“What happened to your face?” I asked.
Ivanna waved her arm. As she moved, her hair shifted, and I caught a better glimpse: the scaly blotches covered the entire left side of her face, from the temple down over her cheek and neck, barely missing her eyes and lips. Her cheekbone had lost some of its sharpness too, its lines smoothed. I’d seen this before—her bones had been crushed by blunt trauma and Lyc-V was in the process of rebuilding it layer by layer.
“It’s stupid,” Ivanna said. “We have a fireplace in the room. I was really tired after the hunt and Radomil and Vitaliy came into my room and decided to argue with each other. Vitaliy was waving his arms.”
“I got excited,” Vitaliy said.
“He knocked my jewelry stand into the fireplace. I yelled at them, went to fish my necklace out, and accidentally pressed the ignition. A fire flared and burned me. At least I had put my hair up for the night or I would be bald.”
Bullshit. That was a chemical burn, complete with a spray pattern. She was lying through her teeth. Either she was stupid, or she thought I was really stupid, or she just didn’t care. I was betting on the latter. She and everyone else in the room knew that without a clear, indisputable smoking gun I couldn’t force her to do anything.
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“It will heal in a couple of days. Is there anything else you wanted?”
“Yes. We have reason to believe that the creatures who attacked Desandra are hiding here in the castle. We’ve developed a blood test that lets us identify these creatures.”
Vitaliy, Radomil, and Ivanna stared at me, their faces so carefully neutral that it had to be a controlled exertion of will.
“Would you be willing to provide us with a blood sample?”
“No,” Vitaliy said slowly. “Blood has too much power.”
“We don’t want to be cursed.” Radomil shook his head.
“Thank you for coming,” Ivanna said. “You’re not a bad person. We’re sorry your man is being so unfair.”
We left. As we walked away, Mahon rested his hand on my shoulder. It was a quiet, almost fatherly gesture.
“Did you see their faces?” I asked.
“We got a reaction,” Barabas said. “I don’t know what it means, but we got one.”
Jarek Kral was my last stop. The Obluda pack occupied the northern side of the castle. I knew exactly what was coming.
“He’ll try to provoke you,” Barabas said.
“I know.” If I gave Jarek any pretext to attack me, he would be overjoyed.
“Don’t react, Kate,” Barabas murmured.
“I know.”
“If he touches you, you can touch back,” Mahon said.
Oh yes. I will. You can be sure I will.
We turned the corner. A long hallway unrolled before us, the light from the windows painting light rectangles on the floor. Men milled about in the hallway. One, two . . . twelve. Jarek had pulled most of his pack out of their beds to give me a proper welcome.
Jarek’s shapeshifters stared at me. Some openly leered. A dark-haired, older shapeshifter on the left stuck his tongue out and wiggled it. Wasn’t he a charmer.
Your tongue’s too long. Come closer, I’ll fix it for you.
I kept walking, Barabas and Mahon behind me. The anger and hurt inside me crystallized into an icy cage. I hid inside it, using it as my armor. Whatever punches Jarek Kral threw at me, they wouldn’t breach it. The ice was too thick.
As we moved through the hallway, the shapeshifters fell in behind us. Someone whistled. Someone catcalled. I kept walking.
Ahead an arch offered a view of a large room. A familiar grouping of cushioned seats and coffee tables waited—Hugh clearly believed that if a furniture set did its job, there was no reason to get creative. Jarek Kral sprawled on the love seat, watching me walk toward him. His inner circle flanked the seat. A tall blond—one of the two brothers who followed Jarek around—an older man with a shaved head and muscles like a heavyweight prizefighter, and Renok, my buddy, dark-haired, with a short beard, and a deep inborn viciousness in his eyes.
This would be interesting.
“Curran’s whore comes to visit us,” Jarek said in accented English.
The three men laughed as if on cue. I glanced at Mahon. “You really shouldn’t let him talk to you like that.”
Mahon’s bushy eyebrows came together.
