Saul gave him a long, hard look. “There are things we will never understand about each other. But remember that you and I have fought side by side and we trusted each other. I trust you still. You must not forget that given her association with us, Phoebe isn’t any safer than we are.”
“Agreed,” Niles said. “On both fronts. We will not abandon Phoebe.” He took Leigh’s mug and refilled it with cider. No one else accepted his offer of more. “Why didn’t you come to me, Saul? I’m the one you should have told your fantastic story to.”
“Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I should have come to you first. But you just showed why I may have chosen to speak with Sean first. You were wounded, Niles. The betrayal by one of your own—”
“Enough,” Niles said, then shook his head. “I apologize. But that isn’t a subject I want to talk about. It isn’t what makes me so cautious. We are surrounded, Saul. With this new threat you talk about, there is no room for a single mistake. Too many need our protection. I expect attempts to eliminate any of us who get in their way—that’s always been their preferred method.”
They all stopped speaking and the only sound was the sharp rattle of hail on the skylight.
Leigh knew only too well how much Niles still suffered from having one of the hounds go over to the werewolves the previous year. And, as Saul suggested, the betrayal had deeply wounded Niles.
“Every step must be cautiously taken,” Saul said. “Without wasting time on concerns about those who pose no threat.” He looked significantly at Phoebe.
Did he, Leigh wondered, already know that Niles considered Elin a threat to the Team? And it only made sense that he would see Phoebe the same way. Not that she had the kind of closeness with a hound that Elin would soon have.
“We must start at the main root of the situation,” Sean said.
“You’ve identified the main root and how to start there?” his alpha responded. “There will be a war, we both know that.”
“We don’t know any such thing,” Sean said shortly, and Leigh found it interesting to see how Elin looked at her future mate with admiration.
“You think we should wait until Saul has a whole row of dead women in his morgue?” Niles looked like a man already embattled. Leigh didn’t regret her part in that. After all, he had looked for her as a mate because he wanted a living child. And he had found her and come to love her—they were fortunate, if only he would stop expecting disaster.
He met her eyes and, after a moment, smiled at her in that sweet, deep way that melted her. She kept the smile on her face while she turned inward, away from what he’d said about choosing her over their baby. Exactly what he meant wasn’t clear, but she understood what the end result would be.
“I want to go to The Island,” Sean said.
“No!” Elin was on her feet at once. “No, Sean.”
“Can you get me there, Saul?” Sean said as if she hadn’t spoken.
“I will be the one going,” Niles said. “Once I know every detail Saul can give me. This person Saul calls The One is a risk as long as he survives.”
Sean waited until his alpha gave him complete attention. “We should be alone to discuss this,” he said. “But apparently we are not to be allowed that privilege. We have just discussed situations like this. For our arrangement to work, you must give me the power I need. Give me the power to lead.” Sean’s lean face took on a feral caste. The pupils of his eyes narrowed, and when he dropped his chin and looked up at them, Leigh’s tiger comparison was even more apt.
“No one will go unless I take you there,” Saul said. “You would not find The Island and you could not land there without The One’s blessing. I already have that.”
Both Niles and Sean folded their arms and averted their faces from Saul. Werehounds did not beg vampires.
A crash from below startled Leigh, and everyone else.
“The front door,” Phoebe said, her pale skin pure white now. “It was locked.”
Leigh noted that no mention was made of the ease with which Saul entered the building, locked door or not.
Phoebe leaped to her feet and rushed for the stairs but Sean, Niles, and Saul were faster. Saul moved her aside. “Do not come down yet.”
“We’d only get in the way,” Elin said, but Leigh made a run for it, slipped past both of the other women, and took the stairs downward two at a time. She might be pregnant but she was perfectly fit.
Elin and Phoebe weren’t far behind.
The scene just inside the bookstore took Leigh’s breath away. Cliff Ames, the cook from Gabriel’s, and Sally held a sagging woman between them. When Cliff and Sally moved farther inside, the woman’s feet dragged uselessly behind her and her head lolled forward.
