Wolfsbane

by Andrea Cremer

  Would they? I thought about Mason and Nev. About Sabine. Life under the Keepers was brutal for them. They’d jump at a chance to leave, wouldn’t they?

  And Ansel. He wanted the freedom to choose a life with Bryn. But that wasn’t the only thing convincing me that my brother would join us without a second thought.

  I would never betray the Keepers. Unless you asked me to . . . alpha.

  And it wasn’t just Ansel. By keeping my first encounter with Shay a secret, Bryn had risked her safety. She was just as loyal as my brother.

  “Yes,” I said. “They’ll join us.”

  “Your parents?” she asked. “It would be all the more helpful if the elder Nightshades would come over to our side.”

  “Maybe—” My heart jumped beneath my rib cage, leaving me breathless. My father and mother were alphas, my alphas. I’d always submitted to their will. What would they think of their own daughter trying to lead them? Guardians weren’t big on shifting hierarchies.

  “What about the Banes?” Shay asked. “Don’t you want all the wolves?”

  “Some of the younger Banes, maybe,” Monroe said. “But the elders won’t join us.”

  “How do you know that?” Shay asked.

  “We have some history with the packs,” Anika said lightly. “Emile Laroche would never seek an alliance with us.”

  History.

  “You mean they won’t join you because the Banes that would have revolted are already dead,” I said. “They died the last time you tried for an alliance. When Ren’s mother died.”

  Monroe drew a sharp breath. “How do you know about that?”

  “We found the Keepers’ records of the Guardian packs,” Shay said. “We know that Corrine Laroche was executed for planning a revolt with Searchers.”

  “But all I’d ever been told about her was that she was killed in a Searcher ambush at the Bane compound when Ren was only a year old,” I added. “Until the night you attacked Rowan Estate, we were the only ones who knew otherwise.”

  Silence swept over the Searchers, all their faces paling as they exchanged troubled glances.

  “No wonder the Guardians serve so loyally,” Anika murmured. “The Keepers have twisted your minds about the way lives around you have been broken.”

  A trembling began in my shoulders, traveling down my back. “That’s what Ren believed, but the night we ran, I told him the truth.”

  They all stared at me.

  “You told him?” Shay hissed. “You didn’t say anything about that!”

  “It’s the reason he let us go,” I whispered, unable to return his gaze. Part of the reason. I kept my second thought hidden, remembering again the desperation in Ren’s face. The way he’d kissed me. And he was somehow caught up in this. The Searchers weren’t telling us everything.

  Monroe suddenly turned on his heel, walking swiftly away. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Monroe!” Anika called, but he was already out of the door.

  “I’ll go after him,” Connor said.

  Adne was shaking her head. “It’s always the same.”

  What just happened? I glanced at Shay, but he seemed just as confused as I was.

  “Maybe he shouldn’t be part of this mission,” Anika said.

  “You think he’d ever let it happen without him?” Adne laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “He’s waited years for another shot at this. He’s waited my whole life.”

  Anika’s mouth flattened. “Show a little respect for your father, child. You don’t understand how much he lost.”

  “Your father?” Shay asked. He looked at her in a way not unlike how he’d just looked at me, like he’d been betrayed.

  The sudden bite of jealousy was sharp as teeth snapping at the back of my neck. How close had they gotten while I was recovering?

  Adne cringed, blushing as if she’d revealed a terrible secret. “Yeah. Monroe is my father.”

  “You never told me that,” he said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “It’s not that important.” She turned away, crimson painting her cheeks.

  I frowned. “Why do you always call him Monroe?” I’d deferred to my own father as Nightshade alpha, but I still called him Dad.

  “Because I don’t want special treatment,” she said. “And because it drives him crazy.”

  “Respect, Ariadne,” Anika said. “It matters more than you think.”

  “I’ll try,” Adne said, but it looked to me like she was trying not to roll her eyes.

  Anika clasped her hands at her waist. “Despite this unfortunate little disruption, what you’ve said confirms our hopes about the Guardians. We’ll execute the mission accordingly.”

