by Casey Lane
Inside was a huge knife with a wicked sharp blade, and a carved wooden handle. It had once belonged to his mother. He had no idea what its purpose was or what his mother had used it for. To Rhys, it looked like a really expensive machete, but he didn’t care as long as it could sever the head of a draugen. He was almost positive his mother wouldn’t have minded.
He slipped the blade inside the nylon bag and pulled the strings over his shoulder before slipping on his flannel shirt. He turned to look at himself sideways in the mirror. It wasn’t completely inconspicuous, but it was dark out, and there would be a lot going on, and there was no place else to hide it.
Rhys wished he’d had time to practice. It would have been nice if Wren’s training session that morning had been less about life lessons and more about how to properly kill an evil bloodsucking monster. He had no idea how to chop off somebody’s head, but he had to believe having a giant ass knife couldn’t hurt. The backpack didn’t make the weapon easy to access, but they didn’t have any other options.
He met the others in Tristin’s room. Her window was already open, but they stood by, waiting for him to lead them. Tristin leaned against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes still red and swollen. She didn’t look hurt, but she was still shaken up. Neoma stood away from the others like she was no longer one of them. This was a mess.
“Are we ready? I just want to get on with it,” Kai griped, moving to hook his leg over the window sill.
Rhys grabbed Kai by the arm and Kai looked at him, staring at the wolf’s hand. “Come here for a second.”
Kai let Rhys lead him to the other side of the room where he stared up at Rhys in confusion. “I hope you aren’t dragging me over here to, like, apologize for all the times you’ve been a total dick because then I know we’re going to die out there.”
Rhys rolled his eyes. “Don’t make jokes. This is important. I need you to go last.”
Kai started to get angry. “Why are you always trying to protect me? I kicked your ass earlier.”
Rhys’s nostrils flared; his wolf so ready for a fight—any fight—but Rhys pushed it back down, relieved when his wolf relented. “Just shut up and listen. Neoma’s ankle is still healing. Tristin’s still freaked out. Quinn is…well, Quinn is Quinn. I need you to help them down from up here in case I need to catch any of them if they fall. Four out of the five adults in our house have supernatural hearing. Remember?” Kai’s shoulders sagged. “I also need you to walk at the back of the line because that demonic deer is still wandering around out there and somebody needs to watch our backs.”
Kai nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
Rhys was about to walk away when Kai said, “We’re going to be alright, right?”
Rhys was grateful Kai couldn’t hear his heartbeat as he lied. “Yeah, we’re all going to be fine. I promise.”
Once the five of them were standing outside Tristin’s window, Rhys realized they would never make it down the trellis without making a sound. Instead, he climbed to the edge, letting himself hang for a moment before dropping to the ground. From there it became a matter of Kai helping the rest of them over the edge and Rhys lowering them down. It felt like it took hours, but was probably only minutes.
Overhead, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The moon looked huge, full but for just a sliver. For once, Rhys was grateful that his wolf was lurking just under the surface. He had too much adrenaline firing through his system to feel much emotion. Instead, he focused on his senses. His eyes glowed, pupils blown, allowing him to see much farther than his human eyes. If he tipped his nose into the air, he could separate and catalog even the faintest of scents.
He kept Neoma close by, not only out of fear but necessity. Hadley had managed to take away some of the pain and swelling, but she was still walking with a limp from their encounter with the draugen. Rhys had no plan. He just had a weapon. If this monster gave him an opportunity, he had to take it. If something happened to him, he had the greatest chance of survival. Being a werewolf didn’t make him indestructible, but he would heal faster, and he was much harder to kill. He just needed to make sure the others walked away.
“You need to go as soon as we get there,” Neoma said. “If you try to attack her, she’s going to hurt you or the others. She says it will be painless if I don’t fight.”
Rhys’s stomach churned. He wanted this thing out of Neoma’s head. It was poisoning her brain. She sounded…not happy, exactly, but content, like this had been the only inevitable outcome and she’d just made peace with it. “Neoma, you can’t stop fighting her. You can’t let her have control.”
