“We located her on Shephard’s Mountain, just like you suggested,” Pilus began, the trill of his sonar bouncing through the water in nervous waves of fear.
“Then, where is the proof? What have you brought me to confirm her death?”
“Um, she got away. We haven’t given up, though. We need a few more reinforcements, just in case.”
Tru’s mouth twisted. “What? In case your ineptitude is catching? Have I been unclear in what I asked you to do? Or the consequences of failing?”
Pilus visibly gulped, and the others shuffled in fear.
“I won’t fail, but we are Seascrill. We needed the water, and we were drying out.”
“Excuses. Very well, pick a few more to go with you. But next time? Don’t return without absolute proof of her death. And I don’t care if that means you become a pile of Mer-men dust on the mountainside. Don’t fail me. I won’t be nearly as accommodating next time.”
“We won’t.” Pilus backed away, his companions following, their powerful tail fins moving at dizzying speed.
Behind them, a cruel smile creased Tru’s mouth as he watched them go.
CHAPTER THREE
I watched Daddy from the doorway of his bedroom, standing in front of the mirror and swearing as his fingers fumbled in frustration with his tie. I bit my lip and moved to help. It should have been a funny sight, my disheveled and Uber casual father struggling to knot the smooth silk, but I had little laugh in me just then.
“I don’t know why you think you have to dress up, anyhow. You’ll be the only one that does,” I chastised as I moved in front of him and knocked his fingers gently aside, taking up the colorful striped material.
He scowled at me, his eyes worried. “Because it’s your last night for we don’t know how long. It’s a sign of respect.”
I rather thought it was simply giving him something to concentrate on so he didn’t feel so helpless. I swallowed my collection of nerves, the rough pit of fright that wallowed in my stomach.
“I’ll probably be back before the weekend. I mean, it’s been over a week and I haven’t responded to their summons and they haven’t sent another. They’ve probably already forgotten about me and the reason they needed to see me.”
Dad didn’t look convinced. I finished the tie, patting it in place over the polyester dress shirt he wore. It wasn’t new, and it hadn’t been ironed. It was wrinkled and at least one size too big, hanging loosely on his thin shoulders. My father had always been tall and spare. He struggled to find clothing that was long enough to cover his torso but not too broad in the back.
“Are you ready?” I asked, my voice thin.
He checked his watch and nodded. “Let me grab a jacket.”
The smell of grilled beef reached our noses before we were halfway there, drifting down the mountain as we walked the mile between our homes. I was not fond of beef, but dad sniffed appreciatively as we entered the yard. The Major was on the front porch, a snowy white apron wrapped around his stocky torso and a pair of tongs in hand. His back was to us, but there was no sneaking up on the Major.
“I have a foil packet all done up for you, Sirris. Fresh salmon, herbs and greens, just for you,” he said over his shoulder, flipping steaks.
“Of course you do. Thanks.” I looked around the deserted yard. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Kimmy is inside handling the rest of the dinner. Everyone else is down visiting Thomas. They took him an early plate.” He glanced up with a wry expression. “He wanted his steak done extra raw.”
I grimaced. “How is he doing?”
Dad and I came up the stairs and took a seat in one of several porch chairs. Major Tuttle shrugged. “About as well as can be expected. He seems a little more agitated than I remember. It’s been a bit since we’ve had anybody in there to live.” He glanced at my father. “Well, except for you two. I’ve been rather glad we added that secret room on. It’s seen all sorts of use in the last year.”
“Glad of it, too. I don’t know what we would have done without your help.”
“Friends and neighbors, Jerry. We help each other out. You’d do the same for any of us.”
Jerry nodded emphatically. “Without question.”
The Major plated the steaks, and we got up and followed him inside the house.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen so many at the Tuttle table. Roughhewn from a bigleaf maple, the long wooden table sat an easy twelve. Today it had the five Tuttle teenagers, and the Major as Patriarch. I smiled when I saw Sadie and Nick were there as well. She looked up at me with a preoccupied smile that became genuine when she saw me. I moved around the table and gave her a swift hug, taking the seat on her left.
