He nodded, though she avoided his gaze. Interesting. She’d been completely friendly before. Something else had the pretty little shifter unsettled. Was it the presence of the alpha? He watched as she drew him aside. They spoke softly, occasionally glancing in his direction. There was no evidence of shyness in her demeanor; her relationship with Dane appeared respectful but comfortable. Dylan bit his lip, considering the events that had unfolded over the past few days.
Melody had been tending the rogues. There’d been some sort of wrinkle in her relationship with James, the big wolf from Oregon.
Dylan had sensed a gentle healing when she touched him, but many people—human and otherwise—possessed skills they were unaware of. Maybe she wasn’t in ignorance of her ability. Like her son, Melody Feris was smaller than others and had an ethereal beauty he normally didn’t associate with shifters. And…his attraction to Travis was so intense, it was almost unexplainable.
“Mama, I’ll drive you home so you can get the stuff.”
Travis hovered, his attention traveling from his father to his mother to Dylan. Dylan looked at the young shifter, his heart aching. Damn if the alpha hadn’t been spot on! He’d been alone so long. He’d crushed his emotions for most of his existence. When Travis walked into that bar such a short time ago, Dylan’s world changed. He’d been too numb to understand what was happening.
Hell. He still tasted the salt of the young man’s blood on his tongue. Travis’s perfectly etched lips looked extra pouty at the moment. That was because of Dylan’s bite. In the shower, he’d thrilled at the sight of his marks from weeks ago, still vivid on the shifter’s powerful shoulder and neck. Travis might not realize it, but he’d somehow chosen to keep those marks. Why would a shifter do that? A fae had control over their claiming marks, but he’d never heard of a shifter holding on to a scar. Every time they changed shape, their cells renewed. The marks should have healed.
Dylan had tumbled foolishly, deeply in love with a brash, brilliant young man, and merely looking at his face felt like water on Dylan’s parched heart. It was a miracle. It should be the bright spot in a long, loveless existence.
Yet Dylan was about to betray Travis in the most heartless fashion possible. And if he didn’t, he’d be enslaved forever, or he would die.
He watched Travis leave the room, and Dylan’s heart ached at a loss that had yet to come.
“HOW SICK IS he?”
Travis drove the battered SUV Dane kept on hand for bad weather. His Mustang was at Blacque’s shop, and he didn’t trust his mother’s little sedan in this weather. Snow piled up in banks on either side of the road and fell from the sky in lazy swirls. Crazy weather, and he wanted nothing more than to go out running, to burn off the energy welling up inside. So much was going on in and around his life, and he was being blocked from most of it, even the stuff that involved him directly. His mother was the only one he could count on for straight answers. Well, sort of straight. At least not outright lies.
“He’s bad, but given his previous condition, not dire. I think I can stall the scarring. The spread of the infection to his heart was the most dangerous part of the poisoning, and that should recede now.”
“Why is everyone so interested in his scarring?” Granted, without his glamour, Dylan was breathtaking. Perfect. The fae generally were. A scar around his ankle wouldn’t harm his appearance, and Dylan himself had never mentioned the mark. Were the fae that vain about their appearance? If so, why did they go to such lengths to hide themselves, even here in Arcada? He’d seen Pim’s and Kell’s true forms, but only by accident. Jason? There was no telling what he might look like. Were gremlins and machine elves squat and ugly or as lovely as the other fae species he’d encountered?
“Scar tissue can harbor iron particles that could slowly poison him. If he scars badly, someone will have to excise the damaged tissue so he can heal normally. Since he can’t exactly go to the hospital for it, the process can be dangerous. Painful as well.”
“How do you know all this? I know you grew up around the fae, but how do you know their medicine?”
She smiled brightly. “When I was little, a traditional healer saw my interest in herbs and so forth. He taught me a lot that most people consider folklore. Much of it came from fae culture.”
An answer that wasn’t really an answer. He had other questions about Dylan, but for now they’d wait.