Neoma sighed. “She’s always had control. I just didn’t know it because Ezri took it from me.”
Rhys frowned. “What do you mean?”
Neoma shrugged. “I remember everything now. All of it. It hurts…in here.” She tapped her chest.
“What do you remember?”
“I did something bad. Really bad. I’m more like my parents than anybody knows. If Wren finds out, he’ll never forgive me. It’s better this way.”
“Stop saying that. There’s nothing you could do that would make Wren not forgive you. He’d do anything for you.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
Rhys shook his head, opening his mouth to say more when he caught a familiar scent. The smell of death and rot. The deer. It wasn’t close enough to harm them, but it was roaming, close enough to raise the hairs on his neck. “Stay close. We’re almost there.”
“Like we’d run off?” Quinn muttered, moving nearer to Tristin.
Just before they arrived at the clearing, Rhys could taste the scent of blood on the air. As they reached the trees surrounding the clearing, Tristin made a startled sound, “Look!”
The dolls, the draugen’s totems, hung from branches around the clearing, soaked in blood, spinning frantically each time the wind blew. Rhys hesitated, suddenly wishing his sister was there.
A voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. “Come, come, children, don’t be shy. I’ve been expecting you.”
Then she was just there, standing in the clearing, with her snarl of dark hair and her chalk white skin.
He took Neoma’s hand and stepped into the empty space, silently praying his sister noticed they were missing.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Wren
Wren helped Isa in the kitchen, pouring coffee into cups as she set out cream and sugar on the dining room table. It was all very civilized for considering they were planning what was, essentially, an assassination. He felt numb. In the last five days, he’d learned so much more than he ever wanted to know about his family. In trying to solve one problem, he’d created a hundred more, and he didn’t have a clue how to fix a single one of them. He set the coffee pot down, rubbing his eyes.
Neoma was heartbroken. He could see it, He could smell it. She was cracking into pieces, and he didn’t know how much more trauma she could handle. They weren’t going digging around in her brain anymore. They knew what they needed to know about her past and about the draugen. If she remembered more, so be it, but he couldn’t keep putting her through this.
He didn’t realize he was just standing there until he heard Isa come in from the dining room. He cleared his throat, making to pick up the coffee pot to continue filling the cups.
Isa’s hand covered his, lowering the pot back to the counter. “None of this is your fault, you know?”
He sighed. “It sure feels like it is. Did you see her face? She’s devastated.”
Isa rubbed his arm. “Yes, but she’d have been crushed at any age. She’s more resilient than you think. How are you holding up?”
He nodded, lacing his fingers through hers, pulling her near. “It’s funny, I’ve known my father was a terrible person my whole life and yet he still managed to be so much worse than I thought he could be.”
“None of us ever want to see who our parents really are.”
“At least your parents w
eren’t child-torturing murderers.”
Isa eased herself back, licking her bottom lip. “My parents weren’t perfect.” She turned, then, checking to see where the others were before she lowered her voice. “I never told you how I ended up with Kai and Tristin and it’s probably something I should have disclosed before I bonded us for life.”
Wren felt a small shiver of uneasiness, but he tucked it away. There was literally nothing she could have told him that would have kept him from making her his for life, nothing…not even murder. “I bit first,” he reminded her, relieved when she gave a half-hearted smile. “But go ahead, tell me how you ended up with the twins.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “I was sixteen, and my parents had been dead less than a week. I was in shock. Numb. Allister showed up at my door. He said that we needed to talk and then he explained that my parents…my mother…had signed a treaty with the Grove.” She paused looking up at him from beneath her lashes like she was waiting for him to gasp in horror. When he did nothing, she continued, “He said that they’d agreed to use Belle Haven as a sort of supernatural holding cell. He stated that, because of their agreement, from time to time, I might be asked to hunt, imprison or question anybody if Allister, and by extension, the Grove, saw fit. He said the druids essentially owned the Belladonna pack.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I was barely sixteen. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything. He just dropped that bombshell and left.”