“This is nice. A bit like old times, all of us together,” I murmured, winging a smile in Kimmy’s direction as she came in from the kitchen, an enormous platter in her hands of mixed roasted potatoes and vegetables. We all took our seats and looked to the Major to bless the food and give thanks. He ended his gracious tribute with me. “… and you, Sirris. You make sure you’re careful in your journey—wherever it takes you.”
“I plan to.” I smiled, nodding in his direction. The Major was an older man in his mid-fifties. His sons resembled him and I looked at the chair that sat vacant on my other side. Despite his bitter moods of late, I missed Thomas. But I knew enough about first changes to know he wouldn’t be fit company at our table.
Sadie spoke up on my right, cutting into her beef appreciatively. For a family of werewolves, they had grilling porterhouse steaks down to a perfect art form. “You’re going to be on your own down there. What if you get in trouble? What are you taking to defend yourself? I know you’re wicked crazy with that stick on land…”
She left the last part unfinished. Fighting on land was nothing like survival beneath the water. It required an entirely different set of weapons and skills.
“My staff, for one. It will still work down under, but not the same way. Hard to produce a stream of fire in the water. What it will do instead is throw a concentric ring of shock waves. Stuns the victim.”
Sadie stared at me. She didn’t appear impressed. “And? That’s all you’ve got? What will they be coming at you with?”
I frowned. I tried to remember back to when I was a small child. I remembered running through the palace, chasing another boy and girl about my age. I struggled to remember adult memories instead of childish ones. It had been so long ago.
My attempt at a smile fell short. “I don’t know. I’ll have my long knife with me as well.”
“I think it would be smart to find out about what they have in their arsenal of skills and weapons sooner, rather than later. You need to know what you’re up against from the start.”
“It’s definitely on my to-do list, right after I find out what they want from me. I mean, according to Dad, they shouldn’t even know I exist.”
Sadie gave a grim laugh and joked, “Well, I think it’s obvious that they do. Are you sure we can’t come with you?”
“I wish, but no. This one is all me.”
Kimmy and her sister Karen got up from the table and cleared plates. Both waved Sadie and me off as we got up.
They were just turning towards the kitchen when someone knocked at the door, and we all froze.
I looked at the Major as he got up and tossed his napkin down.
I asked, “Are you expecting anyone? Would Thomas leave the apartment?”
The Major met my eyes as he moved towards the door. “He’s not supposed to.”
The door swung in, but I couldn’t see who stood on the other side of the threshold. The Major was frowning in confusion. “May I help you?”
Sadie and I pushed away from the table and joined him at the door. The figure on the other side stood bathed in the long shadows of early twilight, a gray cast to his sickly features that looked as familiar as it was shocking.
His eyes caught sight of me, and he made to move forward in my direction. A plate sized h
and planted in the center of his chest changed his mind for him. He shuddered and put a hand out to the wall for support. Light spilled over his features, and I gasped. Lack of sunlight in the depths of the lake made Mer-men and Mer-women naturally pale. The Sylvan hanging onto the doorjamb for support looked shockingly so.
“You need to come back. We sent you a message,” he managed, his voice harsh and raspy.
I stepped closer. He looked like he was going to fall down.
“I got the stone. What does Tarus Council want with me? I wasn’t welcome as a child, why now?”
He blinked in the bright light, squinting. “I don’t know about any of that. I was sent to bring you back with me. You need to come now.”
Sadie spoke up behind me, moving to stand at my shoulder. “Sirris isn’t going anywhere,” she stated mulishly.
I placed a hand on her rigid shoulder. “It’s alright.” I turned to look at our uninvited guest. “If and when I return, it will be on my own terms. Not yours. And not the Council’s.”
“I have my orders…” he growled.
“If you don’t get to a viable water source soon, none of that will matter,” I observed, watching him weave on his feet.
