Rand lifted his head enough to take a look, then dropped it back to the beach, even paler, if that was possible. “He had me on the floor, hacking with the ax. If you hadn’t come after him with the staff again, he would’ve pulled my guts out. Like my mother.”
I felt a stab of pity for him beneath my veneer of annoyance. I knew what it was like to lose a parent, suddenly and violently and right in front of you. Tish wasn’t my mother, but she was the closest I’d had, and the sight of her lifeless body lying on my porch still haunted me, drifting into my thoughts late at night when things were quiet. And Gerry. I’d watched him die as well. “I’m so sorry about what happened to Vervain.”
He closed his eyes, but not so quickly that I didn’t see the hurt in them. “She was already dying. She’d be glad she went like that, fighting to save us and not just fading into the afterlife.”
I didn’t like Vervain. She hadn’t done a thing to stop my mental abuse at the hands of the Synod—had participated, in fact. And what role she’d played in Rand’s little bond-withthe-wizard project, I didn’t know, although I was grateful for the end to the loup-garou saga.
No one deserved that kind of death, and I had to admit she’d come through at the end, for Rand if not for me. She’d stood in front of us and taken the first hit of the Axeman.
“Does this mean you’re Synod now?” I wanted to ask how old Vervain was, and what kind of afterlife elves believed in and how it related to the liberal interpretation of the JudeoChristian faith I’d been brought up in, but that was the kind of leisurely conversation best saved for a time when we weren’t so desperate and his grief so fresh. Not that I could pull emotion from him. Where Rand and emotions were concerned, I had to guess just like a normal person. It was really irritating.
“The Synod position falls to me now.” Rand shifted a little, pulled a seashell from beneath his head, and tossed it aside. He might look worse than last night, but he wasn’t wheezing anymore. “Doesn’t mean Mace won’t come after me—after us— until he formally acknowledges me as the head of my clan and you as my mate. Then he won’t dare.”
Now that we were talking, we’d aroused the curiosity of the pelican, who did a 180 on his log and watched us with bright eyes as if to say, “Daylight’s wasting, people.”
I’d address the use of the word mate later. Rand needed to be very clear on what our relationship was—and wasn’t. But not now. “Do you think you can stand, or do you want to stay here while I look for help? We need to move while we can see.”
“Any idea which way to go?”
I climbed to the top of a slight rise in front of us, toward the pulsing sound of the sea. Pushing the tall marsh grass aside, I tested each step to make sure I didn’t hit anything I’d sink into up to my knees, or worse. During my adventures with the merpeople last month, I’d rolled around in enough wetlands mud to last a lifetime.
The Gulf of Mexico stretched before me, blue-black and churning. Just below the rise was a narrow strip of sand, and riding the waves to my east were two tall ships, their masts supporting sails dyed a deep blue, elaborate rigging outlined against the gray sky, cannon visible from their decks. The ships lay too far offshore for me to identify their flags, but I’d bet they bore the colors of Cartagena, from whence Jean claimed his marque. Basically, it gave him license to plunder Spanish ships and claim it as an act of war rather than the piracy it was, but I wouldn’t be sharing that opinion.
“I say we walk east along the beach.” I turned back to find Rand wavering on his feet. I was impressed to see him upright, although he still clutched his belly.
“Need help?”
“Just don’t go fast.” He hobbled behind me down the slope to the sand, which was hard-packed and made for easier walking. “Do you know where we’re going?”
I pointed west. “I figure the ships are this way, so their master probably is as well.”
“Why do you think he’ll help us? Jean Lafitte is a common thief.”
I realized the arrogant question had come from several feet behind me, so I stopped and waited for Rand to catch up. “Let me make this clear. Jean won’t help us. Jean will help me. You’re just part of the package, and if you’re smart you won’t mention anything about bonding. In fact, if you’re really smart you’ll keep your mouth shut altogether.”
Jean had no claims on me, but I instinctively knew that however pissed Alex was about this whole ridiculous nonmarriage, Jean would be equally so, and more apt to do something about it. Something that might involve a long-barreled, muzzle-loaded pistolette.