Cliff picked her up and put her on a leather couch. He lifted up her legs and booted feet.
Dropping to his knees, Saul felt for a pulse in her neck, but Elin noted that he examined the skin beneath her hair all the way around. The negative shake of his head was almost imperceptible.
“It’s Molly,” Leigh said. Molly, Gabriel’s flamboyant girlfriend, was supposedly taking a break from their relationship. He told them she was in Seattle taking “a time out.”
“Where did you find her?” Elin said. She took off her coat and spread it over Molly’s legs. “Was she at Gabriel’s?”
“She called Cliff,” Sally said. “Asked him to pick her up from outside the gas station and take her somewhere safe because she was in trouble. I was with Cliff and I came along. We knew Phoebe was here and we could get Saul to come and help.”
Short and stocky, Cliff was a man of few words. He turned back to the door. “Got to get back to work. What do I tell Gabriel when he comes in?”
“Nothing,” Saul told him. “We can’t have an investigation now. The panic would get in our way. Just trust me on this, Cliff.”
Molly’s dark hair was plastered to her face and neck in wet clumps, a fake fur vest hung open over a torn black shirt and pants. The high heel of one boot was broken and hanging by a thin strip of leather.
Looking up at all of them, Saul said, “She’s dead.”
chapter TWELVE
Sean’s house nestled deep in the forest that melded with the mature trees covering a good deal of Leigh’s land.
Numb inside and out, Elin was grateful to curl up in a blanket on a couch in front of the fire Sean built as soon as they got to the two-story building. There was also a basement, where he said Innes lived, but either Innes wasn’t at home or he was sleeping. The place was silent.
“When Ethan and Campion want a place to rest up, they come here, too,” Sean said. “Sometimes we must all go to Niles…” He screwed up his eyes at her. “You don’t need to worry about that yet.”
Elin nodded. She had nothing to add to the conversation. It was obvious that the Team was in charge. She decided to let Sean be the one to speak next, which might take time since he showed signs of having moved into another world at the moment.
“You do understand, don’t you?” Sean said so abruptly, she jumped. “Why we made the decision we did about Molly?”
She breathed in deeply and pulled the blanket up around her ears. “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what the police could do to help, but they should be told. The same as they should be told about Rose. I was surprised when Sally didn’t even seem particularly interested in the decision to let Saul do an autopsy on Molly, but Cliff amazed me. He looked unaffected, like he didn’t care. He just wanted to get back to work.”
“He’s a loner, or so I’ve been told,” Sean said. “He doesn’t interfere in other people’s business. I don’t know his history but I think there’s something there he doesn’t talk about.”
“If you’re all so worried about me blabbing your secrets, why are you comfortable with Sally and Cliff?”
“I’m not worried about you. Sally’s been involved in hound affairs for some time. So far she’s proved trustworthy. The moment we think otherwise, things will change.
”
Elin didn’t like the way that sounded. She didn’t like the way a lot of what the Team said sounded. They spoke as if their decisions were beyond argument and often as if they wouldn’t think a whole lot about doing away with anyone they considered a nuisance.
A tap sounded at the front door and Sean hurried to answer. He returned with Sally, who carried two floral duffel bags. “Supplies,” she sang out to Elin, bustling into the spartan living room. “If I didn’t still want to get back into the fae compound and spend time with some old friends, I’d use my favorite trick on Tarhazian. How dare she make you cold at this time of year.”
Pokey chose that moment to wiggle into view and examine the bags. She grabbed a licorice pipe and stuck it in her mouth. But she chewed rapidly and quickly nibbled all the way to the bulb.
“I brought that for you, Elin,” Sally said, frowning at the guinea pig. “She isn’t getting any better behaved. Should I take her back with me and see if I can train her?”
