“We were cold and starved, waiting for a death that never came,” Rifter now told Gwen, who had been listening intently. She continued to as he told her how they’d mourned and hovered at death’s door for what seemed like forever. “We had to repent. We’ve been doing that for thousands of years, but it’s not doing any good at all.”
No, they were forced to wander nomadically, dragging their fortune and spoils behind them like the albatrosses they were.
“We’ve lived everywhere. Done and seen everything.” Rifter sat back and looked at his brothers one by one, their faces shadowed by the low light in the room and the lack of any from outside, despite the nearly noon hour.
They’d combed the earth, searching for more like them. They were sure they couldn’t have been the only Dires out on their Running when the Extinction occurred.
Finding Stray had confirmed that, but he’d claimed he’d never met another Dire since the Extinction.
“I can’t imagine.” Gwen’s eyes shone softly—a simple show of emotion from a woman who’d thought she’d lost everyone related to her as well. With that story alone, she relaxed, but she didn’t stop questioning. “I’m well past twenty-one, so when will I… um…”
“Shift,” Jinx offered. “Normally, I’d say blue moon, but with all this paranormal activity, it’s going to happen sooner than three weeks’ time. You already said her wolf is coming out, right?”
She turned to Rifter as well. “How do you know? And what’s the blue moon?”
“Blue moon’s rare—happens once every few years, and it’s the second full moon this month. And I know your wolf’s coming because I’ve seen the bruising on your back—it’s going to turn into something like my wolf.”
Gwen asked, “Is that what’s aching?”
“Yes—it’s like a bad burn for the week before it emerges,” Rifter said.
She’d thought maybe her back had some light burns from the explosion, but when she’d looked in the mirror, she’d seen only the bruising. It was the oddest feeling, like something was under her skin.
Now she knew that something was. But as long as they were on the topic of burning… “What’s the significance of the fires? I mean, my mom, my aunt and uncle and then my house…”
“It’s how they used to kill witches. They burned them. Sometimes they burned Weres too. But typically, Weres didn’t get caught. Witches started retaliating on the Weres who refused to help by giving them the same treatment,” Rifter told her.
“Revenge,” she said softly. “The witches killed my mother?”
“I think it was someone who wanted you to believe it was the witches,” Rifter said. “Most likely the weretrappers, before they dragged the witches to their side.”
“So those men at my house tonight—they were witches and weretrappers?”
“They were full human,” Rifter confirmed. “The only witch who’s been in recent contact with you is Cordelia.”
She blanched. “How long had she been watching me?”
A look passed among the Dires, and she knew they were still holding back. She waited a long moment until Rifter finally admitted, “At least six months.”
“How can you be sure?”
“They started following you again in earnest just before Rogue and I were captured,” Rifter admitted.
“I didn’t know you were captured as well,” she said, and he nodded. “How did they know before all of you did? About me, I mean?”
Again, the men gave each other sideways glances, remained silent for a long moment. Vice muttered, “Fuck,” and Jinx pushed away from the table and stared at the dark sky. She started to wonder if there would ever be daylight again, or if this Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole thing was simply going to continue for the rest of her life.
Which was still pretty damned precarious.
“Please,” she said. “I can handle whatever you need to tell me. But if I don’t know everything about my own life, that makes me vulnerable.”
Rifter glanced at her, his face a tight mask of pain. “I hate that they’re after you.”
“Earlier, you said they were after me again. Which means they’ve known about me for a long time.”
“You were well hidden with your mom for ten years, and with your aunt and uncle for much longer. You became vulnerable, but the witches thought you were sick too—they were pretty sure you wouldn’t make it through the shift. And now there are people who want to hurt you because of what you are. To use you. Some Weres are turning their own kind in for profit.” Rifter was incensed. She couldn’t blame him, but humans had been turning against one another since the beginning of time. Why should wolves be any different?
But obviously they were.
“You said Weres. So why is Harm chained up if he’s a Dire, like you?”
Rifter shook his head. “Not now, little one. You’ve got too much to process already.”
“Yeah, see, that might work on your wolf groupies,” she started, and he looked a little too pleased at that. “Tell me what Harm did. Because I heard him tell you that you should’ve let me die.”
The anger flashed hard and fast in his eyes again, but then he smoothed it away with a control that astounded her.
Gotta get me some of that.
“He’s saying it for your own good, even though every fiber of my being protests agreeing with him… for many reasons.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“We don’t know if you will be fully like us. Immortal.”
“As in, living forever? So I’ve gone from immediate death to immortality?”
Something flickered across his face. “We don’t know anything yet—about your shift… what could happen.”
“Liam’s a Were. You’re Dires. What’s the difference, besides the wolf on the back?”
Jinx spoke first. “Transitioning to a Were is easier on the body. You’ve got to be strong to survive a Dire shift, especially the first three shifts. And with you having human DNA…”
“Plus, I’m weak from the years of meds.”
“They affect a wolf’s metabolism differently.”