Jean had proprietary feelings toward me—not that I was his great love or anything. I think he considered me a desirable potential conquest with good political connections. Not so different from Rand, when I thought about it. The difference being, I liked Jean. Rand, not so much.
His face took on an obstinate, haughty, mulish look I was beginning to know too well and dislike intensely. “Lafitte needs to know you’re mine now. When he comes back to the city, it’s not appropriate for him to spend time with you.”
I’d started walking again, but turned on Rand so quickly he stumbled and had to do a painful sand-dance to regain his balance. “I am not yours. I belong to nobody but myself. Got that? This farce of a bonding does not give you the right to say who I spend time with. In fact, it gives you no rights at all.” If Alex, whose good opinion I cared about, couldn’t dictate my friends or behavior, the elf sure as hell couldn’t.
He managed to look pale and pretty and stubborn all at the same time, in a beat-up, bloody sort of way. “You saved me last night. If you’d really wanted out of our bond, you could’ve let the Axeman kill me.”
Stupid, stupid elf. He’d known the night I refused to use the broken staff on him that I didn’t have it in me to intentionally hurt anyone except in self-defense, much less let anyone die when I could stop it. “I would have done as much for anyone. It just happened to be you.”
We trudged along in silence, the darkening sky causing me to speed up as much as Rand could keep pace. Ahead in the distance, fires burned and the sound of music occasionally seeped through the thunder of waves that send tendrils of foam closer to our feet.
“Qui êtes-vous?” A man emerged from the inland shadows, a rifle and bayonet trained on us. He was short, swarthy, and had bad teeth. I knew this because he was grinning. Had pirate written all over him.
CHAPTER 32
What does a half-dressed wizard, accompanied by an injured elf, say to an undead pirate on a fast-darkening beach in coastal Louisiana, circa 1814?
After staring at him a moment, I decided humor was best avoided. “Do you speak English? Parlez-vous l’anglais?”
“Bah.” The man spat in the direction of our feet. “Pas l’anglais.”
I tried to conjure up some of the pidgin French I’d learned from Jean. “Où est Jean Lafitte? Il est mon ami.” Well, he was sort of a friend. Mostly.
“Le Capitaine?” Short and Swarthy treated me to an ebonytoothed grin, and did a slow visual crawl across my overexposed, bloody, dirt-encrusted body. He probably thought Jean had developed really bad taste in women, but shrugged and motioned with the rifle for us to go ahead of him. Rand wisely kept his big elven trap shut and stumbled alongside me, holding his stomach.
After what seemed like a half mile of walking in sand and mud, we approached a village of thatched huts and shanties, around which milled crowds of people. It was mostly men of all shapes, sizes, and colors, with a few women scattered in. No kids. The village seemed to go on forever, which confirmed my suspicion that Jean had quite an undead entourage in his little paradise à la Beyond. The historical undead seemed to exist in the Beyond at the height of their success or power in their human lives, which meant Jean would be in his early thirties, at the peak of his pirate command. None of them, other than possibly his brothers, would be famous enough to have much of a life outside the Beyond, but all the pirates lived here, fueled by his memories as he was, in turn, fueled
by those of humans.
The silence of shock spread across the crowd, and all activity— mostly gator-skinning, dancing, fistfighting, and drinking— ground to a halt as our pirate escort herded Rand and me into a clearing. A carpet of reeds and grass covered the muddy ground, with trench-encircled bare patches serving as fire pits. I couldn’t help but think of all the old movies I’d seen, where the hapless woman is captured and surrounded by tribal warriors—just before discovering the warriors were also cannibals.
Mr. Shorty spewed a stream of French that was way beyond my limited comprehension, then beat a retreat. Everyone else stepped back as well, drawing my attention to a man they’d left alone in front, facing us.
Crap. My heart bottomed out at the sight of our official welcoming committee of one. Dominique You was olive-skinned, hook-nosed, and allegedly Jean’s half-brother, although I could see no physical resemblance beyond a certain arrogance in his walk and a sharp intelligence behind his eyes. I’d hit him with my best confusion charm once upon a time, and he seemed to hold it against me.
