t do that.”
“Then I can’t tell you,” I said firmly.
He sucked in a ragged breath and held it for a long time before exhaling. “Sky, you can’t keep secrets from the pack, you just can’t.”
“Even if I don’t agree with their decision?”
“Especially if you don’t agree with their decision. At least trust Sebastian.”
I did trust Sebastian and his ability to handle every situation. But I knew that he wasn’t above doing unscrupulous things when “handling things” that were particularly difficult. In fact, if it was to protect the pack and its members, his behavior and the things he was willing to do at times were abhorrent. He made deals with the devil and his relatives and would switch sides and collude with the enemy of the devil if it served his purpose. Anyone who thought they were just playing checkers with him was oblivious to the fact that he had beaten them with a few moves and had moved on to three-dimensional chess.
I couldn’t help but wonder if all the Alphas were present because of the Logan situation. How was this their issue and not just the Midwest Pack’s problem? “Did your mom tell you why the other Alphas were called by Sebastian?”
“Sebastian didn’t call them, Cole did.” He had the same concerned look on his face as Winter had had, troubled about what was big enough that all the Alphas were called.
The silence persisted as we were both drawn into our thoughts. I pondered what I knew about the East Coast Pack—nothing.
“You smelled medicine and magic and then what?” he asked. I told him everything, including seeing Chris. After I finished telling him, I said, “You can’t tell anyone that we saw her. You have to promise to keep it to yourself.”
He sighed heavily. “Sky, you know I can’t do that.”
“You have to, please.” Then I went into detail about everything that took place at Logan’s, including what he was requesting of us. I figured I’d generate some understanding as to why I needed him to keep the Chris sighting a secret.
With arrant disgust, he asked, “What exactly does Logan want with Chris?”
“He claimed before that he was looking for a companion, but I think there is more to it. Regardless, we shouldn’t be trafficking women.”
“We aren’t trafficking anyone,” he said dismissively. “We are dealing with a situation.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t try to make this less repugnant than it is. I can’t believe using another person as a bargaining chip is even an option.” Sebastian had done some questionable things to protect this pack, and I didn’t doubt that he was capable of more.
Steven frowned at the idea again. “But if you think we are the only ones looking for her on Logan’s behalf, I’m pretty sure we aren’t. It’s probably better that we know where she is before someone else finds her.”
I wanted to believe him—I really did—but we had once left a woman with Logan. Even though she’d expressed a desire to stay with him, and Josh hadn’t detected a spell that would have compelled her to give that answer, I’d still wanted to take her against her will. How twisted and perverse was this situation—wanting to take someone from the clutches of a monster made me a
bad person, but offering someone up to him didn’t. Each time I thought about Logan, it brought to mind his self-proclaimed fascination with pain and the shroud of adoration that brightened his face when he discussed it.
Chris hadn’t been the only person who’d attracted his attention, so had Ethan. And I would never forget how drawn Logan was to him. I knew there was a lot about Ethan that I didn’t know—and I just hoped it wasn’t nearly as bad as my overactive imagination had led me to believe on numerous occasions—but Logan’s fascination kept nagging at me.
“I wonder if it’s all connected,” I said.
“All of what?”
“Everything: Logan and his sick request, Kelly going missing, and the strange animal people that we keep finding. What if they’re all connected?”
He considered it for a moment and then frowned. “I think the Kelly situation may be independent of all this. It’s reasonable that she’d want to leave, after all she was—” He stopped midsentence, and his eyes flashed as if he’d had a eureka moment. “She was poisoned by the sleeper—we need another one.”
I was sure he thought whatever he was thinking made sense, but it didn’t. Why did we need the Tod Schlaf?
“For Logan,” he clarified. “Kelly was alive but unable to move, and the same was true for Gideon. If you can put it on Logan, he will remain alive but be unable to do anything, including destroy the Tre’ase that created Maya’s heart.”
For a brief moment, everything didn’t seem so bleak. Logan could be handled—there might be a light at the end of the dark tunnel. We could keep Logan alive while we found a way to unlink the Tre’ase that had created Maya.
The next morning I was up bright and early, cleaning out what would soon be Steven’s room. Whether my decision to have him move back in without discussing it with Ethan was a result of my desire to remain independent or spite was still debatable. By midnight of the night before, when Ethan hadn’t shown up or answered any of my texts or calls, I was feeling pretty spiteful. Was that his way of avoiding any of my questions about the meeting? He knew I wasn’t going to sleep without having some answers.
Moon Cursed (Sky Brooks Series Book 5) Page 6
