Tarnished

by Rhiannon Held

  Andrew and Sacramento were locked in a staring contest now, Sacramento laughing as he squeezed Silver’s shoulder and she whimpered brokenly. He didn’t notice Susan. Because she was human, perhaps.

  Susan was glad to be human, then. He didn’t notice her as she circled around to stand so she had a straight line to his head without endangering Silver. Susan’s hands shook, but it was point-blank range, and she remembered the grip at least from when her brother had dragged her to the range. She remembered to take off the safety, only to discover Sacramento had never even put it back on.

  She pulled the trigger.

  It was louder than she’d expected, even with the silencer. Good thing they were down in the basement. One. She focused on the hole, to be sure it had appeared on his head, not anywhere near Silver. Everything else, she ignored.

  Two. He slumped sideways from Silver. Susan stepped closer to shoot down at his heart. How many had Dare said would kill one of them? She couldn’t remember.

  Three. Four. Susan fired until she emptied the clip.

  Then she put the safety back on and dropped the gun because her hands were shaking so hard—her whole body was shaking so hard—her guts clenched into a knot that was too tight to bear, and she doubled over, vomiting. She didn’t want to see the blood, but she couldn’t not see the blood. Stomach empty, she kept retching. “You wouldn’t stop hurting people!” She meant it to come out screamed, defiant, but it came out as a sob, more sobs following it. She collapsed to her hands and knees.

  14

  Andrew saw the light go out of Sacramento’s eyes after the first shot barked. Fresh blood scent flooded his next breath. The shock that had begun when he saw Susan lift the gun kept him frozen as she fired again and again. Tears streamed down Susan’s cheeks as she fired, but she remained silent until she’d emptied the clip and dropped the gun.

  Andrew sprinted to Silver when Susan stopped firing. He caught her around the waist as she swayed, almost following Sacramento to the floor. The smell of the gunpowder poisoned the air, layering over the blood and the stink of death.

  “I didn’t mean she should actually kill him.” Silver’s eyes were too wide, shocky. “Just remove his weapon. Dare, they’ll kill her…”

  Andrew folded Silver into his arms. She gasped and he adjusted his grip. He hadn’t even touched her shoulder, but her whole side must be on fire. “It’s all right, we’ll figure it out.” He pressed his cheek against her hair and inhaled her scent. She was alive. Thank the Lady, she was alive. And Susan, and all of Seattle.

  Susan had stopped retching now and hugged herself. Stupid human woman. Stupid, moronic, idiotic, brave human woman. She’d done what none of the rest of them could—or was it, none of them could bring themselves to do?

  Andrew’s stomach twisted with an instinct to comfort her. The pack had all drawn back, whether from her, the gun, or the dead body, he couldn’t tell in the layered scents. But unfortunately there were others in need of more immediate attention. Susan would have to hang on for a few more minutes. He nodded in thanks to the pack member unlocking Pierce’s collar and helped Silver move with him as he went to Tom. He put a hand on the young man’s shoulder and Tom lifted Edmond off his lap so Andrew could see none of his wounds still bled. No way to tell that by smell in the atmosphere down here.

  The blond goon stuck his head around the door. Whether he anticipated helping his alpha clean up, or if the number of shots had worried him, Andrew didn’t know, but his face twisted to shock at seeing his alpha down.

  He shouted for his compatriot and thundered down the stairs. The second goon arrived as the blond knelt to verify his alpha’s lack of pulse. He shook his head at the darker man, and their heads turned as one to Susan and the gun tumbled beside her. She still knelt hunched and didn’t seem to notice the danger coming for her.

  “Stop!” It was a wrench to make himself let go of Silver, but Andrew could feel from her muscles she could stand on her own. He strode over and yanked on the goons’ shoulders, stopping the men long enough to get between them and Susan.

