THIRTY
The floorboards squeaked, letting Mercer know he had company. He looked away from the window, half expecting Sadie or Eva. He was thrown off by Wyatt standing solemn in the doorframe.
The young surgeon stayed where he was, not willing to enter the alpha’s private territory without an invitation. After the day he had, Mercer wasn’t up for company, but he understood the young man’s loss. It was on a different scale, but there was no denying the sudden emptiness.
With the Ghost Moon over and most of the Mission off his territory, Mercer expected his anxiety to lift. He was surrounded by his pack and the comforting smells of home, yet the feeling of displacement was strong. Something was missing.
He stood on the edge of the porch with Hota a few steps away. His father washed with their shower gel, used their towels and now smelled like his pack. Hota’s black hair was showing gray at the temples. The skin under his eyes was still dark with exhaustion.
Tristen, Quincy and Acacia, Hota’s best fighters, waited patiently at the car, privy to the conversation. The rest of Hota’s betas were at the airport. Now that they were alone, he was sure Hota would get to the reason for his visit.
“Expect to hear from me,” Hota said, moving down the steps.
“Is that it? You came here for a reason,” Mercer said.
Hota turned back to him. His patience was a façade. “Tristen tells me you are aware of your status among the North American Mission.”
“You came out here during the Ghost Moon to tell me this?” Mercer asked.
The screen door opened and shut, casual, though boorishly arrogant. Hota’s brow lifted. The smell of their guest filled the air; alpha female, close to heat. “You know what I expect from you, Mercer. Don’t disappoint.”
Mercer glanced back at Eva in a spaghetti strap, white dress. Her wedges added to her height. She crossed over to Hota and handed him a brown lunch sack.
“Here is a little snack for the road. Airline food isn’t filling,” she said.
Hota took the bag, throwing a sidelong glance at Mercer. When Mercer failed to respond to the nonverbal gesture, Hota cleared his throat. “I sent two good alpha females. I want grandchildren.”
Eva shined. Mercer refused to take the bait.
“Until we meet again, Eva.” Hota gave her a curt nod. She returned the gesture, comfortable with the notion that Hota gave his blessing.
The tension didn’t ease in Mercer’s shoulders; even as he watched the black car with its dark tinted windows drive off down the dirt path. The whole incident with Chancellor felt like a dream. There were no images or sounds in his head, nothing to piece the last handful of days together.
Eva leaned on the banister, stretching to make her legs and torso longer. She looked at peace on his porch. “You haven’t said a word.”
Mercer pressed his fingers in a circular motion against his temples to ease the pressure. “Don’t romanticize a war, Eva. We lost twenty-two betas and many were wounded.”
Daxtin was among the injured. His recuperation was slow, but there was proof that Dax would heal.
Eva shrugged, pulling hand sanitizer from the tiny pocket sewn into the dress. “You are next in line for the Mission. People should know your capabilities.”
The plume of orange blossoms made everything on his mind, stop. He crossed over to her, catching her hand and bringing it to his nose. For a second, the smell almost brought an image, but it was lost when the harsher ingredients in her hand sanitizer made his eyes water.
“Are you okay?”
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the fleeting image back to the forefront of his mind. He let her go and rubbed his temple.
“Mercer?” she repeated.
They both turned when the screen door squeaked open. Rider and Fallah stood beside each other.
“Breakfast is ready,” Fallah said.
Mercer’s attention went to Rider. His second was as tired as all of them. Eva lingered on the porch a moment longer, waiting to see what Mercer would do. She wanted a place on the farm, as bad as Sadie. Now that the trouble with Hota was behind him, he had to decide on how to get rid of them.
He walked past her. Fallah caught him and pulled him into the hallway. In a house of creatures with acute hearing, a hushed conversation was as private as they could make the conversation.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“It doesn’t feel like I’ve woken up since we returned from Chancellor’s. I can’t remember half the things that happened. Do you think Chancellor did something to me?”
She frowned. “Even if Chancellor placed a spell on you, magic doesn’t linger after the caster is dead. It would’ve fractured. Wyatt said you were fine. You’re still upset. That was a close call for everyone who went.”
Wyatt said the same thing, but it didn’t make the last couple of days any clearer. The noise in the kitchen grew. Fallah reached out, taking his hand and giving it a light squeeze.
“Everything is going to be better,” she said. She released his hand when Rider came around the corner.
“The food is going fast,” he warned.
Mercer motioned his chin for her to go and followed behind, noticing how close she stood to Rider and how his hand casually brushed her back. The motion was innocent, but spoke volumes. Rider was interested in her.
The kitchen windows were open, but it did little for the body heat mixed with oven heat. Still, the kitchen was one of his favorite places. He’d gone from having no family to having more than he could handle at times. Fallah was right; it was a stressful week. He needed to get back in the swing of things.
oOo
It hurt to breathe. Wolffey blinked against the will-o-wasp light. It wasn’t bright, but it stung his sticky, dry eyes. Memories flooded through the haze of his bone deep pain. The last time it hurt this badly to move, he’d been a child on the farm and Giordano was determined to kill him with his fists.
His breath rattled from his parched lips. He tried pulling moisture into his mouth, but his body was dehydrated. Even the blood was dry on the back of his tongue. He tightened his muscles, but there was no strength in his core to sit.
His thoughts circled back to the healer with the bone knife. The line from his chin down to his chest throbbed. There was an itch under his skin, but his hands were still latched to the table.
