The Worth Series: Complete Collection

by Lyra Evans

  But as Oliver yelled at the Wolf, the Wolf began to change. The fur in his hands receded, disappearing. Connor’s snout shrunk away, the downy fuzz turning to smooth skin, and in a moment, Connor was lying in Oliver’s lap, in full human form. Oliver coughed through his sobs, unsure what the transformation meant. He had no idea what happened to Werewolves when they—

  “POLICE! Put your hands up and don’t move!” a booming voice called, echoing from down the hall. Oliver choked out his tears, reaching desperately for his badge and lifting it above his head.

  “In here!” he yelled, his eyes still on Connor. “I’m Detective Oliver Worth, Arcane Crimes Unit! Please, I need help!”

  They rushed in, the Secure Assault Team all clad in black and carrying batons tipped in jade and rubies. They cleared the room quickly, two of them examining Daniel Brown’s body, another roughly taking the badge from Oliver’s hands.

  “Clear,” she said, handing it back to him to look at Connor. “What happened? Who is he?” She reached down, but before she managed to touch him, Oliver thought he saw the slightest flicker of something.

  Pressing his fingertips to Connor’s throat, his heart pounding so hard he didn’t think he’d be able to tell—

  “I need a healer!” Oliver yelled. Connor had a pulse.

  Chapter 22

  A steady, rhythmic beeping punctuated the fog in his brain. His eyes were closed now, his head tilted back against the rough plastic fabric of the chair. He couldn’t get comfortable no matter how he shifted or moved. Oliver usually had no trouble sleeping in awkward places or positions—you get what sleep you can when working overtime on a case. But sitting in this chair, Oliver found he couldn’t relax his muscles or his mind. He felt the frown in his face, the furrowing of his own brows, but he couldn’t stop it. As though the anxiety was writing itself on his face to make sure he didn’t forget. As if he could.

  He was exhausted. There had been no real sleep for days now. The case was over, the paperwork filed, the investigation into the final confrontation complete, but still Oliver couldn’t lay himself down for more than an hour or two at a time. Last night he’d managed three hours total, but the lack of rest was beginning to show on his face and in his behaviour. He’d already snapped at Captain Marks twice, though she hadn’t done anything to warrant it. She was understanding, though. More understanding than he deserved.

  Oliver swallowed against the thickness of his mouth, then giving up his attempt at a nap, cracked one eye open. A jug of water sat on a small rolling side table, next to a stack of disposable cups. Plucking out a plastic cup, Oliver poured himself a measure of water and downed it all. The thickness in his throat didn’t abate, but at least he could swallow properly now.

  With a heavy sigh, he dropped back into the chair, fighting a groan as the hard cushion slammed into his back. Hidden beneath his clothes was a watercolour painting—bruises so deep and varied he almost looked like art. The result of such a powerful magical assault, he was told. Even when magic doesn’t hit you, it can do damage. He hadn’t known how bad until the Healers insisted on checking him. They gave him potions for the pain, but he didn’t take them. Something about wincing every time he moved felt deserved.

  Of course his Captain seemed to think he was a moron for that. She’d arrived on the scene only minutes after the SAT guys had cleared the place. They’d lifted Daniel Brown away in a body bag by that point, and Oliver was sitting in the centre of the wreckage, covered in blood and staring into nothingness.

  She’d called him a hero, a credit to the badge. Said he did admirable work. But the investigation still had to be done. Procedure, of course. They took his badge, his quartz gloves and even confiscated the obsidian collar Connor had given him. Apparently they had to test it. He didn’t quite know for what, but he was promised it back, should the results of the inquiry be positive.

  “Of course they will. I have complete faith in you. But it’s all politics, you know that.” Marks had been so reassuring, so determined to be. But the grave look on her face was poorly masked. Every time she looked at Oliver, it was with a mingling sense of fear and concern.

