by Helen Harper
I thought hard. I could go down the geas route. And that was actually true – the entire Cornish pack had been physically forbidden from revealing my true nature. If I could appeal to Corrigan’s better side then he might just be lenient. It wasn’t their fault that they hadn’t informed the Brethren of my presence. Leniency was not something that I’d ever heard of the shifter overlords practising, however. I tried to formulate arguments in my head. It occurred to me briefly that I wouldn’t have much time to persuade Corrigan and the whole of the Brethren not to maim or kill the Cornish pack and to release me. I was pretty sure that because we were still travelling that I’d not been knocked out for long, but I still didn’t have much time before I was bound to return to the mages. I had absolutely no doubt that they’d leave Mrs Alcoon to rot without a second thought if I didn’t get back to them before the twenty four hour period was up.
The vehicle lurched over a bump in the road and I went flying onto my face, scraping the very same cheek that the stupid mage guard had earlier attempted to torture. I yelled involuntarily out in pain. I rolled onto my back and struggled to lift myself back up. I was damned if I was going to let them open the door and find me flailing around on the floor like a bloody fish out of water. The uneven floor gave me an idea, however, and I tried to scrape my face against it to pull the blindfold off of my eyes. If I could see at the very least, then I’d have something to start with. It was unfortunate that opening up the wound on my cheek and allowing it to bleed would have no effect on my prisoner status this time, however. All my experience thus far had proven that whatever strange powers my blood had, they had little effect on the real world. The shifters rarely had to use magic to get their point across – they had sharp teeth and claws to manage that.
I kept trying to snag the blindfold on something and get it off. My cheek scraped painfully against something sharp and I winced in pain as I felt the warm trickle of blood against my face. I did my best to ignore it, however, and tried again. Eventually I managed to pull it halfway up my forehead, revealing one eye.
“Probably look like fucking Captain Hook,” I muttered to myself.
At least I could see now though. I took in my surroundings, realising that I was in the back of what was some kind of small van. In the corner were some pots of paint and boxes but other than that it was empty. I wondered if I should take some small hope from the fact that the Brethren didn’t seem to have a regular prisoner transport vehicle.
Kicking out with my legs, I managed to manoeuvre myself back to a sitting position. I could feel the van braking slightly and slowing, and then the crunch of gravel under the wheels. We came to a complete stop. My stomach flip-flopped but I kept the flames away. It was showtime.
Chapter Twenty One
The back doors to the van were flung open, banging against the metal sides. I had half hoped – and half dreaded – that it would be Corrigan, but it was the were-tiger instead, newly returned to human and wearing a fresh set of clothes. Did the Brethren keep spare wardrobes with them everywhere they travelled, I wondered? It hadn’t really been much of a problem in Cornwall; generally if someone was going to shift then they knew in advance and came prepared. It wouldn’t do if some local yokel came across a bunch of naked people in the middle of the woods. Soberly, it occurred to me that it had probably been the same today with these guys though. They’d been expecting to shift because they’d been expecting to capture me. Unfortunately it had worked.
As he was climbing into the van, with one of the shifters who’d remained human, I called out. “I want to talk to Corrigan.”
They both completely ignored me.
“Hey! Where’s the boss? I need to speak to him.”
I didn’t even get a flicker of a response. Damn, he’d trained them fucking well.
“If you’re going to get me out of this van, you’re going to have to untie my legs at the very least.”
The weretiger simply moved towards me and began pulling at the hem of my jeans, dragging me until I was almost at the exit f the van. A stray lock of hair was irritatingly falling across my one uncovered eye and I blew at it to try to move it out of the way so that what little vision I had was unimpeded. The tiger grinned at me, displaying a set of very white even teeth, and then yanked the blindfold back down again so that I was plunged back into darkness.
“What?” I sputtered, injecting as much disbelief into my voice as I could. “You think I don’t know where we are? How stupid do you think I am?”
The only place that I could possibly be being transported to was the Brethren’s headquarters, the keep. I’d seen it in pictures – and of course – been in Corrigan’s bedroom – and knew something of the layout from growing up with the Cornish pack. We may not have had much to do with the Brethren directly, but we still knew where to go when there was a problem so of course I was perfectly aware of where the keep was.
I felt my torso being yanked forward, and the waft of cold air against my face as I was pulled outside. Then I was unceremoniously dumped over a shoulder – the were-tiger’s I presumed, and carried in perhaps the most undignified fashion that I could possibly imagine. My trussed up hands dangled down towards the ground banging against the back of my captor’s legs, whilst one of his arms was tightly gripping round my thighs. Jeez, it was not as if I was going to be able to run away.
“Kind of overkill, don’t you think?”
The only answer I got was the sound of gravel as several people moved in the same direction. At one point, a loose stone ricocheted up and smacked me against the wound in my cheek. I swore, loudly, but again elicited absolutely no reaction from anyone.
“Corrigan? Are you there? Look, you just need to let me explain…”
Finally, there was an answering voice that growled at me. “You will address him as the Lord Alpha.”