  “When?” I asked. “When am I going to find my packmates?”

  Anika smiled. “Now.”

  FOUR

  NOW? BUT THAT MEANT . . . Could they really be planning an attack on the Keepers this soon? The thought of returning home frightened me as much as it compelled me. I wanted to get back to my pack as soon as possible, but was I ready to fight side by side with Searchers? I didn’t trust these people. My captors. They wanted an alliance, but they had yet to tell me anything else.

  “Excellent,” Lydia said, re-entering the room. “I would have been so disappointed if I’d sharpened my daggers for nothing.”

  A ripple of tension slid through my body. Lydia’s appearance was ferocious enough that it was a struggle for me not to shift when she was nearby. The scent of her clothes, the gleam of steel at her waist—she was everything I’d been trained to kill.

  “Right now?” Shay strode across the room. The air around him was buzzing and I worried he was about to shift forms again. Apparently we were both on edge among the Searchers. “Are you insane?”

  “Shay.” Anika spoke calmly, but her tone wasn’t unlike a sword sliding out of its scabbard. Smooth and deadly. “You are important here, more than I could possibly convey to you. But I am still in charge, and you will follow my orders.”

  “I barely know who you are,” Shay snarled. “Why would I take any orders from you?”

  I swore under my breath. He was about to change. Lydia seemed to sense it too. Her hands shot to the bright hilts at her waist. I snarled. The moment those weapons appeared, I’d shift too. I did a quick scan of the room. We were evenly matched—not good.

  “Time-out, kiddo,” she said. “Take a breath. Or several.”

  I knew Shay wouldn’t listen to any of them. His wolf instincts were taking over, and they were threatening something he considered his territory . . . me. He was acting like I was his mate. His alpha counterpart. And that meant I was the only one who could intervene. Though my instincts were shrieking for blood, I fought them off. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  “Shay, wait,” I said, grasping his arm. His pulse was racing; I could feel each staccato beat beneath my fingertips matching my own. “It’s okay.”

  “How is it okay?” He was still on the brink of shifting, but at least his focus was on me now.

  “Because I want to go,” I said. “I need to go.”

  As I spoke the words, their truth settled deep in my bones. No matter how little I knew about the Searchers, my pack was worth risking everything. I had to go back for them. I needed a fight. I was desperate for one. If that meant I had to fight with the Searchers at my side, I could find a way to make it work. At least I hoped I could.

  Shay watched me, uneasy, but he was listening. I was taken aback by how deeply the wolf had marked him. The way he reacted to me was the way one alpha took counsel from another. That partnership made strong, unwavering leaders. If his mind was working on those terms now, I knew how to sway him.

  “The pack, Shay,” I whispered. “Think of our pack.”

  My skin prickled at calling the Haldis wolves “our” pack—Shay’s and mine instead of Ren’s and mine. But it worked.

  “Do you really think this could save them?” he asked, and I saw his anger begin to fade.

  “It�
��s our only shot.” I showed him my sharp canines. He smiled, understanding the signal that this alliance wasn’t us giving up. I was negotiating terms that the wolf warriors within both of us needed.

  “She’s right,” Anika said, motioning for Lydia to back off. “We wouldn’t take the risk if there was another way. And it’s not just Calla we’re risking. I’m sending in our people too.”

  I watched the Arrow, assessing her expression. Her face was set, resolved, her eyes alight with the fire of impending battle. It was true. The Searchers were risking their lives by heading back to Vail. And they were doing it to pull Guardians—my packmates—out of danger. It was the last thing I’d expected. I found it both thrilling and unnerving.

  “Damn straight,” Lydia said, her own eyes bright as Anika’s. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Gazing at the two women, I was suddenly relieved that I’d be going into the fight with them, not against them.

  “And unless we walk into the best scenario possible, which is unlikely,” Anika continued, “the rescue won’t happen tonight. This mission’s focus will be first contact. We need to go now because it’s Saturday.”

  “Saturday?” Shay repeated.