  They wouldn’t let him leave the precinct until the Internal Investigations team was done with him. His head pounded through the entire interrogation, and by the end, he thought his skull was going to explode. But they cleared him. They were suspicious of the obsidian collar, constantly asking in different ways how he’d come to have it. They thought it peculiar—their word, not his—that Connor would spend so much on him for the sake of cooperation, after knowing him only a day. Oliver told them that was a question for Connor, if—

  But they cleared him. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Even the High Warlock had thanked him personally for his actions on behalf of Eloise.

  “In the end, Brown got what he deserved. And now Eloise can rest peacefully, knowing justice has been done,” High Warlock Frederick Carmichael said. He even told Oliver if he ever needed anything, he could always call. But Oliver remembered what Blake Murphy said about Frederick Carmichael, about his feelings regarding Werewolves. He wasn’t the kind of friend Oliver was looking for.

  There was a muted commotion outside the door. Oliver only vaguely noticed it, rubbing his fingers against his temple. He already knew what it was. Reporters had been trying to get inside since the news broke. They’d plastered his face all over the front page of the Daily Spell again and again, with varying captions and headlines. Nimueh herself held a public announcement, standing alongside Logan, to thank Oliver for his dogged determination in seeing through false clues to find the real killer. They awarded him a special honour for maintaining the peace of the Treaty.

  But Oliver hadn’t been there for that. He’d spent virtually every moment since he was released with his badge and gloves and collar where he was now. In a hospital room.

  The bed was larger than the usual hospital bed. In fact, if Oliver hadn’t known it was a hospital bed, he might have thought he was in a middle-rate hotel room. The pillows were fluffier than any hospital pillow Oliver had ever seen, and though the blankets were still starched white, the quilt was woven of soft wool close to cashmere. In fact, other than the hard-backed chair Oliver had chosen as his seat, the only indications this was a hospital room were in the various monitors hanging above the head of the bed.

  The steady beeping was coming from a softly glittering green line, broken in zigzags at regular intervals. Below it were other lines, also broken in places, but Oliver had no idea what they meant. Numbers flashed and changed now and again, all glowing blue against the cream walls, and various bits of information flickered as though on tickertape with readouts Oliver could only guess at. Around the bed was a perimeter of purple and silver flecks, like glitter suspended on the air. They moved in their own breeze. A progressive healing spell, it served to enhance the power of all the other spells and potions administered to a patient. Oliver knew because he’d asked right away.

  He spent a moment watching the glittering spell before letting himself look at the patient again. Though he’d been sitting in this room for days, he had spent little of that time actually looking at Connor. His heart plummeted every time he did. The Wolf lay there, in human form, silent and still as the grave. He wasn’t dead. Oliver continually chanted this to himself in his mind. He wasn’t dead.

  They’d managed to reverse most of the damage of Brown’s cutting curse. Only a fine scar, almost unnoticeable unless you looked closely, remained bisecting Connor’s back over his shoulder blade. The blood he’d lost was a bit more difficult. The Witches and Wizard at the hospital were unused to replenishing Werewolf blood. Hesitant to try a transfusion of Wizard blood lest it make things worse, they pumped him full of marrow stimulant potion, put him in a stasis, and called for help from Logan’s Court.

  Donna had arrived within the hour, though she wasn’t a Healer. No one at the hospital knew what to make of her. They’d asked for doctors, or blood bags, or some kind of instructions, an
d Logan had sent a single Wolf. A few tense and confusing moments ended with Oliver vouching for her, and they took her to a room to donate blood.

  But Donna couldn’t stay in Nimueh’s Court to watch over Connor, however much she clearly wanted to. She said she was Connor’s second and had to run both his pack and his businesses while he was in hospital. Oliver had the vague and unpleasant feeling that a possible coup was on the table as long as Connor didn’t return. So Donna went, and Oliver stayed.

