Rather than dwelling upon my own stupidity, I reached forward to tap the different-colored candies spread out across his palm. “They’re roasted cashews coated with saltwater toffee. I made a few different flavors because I wasn’t quite sure which one you’d like best. Caramel, mint, strawberry.” As I spoke, I touched each nut with a dirty fingernail, figuring forest-floor germs were the least of Derek’s worries if Dakota was as close as she’d promised to be.
“Sounds interesting,” my brother answered. His eyebrows rose, suggesting I might actually have come close to guessing a treat that would tempt him out of his world-weary demeanor. Then Derek squashed my hopes as he pushed the makeshift bag toward me. “Here,” he continued. “You try one first.”
MY HESITATION WAS INFINITESIMAL, but my brother still noticed. His muscles tensed, his eyes scanned the surrounding forest for danger, and I knew I was about to lose him for the very last time.
“But what if I take your favorite flavor by mistake?” I asked, rushing into the silence with an attempt to reclaim the rapport we’d previously shared. “I only brought you one of each....”
Even as I spoke, I was reaching forward, willing to knock myself out for the sake of the mission. After all, a sedative wouldn’t do any long-term damage to my person. Dakota could just roll me into the van along with my brother whenever she eventually showed up.
Just as I was about to pick up a pineapple-flavored toffee, though, Derek shifted his hand slightly, angling the green candy beneath my fingers instead. “I don’t like mint,” he offered, and I knew even as he spoke that his words were a misdirection. Mint was apparently Derek’s favorite flavor and he was counting on me to have correctly guessed that fact. If I’d drugged only one cashew, the green-hued candy, he expected, would have been my very top choice.
Luckily, I hadn’t been nearly so clever. I still didn’t know my brother nearly well enough to have homed in on a single flavor, so I’d imbued every single toffee with the exact same chemical cocktail. Now, I picked up the indicated candy and snapped it in half between my front incisors as requested, knowing I’d get no larger dose from this nut than from any other.
The snack was salty and nutty and ever so faintly sugared. A strange combination that nonetheless left me yearning for more. And since it had been nearly a day since I’d last filled my stomach, I wasn’t at all surprised to find the organ in question churning in a request for further sustenance once it was reminded that food was within easy reach.
But wait...was that gut twisting mere hunger or was I already being affected by Dakota’s pharmaceutical? Had the supplied chemical actually been a sedative or had she supplied a much stronger drug?
Weakening knees and hazy vision answered the question with alacrity. And as sweat broke out on my brow, I abruptly realized my naivety had been my downfall once again.
Because why trust Dakota when she told me the drug I’d cooked into these candies was a sedative? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply take Derek all the way out rather than putting him to sleep then picking him back up?
“Derek,” I started. “Don’t eat that candy.”
But the words didn’t actually reach my mouth. Instead, they lodged in my sternum along with a sharp pain reminiscent of an ice pick. And when I finally managed to turn my head in my brother’s direction, I saw that he was scarfing down nuts as assiduously as a squirrel might stock up on calories before a long winter’s night.
“I think that’s the best snack I’ve ever tasted,” my brother offered. And as his eyes met mine at last, I caught a hint of the true bond that might have grown between us if we hadn’t spent our entire acquaintance stabbing each other in the back.
Understanding and kindness and shared siblinghood. Me and Derek united against the world.
Then my muscles spasmed and I tumbled toward the waiting dirt.
Derek had imbibed his nuts a few seconds after me, but he’d also eaten a great deal more. So I wasn’t surprised to see his symptoms striking with the force of a stooping falcon. Even before his body thudded onto the ground a foot away from my twitching appendages, my brother’s eyes were rolling back in his head while his teeth chattered so wildly I was afraid he might bite off his tongue.
And yet, despite the agony that must have been ten times worse than my own spears of anguish, Derek mustered up the energy to speak. “I always knew you’d betray me,” he murmured. Then, thankfully, the drugs pulled me back under into the dark.
Chapter 35
“She drugged herself, the idiot.”