“Stop.” The order was sharp. Sayen-ael pulled free from the shadowy corner of the room and stopped beside the table, within reach. Her eyes rolled over his naked body, but Wolffey didn’t have the energy to care. “You’re going to tear your stitches.”
He swallowed, trying to find the energy to speak. His air escaped him in a soft whine that borderline a cry. Pain shot from his jaw into his ears and skull.
“I am aware you are still experiencing pain,” she said. Her long fingers drew up his arm probing a cut. “You are lucky I did not ask him to drag it out.”
It sucked air between his teeth, forcing the words out. “Are the werewolves dead?”
Talking hurt, but not nearly as badly as the question he needed answered.
Nothing broke Sayen-ael’s careful mask. “The task is completed.”
“Who did you send?” Wolffey held his breath. She didn’t answer. Wolffey released his breath, wishing he’d never woken up. Assassins didn’t sob, but the breath he sucked back into his lungs sounded like one.
Sayen-ael leaned over him. Thick, straight strands of black hair fell over her shoulders. “Your physique has been altered. Do you feel different?”
“What species of demon did you use?” he whispered, or he thought he did. Sayen-ael’s brows furrowed and the slight turn of her head said she hadn’t heard. He repeated himself. “What did you do to me?”
He could see himself reflected in her endless, dark fey eyes. She was a predator but she was hardly hunting prey. The muscle in her sharp jaw ticked as she calculated an answer for the question.
“Your body did not reject the transplant fro
m the demon. No one has survived a cross-species transplant,” she said. There was weight to the comment. She was suspicious. “Since you came here, you have become less of a werewolf and more of a realm skipper. You had your chance at freedom and didn’t take it.”
He kept his jaw tight, unsure if that was a question or a statement. He wasn’t going to tell her about Hera’s Nectar. Wolffey’s body pressed into the table, wanting release from it all, but he remained painfully conscious. The door opened and Dugald walked in with his guard in gold.
Exhaustion pulled him back into the darkness; seconds or minutes, he couldn’t tell. There were four of them. He could tell long before his eyes focused. He heard their hearts thumping in their chests. The fifth heartbeat, the loudest, was his.
“It’s too soon to move him,” a softer voice argued; the healer. He could smell the woodland fey.
“I want him in the pit. Move him,” Sayen-ael ordered.
The straps that bound his wrists and ankles were roughly tugged loose, forcing his achy body into movement. The pain was sharp, stealing his breath. His limbs didn’t feel attached, or maybe that was where the healer had sewn new flesh. He tried to breathe, even with the others crowding around the narrow table.
The queen stood closer now glaring down at him with black eyes, reflective like mirrors. He offered her nothing, not even his anger.
“Do you feel different?” she asked.
That was the question of the hour. Wolffey held back the desire to tell her just how different he felt. “Not at all.”
Her brows lifted, aware of the lie. “Excellent.”
The sentries grabbed him under the arms and hoisted him off the table. The jolting movement made every nerve ending along his torso, chest and upper arms tighten. His vision spun. His stomach lurched, and he leaned forward, but not quick enough to escape the bile that ran down his chin. There was nothing in his stomach to purge except the herbs the healer forced down his throat.
His chin drooped to his chest, drawing his attention to the thick, black twine that pulled his puckered red flesh together. The stitches stretched down his chest to his torso in numerous lines. A haze closed in at the edge of his vision. They were moving even as his mind grinded to a halt. Aire’Si said demon transplant.
His feet dragged along the floor as they came to the narrow staircase that wound deep into the ground. He never went into the pit. There was never a reason. He never brought prisoners back.
There was a particular smell to this deeper hole in the earth, one that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. A guard walked ahead of them with a will-o-wasp. The soft, luminous glow cut through the blackness. Every step they took, he felt less connected to the Unseelie Court.
The winding staircase stirred the sickness. It started with his vision as the growing illness roved down his spine and through him. Before he could open his mouth and dry heave, they were on the ground floor. There were no lights, but his eyes could see clearly down the endless tunnel of cells. The only critters moving in the fey dungeon were the earthworms scratching inside the dirt walls. The presence of strong earth magic pushed against the walls of his mind and body.
Sayen-ael’s heels clapped hard against the polished wood flooring as she walked head of her guard. He didn’t count how many cells they passed or dwell on the knowledge that every cell was empty. She was burying him.
He looked up when they stopped. Her eyes glimmered in the dim light as they roved over his bare flesh. He grimaced at what reflected back in her obsidian eyes. Matted in blood with thick, wiry stitches; he hardly looked real. He clamped his jaw to keep it from shaking. Exhaustion dragged his body to the ground, but the guards wouldn’t let him go.
“Ten years of solitude will give you a chance to reflect on your priorities,” Sayen-ael said. “But I will be back every year to see you beat senseless unless you tell me where you put the Roswell Amulet.”
He kept his jaw tightly shut. The guards pushed him into the cell and he went down, boneless. Dirt powdered the inside of his mouth. He didn’t have the muscle to sit up. The cold ground took the burn from his skin.
“I will enjoy this,” Sayen-ael said.
The vibration from the slammed door echoed through his bones. Coldness seeped from the floor and walls. He was frozen. Inky blackness settled in when the last of the will-o-wasp light disappeared from the crease under the door.
“Rufus?” he whispered.
The solitude was maddening.
Werewolf Forbidden Page 31