After the War of 1812, when Jean had spurned his presidential pardon and gone back to pirating, Dom had gone straight and done well for himself. But he didn’t share Jean’s fondness for a certain blond wizard. Maybe I was such a bloody, ragged mess he wouldn’t recognize me. I’d tell him my name was Adrian Hoffman.
“Far from home, are you not, Made moiselle Jackal?”
So much for not being recognized. For some reason, Dom thought I was untrustworthy and a bad influence on Jean Lafitte, which was ridiculous. The man was an immortal undead pirate, for God’s sake.
“We need to see Jean right away.” I might look like something a bad gale blew in, but I wanted Dom to know I wasn’t the naïve girl he’d first met in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina. He still scared the crap out of me, but I had the sense not to let him know it.
“And you have brought with you . . .” He studied Rand, annoyance puckering his face as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “Qu’est-il? What is he?”
Rand straightened and put more force in his voice than I’d have thought him physically capable of, with his injuries. “I am Elf.”
I sighed. Rand sounded imperious, defiant, condescending, and antagonistic. Like an elf, in other words.
Dom snorted and turned back to me. “Elf is not welcome here, and neither are you, made moiselle. I will give you a quarterhour’s head start out of respect for Jean, and after that”—he shrugged—“I care not what happens to you.”
He turned to the crowd of men behind him, who were six shades of scary. “Prepare for a hunt, mes amies. The girl? She is the prize to whomever first finds her.” Then he repeated it in French so they’d understand it. The English version had been for my benefit.
Nice. I could run or I could call his bluff, and my feet hurt too badly to run. He wouldn’t risk Jean’s anger by moving against us. I walked forward till we were inches apart and stuck the tip of the broken elven staff in his chest. “You might not care what happens to me, but Jean will. Do you trust all of those fine gentlemen behind you to keep secret what they do to me? Because if you don’t trust them, you better forget your petty, vindictive game and take us to Jean.” I poked him harder. “Now.”
A dark flush washed across his features, and a low mumble wove through the onlookers. Did I know how to make friends and influence enemies, or what?
Several things happened at once, and it took a few seconds for me to sort them out. Dom wrapped a hand around my upper arm and jerked me roughly toward him. Rand stepped forward and began chanting elven gibberish. And a dark red wolf the size of a miniature horse prowled from the nowdarkened beach into the firelight.
Everyone on two legs froze. The wolf continued forward until he stood alongside Dom, who loosened his grip on my arm. He stared at the beast a few heartbeats before throwing his hands in the air and pushing through the crowd. “You’re the wolf ’s problem, then, and Jean’s. Tout est foutu.”
Yeah, I knew that much French. The F-bomb was still popu lar in my world. I turned my attention to the wolf, who watched me with golden eyes both alien and sentient. Only once had I seen Jake in wolf form, but since this big, red loup-garou hadn’t yet laid a fang on either me or Rand, I had to assume it was him.
“Jake?” I caught the wolf ’s gaze a moment, then looked down. I didn’t know how much was Jake and how much was wolf, so I wanted to make no movements he’d see as threatening.
He moved closer to me, flames from the nearest fire reflecting in his eyes and giving them a red glow. I swallowed hard but kept my breathing even when he bumped my arm with his snout. I held out my hand, opening my palm to him.
“Dru, are you insane?” Rand reached across me and grabbed my outstretched hand. “That’s a loup-garou, not a pet.”
The wolf snarled and snapped, and Rand’s skin began glowing as he muttered what sounded like curses in his consonantheavy language.
Jake—wolf Jake—whined and backed away, shaking his head. Whatever Rand was doing to him, it hurt. I still hadn’t quite figured out what the glowing and chanting did.
“Stop that.” I stepped between Rand and wolf Jake. The elf still had his inner glow, but at least he shut up.
When had he picked up that glowing thing, anyway? It was awfully incon venient that elven magic worked in the Beyond when wizard’s magic didn’t, because if ever an elf needed a good zap of calm-your-ass-down magic, it was Quince Randolph.
