by SM Reine
None were as vibrant as that of the Alpha.
He followed the gleaming thread of her life toward the waterfall.
By the time he ended up walking among the cottages, things looked so unchanged that Seth could almost convince himself that it was the old days again. He’d built many of those roofs and hung most of the doors. The cottages were uniform in Rylie’s taste: gold with white trim and protective pentacles over the windows.
The road sloped down, drawing him nearer the beach.
New cottages had been built in the style of the old ones, pushing the neighborhood nearer to the lake. But the lake itself was still pristine, untouched. It stretched toward the cliff face from which the waterfall sprang.
One end of the beach was busy with children playing under the watchful eye of the babysitter. The rockier end was uninhabited.
Except for her.
Seth stood on the edge of the rocks for a long time—gods only knew how long. He wasn’t paying attention to the passage of heartbeats and fading of lives.
He let himself drink in the sight of the werewolf Alpha sitting on a rocky outcropping, leaning forward on her hands. A suit jacket was puddled on the rocks beside her. She’d kicked her shoes off and left them soles-up on top of the jacket. Her hair hung in a glossy sheet over her shoulders, long and straight.
Without being able to see her face, Rylie almost looked like the girl he’d met at summer camp back when she’d been just fifteen years old. Right after she had been bitten by a werewolf.
She straightened slowly, as if aware she was being watched. Her head tipped back.
Rylie was smelling the air.
He heard the quick intake of her breath. He saw the way she went still, as if afraid to move and break the moment.
Then she twisted. The face peering at him from the rocks was a little rounder, a little more lined, but still hers.
“Seth,” Rylie whispered.
“Does it hurt?” Rylie asked. It was the first thing she’d managed to say in five minutes.
Seth let the hem of his shirt drop, concealing the wound left by the Hounds. “Yeah.”
“Oh, Seth,” she said, still barely above a whisper. It was strange to hear the Alpha talking like she couldn’t breathe.
She hadn’t seen him in ten years, aside from the moment at the summit, but he’d seen her in glimpses. Always on the news or on the back jacket of her autobiography. Every time, she’d been in leader mode, her most glorious persona. After the years she’d spent struggling to take ownership of her power as Alpha, it was incredible to see that come to fruition.
Now she was a teenage girl again, uncertain in the face of painful changes.
This girl was no “girl” anymore. She was in her forties and looked every inch of it. She was also every inch as beautiful as the lake that they sat beside, right next to each other, the way that they used to as kids.
Gorgeous.
Except for the fact she looked so horrified.
“That’s why I need your help,” Seth said.
“What did Genesis do to you?” Her forefinger traced the corner of his eyes, the space between his eyebrows, the edge of his lips. The exact places where Rylie’s skin was getting its deepest furrows.
“It wasn’t Genesis. It was Elise,” Seth said.
She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Six of one…”
“I’m like her,” Seth said, lowering his voice. He knew that the shifter kids playing on the beach were too far away to hear—shifter senses didn’t develop fully until puberty—but he couldn’t help it. “I’m like both of them. The third.”
Rylie’s lips parted. She exhaled slowly. “Oh. Another triad.”
There had been three gods before Genesis too. Adam, Eve, and Lilith had represented the three major factions: gaeans, angels, and demons respectively. The three of them had never gotten along. Those personality clashes had been what ultimately led to Elise killing them, and Genesis in general.
“It seems like the universe needs a triad,” Seth said. “Guess which one I am.”
“You’re like Lilith, round two.” Rylie leaned her head against his shoulder. And she said again, “Oh, Seth.”
The sympathy felt better than he would have expected. “Not exactly like Lilith. I seem to be mortal for the moment.”
“You came to Earth as an avatar.”
“Is that what it’s called?” Another thought struck him. “How would you know that?”
“I’ve been in contact with Elise and James since Genesis. We’ve talked about a few things.”
“Through Marion?” Seth asked.
Rylie’s eyebrows crimped. “Yes, through Marion.” What little composure the Alpha had began to crumble. “Why would you have come back to talk to her? Why not me, or your brother, or Abram, or…anyone? We thought you were dead!”
“She found me first. I wouldn’t have talked to anyone if I could have avoided it.”
“Marion told me what you’ve been doing in Ransom Falls.” Rylie bit her bottom lip hard enough that the teeth left dents. “You could have told me. I wouldn’t have bothered you.”
“I had reasons to hide.” He patted his chest. “Speaking of which, I’m still hiding. Don’t tell anyone I’m around.”
“I never speak to Elise directly, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
“She’s not the only one I’m hiding from now.” Dana McIntyre was a child who’d grown up fostered in the sanctuary environment too, after all.
“I hope you’ll tell me everything that you’re dealing with soon.” Rylie’s fingers inched over the coarse rock toward his. “I understand why you might not want to yet. And every resource I have at my disposal belongs to you. If there’s anything I can do to help, Seth, you only have to ask me.” Her eyes were the same color as the summer sunlight. “Anything.”
“You can start by having witches heal my human body.” They wouldn’t be able to save him completely—nobody could—but they would give him more time to decide if he wanted to take Lucifer up on his offer.