Wren smoothed his hands over her cheeks. “But he came back.”
She nodded, her hands playing with the buttons on his shirt as she spoke, “The next day. He showed up with Kai and Tristin in tow. They were so small. I knew who they were. Our parents were all on the council together—back before the council consisted of only witches—but I didn’t really know them. They didn’t talk, just stood there with their dark hair and those huge violet eyes. They looked so scared. Allister sent them off to play with Rhys. When we were alone, he told me that they were prisoners of the Grove and that it was my duty to watch them, care for them, and report to Allister immediately when one or both of them came into their powers.”
“They couldn’t have been more than…what, five? What could they have done to warrant them being imprisoned by the Grove?”
“That was my first question. He wouldn’t answer me. He told me it was none of my business. He said we weren’t partners, that I was an employee. So, I asked him how I was supposed to take care of three little kids when I was a sophomore in high school. He said I had a trust fund and that my parents had left me more than enough money to take care of my brother and me—and anybody else, really—for several generations. He said the Grove would provide a nanny, a housekeeper, anything I needed and then he offered to help me sell my mother’s restaurant. He said anything I needed would be mine, all I had to do was raise the two of them along with my brother and keep an eye on this town…just like my parents had.”
“I’m assuming you said yes, seeing as how they are still upstairs.”
“Not right away. I had a million questions that he refused to answer and, no matter how much money my parents left me, I still couldn’t fathom how I was going to take care of three kids.” She sighed. “But then he said that if I refused, they would go to the Grove’s facility where they would be treated as prisoners, raised practically in cages, subject to any number of the Grove’s inquisitors. What was I going to do?”
Wren kissed her then. He couldn’t not kiss her. She was one of the most selfless people he’d ever known. When he pulled away, he pushed a strand of hair from her face. “You did what any decent human being would do. You did exactly what Allister knew you’d do. You saved two kids from a life of misery.”
“But you don’t get it. By marrying me, you’ve now signed yourself to that same treaty my parents signed. The Grove owns us.”
“Has the Grove ever asked you to do anything other than take care of the twins?”
“Just protect the town’s borders. Keep out the monsters that wander into town.”
“Have you ever wondered if maybe Allister made the whole thing up?”
Isa chewed her bottom lip for a moment before shrugging, “Maybe, but not enough to take the chance. Besides, the last thing they wanted was for me to marry you. Your father is going to try to ingratiate himself into our pack. He’s going to expect us to answer to him as an elder alpha.”
Wren hugged her close. “Let’s not worry about Cain just yet.”
Gen entered the room then, clearing her throat loudly. “Sorry. Just letting you know I spoke with Allister.”
Isa made a face at Wren, muttering, “Speak of the devil.” She looked to Gen. “And? What’d he say?”
“He said if we can kill the draugen it should break her hold over the coven, allowing Allister and Alex to put our creepy, deer friend back in his world, where he belongs.”
“Well, that’s one bit of good news,” Wren said.
Together the three of them carried the coffee back into the room. Hadley and Oggie were mid-conversation. “I keep thinking about what Ezri told Neoma,” Hadley said. “That only somebody with a pure heart can wield the blade. Do you think that part is fact or just lore?”
Oggie snorted. “Well, I hope it’s just lore because I can’t think of a single one of us that is that pure of heart. Well, except maybe this one.” He wiggled thick eyebrows at Hadley before kissing her hand. The witch rolled her eyes before seeking out Gen and winking at her.
“Wren, I think your friend is trying to steal my wife,” Gen joked, before tilting her head and listening intently. “Does anybody else think the kids are too quiet? I’m going to go check on them.”
