“Skye,” Damien greeted. “Good to hear your voice.”
“Define willingly,” I demanded, hung up on that word.
“You will bind yourself to the Norwood pack if your mate should fall,” Damien explained, and there was no hiding the glee in his voice. “A marriage should do it.”
Remy’s low growl filled the air.
“And who am I marrying?” I asked. If he said Trace, I would throw up.
Damien laughed again. “Why me, of course.”
Okay, that was actually worse.
My fingers dug into Remy’s shoulders before he could go off.
“Last I checked, you were already married,” I pointed out, pointedly ignoring the looks of astonishment and fury from my friends.
“We can both agree that you would be a trade up in the mate department,” Damien said, almost clinically. “My wife is old and has only given me one heir. She’s of no use to me.”
So, I was what? Just there for breeding potential? Gross.
My wolf hated the very thought of someone else touching me to the point I felt physically ill.
“And if I say no?” I asked softly.
“Then I kill all of your friends in Windale and take you by force when I attack Blackwater,” he replied, a smile in his voice.
Remy’s growl turned into an all-out snarl, and I slapped my hand on the mute button.
“Remy—”
“No,” he bit out, his eyes more wolf than human as he looked at me. He stood up, the chair rolling back into the wall as he towered over me.
“He’s right, Skye,” Rhodes said firmly. “No fucking way.”
I framed Remy’s face with my hands. “Baby, I need you to trust me.”
I could feel his teeth grinding together beneath my palms.
“He can’t have you,” Remy grit out slowly, his chest heaving. His hands clamped onto my waist hard enough to bruise. Like I might slip through his fingers and into Damien’s hands if he wasn’t touching me.
“He won’t,” I said softly, begging him to relax a bit. “Are you going to lose?”
He blinked slowly at me through a fog of rage.
“Are you going to lose?” I repeated gently, sweeping my thumbs across his cheeks.
“No,” he answered finally, his eyes calmer as they searched mine.
“Then we tell Damien what he needs to hear to make this happen,” I went on, my tone low and soothing. “I’m yours.”
A shuddering sigh hunched his shoulders as he nodded. “Okay.”
I reached past him and took the phone off mute.
“Deal,” I replied evenly, my eyes still locked on Remy’s.
“Wonderful,” Damien crowed. “May the best Alpha win.”
“I’m sure he will,” I said evenly, my gaze never leaving Remy’s.
Remy swallowed and grabbed his chair, sitting down once more but pulling me onto his lap. He cleared his throat. “Griffin has agreed to host the challenge in Windale. He’s agreed to cede his pack to whoever the winner is.”
“A wise decision,” Damien replied. “I would hate to rip apart the very thing I seek to claim.”
“So, we have a deal then?” Remy ground out.
“I suppose,” Damien agreed nonchalantly. “Oh, but that was only part of my condition.”
“What now?” Remy demanded.
“So impatient,” Damien tsked, his tone utterly patronizing and annoyingly condescending. “My son.”
“Trace isn’t my problem,” Remy replied curtly.
“But his happiness is mine,” Damien lamented with another chuckle. “And he’s taken a particular fondness to someone from your pack.”
Oh, no.
My head snapped up in sync with Remy’s as we stared at Rhodes.
“I believe her name is … Larkin?”
Rhodes jumped up, but was immediately held back by Dante and Katy. Will stepped in as well to help wrangle the beta who was seconds from shifting and losing control.
“Bring her as well. I don’t want my son to have to wait for us to come and collect her.”
“Larkin isn’t part of this,” I snapped, feeling the same spike of fear Remy must have when Damien looped me into this mess. It was one thing to gamble with my own life, but it was a whole different thing to include someone I loved.
“I’m making her part of this,” Damien shot back. “She comes as well, unless you’re withdrawing the challenge? In which case, I’ll have my men in Windale by nightfall.”
I pushed Remy’s hands off of me and quickly went to stand in front of Rhodes. His dark eyes were practically feral.
“No, Skye,” he seethed through clenched teeth. He shook his head viciously at me.
“Trust us,” I pleaded gently.
“Skye—”
“Please, Rhodey.” I grabbed his shoulders. “You know we won’t let anything happen to Larkin.”
I saw the very second he accepted it. He sagged slightly against Katy and Dante. After a second he gave me an almost imperceptible, limp nod of his head.
I turned back to Remy with a slow nod.
“Fine,” Remy snapped. “But since you’re negotiating the terms, I’m adding in another one.”
“Do tell,” Damien inquired.
Remy’s eyes flickered past me. “We all know what’s going on in Norwood. We know about the facility you have and that you’ve taken women and children.”
“Have I?”
“Maren Lopez. We want her back.”
Katy’s soft gasp made my heart clench.
He sighed heavily, like the request was putting him out. “And why would I bring her?”
Remy scoffed. “Don’t bullshit me, Damien. You know what she means to us, and we want her back. As a bonus, I’ll even bring Elias Samuels with me. I hear he’s kind of important to you.”
“Very well. We’ll see you all in two days,” Damien replied and hung up.
Remy slammed a fist down on the disconnect button, snapping the flimsy plastic encasing the phone into pieces that went flying in various directions.