I sat in the chair. “Your daughter was attacked last night.”
“And?”
“Looking for some fatherly reactions here: is she okay, was she hurt?” I leaned forward. “You know, things men ask when their children are attacked.”
Jarek shrugged. “Why should I worry? That’s why we hired you. To keep my precious daughter safe.”
“Where were you last night at midnight?”
“Here. Wasn’t I?” Jarek spread his arms.
“Yes,” the older bald man said.
“Here,” Renok said and winked.
Jarek Kral leaned toward me. Oh boy. Here we go. “What does he see in you?” His tone was light, almost conversational. “You’re not a shapeshifter, you’re not powerful, and you’re not beautiful. No body. No face.”
Behind me Barabas took a sharp breath.
“Do you give good sex?” Jarek Kral propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his fist. “Do you suck his cock?”
Oh look, someone looked up a couple of dirty words in the English dictionary. Cute.
Jarek leaned a little forward, happy with himself. “Does he like his cock sucked? Or did you not do a good job? Is that why your face looks like this?”
Amateur. “Why are you so curious about Curran’s cock? Are you looking for something new to suck? You’re welcome to ask him, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like you like that.”
The three men drew back. Jarek blinked. Barabas laughed under his breath.
“Try to pay attention,” I told him. “I will speak slowly, so you can understand. Your daughter was attacked. There are strange creatures in this castle. We have a blood test that can identify them. Will you let us test your blood?”
Jarek laughed.
He didn’t seem nervous, but he was so animated, I couldn’t tell if he was reacting at all.
“Maybe we should test your blood.” Renok grabbed my left arm. He was fast, but I saw him move and I let him do it. His fingers closed on my wrist. He pulled my arm, bending it at the elbow to expose the inside of the forearm. I waited half a second to make sure everyone saw it and drove the flat palm of my right hand against his wrist. He was strong, but he didn’t expect me to be. His hold slipped. I grabbed his wrist with my right hand and twisted it, wrenching his arm. He bent forward, trying to keep his shoulder in its socket. I yanked a throwing knife out of my sheath and drove it through his trapezius muscle at the top of his shoulder, nailing him to the coffee table with a knife.
The whole thing took half a breath.
“So I take it, that’s a no on the blood?” I asked.
Jarek Kral stared at me.
A rough, jagged growl tore from Renok, part fury, part pain. He strained.
Barabas leaned forward and put his hand on Renok’s neck. The shapeshifter went still.
I rose. “I see no women in your party. That’s a mistake. Desandra is her father’s daughter. She fought last night and she enjoyed it. She will kill you one day, and then she’ll go on to have children who’ll never know your name. Your pathetic attempt at a dynasty will die with you.”
The blond and the prizefighter jumped to their feet. Mahon shook his head. “Think about what you’re doing,” he said quietly, his voice deep with menace.
Jarek said something. The wolves backed away.
I rose and walked out. Mahon and Barabas followed me.
I marched down the hallway heading toward the stairs at a near run. Outside the windows the day was bright: golden sunshine, blue sky, pleasant wind . . . I wanted to punch the happy day in the face, grab it by the
hair, and beat it until it told me what the hell it was so happy about. I was keyed up too high and I was sick of this place. Sick of shapeshifters, sick of their politics, and sick of holding myself back. Thinking about Curran just poured more gasoline on the fire. I had to fix myself and I had to do it now, before I exploded.
We came to a padded bench set in the shallow nook.
“Let’s sit here a minute,” Mahon said.
I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to punch something.
“Please,” Mahon said.
Fine. I sat. He sat on the other end. Barabas leaned against the wall next to me.
“I was born before the Shift,” Mahon said. “For me, magic changed everything. Martha is my second wife. I buried my first and I buried our children. I have no love for ‘normal’ people. To me, I’m normal. I’m a shapeshifter, but I’m human. Things that I endured were done to me by ‘normal’ humans, and they did them because they never tried to understand me and mine, and even if they did, they couldn’t. I didn’t belong with them and they sure as hell didn’t belong with me or my family. There was no common ground between us.”
