by Parker Foye
West missed the Prof. Maybe he’d have some idea about breaking a bond? Or at least a suggestion of where to start.
Struck by the idea, West jumped from the picnic table, bringing a few splinters in his palms, and went around the motel to the front office to get a better Wi-Fi signal on his phone. He could email the Prof and ask for advice, which would be more proactive than waiting to get rained on again.
Or I could speak to Julian.
“Or anything but that,” West muttered to himself as he leaned against the wall outside the front office and logged on to the Wi-Fi. He drummed his fingers on his leg as he waited for his email to update to prevent himself from touching his chest like prodding a sore tooth. When he could finally navigate to his email, he nearly jabbed through the screen when he found one from the Prof. No subject, like he’d written in a hurry. You know what I think about bonds, it started. Innocuous enough, if not for what followed. And I’ve changed my mind. I didn’t understand the surfeit of anecdotal evidence until feeling it for myself. A bond isn’t something able to be quantified.
Jealousy rippled through West in a burst of directionless heat at the thought of another meta bonding with the Prof, only to leave him in chills as he kept reading. Circumstances brought me into an arrangement with a wolf meta. He doesn’t think much of me, and I don’t blame him. Do you have anything among your copious sources that might help dissolve a bond? Please understand I ask in confidence, as this is an unfortunate circumstance for the other party. He’s lost a lot recently, and I’m not helping. Thanks, as always, for your help. I might not be able to teach for a while—family issues—but will arrange someone to proctor on my behalf. Best of luck!
And at the bottom, where the Prof had always written “Wylie” like some of the pack called West “Irving,” he’d written “Julian.”
West’s stomach clenched as he read and reread the message, unsure if he wanted to vomit or squirm with something like delight—delight tempered with dread. Professor Wylie and Julian Colquhoun, the man West had been quietly falling in love with through his words and the man who wielded them like weapons, were one and the same.
A giggle escaped West’s lips, and he slapped his hand over his mouth, glancing over his shoulder in case anyone saw. Still alone, he turned back to his phone and Julian’s email. His confession. All giggles disappeared as he realized Julian didn’t want the bond.
Or did he? From the words he seemed to think West didn’t want the bond and that… that was interesting. Should West reply and try to find out more? As immediately as it came to him, West dismissed the idea, then closed out of his email. He needed to speak to Julian in person, instead of perpetuating more identity confusion. Face-to-face would be more awkward, but awkwardness had never killed anyone yet.
Although that might change today.
Pocketing his phone, West headed toward the motel room with a spring in his step. A spring and several pebbles. West stopped, frowning at his feet when he realized he’d left his shoes in the room. He hadn’t even felt the difference, lost in his moping. Heat rose to his cheeks. Little wonder the clerk had thought him strange.
He was still looking at his feet when Lyle grabbed him.
WEST woke with a nose full of something nasty. He scowled, reaching to scrub away the scent of hot tar and bitter tea, but stopped when chains clinked together as he moved and his shoulders protested the motion.
Opening his eyes, he realized how much trouble he was in. He could smell Rabid shot through with stale sweat and too many bodies living in one space, though none of them were evident in the decrepit building decorated liberally with graffiti, dust, and broken glass. Dirty light filtered through high windows, each broken as if someone had taken the destruction as a project, reaching down to illuminate the bruised side of Lyle’s face. Lyle stood a few feet from West, his attention toward the belly of the room, but he turned at the noise from West’s chains.
Lyle looked like shit. West hadn’t seen much of his brother since they were kids, as he trained with other packs across the country, but he recognized a beatdown when it patterned someone in green and sour yellow. Always slender, Lyle had turned scrawny and hard-edged, and he shifted in place like he wanted to fight. His eyes were red with Rabid, and his personal scent had been overtaken by the spell, made almost a ghost under its effects.