Stunned, we all stood there silently.
“You two are our best friends,” Rhodes said slowly, his voice shaking. “If you fuck this up …”
“We won’t,” Remy replied firmly as I helplessly nibbled on my lower lip.
Oh, God. What had we done?
Rhodes spun and stalked from the room, ripping the door open hard enough that it crashed into the wall. A framed picture of Gabe and Mallory on their wedding day fell down, the glass cracking.
“You made the right call,” Will offered. “We’ll protect Larkin and Skye.”
“I know,” Remy answered, his voice somewhat detached.
Dante touched Will’s shoulder. “Let’s see if we can calm him down.”
Nodding, Will followed Dante from the room as Katy stood up and walked over to the fallen picture. She gingerly picked it up and traced the cracks.
“Thank you,” she whispered, looking up at Remy with tears shimmering in her eyes. “For thinking about Maren.”
Remy nodded and braced his elbows on the desk, lowering his face into his hands.
Katy shot me a worried look.
“Go,” I mouthed, jerking my head at the door. I watched her leave and close the door before I looked back at Remy.
I’d never seen him look so stressed, so defeated.
“Tell me we just did the right thing,” he begged softly after a moment.
A fissure opened up in my heart, threatening to crack wide open.
“We did,” I assured him.
He finally looked up at me, his dark eyes filled with worry and pain. “Skye, if we’re wrong. I lose you. Rhodes loses Larkin. Katy loses Maren.”
I quickly made my way to his side, threading my fingers through his hair when he pulled me close and pressed his face against my chest.
“If we lose, then we all lose,” I replied brokenly. “Not just us, but everyone in our pack.”
“What if
I can’t do this?”
I tightened my fingers in his hair and made him look up at me. “Remember what you told me? You’re not alone. You don’t have to carry this alone.”
“We don’t have much time,” he muttered, pushing the chair back and standing up.
I tilted my face up. “Then we better get to work.”
50
Skye
Lulu glanced around at the hundreds of copper wires surrounding us on the grass later that day. The pieces of metal glinted in the fading evening sun in the backyard. Lulu sat before them, looking better, but still tired.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until tomorrow when you’re stronger?” Dimitri tried from where he stood with Remy, off to the side.
Lulu frowned at him. “No. A few hours won’t make a huge difference, and the sooner we do this, the sooner Skye and I can start recovering.”
Remy bristled at that word, and I shot him an encouraging smile.
After we had talked with Damien, Lulu had asked if we could work on the charmed bracelets tonight instead of tomorrow. The only problem, other than Dimitri and Remy’s reluctance, was finding five hundred copper bracelets.
Apparently copper was the best conduit for this type of magic. Lulu had muttered something about it being a war metal that imbued protection.
Actual bracelets made of copper were limited, so Ryder suggested copper wiring. He had dropped off several spools of it from the construction site a couple of hours ago. Katy, Larkin, Tate, Dimitri, and I had spent the better part of two hours fashioning the spools into five hundred identical pieces that would be used as bracelets when the planes arrived.
“How does this work?” I asked, slowly sinking into the grass beside Lulu.
She had requested to perform the magic outside, hoping to tap into the raw magic of the earth and trees as well as me.
Lulu frowned and shifted to face me. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try,” Remy said loudly from the sidelines where he stood next to an anxious looking Dimitri.
I frowned at him.
“Take my hands,” Lulu said, reaching for me with her palms up.
I slid mine against hers, jumping when I felt the surge of energy pulse between us like a living thing. It was like getting shocked by static in the winter.
“Hmm,” Lulu murmured, looking down at our hands.
“Is that a good hmm?” I asked carefully.
She nodded. “I can feel it. Your magic, I mean.”
“Okay,” I said, dragging out the word carefully. “So, I have magic?”
Her gray eyes lifted to mine. “You have a lot more than I expected. Maybe because there hasn’t been a Dashkov female in centuries it all funneled into you?”
I shrugged helplessly.
She smiled faintly. “You don’t feel anything?”
My hands felt warm, but that was about it.
“Not really,” I admitted. “There was a little jolt when you touched me, but now my hands just feel a little warm. Maybe I’ll feel something when you start?”
Her lips blossomed into a full grin. “I already did.”
My eyes narrowed and I realized her skin already had more of a healthy glow, and the circles under her eyes had disappeared.
“Huh,” I said softly, looking down.
“Do you feel this?” Lulu squinted at our joined hands, focusing on our connection.
I paused, feeling the warmth spread into my wrists. It didn’t hurt at all.
“My wrists feel a little tingly, but it doesn’t hurt,” I added, glancing back at Remy. I gave him a smile, hoping to put him at ease.
He stared back stonily, his arms folded over his chest as he watched us like his shifter form was a hawk, not a wolf. Dimitri seemed to have relaxed a bit, but his brows were still drawn with worry.
“You could power a small city,” Lulu remarked lightly. “I’ve never felt anything like this. Your power is … different.”
“Different?” I echoed.
An almost dreamy look painted on her features. “You’re like, liquid gold and honey.”
My brows lifted as the warmth spread up my arms, licking around my shoulders.
