Iron Oracle

by Merry Ravenell

  I forced myself to not flinch away.

  He pulled my shirt’s neckline over my battered shoulder. “Such bruising. What happened to you, Gianna?”

  “I fell.”

  “You fell.”

  “No, really. I fell,” I said. That was true, and he could tell, which terrified me that he could read me so well. He tried to figure out how I had honestly fallen without being shoved.

  “You have only one thing on your mind,” Magnes said, irate.

  “Of course. Don’t you remember what it was like when you caught Adrianna’s scent, and she sat and spoke to you, giving you the time of her day?”

  “All I smell on Gianna is blood, bruising, pain, and grief.”

  “I smell those things too. And the Moon, and that she will be mine.”

  Aaron said that with absolute conviction. He wasn’t playing around or saying pretty words. He meant it.

  “Aaron. I want you to take GleamingFang or MarchMoon,” Magnes directed.

  Aaron laughed. “I cooperate with you when it pleases me to do so, SableFur. I’ve explained my plan. Do you want Gabel dead or not?”

  “I want to know my associates can be trusted.”

  “Associate. The great SableFur can’t utter the word ally? What you want of me is what allies do for each other. A favor. A huge one, at that. What will I gain from it? I don’t need SableFur. I am dealing with IronMoon myself,” Aaron taunted. “I want Gabel dead and his IronMoon de-fanged. If you don’t like the manner in which I do it, do it yourself.”

  Aaron touched my cheek again, fingers trailing over my neck to where the necklace of healed ulcers lay. “Would it please you, pretty wolf, if I brought you the head of the wolf who marked you without consent, humiliated you in every way he could, and threw you away on the words of an opportunistic little SableFur spy?”

  When he said it like that... the tears so close to the surface escaped and I closed my eyes, trying to recover my dignity.

  It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that.

  Even if it sort of was.

  My mind showed me again Gabel presenting Gardenia to Anders at dinner, kissing her hand, her arm, flirting with her as he forced me to sit with the dregs of the pack in utter humiliation. The agony he had sent through both of us just because he could.

  It still hurt so much.

  And I saw in my mind again Hix carrying her away from my wedding, her screaming and pounding on him.

  I choked on a sob.

  Hix.

  Magnes did not care. Aaron, however, caressed my cheek with his fingertips, a gentle, comforting touch I didn’t have the presence of mind to flinch from.

  “I’m sorry, Gianna,” Aaron said softly.

  “Don’t be sorry.” I rejected his gentleness. “I’m not.”

  The only thing I was sorry for was I hadn’t been able to save Hix. I wasn’t sorry about anything else. I wasn’t even sorry for sending Gabel to Shadowless. I wasn’t sorry for Platinum, I wasn’t sorry for Anders, or Marcus, or Holden, or any of them. I pitied the warriors who had died in their service, and I pitied the pups, but I wasn’t sorry.

  And I wasn’t going to be sorry when I exposed Magnes for what he was.

  Aaron withdrew his hand. “You do know why Gabel razed Shadowless, don’t you?”

  “Yes. They came to my wedding and told me. How do you know?”

  “Gabel shouts his reasons for everything, so of course I’ve heard. I was just thinking how it’s funny everything is a circle.” Aaron drew a circle in the air. “The entire reason you’re even here at all is that deal Magnes struck with Jermain.”

  Magnes shot out of his chair and snarled at Aaron.

  Aaron shoved off the table and deftly placed himself between Magnes and I. Magnes’ face twisted into fury, his scent darkening and burning. “What did you say, IceMaw?”

  Aaron gave him a baleful look, but his own body was tense and alert, ready. “Before you start accusing me of playing you, you should think about how you’re going to answer to your pack for the games you’re playing.”

  “As if you do not have spies of your own, IceMaw,” Magnes snarled.

  “Of course I do, but unlike you, I don’t deny it. And I don’t tell packs to let the likes of Gabel take one of their daughters as a spy, but don’t worry, I’ll help get her back—and then not help them get her back. You never raised a damned finger to help Shadowless. She was here in SableFur before their final vows. You could have protected her. Shed some damn blood, broken some damn bones, but you didn’t. You never intended to.”

