Gradually, the mist cleared, and the scene came into focus around them. They were standing in the corridor lined with cells.
Tristan’s chest got tight, and he couldn’t breathe.
It was a lab. It was almost an exact duplicate of the place he’d been kept after Beckenham got him. The hallway lined with cells, everything covered in white subway tile, with drains in the floor for easy cleanup.
The cells weren’t fronted with glass, but shifter-proof plexiglass. In the back right corner of each cell was a tiny bathroom, with walls that didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, and an opening instead of a door so you couldn’t do anything in there the guards couldn’t see.
Just in front of the bathroom was the retractable door for each cell, with a smaller opening in it like an electronic cat-flap, where they put the food through.
It took him a second to get his breath back, and focus on the people.
They were clear now, as if he and Mayah and Kira were really there. But obviously they weren’t—he could see the other two, but unlike their ghostly projections, the prisoners didn’t seem to see him or Mayah at all.
They were gathered together in small groups, talking. Some were playing with their children; others seemed to be telling stories, though he couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Once in a while, someone even laughed. How could anyone laugh in here? How long must they have been here, for this to seem so normal they could laugh?
Mayah asked her sister, Can you make one of those rips in space here? Could we get them out that way?
Kira concentrated, holding her hand out in front of her and moving it downward a few inches. She shook her head.
No. I think it’s warded, like your castle, so that no one can come wandering in here uninvited.
She murmured something under her breath, and glowing magical symbols appeared all over the place. The walls, the doors, the reinforced metal door at the end of the hallway.
The only way out.
Fuck. Are those all wards? Tristan asked, looking around at the glowing symbols.
Yep. They have this place warded against dragons, sorcerers, shifters—pretty much everything they could think of. The only reason we got in is because they called you and Mayah. She gestured at the people in the cells. At least, part of them did.
Mayah was still gazing at the people. Look at them, she said softly. So many.
We should take a count, Tristan said. The evacuation plan is going to depend on how many there are.
Kira nodded and went to one end of the corridor, while Tristan started for the other end, counting as he went.
He got to the next-to-last cell and stopped, staring.
Inside the cell was someone he knew. He hadn’t seen the man for a dozen years or more, but he still recognized him instantly.
And his wife.
At that moment, the man looked up and saw him. His eyes went wide with shock.
“Tristan,” he said. It sounded far away and garbled, like someone speaking underwater, but he could read the man’s lips.
His wife, next to him, turned and looked. They reached out to him. Save us.
Pain knifed through his forehead, and he felt blood dripping from his nose.
There was another whoosh, and everything blurred around him as he moved through the spirit world. For a moment, he couldn’t feel Mayah or Kira.
And then they were back in Flynn’s office, and blood was pouring down his face and dripping onto the table.
“Shit!” Kira jumped up and ran into the next room, coming back with a towel. Black, like most of the Bad Bloods’ towels, so the bloodstains wouldn’t show afterward. Tristan shoved it against his nose and tipped his head back, which immediately made blood run down his throat, choking him.
Shit. This was the worst one yet.
Flynn came around the table and slapped his hands down on Tristan’s shoulders. Cool, healing blue light came out of the bracelets and filled his head. In a minute, the bleeding stopped and the headache calmed to a dull throb.
“Jesus fuck,” Flynn said. “Your brains are about leaking out. What the hell is happening to you?”
Mayah said, “One of the ‘ghosts’ made contact with him. And we were right. They’re not ghosts. They’re prisoners.”
Kira raised her hand. “I know where they are, if anybody’s interested.”
Tristan removed the towel and wiped the blood off his chin.
“I can go one better,” he said. “I know who they are.”
Chapter 18
They all stared at Tristan. Then Mayah said, “They’re not dragons, are they? I could feel it.”
She didn’t understand it. If they weren’t Al-Maddeiri, why was she hearing them?
He shook his head. “Not dragons.” He took a deep breath. “They’re white wolves.”
Flynn leaned forward onto his elbows, the muscles in his arms bunching. “From that pack in Alaska? The one Brock Reilly’s father came from?”
Tristan looked startled. “From the raid? I hadn’t thought about that. The ones I recognized were friends of my parents. People whose families left the Winterhome pack when it split, back in my grandparents’ day.”
He looked down at the table, absently wiping at the blood there. “I thought they were all killed. Frank Beckenham and his crew were coming after everyone they could find with ties to Winterhome, especially the white wolves.” He shook his head. “They started disappearing, and we assumed they were dead. But they’re not. They’ve been in captivity all this time.”
White wolves, Mayah thought. Like Tristan. With mind powers. Calling out…
She put her hand on his arm. “How long?” she whispered. “How long have they been in there?”
He closed his eyes. “Over twelve years.”
Dead silence. “Fuck,” Flynn whispered.
