Werewolf Forbidden

by Christina E. Rundle

  Mercer shifted in his seat again, this time to unclasp the collar from the back of his pants. It wasn’t the stones along the leather strip alone, that made it heavy. He fingered the smooth edge, trying to imagine Wolffey with it around his neck, and failed.

  “How long have you known about the gestohlen?” Rider asked. His voice was muted from looking down between his hands.

  Mercer sympathized. His second in command had three times the amount of fey sedative in his system. The discomfort was in his tight tone, though Rider didn’t moan about it. He thought hard on the question. His betas wouldn’t challenge him, but the gestohlen wasn’t someone he enjoyed talking about. Wolffey became his dirty little secret after the death of Sergeant Ezekiel and his unit.

  “How long did you know?” Rider repeated. This time he sat up, making his voice clear.

  This was a personal topic for a number of reasons. He chose his words carefully. “I met him when I was eighteen. He was merely a boy, but I couldn’t tell with the mask. I couldn’t get close enough to kill him.”

  It wasn’t Wolffey’s blood that soaked the assassin’s black, ninja style clothing. His long brown hair was tied back in a low ponytail and he’d been wearing a thin painted mask. He was in the middle of torturing a man that was twice his age who outweighed him in muscle and brute force. The man’s tongueless scream still haunted Mercer’s memories. It wasn’t just a hit. Wolffey was sent there to punish. He tried saving the man, but the young teen wouldn’t have it. The killing shot had been dead center between the stranger’s eyes. Wolffey’s marksmanship was outstanding given the distance he’d been standing and the near gloom of the room.

  The car was utterly silent. Wyatt turned the car down the dirt road leading back to the farm house. The vehicle rocked on the gravel, stirring his nausea. They had another five miles before they arrived home. He was determined to hold the sickness down.

  “Second time I met him, he saved my life,” that startled both of them. He could see it in the teen’s dilated eyes. Mercer asked why, but the assassin only stared at him with a sense of detachment, and then disappeared. At that point, he wasn’t even certain the teen understood English. “The third time we ran into each other, I tried to contain him. I was finally close enough to smell that he was a lycan.”

  And the teen got him on his back and bit his neck. The show of assertion had left him temporarily dazed. The teen growled in his ear with a heavy brogue, “stay down.” He fought the instincts that immediately surfaced at being bit. It was too close to the full moon to be challenged. His mind hazed over one word that kept repeating itself, mate. Of all the potential companions that challenged him for a spot as mate, his human and werewolf spirit never found its match until he was utterly encompassed by the assassin’s scent.

  His werewolf spirit was wrong. This killer wasn’t his counterpart.

  “Pull over,” Axel ordered.

  The minute the car stopped, the van door slid open and Axel was vomiting on the side of the road. Mercer sunk into his chair and squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn’t admitted everything, but he felt empty, like he laid every secret on the table. The sickness rolled through him and he was ready to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way to the house.

  “We need to get you home so I can take a sample of your blood and test any liquid residue still in the darts,” Wyatt said. His lab in the basement was fully equipped.

  Mercer waved the medical student’s hand from his forehead. “I’ll survive.”

  Axel got back in the van, carrying the smell of sickness with him. “I want to take the coldest shower in the world. This fucking sucks.”

  “You whine a lot for a fully grown man,” Briley teased.

  “It does suck,” Rider growled in the fold of his hands once more.

  “Wolffey killed General Ezekiel,” Wyatt said. They sat confined in the quiet car as Wyatt tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel in thought. “Five guards were killed that night. One arrow a piece, clean shot. You’re the only shot he took and he missed your heart. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Mercer threw him a sidelong glance. “I’ve never talked about it. How do you know this?”

  Wyatt started the car and the hum vibrated through the seat, rocking Mercer’s head. That particular night, a few years into his service under Sergeant Ezekiel, was far too vivid and having it spoken out loud did little for his nerves. There was something cold in the assassin’s eyes. It happened so quickly. The quivers were a blur. The silver arrow seared through his muscle and flesh, straight to the other side, nearly nailing him to the wall. Wolffey lowered his bow, held his gaze, and then disappeared.