Why was he telling me this? I already felt like I’d been through a gauntlet. I didn’t need extra punches.
“You’ll never be a shapeshifter,” Mahon said. “If you live with us for a hundred years, a newborn werebear will be more of a shapeshifter than you are.”
Barabas looked at him. “Enough. That back there was plenty. She doesn’t need any more shit today.”
“Let me finish,” Mahon said, his voice calm. “You’ll never fully understand what it’s like and we’ll never fully understand you. But it doesn’t matter. You’re Pack.”
I blinked. I must’ve misheard.
“Why take their abuse?” Mahon asked. “I know it goes against your nature.”
“Because it’s not about me. It’s about the panacea, our people, and a pregnant woman. I can make them eat their words, but it will derail everything. They’re counting on me blowing my gasket, and playing to their expectations helps them and hurts us. I would rather win big at the end than win small right now.”
“And that’s why no matter what happens, you will always be Pack. Because you have that loyalty and restraint.” Mahon raised his hands, as if holding an invisible ball. “The Pack is bigger than all of us. It’s an institution. A thing built on self-sacrifice. We’re a violent breed. To exist in peace, we have to sacrifice that violence. We have to praise control and discipline, and it starts at the top. Having an alpha who is a loose cannon is worse than having no alpha at all. The world is falling around us in pieces and will be for some time. It’s all about stability now, about giving people a safe place, a reassuring routine, so they don’t feel frightened and so they don’t feel the need to resort to violence, because if we go down that road, we’ll either self-destruct or be exterminated. That’s why we build so many safeguards. In time, I’d like to see things change. I’d like the challenges to go away. We lose too many good people to those. But it will come with time, a long time, perhaps years, perhaps generations, and it will start at the top. We lead by example.”
I never knew that about him.
Mahon faced me. “You and us, we have things in common. You know what it’s like to not be ‘normal,’ except in this case you’re the odd one out. You may respect our ways, but you don’t have to try to be something you are not. Some people will take longer to adjust, but in time, you will be accepted just as you are. Not ‘human,’ not whatever, but Kate. Unique and different, but not separate. Kate is just Kate and you belong with us. That’s all that matters.”
I was the badass Consort and he was the grim Pack’s executioner. Hugging him in the hallways would be entirely inappropriate.
“Thank you for your help,” I said.
“Anytime,” Mahon said.
Barabas spun toward the stairs. Lorelei circled the landing and kept going up the stairs, her dark green dress with a diaphanous skirt flaring as she walked.
Barabas inhaled. “Is that . . . ?”
“Now isn’t the time,” Mahon said.
Oh no, now was the perfect time. She was walking upstairs, and unless Curran waited for her in her room, he would be alone and available for a little chat.
“Where would Curran be now?” I asked.
“It’s lunch,” Barabas said. “In the great hall.”
Good. It was about time I talked to him.
* * *
By the time we reached the great hall, common sense had kicked in. Marching in there and punching Curran, as satisfying as it might be, wouldn’t accomplish much except make me look like a jealous idiot who couldn’t control herself. I wouldn’t give him and the other packs the satisfaction.
I halted at the door. “Why don’t the two of you go in. I’ll be right behind you.”
Mahon went on. Barabas lingered for a long moment.
“I just need a minute to myself.”
“Kate . . . I’m the last person to give love advice. I find calm, grounded guys, because I know I’m high-strung and I need someone to steady me, and then I get bored and act out until they leave me. I know I’m doing it, but I keep repeating the same mistake over and over, like a moron, because I keep hoping it will be different with this guy, because he is different. But it’s always the same, because I don’t change. People don’t suddenly change, Kate. You understand?” He leaned forward and looked into my face. “Just . . . take longer than a minute. So there are no regrets later.”
He went into the great hall.
People sat at the tables, eating, drinking, talking. Tension vibrated in me. I was a hair away from violence. I imagined walking in there and stabbing Curran with a fork. Barabas was right. I needed more than a minute. I needed to splash some water on my face.