“Mama, what was my father driving when he got home?”
“He wasn’t driving. He came in on foot.”
“Seriously?” He glanced over at her, then back at the road. Small herds of deer were getting busy in the trees, giving him another reason to drive cautiously. “He left in the new car.”
“I thought it was a bit odd too. He came in as a wolf, shifted, and got dressed. He, Lukas, and James vanished into the office for a few minutes, and then he went downstairs.”
“So maybe whatever kept him away from home has something to do with the rogues.” Or Dylan. He prayed it had nothing to do with Dylan. “He seems to like Dylan. Or at least respect him.” His voice sounded foolishly hopeful.
Melody smiled and looked out the window. “There’s much to like about Dylan. He’s quiet and serious, which makes you two a rather odd couple.”
He felt his cheeks flush. “We aren’t a couple…not really. And you’re right; we’re different from each other. I don’t know how anything could possibly work between us. I’d make him crazy in no time.”
“Perhaps your love of life is what draws him to you. And he’s older, much more disciplined. You complement each other.”
“Someone like him couldn’t tolerate a fuckup like me for long. Ow!” He winced when she punched his arm.
“Don’t go there, Travis. You aren’t a fuckup. You’re free and beautiful and talented. You’ve put this label on yourself and work like hell to live up to it. But you’re the one going out nearly every weekend to check on our elderly neighbors and do yard work for them. You organize our workdays and make sure shut-ins have company and food. Everyone puts in their time, but you do more than any other member of the pack.”
“I dropped out—”
“And you can go back. I talked with your sister.”
He groaned inwardly.
“I said, I talked with your sister.”
“Yes? And what did she say?”
“She said you turned down a full-ride scholarship to a major university.”
Damn Drusilla, anyway! He’d be having a talk with his sister.
“That was years ago. I went to the local JC and decided I wasn’t cut out for college. We talked about this already, Mama.” He turned the truck into the drive that led to their little house. He sighed, glad to finally be home. After pulling to a stop, he put the car into park, and switched off the engine. Maybe if Dylan stayed, they could add on… Not that Dylan would be staying. He had the look of a wanderer. He had the look of a hard, tragic life.
“She told me you carried a 4.0 and had an offer from a gallery to display your work.”
He sighed in exasperation and gripped the steering wheel. “I can’t make a living painting, Mama.”
“April does.”
He laid his head back against the headrest and looked at the dirty headliner of the car.
“She’s different. She has a system. She goes out, makes appointments, and sells her stuff anonymously. The buyers eat that up. Her stuff is different. It’s dark and moody. She’s just…better.”
“No, I don’t think so. I remember a few of your pieces…the ones you allowed me to see. Your style is different from hers. Your art has a vitality…a power that just amazes me.”
He looked over and gave her a strained smile. “I wanted to do comics.”
“Then you should.”
“Nah, I don’t have—”
“The education.”
He closed his eyes. “I hate computers.”
“No, you hate leaving town. I know you have to screw up all your courage just to go out t
o the Roadhouse. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you to travel to the city.”
He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. She was right. Every time he dressed to go out, to step outside the town limits, Travis knew two things. People were waiting for him out there. He might know them, or they might be complete strangers, but no matter what, someday something was going to happen.
Hell, it had happened, numerous times over. This most recent attack would have been the culmination of his nightmare if Dylan hadn’t intervened. And one day he might leave Arcada and never find it again. When he’d been a child, the bus had dropped him off after school once, and the house had been empty and cold. Lifeless. He’d stood outside, knowing his mother wasn’t there, and he had no clue where she was. Inside there was no trace of life, no cooking smells or sounds that told him she’d be right back.
There’d been other times he’d come home to find the house empty, but Melody always warned him beforehand. This time the fear of abandonment and rejection had rooted in his gut. After a few panicked moments, he called Dane’s house, and his father came. It turned out that Melody was at the hospital, sitting with an elderly neighbor who’d fallen off his roof.
