by Lisa Edmonds
Charles’s arm moved away from my mouth. From beyond the bliss, I felt my hands spasm and I cried out. Cool hands were resting on top of mine, holding me still with my arms against my chest while things moved under my skin in my hands and wrists. I suddenly felt as if ants were running over my skin as my cuts began to heal. Charles held me as I whimpered and squirmed.
When my head finally cleared, I opened my eyes. Charles was leaning over me, his hands still covering mine. I looked dazedly up at him. “Did it work?” My tongue felt thick.
“Yes.” Charles held up my hands so I could see them. I stared at them in wonder. The skin was unbroken, the swelling gone. I flexed them experimentally, marveling at how the fingers opened and closed without pain. Vampire blood had painful healing spells beat by a mile.
Charles settled back, rolling his shirtsleeve back down and neatly fastening the cuff. His arm was already healed, the skin unblemished.
I sat up and kept looking at my knuckles. “Amazing,” I said, more to myself than to him. I pulled the collar of my robe aside to see that no sign of Sean’s bite or any of the cuts remained. “What’s going on downstairs?”
“The wolf has been taken to Hawthorne’s,” Charles said. “The window is being replaced and the glass cleaned up. My crew is cleaning your floor. Within a few minutes, the work will be complete.”
I gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”
Charles watched me swing my legs over the side of the bed. I felt cool air on my skin and realized the bathrobe had come untied at some point, and I was naked beneath it.
Charles reached out toward me, his eyes on mine. Given the way he’d been looking at me minutes earlier, I expected him to touch me, and, strangely, I wasn’t sure how I would respond. I was surprised when he gently pulled the robe closed and held it while I tied the belt. Then he stood and drew me to my feet.
“Are you well?” Charles still held on to my hands.
“I feel good.” I pulled free of his grip. “Thank you for everything.”
His expression became distant for a moment, then he looked at me. “My people have finished their work downstairs. You may raise your house wards.”
I laid my palm against the wall. In moments, the wards crackled with their familiar intensity.
When I opened my eyes, Charles stood next to me. “Do you wish me to leave someone here to watch the house?”
I shook my head. “No. You’ve got Sean in custody. My wards are up, and I’m fine.”
“Very well.” He hesitated, then bent down to kiss my cheek. “Sleep well, Alice.”
“You too, Charles.”
He went to the door of my room and opened it. Adri waited on the other side. She looked at Charles, and then at me with a thoughtful expression.
“Good night, Adri,” I said. “Thank you for your help.”
“Anytime, Alice.”
She and Charles headed down the stairs. Moments later, I felt a tingle from the wards when they left.
I stripped off my bathrobe and changed into pajamas. Then I brushed my teeth and fell into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin. In minutes, I was sound asleep.
Chapter 22
I’d been screaming for hours.
My voice was nothing more than a hoarse rasp. My throat must have been raw, but I couldn’t feel anything anymore. Maybe I’d shorted out whatever part of my brain processed pain. It took long enough.
I’d been kept hanging on a metal rack for most of the day so the blood mage had full access to my naked body, though she’d focused most of her attention on my back this time. During rare moments of coherent thought, I wondered if my grandfather had ordered her not to damage any part of me that might be visible. Moses had to maintain the fiction that his granddaughter obeyed his every command, that she never hesitated to unleash her terrible magic according to his wishes. There could be no hint that she resisted him. He’d had people killed for even mentioning the possibility.
They said my heart stopped twice. I’d wanted to die, but like everything else I’d ever wanted, I didn’t get it. They brought me back each time. The floor was littered with expended spell crystals and empty blood bags from transfusions. I’d probably bled out three times over.
I’d experienced it often enough to know I was in shock. I felt ice-cold and I was shaking so badly it looked like I was having a seizure. I’d been taken down from the rack and dumped facedown on a cot that was bolted to the floor. My wrists and ankles were manacled to the frame with spell cuffs. The metal edges cut my skin and rattled against the cot as I shook. Someone had thrown a sheet over my bare ass and legs. It had once been white but now was mostly red. My thirst was painful, but no one had offered me water.
Though shock kept me from feeling much of anything, I strongly suspected there was no skin left on my back. Odd sensations made me think things were exposed that shouldn’t have been. I wondered how many healing spells it would take to fix me this time.
I’d been alone in the soundproofed torture room for a very long time. I faded in and out, though I never really lost consciousness, thanks to the spells. Perhaps they were waiting for me to bleed out, or for shock to stop my heart. I’d have wished for it if I didn’t know they’d just bring me back again. Dying hurt, but coming back always hurt worse.
The heavy door swung open. My grandfather appeared, accompanied by the blood mage and one of his favorite lieutenants, a snake of a man named Kade. I felt a weak surge of something through the numbness: hate. Kade was a sadist. He supervised most of my torture sessions, and he usually became aroused watching me bleed. At least the other lieutenants acted like it was just a job and maintained a kind of clinical distance. Kade took a lot of pleasure in his work.
Moses strode across the room, walking through the blood without even looking at it. He didn’t flinch in the slightest at the sight of my body or the amount of blood on the floor and walls and ceiling. But why would he? He’d have inflicted the damage himself if he’d had anything more than mid-level blood magic. Handing my punishment over to a high-level blood mage had been merely a practical decision.