“But…”
“Sirris is right. You look like a three-day fish that’s been left in the sun. The river feeds in less than a mile from here. I’d suggest you find it sooner, rather than later,” the Major said.
“I can’t go back without her. The Council won’t like it.”
“I don’t answer to the Council.”
He blinked rapidly, looking around in a panic, as if they were listening in on our conversation. “Everyone follows the Laws of the Council.”
I couldn’t prevent an eye roll. “Enough about them. I do plan to return, but in my own time and under my terms. It won’t be because I received my marching orders. I’ll come because I need the answers to certain questions I have.”
“They won’t like it. They aren’t used to having their authority questioned by anyone. Besides, you are in danger. The Council can protect you.”
I thought of the Seascrill Mer-men that were following me. I was well apprised of the threat to my person, thank you. “I have my own protection, and they are no one to mess with.” I reached up and gave Sadie a fist-bump. Her eyes never left the wobbling Sylvan.
“So, I suppose I can at least count you out for having sent the squad of Seascrill goons after me?”
He jerked, and I watched in fascination as his skin paled even further. “They don’t want to talk. They want to kill you.”
“Got that in one. But why? What did I ever do to them?” I persisted. I wanted answers, and I suspected our visitor wasn’t sharing everything he knew.
He confirmed it. “It’s not that. It’s what you represent. You are a threat, and the Dragon of Deep Lake—he eliminates those.”
“The who?”
His eyes gleamed, silvery in the evening light. “He leads the Draco Rebellion, but that’s not important. Council Leader Leta and the rest of the Council will tell you what you need to know. Don’t take too long to come, Sirris Waverly. You aren’t as secure as you think. Here on land…maybe. But Deep Lake is another world, and none of us are safe from what’s down there.”
There were spiders under his skin, crawling across his shoulders and down his arms. He could feel each one of their eight picky legs as they pulled at his skin, mandibles sinking deep. He moaned, his stomach roiling with nausea. He’d eaten less than an hour before. Kimmy had brought him his dinner, and he remembered growling at her, snatching the plate and turning away from her with a feral growl and no thank you. A fleeting guilt gnawed at him over the slight. He’d been an ass to his favorite baby sister. But the hunger was an agony of emptiness that controlled his every action. He prowled the confines of his prison, the wood planked walls mocking his need to run and hunt. Something snarled, and he realized it was him. He held his arms out, unfolding fists and extending fingers that were partially elongated, the nails pointed. His stomach pitched again and bile rose in his throat as too many emotions to keep track of rolled through him. His father had tried to make him feel better about locking the door—from the other side. Thomas struggled to remember why the Major had said keeping his son a prisoner was a good thing.
A memory niggled—long, silver hair and bright, sea-foam eyes. He inhaled deeply, imagining he smelled the light clean scent that was her pale skin. A single thought controlled him and made him growl again, the rage batting at him. She was in danger; he needed to save her, protect her. But not while he was trapped under Dad’s lock and key. In a fit of rage, he snagged a pillow from the old couch in the corner, his nails and teeth sinking deep as he rent the old cloth, feathers flying in a cloud of white about his head as it exploded in his hands. He panted as the spiders under his skin moved lower, the pain making him moan and tear at his skin. He tried to be careful, but the rage left long thin scratches behind, the blood welling to the surface.
He looked at the couch as unbearable pain made him scream, claws reaching out and rending the fabric as his nails dug deep. He clutched and released the old fabric as the agony rolled through him. He watched something roll and move beneath the taut skin of his arms and along the back of his hands.
As the night wore on, Thomas didn’t sleep. Instead, he paced and he raged, tearing at the walls and his bed, and when the pain was especially bad, at himself as well. By early morning, the couch was a sad remains, and his bed a blood spattered arena, the cotton sheets a shredded ball of red and white.
A solitary thought had coalesced into a burning rage as a thick pelt of fur erupted along the bulging muscles of his arms and shoulders, his chest swelling under beefy muscles. He needed to get to her—just for a minute and make sure she was all right. To tell her she couldn’t go, not where he couldn’t be there to protect her.