Across from me a short hallway led to the side. If I took it, it should lead me to one of the two bathrooms. I stepped into the hallway. A door stood ajar on my right side, leading into a small room where a set of dark wooden stairs climbed up.
Maybe it was the way to the minstrel’s gallery.
I climbed the stairs. If there were any snipers up there, I wanted to meet them for a friendly conversation. If not, I could look at the dining hall unnoticed.
The stairs ended. I passed through a doorway in the stone wall and found myself in the minstrel’s gallery in the great hall. Score. Something went right today.
The great hall had no windows, the only illumination coming from the electric lights or, right now, with magic up, from the feylanterns shaped like faux torches. It could’ve been midmorning or midnight—the outside light made no difference. The gallery lay soaked in gloom, the dark wooden beams almost black. I walked the length of it. Two doors, one at the far wall and the other at a midway point, interrupted the stone wall. Aside from that, nothing. Empty.
I leaned down on the wooden rail. Below me the great hall stretched, brightly lit and loud with people. The windows in the castle hallways must’ve been opened to vent the air heated with human breath and still-warm food, and a draft flowed from below, bringing with it a hint of spices and stirring the long blue-and-silver banners on the wall to the left of me. From this point I was probably nearly invisible to those beneath me.
I hadn’t realized how high the gallery was. Leaping over the rail was out of the question. My bones would snap from the impact.
Curran strode through the door into the hall. He walked to the head table, where Barabas sat on the side next to Mahon, and asked Barabas something. Barabas spread his arms in response. Curran’s face snapped into a familiar unreadable mask. He sat back in his place in the middle.
A moment later Lorelei floated up. She wore tight jeans and an off-the-shoulder, nearly sheer blue peasant blouse. Her hair streamed over her shoulders. Her face looked flawless. How the hell did she have time to change and get here so fast?
Curran turned to her and said something. She sat next to him. Her smile was nothing short of radiant.
It
felt like someone had dropped a brick into my stomach.
She asked him something. He reached for a plate of carved meat.
If he offered her food, I’d jump right off this gallery and kick him in the face with my broken legs.
Curran moved the dish toward her.
Don’t.
He set the platter down.
Lorelei smiled at him, speared a slice off the platter with her fork, and leaned in to tell him something, a little sly light in her eyes.
They were sitting too close. I stared at Curran, wishing I could see through his skull into his head. Why are you doing this? Why?
“Perhaps because she is younger and fresher,” Hugh said behind me.
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud. I didn’t hear him walk up to me either. Shit. This situation needed to unscrew itself up really fast, because it was distracting me.
Hugh came to lean next to me, a hulking shadow. He wore jeans and a gray T-shirt. The thin fabric lay across his broad back, following the contours of his trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles. I knew this build: a meld of strength and high endurance, flexible, mobile, but capable of crushing power. Hugh would be very difficult to kill.
He turned, watching Curran down below. “Perhaps he wants her because she is a shapeshifter and his people would accept her. She’ll birth him a litter of cubs and everyone will cheer. Perhaps because she would bring a political alliance. Perhaps because she won’t argue with him. Some men enjoy obedience.”
“Thank you for your analysis, Doctor. Measuring others by your own standard?”
He tilted his head, presenting me with a view of his square jaw. Punching it would be a bitch. I’d bruise my hand for sure. Voron had chosen well. Usually I didn’t have any issues with my body, but right now I wished for another six inches of height and an extra thirty pounds of muscle. It wouldn’t make us even, but it would tighten the gap.
“Interested in my standards?” Hugh asked.
Danger, icy lake ahead. “No.”
“If we’re talking a one-night stand, I’m looking for enthusiasm. Perhaps for someone fearless. Blind obedience is boring. I want to have a good time, I want her to have a good time, and I want to make a memory I’ll enjoy remembering.”
Magic Rises kd-6 Page 25