  “You’ve seen how a cornered mother will fight for her young. Your alpha pushed her. You saw it. He should have known better than to play with his prey, threaten her young.” He kept his head high, but didn’t meet either of the goons’ eyes for a challenge. He had to make them believe he wasn’t protecting a member of the pack. He was telling them that their alpha should take the blame for taunting a weak, brainless creature into killing him. He stayed silent, willing the men to accept what he was trying to feed them. When one Were killed another outside of a challenge, it required talking. Negotiation, possible punishment or retribution. A mad, dangerous animal that killed someone needed simple disposal. And if he could play this right— “We’ll take care of her.”

  It almost worked. Andrew could see the blond man waver. But the darker man recovered his wits first. “Of course you will. Seattle’s fuck-toy? Of course she’ll get the punishment she deserves if you let Seattle do it.” He shoved Andrew aside and grabbed Susan’s wrist. He dragged her halfway to her feet before Andrew broke his hold by smashing a fist down on his wrist.

  Andrew took up another stance in front of Susan, better balanced this time. “Would you like to stick around? See what Seattle has to say to you after he wakes up? Or maybe you’d like to make your case before the Convocation. You could explain why either of you should live when you have so little honor as to defeat an alpha with a gun and then torture his pack. Plenty of punishment to go around.”

  The blond man snarled. “They weren’t real pack members.”

  The darker man put his hand on the other man’s shoulder, forestalling any other outburst. Andrew tried to read his expression. Did he realize how bad what Sacramento had done would look to the other packs, no matter the technicalities they tried to argue? Andrew took a few steps forward, pushing them back from Susan. “I’d suggest you take your former alpha and get out while the Lady’s light is still dim.”

  “This won’t be the end of it,” the darker man said, low. “We all know it.” He tossed keys to his companion. “Bring the car around and back it into the garage.” The blond man hurried away while the other knelt beside Sacramento’s body and closed his eyes, lips moving in a prayer.

  Death slid in from the corner of Andrew’s vision and circled the body, smirking. “You speak of making cases: he may have tortured, but she killed,” he said, Sacramento’s voice tainted with Death’s sardonic humor. “You know she wasn’t protecting her cub. Look how she gave him to the boy, to keep him safe. She knew the children were the only truly safe ones here.”

  Andrew tried to help Susan up, but she fought his hands. He couldn’t really blame her, so he let her be. He remembered that feeling all too well. Like you had to hold yourself together or you’d explode from the pressure of what you’d done. Any touch was a point of weakness that might make you fly apart.

  The remaining goon roused from his prayer and flicked open a pocket knife. Andrew tensed, but nodded in approval when he started cutting a large square of carpet around where Sacramento lay. They could roll him up and carry him out to the car that way. The two Were looked muscular enough to be renovators. The garage would hide them from prying eyes, but it never hurt to be careful.

  Andrew let the goons cut, roll, and carry without interference. He escorted Silver to the couch and tilted her head to check her shoulder. The bone looked straight at least, for all Sacramento’s manhandling of her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and stroked her hair. She shook her head, perhaps denying the need for it, though it might have been at something Death said. Silver had the glazed look that meant she was having more trouble tracking the real world than usual. After a moment digging around in his memories of human treatments, he shrugged out of his shirt. He slid it under her arm and tied the arms around her neck to make an improvised sling. Since it was her bad arm, her muscles couldn’t pull at her shoulder, but he suspected the position would help keep the weigh
t of the arm from pulling on the injury.

  Silver blinked and sense seeped back into her eyes. She put her good hand on his cheek and kissed him. “Death says Seattle’s rousing,” she said.

  John groaned, as if he’d been listening to Death too. His hand groped to his chest, fell back after he found healthy skin where he’d been shot. His eyes popped open and he jerked upright. “Lady!”

  Andrew strode over and offered John a hand up. He must not have been able to keep the sardonic note he was feeling from his expression, because John glowered at him and got up on his own. “You’re a little late to the division of the kill,” Andrew said, and went back to Silver.

  They must have made quite a tableau as John stared around the basement—Tom black and blue and holding John’s crying son, Silver Lady-white with residual pain, and Susan beside a hole in the carpet and smelling of gunpowder. The rest of the pack seemed still to be trying to come to terms with it all, staying together for strength.

