by Lyra Evans
Connor stood next to him, his hair blond and styled in his usual, sharp way, his clothes changed. A crisp grey suit over a slightly undone white shirt and polished leather shoes—his costume was no longer about concealment but the opposite. Connor was intent on broadcasting his identity to all who spied him. He was no longer hiding.
Wearing a pair of fitted jeans worn soft in the knees and a snug t-shirt, Oliver didn’t quite feel as composed as Connor, but he was back to himself as well. His dark brown hair, as wild as ever and this time unrestrained, would be just as recognizable to Werewolves as his scent. And Oliver didn’t care.
Brook shifted slightly next to them, his hands poised on his rifle, his shoulders square. Keen eyes scanned the wall of trees in the distance, looking for any sign of movement. Rory stood to Oliver’s other side, her curls pinned back in a false Mohawk trailing down her back. She wore leggings under a slouchy shirt-dress with pockets and a pair of black boots. Her camera tied to her wrist, she was already filming.
Between the four of them, Brook seemed by far the most nervous, his jaw tight and his gaze razor sharp. Rory buzzed with a kind of nervous excitement, but every detail of her body spoke to preparedness. Connor radiated control, determination, resignation. Oliver wasn’t sure what he was feeling; the marathon run that was this case had worn on him, drained him of all energy. The injuries he faced were hardly life-threatening, but he wasn’t sure just how much of a fight he’d be able to put up. If it came to that. Which everyone but Connor seemed to think was certain.
“How long do we wait?” Rory whispered to Oli out of the side of her mouth. Oliver let his gaze rove over the base of the forest ahead, unable to spot any significant movement there. Every passing second made him less and less comfortable with their plan, but nothing was going to change Connor’s mind. And perhaps it was better that way. If Connor was going to clear his name with his own pack, he’d have to do it on his terms. He’d have to win back their trust in a way Werewolves deemed correct.
“Until they come,” Connor said, answering Rory for Oliver. His expression remained unchanged, his eyes never leaving their mark on the distant forest as he spoke. “We cannot cross into the Court without the permission of the border guards.”
“Right,” Rory said, considering him, her camera still focused on the horizon. “But in the event that they don’t—”
“They will,” Connor said. Not a shadow of a doubt touched his words or, Oliver suspected, his mind.
“Right, so, I guess we live here now,” Rory muttered, shifting from foot to foot. Though she showed it less than Oliver, she was just as tired as he was. Her articles usually involved a hell of a lot less legwork than she’d done on this story, and the dark circles peeking through the concealer and foundation she’d applied to her face told Oliver all he needed to know.
“I’m not comfortable with this,” Brook said. “They should have been here by now, and the fact that the border guard haven’t shown themselves can only be a sign of—”
But he broke off suddenly, as in the distance, shadows sprouted among the trees, spreading slowly across the razed grass and asphalt road. As though emerging directly out of the earth, growing from the tree roots and stones, three figures slowly took form. They approached at a loping pace, their low masses indicating they were still in Wolf form. As they approached, however, the Wolves slowly began to glimmer and flicker, shifting like mirages on the air, until three people were walking in place of the Wolves.
The man in the centre was sharp and lithe, with angled features and roan red hair. There was a bit more than a five o’clock shadow along his jaw, his stubble coming in in tones of red and brown. The two women he was with were virtually identical, their black skin and tightly curled hair pulled back into neat, perfect braids. The curves of their bodies spoke of deities, of beauty only mentioned in the children’s tales about the origins of the world. They stopped abruptly, feet away from Oliver and Connor, still well behind the line of their Court.
Rather than welcome them or acknowledge them at all, the man, Jackson Racer, took a step forward and held his chin high. “What business do you have in Kayla’s Court?”
Connor seemed visibly unfazed by this, but Oliver suspected there was more going on in his chest than was apparent on his face. Racer and the Montgomery twins were part of his pack. They were close to Connor once, and always loyal. But to hear Racer address Connor as though he were no one, as though Racer didn’t even know who he was, sent a jolt through Oliver’s chest.