Fear woke in West’s brain and crawled to the forefront. Rabid wasn’t just a catchy name for a spell, but a description of actions. Wolf metas on Rabid were unpredictable. Volatile. West had witnessed as much firsthand. Under the influence, Lyle might be like the kids West had seen at the gas station, or he might be like West had been. It was hard to predict, and the way he watched West didn’t offer any hints.
And West had no way to protect himself. Strung up with his arms in chains, looped over a metal strut, he already ached from the position. He twisted his wrists in the chain loops, the clinking loud in his ears, but they didn’t give. He resettled his weight to try to ease the strain in his shoulders. Something had cut his hands, probably when Lyle grabbed him from the Skyview, and the wounds stung as they reopened when he moved.
“Long time,” West tried when Lyle didn’t do anything but stare with his red eyes. He attempted to channel his inner Julian. “You could’ve called.”
Lyle scoffed, almost coughing, like the sound came on him unexpectedly. “You would have answered?”
“I might’ve thought about it.”
Lyle darted forward and leaned his forehead painfully into West’s, close enough that West could smell the coffee he’d been drinking. “Don’t lie. You wouldn’t have thought of anything. Not with your magician nearby. Distracting, isn’t he?”
At the mention of Julian, West’s tenuous bond flared, like someone had punched him in the chest. He covered his wince with a cough, jerking away from Lyle and making the chains rattle. A bond couldn’t harm anyone besides the bearers, but West felt protective of it. He didn’t want Lyle to know anything more than he could smell. He twisted his hands more urgently in their restraints, trying to get free. Blood made the movement easier.
Lyle laughed shortly, like West had done a trick. “Thought you’d come running home when we set fire to that dump of yours, but you surprised me. You went running to Mage motherfucking Colquhoun, of all people.”
“You know him?” The question spoke itself. How did Lyle know Julian?
“Me and Jules go way back. He helped me with a business venture, back in the day.”
“What business?”
Lyle’s eyes flared when they caught the light. “Your favorite. Rabid.”
“The hell has Rabid to do with anything?”
“Didn’t Jules tell you? He invented Rabid.”
West shook his head as if he could knock Lyle’s words from his ears, and the bond in his chest tugged harshly. He swallowed, feeling sick. He didn’t believe Julian had invented Rabid. Spells didn’t have inventors, and certainly not supermodels trying too hard to get homeless metas to marry them. The idea seemed absurd.
But he didn’t really know Julian, did he?
And I don’t know Lyle either.
Rotating his wrists in the chain links in search of relief from the pressure, West tried to read Lyle’s expression and scent for truth. He smelled Rabid instead, drifting from Lyle’s body like smoke from a banked fire. No flames, not yet, but warm with promise of a fire to come, which would consume everything it touched.
West licked his lips and tried to think. He eyed Lyle as he shuffled in place. “You’re dealing? Is that it? What does Father say?”
“I’m a businessman. I don’t need his help.” Lyle shrugged, distracted as footsteps sounded behind him. “He doesn’t ask questions.”
West grimaced. Of course his father wouldn’t ask questions. He wanted to groan as he realized that’s why he’d been put forth as alpha. West didn’t ask questions either. He would’ve sat as the face of the pack while Lyle acted as he liked, being the Hargreaves brains. Or whatever
passed for them.
Furballs.
Little wonder Lyle was so angry.
“So you sold out wolf metas for, what? Money?” West asked, speaking quickly as a group gathered behind Lyle like shadows. Every one had red eyes. Warnings seen too late.
Lyle curled his lip. “Metas? I’m building a lycan empire.”
West snarled and directed his words at the crowd. “An empire? You’re full of shit. Second place, Lyle.”
A murmur rippled across the crowd. West couldn’t tell how many they were, sticking to the shadows of the empty corners and the building’s support columns, but enough that their opinion mattered. Lyle turned on his heel with a low growl, twitching forward in starts, his hands raised. He grabbed West’s chin, pinching cruelly. “I can smell that mage on you. Did he hold your hand? Did you hold his? When we were together, we fucked.” West tried to tug free of Lyle’s grip, but Lyle pulled him back into place and he swayed on the hook. “Don’t you know people like that are for using? Not keeping. Someone should have taught you that.”