“You won’t be able to,” Elin said, grinning. “She’s impossible.”
Sally pulled in the corners of her mouth. “And you like her that way.”
“What do you mean by favorite trick?” Sean said, and Elin decided he could be very single-minded.
“Secret,” Sally said. “But if you value your finger and toenails, don’t get on the wrong side of me.”
Pokey hummed all the way under a gap in the blanket, where she disappeared.
Sally didn’t wait for more reaction but hefted the bags onto the couch beside Elin. “I think just about everything will be too big but at least it will keep you warm. You’ll be fine for boots and shoes, though. I had some I’d made for the, er, smaller customers that come to the shop.” She rummaged around in the bag and pulled out something made of heavy wool. “This coat looks like a blanket. It was Phoebe’s but she’s got a new one—or new to her. She found it at Wear It Again.”
“That’s going to be warm,” Elin said, eyeing a plaid wool coat that zipped up the front and had a furlined hood.
Pokey popped her nose out and hovered, watching what Sally produced and humming excitedly over anything she thought resembled food.
By the time Sally got to the bottom of the bags, Elin couldn’t imagine needing another piece of clothing—at least until summer.
“Saul gave me this for you,” Sally said, handing a folded piece of paper to Sean. “He said Elin should see it, too. And he wants to know if there is some special weapon you could use in emergencies, Elin? Something unusual?”
Elin looked at her sharply. “What makes him ask that?” Surely the power of the green that Leigh had told her about wasn’t common knowledge.
“Saul said he hoped you might be good at protecting yourself, that’s all.”
The idea appealed to her. She would go after some of the diamond-hard crystal from the green just as soon as she could.
Sean and Sally looked at her enquiringly, waiting, she knew, for her to reveal some magical defense. The gift of the green-born crystal was Deseran. Unless she could be sure those like her would want the information shared with anyone outside, she would keep it to herself. Her skin tightened. She should have told Sean she was Deseran a long time ago.
“What kind of defense, I wonder.” Sean looked amused.
For the first time Elin really thought about being part of a singular group. They had been born to paranormal people who decided these children would not fit into the world of their parents. Who knew how many Deseran there were? Someone ought to. They all ought to—they had a bond. She glanced from Sally to Sean and smiled slightly.
She belonged to a special race. An odd happiness bubbled in her.
Sean shrugged, and without another word, he passed her the paper from Saul. “The mark is developing,” was all it said.
Once Sally had left, Elin leaped off the couch and gripped Sean’s arms. “That mark again,” she said. “He can only mean—”
He put a finger to his lips. “Who knows what could give an intruder access to our conversation?” he said.
“I feel intruders,” she told him, blushing. “Not always, but strong forces bring an awareness even if I can’t identify them exactly. I felt it when Saul was coming into Phoebe’s bookshop.”
After giving her a very long look, he reached into the pile of clothes, took the first sweater he found, and pulled it over her head. Long, made of green mohair, it reached below her knees. Her thin dress bunched into an irregular frill that flopped all around.
Fluffy black socks reached under the dress to her knees. “I won’t be cold now,” she said, looking at Sean and daring him to make nasty comments about the awful outfit.
“Absolutely not,” he said without a hint of a smile.
“You and Niles went outside to talk about getting the Team together,” Elin said. “That can’t wait long, can it?”
“It will all fall into place. We won’t make obvious or sudden changes but I prefer for him to initiate any discussions with all of us. When he says he thinks it’s time, we’ll go—if that’s ever really necessary.”
She didn’t miss the “we.” “Niles doesn’t want me,” she reminded him.
“I’m not leaving you behind,” Sean said. He lifted her right hand to his mouth and kissed each finger, then her palm. Elin shivered.
“He is worried about Leigh and the pregnancy. I am to take primary control of the Team until Niles can give it his all. Now I vote we try to sleep for a few hours, then get to Gabriel’s early,” he told her. “If anything is being circulated about Molly, we’ll hear about it.”