“I am here to plead my innocence,” Connor said, “and that of my consort.”
Racer studied Connor a moment, his expression underwritten by anger and mistrust. Eyes flickering over to Oliver, Racer sniffed gruffly at the air. “And why should we let you do so?” He glanced at Rory a moment, shaking his head at her. “You are no longer welcome within the borders of this Court.”
“I am an Alpha of the Line of Alphas,” Connor said, standing ever taller. He towered over Racer, though Racer was by no means short. The aura of Connor was such that it crippled lesser Wolves standing by him. “I have a right to plead my case before the Alphas and the packs. I have a right to defend myself.”
“You lost that right when you savagely ripped Logan—” Racer growled.
“Jacks, come on!” Brook cried. “You can’t still believe that? Did you even watch the newsfeed I sent you?” Racer shot Brook a hard, edged look. There was something in his eyes Oliver wasn’t sure about, but Brook didn’t flinch in the face of it. Instead, he clenched his jaw tighter and straightened his hold on his rifle. One of the Montgomery twins, meanwhile, let her eyes travel over to Rory for a moment, looking her up and down before snapping back to attention.
“Alpha Kayla has made it clear where she stands on the subject of her traitor brother,” Racer said, his conviction wavering only minutely.
“She would,” Connor said. “But perhaps you should be wondering why it is she intends to deny justice be served to the person she believes is Logan’s killer. Why wouldn’t she want to repay the murderer for the killing of her own cousin?”
Racer considered Connor further, unable to answer that. “It’s not my place to question,” he said after a moment, but it was clear he didn’t genuinely espouse this belief.
“You will take us to Kayla,” Connor said. “Or we will cross the border illegally and take down any Wolf who should stand in our way. It will be our right.”
Racer’s sharp eyes paused on Oliver’s arm in a sling, on the simple size of Rory’s person, on the rifle in Brook’s hands, and then finally on Connor himself.
“Very well,” Racer said. “But he stays behind,” he added, nodding at Brook with his chin. Brook looked mildly offended but stepped back, his shoulders tight again.
“Of course,” Brook said, his words icy and full of a cold North wind. “I man the border. It’s my place. I wouldn’t dream of crossing that line.”
Racer looked away from him, his jaw twitching in response. Oliver squinted at Racer unsure he was seeing what he thought, but the pinkish hue at the edge of Racer’s ears told Oliver just what line Racer and Brook might have crossed in the past.
Stepping back to let Connor, Oliver, and Rory in, Racer turned his back to Brook. With a loaded rifle in his hands and an anger that itched to use the weapon, Oliver thought turning his back on Brook was a terrible idea.
Connor stepped over the boarder and back into the territory of his birth, of his ancestors. Oliver followed quickly after, Rory taking up the rear. Taking Connor’s hand in his own, Oliver brought to mind a spell to layer protection over Connor in case they were being lead directly into an ambush.
But as they walked toward the forest and crossed beyond the limit of the trees, Oliver slowly began to relax. The forest that covered most of the Werewolf Court was ancient and filled with rare plants and ingredients for potions. The trees rose up in monolithic spikes, shearing at the edge of the sky like the teeth of some gigantic beast. It smelled of pine
and maple and birch, of mulch and moss and peat, of green wood and babbling, crystal waters.
“You’re that reporter,” Celeste, one of the Montgomery sisters, said to Rory. “The one that made her name on the climate of corruption in the NCPD that lead to the Thistledown Thrasher case, aren’t you?” Celeste smiled slightly. “And you’re the one constantly asking questions about Kayla’s whereabouts between when she went missing and when she reappeared.” Rory nodded again. Celeste studied her more closely, her eyes betraying nothing of what she was thinking. “Did you know where Oli and Connor were the entire time?”
Rory held Celeste’s gaze. “Yes,” she said, taking a gamble Oliver wasn’t even sure he’d know how to navigate.
Celeste said nothing for a long while. “You’re a very good liar.” The smallest flash of a smile in Rory’s direction nearly stopped Oliver in his tracks. Maybe Celeste wasn’t entirely convinced against them, at least.
