by Lyra Evans
Oli laughed. It was the first thing his body could think to do, under the circumstances. The whole idea was so absurd, paired with the absolute ridiculousness of the entire case against Connor, that Oliver met his breaking point. He snapped. The fight of laughter was so strong it doubled him over, his lungs struggling for breath, his eyes tearing up. A hand to his chest, bracing himself as he weathered the fit, Oliver fought to regain control of himself.
But the idea that Connor was somehow responsible for the deaths of his family was ludicrous. Just beyond reasonable understanding. Oliver knew Connor. He was going to be bonded to Connor. They were fated. Connor wasn’t responsible for his parents’ deaths. He simply wasn’t. They’d died of—
The laughter in his chest died away abruptly, replaced with a vacuous silence. The reality was that Oliver didn’t know how Connor’s parents had died. And with that realization came the truth that Connor didn’t know how Oliver’s parents had died either. They’d never talked about it. Their pasts, beyond ex-boyfriends, and ex-girlfriends in Connor’s case, had remained largely uncharted. Until this point, it hadn’t mattered much to Oli.
And their little adventure down memory lane in their last case with Sky had turned out so fatally, some part of Oliver decided it was best to leave the past behind them.
But now Nadia was standing in front of the pack, calling Connor a murderer and condemning him, and Connor’s past was suddenly painfully present and relevant. But Oliver had nothing to go on.
He turned to Connor, looking for a rebuttal, an explanation, a sign that Nadia was exaggerating or taking this out of context or just plain lying. He got none of those things. Instead, he found Connor staring expressionless, distant at the sight of his only remaining cousin. Blond hair falling into his eyes, he seemed more stony than ever, carved of white marble and placed in the living Connor’s stead.
“Connor, what is she—” Oliver began, but Connor turned to the door.
“I need some air,” he said sharply. With a swift motion, he plucked the earring that connected him to Rory from his lobe, dropped it behind him, and disappeared beyond the door.
The smell of Connor’s basement, a medley of musk and pine and raw earth mixed with creek water and leather, sucked Oliver into the reality of the projection. Out of space and time, he forgot they were actually in Maeve’s Court, in the Birches’ basement, and not in the pack gathering with Rory, Donna, Nadia, and the other Wolves. The sudden departure was easily seen as a sign of guilt, but it couldn’t be.
Oliver turned back to the room, searching the faces of the Wolves Connor now called family. These were souls Connor would throw himself on a silver blade for. He’d take a silver bullet, or a cutting curse, or any number of deadly things for these Wolves. They were his life. They were his pack. But now, as Oliver scanned the room, he found fewer and fewer friendly faces. So many had turned to horror or shock, still others to understanding, as though Nadia had just explained everything away with one statement. And others looked angry, roiling. As though they wanted to take on Connor themselves.
Oliver’s stomach twisted into knots, his throat tight. How could they believe this? Unless they had good reason to…
Plucking the earring from the floor, Oliver shut his eyes, braced himself against the sharpness of the piercing to his ear, then affixed the earring in place. It took a moment, but Rory’s voice came in clearer, in dual audio through the projection and the earring.
“Connor Pierce has never been convicted of a crime of any sort in Nimueh’s Court or Maeve’s Court,” she said. “As far as I understand it, if he had committed such an atrocious and violent act as murder, he would have, himself, been killed in punishment in Logan’s Court. As he still walks, I think it safe to assume he’s never been convicted of a crime here either.”
“There is what you know,” Nadia said, her voice low and dangerous. “And then there is what’s provable. The two are not often the same.”
Rory rolled her eyes. “How very convenient for you,” she said. “That what you believe to be true is improvable, and therefore by your own logic, must be true.”
Oliver’s heart pounded against his sternum and his tongue tasted of bile. “Hold down the fort and record everything,” Oliver told Rory through the earring. “Catch me up after.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, instead opting to pluck the earring out of his own ear, following Connor’s actions, and ran out the door to find his lover. The hallway outside the Virtual Reality room was deserted, as was the rest of the basement. Oliver spent little time there, thinking Connor may have instead sought to go out walking in Maeve’s Court to find some air. Pulse racing, Oliver hoped Connor hadn’t. Forgetting the risk of Connor getting recognized and caught by the Maeve’s Court Police, Connor walking amid hordes of gorgeous and morally indifferent partiers was a dangerous idea to Oliver.