  Blood is what it costs.

  Magnes lunged at him with a roar. I scrambled out of the way as Magnes impacted Aaron, and the two smashed into the dining room table.

  Aaron’s war-form was silvery ice-white, the hair a little longer and giving him a sort of shaggy appearance, and as he moved, the white hairs reminded me of a dusting of snow skimming snowpack in the breeze. Magnes’ was smoky grey, and his coat was long in places, but patchy in others, his tough hide revealed.

  Like Gabel, but Gabel was a fully-formed, undiluted, nightmare.

  Magnes swiped down with a huge, sharp claw, Aaron dodged, ducked, Magnes shattered the dining room table. Splinters flew. I tried to press myself towards the exit. Aaron roared and lunged at Magnes, and the two tumbled into the nearest wall. Clawed feet met the wood and tore up huge planks, and Aaron snapped his jaws. Magnes jerked out of the way, and Aaron got his target: Magnes’ upper arm. He bit down, deep, blood squirting and splattering. Magnes punched him, loosening Aaron’s jaws enough that he ripped away.

  A chunk of his arm came with him. Aaron spit it out. Magnes slashed at his neck, missed, raked Aaron’s chest open in large strips. Blood bloomed over his white fur.

  I ducked a flying piece of furniture.

  More war-forms suddenly burst into the dining room as the SableFur descended onto the scene. They mauled Aaron. Then more warriors appeared and attacked those warriors.

  “Stop!” I screamed over the din. “Stop it!”

  Nobody heard me.

  Magnes snaked his claws forward again, then leapt backwards, barking a command for his warriors to break off. Aaron’s warriors pursued until a barked command from the IceMaw froze them.

  Magnes snorted, still in his hulking war-form. He was huge, and like his son, cared nothing for the blood and injuries. Aaron shook off the brawl, and straightened, seemingly uncaring about his own injuries, and curled his lips back over his fangs.

  He melted back into human form, his human body strong and laced with scars.

  Aaron snorted once, but also melted back into his own human form. He was carved, chiseled, and I caught myself looking in a way I shouldn’t have, so I averted my gaze, which he noticed. “Don’t be bashful, I’m not.”

  “Your arrogance is astounding,” Magnes snarled.

  Aaron touched the bleeding gashes on his chest, then pointed at the large piece of meat missing from Magnes’ arm. “Losing some speed, Magnes?”

  Magnes shoved his finger into it, felt around and said, “Not bone deep.”

  “Alpha?” One of the SableFur warriors asked.

  The dining room had been ruined and now lay entirely in shattered pieces and splinters.

  “Leave,” Magnes told them. “The IceMaw Alpha needed a lesson in manners.”

  “Is that what I needed.” Aaron grinned. “Shall we keep going then, Magnes? I’m not sure I learned a damn thing, and I don’t think you’re in a position to make demands.”

  One of the SableFur, still in war-form, shoved him. Another IceMaw shoved back.

  “Enough,” Magnes commanded. “Aaron, I want GleamingFang, MarchMoon, or Gabel’s hide by the close of the week.”

  “So you won’t leave SableFur to squash Gabel, but you’ll come at the IceMaw for not doing it? Magnes, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were afraid of IronMoon.”

  Magnes snarled at him.

  Aaron smirked right back. “You won’t do
a damn thing to do me.”

  “Consider yourself unwelcome at SableFur until you do what you’ve been told.”

  Aaron bristled. “I kneel before no Alpha.”

  “But I have Gianna,” Magnes reminded him, “and if you want her to make it safely to IceMaw, you’ll do what I want.”

  “You wouldn’t dare hold her prisoner.”

  “Of course not. I’m just saying it is a very long trip from SableFur’s heart to IceMaw,” Magnes said. “Show yourself out.”

  No Sand Remains

  Magnes left the dining room with his warriors.

  The blood on Aaron’s chest trickled down his abdomen, groin, and then his thighs. He didn’t seem to care. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that got out of control.” Aaron gestured to one of the warriors, who left on a missive.

  “What did you think was going to happen?” I asked bitterly.