  “The weekend day patrols are made up of Calla’s packmates.” Anika cast a sidelong glance at me. “Am I right?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, though I was more than a little unsettled that she knew it. How did they find out about our patrol routes?

  “To make this alliance happen, we need to start by gaining the young wolves’ trust, with the intention that a wave of revolt would spread through the Guardians from that initial point of contact. Calla’s presence will secure that trust, hopefully with a first step today.”

  I almost smiled but stopped myself. For now I only wanted the Searchers to see me as serious in the face of battle . . . and dangerous.

  “It would be some pairing of Mason, Fey, and my brother,” I said. “They rotate through Saturday patrols.”

  “Here’s hoping it’s Mason and Ansel.” Relief flickered over Shay’s face. “That’s probably the best pair you could hope to meet.”

  “But . . .” My own flash of joy at the thought of seeing Ansel and Mason wavered. “When I left Ren, he said that my packmates were being held for questioning. Do you think they’re back on patrol?”

  “Did any of them know about Shay’s true identity?” Anika asked. “Or that he was going to be sacrificed at the ceremony?”

  “No,” I said. “They knew nothing.” Guilt wedged its way into my chest, sharp as a knife between the ribs. How much danger had I put them in?

  I thought of Bryn, of the last time I’d seen her.

  “You ready for this?” Bryn asked. She offered me a bright smile, but I could hear an edge of fear in her voice.

  “I’m not sure that’s the right question,” I said. I glanced at the ring again. This is where I belong. I’ve always known my path. Now I have to walk it.

  “Just know that I’ll be right behind you.” Bryn took my arm. “None of the pack will let anything bad happen.”

  “You’re not allowed to participate,” I said, letting her lead me out, down the steps and into the forest.

  “You think they’ll be able to stop us if you’re in trouble?” She elbowed me, making a smile pull at my lips.

  “I love you, Cal.” She kissed my cheek and headed for the ring of torches.

  My blood was singing. I wanted to shift forms and howl, calling to the pack I’d left behind. I love you too, Bryn. I’m coming for you.

  “Their ignorance works in our favor,” Anika was saying. “Once the Keepers have determined that you and Shay were alone in the plot, they’ll most likely try to return things to normal. They’ll want to convince the Guardians that nothing is amiss—it would hurt them to suggest that they’d in any way lost control.”

  I nodded, swallowing the thickness that clogged my throat. “But Ren . . . they’ll know he lied.” My packmates hadn’t known what I’d done or who Shay was. Ren had. Did that mean we’d be too late to save him?

  “We don’t have a clear picture of what’s been happening among the Keepers and Guardians since we hit Rowan Estate,” Anika continued. “We’re hoping to get a better sense of that before we execute the next phase of the plan. Even if you don’t meet the wolves you’re hoping to, we’ll still benefit from clearing up the confusion that’s ensued in the past week. The scouting team will rendezvous with one of our contacts at a drop point tonight.”

  “You have contacts in Vail?” Shay asked. “You mean spies?”

  “We do,” Anika said.

  “Where?” I asked, racking my brain for how there could be Searchers in Vail that we hadn’t identified. It didn’t seem possible.

  “Right now there are only two,” she said. “One in the school and one in the city.”

  “In the school?” I gasped. “That’s impossible!” I ran through the faces and scents of my classmates, teachers, and the staff of the Mountain School. None fit into this scenario.

  Anika laughed. “Not so.”

  “If there were Searchers in the school, I would have known. The Keepers would have known.”

  “Well, if we were stupid enough to use our own people as spies, we would have lost this war before it started.”

  The speaker was new, his voice muffled. I turned to see a strange figure in the doorway. His face was obscured by the mismatched stack of books and tightly rolled papers that swayed precariously in his grasp.

  “A little help,” he said. Adne, giggling, hurried forward and caught the scrolls that slid off the top of his pile.

  “Hey, Adne.” The new arrival grinned. Now that I could see his face, I was even more confused. He was a young man, no older than Shay. Thick black glasses only made the sharp lines of his face more striking. But his most noticeable feature was the mass of hair atop his head. Swirls of ebony and vivid cobalt battled each other like a roiling sea that formed peaks and waves just above his eyebrows.

