The Carpenter's Destiny_Family Secrets

by Noah Harris

  “We have to try Samuel.”

  “I know. Why would he take him, or the others, if you’re right about that too?”

  “I don’t know exactly why. But he was…really pissed that Mikael and I had taken Nox from him. He made a comment about how important Nox had been to him. At the time I thought he just meant he was sleeping with the guy or something, but now I’m wondering if it was more than that. If he took more shamans than just Talon, then he’s obviously got something else in mind.”

  Mikael’s gaze shifted over Dean, checking him over carefully as he spoke, “Could he just be wanting to collect as many shamans as possible? Either to boost his prestige or for hostages?”

  “Could be. I bet you that he’s going to let us think that. Whether that’s what he’s actually up to, I don’t know. I don’t trust anything that he says he’s going to do, or it looks like he’s going to do now. There’s no way you can trust that from him, not anymore.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “Honestly? I’m suspicious of what he was getting out of Nox before they came here. Nox said that Damian was a tool, and made it seem like he didn’t know anything about what Nox was really up to. Doesn’t mean that Nox didn’t tell him some other things. They could have been up to a lot more than just trying to make Damian’s pack the baddest on the block. I know what Nox’s end game was, but I’m betting there’s more to Damian’s now than just taking over.”

  Samuel shook his head, “Wonderful. Not only do we lose our honored guest, a guest from a friendly pack. But we lose him to a maniac whose plans we can’t begin to guess at. No shaman will dare come near us now, and to add to that insult, we also lose having a tutor for you.”

  Dean wanted to puff up in indignant rage over Samuel’s priorities, when a sudden thought occurred to him. They had taken Talon with them, but had they taken anything else with them? Dean shuffled around in a circle to look about the room. What wasn’t torn up and thrown down seemed either to be where it should be, or knocked askew from the fight.

  “What is it?” Mikael asked.

  “Where are Talon’s things?”

  Samuel turned to glance toward the bedroom with the two wolf corpses sprawled near it, “What little he brought seems to be sitting in his room still.”

  With Mikael’s help, Dean was able to step into the room, “They didn’t take his stuff?”

  “If they did, it isn’t obvious. I don’t exactly require an inventory of everything our guests bring with them. I just know that he did not bring much with him, save for what he could fit in that bag.”

  Dean glanced down at the cloth bag placed next to the bed, looking untouched. Easing himself gently onto the edge of the bed, he bent to pick it up and open it. He found only a few things in it, a few protein bars by the looks of the wrappers, what looked like a journal with Talon’s hand scribed notes in it, a few pieces of extra clothing, and the sheath for a dagger.

  Placing the journal on the bedside table, Dean bent to open the drawers, searching each before looking under the pillows. He eyed the bed, feeling under the mattress to see if he could find anything, with no success. He gazed about the room, his eyes falling on the potted fern that Talon had originally given to Dean to use.

  “What is it?” Mikael asked, looking as if he wanted to place a steadying hand on Dean’s back once more.

  “Was that ours, or did Talon bring it with him?”

  Samuel leaned in to glance at the plant, “He brought it with him, one of his guards carried it for him.”

  Dean shuffled slowly to it, peering over the edge of the pot. The dirt along the rim was loose looking, though the main bulk of the soil was untouched. A little bit of the soil was spilled out onto the large dresser, in a small trail that lead to the edge. Dean steadied himself on the dresser as he leaned over and peered between it and the wall. A considerable pile of dark dirt lay there, tossed between the wall and the side of the solid dresser.

  “Dean?”

  He reached up, grasping the base of each of the fronds of the fern and pulled it up, the plant bringing the top layer of dirt with it easily. Crammed hastily into the bottom of the pot was another, smaller bag. Dean pulled the bag free before replacing the plant and soil carefully, idly stroking the fronds in what he hoped was a soothing gesture.

  “What is that?”

  Dean sat on the end of the bed, placing the small bag in his lap and opening it. In it was the leather messenger tube that Talon had had him examine before, as well as a small leather-bound book with a locking clasp on it. The binding of the book was old, but if he was guessing right, it was not as old as the pages that it contained. He didn’t dare touch the tube, feeling the sense of dark malice coming from it worse than he had before. The book however, he pulled free and held before him.

  “The text that Talon wanted me to see, I’ll bet you it is.”

  “Is it locked?”

  Dean tested it, finding it unlocked and flipping it open to reveal yellowed pages with symbols he didn’t understand lining the ancient paper, “No. But it fits the bill of how he described it.”

  “Wasn’t he supposed to teach you how to read it?”

  Dean nodded slowly, “Yeah. Guess I have to try to learn it on my own somehow. Never was very good at languages though.”

  Samuel grunted from the doorway to remind them that he was still there, “Is that the thing that Lucille was found with in there too? I don’t know if it’s wise for you to have that.”

  Dean pulled it protectively to him, “He left this bag for me Samuel. If he thought that the tube should go in there with the book, then I’m taking it to mean he wants me to have that too. He already said I should be safe to handle it. Maybe they’re both connected.”

  Mikael sat down beside him, carefully wrapping his hand around the back of Dean’s neck, “How?”