Oh for fuck’s sake. These bloody megalomaniacs and their sodding titles. I wasn’t exactly in much of a position to argue however.
“Okay,” I said soothingly, “I’m sorry. Lord Alpha, please give me five minutes and you’ll understand. This was all my doing. Nobody else had anything to do with it. Nobody else had a choice – they were under a geas not to reveal that I wasn’t a shifter.” I aimed for logic. “And as I’m not a shifter you really have no right to take me prisoner.”
I waited for a moment for a response. The shifters had clearly reverted back to ignoring me. The were-tiger walked up some steps, causing my head now to thump repeatedly against the back of his legs. I tried to twist it to the side to avoid causing any more friction or damage to my cheek but I didn’t have a lot of wiggle room with which to move myself. I probably should have taken up yoga or something, I thought miserably. Maybe if I was just a little bit more flexible then I’d be able to do some amazing twisting trick that would free myself from this ignominious situation. Some big scary badass dragon I was turning out to be.
The temperature around me changed abruptly as we suddenly moved inside. The chill of winter had given way to a very cosy interior. No expense spared on central heating here, I thought sourly. Not like the Brethren’s minions freezing their arses off out in the depths of rural England. There was the murmur of voices ahead of us that suddenly hushed as they no doubt caught glimpse of my fabulously rounded bottom on display to the world. I hear a whisper to the left of me and, although I couldn’t make out what was said, I managed to swing my hanging arms up for just a second to give the owner of the voice the finger. There, that’d teach them. Things might be looking incredibly bad right now but I was damned if I was going to let them think that they’d cowed me into submission.
Before too long, the were-tiger was changing his gait again as we started travelling downstairs. Excellent. I was being taken to the actual dungeon. Images flooded my head of a dark slimy place filled with rusty manacles and nibbling rats. At this point in time it wouldn’t surprise me. I bet myself that the dungeon didn’t have central heating.
We turned round, moving down some kind o
f spiral staircase. From behind a closed door I heard the murmur of voices and I strained to listen. I might not be able to use the Voice on either Tom or Betsy but I could use my normal voice if I could get hold of them. We were past the sound too quickly however for me to make any kind of distinction. My hands and feet were both starting to feel numb. I began to worry that I’d suddenly be plonked upright on the floor and would just slide humiliatingly down, unable even to make myself stand up. I needed to show the Brethren that I had strength and power. If I could garner their respect, then maybe they’d feel some qualms about killing me. And if they couldn’t bring themselves to kill me, then they could hardly hurt the Cornish pack either. I’d lived with shifters for most of my life; I knew that vulnerability was considered a weakness and was looked down upon. Hell, half the reason that I’d been tolerated by the human haters in Cornwall had been because they knew that I could take any one of them in a fight. They might not have liked me but, because of what I could do, they respected me.
From my ungainly position, I tried to wiggle my fingers and toes and will some life back into them. There was a brief tingling sensation but little else. I considered trying to spark back some of my green fire again, but then decided against it. Even if I could muster a few flames up, the odds of being able to get myself out of the Pack’s headquarters alive were pretty much zilch. Besides which, the big secret that I’d been trying to hide from the shifters had already been revealed to the world; I’d have to find some way to get on their good side if I had any hope of everyone I knew not being ripped apart. Setting my captors on fire would not help.
My head was banging painfully against the shifter’s back, despite my best efforts to keep it up, and I was starting to feel a little dizzy at being upside down for so long. Every step down that the tiger took seemed to send a new shot of pain to some previously undiscovered part of my body. My breath hissed out through my teeth when the edge of my hip caught what I assumed was the edge of a banister. At least that meant that were back on flat ground. A strong woody, almost floral, scent reached my nostrils that belied my expectations of a slimy dank dungeon. That alone would have made me certain that we still had a ways to go before we reached our destination, but I heard the distinct rattle of a doorknob being turned in front of me and the were-tiger began to slow slightly, before stopping altogether. I tensed up, trying to tighten my calf muscles to avoid collapsing to the ground as soon as I was let down, and clenched my teeth in preparation for the inevitable burst of pain as I hit the ground. The tiger’s muscles equally shifted and I felt an arm moving round my waist and pulling me off his shoulder and onto the floor.
My knees buckled slightly and I felt myself swaying towards the ground, teetering on the brink between managing to stay upright and ending up sprawled on the ground. A hissed sigh of exasperation came from somewhere to my right and a steely hand gripped my forearm and jerked me upwards. I scowled in annoyance.
“I don’t need your fucking help,” I spat, and then instantly regretted the outburst as clearly I was going to need some help to get myself out of this situation.
Naturally, however, silence rebounded back at me. I sensed the were-tiger leaving, without saying a single word. That meant that I was alone with Corrigan. Okay, I could work with that. I’d remind him of how I helped defeat Iabartu and bring peace back to shifter world, without mentioning of course that it had been me she’d been after in the first place. I briefly thought of the knee weakening closeness we’d shared in his bedroom and wondered if I could also use that to my advantage.
A pair of hands reached around the back of my head and tugged at my blindfold, eventually yanking it painfully off from around my head. The sudden blast of unnatural light hurt my eyes and blinked hard a few times, beginning to speak.