They walked on in silence for some times, the woods thickening around them, the sky disappearing beneath a canopy of broad leaves and branches large as some of the trunks in Nimueh’s Court. Oliver tried not to think of what lay ahead of them, of the reception they would receive. Racer’s behaviour was hardly an encouraging marker of what was to come. The fact that they were empty-handed, unable to provide concrete evidence beyond Sky’s admittedly problematic testimony, did nothing to help assuage Oliver’s fears.
“You should never have run,” Racer blurted. “We would have defended you.” The admission struck Oliver by surprise, catching him just below his diaphragm and knocking the air from him for a moment. Connor, however, seemed to have been expecting it.
“I know,” Connor said. “But then you would have died. And I couldn’t risk that.” Connor stared steadily ahead, his eyes on nothing but the path forward. Racer glanced briefly at him, then mimicked Connor in his gaze. “My options were to stay and sacrifice my life and the lives of my pack, or to leave, spare you all, and possibly return with Logan’s true murderer and prove my innocence. There was no choice.”
Racer said nothing to this, the atmosphere between them all essentially unchanged. As though they’d never spoken, Racer and Connor moved forward through the trees until they came to the edge of the clearing at the foot of Mount Razortooth.
Oliver stared warily through the trees to the open space around the foot of the mountain. He tried not to think that last he was here, he had been about to bind himself to Connor. That they should have been celebrating, soaking in one another, starting out together along the unknown road ahead. But try as he did, Oliver couldn’t shake the sight of Connor, cloaked in bearskin and beautiful as a Selkie, walking toward Oliver in the dying evening light. The collar was back in place around his neck, as was Connor’s, but for the first time Oliver felt something missing.
The familiar weight of the collar was comforting, but for the briefest moment that night, he’d felt the beginnings of a bond. And now, as he wore the obsidian collar for all to see, he felt only the weight of the stones, not the invisible tether that linked Connor and Oliver—forever, indelibly, across the stars. Fated.
Was it Fate, though? Were they meant to be because something was written about them in the long pages of the universe? Were Nimueh and Logan Fated? And, if so, was Logan also Fated to be killed? Was Fate intent that Nimueh should live out her life alone? Were Connor’s parents Fated to die on that camping trip? Were Oliver’s parents Fated to die as they did?
But Oliver didn’t believe most of those things. He didn’t believe in the incontrovertible line that wrote out the lives of every living thing. That kind of greater power would relieve murderers and rapists of their responsibilities to their victims and the courts. If a person was Fated to die, then perhaps their killer was Fated to murder them? If Fate decreed it, who was the lowly murderer to deny Her?
But you felt it. You knew it the moment you saw him. You told him you believed it.
Oliver sighed. Fated or no, he was certain now, more than ever, that Connor was the man he was meant to spend the rest of his life with. He knew Connor was the other half of him, the way he knew it when he put his shoes on the right feet—it just fit. The perfection of it, the ease of slipping into it, the warmth of knowing it’s right. Connor was Oliver’s perfect fit. And as the packs filtered into the clearing, the various Alphas gathering their Wolves around the empty space before the raised stone dais, Oliver decided he would let no one take that perfection from him ever again. He was going to have his bonding ceremony with Connor in this clearing, one way or another.
Once the Wolves were gathered, Kayla herself stepped out of the shadowed base of the mountain, positioning herself atop the dais. She was in Human form, her rough, scarred face even more startling in person. The skin was worried and wrinkled like a piece of crumpled leather, the creases never going away, the damage far worse than done. Her lips pulled back over her teeth in a constant snarl, revealing part of her incisors no matter her expression. And from here, Oliver could see that the scarring spread further down her body than he thought. Her neck was edged in the uneven, shiny bumps of thick scar tissue and poorly tended burns. Splotches of red skin, sometimes hard and unyielding to her movements, sometimes barely different from skin except for colour, littered her arms and chest and stomach. She wore tight leather pants and a cropped leather tank top. The hair she did have was tied back into a standard tail, the blond of it nearly as white blond as Connor’s.