Dakota’s voice came to me on the heels of a dream. I was back in the kitchen intended for my brother’s betrayal. Baking, baking, always baking...but the ingredients I used in my concoction were live spiders and cockroaches, ground bones and vats of steaming blood.
I stirred the batter with an ulna-handled spatula, dipped my entire hand into the liquid to pull out a taste. The blood turned solid beneath my fingers, my mouth going dry as it filled up with dust.
“He’s heavy,” a male voice complained inches away from my nose. A moan, a curse, then a metallic thump as a vehicle door slammed shut.
“Her too?”
I fought against the lassitude that kept me supine atop damp leaf mold. A rotten stump bit into my left hip while cold hands lifted me, sliding clothing across limbs that bent as easily as those of a puppet lacking her strings.
I should have been heartened by the fabric covering, but retreating nudity was the furthest thing from my mind. “Derek?” I murmured...only the sound didn’t make it as far as my trachea. My wolf’s supine body hung heavy on my ribcage, stifling the query before it could even leave my chest.
I shook my head...or tried to. Instead, my neck muscles merely tensed, my teeth barely managing to chatter together within my skull. Like my wolf, I was immobile, unable to beg for an antidote even if one existed. And with every moment that passed, my similarly defenseless brother was being dragged away by a female who’d proven her inability to fulfill a duly sworn vow. Who was to say Derek would even be tried by the Tribunal rather than strangled and dropped in the closest ditch? Had I killed him rather than metaphorically stabbing him in the back?
Stagnant swamp water soaked into my nightmare, the liquid oily and flammable as I sparked it alight with a long wooden match. Flambé of brother, how tasty. I opened my mouth, licked the charred skin, then took a wolf’s rough, tearing bite.
But before I could finish consuming Derek in dreamland, hard fingers pushed my eyelids apart and Dakota’s face swam into view. Her head was tilted sideways, or maybe I was the one at an incline. Either way, the disparate angles made me want to retch.
“Bye bye, cupcake baker,” the other female murmured, sharp teeth turning into leeches within her mouth. The slick black invertebrates inched their way out of her gums, leapt onto my skin, began to suck.
Then my head was thunking back onto the earth, Dakota’s voice intruding one more time as she spoke more loudly for the sake of her crew. “Leave the girl. She can’t betray us while under the influence of the drug.”
No one argued, no one quibbled. Instead, footsteps blended into the sound of my mixer as I returned to baking a triple-decker cake seasoned with arterial blood. What the batter really needed, I decided, was a hint of arsenic. Or perhaps I could find a way to make the frosting out of living slugs?
“WHERE IS HE?”
My head snapped back as a palm connected with my left cheekbone. Prying eyes blearily open, I took in my surroundings. Industrial beige walls. A metal table. A huge mirror in which my scratched and whitened face stared back with the aspect of a corpse.
“Who?” I croaked. I was clearly making progress because the word actually made it past my lips this time. But when I turned to face my captor, I knew I was back inside a dream.
Because the middle-aged man facing me couldn’t be here. He was ruddy-cheeked and frustrated, just as wolfless as I’d expected from a member of the organization that had spent the last week nibbling at my heels. B
ut the last time I’d seen this particular agent’s untucked shirt and slovenly demeanor, the male had been standing inside a compound Dakota had wired for complete eradication. Emmanuel Shepard must be a figment of my imagination because the real man of that name was long since and quite thoroughly dead.
“Derek,” the dream Emmanuel bit out, blood vessels on his cheeks expanding to take over the skin on either side of his slitted eyes. He shook me with approximately the same level of gentleness Dakota had shown to my comatose body...which is to say precisely none. “Where. Is. My. Son?”
I tried to cock my head in confusion, but even that minuscule motion made my stomach churn so severely I gave up on the endeavor. Instead, I swallowed down bile, not managing to dodge as the male’s hand once more made contact with my stinging face.