The wolf stretched out his neck and sniffed along my arm where I’d bled from God only knows what injury, then sat and cocked his head at me a moment before focusing on Rand. The black-tipped hair around his nose and snout bristled as his upper lip slowly curled upward, revealing the biggest, sharpest set of teeth I’d seen since I’d watched Rene skin an alligator.
“I don’t think he likes you.” I glanced at Rand, who was staring back at the wolf. He didn’t get the memo about avoiding the dominance stare-down thing.
“It’s mutual.”
I’d rather talk to the wolf. “Jake, we need to see Jean Lafitte. Do you know where he is? It’s urgent. You can fight with the elf later.” Now we’d find out how much Jake’s wolf understood, and how helpful he was feeling.
He stared past me at Rand a few moments longer, then turned and loped up the beach in the opposite direction from our transport.
“Come on.” I stumbled after the wolf and heard the crunch of shifting sand as my mate followed.
We’d traveled at least another eighth of a mile beneath the once-again full moon before I saw the outline of a house rising from the higher land just beyond the beach. Soft light shone through its windows with a surreal glow. Pure French Colonial, as near as I could tell, with concessions made to the South Louisiana weather. It would probably be stunning in sunlight, with two stories and a gallery that spanned the upper floor. Spindly trees and lush banana palms grew up around it, dark and elegant shadows in the moonlight. From what I’d read, there were probably strategically placed cannons tucked away in several places, facing in all directions.
A raised wooden banquette stretched from the sand toward the house, and by the time Rand and I reached it, Jake’s wolf was out of sight.
The verandah traversed the width of the house on the first floor, and double doors and floor-to-ceiling windows all along the front stood open to the sea breezes. Jean apparently needed lighter security in the Beyond than in his human life. Then again, he had his own personal loup-garou and lots of undead pirates at his disposal.
I looked up at Rand. “Stay here. Let me talk to him first.”
The elf opened his mouth to respond, but thought better of it and settled for a nod and a disgruntled huff. Maybe he was learning.
Jean’s living space was masculine and built for comfort. I passed a hammock on the verandah, which spoke of the West Indies, but the inside shone with a blend of island comfort and French wealth. Serious wealth. Oil lamps provided the lighting, and their soft illumination warmed the dark w
oods and rustic furnishings. Art filled the walls—nautical scenes, mostly. Furniture sat dark, heavy, solid. A fire blazed above the stone hearth, and the room smelled of the ocean and Jean’s own scent of cinnamon and tobacco. I liked it.
“He’s gone into Old Orleans, DJ. Should be back soon.” I started as Jake emerged from a small door in the back of the parlor. He wore a pair of pants—probably Jean’s, because they were too long and had an old-fashioned buttoned fly. No shirt, and his feet were bare. I was so glad to see him healthy and safe, I wanted to cry.
“You look like shit, sunshine.”
“You look great.” I hugged him, and he stiffened a little before eventually hugging me back.
Jake stepped back to give me a searching, hopeful look that broke my heart. “Thank God. I didn’t infect you after all. Jean must have been wrong.” His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes, nodding. “Thank God.”
“No, thank me.” Rand stepped forward, the elven version of testosterone on legs. “She was infected, thanks to you, and would be planning to shift and run for the rest of her life if not for me. I saved her.”
Rand needed a gag, and if I had access to Mace’s cane I’d beat him with it right now. “Stay out of this, Rand.” More softly: “I’m okay now, Jake. As soon as some political stuff gets straightened out, you should come home.” It was time we all moved on with our lives, whatever that meant.
An expressionless mask covered Jake’s features as he tried to shut me out, but I could feel the despair filtering through his wonky loup-garou aura. I wanted to help him, but as usual, I didn’t know what to do. I moved to hug him again, but he stepped back. Don’t pressure him. Don’t put expectations on him. I needed it tattooed on my forehead. If I’d learned nothing else from this ordeal, it should be that.
I began to notice other things. Fading bruises on his abdomen. A deep scratch across the side of his neck. “Who hurt you?” Jean had promised to take care of him. As fast as loupgarou healed, the fact he was still showing those injuries told me they were recent, and they’d been serious.
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