“Corrigan, look, I….”
“What makes you think the Lord Alpha wants to waste his time being here in person?”
I jerked, my eyes eventually adjusting to make out the features of the figure in front of me. Fucking hell, it was Staines. A wave of hurt anger swept through me. After all that, the big man himself couldn’t be arsed to come and interrogate me? That prick. And he’d left me with Staines who’d never liked me.
I eyed him warily, managing to respond with a calm voice. “I apologise for the confusion. Given that the Lord Alpha,” the title stuck in my craw but I swallowed it down and continued on, “came to bring me in himself, I had expected that he would be the one here to question me. But of course I am delighted to see you again.” I managed a half smile in the direction of burly were-bear.
He growled at me and leaned forward. “Let’s cut to the chase. Did you murder the alpha of the Cornwall pack?”
I blinked in shock. Err… what? “What are you on? That was Iabartu. You were there, remember? At least for part of it, anyway, I’m sure you heard about the rest. She was this demi-goddess? Floated above the ground? I tried to kill her and would have if your Lord Alpha hadn’t gotten involved.”
“It appears that the official version of events may not be as straight forward as we had once believed. After all, you’re not even a shifter.” His voice remained even and steady but there was a definite underlying tone that promised menace and pain. “Were you in cahoots with the demi-god?”
Cahoots? Dear god, what century was this guy from? “No.”
“Then why does it appear that there was some sort of link between the two of you?”
I swallowed. Link? I’d thought all tracks leading in that direction had been covered. “Look, you’ve got Tom and Betsy from the Cornish pack here. They were there, they know what happened. Just ask them. You’ll know when they are telling the truth.”
“Oh don’t worry, Miss Smith, we are talking to them.”
The glint in his eyes sent an involuntary tremor of fear for them through my body. The tone if his voice didn’t make it sound as if they’d be sitting for a little old chinwag over afternoon tea. Fuck it, I’d been an idiot to bring them up.
I sighed heavily and looked him in the eye. “They don’t have anything to do with this. They were just there by dint of fate. If there is any fault to be had, any blame to be placed, then it needs to go on my shoulders.”
Staines stayed silent and just stared at me.
“I was not working with Iabartu. I did not murder John. Yes, I’m not a shifter, I’m sorry, but that’s no-one else’s fault but mine. The others, the Cornish pack, they didn’t have a choice. It was a geas and they couldn’t say anything if they wanted to. And I left them anyway. They made me leave. Anton made me leave because I’m not a shifter. So they did the right thing – it’s just me who messed up.”
I was aware that I starting to babble.
Staines opened his mouth. “Why was a mage trying to pass herself off as a shifter? What did you hope to gain?”
Disbelievingly, I shook my head at him. “I’m not a mage! The mages don’t even fucking like me. I have to go back there in less than twenty four hours and become their effective prisoner because they don’t like what I did to them.” The familiar swirl of heat was starting to rise up. At least that meant my body was starting to recover somewhat.
“You can shoot fire from your fingertips and you expect me to believe that you’re not a mage?”
“I don’t know why that happens!” I touched the necklace at my throat. “This weird Scottish lady put this on me and then all of a sudden the green fire happened. It doesn’t mean I’m a mage!”
“You can transport yourself at will into highly guarded buildings.”
“That was a – friend of mine who was messing around!” I was going to fucking kill Solus if I ever saw him again.
“You can go into a fight against otherworlders, including at one point, I might add, the future alpha of a local pack, and win.”
“I work out! I’ve trained for years! That doesn’t make me a fucking mage!”
A deep voice suddenly smoothly spoke from behind me. “So, kitten, if you’re not a mage, then what
are you?”
My stomach dropped with a horrifying lurch and I turned to face Corrigan. It irked me that I was very much aware that I was covered in dried blood, wearing smelly old clothes, and looking like I’d been squatting in an abandoned house and then unsuccessfully trying to attack the might of the magic otherworld before being set upon by a group of shifters in broad daylight. But, oh wait, that’s what I had been doing. I peered at Corrigan and noted heavy dark shadows under his eyes and a pallor to his normally tanned skin. At least I wasn’t the only one who was looking a bit worse for wear then at least. I forced myself to stay calm and keep my recovering bloodfire to a minimum. I needed him on my side.
“I’m nothing, my Lord. Just…nothing,” I answered, hoping that the tremor stayed out of my voice.
Staines spoke again, with the first hint of clear emotion that I think I’d heard in him up till now. “He’s not your Lord. You don’t have the privilege to call him that.”
Well, I was hardly going to lose sleep over not having that ‘privilege’ any more.
“Oh no,” I muttered sarcastically, unable to help myself, then immediately inwardly cursing at my stupidity. Five seconds into the ‘conversation’ and I was already letting my emotions get the better of me.
I turned back towards Staines and the glowering malevolence that he was shooting at me, and raised my eyebrows. His body tensed, about to launch out a hit. Fuck it. I prepared myself to block with my shoulder. Even with my hands tied behind my back, I could take him.
