Tarnished

by Rhiannon Held

  Sacramento’s beta—or mate—shoved to her feet. “She is still a human!” The woman’s voice was shrill, but it carried in the silence. “It doesn’t matter what she did; because of what she knows, she must be executed to keep our secrets.” She tore the “executed” from the air like a chunk from a deer’s throat. Perhaps, seeing that her case was failing, she thought that any death would serve her wish for revenge.

  “You think—” Susan forged her fear and desperation into action, as Silver had seen her do once before with a weapon in her hands. She spread her hands wide, taking up the center of the room, jerking attention to her rather than wavering under its pressure. “You think if I would kill, to save a single Were, that I would speak a word to another human that would harm all of you and my son?”

  Susan didn’t have Silver’s skill with a story, but Silver realized her single sentence had the same effect as her weapon. One precisely aimed thought to knock everyone down.

  A breath, another, and the whispers began again. But Silver didn’t want people to talk themselves out of it, so she hurried to speak. “Susan is pack of my pack, bound with ties of family, and friendship, and love, the same as any of us here. That is why she fought to protect them. That is why she would never betray them with a careless word.”

  Silver would have liked to sweep her hand across the crowd, but she tilted her chin up instead. “Now, under the Lady’s light, I say: who stands with us?”

  Silver couldn’t keep the shaking down as she waited. She prayed to the Lady. Please, for Susan, let them stand. For what Susan had done for all of them, she did not deserve to be punished; she deserved a reward.

  This time Sacramento began it, though Dare’s other friends stood only a split second later. Madrid sat expressionless, only sign of his thoughts his crushing grip on Dare’s brother-in-law’s wrist. Madrid probably intended that pain to wash out the shock on the other man’s face. Other North Americans followed Sacramento, more and more as each looked around at those who had stood before, until the last stood with frowns at how they had been shamed by the majority. Silver didn’t care. Her knees tried to collapse, so great was her relief. But she was not quite done yet. There was Dare’s challenge yet to think of.

  Or was it just his anymore? After dealing with the former Sacramento, she’d let her fear of leadership go, but something in her sang at the thought of it now. She’d helped Susan to protect herself because she’d needed protecting, and it felt so right. Like this was what she’d been made for. And perhaps the Lady had made her that way.

  “Seattle has business,” Silver said. She braced her weight against Roanoke’s back and ground her thumb against his burn when he seemed likely to try to take advantage of her weakness. The unexpectedness of a wound that could still pain him, however he might know intellectually that silver burns healed slowly, bought her a little more time.

  “When the one who tortured me and my former pack was abroad, searching for me and his next victims, this coward called his enforcer home to protect the alpha, and the alpha alone. Is that not correct?” She found the beta’s eyes, and his fierce triumph gave her the strength to stand straight again.

  The beta stood. “That’s correct. And not only that, when Dare broke with Roanoke rather than follow such a fucking stupid order, he kept all of us too close to the house.” The beta clenched his hands, anger vibrating in every syllable. “That madman took Ginnie, because we didn’t have enough warning. If we’d been in a proper guard pattern, we’d have smelled him from a mile away, but we were so close, he darted in and grabbed her before we could get to him.”

  Silver spared the time to send him a thin smile of thanks. “We will challenge for Roanoke at a time of your choosing.” She jerked the chain and Roanoke snarled. It was a full, rolling noise, directed not only at her but undoubtedly at his beta as well.

  “‘We’? I’d be happy to beat the delusions of grandeur out of you, crazy pussy.” Roanoke clenched his hands. As if that would scare her after what she’d seen, memories dragged bloody to the surface of her mind.

  “Division of labor.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up in Silver. “He’s brawn, I’m beauty, and sometimes I let him share brains with me.” Several of the others laughed, a punchy note to their tones as well. “Dare will meet you in the challenge fight at the time of your choosing. Under the Lady’s light, does any dispute it?”

  No one did. Silver let the chain fall free of her bad hand, gathered it into her good, and turned from Roanoke. She jumped down and the impact jarred her shoulder so shadows swallowed her vision. She hardly knew if she was still standing and which way was up or down until she felt Tom’s hand under her arm, holding her up.