  “I read your file,” Wyatt said. “Was that the last you saw of him?”

  The last time he’d seen the assassin, was the night he challenged Gio for the position as Texas alpha. It was a new moon in the dead of winter, the only time of year a challenge for alpha could be made. The pack gave an electric charge to the circle he stood in, facing off with the alpha that was three times his age and a great deal heavier. The fight was to the death. Blood tinted the air. Despite the push of his animal instincts to survive, he was allured by the very familiar scent of the assassin. His animal intelligence switched gears. It became a show of strength; proof that he was the ultimate alpha. His werewolf wanted Wolffey to acknowledge his capability.

  Heat warmed Mercer’s face as he stared at the beacon of light from the farmhouse looming in the distance. “Until tonight,” he lied.

  His betas didn’t need to know the sordid details. He wasn’t going to explain the incident that lead up to his irrational inner conscious accepting a contracted killer as his mate. He couldn’t explain why Wolffey came to the farmhouse the night he fought Geo. The assassin didn’t wait after his victory to talk to him. He was gone and a decade later, what was said at the Bird Nest was the most he’d had of a conversation with the younger man.

  Despite the late hour, light poured from every window and the lot was full of cars. His pack came a few days earlier than agreed, which meant the news about the Mission being in town reached everyone’s ears. He sat in the car, gathering his thoughts as Wyatt cut the engine.

  “I really need to run a lab sample of your blood to make sure there are no lasting issues,” Wyatt said. “We don’t know what is in your system.”

  “Test Rider and Axel,” Mercer said, getting out of the car first.

  Wyatt was right behind him. “I need to test all of you.”

  He stopped at the porch. The noise inside the house had a pulse. Dishes were being served, voices hummed louder than the buzz of insect wings in the sweltering night. A group laughed and it made the night gentler. “Getting Hota back is my first priority.”

  “Your first priority should be to the pack,” Wyatt countered.

  Wyatt’s brothers stood behind him, but no one was ready to jump into the argument. Mercer’s attention slid to both Axel and Rider. They looked like the walking dead and he was sure he didn’t look much better. The sedative was potent. Wyatt said Wolffey had warned of side effects. He wasn’t sure if mood swings and confusion was part of it. God, he hoped that was the reason his conscious was ridiculously focused on the assassin.

  “See what you can do for them and if it works, find me,” he said. He threw the door open, surprising a cluster of omegas. No one spoke as he moved up the staircase in need of a shower. Two days without sleep left little room for focus. The fey sedative didn’t help and every time he subconsciously brought his hand to his face, he smelled the assassin. Without a doubt, he really needed that shower.

  oOo

  The metal door flung open, hitting the brick wall. Music blasted into the alleyway until the door latched closed. A burly woman stood alone in the alley, well over six feet in height with broad shoulders. She raised a cigarette to her lips and walked to the edge of the trashcan.

  “You can come down,” Roxy said. Her voice was deep.

  “Wolffey, that’s Roxanne Deling. She’s a henchm
an for Chancellor. This is worse and worse,” Rufus fretted.

  Wolffey separated himself from the shadows, ignoring Rufus’s anxiety. On a better night, he would’ve taken a bird’s eye view and waited somewhere higher. With the loss of his dexterity, he couldn’t risk farther injury, which left him grounded, but not vulnerable.

  “Roxy,” he greeted with a curt nod. The woman in question wore a plaid shirt, fingerless gloves, jeans and boots. Her hair was chopped short, not styled and she wore no makeup on her round face. “You’re getting better at this.”

  Her stony gray eyes took him in. “When I smell orange groves, I know someone from the Unseelie Court is nearby.”

  She wasn’t an enemy, but he’d never turn his back on her either.

  “I could’ve been something far more unpleasant from the pits of the court. You never pulled the weapon strapped at your back,” he said.

  Her smile was as stony as her eyes. “I knew who I was dealing with; the orange blossoms aren’t your defining scent. Besides, I saw your shadow.”

