by Lucy Lyons
“Oh, God no,” I blurted. “I don’t think we have a rat-population in Baton Rouge, that’s all. Just us wolves, a few panthers, and a pair of gators who don’t like us coming around their bait farm.”
“Were-alligators?” Nicholas gasped. “Now that is unexpected.”
I sighed, and managed to dredge up a weak smile. “Unexpected, but also not too helpful, sir.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve found a great many of my best allies were only connected to me by their hatred of my enemies.”
Goldie reached over and pried apart my fingers, unclenching the fist I hadn’t noticed I’d made to reveal half-moon depressions in my palm. They filled with blood as I watched and healed before my eyes.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever had true allies, Nicholas. I thought I had friends, a family . . .” I took a deep breath. “Now I don’t know that I had either.”
“The wolves who attacked you were your friends?”
“No, but the ones who let Porter be taken were supposed to be. They should’ve protected him. He’s an innocent, and we’re supposed to be the protectors of innocents. We had a whole war to kill off vampires over it. It was kind of a big deal.” I cringed as I realized what I’d said aloud, but Nicholas just nodded.
“I remember that war. I was in Europe at the time, it was of no consequence to us.”
“You didn’t care that we were trying to wipe your kind out?”
He laughed, a low and chilling sound. “There has never been much loyalty between clans, wolf.” He rubbed his jaw. “But more than that, I decided if the vampires were being so injudicious with their feeding that they forced the shifters to act against them, they were vampires deserving of true death.”
“I like your way of thinking.”
“But will you like it when you’re forced to admit that your wolves may have come to that point?”
I gaped at him. “My wolves don’t murder entire towns.”
“Yet.” He waved me back as I leaned forward in my seat, curling my lip up over my teeth. “I’ve been around long enough to see what can happen under a tyrant. We’d decimated your kind in Europe and the Middle East for the very same reason you did ours on the American continent.”
Next to me, I felt Goldie shiver. “Are we just doomed to be bad? Will we ever be able to be ourselves around humans without them having to fear us? Because we know they’d win, by sheer numbers alone.”
“One problem at a time, young wolf,” Nicholas chided gently. He smiled at us both and leaned back in his seat, legs crossed as he watched us. “I’m struck by how each new creature we bring into our fold seems to lead us further along the path to becoming . . . mainstream,” he said thoughtfully. “We’re weeding out the most feral and wild among us, and all the while reintroducing the old wild magics that have been gone for ages.”
“You think that by defeating Thaddeus, we’re ushering in a new age?”
“I think it is a step on that path, yes. You’ve met our clan, werewolves, wererats, vampires, witches, even fairies and high Fae all living in peace. Eventually, we will only be able to continue to evolve by bringing humans back into the equation.”
I thought about what he said, and what my king would think of that. As much as I hated thinking it, Nicholas was right. Thaddeus was more animal than man, the pack was terrified that I would reveal them by losing my control, but Skoll had brought wolves to his fight that weren’t royal. He’d made them, and they thought he was their alpha, because they didn’t know better. How could he have done so, without Thaddeus knowing, worse, helping him hide them from me?
“What is it?” Goldie murmured as Nicholas left his seat to discuss our arrival and transportation plans with Colette and the other vampires.
“I don’t think my king was worried about my powers as an alpha, as much as he was worried I’d find the other wolves,” I explained. “New wolves, made by Thaddeus or Skoll to serve him.”
“Wolves that were kept from the pack?”
“From the royals, yes.”
“So we don’t know how many we’ll be facing when we arrive.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “I have to warn Nicholas. I just brought you all into a trap that could be bigger than any of us could imagine. I never sensed a second pack in Baton Rouge, but they’ve got to be there. It’s the only thing that makes killing me make sense.” I let her take my hand despite the tug at my heart at the tenderness of her touch. “Why else would you kill the strongest among you, instead of trying to cure them?”
“We did our best for you and you were a stranger, Orson,” she reminded me. “Your pack has gone down a path that leads only to their own destruction. Nick was right.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to like it, do I?” I muttered. I motioned to Nicholas as I undid my seatbelt. I wasn’t going to be the cause of a new war between vampires and shifters. I had to finish the journey on my own.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I’d argued until I was blue in the face and even the wolf was ready to give up, or tear Nicholas’s face off, but he refused to let me go into pack territory alone. Without anyone I trusted enough to call, the best I seemed to offer him was to pay a visit to the gators first, hoping they kept tabs on us the way we did them.
My fingers hovered over the connect button after dialing the boarding house number for what seemed the hundredth time since we’d left Washington. She hadn’t told me Porter was taken, even after she’d promised to keep him safe. I didn’t know if she was forced to lie to save herself, or if she’d handed my brother right over, nullifying her so-called neutral territory. If it had been the second choice I hoped that selling Porter and I out, ate her up with guilt right until the moment I tore her head off.