  “Seattle! Ma’am. Please, wait.” Roanoke’s beta loped to her. Silver made Tom stop them both by moving her grip to his arm and squeezing. The beta went to his knees before her. “I no longer wish Roanoke as my alpha.”

  “I’ll bet he doesn’t. Not with the punishment he’ll get for stepping out of line like that.” Death used the former Sacramento’s voice, heavy with the weight of all the punishments he’d probably inflicted in his lifetime.

  Silver worried she’d fall if she took her hand from Tom’s arm, but she couldn’t ignore the beta. He was in this situation because he’d helped her, and helped Dare. She gritted her teeth, mentally told the shadows Death would rip them to shreds if they didn’t behave, and put her hand on the beta’s head. If he felt her weight behind it, how she needed the touch for balance, he said nothing. “Seattle welcomes you. My beta will tell you anything else you need to know.” She nodded to her cousin, because she’d smelled his sudden tension, presumably fearing his status might be stolen.

  Enough. Silver didn’t want to deal with anyone else’s temper, or soothe anyone else’s misplaced fear. She wanted to get out of here, and curl up deep somewhere until the shadows could fade from her. She left the Convocation, leaning on Tom’s strength, with her Were behind her. Silence lingered in their wake.

  28

  Andrew found Tom’s scent on his backtrail as he returned to the cabins. Tom was supposed to be helping Silver. Why was he chasing after Andrew? Had something happened? Andrew took the rest of the path back to their cabin at a run.

  Silver slammed out of the door as he arrived. The fabric of her shirt was bunched under her sling like it had been put back on in a hurry. “There you are,” she snapped. Her hand was out like it rested on Death’s head, which worried Andrew more than the anger in her voice. She talked to Death in public sometimes, but she never touched him. “I’ve arranged your challenge.” She seemed to choose her path specifically to have to shove him out of her way. “Death and I are going for a walk,” she shouted back over her shoulder.

  Andrew stood half-turned, staring after her. What had happened? He had to lock his muscles to keep from running after her. She didn’t take off often, but when Silver wanted to be alone, she wanted to be completely alone.

  Tom hit the door a moment later and pounded down the path after her. Andrew caught him on the way past and got dragged along for a few stumbling steps. “No,” he said, keeping the word as controlled as he needed to be himself. Venting his frustration with not knowing what was going on would only delay him finding out.

  Tom stared at him. “But she’s—”

  “If anyone goes after her, it’ll be me in an hour or so, if she hasn’t come back by then. You are going to stay and tell me what in the Lady’s name is going on.” The volume of Andrew’s voice increased toward the end despite his best efforts.

  Steps crunched on the gravel and they both turned to see Benjamin approaching at a jog. Tom gave a small sigh of relief and Andrew remembered to let go. “Rory suggested lunch early. So he can lick his wounds in private, presumably,” Benjamin said. In contrast to Silver, he seemed triumphant.

  Benjamin clapped Andrew on his shoulders. “She was amazing, Dare. You’d have sworn it was the Lady herself who stood there, putting Rory in his place.” He pressed a thumb to his
forehead.

  Tom made the same gesture, more jerky with excitement. “She stood up behind him, right on the table, and with her white hair, and she was even using her bad hand, and—”

  Andrew cut Tom off with a gesture, a suspicion forming. “Did anyone mention the Lady directly to Silver?”

  Tom blinked at him. “It came up on the walk back. Why?”

  Andrew twisted to look in the direction she’d gone again. Oh, Silver. Which had upset her more? The argument with Rory, or being compared to the Lady? Personally, he would have been pissed to have whatever he’d accomplished attributed to someone who didn’t even exist, but that was him. Silver believed, but she’d always said that being unable to shift made her feel cut off from the Lady. How must it feel to have people tell her that the Lady’s hand was on her when she could feel it no more than before? But he had no idea what she’d felt. Maybe he was wrong, and she’d had a religious experience like everyone else.