“Done,” Rylie said.
Their fingers overlapped on the rock, just a little.
Rylie had to dismiss a dozen guards before she could take Seth anywhere in private. Even then, privacy with the Alpha werewolf at her sanctuary was not much privacy at all; all those unfamiliar faces that had ignored Seth on his way into town were interested now that he was with Rylie. Even taking the back roads, they passed dozens of shifters on their way to the Academy.
“The whole valley is structured to encourage socializing,” Rylie said apologetically. “We’ve found that shifters live longer, happier, healthier lives if we’re forced to be close together.”
“It’s only been fifteen years. You haven’t had a lot of time for experimentation.”
“We ended up with a shocking number of senior citizens returning from Genesis as preternaturals. We’ve dealt with more end-of-life care for shifters than you’d expect.”
Seth actually did expect that. He’d seen his fair share of it in Ransom Falls. “Is that why you have a hospital?”
Rylie nodded. “We’re employing Whytes again. Can you believe it?”
“Whytes? People related to Scott and Stephanie? Really?”
“Really. We’ve got Stephanie’s cousins from the Half Moon Bay Coven.”
Scott Whyte had been a therapist—and a witch—who had treated Rylie early in her werewolf life. Stephanie was his daughter, an emergency room doctor who had partially inspired Seth to pursue medicine. Both had ultimately betrayed the pack. Betrayal had been a common theme before Genesis, though. War between gods had radiated through the entire world, from the most important people to the most trivial, and it had hurt everyone.
“How can you be sure they’re trustworthy?” Seth asked.
“They’ve changed since Genesis. Everything has changed.” She bit her bottom lip and turned her gaze to her feet as they headed up the dirt road.
Even with the reminder that
Seth was one of those things that had changed, it was nice to talk old stuff with Rylie like that. People they used to know. And they were doing it in a place where they used to share a life together.
A place where Rylie didn’t need him.
“I have a class of witches at the Academy too,” Rylie said. “Graduates teach underclassmen. That’s why we’re heading there. Our coven is excellent and will be able to heal you if anyone can.” Her eyes flicked up to him. “Abel isn’t home, but he’ll be back soon if you want to see him. I know he’d like to see you.”
If Rylie really thought that Abel would want to see him, she was being optimistic.
Seth wasn’t sure he’d want to see Abel, either.
“I’ll think on it,” he said.
Rylie rewarded him with a smile like sunshine breaking through clouds.
They reached the fence protecting the Academy. Seth took a moment to admire it while Rylie keyed in a code to open the gate. When they’d talked schools back in the day, he’d imagined something like a one-room schoolhouse. This was not a one-room anything. More like a hundred-room facility. A thousand rooms. It sprawled through the forest as far as he could see, and the gardens at its rear extended beyond that. The warded fence protected another small lake, and enough fields for all of the school’s shifters to run free on the moons.
“We have over fourteen hundred students in residence. We’re building another wing so we can accommodate more.” Rylie stepped back as the gate swung open. “You can see Golden Lake over there.”
The summer camps where Rylie and Seth met had been called Golden Lake and Silver Brook. “Isn’t that an ominous name?”
“It’s acknowledging history,” Rylie said. “I had to keep a piece of that around when everything else was gone. Come on, the witches are in the south wing.”
Even though the Academy was younger than Genesis, and hardly an antique, it had been designed to look almost like an old ski lodge. It was open, warm, comfortable. Lots of low chairs and big windows. Seth took a deep breath when they entered the atrium, and the musky scent of werewolves almost overwhelmed him with nostalgia.
He also smelled something like burning oak and lavender. That smell didn’t belong with the others.
“Most kids are outside for lunch right now,” Rylie explained as she waved and smiled at students. They were scattered around the atrium, reading on tablet devices, lying underneath potted trees, playing hacky-sack. None of them looked particularly awed to see the Alpha in their midst. Apparently she wasn’t an unusual visitor.
The smell of burning oak only grew stronger as they headed toward the south wing.
“Is Nash home?” Seth asked. Nashriel was Rylie’s son-in-law, an angel who had married her oldest daughter.
“He hasn’t been for a while,” Rylie said. “Why do you ask?”
Smoky, woody smells almost always meant angels. If Seth could detect it with his non-werewolf nose, then it must have been recent. “No reason,” he started to say.
Then they passed the administrative offices and the door opened. Seth and Rylie almost tripped over the woman who emerged.
She must not have expected to see anyone in the hallway. She looked guilty. “Hello again, Rylie.” And then her eyes moved to him, and her jaw dropped. “Seth.”
“Marion,” he said. “Hi.”
8
Marion’s time recovering in bed from anemia had been long and tedious. Boredom was a challenging thing for a half-angel. She’d occupied herself with books on witchcraft and one timeless day with Konig, but it was poor replacement for the kind of adventuresome lifestyle to which she was accustomed.
Worse than bored, she’d been lonely.
Seth had vanished after the incident in Sheol and hadn’t visited while she was healing. Not once.
Now here he was, walking around the werewolf sanctuary with the Alpha herself—the woman who pretended to be like Marion’s mother, even while telling the OPA that they needed ways to kill her.