“Exceptional work, as always,” my grandfather said to the blood mage as they came to stand over me. “I was able to observe some of the session between meetings.”
“Thank you, Davo,” the blood mage said. Her gaze swept over my body like an artist surveying her work. She was clearly pleased with her efforts.
“Your precision has improved.” Moses looked me over. “There is almost no skin remaining, and yet she is conscious. Remarkable.”
The mage made a murmuring sound. I stared fixedly into space, avoiding eye contact with my grandfather and trying not to notice the obvious bulge in the front of Kade’s pants.
“There is, however, significant muscle damage,” Moses added in that same casual tone.
The blood mage appeared unconcerned. “Healing spells will repair the damage.”
She failed to see the shark fin in the water, but Kade and I both spotted the signs. He tensed. I did not. The blood mage was dead already; she just didn’t know it.
“Muscle damage requires extensive and lengthy use of healing spells,” my grandfather said. “Our timeline for this project is quite inflexible. She won’t be recovered before the priority deadline has passed.”
The blood mage was becoming aware that she was in trouble and took a step back. “Davo, it was unclear—”
That was as far as she got. My grandfather’s hand whipped out, and a coil of fire wrapped around the blood mage’s neck. Her scream was piercing, and I smelled burning flesh.
“This is an unacceptable loss of revenue, and if we fail to meet the schedule, it will damage our reputation,” Moses said with that same calm voice as the blood mage writhed and shrieked on the end of his fire rope. I didn’t flinch. What was she experiencing that I hadn’t at her hands, and for hours at a time? “Despite your skills, you continue to lack the kind of attention to detail I require in my employees. I made the timetable clear to you
when you received the assignment.”
The blood mage finally lost consciousness. The coil of fire released her neck, and she hit the floor in a heap, her throat a charred mess. The smell was terrible, but I was glad for the silence.
Kade stepped away to call someone to come get the mage. My grandfather looked at me. He might as well have been looking at a piece of trash on the side of the road. There was absolutely nothing in his eyes. Looking into them was like looking into hell.
“Her stupidity and your stubbornness are going to cost me a lot of money.” That was the only warning I got before he brought the heel of his boot down on my back. Agony whited out my vision and I sank toward oblivion, but I could not pass out because of the blood mage’s spells. I found I was still able to scream some more after all.
Chapter 23
I came awake with a scream that sounded like it was ripped out of my soul. With a sob, I curled up on my side, drawing my knees up to my chest, and began to shake. I swore I could still feel my grandfather’s boot heel on the middle of my back.
It had been months since I’d had a nightmare that intense. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out what had brought on such vivid memories; Adri had spent the better part of an hour digging glass out of my back. The pain and blood from last night was more than enough to remind me of the horrors of what my grandfather had done to me.
I stumbled to the bathroom to wash my face. I was about to put toothpaste on my toothbrush when my phone rang.
It was Adri. “You must never sleep,” I told her after we’d said hello to each other.
“I’m headed home. Mr. Vaughan requested I call you in the morning to let you know where things stand, but I didn’t want to wake you too early.”
I was quiet. “How is Sean?” I asked finally.
“Mr. Maclin is healing well. He’ll be our guest for a few days. Mr. Vaughan informed the pack of his whereabouts, and his beta saw for himself that he’s unharmed and being kept in comfortable conditions.”
“What do you plan to do with him?”
Adri’s tone was businesslike, which I appreciated. “Since he suffered no serious injury, Mr. Vaughan has decided not to file a grievance with the Were Ruling Council. He suggested you go before the council and demand a judgment against Mr. Maclin for the seriousness of your injuries and the damages to your home.”
“I don’t want anything from Sean,” I stated. “The less I have to think about him at this point, the better. I’d rather pay for the repairs myself than drag this out.”
“It would be Mr. Vaughan’s honor to represent you,” Adri informed me. “You’d have no contact with Mr. Maclin at all.”
“Please tell Charles I appreciate his offer, but I just want all of this behind me. The sooner Sean and I have nothing to do with each other, the sooner we can both move on.”
After a beat, I asked, “Has Sean said anything about…the situation?” I didn’t know why I inquired or why it mattered to me in the least.
Adri didn’t seem surprised at my question. “Once Mr. Maclin shifted back to human form, he was extremely upset you were hurt, and he wouldn’t be calm until we convinced him that you were healed. He’s also insisting he had no intention of infecting you with the werewolf virus, or claiming you as his mate against your will, though he admits you share a metaphysical link.”
I scowled.
“We’ve been told the link will dissolve on its own given time, as long as you have no further contact with Mr. Maclin.” Adri paused. “He asked that we tell you that he would still like the chance to explain himself.”
“You can tell him that you delivered the message and there’s nothing he has to say that I want to hear.” I was pleased at how steely my voice sounded, though I felt a sharp ache somewhere in the middle of my chest.
“I will do that.” Another pause. “You doing okay with all of this?”
“I’ll be all right. It’s not like I was in love with him, or anything close to it.” I paused, then added, “He should have known I’m not prey.”