  He glanced back at the closed door. The light inside had been a deep blue, hardly bright enough to spill into the alleyway and not even the moon shined between the two buildings. What she defined as a shadow wasn’t the physical shadow from light being blocked by his body. Being a goon for Chancellor allowed her to tap into the magi’s magic. It was a strong reminder how difficult it would be to sneak into Chancellor’s domain undetected.

  He pulled the small bottle of Beithir venom from his back pocket and held it up for her to see. “Your contact wasn’t at the Bird Nest.”

  In turn, Roxy pulled on her gloves and closed the distance between them. “I wanted to make this trade in person. I knew you’d find me.”

  “What are ye doing? Ye can’na give Roxanne that,” Rufus warned. When his attention drifted to the map, his aura brightened. The lights of knowledge flicked on in his head. “Lad, ye’re trying to get into Chancellor’s?”

  Wolffey didn’t spare the spirit a glance. Roxy didn’t act as though she saw him, so he had to assume her metaphysical third eye had limitations. Rufus fluttered a little higher, silently watching.

  Roxy eyed him. “If my memory serves me, you received a personal tour of the castle.”

  It had been an uncomfortable tour. Chancellor had fawned over him with embarrassingly feminine words such as gorgeous, beautiful and lovely; something he was sure both Sayen-ael and Aire’Si noticed in the parlor. Aire’Si hadn’t wanted him to go alone with her, but Sayen-ael agreed far too quickly. He remembered some details, the colors of the hallway, the strange layout of the brick flooring. Instead of gravel, the sealant was gold between the brick. The windows in some of the rooms provided views of various worlds. That had intrigued him.

  Chancellor hadn’t showed him all the rooms, but the one he distinctly remembered was the Rainbow Room, with walls of various colored brick. The room was oval and the four windows all looked onto places he was sure were beyond the reach of the fey. One window looked over a red dusty world with a low sun and moon. Another window looked out over fields with animals that were extinct according to Aire’Si. Another window showed an underwater world. He wanted to open that window to see if the water would come in. It was dark and murky, making it impossible to see anything farther out, except the salt that swayed in the currents. The last window looked over a white fog.

  He shook the thought. “I need the key to the Rainbow room, not a map.”

  “You think a key will get you that much closer to Hera’s Nectar? Once in the Rainbow Room, you still have to find it,” Roxy said.

  There it was out in the open. He’d been holding his breath, praying that Roxy wouldn’t say it. Now Rufus knew what he was after.

  Wolffey pulled the vile back when Roxy reached for it. “Give me the key first.”

  She threw her head back and barked with laugher. “Wolffey, if I had the two pieces of the key, my price would be higher.” Her eyes took him in. “Did you forget how to fight?”

  He didn’t need to look in the mirror to know he was badly scratched by the pine fey. “The deal was that you’d give me the keys.”

  “I didn’t promise the keys assassin. I promised you the information on where to find the keys. They’re still within your grasp, even if I’m not the one with them.”

  His side ached, a not so subtle reminder that the venom would eventually liquefy his organs closest to the cut. He handed her the vial.

  “You will need two keys to open the Rainbow Room. Akili has one and the goddess Lilith has the second.”

  It was fitting that two women held Chancellor’s keys. He knew how to find Lilith, but he wasn’t thrilled about Akili. She wouldn’t be thrilled when he came by and she wasn’t going to willingly hand over the key. He wasn’t up for a fight and she’d expect nothing less than a pound of flesh for the trouble he put her through.

  TEN

  The message was written in Gaelic and sprawled on a golden leaf. Eventually the soft surface would harden and crumble. Aire’Si would lose another trinket from Zella-sael, the Queen of the Seelie. He fought the desire to raise it to his nose, to take in her distinct scent. The forest had spies and he’d be damned if Sayen took something else that mattered to him.

  The moonlight shifted between the trees. The humans said it was darkest before dawn, but they were unable to feel the heavy pull of the sun just beyond the skyline.

  The quiet stirred. The smell of cherry blossoms announced his caller. "Aire, I appreciate you meeting me on such short notice."

  Aire didn’t immediately turn to greet Zella. She enjoyed her games, and he was wrapped around her finger. "You wish to speak with me Zella-sael?"

