by May Dawson
"I think maybe this place was a fallback position for the pack long ago," I told her as we walked. "It's always seemed to me like it was too perfect to be entirely natural. Why would Mother Nature be so accommodating?"
"But people don't know about it now?"
I shook my head. "People don't know about it now. Promise. I’ve hidden in here before and no one's thought to come looking."
"Maybe they weren’t that eager to find you," she suggested.
I whistled. Burn from the nine-year-old. "Did you meet Arthur? You and Arthur are going to get along."
"He's the big scary one who adores my sister?"
"You're going to have to be more specific," I said. “There’s more than one of those guys.”
We reached the space in the caves that Seb and I used to pretend was our real home: a front room with a stone table and two wooden chairs we dragged in here at great effort. There was a pillow gone moldy on one of the chairs, and I edged it off with the toe of my boot and kick it out into the rest of the caves. Beyond a low doorway, there was another, smaller room where we used to sleep.
"How are we going to know it's safe to come out?" she asked.
"I'll go out and scout," I said.
"I'll go with you," she said, her voice loud and aggressive.
She was scared.
"Okay." I nodded. "It's safer to stay together."
She poked around the room, kneeling to glance into the little bedroom and then getting up and wandering some more, as if to take stock of everything. She turned to me and said, "I guess I can see where a kid might like something like this."
I couldn't tell if she's being sarcastic or if she considered herself a kid or what, so I just nodded. I unzipped my pack and started pulling things out: I'd grabbed two sleeping bags--no pillows though, there was no room for that kind of thing--and a bag of apples, two filtration water bottles, and a bunch of cans. And a can opener. I’d learned about the necessity of that the hard way during one trip.
I tossed her one of the water bottles. I'd filled it up with good tap water before we left, but we'd have to refill it with salt water and wait for them to filter. She caught it against her chest awkwardly.
"You've got to stay hydrated," I told her.
She took a long sip from the water bottle, then carefully tightened the top back on as she wandered along, surveying my little pile of canned goods. "How are we going to cook these?"
"We're going to eat them cold."
"Cold Spaghetti-os?" She asked in horror.
"You might find you like them," I said. "Maybe they'll grow on you."
"Doubtful." She chewed on her lower lip, her gaze contemplative. “Can you show me the other way out?”
“Do you promise you won’t run away?”
She leveled me a look. “Do I have anywhere to go?”
Valid point. Maybe it would make her feel better to know that she didn’t have to make an impossible swim back out.
I led her out of the cave and up the trails that switched back and forth through the caves, up to the second big cavern. When we stepped inside, we were in an enormous space with a rocky floor. A much wider crack along the wall flooded the room with sunlight. Seb and I used to call it the balcony, and we’d sit there, feeling like the kings of the world with the ocean spread far below us. This was our little castle, where we were safe from a pack that thought we were nothing.
I led her to the chimney that ran up the wall, a long track in the rock that led up to the narrow, twisting cave that exited at the top of the cliff.
She looked at me skeptically. “This is out?”
“For you, not for me,” I said. “No adult can climb it. But I did, as a kid.”
She pursed her lips. “Well. Now I feel better.”
I walked back across the cavern and took a seat on the balcony. The ocean seemed to spin dizzily down below, bright blue and blinding.
She came and sat beside me, tentatively, at a little distance from the edge.
"Tell me something," she said.
"Like a story?"
"No," she said, as if I was stupid. Her gaze was on the ocean. "Something so I get to know you."
"I'm not that interesting," I said, because I didn't know what to tell her.
"If you're not that interesting, then you're not good enough for my sister."
I had to grin at her bold-faced manipulation. Of course I wanted to be good enough for Piper. "Are you sure you're nine?"
Piper told me Maddie was smart. But I don't spend a lot of time around kids. I wasn't prepared.
“Why did you hide here?” she pressed.
It was a story I didn’t want to tell.
But she needed to know she could trust me. It was just her and me now, locked in these caves above the tide. This girl who can't swim proficiently yet still walked through the ocean because I told her it was safe.
So I started talking.
Chapter 13
Piper
My dreams are always a haunted place.
My father was there, around every corner. "You belong with me," he said, and then he curled his fingers bruisingly deep into my flesh, and he dragged me under the waves.
In the distance, I could hear their voices, warm and rough and masculine and full of worry.
"I never belonged to you," I said. Somehow when I turned on my father and snarled, I was a wolf. And suddenly, he was the one who afraid.
I jumped for him, my claws outstretched, my jaw stretching wide to tear his head off his shoulders, but I never landed.
Instead, I fell through the blackness, and their voices called to me, calling me to come back to them.
And suddenly, I was so very, very cold.
"Piper." It was a voice I'd heard a thousand times before, snapping my name. It drowned out their voices.
I didn’t want to see him, but I couldn't stop my eyes from opening.
My father's face was right in front of me. He was smiling, an ear-to-ear grin like he couldn't hold back his delight.
I was on my back in a cold, dark room--no, there was a fresh breeze brushing over my face, I was outside, but there was a low ceiling over my head keeping me from seeing the stars--and he loomed over me. His fingers groped inside the wound in my chest, and I screamed.