  “I don’t know. But he was desperate to keep both of these things away from Damian’s men. He knew he was going to be taken but…there’s a window right there. He could have gone out through it while they were fighting his guards. Could have gotten out and tried to get away, alerted The Grove that he was being attacked, hell, he could have staged an ambush for when they broke into the room. But no, he spent what little time he had concealing this the best way he could, so that they wouldn’t find it. He must have known that we’d figure out the hiding place better than Damian’s men could. He wanted it found, and he wanted me to read this book so…”

  Samuel didn’t look pleased, but something in his face softened slightly as he gazed at the determined look on Dean’s face. Shrugging, the older man walked away, mumbling to himself about stubborn humans. Mikael leaned forward to look at Dean’s face, frowning in concern.

  “Babe?”

  Dean looked up, fighting the helplessness rising inside of him as best he could, “Mikael. I have to have this. He thought it was important, so important that it was what he spent his last minutes as a free man trying to keep from the enemy. I didn’t know him long, but he could have been a really good friend, and I trusted him. I have to trust his judgement too, even if that means dealing with some dangerous shit.”

  Mikael looked long and hard at Dean before finally nodding, “Okay.”

  Dean expected more of a fight than that, “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. If you say it’s important, then I have to trust your judgement, just as much as you feel you have to trust Talon’s. Just promise me one thing, don’t try to do all of this on your own. I know you’re going to open that thing eventually and I don’t want you doing that alone. I want to be involved this time.”

  Dean smiled, leaning his head onto Mikael’s shoulder and breathing deep of his scent, “Deal.”

  “Thank you,” Mikael spoke those words softly, soft enough that Samuel probably wouldn’t be able to hear it from the other room. There was a gratitude in it that made Dean almost want to cry right there. He had spent over a day being beaten and tortured, figured out that what could have been an amazing frien
d was taken by the same people who had tormented Dean, and was left to figure out potentially dark mysteries on his own. Yet, in Mikael’s earnest thanks, he could hear the sound of their future, and it was the most beautiful sound.

  “You’re sending me back to the farm, aren’t you?”

  Dean got the question out before Samuel or Matalina could say anything as Mikael helped him down onto his pillow. He had been left to sit around doing almost nothing save for sleeping the past couple of days, being called to the main house was his first bit of activity since that first night of sleep. Normally he would be restless, wanting to get up and do something, anything at all. He found that sleep was really all he had wanted to do, and now he was sure he was about to be sent back to his farm to rest and recover.

  Surprisingly, it was Matalina who spoke, “We feel it would be best. Save for an attack of one of our own, you have so far been spared any danger while you have been in your own home. I cannot say if that is simply coincidence, or if perhaps you are spared danger while on the confines of your own land. However, there is not much that you can do here, and you need your rest, away from the activity of The Grove.”

  “This isn’t an order,” Samuel said, “You aren’t required to go back if you truly wish to stay. Damian’s group has retreated for the moment. Like you, I’m not going to take anything he does at face value, but it does appear that he’s gotten what he wanted and is content to rest on his victories. For now, you should be safe back in your home…that is our hope anyway.”

  Dean thought it interesting that Samuel was keeping it more a polite request than an order. The alpha had been considerably calmer and even gentler with Dean since the rescue. Dean wondered if Samuel was still suffering from a guilt that he had yet to own up to. Dean truly didn’t blame him for anything that had happened, but he also knew what it was like to hold onto unnecessary guilt too.

  He realized that the three of them were staring at him in expectation, “I…sorry, what was that?”

  Both Mikael and Matalina frowned in concern at him as Samuel repeated the question he had asked, “I asked if you wished to return to your home.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, I’ll go back. Like you said, there’s nothing I can do here. I’m an untrained druid without a teacher, and I can barely manage to walk a couple of dozen feet without needing to sit down. I’m not any good here, I know that.”

  “This is not about being of any use Dean,” Matalina explained patiently.

  “I know it isn’t for you guys, but it’s the truth anyway. I’m no good to anyone like this. I need to heal, and maybe I’ll be able to heal better in my own space, hell, maybe I’ll just camp out in the greenhouse. Maybe being around green stuff will make it better, who knows? I don’t, and you guys don’t either, the only person who would have known about that is currently in the hands of some maniac werewolf whose idea of hospitality is having a trio of assholes beat your brains out for hours at a time.”

  He could sense Mikael shifting uncomfortably next to him, and took a deep breath to steady himself. His normal bluntness had grown worse in the past couple of days. The few times he had been awake for more than a few minutes, he had managed to worry Mikael more than once. His frustrations kept finding a way to pour out of him in the way he spoke, and he needed to get himself under control. This wasn’t going to help any of them, and it wasn’t their fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but Damian’s.

  “Have you made any progress on finding Talon?”

  Samuel shook his head, “Our trackers were able to follow the trail back to the main group that we had routed. There were a great many scents, and all of them mingled. They couldn’t make any progress to say where Talon might have been taken. We aim to send a couple of trackers out with a scout or two, as they will probably end up tracking through the territory of packs that are aligned with Damian. For now, we’ve heard nothing, but we’re not alone in this. You were right, Damian snatched three other shamans from neighboring packs, and killed another in a failed attempt.”