The front door of the Birch house was still locked, the magical protections still undisturbed. Oliver paused in the entrance, his chest pounding, his eyes to the window to search the street ahead as far as he could manage. But there was no sign of Connor there either. Finally, a moving shaft of light on the wall reminded Oliver of the obvious place to search.
The back of the house was decorated with a multitude of glass panel windows, stretching from floor to ceiling, and framing the picture of the ocean beyond. The in-ground pool was smaller than some of the public ones Oliver had seen, but it still featured a miniature waterfall off the cliffs into which it was built. The basin of the pool itself was partially carved into the cliff side, the other part of it hanging over the edge of the cliff, seemingly suspended on nothing at all, the water keeping a perfect cubic shape despite the drop. Connor was sitting with his back to the rock waterfall, his tight pants rolled up as far as he could get them, his feet dangling in the water.
When Oliver stepped outside, the sliding door smoothing itself shut behind him, Connor didn’t look up. Gaze cast downward into the swirling, azure water, he seemed far away. Or perhaps long ago was more likely. Oliver hiked up his own bottoms and sat gingerly down next to Connor, dipping his own feet in the water. Connor had chosen a spot well shaded by the stones and decorative palms planted around the pool, so Oliver could actually feel the breeze coming off the ocean from where they were. But the lashing sun still heated the stones of the poolside to near searing. Only well-maintained cooling charms made it possible to walk across the patio or to swim in the water, which was at precisely the perfect temperature to be both comfortable and refreshing.
Oliver sighed in quiet pleasure as the light current shifted around his sore feet, the magically enhanced water washing away the roughness of his skin, healing imperfections, and draining away his stress. He and Connor needed to get a pool like this one when they got through this. If they got through this.
Connor shifted slightly next to him, his gaze still firmly in place on the rippling of the water, and Oliver didn’t try to speak. He recognized the situation for what it was—a breaking of barriers, a shift in their relationship. If Connor wanted to share with Oliver, he would do it in his own time. And in the meantime, Oliver would wait with as much patience as he was able to muster. The pool was helping with that.
Realizing the best way to earn trust was to offer it, Oliver decided to tell his story first. “My mom was murdered when I was twelve,” he said, and Connor looked up sharply. Oliver remained impassive, barely connected to the events of his childhood anymore. “I don’t remember too much about her, but I remember she had hair like mine, brown and thick and always tousled. But on her it looked stylish.” He paused, the image hovering in his mind. “Police said it was an armed robbery gone wrong. She was just a customer in the store, looking for some specialty gemstones, and she got caught in the crossfire between the thieves and security at the store.” Oliver sighed, and another image, that of his father, came to mind instead. “I was so young I didn’t really get it, you know? Death had little meaning. I just knew she wasn’t coming back, and that made me sad. But my father
—it pretty near killed him. He was never the same after. Disappeared into himself, could barely look at me. I started taking care of myself around then, even trying to cook for both of us when I could, but it didn’t matter much. My dad was only interesting in drinking and watching old recordings of my mother. Then, about a year after her death, he killed himself.” Connor said nothing, but the wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression was enough to convey what he felt. Oliver knew that look. It was the same one everyone got when he told them the story of his parents. Which was why he didn’t tell the story much. “Took a gun to his temple, in the end. I was the one to find him.” Oliver swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat. He hadn’t expected the emotion. It was so long ago…he thought he’d gotten over it. “After the funeral, I stayed with my aunt until I was old enough to live on my own. She travelled a lot, so I never saw her. I think she died a few years back, but we really didn’t have a close relationship.”
Again, there was silence between them, heavier than before, but lifted in the middle, as though Oliver had built one half of a bridge, and now Connor needed to start on the other.
“I didn’t kill them,” Connor said after a while. The words contained no heat, no anger, only the raw pain of a truth too often spoken and too little heard.