  Andrew forced himself back to trudging to the cabin. Even now that he had more insight into what had happened, following her still wouldn’t help. “She says she feels barred from the Lady. Since she lost her ability to shift, she can’t feel Her presence.”

  Benjamin’s expression tightened with worry immediately. Tom looked confused. Benjamin squeezed Tom’s shoulder. “Don’t mention it to her again,” he said, in a tone of command.

  Andrew opened the cabin door for them, grateful that Benjamin seemed ready to help him keep further mentions from Silver’s ears. “So what happened, religious implications aside?”

  Benjamin started the story once they were inside. The cabin was cramped with everyone, including Laurence, crowded inside, but no one chimed in. Andrew started to sit on the couch, but hearing about Rory’s trick made him want to go stomp on the man’s neck so badly he ended up pacing. Benjamin didn’t seem surprised by it and kept on with the story.

  Andrew ended up on the couch eventually, head in his hands. Silver shouldn’t have had to go through telling that story, not for him. No wonder she’d wanted time alone.

  “Here.” Susan lowered a cheese and salami tray into his range of vision and smiled weakly at him when he looked up. “I liberated this from the kitchen on the way out, since our timing is once more terrible for getting food.”

  Andrew accepted the tray and slid it onto the nearest end table. He wasn’t hungry, but accepting the offer was the point, he supposed. Susan reeked of an impulse to help with nowhere to channel it. Andrew picked up a variegated yellow and white cheese slice and rolled it into a tube, then ate it slowly. There wasn’t much he could do to help Silver at the moment, either.

  Susan picked up a piece of salami, sat down on the couch, and started peeling off the outer edge. “Tell her thank you from me, would you?” she said all at once. “I could see how hard that was for her. I’d heard bits of the story, but never the whole thing. I can’t even imagine—” She shook her head jerkily.

  Andrew petted Susan’s hair and ended with his hand on the back of her neck, as he would do to soothe a Were. He might once have suppressed the impulse as too canine, but Susan was honorary Were at this point. “I’ll tell her,” he promised.

  Susan nodded under his hand and ate her salami skin. He could feel the moment when her muscles tensed and she must have realized consciously what her unconscious instincts allowed her to accept. She pulled away and went to stand by John. He hesitated before setting his hand in a more human gesture on the small of her back.

  In the silence of no one having any idea what to say, Laurence moved away from the wall he’d been propping up. He knelt before the couch. “Sir…”

  Andrew scrubbed his face with both hands. “Get up,” he said. All this respect when he’d nearly screwed everything up and they weren’t out of the woods yet. “I agree with Silver’s judgment. What, you expect us to stake you out for the hunters after you supported us?”

  He pushed to his feet and gave Laurence a hand up. “You’ll have to stay out of the Convocation, though. You screw up our numbers, and I’m sure Rory would jump on that.”

  Laurence dipped his head more deeply than necessary to acknowledge the order. “I’m single, though,” he said with a light laugh. “Could be I’m here for the mixer.”

  Andrew snorted and smacked Laurence’s shoulder. “Got a sudden hankering to hook up with a nineteen-year-old? I think Philadelphia brought one who must be at least twenty-two.”

  With Laurence settled for the moment, Andrew looked around at everyone else. Had he missed any other reassurances he should make as an alpha? He wished Silver was here to remind him. He couldn’t leave Rory to stew for too long, or he’d risk losing the advantage that Silver had given them.

  “I’ll go talk to Rory and then find Silver,” he said. If only he could have switched that order.

  29

  Silver couldn’t walk away from her memories, but at least among the trees no one was talking to her about them. A raven passed at a distance, a black shape about his own business. Her bad arm started to hurt again just from the movement of each step, so she finally stopped and found a place to sit. The flat rock tipped as she settled her weight on it.

  “That was rude of you.” Death declined to lie down, remaining on his haunches, and Silver wondered if it was because he didn’t want to get dirt on his fur. It would remove some of his mystique, to have the depthless black given definition by a powdering of brown.