The sun was a faint glimmer on the horizon when he began to beat his fists against the outer wall that led to the pasture beyond. His incredible sense of smell could detect the fresh dampness of woods and earth beyond, taunting his need to run. As he snarled and screamed, his fists became claws, rending long deep scratches in the wood, thin splinters breaking the pads of his thumb and palms and slicing deep. He relished the sharp pain as the beast in Thomas fought to come out.
His prison had been well built by himself and his father and brothers. But it was wood, and Thomas was a werewolf. The sun was a faint crest over the horizon when he breached the other side—the outside. His fist punched through, the cool brush of night air encouraging him. Faint memories of Sirris’ face swam in his vision. He redoubled his efforts to widen the hole.
#
The thing that bounded up the trail towards the newly built cabin in the woods wasn’t fully Thomas. But it wasn’t the wolf, either. He was close. He could taste the blood as skin broke inside his mouth and his incisors lengthened, sharp canines biting into the soft skin. Thomas bounded down the path towards the Waverly residence, sanity clinging by a thread.
As he ran, sometimes upright, sometimes falling forward to lope along on all fours, he heard the scuttle of movement in the brush on either side of him. His nose lifted, scenting the air and pulling all the wondrous smells in deep: the warm pulse of blood in Mr. Rabbit, who gave a squeak of fear at his passing and burrowed deep in his bed; the raccoon that chittered in alarm and ran up a tree, peering down at his loping form in alarm. He nearly left the trail after a young deer that foolishly bounded across the trail several yards in front of him, bleating in terror, the sound only encouraging a deep thirst that was intoxicating. But another memory, a thread of the sanity he claimed as a man, pulled him forward, snarling as the memories floated there, just out of reach in what remained of his consciousness. It was instinct curling inside of him that pulled him forward. He needed to see the girl.
He broke into the Waverly’s yard, freezing as the early morning stripped away the last visual shadow of the moon, still visible, but fading. His skin rippled
again, and he lifted his head, his eyes staring at the faint outline of the white orb hanging low in the sky. He opened his mouth wide and screamed, the howl long and deep, rumbling up inside him, a cry of frustration emerging from his throat. The cabin was dark and nothing moved. Not at first. But as he made his voice heard, a light flicked on, the stream of brightness washing from the windows and the front door when it opened. He bounded closer, a snarl of anticipation leaving his lips.
“Sirrriss…” he hissed, the words slurred and indistinct.
But the human that stepped onto the porch wasn’t young and beautiful with silver hair and soft aqua-marine eyes. Instead, Jerry Waverly came out in his pajamas and stared at him in alarm. He looked at the apparition, half standing, half crouching in his front yard, and looked like he might retreat into the relative safety of the cabin at any moment. It wouldn’t have been enough, not tonight. Thomas knew how strong the walls of that cabin were. He’d helped build them, after all. Rough Hewn timber and nails wouldn’t keep him out, not if he was determined to come in.
“Where is…she… Sirrrisss,” he moaned, stepping closer until only a good number of yards separated man and beast.
“You’re in no shape to be seeing her, Thomas. You’re supposed to be inside the apartment where you 're safe. Where we are, too.”
He growled, taking a threatening step forward. It wasn’t the answer he wanted, not at all. “Where…”
Jerry’s eyes grew round, and he gulped. But Thomas admired his pluck. He stood his ground. “You can’t see her…”
Thomas snarled, stretching his mouth wide, canines glistening. Jerry shook his head. “Wow, boy. That’s ripe. You can’t see her…because she’s already gone. She left somewhere around five this morning. You’re at least two hours too late.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in, for the emerging wolf to translate them into meaning. With a snarl, Thomas lifted his muzzle once more, the yowl of pain and rage bouncing down the mountain to the very edge of Breathless, several miles yet away.
Rule 9 Academy Series Boxset: Books 3-5 Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy (Rule 9 Academy Box Sets (3 Book Series) 2) Page 54