  Oliver sighed again, his only relief for the thrumming tension in his chest. He wanted to scream, or cry, or explode with the rampant and frenzied magic that buzzed in his fingertips, but he did none of those things. He did nothing but wait, head in his hands, for Connor to wake up. If he could. The Healers were uncertain of anything at this point. He had lost so much blood—

  The memory of Connor’s body, lying in a pool of red, the stain seeping into his thick white fur, flashed again in Oliver’s head. He could still feel the heat of it on his fingers, the wetness of it, the gaping valley of the wound. He could feel the fur matted with blood and streaked with dust and rubble. He could feel the heavy beating of his own heart, the airless quality of the room, and finally, that fleeting, weak beat of Connor’s heartbeat under his fingers.

  Pushing the memory from his mind, Oliver’s hand reached instinctively to the collar around his neck. He hadn’t taken it off since they returned it to him, and letting the cool stone play against his fingertips was the only thing that seemed to calm him at all. The thought that there was a chance Connor would never—

  “You can’t die,” Oliver said suddenly, roughly, to himself and whatever magic was listening. “You can’t die.”

  “If only that were true.”

  Oliver jerked to attention, his eyes flying to the bed again, his heart not trusting to the hope. He had imagined himself having conversations with Connor before, and he wasn’t convinced he hadn’t just escalated to full insanity.

  But there was Connor, his eyes half-lidded, his skin paler and greyer than it should have been. He was awake, coughing softly to clear his throat, and watching Oliver with the echo of a smirk on his mouth.

  “Connor,” Oliver breathed, rushing to his feet and ignoring the pain in his back. He pulled another cup from the stack and poured out some water for Connor, holding the cup to his mouth. Connor nodded slightly to him and drank bit by bit. He nodded again when he was done, and Oliver placed the cup on the side table, his hands nearly shaking.

  “So did I actually get sliced open by a bigoted murderer, or was that just a happy nightmare?” Connor asked, his voice still rough. Oliver laughed despite himself, the thrumming tension in his chest breaking to pieces that threatened to overwhelm him.

  “I think ‘sliced’ is a strong word,” Oliver said with a shrug. He couldn’t hide the smile on his face, though. “No more than a scratch really. You were quite the drama queen about it, frankly. Falling unconscious and everything.”

  Connor coughed, or maybe laughed, and turned his head slightly, keeping Oliver in view. “Well, I was going for narrative impact,” he said. “But next time I get passed through a fruit slicer I’ll try out stoic indifference instead.”

  The memory flashed in Oliver’s mind again, and he shook it away, unable to keep seeing Connor that way. “Next time?” he asked, sitting himself on the edge of Connor’s bed because he thought his legs were about to give way beneath him. “Planning on taking on more homicidal Wizards in the near future, are you?”

  “Nah,” Connor said, blinking slowly. The potions the Healer’s had given him were clearly still filtering through his system. Oliver wanted to smooth away the hair from his forehead, to kiss him and bid him sleep. But he sat there instead, unable to reach out and touch Connor at all. “Maybe some murderous Werewolves or some fanatical Fae, though. Keep things interesting.”

  Oliver nodded, eyebrows raised. “You planning on going on a one-Wolf crusade or something?”

  Connor made the gesture Oliver couldn’t, reaching out to grasp Oliver’s hand. His fingers were warm but his strength wasn’t yet back. He held Oliver’s fingers loosely in his own, rubbing them gently. Oliver tightened his grip where Connor could not.

  “One-Wolf, one-Wizard, maybe,” he said, and Oliver stilled. “I am a consultant, after all. I don’t know how Nimueh’s Court Police work, but I was under the impression they worked more than one case in their careers.”

  Heart rending, Oliver pulled his hand back from Connor. The images of Connor bleeding returned, unbidden, to Oliver’s mind. He shook his head.

  “I don’t think that’s going to work,” Oliver said. He tried to sound distant, but he was sure the emotion was clear in his voice. All his words came out thickly. “I work best alone, really. It was fun while it lasted, but a partnership just isn’t in the cards.”

  He looked away now, unable to face Connor as he said this. He heard a creaking as Connor shifted, but Oliver refused to look back. It was somewhat of a surprise, then, when he felt Connor’s breath on his neck as he said, “really? Because I seem to recall you telling me we were fated.”