“Gold and honey?” I started to laugh.
She nodded, her eyes half-lidded and unfocused. “Yeah.”
The feeling swept across my shoulders and down my chest until I felt it curl around my heart. For a second, the sensation was sweet and rhythmic, pulling me in.
My wolf was the first to react, whining uneasily and alerting me that something was wrong.
The heat crawled up my throat languidly as the coil around my heart tugged and then squeezed.
“Lulu,” I whispered, feeling the pinch in my lungs as my heart struggled to beat around the oppressive binding of the magic.
She swayed slightly, her eyes closed now as she smiled. It was like she was on some high, completely oblivious to what was happening to me.
I swallowed down a wave of panic as the heat flared in my chest and twisted over my jaw. Grimacing, I tried to pull in a deep breath, but couldn’t.
“Lulu.” Her name came out on a whimper as I gasped. Panic started to unfurl in my chest, adding to the writhing pressure.
With a sharp hiss, Remy was between us and trying to wrench my hands from hers, but there was no give. Like they were fused together.
“Enough!” he snapped, ready to rip Lulu’s arms off if she didn’t let me go.
Dimitri joined him, reaching for Lulu. “Lu, stop!”
Her eyes flared open, her pupils blown and completely eclipsing her irises. My lungs started to seize, struggling to get in air. A second later she let me go.
The warmth and heat seeped out of my skin, the stranglehold on my chest and throat easing. The empty, hollow feeling that sucked out with the warmth made me shiver hard enough for my teeth to chatter.
I gasped, pressing a hand to my chest as Remy pulled me back.
“What the fuck was that?” he demanded, glaring at Lulu.
“Is she okay?” Dimitri asked Remy, still hovering beside Lulu, but his worried green eyes searched my face.
She blinked, her gaze starting to focus and return to normal, guilt swamping her expression. “Skye, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to … I just …” She started to reach for my hand.
“Don’t touch her,” Remy ordered, pulling me out of reach with a growl.
I coughed, feeling cold and exhausted. “What just happened?”
“Are you okay?” she asked instead. The horror in her eyes was unmistakable. She flinched away when Dimitri touched her shoulder.
“Yeah,” I replied softly, my temples starting to pound. I lifted a hand to massage them, but the act of raising my arm was too taxing. I sagged against Remy.
“I never should have done this,” Lulu whispered, looking down at her hands.
“What exactly did you do?” Remy demanded, glaring at her like she was the enemy.
Lulu ignored him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Tired,” I mumbled back. “Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “More than I needed. Skye, I’m so sorry.”
“Then we’re done here,” Remy said finitely, standing and lifting me into his arms. He stared at Lulu. “Finish what you need to do and go home.”
Dimitri stood up, his gaze warily going from Lulu to me and then back. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, unable to form the words as my head dropped against Remy’s shoulder as my eyes slowly closed.
I just needed to rest for a minute.
That was the last thought I could form before I drifted away.
51
Skye
“I’m really okay,” I insisted almost two days later, my voice small while I watched as Remy jerked a t-shirt out of his dresser drawer and yanked it over his head. I was still in bed, where I had essentially lived those two days, one of which I just spent sleeping.
I was exhausted from whatever mag
ic Lulu had siphoned out of me, but I was feeling stronger by the minute. But Remy was the one who seemed to be stuck on what happened days earlier. He’d been oddly absent during the day, but I had the feeling he set up a schedule to have all my friends take shifts sitting at my bedside since someone was always there when I woke up.
Everyone except the guy currently with his back to me as he got ready for our trip to Illinois to confront Damien today. With the exception of sleeping next to me, I’d barely seen him.
Worry had been slowly eating away at me, but now it was turning into a full blown gnawing in my gut.
“Remy.”
He grunted noncommittally and turned away to grab his cell phone from his desk.
I sighed, leaning forward and bunching the comforter in my lap. “Would you look at me?”
He turned slowly, jaw clenched as he gave me his attention.
I squirmed uncomfortably at the tension between us. “It’s been almost two days since I helped Lulu. We’re leaving in a few hours for Windale. You’ve barely spoken to me.”
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, next to me but not touching. The few inches between us felt like an uncrossable chasm.
I glanced down, balling up the fabric of the sheets and comforter in my hands until my knuckles turned white. “I know you’re mad at me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m mad at me, Skye. I never should have let you—”
I arched a single brow.
He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. I never should have agreed to letting Lulu use you.”
“But it worked,” I pointed out.
It had worked. Maybe better than any of us expected. Lulu had easily funneled our combined magic into the bracelets and it barely winded her.
“You were unconscious for over a day!” he snapped, getting up and pacing anxiously. “Do you know how scared I was?”
Okay, that part definitely hadn’t been planned. And I knew for a fact that Lulu felt like shit about it. She had apologized profusely when Dimitri brought her up to Remy’s room to see me yesterday afternoon.
She hadn’t meant to suck so much magic out of me. It just kind of … happened. And she looked completely gutted over i.
“I have stuff to do before we leave,” I tried weakly, starting to shift my legs to get out of bed.
Legacy (Blackwater Pack Book 3) Page 43