  She frowned, "It hurts when you are dispassionate. You wish to be formal, very well." She came around his side, a vision of spring beauty with hair the same warm, innocent shade as a baby chick. Her pine green eyes never left his. Her star-bright white dress glittered and drifted, near weightless towards the bottom, with a lack of gravity only the Seelie royalty possessed. "Aire-sael, I'm glad you came."

  His jaw tightened. Giving him the royal title sael was a slight, and she knew it. "Careful, sweet queen, or your king’s royal subjects might call mutiny."

  Her eyes twinkled with amusement, but the humor didn’t touch her angelic, porcelain face. “Do not be concerned for me, Aire-seal. I only speak the truth on behalf of your Seelie blood.” She bit her lower lip in false submission. “Or do you fear my safety because my king happens to be your half brother?”

  “I hardly wish to give the impression that I want claim over my brother’s court,” Aire’Si said, though it wasn’t completely true. There was one thing his brother owned that he wanted more than the air he breathed. “Though there is one item of his that I’d gladly see him on the battle field for.”

  Zella promptly shut her mouth and demurely looked away. “Such words would cause a war far greater than you would intend.”

  “I would gladly start it.” He spoke with true conviction.

  Her attention flicked back up at him. “I believe that, but that’s not why I called this meeting. My king wishes to make a deal with you.”

  “Then why didn’t he come himself?” He couldn’t keep the annoyance from his tone. It would be stupid to think Zella would come unguarded, at night, to the boarder of the two realms. Yet, he had a feeling what she wanted to talk about concerned a very controversial subject for both realms, which meant no prying eyes.

  “Neither of us should be involved, but we are,” she answered. The coldness was back, freezing her features. “All the faeries are at risk with the werewolf child in your queen’s possession.”

  Wolffey was not considered a child by the standards of a Topsider, but the werewolves would consider him young. “Broach the topic with caution. I will hear you out, but know that my loyalty is to the Unseelie Court.”

  “You understand that taking the werewolf child breeches the agreement we made with the werewolves. Now Sayen’s assassi
n is running Topside, unrestricted. He needs to be put down before the werewolves realize he’s a child of their own working under the favor of the Unseelie Court,” she said.

  Her cherry blossom pink lips were moving, but Aire’Si stopped listening. Wolffey was a sore subject. At one time, he agreed with Zella, but not now. He wouldn’t kill his protégé.

  “Wolffey has been with the Unseelie court over sixteen years. Why now is there an interest in the well being of the courts?” He knew the answer had to do with the items Wolffey stole. His protégé had gone too far starting an upheaval among the sectors.

  “My king wants Wolffey dead.” She laid it on the line without batting her long lashes.

  Aire mulled over her declaration. He understood death on the finer levels, but Wolffey wasn’t just a name passed off on a card. He wasn’t just a faceless target. Wolffey was his protégé.

  What was so important that Wolffey would stay on the grid between both the Seelie and Unseelie territory? The Roswell fey held governance over Nevada, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. If his protégé took residence in those areas, the Seelie and Unseelie couldn’t touch him. But Wolffey wasn’t running from the faeries, he was keeping them distracted.

  You’re over thinking. He never felt a need to nitpick other people’s logic and actions, but this wasn’t a normal situation. If his hand was forced to kill his protégé, he wanted to know why Wolffey did this. His protégé had never shown any distress while in the Hill.

  “My king can make this benefit the both of us,” she stepped closer, dropping her voice. Her hand brushed down his check, her nails drew along the skin under his jaw. Her green eyes held his attention, but he refused to touch her in this little game. Nothing she said would make him happy. “Wolffey’s been touched by the faeries, he cannot be released back with the lycans and he cannot stay in the Hill. You need to cleanse the Hill and kill him.”

  His anger burned warmly, but his tone remained stilted and emotionless. “You said this would benefit the both of us.”

  Making the young assassin disappear wouldn’t be difficult, but lying to Sayen-ael would be. She had the power of his full name; that he had willingly given to her as a gift so she could whisper it and take his strength to save her life.