  “What happened?” John asked, voice husky from trying to take it in all at once.

  “I was wondering that myself. What did he threaten you with?” Andrew nodded to John’s chest. “The gun?”

  John bristled like Andrew had called him a coward. “You may be comfortable with them, but I’ve never had call to stare down the barrel of a gun before. Susan?” He went to the woman, putting his hands to her shoulders. Andrew didn’t bother to correct that he’d never been directly threatened with a gun before, either.

  Susan shoved John’s hands away and wobbled to her feet. She stooped over her son, cupped his head, and murmured something probably intended to be thanks or apology to Tom. “I need … space…” She ran, stumbling up the stairs. The front door banged. John followed.

  “John!” Andrew’s voice stopped the man in the doorway to the basement, but he didn’t come back in. “Your pack needs you. Send me after your mate. Send any of your pack after your mate—” Andrew’s tone grew a little desperate at the end as nothing changed on John’s face. He shouldn’t have to tell the man this. It should be sheer instinct. He needed to recapture his authority after what Sacramento had done, but more than that, his pack needed him. For comfort, reassurance.

  “I can’t…” John wavered for a moment and then disappeared, chasing after Susan.

  15

  Silver wanted nothing more than to curl up against Dare and never let go, but Seattle had cracked under the strain, and now Dare was left with his duties. Someone helped her settle her arm better so that movement did not twist up the shadows and cut her, and made her swallow something that dulled the ache that remained. She ate, and assigned herself to make sure the brave boy who had helped them ate too. Several blows to the throat had made him reluctant to swallow even though he needed the nourishment.

  He looked at her like she was a hero, which was strange. Hers hadn’t been the warrior’s part in this fight. That had been Susan’s. Brave woman. Silver wished she could comfort her, but she was still running. Silver knew about running. She’d run for a long time herself.

  Dare’s part was to clean up, it seemed. Calm everyone down, make sure everyone ate. Silver did her best to help, putting each piece of food into the brave boy’s hands so he would remember to keep going.

  “I wish I could have taken him down,” the boy said, catching her hand and smoothing it when she handed him something. His voice was still rough and he couldn’t find a position to lie down that didn’t hurt him. “Saved everyone some hurt.”

  Death returned then, slipping between those gathered to eat and recover. He carried a whiff of blood like he’d been watching down below where the pack were still scrubbing away bloodstains so everyone could relax without the stench in every breath. “The boy’s time will come,” he said in Sacramento’s voice, though with more weight than the man had probably ever given it in life. “He has growing to do, but he’ll have his own battles to fight. Those with hearts that seek to protect always do.”

  Silver repeated the words for the boy, and he gave her such a grin that the shadows hid deep inside her shoulder for a few moments. “Someday I’ll save everyone,” he declared, and Silver smiled back.

  Dare brought the beta—Pierce. Cemented by the pain, the name came more easily to her now. She took to handing Pierce food as well. He bristled under the attention. She could see from his movements that he was superficially healed, but he had not the Lady’s light about him of a healthy Were. He needed food and rest yet.

  “Someone needs to make sure there’s no blood left,” he whined at Dare, who pushed him back down again.

  “That’s being taken care of.” Dare threaded his fingers into Silver’s hair, and she touched his wrist. No rest for either of them, though she could feel how much he ached for it. He’d sustained no injury in this battle, but he had not his full light, either, a ghostly trace of shadows in his back. “Stay with Silver for now.”

  Pierce turned his sullen look on her as Dare disappeared off on another task. Silver held his eyes, and she could see the memory return of what they’d shared below, when she’d helped him re-break his fingers. He let his head hang, finally resting, leaving things to her and Dare. Trusting.

  For all that such trust worried her a little, something in Silver curled up, warm and content.