"You're healing well. Your internal organs have been repaired. Now it's just a matter of the flesh itself and these two broken ribs—" When he pressed his fingers against my ribs, pain exploded inside my chest, so intense I was suddenly sick and dizzy.
He ran his hand across the bloody ragged wound, and raised his fingers, smeared with my blood, to show me. "I've used a spell to speed your healing. You should be well again within a day or so, if you manage not to do anything foolish."
I had to grit my teeth to hold back the screams that burned in my lungs. The pain was so all-encompassing that it was bright and blinding.
"I'm healing you from the inside out, Piper," he said. "Well, the parts I can reach, anyway. There's so much of you that can never be fixed."
And you're the reason why there's anything to be fixed, I wanted to tell him, but when I tried to speak, my words came out as a rasp.
"Don't speak," he said. "You're weak."
The self-satisfied smile on his face told me he didn’t mean I was weak because of my wounds. He saw me as weak, in every way, and that was how he wanted me.
He rose to his feet, towering above me. "Rest up. In the morning, we're going to have a conversation. You'll need your strength."
"Get away from her." It was Callum's voice, low and fierce. I turned my head to find him on the opposite side of the bars.
"If I get away from her, she'll die," he said. "You couldn't have saved her from that gunshot, could you?"
His eyes met Callum's, which blazed with fury in the dark.
"I remember you," he said, his voice calm, but deceptively so. I knew that kind of calm. "You're the one who...well..."
Instead of finishing his sentence, he slowly unwoun
d the scarf from his neck.
His head had been almost severed from his neck; his throat was ripped open savagely. The wound was still bare and weeping, and it seemed like it would always be. Bits of white jaw and spine were revealed amidst the ragged flesh, where Callum’s teeth had cut deepest, and yet my father’s head was held stiffly, awkwardly, high. Magic defied gravity.
I looked frantically to Callum. He had certainly done his best to send my father on to the afterlife.
"The other pack calls me Rippedthroat," he said casually. "People seem to find it...disturbing." He began to wind the scarves around his neck again.
"What's disturbing," I said in a whisper, but at least my voice came out clearly, "is that you're still alive."
He wound a strand of my blond hair around his fingers, and it reminded me of memories from when I was a girl, when he would play with my hair. Were they false memories? Or times he had pretended to care about me for the benefit of some unwitting observer? Either way, I remembered him being tender with me as he wrapped my blond ringlets around his fingers.
"I'm going to make sure you have a long life," he said, as if I hadn't spoken. "A long life in captivity, Piper. Enjoy these days of fresh air." He leaned close to me, his breath a hot rasp against my ear. His breath carried the sickly-sweet, rotten reek of death, but I couldn't pull away. "I'm going to take you to where you'll never see the sun again."
He whirled away suddenly, stepping through the door to the cell. It had stood open all this time? I stared at it, acutely aware that even if I had realized there was an opportunity to escape, I was too weak to fight my father.
"Good night," he said, and the cell door slammed shut. "Sleep sweet."
He used to say that to me when I was a girl. Sleep sweet. It was my mission day and night: be a good girl, look pretty, speak nicely. Even in my sleep, I couldn't escape.
He'd told me to sleep sweetly and then gifted me a lifetime's worth of nightmares.
He turned back. "Oh...I guess I should give you something for the pain."
I didn't want anything from him. All his gifts were poisoned. No matter how much the pain in my chest still felt searing. I could barely turn my head to look around the cell.
He cocked his head to one side, as if he were listening for my answer. "All you have to do is ask, Piper. I can take all that pain away."
I turned my head so that my cheek met the cool stone floor. On the other side of the bars, I could look down the long hill and see the whipping post and the gallows, shadowed by dusk. Freedom was so near and yet so far.
When I turned my head the other way, I could see the other five cells. There were three on each side with a narrow hallway between them. Kai paced through the cell across from me, and the look he threw my way was full of anguish. His dark eyes glittered as if he were frenzied to reach me.
To either side of Kai’s cell were Josh and Logan. Logan's jaw was set, and he leaned against the bars with deceptive quiet. I'd seen him snap a man's neck and I didn't trust that quiet for a second. Josh's hand was on the bars, his knuckles white as if he might tear them down with his bare hands. He watched me with clear blue eyes, unflinching in the face of my pain. He gave me strength. Josh believed in me, he always had. Josh's opinion of me was the kind of thing a person wants to live up to.
I already knew Callum was to my left. But when I turned my head, I found Arthur standing behind the bars on the other side. I was flanked by my alphas.
Arthur ground out, "Take the relief, Piper."
I shook my head. The faint motion made pain blossom in my head, and the world seemed to spin around me.
"Your loss," my father said brightly.
Then he turned and made his way across the field, before getting into a Jeep. He drove it back across the island.
Arthur's jaw flexed. "That's my Jeep."
"Definitely, that's what's pertinent right now," Callum snapped at him.
But I felt a little of my tension ease at Arthur's pettiness. I loved Arthur for his pettiness, when it wasn't directed at me.