“I understand.”
We fell quiet.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Adri said finally. “Mr. Vaughan began making inquiries last night to find a teacher for your client.”
“Really? I thought….”
“He’s apparently changed his mind about requesting your blood. I believe he’ll ask you to upgrade the wards on one of his storage facilities instead.”
“Please tell him thank you, and that I’ll be happy to work on the wards. Just tell me when and where and what kind.”
“I will. Have a good day, Alice.”
“You too, Adri. Go get some sleep.”
I put the phone down, lay back on the bed, and closed my eyes.
My heart felt bruised. I was glad Charles was keeping Sean in custody for a couple of days, so I wouldn’t have to worry about him showing up on my doorstep. Despite everything, there was a part of me that wondered if Sean had been telling the truth when he’d claimed he had no plans to turn me into a werewolf. Maybe it was unfair of me not to hear him out.
Even if that was true, I reminded myself, there was no place for me in Sean’s life. He was an alpha werewolf in need of a mate, and that wasn’t going to change. Until Charles had explained the situation, I hadn’t really thought of Sean’s role as an alpha and how different it was from a pack werewolf.
More importantly, he’d initiated a mating bond with me without my permission, and I didn’t think that was something I was going to be able to forgive or forget. It was best we made a clean break. For both our sakes, I hoped by the time his involuntary seclusion was over, Sean would come to the same conclusion.
Wanting to distract myself from thoughts about Sean, I called Natalie.
She answered immediately, her voice cheerful. “Alice! No answer from the lawyer yet, so I left him another message. How are you?”
“Doing well, Natalie. Have you had any luck finding out more about our missing item?”
“The MacGuffin?” Natalie teased. I made a face at Malcolm’s goofy nickname for the Kasten. “Nothing yet. I just got started on the papers in her desk, though. There’s a lot more to go through. I’ll try to get finished this afternoon.”
I remembered my earlier conversation with Adri. “By the way, I’m in the process of finding you a teacher. I hope to have some news on that soon too.”
“Awesome,” Natalie said. “I’m actually getting kind of excited about it.”
“I’m really glad to hear that. Let me know if you find anything, and I’ll keep you posted.” We said our good-byes and disconnected.
I took a long shower, scrubbing myself until I could no longer imagine I smelled Sean on my skin. I dried my hair and dressed.
When I opened my bedroom door, Malcolm waited on the other side. “Where have you been?” I asked.
“At Natalie’s, giving you some space. What the hell happened downstairs? Were we robbed?”
I leaned against the doorframe and told him about my visit to Hawthorne’s, what Charles told me about Sean’s pack problems and his plan to turn me into a werewolf, what happened at my house, and Sean being held in Charles’s custody.
Malcolm was flitting around in a rage. “That son of a bitch. I’m so sorry, Alice.”
I shrugged. “He still claims he had no intention of infecting me, but he did initiate a bond without telling me about it. Even if he didn’t want to turn me into a werewolf, an alpha has to have a werewolf mate, so it was basically doomed from the start.”
“He did save your life after Natalie burned you, and he took care of you afterward. I suppose that’s worth something. Though if he wanted you for his mate, that would explain why he was so strongly motivated to get through the wards. I can’t believe he was going to bite you.”
I headed down the hall to the stairs, Malcolm trailing along behind me. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s Charles’s problem for a couple of days while he calms down. After that, if he does come a
round, I’ll just have to make it clear he needs to stay away from me.”
“You need to get some silver.”
I paused in the middle of the stairs, then continued on. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said softly. “But you’re probably right. I have silver, though. I guess I need to start carrying it.”
When I got to the main floor of the house, I stopped and stared.
My front window had been replaced with a lovely piece of decorative fixed glass that looked frightfully expensive even without adding in the cost of having a window company come out in the middle of the night. The bevels in the glass cast rainbows of light across the foyer. The floor was spotlessly clean, and I didn’t see or sense any trace of ash or my blood anywhere.
My living room was virtually empty. The books that had been in the bookcases were stacked neatly on the floor. The broken furniture, my smashed television, and the rest of the debris were gone. Only the couch and the record player remained. How they had avoided getting destroyed, I had no idea.
I went to the basement door. When I looked at my wards, I could see the golden thread that represented Sean. I yanked it out. The wards rippled, then went still. I opened the door, and Malcolm and I went downstairs.
I went to one of the cabinets, traced runes on the door, then opened it. I pulled out two small silver throwing knives and a wrist sheath from one of the cabinets, then I took out a box of silver bullets, my gun, and an empty magazine. Malcolm watched silently as I loaded the magazine with the bullets.
I felt sick at the thought of shooting Sean, but if he did intend to bite me and turn me into a werewolf, I’d do it without hesitation, even if it brought the entire Tomb Mountain Pack down on my head. My only hope in that case would be to get to the Were Ruling Council before the pack got to me and explain that Sean had attempted to bite me against my will.
There was a slim chance my strong blood magic would be able to burn the werewolf virus from my body if I did get bitten—I’d heard of it happening before—but I was certainly not going to bank on that. My best defense was silver.