“I didn’t think you did,” Oliver said, because it was true. Whatever did happen, Oliver knew Connor was no murderer. He’d realized as much during their first case. The Carmichael case was many things for Oli and Connor, but now it was also the seed of a truth. Connor had been so adamant, so fundamentally determined to prove his innocence to Oliver during that case. He’d had no real obligation to help Oliver, to put himself in jeopardy, to lie to his friends and pack for the sake of Oli’s investigation, but he had. Because Connor was no murderer. And perhaps his instinctive reaction to Oliver’s suspicions had been a result of this. This Connor, sitting, nearly defeated, trying still to convince people he was not his parents’ killer.
“We’ve never talked about it,” Connor said, and Oliver nodded. Connor wasn’t looking at him, but the nod seemed to get across. “So much has happened between us in so little time, and our pasts just seemed so knotted and complex, so full of pain…and now knowing what happened to your parents…it seemed best to leave them behind. I told myself after what happened to my family—I told myself I wouldn’t let that steal my future. Always look ahead. That was the lesson. Keep moving forward.” He shook his head. “But the past doesn’t let go. Not really. It clamps down on your spine, rooting in your soul until you’ve no choice but to drag it along with you, or risk losing yourself.”
“Yes,” Oliver said, feeling much the same way. “I learned the hard way you can’t escape your past.” The inflammatory headline outing Oliver and his sexual exploits to all the Three Courts and the violent and disastrous results of that a few months earlier swam through Oliver’s mind. Sky had seen something in the newspaper about Oliver he hadn’t liked and decided to go on a killing spree to win Oliver back. Oliver understood pasts better left in the past.
Connor looked at him then, his bright blue eyes shining with the reflections on the water. He studied Oliver’s face, and Oliver was made motionless by the intensity of Connor’s gaze. It lasted a few moments, each passing with a beat of Oliver’s heart, and Connor finally closed his eyes and looked away.
“I was twelve,” he said, in the tone of those beginning a story they’d rather not tell. “We were on a camping trip in Maeve’s Court. Not down here, but in the North-West of the kingdom. There are transitional forests there, where you can find fauna unlike anywhere else. Unicorns run wild, deer and elk roam together, along with leopards and gryphons. You can find pixies in the trees, then turn a corner and find alligators in the marsh.” A small smile played on Connor’s lips, a fondness tingeing his words. “We’d go on trips like that every year if we could. I loved them. My parents thought the trips were a good way for us to train, to learn new scents and hone our skills.” Connor sighed.
“Us?” Oliver asked, eyebrow quirked. Connor looked at him, confused.
“My sister and I,” he said, and Oliver’s mouth fell open. His feet stilled in the water.
“You had a sister?” Oliver asked, suddenly feeling as though he’d never really known anything at all about Connor.
Connor nodded slowly. “Kayla,” he said. “She was my twin.” And Oliver understood. Losing a sibling was one thing, but losing a twin was a unique kind of agony. Oliver didn’t push the issue, knowing full well why Connor had never mentioned her before now.
“On this trip,” Connor continued, taking Oliver’s silence to mean he had no more questions. Oliver had plenty more questions, but they were best saved for another time. “I kept going on about how I was going to be Alpha one day, like my mother. I’d gotten it into my head that it was my destiny, to be Alpha to all of the Court. I had plans for how I would deal with everything, for who I would appoint as my second, for who would take over as Alpha of our pack, everything.” Connor shook his head, rolling his eyes at himself.
“Your mother was Liana?” Oliver asked in quiet awe. Before Logan, there was Oscar, who ruled briefly and with little success. But before him, there was Liana. Largely considered one of the greatest Werewolf Alphas of all time, Liana reigned over the Werewolf Court for near a century. It was she who helped bring the Treaty between her Court and Oli’s to fruition, ending over a thousand years of war and carnage. It was only her shocking disappearance that allowed for Oscar to take over. He was the only Wolf old enough, with enough experience and background in the political affairs of the other two Courts to manage it. But he was a placeholder Alpha, and the moment Logan became of age, he challenged Oscar and took over.