"Fine," Arthur said. "But I'm going to be the one to kill him. Because that's my Jeep. And because you didn't do a very good job of it last time."
"He must have been resurrected," Callum ground out, as if they'd had this argument already.
"If you'd just severed the head completely," Arthur said. "But no. You've always half-assed everything. Since we were kids. Always had to do our chores twice."
"Christ," Callum said, swiping his hand through his hair. His gaze fixed on me, trying to ignore Arthur, but their banter made me feel better. "Piper, how are you doing?"
"I'm okay." My mouth felt disgusting, dry and filled with a sour, earthy aftertaste.
"Sure you are," Arthur muttered. "Should've taken something for the pain."
"You are a grouch." I tried to rise onto my elbows, but it felt like my muscles would rip apart. I sagged back down to the ground.
Arthur was silent, and then he said, "I'm glad you're still with us."
"So am I." I stared at the ceiling overhead, shivering in the cold. "Although I wish that asshole hadn't been the one to heal me."
I turned my head to look down the row of cells. "Where's Sebastian? And Nick?"
"We don't know," Callum said. "Hopefully they got far out of the way."
My voice softened before I said, "Can anyone hear us?"
"The only magic I feel is...you." Callum said. "I don't think there's any magic in place that listens in on us, but I'm no expert."
Arthur looked at him hard. "Sure you aren't."
Callum spread his hands. "If wolves were versed in magic, we might have an easier time facing down witches and their pet monsters."
"I don't need magic." Arthur bared his teeth in what wasn't really a smile.
"You can tell me that when you're not locked up," Callum told him.
Arthur snarled, the sound half-wolf.
"Can you two stop fighting?" I asked wearily. I raised my head to look. "There really are no guards?"
"There are witches there," Josh pointed out of his cell, "and there." He pointed to the other side of mine. "Up on the hillside and on the road."
"Witches don't like being close to wolves if they can help it," Callum said.
"Where'd you learn all this stuff?" Arthur asked, his voice deceptively casual.
"I've spent a lot of time studying," Callum answered. "Trying to figure out how to find the remnants of my pack and protect them, since we can't count on anyone else."
I shivered, and they all went quiet, their attention fixed on me. The ground I was lying on was so very cold, and it seemed to seep up into my bones.
"Can you reach me, Piper?" Arthur asked softly. "Even through the bars, I should be able to warm you."
Callum scoffed.
"Lord, do I wish these bars weren't in the way of our reunion," Arthur said.
"You're the reason she was shot," Callum said. "You brought the Shenandoah pack here. She was shot trying to protect you."
Arthur was quiet for a second, and then he said, "I'm keenly aware of my fault here, Callum."
His voice was matter-of-fact, and yet it made my heart crack for him.
I tried to roll onto my side, dragging myself across the floor of the cell toward him. I could hear Kai swear and turn away, as if he couldn't bear to watch.
Arthur reached through the bars and his fingertips brushed mine. Just the lightest touch of his sent the promise of warmth tingling through my body. I slowly dragged myself against the bars and no matter how cold they felt against my skin, when he pressed himself against the bars and wrapped his arm around my waist, I was warmed.
"Let her get some rest," Callum said, his voice rough. "We don't need to fight. There's a hell of a fight ahead of all of us as it is."
Chapter 14
Joan
With the battle over and Arthur dragged off, I went back to my house in a daze. I milked the goats and fed them, then closed them up in the barn early instead
of letting them take a final mosey around the yard. They were complaining to me as I latched the door.
There’s not much good about being a woman who has lost both her child, and her husband. He had gone out looking for her and never come home. I didn’t know if he had given up looking or just given up on me.
But the one thing I thought was manageable about my life was that people left me alone, and yet, that witch was coming up the path to my house.
I stopped and stared at him. Despite the warmth of the fall day, he was wrapped in a heavy black coat and layers of scarves. Those witches had their style, I guessed.
He had his head down as he trudged up the path, so I went into my house and closed the door. My heart was beating too quickly in my chest, and I began to fill the sink with hot water to wash the dishes.
There was a quick, confident knock on my door. It had an almost light-hearted ring to it. As I grabbed the dish towel to dry my hands, I heard the goats bleating through the barn windows. Normally, they were as good--and as noisy--as guard dogs. They'd let me down today. Or maybe that witch was more stealthy than he looked.
When I swung open the door, there was a man standing on my porch. He was not particularly tall or impressive, with small blue eyes under a high-domed forehead. He smelled strongly of hair cream and cologne, artificial, creamy scents that prickled at my nose.
And under that, there was the distinct, sickly scent of dark magic. Fresh blood and old rot.
He smiled at me in greeting. Then he was already somehow through my front door.
I took a step back, putting some space between us as he strode confidently into the middle of my living room. He sat down in my favorite blue wingback chair and crossed his legs at the knee. Despite his easy confidence, he seemed to fuss with the scarves around his neck, smoothing them down with his pale hands.
Rippedthroat, they called him now. But I knew him as Sullivan.
I knew him as the man who stole my daughter from me.
I'd never seen him that night. The night that curdled everything in my life.