  * * *

  Andrew cursed John under his breath as he helped everyone clean up. They’d pulled up the carpet pad to throw out and scrubbed the bare concrete beneath just in case. Later they could pull up the rest of the carpet in the room, to present to installers as someone’s weekend do-it-yourself project run out of steam. He’d have to call some installers—John would have to call some installers. Andrew had to remember that however much of an idiot Seattle was being, this was still his pack. Once the man pulled his muzzle out of his ass, Andrew would hand over the arrangements. For now, it was nice to have something to concentrate on when his thoughts turned to how easily Silver could be dead instead. The pack seemed calmer for having a direction for their efforts too.

  He checked back in on Pierce and Tom. They sat on the living room floor with Silver, who had an industrial-sized jerky package beside her. Those of the pack not cleaning up downstairs were starting a meal—late for lunch now, early for dinner, but the injured couldn’t wait that long.

  Tom had shifted and lay curled up with his head in Silver’s lap, taking puppylike pleasure in the feminine attention he’d earned. Pierce ate with a single-minded intensity, marking time until he’d be released to do something useful.

  Andrew let himself down to the floor behind Silver. Tom gave up his place without complaint so Silver could scoot back into Andrew’s arms. Andrew leaned over to grab the jerky. She snorted, but took pieces when he handed them to her. Where the hell was Seattle? He wanted to slip off somewhere private where he could hold Silver tight forever and breathe her scent and remember she was alive. Reaction made him feel shaky.

  But there was the front door and John’s voice, low and trying to soothe, Susan’s scent of gunpowder and fear and tears. Andrew pushed himself up to go meet them, tearing himself away from Silver’s touch.

  Susan’s expression was blank and dead, tears stopped for the moment, though her face was crusty with salt. John had his arm around her waist, guiding her inside. In the hall she stopped and blinked, then flinched away from John. “Edmond,” she said, looking past him. “I have to take care of Edmond.”

  “He’s upstairs,” Andrew said gently. “The pack’s been switching off so someone’s always in the nursery with the children. He’s been well taken care of.” Susan stared at him, so he repeated himself. This time, she seemed to get it. She jogged for the stairs. Andrew wanted to call after her and tell her to make sure she never let Edmond go, whatever happened now. But things were different for Susan than they had been for him. No one was going to try to take away her son.

  John started to follow her up the stairs, but Andrew blocked him. “We need to talk.”

  John tried to push him aside. “
Not now. I have to—”

  Andrew gathered up a handful of John’s shirt. “We’re going to talk. In front of your pack, or outside where they can’t hear. It’s your choice.”

  Through sheer stubbornness, Andrew got John out the back door. They crossed the pack house’s spacious backyard nearly to the fence line, where trees loomed high all around them. Andrew felt better already, just breathing in the scent of needles and sap rather than gunpowder.

  Andrew didn’t want to have this talk, but clearly someone needed to remind John of what being an alpha meant. John was probably wrung out from healing the bullet wound, but as an alpha he didn’t have the luxury of falling apart. His pack needed a strong alpha presence to provide a foundation for their calm. Why couldn’t John see that? Why had it fallen to Andrew to make John understand?

  “Now you know how I feel.” Sacramento’s voice made Andrew jerk his head to look, but it was only Death lounging on the bench of a much-gnawed picnic table. Death laughed at him silently, jaws parted.

  John followed Andrew’s gaze, then looked inquiringly at Andrew when he presumably found nothing there. “Jumping at shadows,” Andrew excused himself. “Now. If you will allow me to teach you your job, Seattle, you need to be where people can see you, looking in control, even if you don’t feel it.”

  He waited for John to respond, but the man just shook his head. Perhaps he meant that he didn’t know how to even pretend control at the moment. Andrew sighed. Maybe the minutiae of cleaning would help focus John, as it had him. “Tomorrow, you can pull up the rest of the carpet in the basement, and call some installers. Get Tom to laze around in wolf. That’ll explain all the layers of hair and you can tell them it was ruined from the dog peeing on it.”

  John nodded, but he still looked glazed. “I can’t— If only I’d fought him for the gun when he first arrived—”