  He stumbled into the room, propelled forward by the weight of his armload, spilling the mass across the tabletop.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Silas,” Anika said. “She’s just woken up.”

  “I figured it was something like that.” He turned and gave me an assessing look. Not only did he have crazy hair, but he was dressed in torn jeans, combat boots, and a Ramones T-shirt. If I’d been confused about the Searchers before, with his arrival I was utterly stumped.

  Connor, followed by a still skittish-looking Monroe, came through the door, took one look at Silas, and turned back around.

  “Catch you guys later,” he said, waving good-bye.

  “Stay,” Anika said.

  “Aw, man,” he moaned. “Really?”

  “Connor.” She didn’t veil the threatening note in her voice.

  “I’m staying, I’m staying.” But he was staring at Silas like the newly arrived punk look-alike had just crawled out of a Dumpster.

  “Nice to see you too.” The look Silas was giving Connor wasn’t any friendlier.

  “Calla, Shay,” Anika said, ignoring their game of Let’s Burn Holes in Each Other’s Skulls with Angry Stares. “This is Silas. The Haldis Scribe.”

  I stared at his rumpled T-shirt and mad hair. “He’s a Searcher too?” He didn’t look like one.

  Anika twisted her mouth and I thought she was trying not to laugh. “As a Scribe, Silas can take a bit more liberty with his wardrobe. It’s unlikely he’d be involved in a field action.”

  “What’s a Scribe?” Shay asked.

  “A paper pusher,” Connor muttered.

  “This coming from a quasi-illiterate,” Silas snarked. “What an insult. How will I recover?”

  “Would you two lay off?” Adne said, turning to Shay. “Scribes manage our intelligence and archives.”

  “That’s hardly an adequate—” Silas began, puffing up his chest.

  “It’s adequate enough,” Anika cut him off. “Just say hel
lo, Silas.”

  “Fine, Miss Manners. Just trying to keep my reputation intact,” Silas said, deflated.

  Their exchange bewildered me, and not just because Silas was so odd. Anika held the reins of this bunch—that was clear enough. But she didn’t seem to mind their constant jibing. Guardians had to submit to their masters. The sorts of comments the Searchers were always throwing around would garner severe punishment. But Silas, Connor . . . all of them treated Anika like she was a friend.

  My muddle of thoughts was interrupted by the penetrating way Silas was staring at me. He cocked his head back and forth, as if trying to get the right angle on a strange new specimen that showed up on his lab table. “You’re the alpha, huh? Pretty. That’s interesting. I thought you’d be all haggish or something. We mostly hear horror stories about Guardians. You know, sin against nature all that.”

  Sin against nature? What the hell is he talking about? I blinked at him, utterly unable to respond.

  Silas’s eyes rolled to the side and looked Shay up and down. “Hmmm. And you must be the Scion.”

  He walked in a slow circle around Shay, pausing to eye the back of his neck, and smiled. “And there’s the mark. Hey, hey. Things are looking up after all. Man, I’ve been waiting a long time hoping to meet you. I had my doubts that we’d get there. Grant says you like Hobbes. That’s fantastic. Too bad about the curse; sounded like your classmates were just about to embark on an interesting discussion when he got hexed. Oh, well.”

  “Grant?” Shay sputtered. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Grant Selby,” Silas said. “He’s one of our agents.”

  “Wait,” I said, blinking at him. “Our teacher? Our philosophy teacher is one of your spies?”

  “He is.” Silas smiled. “Good cover, huh?”

  Anika crossed the room, sorting through the mess of papers Silas had dropped onto the table. “We obviously can’t get near the Keepers without being detected. So we’ve taken to recruiting humans to be our eyes among them. Not many, obviously; we don’t want to risk any more lives than we have to. Mostly they are people who stumbled across our world by accident, caught in the crossfire, that sort of thing. The ones who have a genuine interest in the war’s outcome usually offer to help. The most able are sent right into it. Spies.”