“My mother was Liana,” Connor repeated, nodding his head. “The mantle of her reign was heavy on my shoulders, but I was determined. She won Alpha at only eighteen, the moment she was of age to challenge, and I planned to do the same. I told her as much, thinking it would make her proud.” He sighed again, the weight in his chest evident. As though the memory of conversations, closeness shared, of faces and smells and sounds he could no longer reach, made him smaller than he was. “She laughed.” Oliver stared, somewhat alarmed. Connor waved away the worry. “Not at me. She laughed in the way a parent does when a child says they want to be a dragon tamer or a prince—in indulgence. It’s not exactly an unattainable goal, just highly unlikely. And she told me as much. She said I’d have to train very hard if I wanted to do that, because I wouldn’t just be challenging her directly, but I would have to challenge anyone who challenged me, which likely meant Kayla.
“I hadn’t really connected the fact that challenging the Alpha meant fighting my own mother, but that wasn’t the most worrisome thought. At the time, Kayla bested me at everything. She was the better fighter, the better tracker, the better leader. She had more charisma than I did and a keener mind. Where I saw three ways to solve a problem, Kayla saw twenty.” Connor leaned back, bracing himself against the stone with his hands. “She was brilliant and she was manipulative. She could get anyone to do anything she wanted, if she only had five minutes with them to learn them. I didn’t think that way. Still don’t. Not really.”
Oliver nodded along. Kayla sounded both fierce and terrifying.
“In any case, I was embarrassed by this knowledge, and as many twelve-year-old Wolves, I expressed my humiliation in anger. It didn’t help that Kayla kept insinuating that I’d never be Alpha while she was alive. Said I’d have to make a deal with a Fae and give up my pretty face to get the strength I’d need to beat her.” He pulled a face. “It stung. So I ran off. It was stupid, obviously, but I was twelve. I ran into the forest, and no one followed. We were well trained, and my parents were more than capable Wolves, obviously. They were confident, I’m sure, that they could track me easily.
“But I knew that too, see, and I decided I would prove to them I was smart enough to outwit them, and both brave and strong enough to survive a night alone in th
e jungle woods. So I hunted some elk and covered my scent with their blood and urine, eating some of the meat and leaving the rest scattered around here and there to confuse my tracks. Then I caught some pixies and shook out some powder along my trail to mess up my magical signature, too, in case they could smell my magic. After that, I climbed a cliff side and made myself a little den in a cave on the side of it for the night. I thought I was so clever, so grown-up.
“But the next morning, when I went back to camp feeling larger than life, I found nothing but blood and ash. The land and woods around the campsite were burnt to charcoal for nearly a kilometer’s radius. The provisions we brought, the tents, the blankets and training equipment—all gone, blowing away on the wind. And my parents and Kayla—” Connor’s words cut off, strangled in his throat. He shut his eyes, his jaw tight, and Oliver pressed a hand to his lower back, rubbing slow circles into Connor’s skin. Connor curled over his knees, folding in on himself in effort to restrain the grief. Oliver couldn’t manage to say a word, not know what could possibly help. “They were gone. Nothing but bits of bone and splashes of blood.
“I tried smelling for them, tracking them the way I knew how,” Connor continued, staring up at the sky now, as though pleading his case to the Sun and the invisible Moon, begging for clemency. “I couldn’t find any one track. Everything led back to a puddle of blood or a pile of snapped bones. The dragon left nothing meaningful of my family. Just me.”
Oliver pressed in close, ignoring the heat and the discomfort of it in order to offer Connor all he could—love. “Connor, I’m so sorry. That’s—that’s unimaginable. It’s—”
“My fault,” he said, and Oliver fell silent, confused. Connor’s expression had turned to steel again, staring straight ahead to the horizon, the place where ocean blended into sky. “It’s my fault they’re dead. The dragon caught the scent of the dead elk and the pixie dust. It thought it was tracking unicorns or something, I don’t know. But instead it found its way to my family.” He shut his eyes again. “I led the dragon straight to them. And I wasn’t around to protect them, to help save them—”
