by Reine, SM
She stared at the tableau in front of her, unable to make sense of what she was seeing.
Gwyn stood in the doorway, holding an old revolver that looked like it might have belonged to Abel. Bekah was shrieking, hands clapped to her face. Levi was halfway to turning into a wolf.
And then Rylie’s gaze dropped, and she saw why.
Scott Whyte’s body rested at Gwyn’s feet with a gunshot wound in his forehead.
It took time for Levi to change, which gave Seth the advantage in reaction time.
He grabbed a shotgun out of the unlocked case on the wall, pumped it once, and turned on the werewolf.
“Don’t move,” he said, and Levi froze.
“Oh my God, Gwyn,” Rylie said. “What’s going on? Did you kill him? What—why—?”
Gwyn kicked Scott over. Considering his mass, he should have been a lot harder to budge, but the man was totally limp. She never lowered her aim from his body. “He’s not dead. Trust me. Or at least… he’s not dead for good.”
Seth moved forward and pressed his fingers to Scott’s throat without dropping his aim from Levi.
No heartbeat.
“What the hell is going on, Gwyn?” Seth asked.
“It would be easier for me to just show you,” she said.
She kneeled beside Scott, unbuttoned his shirt, and pushed it aside. There was a tattoo of a bleeding apple on the left side of his chest.
Bekah cried out again. “No!”
Seth was only distantly aware of Levi changing back to his human form behind him.
“What do you kids know about Scott Whyte?” Gwyn asked. Nobody answered. She looked between their shocked faces and sighed. “You don’t get to be high priest of a coven unless you’re strong. Scott likes to pretend that he’s a healer. That’s a pretty special talent right there. But it’s not as special as the truth. He’s a necromancer.”
Seth lost balance and sat down hard. He carefully placed the shotgun beside him.
Slowly, everything fell into place.
In order to bring Eleanor back from the dead, Cain would have needed a necromancer. But he was a werewolf, not a witch. And if Scott had the bleeding apple tattoo…
“So you killed him,” Levi said. He was pale and shaking. Almost the exact mirror of Rylie.
“It’s not that easy.” Gwyn stepped inside and shut the door behind her, blocking out the cool night. “Necromancers can’t die the first time. He’ll be back soon. Give it a few hours.”
Bekah turned her tearful face up without releasing Scott. “How can you possibly know that?”
“Because,” Gwyn said with a grim smile, “Scott brought me back from the dead months ago.”
Gwyn put Scott Whyte’s body in the cellar beneath the ranch house, called Stephanie at the hotel, and then brewed a strong pot of coffee. Rylie sat at the kitchen table next to her aunt, struggling not to cry.
“It was the disease,” Gwyn said, taking a sip from her steaming mug. Even though the entire pack was there—Seth, Bekah, Levi, Trevin, and Crystal—the silence in the kitchen was deathly. She addressed Crystal and Trevin directly. “You probably don’t know this, but I had AIDS, and I wasn’t good about taking care of it. I was hospitalized a few times.”
“But you got better,” Rylie interrupted.
Her aunt patted her hand. “I died, babe. Heart failure.” She sighed. “I woke up in the hospital immediately. Scott had given me a charm bracelet before—said it was a Christmas present that would help heal me. But all it did was bring me back when I died.”
“So you’re like Eleanor,” Seth said.
“I reckon so.”
“No way. She’s all rotten,” Rylie protested.
“He must have brought her back from the grave after she’d been decaying for a while. I was fresh. See, if I break or tear something, I don’t heal. But as long as a necromancer keeps fixing me, I could live like this forever. I was grateful for Scott’s gift. It let me stay with you, babe.” Gwyn smiled fondly at Rylie and patted her hand. “But I didn’t know that Scott had… other plans.”
Bekah gave another ragged sob. Levi hugged her tightly. “He would never work for Cain,” Levi said fiercely. “I don’t believe it.”
Rylie rounded on him. “You think Gwyn is lying?”