This time, the blow was hard enough to disrupt my balance, and I would have fallen out of the chair if my hands hadn’t been chained to the tabletop in front of my chest. As it was, I ended up face down against the cool metal, tears mixing with blood as two liquids streamed together over my swelling cheeks.
“Not a very good cake,” I murmured, distressed that I’d over-salted the batter. Tears were useful in small quantities, but they didn’t mix nearly as well with ground bones as with mother’s milk. Now, if I added in a small quantity of singed armpit hair, that might sop up the excess sodium....
Far more quickly than I’d intended, I drifted back into a culinary dream.
“...EXECUTIVE ORDER.”
I giggled, amused that my hallucinations now appeared to incorporate the President of the United States. I’d seen him in videos, of course. Had been guilty of learning far more than I really needed to know about the President’s well-dressed wife, his two perfect children, even about the fluffy presidential pet. No wonder the male had invaded my dreamscape along with Oompa Loompas and the Wicked Witch of the West.
But I’d never guessed that the President’s aura would be as powerful as that of an alpha werewolf. Wouldn’t have imagined that when the politician stood up to Emmanuel Shepard, the older male would cringe like a puppy who had peed on the carpet and knew his comeuppance was nigh.
“Mr. President, I assure you this woman is a dangerous criminal....”
I opened my hands, watched glowing beads of light drift away from my fingertips. The orbs morphed into butterflies, flapped brilliantly colored wings and circled the president’s salt-and-pepper head. What would the leader of the free world like to eat? I wondered. Definitely not spit and maggot cookie dough....
“...presidential pardon,” the powerful human was saying. There were three of him now, I noticed. Or perhaps those other broad bodies were his entourage?
I smiled groggily upward, patting a snub-nosed human face. “Ice cream,” I murmured. Maybe vomit ice cream. Would that be too run-of-the-mill for a President used to being fed by the five-star White House chef? If so, he could always scrape leftovers into a bowl for his dog....
Then hands guided me gently upward, the chains around my wrists falling away as I somehow managed to attain my feet. “Sebastien, Sebastien, Sebastien, Sebastien,” my wolf chanted through human vocal chords. She was more alert than I was. Had broken through our haze of dream-driven cookery to focus on the most important point.
If we really were being busted loose of this prison, then our mate needed a similar get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Already taken care of,” someone said above my left shoulder. Firm hands grabbed me as I tilted at a forty-five degree angle, propped me back up against a powerfully muscled arm.
I cocked my head, peered upward at the tall politician upon whom I’d developed a girlhood crush seven long years ago. “Mr. President,” I started...
...Then bent double as I vomited all over his nice shiny shoes.
Chapter 36
I lost several minutes after that. Was only vaguely aware of the President’s bile-soaked footwear before the shoes in question...along with his person and bodyguards...were hustled out the jail’s back entrance. Then my mind sharpened as a trio of familiar faces blew in the front.
Sarah, Eddie, Sebastien.
My mate ran toward me with brows furrowed and shoulders squared as if for battle. And no wonder since he looked just as banged up as I felt, as if his time spent in SHRITA custody had involved slaps and punches intended to drag information he may or may not have actually possessed out of his lips. “Ember,” the professor started, his voice ominously quiet.
Every one of my recent evasions flickered through my aching head in that moment. Refusals to discuss shifter politics, biology, even the mate bond that circled around Sebastien’s own waist. Perhaps if the professor had known some of the information I refused to divulge, he would have found a way to avoid the recent torture that now raised bruises on his cheekbone, his jaw, and along the side of his neck.
We hesitated there for one long moment, three inches of air and several thousand miles of distrust flowing between us. Then...he kissed me. Swooped in and pulled me up flush against his body until my feet left the ground and my legs twined around his own. Sebastien’s mouth landed atop mine with the force of a man who knew his own will, and our joining felt less like sharing and more like the first clash of incipient battle.
My mate tasted like cheap coffee and cold worry. Like hours of solitary confinement interrupted by short bursts of intense interrogation. This wasn’t the sort of kiss I’d fantasized about while struggling to maintain our mate bond in the forest. And it certainly wasn’t a prelude to the claiming I’d hoped would eventually occur on his end as well as on mine.