Josiah had kept his distance since we boarded, but I felt his eyes on me even when my own were closed. Then again, I’d been avoiding Goldie as much as she’d let me. Being so close to the two of them while at least the vampire and I were unclear as to where we stood with her, made for a distraction I didn’t need. Not with Porter’s life on the line.
I was still thinking of him and scrolling through my phone, trying to somehow magically divine one person on the list I could trust to ask about my baby brother, when Josiah grabbed my shoulder and jerked his head toward the back of the plane, indicating for me to follow him.
“Hey, before you say anything, I wanted to thank you, for coming to my aid.” He didn’t respond to me right away, and I glanced around for space to fight, if it was going to come to that.
“I know you chose to leave her behind,” he finally sighed. “But I also know it wasn’t the right choice.”
“Hey. I’m not like the old wolves, who would simply steal their bride and hold her hostage until she gave up or got Stockholm syndrome, OK?” I clenched my fists without intending to and forced them open again, hanging my hands by my sides. “I don’t just need Goldie, I genuinely care about her.”
“But I love her.”
“Well, it’s not like I got enough time with her to justify saying that I do . . .”
“And yet, you do love her, don’t you?” He didn’t make it a question, so I didn’t bother to answer
“Frankly, son, I’m surprised the line of men I had to fight through wasn’t longer.”
“Look. If you survive this, and you reject Goldie after what she was willing to lose to not end up the monster you say she’ll be, I’ll kill you myself. We had something real that didn’t require some kind of magical roofie to make it happen. If I knew you could die and I could protect her from it, I’d let you burn.”
I laughed abruptly and pushed past him toward the seats before glancing back over my shoulder. “Don’t get your hopes up, Joe. I have no intention of dying to make your life easier, and I won’t be turning my back on you in the fight. Unless you wanted to settle this now?”
He flicked his fingers at me imperiously, dismissing me with a grimace of distaste. I laughed aloud then, shaking my head as I returne
d to my seat. Where before, I’d been uncertain and full of doubt that any of us would make it out alive, I felt my resolve harden. No matter the outcome, or what had been done to my brother, I knew one thing for sure. Anyone who tried to come between Goldie and me, or take her from me, would experience true death—no matter which side they claimed to be on.
The remainder last couple of hours on that luxury flying tin box was tense and quiet. The entire plan of preternatural beings had heard the threats Josiah and I had lobbed at each other, and despite the rage that kept me from feeling desperate and hopeless, I still didn’t have a proper plan of attack or any idea what I was up against.
I’d been shut out of the only community I‘d ever known, torn away from my family and friends, only to realize more with each passing minute that my entire life had been made up of a thick webbing of lies that the pack was suspended from. Every choice we made plucked at the lines and by them, Thaddeus made his choices too, of which of us he would destroy next. He was the master spider, and my parents, my brother, and I were all just victims in a long con he’d been running possibly since before I was born.
His violence and temper had been thought to be simply the evil necessities of leading in swiftly changing times. But I couldn’t remember the last time his queen had led a ritual, or run with us in the hunt, or smiled.
“You’ve just thought of something important,” the vampire Colette murmured in my ear as she slid past me and sat in the seat Nicholas had occupied before.
“Just wondering where my queen was while her mate was slowly leeching the life out of our pack. She’s my cousin, you know, or rather, my mom’s cousin.”
“And Thaddeus? What’s the relation there? I mean, a single pack of royals, you’d all have to be a little, um . . . inbred?”
I paused and thought for a moment. “No relation. He’s always just been around.”
“So he might not be of the royal line at all? Maybe brought in from the outside to keep the blood from running too thin?”
I shrugged and chewed my lip until it hurt and I could taste the sweet metallic copper of my own blood. “I don’t know. I’m barely considered an adult. The council’s never shared information like that with me.”
“But it makes sense.” I nodded in agreement and she patted my hand. “Don’t worry about it too much, kiddo, you really are very young, after all. We’ll get your brother and fix you both up in a jiff.”
“In a jiff?” I laughed. “I have to admit that sounds a little weird coming from a vampire wearing dominatrix gear and a dog collar, about to go into battle wearing what I have only ever known as ‘stripper heels.’”
She grinned and ran her fingers up over her torn stockings, guiding my eyes toward the hem of her barely-there skirt. “Oh, the things I could whisper in your ear would make your soul scream in terror and keep you awake every night for the rest of your years.”
“I believe you.” I glanced back at Goldie and Josiah, who were sitting silently across from one another on the other side of the plane. “But when you say it like that, you make me want you to try.”
She giggled and leaned forward to pat me on the knee. “You say all the right things, alpha.” So fast I didn’t have time to move, she was leaning over me, her knee between my legs as she snarled at me. “But I plan to kill tonight, and you really don’t want to be in my sights when I forget to be friendly.”
“See? Why couldn’t Josiah be more like you?” I asked without flinching, even though my gut felt like it was going to drop out from under me. “I prefer an honest villain to a con-man pretending to be a good guy, while waiting to gut you when you blink.”