“Get off—”
“Although, I suppose he did help the pack. I hope you’ve been showing the appropriate amount of gratitude.”
The way Lyle said “gratitude” made West’s skin crawl. He kept his words under his tongue, almost biting it when Lyle shoved his head aside like he was disgusted. West felt one of his hands almost slip from the loop of chain, the way made slick from his blood. He worked to keep victory from his face.
“My little brother. Heir to the Hargreaves pack,” Lyle said in a mocking tone. He kicked savagely at West’s bare feet. Cruel delight made Lyle childish, and he played for the approving crowd with a wide gesture as if signaling actors onstage to take a bow.
Drawing in close again, like he couldn’t stay away, Lyle flashed his teeth.
West punched him in the face.
Two wolf metas immediately piled on, knocking West’s chains from the strut. He fell to the ground and splashed into a dirty puddle, tasting tin. Bruises thumped into his skin from the ground and their elbows, and he tasted blood when a blow split his lip on his teeth, but both were welcome distractions from the pain in his shoulders. West tried to protect himself from their strikes as he kicked out in defense, unable to do more with one hand damaged and the other hampered by chains. He growled in frustration when one of the pack caught hold of the links and dragged him across the floor until someone stepped lightly on his back, pinning him like a butterfly. Others held his arms in place.
“Westley.”
West let his head thump gently to the ground. He had grit in his teeth. “Lyle.”
Someone grabbed West’s free hand and rotated it, making his abused shoulder scream in pain. West chewed back his cry, not wanting to give them the satisfaction. He spat into the puddle as they prodded the wounds from where he’d wrenched his hand free of the chain, then dropped it after their examination.
“You could have ruined your hand,” Lyle said, concern in his voice. He dug his heel into West’s back. “Careless.”
He’s going to kill me.
The thought came to West as if a cool breeze, sweeping aside all other thoughts. Lyle wanted to kill him. He’d burned the cabin to chase him home, but West had kept traveling. Because the truth was, as much as it had once been all he knew, West didn’t want the pack. He didn’t fit there. Since discovering the world through Professor Wylie’s—through Julian’s course, he’d learned there were more places for metas than just a pack. He could go anywhere. Be anything. Even if he’d never gone farther than Joe’s Diner, West would have been happy.
And Lyle had stolen that happiness from him like a toy. Not even to play with, but because he didn’t want West to have it.
West closed his eyes and pressed his face to the ground until the bridge of his nose burned from the uncomfortable position. Tears stung his eyes, whether from the pain or the poison of betrayal, he didn’t know.
I don’t want to return to the pack. Admitting the truth, even to himself, lifted weight from West’s battered shoulders. He followed it with another. I want Julian.
Though he tried to convince himself that he wanted to confront Julian about Lyle’s accusations, at the back of West’s mind, he knew he was lying. The aching bond in his chest underscored the failed self-deception.
“Careless, like you with Ju—with the boat?” West asked, playing for time.
Lyle pressed down, making West’s ribs creak against the floor in protest. “Not me. I got partners. A key investor,” he said, like he quoted someone.
Julian’s cousins? West tried to think through the pain, but his mind stayed foggy. His shoulders burned, his hand throbbed, and Lyle seemed intent on grinding bruises into his back like he had a design he wanted to paint. West tried to see Lyle’s backers, see if they were anyone he recognized from the Hargreaves pack, but he couldn’t move his head enough. Did Dana know what was happening?
Was Dana in the warehouse, watching?
“Not that any of it matters,” Lyle said. He walked around West’s body and dropped to a crouch, grabbed West’s hair, and pulled his head up so West could see his red eyes. “You’re no leader, little brother. Tracked you down to clear the way, but we need to show you your place first. And this time, no one’s going to help you run afterward.”