“No. I saw the tattoo. But it must be something else. Blackmail, maybe.” Levi pounded a fist on the table, making the coffee mugs jump. “You didn’t have to kill him!”
Gwyn didn’t rise to meet his anger. She took another sip of coffee and set it down again.
“No,” she said softly. “I didn’t. Frankly, I don’t know if he’ll be able to keep me running now that I killed him, so it would have been in my best interests to do nothing. But I couldn’t let that traitor run free. He was going to sacrifice Rylie to resurrect Eleanor.”
Rylie couldn’t hold it back anymore. A hot tear slid down her cheek.
It was Crystal who spoke. “So you’re going to die anyway.”
Gwyn just pushed Rylie’s mug closer to her. “Drink up, babe.”
She stared at the black fluid. A disjointed corner of her brain wondered if she should drink that much caffeine when she was pregnant. Rylie brought the mug to her lips, but didn’t drink before setting it down again.
“What are we going to do about Scott?” Trevin asked.
Seth pushed his chair back and stood.
“Get answers.”
NINE
The Day before the Wedding
Despite his exhaustion, Abel couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t even that he still had a fork buried in his ribs—after a couple of hours, it turned to nothing more than a numb spot on his side. And it definitely wasn’t fear, because he wasn’t afraid anymore, either.
The thought that kept him up was Rylie. She was out there somewhere, growing his baby in her womb, and thinking of it filled him with possessive heat. The urge to claim her, and beat all other claimants away.
He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t let his guard down. Couldn’t get sacrificed to bring his bitch of a mother back to life.
A rumbling growl rose in Abel’s chest and rolled through his throat. His muscles tensed as he strained against the ropes, twisting his wrists and arching his back to put all of his strength behind trying to snap them again.
He had been trying every five minutes ever since Cain left him, and made no progress. But he had to get free. That singular need drove everything else from his mind.
The night wore on, long and slow. The dawn was broken with the sound of Eleanor’s shriek.
“What do you mean, he’s gone missing?”
Abel jerked in his ropes, twisting around to see where her voice had come from. He had smelled her, and known that she had to be close, but his mom hadn’t come out to taunt him.
Now Eleanor and Cain were yelling at each other.
“He was supposed to be here last night, and he never arrived!” Cain’s voice filtered through the window, only a fraction quieter than Eleanor.
“You didn’t have someone watching him?”
“Of course I did,” Cain snapped. “But he hasn’t reported in lately, and—”
He fell silent. Eleanor must have said something, but it was too quiet for Abel to hear what she said.
Abel finally stopped fighting. He didn’t know who was supposed to have arrived—the necromancer? But an aura of anger radiated from the mobile home, and he was certain that something had gone wrong. Really wrong.
“It’s not safe to keep Abel much longer,” Cain finally said. “He’s dangerous.”
Eleanor’s response chilled Abel.
“Fine. I’ll kill him.”
Trevin, Crystal, and a few of the other werewolves that had survived the attack on the sanctuary were getting set up for Rylie’s wedding. The arch and chairs had arrived, the baker’s truck was rolling up the driveway, and things were starting to look like a real wedding.
Despite the light dusting of snow, the news report was good—the next day was s
upposed to be in the high forties and only a little overcast, with no actual falling snow.
Perfect for an outdoor wedding in winter.
“What are you going to do if the weather gets bad?” Yasir asked, handing a box of ammunition and an empty magazine to Seth. They were on the other side of the property getting ready for their part of the wedding.
“Wear a warmer jacket,” Seth said. Loading a magazine was tricky with a broken hand, but he had practice at it. “We can’t do this inside. It has to be outside, where we have more room to maneuver. How many men will you have?”
“Two full units are on their way,” Yasir said. “Over a dozen men. Considering my batting average as of late, I’d say at least five or six of those aren’t going to try to kill us.”
He popped the magazine into the bottom of his gun.
“Not bad odds,” Seth said, giving Yasir a slanted smile.