“It explains so much, but I still have so many questions,” she murmured, more to herself than to them. “I’m a Dire who might not survive. And even if I do, I might not be immortal.”
When she said it, Rifter’s heart twisted, and he turned away before she could settle her gaze on him.
Chapter 28
Seb ran now, through the woods in the driving rain he’d had a hand in creating, having shifted into a small coyote, like the Native American shamans had taught him. He’d done this with the Dires too many times to count, loved the freedom of the change, the lightness of his body.
These days, there was nothing light at all. Worst of all, he wished Rifter had let him die during the witch trials in the 1600s. Seb had been alone on the platform, with the rough wood planks under his bare feet, heavy twined rope twisting around his neck—already tight enough to make him dizzy.
That noose was much like the invisible one he wore now.
Then the crowd surrounded him, their venomous hate enough to make him weak. And the young wolf that broke through the humans, the only one brave enough to save him, and all because Seb had saved a local child. He’d used natural herbs, not magic, but they’d tried to kill him anyway for his witchery ways.
He hadn’t hated them, because of their ignorance. But now a hatred burned through him, stronger every day. He paused to stare to the heavens. The sky was hidden by bands of treacherous rain meant to intimidate and harm. The air smelled like sulfur and fear, the moon a ticking time bomb.
Tonight, Seb would make sure the moon was full of voodoo pasted on an inky sky.
Rifter would know the weather wasn’t natural—his dreams had been interfering with Seb’s work for months now.
And unnatural things should never be raised. The dead should be left dead. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago—he thought his family had too. But once they’d giv
en themselves over to the dark side, it was too late for them to come back.
Being good was just as difficult as being evil, maybe more so. Now he’d been on both sides of the coin.
It had all started before he met Rifter. Seb could still remember the screams in the middle of the night emanating from his parents’ house. He and Cordelia both lived close on the property in their own houses, and although he and his sister had never been close, they’d both been committed to the close-knit coven they lived near.
Except Cordelia had married a mortal and had a child with him—had done so against all the advice from her family and coven, because, although they were white witches and hence immortal, her husband and child would not share that same gift. It was handed down only through immediate family members and only if she married another white witch blessed in the same fashion.
When her husband and daughter were killed when the river they were crossing on horseback flooded, there was no consoling her.
“I have to bring them back,” she’d said, her eyes wide. Seb had known it was far more than the grief talking and had prayed that after a few days, when the initial shock wore off, she would reconsider. That his parents would stop her.
But nothing could.
“I can’t watch her like this,” his mother had whispered to him.
“You’ve got to stop her,” Seb had told her. But his parents caved as weeks passed and Cordelia begged for their help.
Seb left home the night they conjured the spell to raise her dead. Retained his white-witch status and the immortality that came with it. He became very powerful in his own right. Much more than his coven could hope to attain on their own, even with the demons’ help Cordelia called upon. Good conquered evil then. But not forever.
Seb’s magic was elemental. Spiritual. Natural and practical. He was strong because of his goodness, not in spite of it. There was no way out of what he was forced to do. The spell Cordelia had rendered was too powerful, the punishment too severe. He couldn’t use his white magic to protect him—he had to fight with some dark magic, and a part of him began to turn dark and ugly as those powers grew.
Necromancy in and of itself wasn’t evil—no, many psychics and seers regularly called on the spirits for divination. But the dark arts raised the dead in order to use them for their own purposes, to control them and force them to carry out wicked deeds.
When Seb cast the first spell for the selfish purposes of the weretrappers, the goodness he’d been cloaked in from birth began to slowly dissipate. He felt it leave his body in increments, like wings of an angel brushing against him. By the time this was all said and done, his soul would be as black as night, like his sister’s.
Cordelia’s husband and daughter tried to kill her when they returned from the dead. Although they looked like her family, they were shells. Unnatural things that did unnatural things. She ended up having to banish them to hell.
She’d been haunted by it for the rest of her days, hence her haggard appearance.
He shook that off and finished his run, his mind still full of dark visions. When he walked inside his room at the top of the tower they’d chosen to lock him in most of the time like some fucking twisted fairy tale, Mars was there. The invasion of privacy rankled him, but since his entire coven was always at risk, he bit back a sharp rebuke and reminded himself of his plan to extricate from the weretrappers.
In time, they would all be free. But for now…
“The Weres you sent to the Dire house are dead,” he told Mars. Most practicing witches of some caliber had animals who helped and protected them when casting spells, and Seb was no exception. Earlier his familiar raven had reported to him by flying in and perching on the top of the mantel. Some of the outlaw Weres had already been spelled by Cordelia, a special army of nearly uncontrollable wolves whose main job was to keep the Dires busy.
“Are you sure? They were strong.”
“Mars, in all these years, you haven’t learned? Dires are never going to let you go through with your plan without a great toll on all of us,” Seb said.
“When we have Gwen, they’ll have no choice. But you’re really screwing this up. The spell to raise the dead didn’t take,” Mars said.