Even so, Marion forgot to hold a grudge. She was too relieved to see Seth whole and alive and passably mortal.
“Thank the gods!” She flung her arms around his neck in a tight embrace. He staggered as if surprised. It took him a moment to pat her on the back, but his weak laugh was almost as relieved as how she felt.
He still smelled like leather and gunpowder.
“Gentle,” Seth warned, though he squeezed her tightly. “I’m not back to normal yet. Whatever normal is.”
She stepped back but didn’t release him. If Marion had her way, she’d be hanging on to his arms until he swore up and down to never go missing ever again. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine for now.” He patted his chest. “I’m not healing, though.”
Marion didn’t need to see under the shirt to know that he was touching wounds inflicted by the same Hounds that had nearly killed her. They would have eaten him if she hadn’t intervened.
“What were you doing in there?” Rylie’s voice was an unpleasant reminder that she still existed.
Marion looped her arm through Seth’s and held him firmly, staring right into Rylie’s eyes. Among werewolves, that kind of eye contact was considered a play for dominance. “It’s unimportant. I was just on my way out. How lucky to have encountered you two, though. I didn’t expect to see you here, Seth.”
“Rylie’s witches are going to help fix me up,” Seth said. “Make sure that I don’t die.”
“Her witches? Why didn’t you come to me?”
He carefully disengaged his arm from hers. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t want to see me. Because, you know…” He pointed at his teeth, and her neck, making the kind of expression that belonged on a Halloween vampire mask.
“That’s patently ridiculous. You should realize by now that I’d always want to see you.”
Seth jammed his hands into his pockets. “You can’t blame me for thinking that might have changed, all things considered.”
“I can and do blame you,” Marion said.
“We have places to be,” Rylie interrupted. “The witches won’t be around all day, Seth.”
Marion forced a smile. “Then let’s go see them.”
“You’re not invited,” Rylie said.
“I’m not asking for an invitation. I don’t know how you’ve vetted your witches, so they won’t work on my friend unless I review their techniques.”
“Your friend?” Rylie glanced between Seth and Marion, her eyebrows climbing her forehead.
“I’d appreciate having Marion’s opinion,” Seth said.
Rylie could have shut Seth down. God on Earth or not, Seth wasn’t Alpha. It wasn’t his sanctuary, his Academy, his home, or his witches. But she said, “If that’s what you want, Seth,” and there was a strange pitch to Rylie’s voice.
She didn’t need to defer to Seth, but she was going to.
If Marion had been a werewolf, that would have been the moment her hackles lifted.
Instead, she took Seth’s arm again, and he didn’t pull away from her.
“Excellent,” Marion said coolly. “Let’s see what sort of so-called witches the sanctuary employs.”
Between the Winter Court and her home on Vancouver Island, Marion wasn’t lacking for ritual space, but she still lusted over the Academy’s altar.
It resided in a room big enough to hold all of the North American Union’s covens at once, with one wall open to the forest, a cliff, and the private lake. All of the elements were represented nearby: fire held captive in basins, earth below, sky above, water in the lake. Even the stone of the mountains and the iron curls embedded in the floor would offer different kinds of energy to feed all rituals. At night, the moon would shine through the dome of glass that the sun currently beamed from. Golden motes drifted through the air.
But the altar. The altar.
It was a multi-leveled thing of marble beauty. Its glass bowls cradled crystals aging through phases of the moon. The cloths were spun with silver thread that
shimmered like water.
Marion was awed until the witch standing on the altar turned.
“Sinead McGrath,” Marion snarled. She recognized her from the sparse descriptions in her old journals—specifically, in the pink vitiligo patterning her otherwise tanned skin. A shock of white hair flowed over her right ear.
The witch’s eyes narrowed. “Marion Garin.”
Sinead was a stronger witch than Marion would have expected to find in Rylie’s employ—strong enough that she had felt she could rival Marion’s power. And she very nearly could.
But only nearly.
“You’re going to let her work on Seth?” Marion asked.
“Work on whom?” Sinead asked.
“My friend,” Rylie said. “Abel’s brother. He was made into a golem during Genesis, and he needs to be repaired.”
Marion opened her mouth to argue, but Seth nudged her. He shook his head once he had her attention.
“I’ve never seen a golem so detailed before,” Sinead said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to help.”
“Wait here a moment,” Rylie said to Seth. “I need to hash out details with my high priestess.” The Alpha took Sinead behind the altar so they could discuss what work Seth needed performed without Marion’s intrusion. The motive was so transparent that Marion was tempted to butt in just to prove that she could.
“Golem?” Marion whispered.
“I don’t want anyone but Rylie to know who I am,” Seth whispered back. “So yeah. Golem.” His gaze flicked to Marion’s throat more than once. He must have been looking for scarring from when he had drunk her blood. “Who’s Sinead McGrath to you? Is this witch a problem?”
“Only because she’s a jerk,” Marion said. “She bleached several of my finest dresses when I attended the Academy. And then she had the nerve to lobby for student body high priestess. The slanderous campaign she ran…”