But then my wolf took hold of my tongue, eased that organ between Sebastien’s lips to play. She wasn’t afraid of a little fire and fury. Was quite ready to face down the worst our mate might offer if we were allowed to press up against his bare skin while he vented his spleen.
And, in response, Sebastien’s bitter flavor faded, morphed, settled into the sweet perfume of a burgeoning partnership. The electric promise of alliance filled the air like chocolate syrup and sunshine, reminding me that I could now answer Sebastien’s questions and dissolve the final barrier that came between us. Maybe that effort would be enough to ease the professor’s distrust, perhaps then he would officially claim me as his mate?
Only Sarah was stepping between us. Not so much shoving us apart as gently insinuating herself into our embrace. And after the first yard of endless air stood between me and my human partner, the other female drew me yet further forward, guiding me relentlessly toward the open door that promised freedom from this human jail.
“We need to go,” my mother murmured too quietly for human ears to pick up on. I hesitated only long enough to be certain that our respective partners were also stepping through the doorway and into the open air before obeying both her words and her gentle tug. “I also need you to distract Eddie,” Sarah added even more quietly. “Because the wolves are out in force.”
As soon as she spoke, I could smell them. Shifters by the dozen loitering on every street corner, leaning over balcony railings, watching us from barbershops and from the safety of flattened roofs. Maybe Dakota had broken her word and failed to grant my companions the immunity she’d promised, or maybe her stay of execution hadn’t gone into effect as quickly as it should have done.
Whatever the reason, my mother had placed herself in harm’s way when she busted me and Sebastien out of custody. The least I could do in exchange was to keep her potentially incendiary secret hidden from her long-protected spouse.
Good thing my wobbly knees gave me an excellent excuse to prey upon my stepfather’s protective urges. “Can you help me...?” I began. Then, twisting around, I performed an only slightly exaggerated swan dive into Eddie’s waiting arms.
THE HUMAN MALE BUNDLED me into the back seat of his waiting sedan while Sarah and Sebastien slid in the front, after which we easily outpaced the watching shifters. So maybe they’d just been curious rather than intent upon capturing anyone for the sake of
a reward? Still, I snuggled into Eddie’s vested side anyway, ensuring he was focusing on me rather than on any external dangers. Meanwhile, I kept one ear trained on the conversation drifting backwards from the vehicle’s front seats.
“I think that’s the last of them,” Sebastien murmured, sliding smoothly around another curve without jiggling the chassis in the slightest. My mate was an excellent driver, and he’d also perfected the tone of voice just loud enough for Sarah to follow without carrying to passengers a few feet further from his lips.
Or, rather, his words were too quiet for Eddie’s one-body ears to pick up on. My wolf, on the other hand, strained mightily until our internal anatomy shifted, ensuring we were privy to the conversation taking place just beyond our physical reach.
“I believe you’re right,” my biological mother answered at precisely the same volume. “But make one more loop, if you don’t mind, to be certain. I don’t want to bring danger back to Eddie’s house.”
Not “our house” but “Eddie’s house.” My lips scrunched up into a moue, the possibility that Sebastien’s and my relationship might follow a similar trajectory hard to stomach. Because this was what happened when a werewolf married without mating. There might be affection, sharing, even love. But there was never truly any “ours.”
As if sensing my disappointment, Sebastien launched into the exact same topic I now itched to discuss. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but Ember and I are mated,” he murmured. Then, correcting himself: “Well, halfway mated. She chose me. Now it’s my turn to choose her back.”
I gasped as the tether that ran between us tightened, twisted, mimicked the same roiling in my gut that had made me throw up on the President’s shoes. “Are you alright?” Eddie demanded, pulling a chilled water bottle out of the cooler at our feet and pressing the cold plastic against my flushed cheek. “We can stop the car if you need to.”
Rogue Huntress Page 13