That fear was never completely excised from his subconscious. When he drove back toward Arcada, he always expected to reach the sign and find himself somewhere else. Or simply never see the sign again. That frightened him more than the harassment and the beatings he sought out. That fear never went away.
The interior of the SUV was growing cold. Travis got out, then walked around the front of the truck and opened the passenger door for his mother. James had hammered that into his head. He’d always honored her, and suddenly it seemed odd that an omega wolf accepted such archaic gestures from him and James. He followed her up the wide stairs of the Craftsman-style home and stopped to look around at the porch. Her rocking chair sat empty and forlorn, rocking slightly in the wind. In the summer they sat out here together, drinking tea and watching the birds at her feeders.
And the garden… Flowers and vines climbed up trellises, and her small kitchen garden was always lush and abundant. Now everything was snow covered, a fantastical landscape of silver and white. In a few hours darkness would fall, and that transition would be complete.
“Mama?”
“Hmm?” She turned, and he was struck once again by her fragile beauty. Eyes as blue as his, wavy black hair, and flawless white skin. She’d been spared the freckles that had been the bane of his youth. She lacked the robust size and strength he associated with wolf shifters. His stomach flopped, and he breathed through a brief moment of dizziness. People said he was the image of his mother—was this how he looked? Magical?
“I…uh…I forgot to put up the Christmas lights.”
She smiled sweetly, opening the door. The scent of fir escaped. “That’s okay. One of the boys brought us a tree. We’ll have time to decorate before Christmas.”
“Who branded you?”
Dylan froze at the alpha’s words. Dane sat on the cot again; Blacque leaned against the closed door. Dylan sat with his back to the wall. Under the thick layer of plaster and drywall, he sensed the steel that caged him in. That young gremlin had been busy behind the walls when nobody was looking.
“James told us there was a set of slave irons in your stuff.” James had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed.
“That was long ago. I was marked. It was part of an agreement. A contract. That was in the past. The people involved are long gone.” He swallowed hard, remembering the insane pain of iron biting into his flesh, liquid silver spreading under his skin. The geas screamed at the back of his brain, forbidding him to speak further.
“So why’d you keep ’em, then?” Blacque looked skeptical.
“I didn’t want to forget. Ever. It’s not a good memory, but it was important.”
He had been led away in irons, sick and bloody. He grieved, knowing he’d never see his family again, or his home or the forest he’d tended so gently. He’d walked proudly, though. He’d spared the lives of many by sacrificing his free will.
He caught his breath as he remembered, praying his fear wasn’t showing, that they couldn’t scent his lie.
“Guess I can understand that.” Blacque rubbed his brawny arms, where tattoos of some sort of vine wrapped around his biceps. It was savagely beautiful. But unlike Dylan, Lukas Blacque had chosen his tattoos.
Dane studied him. “Once you’re feeling better, you want to take some time with that rogue? The sick one’s not doing so well, and the other is out of his mind. Deacon seems to be lapsing in and out of lucidity. Bleu tried to glamour him, but he resisted.”
“I can try. As I said earlier, if we can put him to sleep—or even into a trance—that would help.” He looked at Blacque, who shrugged.
“Don’t think Oliver tried to put him to sleep. He just tried to question him. When he’s up, we can try again.”
“What about narcotics? Will anything put him out?”
Blacque snorted. “You saw what Special K did to Travis. Most drugs are that unpredictable on us.” He rubbed his face wearily. “They’ve got to be ready to drop.”
“Can I go now? Just to get a feel for him without so many others around?”
The father and son looked at each other. “Your call, Lukas.”
So the alpha wasn’t going to hijack the situation. Dylan had to admire him for that decision. Blacque had weathered the crisis remarkably well, and Dane was giving him the space to see it through.
“Okay. Let’s get you in there before Melody comes back. I’ll watch the door for you, but you’re on your own.”