  Finding out he was right certainly didn’t make him feel any better, “So he’s started a collection, to make up for the one that he lost. And we have no idea where they are. Have any other shamans tried to see if they could contact the kidnapped ones, or at least find them?”

  “We have sent the request out, but we have heard only that there has been no contact made. Only that the shamans we are looking for are ‘lost in shadows.’ Whatever that means.”

  Dean snorted, “I didn’t get a chance to ask Talon what spirits talked like, but I’m going to guess that that’s a spirit message being passed along to you.”

  Mikael leaned forward to assert himself, “Are you making sure to check in human areas as well? If they were able to get into the warehouse that Dean and Apollo broke into so easily, then they obviously have a few people that can work in human areas comfortably.”

  Samuel nodded, “Yes, we’re having a couple of trackers in the wilds, and one will be going with Apollo into human dense territories. It will be a slow process, but it’s better than nothing. We can only hope that we find them in time.”

  Dean shook his head, “And what will you be doing otherwise? If Damian has backed off, that probably means he’s up to something. What are you going to do in the brief peace?”

  “That all depends on just how long Damian lets the peace last. If he truly is up to something with the shamans, he may be delayed for a little while. He did after all, kidnap these werewolves and I doubt they will cooperate, even with some…persuasion.”

  “You find him, I bet you’ll find the shamans. Kill him, and the entire alliance he’s got going on right now will fall apart.”

  Samuel eyed Dean shrewdly, “Yes, I believe the same. But finding him would be just as difficult as finding the shamans. So for now we are sticking to pulling in more support. Damian certainly made quite a few lifelong enemies with that stunt of his. There are quite a few packs who would not appreciate the idea that their own shamans might be next. The shaman killed hailed from a neutral pack, who was ‘accidentally’ caught in the crossfire. We can use that.”

  Mikael nodded, “Bolster our defenses, keep an eye on his movements, while improving our alliances.”

  “Politicking.”

  The bitter tone of his voice earned him a sharp glance from Samuel, “Yes, politicking Dean. I wish to see Damian crushed and broken, but I don’t want to set The Grove on fire to do it.”

  “I don’t mean you should follow through on having a grand werewolf war. But he’s already proven to be very good at predicting what we will and won’t do. The only way to beat him is to figure out what he knows we’ll do and do the opposite.”

  Mikael glanced over at him, “And how do we do that?”

  Dean shrugged, “I’m just the failing druid, you guys are supposed to be the tactical geniuses, right?”

  Samuel gave a sigh, with the level of exasperation that Dean had come to associate as being just for him, “For now, we will continue to play the defensive. If an opportunity presents itself, we will strike. However, I feel we will have a few weeks to do what we need to do. Hell, he might actually wait till the spring before attempting something again.”

  Dean said nothing, giving a noncommittal noise and a slight shrug. Damian wasn’t going to be resting on his laurels, at least not in the way that Samuel was making it sound. Even if Damian did wait that long to strike at them, it would have been after he had done weeks of whatever he had had planned all along. Despite the petty and cruel nature of the alpha, Dean had come to understand just how much Damian truly thought things through. There was just enough daring to go with his cautious cunning to make Damian dangerous, and it had already proved to be disastrous.

  “I’ll be taking the journal and text back with me, along with whatever is in that messenger tube,” Dean told him.

  “I wish you would reconsider the object.”

  “We’ve been over this Samuel. I can’t, in all good conscience, leave it behind.
It’s just…it’s a feeling, okay?”

  “Look what it did to my daughter.”

  “We don’t know if that’s what did it or not, until she wakes up, we won’t know.”

  There was a flash of gratitude on Samuel’s face that confused Dean for a moment. A glance at Mikael found the expression mirrored there. He opened his mouth to ask, when he realized suddenly that he had spoken of Lucille waking up as a matter of time, not as if there was a possibility she wouldn’t wake up. He couldn’t say he knew her very well, having only been around her a little in the beginning. She had been away too much for him to get to know her better, but he knew her family pretty well by now. If she was even remotely like the rest of them, she was too damned stubborn to stay asleep.

  “I’m sure you are wondering what we need out of you,” Matalina said.

  Dean nodded gratefully, “Yeah, that would be nice. Haven’t exactly been much help lately, so if I can do anything besides sit around and try to figure out the meaning behind a book written in some weird language I can’t identify, that would be great.”

  Matalina smiled at that, and Dean almost groaned as he predicted what she was about to say, “Then I am forced to disappoint you. Damian has already managed to take a shaman under our protection, as well as our pack member and druid. It’s our wish that you stay out of the line of fire for as long as possible while you are recovering. In the short time you were with him, you endured plenty and we want you to heal. You are not a warrior Dean, however much you might be willing to fight. You serve best by being safe, and by continuing your training as best you can.

  Dean hung his head, “How can I do that when the one person who was training me is gone now? No one else is going to come near us now that it’s obvious that Damian is targeting them. Wait, you are making sure to keep any other shamans away, right?”