“Who has called forth this meeting of the Court and why?” she asked, her voice like a growling rumble. She was the warning of an oncoming storm.
Racer stepped forward into the clearing, showing himself before his pack. “I have, Alpha,” he said. “The demand was put forth by a defendant requiring process.”
Kayla raised her unflinching face to Racer. “Have them step forth.”
Oliver and Connor took their cue, walking calmly, heads held high, into the clearing. There were gasps and growls, muttering and mumbles, and not a few shocked and horrified expressions.
“The traitor! Kill him and his Ape! Kill him in the name of Logan!” a voice cried out from somewhere Oliver couldn’t pinpoint. His heart pumped hard against his sternum, his body desperately willing him to flee. The danger he faced in this gathering was not unlike the danger he faced the first time he came to the Werewolf Court, but at that time the Wolves were at minimum trying to uphold the Treaty.
“He is an Alpha,” another voice cried, and Oliver thought he recognized it. “He has right to a plea and a defense!”
“The Ape has no place here!”
“Oliver is as much part of the pack as any of us!” Donna cried out, stepping forward to stand with her Alpha. “His attachment to Connor means the right to defense extends to him! You will shut your mouth and listen closely.”
The grumbling and gurgling of the crowd died down slightly. Kayla, meanwhile, stared resolutely at Oliver. Her piercing blue eyes were such a close match to Connor’s it was unnerving to face them in a woman, a look so full of ice. She sniffed at the air slowly, breathing them in from her raised dais, and glared down at them.
“Brother,” she said, nodding her head in a strangely casual gesture. The coolness in her words was painful against Oliver’s heart.
“Sister,” Connor said, echoing the same coldness. “You’re alive and well, I see.”
Kayla pulled a face, disfiguring herself further. “Alive. No thanks to you,” she snapped. “I notice mom and dad’s pictures aren’t still over the mantel piece in the dining room.”
“I put them in one of my studies,” Connor informed her. “It simply hurt too much to see them every day when I couldn’t be with them.”
Kayla nodded vaguely, clearly not moved. “They could have been with you, if you hadn’t had them killed.”
Connor tensed slightly. “That is the last time you get to say that,” he said. Kayla’s eyes flashed.
“Why?” she asked. “Have trouble facing your own handiwork? Though I guess we
shouldn’t be surprised,” she said, addressing the entire crowd of gathered Wolves. Rory filmed all she could, standing carefully to one side. The crowd rippled with tension. “You apparently always run from your crimes. You’ve been hiding your part in our parents’ death, and you ran from the investigation of Logan’s murder too. If you don’t like being associated to murder so much, Con, maybe stop killing people.”
Connor growled. “You’ve no right to say that to me,” he snapped, the rumbling in his chest crashing like thunder. “No right to speak his name at this place! Have you not desecrated him enough? Have you not corrupted enough of our sacred spaces?”
Kayla shook her head. “What are you on about?”
“You killed Logan!” he yelled, throwing his hand out to pin her in place with a finger. The gathered Wolves burst out in a rage, growling and snarling, snapping their jaws.
Kayla laughed. “Did your tricky little Ape manipulate you into thinking that?” she asked. Oliver felt himself get hot, his teeth grinding together.
“No,” Connor said. “Your accomplice did.”
The Wolves grew silent a moment, Connor’s words rushing over them. Oliver took stock of the surrounding packs. Lane and his Wolves were off to the left, his eyes gleaming with a desperate hope as he watched everything unfold. But other Alphas were glaring or grimacing at Connor, clearly still siding with Kayla.
“My accomplice?” Kayla said, deadpanned. “Who might that be?”
Connor settled back into his heels. “Only the High Warlock of Nimueh’s Court. Right after he was arrested for treason you were complicit in planning,” Connor said. “And a very reliable source corroborated the whole thing.”
The chill in the air was unnatural, and it rolled in waves off Kayla, standing before them. She was so tall in person, taller even than Oliver had pictured. Oliver called to mind a shield spell to protect himself and Connor.