Colette pulled away from me and looked thoughtful. “I do prefer that my toys know I’m about to gut them before I do it.” A sound from Nicholas made her slide back into her own seat, where she eyed me like a feral cat.
“I’m glad you’ll be fighting on my side, ma’am,” I said after a long silence. “I’d rather have someone ruthless at my back that I know is ready to kill.”
“And if I’m ready to kill you?”
“I trust your master to prevent that. After all, he’s the one trying to bring your kind into the mainstream, mundane human world.”
She pouted and crossed her arms, pushing her breasts up further over the top of her leather bustier. “Can you smell a lie? Is that why you’re not scared?”
“Nah, ma’am, I’m just too worried about Porter to be scared for, or of, anyone else right now. I’m sure when everything else has bled away, I’ll wake up in a sweat because of you.” She smiled and it brightened her ashen face, lighting all the way to her eyes, and in that moment, I felt a shadow of the fear she could create stir inside me. It wasn’t that she loved violence, it was the sheer, innocent delight she took in being terrifying that shook me.
She was tortured into what she became, Orson, don’t judge her too harshly. Goldie’s voice soothed my mind. If she’d been left where she was, instead of Nicholas’s care, she would be the very thing your people fear the most. I glanced at her, sitting close to her vampire lover and irritation bordering on jealousy coursed through me. Rather than answer, I shielded my mind to keep her out and avoided looking their way.
The pilot came over the PA system to warn us of our impending approach, and our motley crew all took their seats, leaving Colette and I to sit with Nicholas and Goldie sitting with Josiah. I buckled myself in and reminded myself that I’d already given her up, and I owed the both of them my life, and tried to pay attention to what Nicholas was saying to his lieutenant.
“Orson must avoid his apartment. It’s too obvious a trap, and I think Clay would agree that wolf honor would demand he go straight to their council.” He glanced at me and I nodded in agreement.
“But what about the trap there? Surely you aren’t going to send our boy in there and just pray that the rest of us can get past whatever guard is in place?”
I cleared my throat and Nicholas stopped mid-word and nodded at me. “I’ve heard that vampires have the ability to . . .” I waved my hand like I was doing a magic trick as I searched for the word, and Colette arched one eyebrow at me in amusement. “The ability to I don’t know, cloak yourselves?”
Colette shimmered and disappeared before my eyes, leaving me blinking in the low light of the cabin to see where she’d moved to, only to have her reappear just as quickly.
“It’s called glamour, Orson, and as powerful as you are, if the Fae will see you, one day you will probably know how to do it too.”
“So you could go to the Mrs. Abernathy’s boarding house and . . . poke around?” She nodded with a glance at Nicholas.
“I think it’s a good idea. They won’t know to look for me, not since we killed all their wolves in Washington.”
Nicholas’s face was unreadable, almost inhuman as he considered, and my blood ran cold in my veins, making the hair stand on my neck and arms. “So be it. Colette will go to your home first and join us as we approach the dell where your pack is waiting for you.”
“It’s only a couple hours until morning in the east, Nicholas. When are we going after my brother?”
We have secured lodging for our people in New Orleans. I have a comrade there who isn’t affiliated with a clan, and offered her home to us.”
“There’s a vampire in New Orleans?” I gasped. How very cliché.” Colette was at my throat in an instant, the chill of her fingers making me shiver as she squeezed down on my windpipe in warning.
“To be welcomed into the home of the Mother of vampires is a great honor, Orson. Do not be flippant about her, if you wish to live to save your pack.”
Nicholas barked out an order in a language older than any I understood, and Colette was back in her seat, cleaning under her fingernails with a bored expression on her face.
“What the fuck is wrong with you people?” I gasped. “Are you completely incapable of a normal human reaction to anything?”
Colette curled her lip at me as I fought to keep the wolf
down. We could kill them all, the beast assured me. Destroy the head, the beast dies. I quelled the blood thirst that was rising like bile in my throat and watched the night sky out the window, as the stars in my view became more familiar. Even with the magic that dampened my wolf, I felt it exult as we neared home. The pull to go straight to the ritual grounds and face the council was almost unbearable in my human form, but thankfully, Caroline and Henny’s magic was strong. Stronger, perhaps, than even our Vaudun mambo.
I felt Goldie push at my boundaries and closed her out as hard as I could, focusing on the pilot’s drawl as we made our final approach into Gulfport, Mississippi. My skin itched with the need to change and follow the Pearl River back to Baton Rouge, but the magic kept the wolf at bay and strengthened my mental shielding against intrusion from Goldie. Or Thaddeus, a small voice in my head reminded me. The closer we got to home, the more likely that he’d sense me.
Crossing my legs under me, I began to meditate the way Miriam, our mambo, had taught me to do when she first saw the signs of soul-sickness. The plane lurched and tilted in the sky as the pilot wove our way down to earth, but in my mind, I was a leaf floating down from a tree branch. No longer a werewolf or even a man, I pared down my imaginary self to the simplest form I could imagine, while we pitched in the crosswinds blowing across Gulfport.