  “Oh, I don’t know. A shouting match. SableFur warriors don’t tend to punch first and ask questions later. They’re like rattlesnakes. They give plenty of warning before they strike.”

  Now Magnes had threatened me and all but put a price on my head, he was on high alert, I had perhaps days. Maybe hours. Maybe not even that. Aaron was right: Magnes couldn’t attack IceMaw and not attack IronMoon.

  Damn, Aaron was sort of a genius.

  Not that it would matter. Lucas and Kiery would move before Magnes... unless Magnes did something to throw Lucas off whatever it was he was going to do.

  Aaron took my upper arm. Blood wept out of his chest, but he smelled of triumph, arrogance, and prestige.

  It was actually intoxicating, but I was already such a mess that even a whiff of booze probably would have set me flat.

  He asked, “Do I get a reward, hmm?”

  “What kind of reward do you want?” I asked blankly.

  He bent and whispered in my ear. “Invite me to your room.”

  What?

  Confused, it took a moment for it to register.

  “We should talk about your upcoming trip to IceMaw,” he prompted.

  Like hell I was going to IceMaw but... “Perhaps we should.”

  The IceMaw warrior returned with a bag. Aaron took it. The blood now had met his feet, and he left bloody footprints.

  “Don’t you want to put on some clothes?” I asked.

  “Why? They’ll just get bloody.”

  “You’re also naked.”

  “I know. I will march through the SableFur house in all my naked glory. But I’ll bleed on it. Fair trade.” He looked down at himself. “Unless you think I’m not worth beholding?”

  “Ah...” I had to look him up and down just because he was insane. “Ah... no, well, you’re not deformed...”

  Complimenting a naked Aaron on his manbits (which was exactly what he wanted me to do) or his strong body (he really was looking for a compliment on the manbits) was not what I wanted Gabel to ever hear about me having done. But he was worth being complimented. He was leaner than Gabel, but not by much, just as strong and chiseled, and—

  “Not deformed!” he laughed.

  I took him up to my room, and he did indeed leave bloody footprints the whole way, parading himself through the house like he owned it.

  He also left footprints on my floor. I pointed at my bathroom.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  I leaned against the door frame while he stood in front of the mirror. He opened the bag and inside was a well-stocked first aid kit, and a few changes of clothes. He examined the slashes while bleeding onto the ugly blue tile floor.

  His back was strong, the muscles moving as he worked, and mid-back, right across his spine, were four slash marks. The injury ran from left to right—I could see where the initial strike had carved four trenches into the softness of his torso—and spanned almost the width of his back. Very, very deep, and the scar still pink and angry against his skin. The skin had filled in, and the scar was four raised ridges against the rest of his back. The edges were ragged and torn, burning away from whatever had caused the slash.

  It reminded me, in a way, of my old Mark.

  Without thinking, I brushed my fingertips along it.

  He froze.

  “What caused this?” I asked. The cocky Aaron with his cunning fox-like genius had a wound I would have expected on Flint. I examined him up and down, there were more marks on his thighs and shoulders and arms, but nothing like this. On second inspection, the IceMaw Alpha was speckled with scars. But the one across his back held my attention. It was a spectacular testament to something.

  His reflection stared at me, unblinking. “My fight to become Alpha.”

  “It wasn’t easy?” Often fights to be named Alpha weren’t violent and brutal in established packs like IceMaw. It was more inheritance. An aging Alpha abdicated, or died, and the heir-apparent simply took his spot. There was sometimes some growling and snarling, or a trial by combat, but in an old pack like IceMaw, murderous brutality wasn’t one of them. It was ceremonial, perfunctory, nothing more.

  Usually.

  “My uncle was incompetent,” Aaron said with an edge to his voice. “I had to get rid of him. And his two Betas.”

  I lifted my hand away.

  “Silver claw-tips. He did not dig deep enough to get my spine.”

  “Are you sure about that?” It looked like he had been carved deep.

  “He nicked my vertebrae. I feel cold mornings. Why, Gianna, are you asking about my soundness? My fitness to be your mate? Did I not just prove that taking on Magnes?”

  “Magnes is at least ten years your senior,” I said, rejecting his other questions.