He nodded, rose from the bed, and limped down to the rogue’s cell. The shifters flanked him on either side until they reached the door. He straightened his shoulders, glanced at Blacque, and entered the room.
For years Dylan had existed alone, locked in a cell, his only break the single meal brought to him daily. The iron had been removed from his neck and wrists, but he was unable to see the marks of the silver against his skin. His only reprieve—his only escape—had been the dreams. When he slept, he’d walked, and in time he’d learned to enter the dreams of others, unseen, unheard, unless the geas allowed otherwise. So many years…alone…
Blacque rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right here. I can hear what’s going on, but he won’t be able to see me.”
“You won’t hear much. And hopefully he’ll just think I’m here on watch.” Blacque let him go, and Dylan slipped into the heavily soundproofed cell. He hated this place; it was too much like the cell where he’d spent so many years.
Unlike the room the wolves had given him, these walls were lined with silver mesh instead of steel. Someone knew damn well what they were doing when designing these rooms.
Jason.
The name rolled around in his mind. Young, gifted Jason. Not as powerful as Dane, but a worthy opponent if it ever came to that. He knew a little too much about the werewolves. It surprised Dylan that they hadn’t picked up on that fact. But then, Arcada seemed to be a unique sort of place, where various species mixed freely in their community. Travis’s three best friends were fae.
It was intriguing. It was also a bit worrisome. Jason knew full well what he’d been doing with that steel on Dylan’s skin and in the walls of his room. Did the wolves know of the magic he’d been working inside the very walls of their home?
A cot rested by the far wall; a chair was placed at the other end of the small space. Inside the cell itself, Deacon sat in a straight-backed chair, bent forward at the waist, his head cradled in his hands. It was a rare moment of rest for the rogue. The last time Dylan had seen him, he’d been nearly out of his mind in pain and fear.
Dylan turned the chair to face Deacon. He sat quietly, knowing the shifter was aware of him, and let himself go calm and still. He breathed deeply, freeing the edges of his consciousness to play at Deacon’s mind.
The rogue’s body was motionless, but his psy
che was chaotic. Dylan didn’t want or need to talk to Deacon. He simply listened, waiting for the shifter’s fractured mind to take a break. Unfortunately he wasn’t a telepath, or he might have learned something. Deacon lifted his head and shocked Dylan with the bleak despair in his eyes. It was a feeling he’d long lived with before his eventual submission.
“Is there something you need us to know, Deacon?”
The rogue’s eyes went narrow in suspicion.
“I know you can’t talk freely. But there are other ways. Only if you are willing.”
“I understand.” And he did. The shifter glanced at Dylan’s wrists and saw the tattooed bands that Dylan revealed.
“Can you sleep?”
He shook his head.
“That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?” Dylan didn’t expect an answer. Instead he slowed his breathing and allowed the rhythms of his body to steady and relax. Deacon watched him, and without his realizing it, his breathing began to match Dylan’s. Within five minutes the weary shifter entered a trance. It wasn’t as effective as sleep, but close enough. Once his body sank into deep relaxation, his mind unmoored itself.
“Go where you are most comfortable. Where you are safe and happy.” Dylan’s eyes were open, but he didn’t see the room. He didn’t see Deacon in front of him. He was inside the rogue’s mind, coaxing Deacon into harmony with his thoughts and imagination.
The dream shimmered around him. Not concrete or as vivid as the dreams Dylan usually walked through, but Deacon wasn’t fully asleep; he was lightly hypnotized, guiding his own imagery.
They were in a forest, but unlike the snowy evergreen wood surrounding Arcada, the landscape was young, the terrain raw and broken, the ground shaded by ferns and carpeted with pinecones and fir needles. He caught the fresh scent of trees, heard the sound of water rushing in the distance.
Deacon awaited him in a small clearing, looking around cautiously, wonder awakening in his eyes. “This is near my home. How did you do this?”
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