Wren had thought about that too. Magic was tricky. There was always a loophole. Some good. Some bad. “Here’s what I can’t stop thinking about. The draugen said my brother had tricked her into drinking Neoma’s blood by promising her it would heal her. I’m a little behind on my fae knowledge, but I thought pure fae blood could heal almost anything. So why didn’t it work?”
Oggie shook his head. “Nothing can cure death. Seelie blood may have sustained her longer, helped her look more human, but it could never cure her. But Neoma doesn’t have Seelie blood. She bears the mark of the dark fae, the Unseelie. Her blood is essentially poison.”
“Wait. If Neoma’s blood is poison, how could Cain sell it like a drug?” Isa asked.
Oggie shrugged. “Any drug in large enough quantities can kill. Cain—that greedy bastard—was selling Neoma’s blood a drop at a time. Rare royal fae blood. Think of it like the Belladonna plant. In small quantities, it can be therapeutic, in medium doses, it’s a psychedelic, but take too much, and it will kill you.”
Something just kept scratching at Wren’s brain. “This whole time, we’ve been assuming that this draugen had to be Magna. That it was her sister, Freyja who had been the original draugen, the one killed in Norway, but that doesn’t make any sense. Magna is the only one who knew Neoma’s whole story. She’s the only one who would know with certainty that Neoma’s blood couldn’t heal her. So, why would she take it?”
They all stared at him, dumbfounded until Isa finally said, “Do you think the children misunderstood? I mean, the draugen follows a bloodline. There’s no other person it could be.”
And just like that, Wren realized that Isa was wrong and it froze the blood in his veins. They’d all been wrong. “That’s not true.” He slammed his hands down on the table, causing coffee to slosh out of cups onto the wood. “Dammit. It’s not Magna. God, I’m so stupid.”
They all stared back at him, bewildered. Finally, Oggie said, “Well, who is it, boy?”
Wren swallowed thickly, heart heavy. “Jaelle.”
Isa’s eyes went wide. “Jaelle’s been dead for what? Sixteen years? How could she survive?”
Wren was shaking his head. The how didn’t matter. “It’s her. It’s Jaelle. It has to be. It all makes perfect sense, rea
lly. Every time any witch spoke against my father, they’d be overcome with a mysterious illness. Just like the people in this town. Magna had to know it was Jaelle. Maybe she was using her as a personal attack dog.”
Isa nodded. “That’s what Alex said. He said that so many witches got sick in Watcher’s Bend they started calling it Witches’ End. You think that Magna would do that?”
“Magna was no saint. She helped my father bleed Neoma for years just on the off chance that one day she might be able to use Neoma like some golden ticket into the fae world. I’m right about this. Jaelle is the draugen, and she’s been lurking in Watcher’s Bend this whole time.”
Gen bounded down the front steps, red-faced, and hair a mess. In her hands was a large, empty box. “They’re gone.”
“Who’s gone?” Isa asked, face looking like she already knew the answer.
“The children. They’re gone, and they took whatever was in this box.”
Isa looked to Wren, eyes flashing gold. “Oh, God.”
“Where would they have gone?” Oggie asked.
He knew where they were going. “They went to the clearing off of Old Mill Road. They went to confront her themselves. What the hell were they thinking?”
“I think, by now, we’ve established that our children rarely think,” Isa muttered. She sounded angry, but Wren could smell the panic coming off her in waves.
Gen looked to Wren and then Isa. “What’s the plan, boss?”
Isa looked at Wren. “Chop off her head, rip out her heart, and retrieve our stupidly brave kids.”
Oggie pulled his keys from his pocket, dangling them in the air. “Well, if that’s the plan, we’re going to need supplies from my secret stash.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Neoma
Neoma remembered everything. Those memories beat against her brain like the wings of an insect, loud and biting, until she could think of nothing else. She remembered every conversation she’d ever overheard between Dylan and Ruby, every argument. She remembered every time he’d sliced her with his claws or cut her with his blade. She remembered the million times she’d run from Dylan and the one and only time she fought back. She remembered the blood leaking from his nose and ears.