“What are you guys doing?”
Rylie came down the hill, wearing a white tank top and a dusty pair of jeans. It looked like she had been hard at work getting everything arranged.
Seth stepped in front of the car so that she wouldn’t see the guns they were assembling in the trunk, but Rylie didn’t need her eyes to tell what was going on. Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed.
“We’re preparing,” he said.
She frowned. “You’re armed.”
Seth looked to Yasir for assistance, but the other man seemed to be pretending to be deaf.
He didn’t bother trying to hold Rylie back when she stepped up to look in the trunk. They had several fully automatic weapons and a few smaller, easy to conceal guns spread in front of them, like a miniature armory.
Rylie pulled a face. She must have smelled the silver bullets. “Do you think Cain is going to attack the wedding?”
“I just want to be prepared,” Seth said, voice level.
Her eyes flicked to Yasir. “Is that why your ‘hunter friends’ are coming? Are they Union?”
“Rylie…”
“The Union tried to kill me,” she said.
“To be fair, they’ve tried to kill most people at one point or another,” Seth said. Rylie didn’t seem to think that it was funny. He wrapped her in his arms. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. That’s all. Nobody is going to hurt you.” She sighed and didn’t respond. Seth was pretty sure that meant she didn’t forgive him. “Did you need something?”
“Stephanie sent me,” she said. “She wanted me to tell you that Scott came back from the dead.”
Seth met Stephanie at the cellar door, and they entered together.
“Back from the dead” was an interesting description—and pretty appropriate, considering that Scott had a permanent hole in his forehead. There was no mistaking him for alive. Not the same way that Gwyn had always looked lively and bright.
“I’m sorry,” Scott said as soon as they descended the stairs. He was sitting against a few boxes in the corner, and he looked horrible.
“Why, Papa?” Stephanie asked. There was a softness to her voice that Seth had never heard before. “You betrayed us. You’re working for Cain.”
“The Apple,” he whispered. “I had no choice.”
Seth stepped forward. “You mean that tattoo—right? What is the Apple?”
Scott gripped his daughter’s hand. He reached up to touch her cheek, and she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Steph,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted you to think so badly of me.”
“What is the Apple?” Seth pressed.
“The mark of Cain.” He choked on the words. “It’s hard to explain how I got involved with the Apple, but it was long before either of you were born, and I hope you can trust me when I say that I never thought that it would involve hurting people. I haven’t hurt anyone. But I had obligations. There was no choice but to resurrect Eleanor.”
“There’s always a choice,” Stephanie said.
Scott’s brow wrinkled, making the skin around the bullet wound pucker. “I don’t consider letting Cain kill my children a choice.” He gave a rattling sigh. “I don’t have the answers you want. I’m sorry.”
He sounded like he meant it. Seth paced away from him, trying to calm his pounding heart.
If they couldn’t trust Scott, who could they trust?
“Do you know anyone else with the Apple?” Seth asked, even though he suspected that he knew the answer.
Scott shook his head. “Please let me out of here. I need to attempt to heal myself.”
“Will you die if you don’t?” Stephanie asked.
“No, but—”
She stood and straightened her blouse. The look she gave her father dripped with disdain.
“Consider it a lesson,” she said. She turned to Seth. “Let’s let him think on this. We have to finish getting ready for your wedding.”
TEN
Sacrificial Wolf
Eleanor came to kill Abel that night. She carried a knife the size of her forearm in her left hand, which was not her dominant side. When she circled around him, Abel saw why. The opposite shoulder terminated in a stump of bone, gleaming a dull shade of gray in the moonlight.
It was starting to snow again, so she was careful navigating the hill to his side.
He studied her every movement as she approached. Even dead, Eleanor was smart. If she dropped her guard for an instant, he was going to have to act fast to get free. He still wasn’t sure how—after hours of fighting against his ropes, all he had gotten were sore wrists and not an inch of slack, and his anger had faded into something more like grim resignation.