“The sky is still under my control. They dead are very strong—they’ll resist.” Seb shook the water off himself and grabbed for a towel. Living among wolves for hundreds of years made his more primal instincts emerge, but Mars was human, and those sensibilities didn’t mesh well.
“Rogue is resisting as well,” Mars told him, and Seb fought the urge to backhand the shit out of the little man. It made Seb physically ill every night to recast that particular binding spell.
A deal with the devil was no deal at all—Seb had learned that the hard way. No, he’d known that going in, but still. Seb hated performing necromancy—it was as if Cordelia made sure he got a taste of the hell he was unable to stop her from doing.
The feel of the dead around him; vicious, violent, ground-rotting beasts who would not be controllable once unleashed. But Mars didn’t listen to him—no one did.
“Rogue’s brother is interfering with the raising. He would have been much more valuable than the king,” Mars pointed out. That was indeed the truth, and Seb was forever grateful that Harm had a lick of sense left in that metal-addled brain of his.
Chapter 29
Rifter had stayed deadly quiet, and finally he’d risen and walked out of the room after Gwen mentioned her possible mortality. It was easier for her to talk about it, she supposed, since she’d always been mortal.
Vice and Jinx and Stray remained, though, with Jinx watching her carefully, like she could shift at any second.
If she thought about that long enough, she’d have a panic attack for sure. She took another shot of whiskey instead.
“Why isn’t the night ending?” Stray asked.
“If Seb’s spell is good enough, it could be night until the blue moon—a supernatural cornucopia,” Jinx said bleakly.
“This is fucked,” Vice stated. “Gotta do something. Because humans are going to notice this shit, and we’re all in trouble then.”
She couldn’t help but agree, even though technically, she was dead in the eyes of most of the town. “I’m really the reason behind all of this?” she asked tentatively.
“Not the whole reason, but you’re sure as hell not helping,” Vice offered with what she was beginning to see was his usual candor.
As long as he was up to answering questions… “You’re immortal but Weres aren’t?”
“They live a long time, but they’re not truly immortal, no. We were the unlucky ones granted that.” Vice put his feet up on the table, his size-twenty-two feet a dead giveaway that this man was a vice all his own, if you believed the old wives’ tales about the size of a man’s feet being equal to the size of his… “Since there were no Dire females, there were no mates for us.”
“What about female Weres? Why can’t you mate with them?”
“They can’t handle the mating,” Jinx said. “We’re all wolves, but we’re different breeds.”
“But we do fuck them,” Vice added. “What? Brother Wolf needs to get some too.”
“You said Stray was found later,” she said, and Stray nodded. “Does that mean there could be others?”
“We looked.”
“Not in hospitals. Not for half-breeds. We didn’t know they could exist,” Jinx said. “Now we don’t know if we’ve unwittingly let other Dires die because they couldn’t shift.”
But would she have actually died? Would her human side have prevailed over the curse of the Dires’ immortality? “If I’d been alone when I shifted, would I have been a danger to humans? Are you?”
“Only if they annoy me,” Vice said with a shrug. “Other than that, humans don’t interest me. No offense to that side of you.”
“None taken.” She paused. “But you can tell the difference between a human and a witch, right?”
Vice shrugged. “Hu
mans taste like chicken. Witches taste like rotten chicken.”
“You… eat humans?”
He looked at her like she was the stupidest person on earth. “No. We kill them. They don’t taste good enough to eat. Because I don’t like chicken.”
Jinx shook his head. “I’d apologize for him, but it wouldn’t do any good.”
The man called Vice was taller and bigger than the others, and she supposed that was fitting, since his ability was tied to all the extremes a person—or wolf—could have.
He looked like sin, and she was pretty sure he could take anyone he set his sights on down the wrong path, and down to their knees. They might even beg for it, and from the curl of his lip, she knew she was right.
But although she didn’t mind looking at him, the spark in her belly burned in pure relief only for Rifter. Rifter, who’d just come back into the kitchen to shoot Vice a disapproving look. She guessed that if she was starting to develop supersonic hearing, then Rifter’s must be much stronger.
Her eyes wandered to him, the lust rising inside of her, and she could smell it on him too.
It’s the animal inside of you—give in—what’s the harm?
So far, she’d found no downside. But obviously, the Dires had been around for a long time before her, and they’d found one.
She put her own questioning aside for the moment and let the men get back to what Rifter referred to as pack business, muttered it under his breath as he took his seat next to Gwen again.
“We don’t hurt humans—we protect them against moon-crazed Weres and we try to make sure the Weres keep the peace among themselves,” Rifter told her, wanting to kill Vice for his humans taste like chicken comment. Although he wasn’t exactly wrong.
“We need to stop thinking about being lone wolves in light of recent events. Our pack’s growing,” Jinx pointed out.
“The twins are alphas—they’ll lead their own packs one day,” Rifter said.
“Yes, but those packs could work in tandem with ours to make sure a capture never happened again,” Jinx said, stared at Rifter, a direct challenge that, at times, could be dangerous.
Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan Page 20