“We’ll get them out,” Mayah said. “We’ll save them. Kira knows where they are—”
But Tristan wasn’t listening. “They’ve been there all the time,” he said. “In those cells, calling out for help. While I’ve been out here—”
“Out here what?” Flynn said. “Living? Breathing? It’s not like you could have done anything—”
Tristan shoved himself back from the table. “Fuck you, Flynn,” he said. “Fuck you, with your mate and your happy crew and their babies. While those wolves are in there—” His voice broke. “That could have been my parents!”
He shouldered past Flynn and down the stairs, slamming out the front door.
Mayah thought Flynn would be pissed, but he just heaved a huge sigh and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Shit.”
Mayah stood up. “I’m going after him.” She could feel the way Tristan’s mind was churning, feel his wolf trying to fight the feelings. This could get ugly.
“I can call Tank,” Flynn said. “He’s used to looking after him. And he’s a grizzly.”
“I’m a dragon,” Mayah reminded him. “I can handle him. And this is my job now.”
Whether Tristan liked it or not.
She found him back in the crazy shed, of course. Like he thought he belonged there, or some shit.
Locked up. Miserable. All because he hadn’t known that people he barely knew had been captured, and hadn’t somehow managed to fix it.
Damn wolf thought he had to fix the world.
She leaned against the edge of the doorway. “Hey,” she said.
He was still human, but his knuckles were bleeding—he’d probably been punching the wall. She could hear in his mind all the things he wanted to say. Fuck off and leave me alone being at the top of the list.
“Why the fuck does everyone keep following me?” he said. “Like you all think you have to fix me, and I can be la la happy-go-lucky like the rest of you. Normal.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or smack him. As if he really thought no one else but him had ever been through anything.
“Oh, stop it,” Mayah said. “None of us are n
ormal. And you can’t seriously tell me you begrudge your friends a little bit of happiness after all they’ve been through, because I don’t believe it.”
She stepped closer. “Just stop being so damn hard on yourself. Enough people have abused you in your life. You don’t need to join them.”
He shook his head. “I should have realized Beckenham might not have killed them. I should have looked for them. I should have—”
“You should have what?” Mayah said. “You should have somehow psychically known that those people you barely knew were still alive?”
“I did psychically know,” Tristan snapped. “They were fucking appearing in my head, calling out to me. Only I kept shoving them back in my damn mind-vault because I didn’t want to hear them. I should have—”
“I know.” Mayah was getting pissed off now. Tristan was her wolf. Nobody was allowed to dump on him like this. Not even him. “You should have saved them. Like you should have saved everyone in the whole fucking world.”
She stomped over to him, the straw on the floor of the crazy shed crackling under her feet. “When exactly should you have done that? When you were getting your sister to safety? Or when you were in Beckenham’s prison, being tormented there? When you managed to break out? Before or after you traveled all the way to Alaska to try to warn the pack there?”
“As if that did any fucking good. I was too late.”
“Yeah. On account of not being Superwolf. Did you ever stop to think that maybe no one could have saved them? That most people wouldn’t have even tried? But you tried. You fought. You risked your life. Mina Reilly might have died if you hadn’t been there—and Brock along with her, before he ever had a chance to be born.”
He tried to say something, but Mayah was on a fucking roll, and she talked right over him.
“When are you going to admit that no one in the whole freaking world could have done any more than you did?”
She went right up to him and poked a finger in his chest. “You listen to me, Tristan Barnes. You didn’t fail because you’re not good enough. You failed because you were on an impossible mission. But you tried, because if there was even just one chance you could save them, you had to take it. That’s who you are.”
She stood on tiptoes, grabbed the front of his shirt, and kissed him. “You saved a lot of people,” she whispered against his lips. “Don’t forget about them. Don’t forget about me.”
She let go of him and walked to the door. “I love the hell out of you, White Wolf. Even when you’re being a self-pitying jerk.”
And she left him to his brooding.
Chapter 19
After Mayah left, Tristan let himself slide to the floor of the crazy shed, back against the wall.
He’d been ready to go wolf, but somehow after Mayah’s diatribe, he didn’t feel like it.
Weird, that her yelling at him should make him feel marginally better. But it had. For the first time, he felt the burden of guilt lifting just a little.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he’d done all he could, maybe even all anybody could. He’d been hanging around with superheroes like Flynn for so long, it hadn’t occurred to him that maybe nobody could have done any more than he had.
It was a strange sensation, not being responsible for everything. He wasn’t sure he liked how it made him feel.
Less guilty, but more helpless. And he didn’t need that feeling—not if they were really going to pull off this rescue mission.
He had to believe they could do it. That he could do it.
A bulky shadow filled the doorway, and he looked up to see Flynn there, holding a bottle of whiskey. Behind him was Tank. They sat down on either side of Tristan, their shoulders just barely touching him, and Flynn cracked open the bottle, passing it to him.
After a while, Flynn said, “It’s not so perfect here, you know. This was a good day. But we still have bad days. Not as many, maybe, but we have them.”
Tristan nodded. “I know. I didn’t mean—ah, shit. I’m sorry for what I said.”