  “I sometimes think I may have used up at least twenty years of my life freeing IceMaw from them. Life well spent.”

  “Why did you overthrow the Alpha?” I asked, voice hushed.

  “Not ambition, if that’s what you’re implying. Incompetence, depravity, and stupidity. No one wanted to deal with him. So I did.”

  “How long ago? To prove to me you know how to keep what you have.”

  “Eight years. You do not look well, Gianna. Are they treating you well?”

  “I’m just exhausted.” Anita had hinted I was paying a price for going beyond the Tides.

  “Those bruises are impressive. How did you fall?”

  “I was beyond the Tides and fell through a window onto a stone floor.”

  “And your eye?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He examined the slashes on his chest. He took a small lipstick tube from the bag, twisted it, and ran the pale, clear stick over the gashes. There was the brief scent of burning flesh, and a sizzle. The edges of the wounds curled slightly, but the bleeding began to stop.

  “Silver nitrate. A very weak compounding of it. Cauterizes wounds.”

  “You don’t bleed more from it?” I asked.

  “Not for use on anything more than superficial wounds, and not a good idea for wolves who are especially sensitive to silver because it will make things worse.”

  “Sounds useful.” I had never heard of it.

  “Usually it’s more dangerous than useful. But I’m not in my own territory, and don’t have time for this bleeding to stop on its own.”

  He tapped the wounds, then helped himself to my shower. He didn’t bother to draw the curtain. I couldn’t decide if he was just being the usual Alpha-cares-not-who-sees-I’m-busy-with-important-matters or if he was giving me a peep show. I had other things to worry about besides what water looked like sluicing off his body.

  The Moon had lined everything up, I had hit all my marks, survived this long. But now I was out of time. I had passed all the tests, Kiery just had to say so. Silly me for thinking that the tests would point a finger at Magnes. Instead they just sort of waved hands in his general direction.

  We’d only get one shot at Magnes, and it had to be the right one, and it had to drop him. It couldn’t wound him. He had Luna Adrianna. Magnes had to be
destroyed, and he had to be hit hard enough the collateral damage would mortally wound his mate.

  The surest way for Magnes to defuse this situation would be for him to simply admit his past indiscretion, acknowledge Gabel as his son, and take the dishonor. It didn’t have to be like this. The admission would knock Gabel back, hard. But it would bring the SableFur back to Magnes’ hand. Maybe Adrianna would have to repudiate him, but maybe not. SableFur would probably unite under Magnes, and then it would be plain old war for Gabel, and Gabel would have a harder time getting the SableFur throne.

  I sighed. “Magnes could make this very easy on himself.”

  “How so?” Aaron toweled himself off.

  “It doesn’t matter. He won’t.”

  “No, he won’t. He stands to lose too much, and he is making the reasonable gamble he will prevail.” Aaron stepped out of the tub, retrieved a change of clothes from his bag and dressed.

  Magnes could just make it go away by doing the right thing. Oh, the irony.

  Blood is what it costs.

  Aaron wasn’t quite as tall as Gabel, but was just as solid, the strength radiating off his body, his prestige almost as thick, but without the dark, cruel undercurrent. Where Gabel was a dark, cruel storm, Aaron was cold and spartan, resolute and relentless.

  “Leave with me,” he said in a hushed voice. “It’s over here. Kiery knows it. You’ve vindicated yourself. Magnes will kill you. I saw it, I smelled it. He will take you as he takes a rabbit, even if the kill is messy.”

  “I know.”

  “Then leave with me.”

  “I can’t. Things aren’t finished here. I haven’t come this far to fail.”

  Aaron gently drew his knuckles along my cheek, caressing me from temple to chin in slow, tender strokes. “This is over, Gianna, it’s not safe to remain.”

  Aaron’s fingers slid under my chin. For a second, his touch tried to pull me to him. I gasped as the Bond slid out of my awareness again, a dead silence, and instinctively flinched away.

  He dropped his hand, breaking the connection. “I’m sorry. You’re unwell and overwhelmed. Your scent howls to me to—nevermind. It’s not an acceptable excuse. I apologize for touching you.”