  “Dare knows I didn’t mean anything by it.” Silver flexed her good hand. She’d make it up to him later even if he didn’t, but that was one of the many things she loved about Dare. He didn’t chase when she didn’t invite him to, as so many others did out of worry. At that moment, he’d been handy to be angry at, with their real opponents out of reach. But now as she calmed down, it became easier to remember that even without Dare’s—their—challenge, without Dare’s daughter, she would still have chosen to save Susan’s life.

  Even sitting, the pain in Silver’s arm hadn’t lessened. The others had bound it up again so it couldn’t move, but it felt like they’d done it too quickly. She released her bad hand and carefully set it on her knee. She twitched her fingers and grinned, showing her teeth. Maybe her arm didn’t work completely, but it had worked enough to get Roanoke where she wanted him.

  And they’d said she looked like the Lady. She wondered if they were right. It had been so long since she’d felt the Lady’s light in her core that the memory was crumbling into dust. Not enough of the feeling remained for Silver to form it into a woman in her mind. White-haired, certainly. But what more than that?

  Of course, there was one here who knew exactly what the Lady looked like. Silver glanced at Death. He stared into the distance, more distance than Silver could ever comprehend. “Did I?”

  “Did you what?”

  Silver stared at Death outright now. He knew perfectly well what she meant. He never stalled that way, never cared enough to be bothered by a subject enough to avoid it. He was Death, after all. “Did I look at all like the Lady?”

  Death bit her.

  He sank his teeth into her bad hand and then loped off into the rocks, leaving her alone with the sharp pain. Tears beaded up in her eyes from the shock more than anything. When she examined the mark, she found he hadn’t even drawn blood. It had been a nip for a disobedient cub.

  But he’d bitten her! How could he? Then again, didn’t Silver bear a great part of the blame, for pushing the question? Silver swallowed against a lump of guilt. He’d be back. She hoped. She’d apologize then. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, barred from the Lady’s presence same as her; she’d just wanted the answer so badly. If she held some part of the Lady in her own appearance, at least Silver could hold that close, with no other connection to Her.

  And she had an answer, she supposed. She just wasn’t quite sure what it was. Maybe the answer was that she didn’t want the answer, something Silver was suddenly quite willing to accept.

  * * *

  Andrew felt
like a coiled spring as he waited on the doorstep of Roanoke’s cabin, sound of his knock fading. What if Rory had Madrid with him? What if Felicia was there? He could smell only ephemeral traces of the Spanish Were, but the wind was going the wrong way and they hadn’t left any windows open. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the number of Were making their way back to cabins or eating outside the main building doubled. Everyone loved a show.

  After all his anticipation, it was Ginnie who opened the door, and he could smell only Rory and his wife inside. The girl had shot up another inch since the last time he’d seen her. She gave him a wide grin that still seemed like it should be missing a few teeth, though that had been years ago. She must be nearly ten by now.

  Her grin dimmed as she seemed to remember something. “My dad’s pretty mad at your mate,” she said, confidentially. Andrew almost chuckled, punchy. An understatement, he suspected. “I wasn’t there, I was here with Mom, but he said she used silver on him. Isn’t that supposed to be evil?”

  Andrew considered mentioning the irony of the fact that Rory had allied himself with foreigners who considered the use of silver on other Were to be quite necessary. Rory was undoubtedly listening. But Ginnie deserved better than to be a conduit between two fighting alphas. “She has to, sometimes. Since she’s weak in other ways, she uses it to make sure people don’t take advantage of her.”

  Ginnie drew herself up. “Good!” she declared. This time, Andrew allowed himself the chuckle. Rory was raising himself a little alpha. But of course the trouble had never been that he didn’t do everything possible for his daughter, it was that he couldn’t balance her with the rest of the Roanoke sub-packs. And that he got mean when he felt insecure in his power.

  “I do need to talk to your father,” Andrew said, pushing the moment of humor away. Ginnie stuck the tip of her tongue out at him and scampered back into the farthest bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Raised right in another way: she knew when to stay out of pack business.