Flynn shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it. I just don’t want you to have some kind of hero complex. Trust me, it leads down a bad road. One thing Kira did for me was help me stop focusing on the people I couldn’t save, and look at the ones I maybe helped.”
“You really forgot about the others?” Tristan said. “Because I know you, and I’m thinking not.”
Flynn gave a shrug and a half grin. “I buried some of the bones, anyway. It’s a work in progress.”
Tristan passed the bottle to Tank, who took a swallow. “He’s right, though,” Tank said. “I almost missed out on being with Lissa—and having Arden—because I couldn’t let go of the past. And my guilt over Angie.”
Angie was Tank’s first mate—killed by shifter hunters. Tristan had never thought Tank would be able to get past that. It had wrecked him for a long time.
“If you found someone who really loves you, don’t fuck it up by holding onto the bad shit,” Tank finished.
He passed the bottle back to Tristan.
“Yeah,” Tristan said. “I tell myself that. But I’m a fucking mess, and Mayah’s been through so much. I don’t feel right dumping my mess on her.”
“If you’re true mates, it will make things better for both of you,” Tank said.
Tristan shrugged. “I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know about anything. Mostly I just feel like I don’t belong anywhere.”
There was a silence. Then Flynn said, “I put you down as a Bad Blood, you know. When I registered the crew. I figured I could take you off if you decided to pledge to Jace Monroe and stay at Silverlake, but…” He shrugged. “You’re one of us. I wanted you to always have a place here.”
He took a pull of whiskey. “Mayah too, if she wants. Kira would like that.”
Tristan took the bottle and sipped, so he didn’t have to say anything right away. His eyes were stinging. They really wanted him back. All this time, and they still thought of him as one of them.
“Thanks,” he said thickly. “That means a lot.”
Flynn nodded, and they sat in companionable silence. Drinking. And just being there.
Back inside the cabin, Mayah stomped around the guest room, getting ready for bed. She didn’t want to let go of being pissed off, because then she’d be sad. And worried. And feeling guilty, because maybe she shouldn’t have yelled at Tristan.
But she just didn’t know how to get through to him. “Why does he fucking think he’s responsible for saving the whole entire world?” she muttered.
“Because they do that,” Kira said from the doorway. “Flynn’s the same. He pretends he doesn’t care about anybody, but really he thinks the whole damn world is his responsibility.”
“It’s stupid,” Mayah said, sitting down on the bed with a thump. “Can I flame him? Tristan, I mean.”
“Not if you want to have sex with him afterwards.” Kira sat down next to her. She’d brought a bottle of whiskey, which she held out to Mayah.
“You are a good sister,” Mayah informed her, taking a swallow.
Kira smiled. “I’m a shit sister,” she said. “I don’t know how.”
“Me either,” Mayah said. “It’s okay.”
Kira said, “When I first met Flynn, he had nightmares about the people he couldn’t save. Like Tristan. Their ghosts haunted him. Men like that, when they feel powerless, they take it hard. They think they should be able to do everything.”
“How did you handle it?” Mayah asked, passing back the bottle. “Because I think I’m sucking at it, so far.”
Kira gave a little huff of laughter. “You’re probably doing okay.”
She took a sip of whiskey. “I reminded him of the people he did save. Burned the bones of the guards who’d held him captive. Smacked him upside the head a couple of times.” Her voice grew quiet. “Loved him a lot.”
“I do love Tristan a lot,” Mayah said softly. “I’m just not sure it’s enough.”
Kira handed her the bottle, her face thoughtful. “Well, don’t you start doing it,” she said. “Thinking you’re responsible for making his life perfect, and making all his pain go away. You can’t fix everything that happened to him. All you can do is wade through the mess with him.”
Kira shrugged. “Some men need a lot of patience.” She grinned at Mayah. “Or to be smacked upside the head. Your choice.”
Chapter 20
It was late when Tristan got back to the guest room he and Mayah were sharing. It was the room that had been his when he and Flynn and Tank first took over the cabin.
He’d stayed there before, since he left, but it still felt odd to walk down the hallway and go into the same room. Like going back in time.
Except this time he wasn’t alone. Mayah was in there. Waiting for him? Or waiting to tear another strip out of him?
He pushed the door open and paused just inside the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, listening to her breathing.
“I’m not going to throw anything at you,” she said. “Or drop ice water on your head.”
That was a good start. “Unless I say something stupid?”
His wolf vision had adjusted, and he could see her now, sitting up in the big king-sized bed.
She said, “I’m actually trying to decide if I should fuck your brains out, or smack you upside the head like Kira said I should.”
“I know which one I prefer. Do I get a vote?”
He couldn’t see her smile, but he felt it. “I guess. Come on over here.”
He kicked off his shoes and crawled into bed next to her, snuggling up beside her. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close.
She smelled so good. Scent was one of the most important things to a wolf, and Mayah smelled like love and acceptance and home. Sometimes he thought he could just lie there for hours, wrapped in her scent, and it would be all he needed.
He rubbed his cheek against hers and inhaled, and she smiled again. “Are you okay?” she asked softly.
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