Sean nodded to the hallway leading past the living room and away from the front door. “There are two bedrooms that way. Take your pick. They each have a bathroom.”
Elin hadn’t summoned up enough courage to say what she intended to say about that. “I’m worried about Gabriel. He loves—loved her. She was strange and we all knew it, but he would have done anything for her.”
“She was used,” Sean said. “Her death is a warning.”
Elin considered that. “I think you’re right. And they may kill again and again,” Elin said. “Weakening everyone they hate—or discount—as they go. Fear paralyzes people and they stop doing anything to help themselves—that’s what this could be intended to do. Make us all helpless so we can just be picked off.”
“What do you think about the story Saul told us?” Sean took her by the shoulders and looked down into her face. “I want to know what The One needs so badly.”
“We don’t want to find out by becoming his victims,” Elin said.
“A living sorcerer vampire who feeds on parts taken from the living.” Sean scrubbed at his face. “If someone doesn’t go after him and neutralize him, he’ll spread horror everywhere. I think he’s getting desperate. Why else would he start drawing attention to what he’s capable of doing? I’m going to find out whatever I can and take him out.”
Argument didn’t make any points with Sean; that was already clear. Elin swallowed what she wanted to say. If he went to The Island, she would follow him and she still had ways of doing that.
“Sleep,” Sean said, not meeting her eyes. He gave her a quick, hard hug, tipped up her chin, and kissed her. “Good night, sweetheart.”
He guided her into the hallway, past the open door of a small study, to two side-by-side doors. Sean threw open both doors to reveal apparently identical bedrooms with big beds covered with old-fashioned quilts and very little other furniture.
“Just a minute,” he said. “Let me get all those clothes. Choose a room.”
Elin went through the first door, smiling to herself and crossing her arms as she considered her next move.
chapter THIRTEEN
Sean closed the bedroom door behind him, pulled off his shirt, and did a belly flop across the bed.
Sainthood had never been his ambition. Only a saint or a sadist would wish Elin good night and walk away to another bedroom, especially when every signal from the w
oman in question was that she wanted him with her.
He thumped his fists on the bed in frustration. This room and the one Elin had chosen were only used when Team members stayed over. His own bedroom was upstairs but he wanted to be close to Elin.
Damn, he wanted to be close to her, and that didn’t mean separated by a wall.
It was no accident that both rooms were built into the center of the house so neither had windows. He had stood outside Elin’s door until she locked it with a key on her side. Rolling half onto his side, he worked a key from his jeans pocket and held it up to sparkle in the bedside lamplight. The duplicate key to her room, not that he would need it if he suddenly had to get in.
First he tossed down the key, then turned out the light.
He liked the darkness. It was always his advantage—over anyone or anything not in the circle of werehounds with perfect night-sight.
Sean thrashed in the bedcovers and shut his eyes tightly. Maybe if he didn’t keep looking around the room while he listened for even the slightest sound that shouldn’t be among the night sounds of the house, he would sleep. Or at least the hypersensitivity flaying his skin would stop.
In the morning after they went to Gabriel’s to feel out any change in atmosphere there, he would have Sally, with Innes as muscle protection, make sure Elin didn’t follow him when he left. Saul had to be persuaded to make a trip to The Island, taking Sean with him.
Niles wouldn’t like it, but with luck they would learn something useful enough to shorten his furious reaction without Sean having to point out that, as acting Team leader, he could make up his own mind what to do—deferentially, of course.
The tension in his brow, so tight it hurt, began to soften and he breathed more easily. He wasn’t sleepy but his face and neck, and his scalp, relaxed.
He must be falling asleep.
Throwing off the covers, he stretched out on the mattress. The faintest current of warm air stroked over his naked body and he smiled. This was what he needed, this release from vigilance, if only for a short while.
Sean drifted.
Darkness Bred (Chimney Rock) Page 10