“Eleanor,” Abel said when she finally stood over him. She reeked of death and soil. After a beat, he changed it to, “Mom.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.
Eleanor jerked the fork out of his side. Abel’s cry echoed off the hills. She flung it down the hill, and the fork disappeared into the bushes.
He sagged, panting and shaking as the healing fever swept over him again. Snow drifted through the air, landing on his chest and melting into tiny puddles. It didn’t melt when it landed on Eleanor. Her hair was crunchy with ice.
She waited to move again until he was totally healed, and then she lifted the knife. The sour tang of silver’s stench filled the air.
“Let me go,” Abel said.
Her eyes narrowed. They had sunk deeper into her skull, like she was beginning to shrivel. “I don’t talk to animals. Especially not the ones on the butcher’s block.”
She struggled to lower herself onto her knees. It was strange seeing her fight against her own body’s mobility. Alive, Eleanor had been graceful and strong. As a corpse, she was in shambles—and getting worse.
Once she was closer, Abel could see that her arm wasn’t the only thing missing. Her throat had collapsed. Her hair was missing on the left side.
Eleanor slid a hand over his chest and rested her fingers on his heartbeat. He realized with a jolt that she was trying to find his heart, because her right eye was glazed and blind.
“Wait,” Abel said.
She didn’t respond. Having found his heart, she positioned the point of the knife over his chest.
Eleanor was going to kill him. Just like that.
His heart raced, and his breath caught in his throat.
“Rylie’s pregnant with your grandbaby,” he blurted.
Eleanor froze. The knife drew back, but his pulse didn’t slow again.
Her chin tipped down so that she could focus her one clear eye on him. The look she gave Abel was pure venom. “Who?” she asked, hatred dripping from that one word. “Seth?”
“Me,” Abel said. His heart skipped a beat again, but it wasn’t with fear this time.
Eleanor’s eyes slid shut, and a shudder rippled through her broken body.
She had spent her entire adult life trying to wipe out werewolves to fulfill her husband’s legacy. She knew as well as Abel did what her grandchild would be like.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Ca
in’s going to kill her,” she said, but she sounded worried. “He won’t let that devil spawn walk the Earth.”
The knife hung at her side. She hadn’t moved to stab him again.
Abel tried to catch her gaze, hoping she would hear him. Really hear him. And he prayed that she still had enough of a brain to understand. “You got to have wondered why he let her live at the cabin. Why not kill her when he had the chance?”
Eleanor leaned closer. The hole on her upper chest was glistening, and he realized that there were maggots squirming inside the dried flesh. Abel’s stomach flipped. “Cain let her live because he was saving her for me. To bring me back.”
“He let her live because he smelled that she’s pregnant. He had seen her mating with me. He wants to bring the werewolf species back—and he wants them to be pure.” Abel spat out the last word.
He could practically see the cogs turning in Eleanor’s head as she considered his claims. He saw the instant that she realized he was speaking the truth.
“Every fruit born from my womb is a piece of useless garbage,” Eleanor said. “Failures. All of you.” There was a strange, hollow tenor to her voice. Like she was repeating something that had been recorded before, instead of speaking something new.
Abel hadn’t expected his news to make her love him in the way that she never had before, but it still didn’t feel good to hear those words from her shriveled lips.
“Mom,” he whispered.
Eleanor lifted the knife again. He tensed.
But she brought it down on the ropes, cutting his wrists free.
“Run, boy,” Eleanor said.
“What are you doing?” he asked, rubbing his raw wrists.
“You promise me something,” Eleanor said in a low voice, quiet enough that Cain wouldn’t be able to hear it inside the mobile home. “Promise me that if I let you go, you demons are done. That you’ll die out.”
Abel frowned. “That was always the plan. Ever since that night on the mountain.”
“Good,” she said, her dry voice rattling in her chest. “So run. My other son has betrayed me, lied to me, and he’s going to answer for his sins.”