  Oliver tensed, turning back to Connor to find him sitting up, his expression inscrutable. His eyes were fully open now and boring into Oliver, demanding truth. Oliver swallowed.

  “When did you hear that?”

  Connor smirked again. “I was dying. I could feel all the magic leave me, all my senses becoming numb and distant.” His answer did nothing to quell Oliver’s fears, but Oliver could not look away. “It would have been so easy to give in, then, to let the light extinguish, the pain vanish. But then I heard your voice, calling me, telling me you believed. You said I couldn’t leave you when you’d only just found me. So I didn’t.”

  Silence followed this, as Oliver stared into Connor’s eyes. But every moment passed in a heartbeat, flashing the bloody scene in Oliver’s mind. Having people was too difficult, too painful. Losing Connor was a risk Oliver couldn’t take—it was too much.

  “You were mistaken,” Oliver said, the words hollow to his ears. “Delusional with blood lo—”

  Connor kissed him, cutting off his lies. His lips pressed tightly, smoothly, softly to Oliver’s, and all the fears and concerns and lies washed away. Oliver’s muscles finally relaxed, the frown on his face fading. He leaned into Connor, his hands finding purchase in Connor’s gown, pulling him closer. But before Oliver could deepen the kiss, Connor pulled back, his expression fierce.

  “There was no mistake,” he said. His eyes moved to Oliver’s neck a moment, then he added, “you’re still wearing it.”

  Fingers flying to the collar again, Oliver felt himself colour. “It’s just useful. Obsidian is the most powerful—”

  But Connor kissed him again. Oliver wondered if this was Connor’s preferred method of maintaining honesty and decided it was a flawed plan. Kissing him every time he lied gave Oliver little incentive to tell the truth. Connor pulled away again, this time with his smirk in full force.

  “Let’s try that again,” Connor said. Oliver held his gaze for as long as he could, but still the memory of the wreckage surfaced. His hands on Connor’s wrists, holding him in place, Oliver dropped his head.

  He gave in and said what he could barely think to himself. “I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”

  Connor drew his hand out of Oliver’s grasp and placed it at the back of Oliver’s neck. His fingers played in the hair at the nape of Oliver’s neck, drawing him up as he did. Oliver met Connor’s gaze to find it determined, unyielding, and full of warmth.

  “You’ll only lose me if you push me away now,” he said, and Oliver kissed him this time, sinking into the feel of Connor against him. When he pulled away to breathe, he was smiling again, the tension gone and replaced with a swelling lightness in his chest. Connor pressed his forehead to Oliver’s. “So are we going to do this, then? Make it all real?” He paused, then with a laugh, added, “will you be my consort?”

  Oliver laughed too, noddi
ng his head, his hands now around Connor’s shoulders, refusing to let him go. “Well,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “I guess it’s worth a shot.”

  Worth the Trouble

  Lyra Evans

  Chapter 1

  Everything was darkness. The silence fell still and thick over him, his mind stretching, reaching further than he knew it could, searching for the hint of movement. He couldn’t move, his hands and legs pinned by magic to either side of him. A stray strand of hair tickled his nose, distracting him briefly from the intent listening. But there was no sound he could discern, no mov—

  But there was. Just then. Just there. A soft rustling of air over the ground as something large passed. It wasn’t close yet, not really. Maybe six feet away, but it was definitely coming closer. The hairs all over his body raised in anticipation.

  Oliver felt vulnerable in his nakedness, lying spread-eagled on the floor. He could see nothing at all, his eyes shut. It wouldn’t have mattered if he opened them; he was wearing a blindfold to blot out residual light. And besides, peeking was cheating. Oliver didn’t cheat.

  He took a slow, quiet breath in through his nose, mouth tightly shut, trying to catch a scent on the air. The movement was slow now, not disturbing the air much, and Oliver had to strain to find the slightest whiff of that smell—like wood and sunlight on bare skin and the spark of lightning nearby. He knew the scent well by now.