Lyle stepped away, gesturing to the metas who’d been pinning West to the floor. They heaved him to his knees, and West got his first look at them, not recognizing either. But he’d never had much to do with Lyle’s friends since they’d been none of his.
“What… what do you mean?” West asked, distracted as one of the metas unhooked the chains from his other hand.
Lyle smiled but didn’t speak. He stepped into the shadows, and his followers copied him as one, like a move they’d practiced.
West wondered if Julian would know what a broken bond meant.
WEST didn’t think Lyle’s pack would let him live after patterning his body in bruises. Taking a careful breath, his ribs creaked with the effort. Cracked, then, at the very least. West eased to his feet from the slump he’d been left in, using the wall as a crutch. His left knee buckled but held. He squinted through the gloom, trying to work out where he’d been moved to.
A desk had been shoved against the far wall, with mildewed sleeping bags beneath, musty with stale sweat. The stink of abandoned places and desperation. Dust thick enough to choke a man. An upturned chair, empty bookshelves, and a miraculously intact window with mesh over the glass. West limped toward the window and peered through the grime, finding himself above the main floor. A manager’s office? He staggered for the door, careful of his busted knee, and tried the handle.
Locked. He hadn’t thought otherwise. But why had Lyle left him there?
West returned to the window and pressed his face to the glass, trying to see if any of the pack remained on guard. None were visible from his vantage point, and he scratched his arm idly as he watched, then harsher still as something shot under his skin like an electric shock. His nose twitched at a familiar, hated smell.
“Oh, no. No no no.”
Yanking at his shirt, his bad hand stinging with pain, West tugged the hem to his throat and examined his dim reflection in the window. Bruises shaped like bootprints painted his ribs, and gravel rash striped his side, but his attention locked on the mark over his sternum. Two symbols in the mage’s language, drawn in a steady hand. Like whoever wrote it had written it many times before. Even back to front he recognized them. The symbols associated with Rabid.
Frantic, West dropped his shirt and checked the inside of his elbows, the gaps between his fingers, any of the sites for the corresponding mark. Rabid’s delivery system had two aspects: the symbols, which some had tattooed for convenience, and the injection of chemicals that would bond with the magic to create the high users chased.
West’s muscles locked when he found the raised bump behind his ear. He stared at his reflection. How long had he been out? How long until the ef
fects kicked in? He checked his pockets for his phone on the off-chance Lyle wouldn’t have thought to take it, but it was gone.
Slumping against the wall, West let himself drop to the floor. He stretched his legs out in front of him, barely registering the pain from his beating as panic shrieked loud in his ears. When he and Dana had tried Rabid, and he’d woken two days later with blood on his teeth, West had thought there was something wrong with him. Something dark that had come to light. But sometimes the high took people that way, according to the research he’d done online. Magic was unpredictable. The unpredictability formed part of the meta community kickback against the spell, as it wasn’t dangerous solely to the users but also to others. But Lyle probably didn’t give a shit about that. Him or his “key investor.”
West ran his fingers through his hair. Had his heart always beat so loud? He curled under the desk and pressed his hands over his ears, counting his breaths. Dust settled around him like he’d become part of the abandoned warehouse. Another ghost.
He’d thought Lyle would kill him, but his brother had left West to kill himself instead. With nowhere to run in the locked room, he’d hunt his own reflection. The futile pursuit would result in broken glass and a dive to the floor below. And that was the optimistic version.
Lead the pack? Can’t even do his own damn dirty work.
The thought brought little comfort. West curled tighter and waited.
Chapter Ten
JULIAN sat with his feet on the dash, using the car’s interior light to study the old Holmes foundry. He’d followed his location spell to Sarnia and parked near the abandoned building, using darkness and magic to hide the car from detection. He nearly fumbled the magic, distracted by the bonding ache in his chest, which had lessened in intensity over the past few hours. Julian didn’t know what that meant. Neither did the internet, and Nolan hadn’t answered his email.
