by Rider, C. P.
"I'd say so, eagle. You let anything happen to Luke's sweetie and he'd knock your beak off your face."
"True." A bit of the sparkle I was used to seeing in his eyes returned. "But that's not why I was worried. Neely is more than my alpha's mate. She's my friend." He pulled me against him and sideways-hugged me.
I hugged him back. "Don't know how brave I am. It was an illusion, after all. None of it was real."
"Is that so?" Gert grabbed me by the arm and set me in front of the passenger side mirror. It was one of those long, big ones people use when towing trailers.
"What? My hair's a mess and it looks like I bit my lip, but other than that I look—"
"Right here." She pointed. "See it now?"
I tipped my head back. On the flesh of my neck were ten fingertip-sized bruises framed by half-moon cuts where the dire wolf's claws had sunk into my throat.
Chapter Fourteen
We piled back into Juan's truck and drove the rest of the way onto his property. Juan's house, or the big house, as Gert called it, was a sprawling single story rustic stone ranch house with a wraparound porch, and set back a mile from the main road. A barn with an enormous Texas star weathervane was located a quarter mile away, which Gert said wasn't far enough because she could sometimes smell the dung on a windy day, but then she didn't have to shovel it, so she was grateful for that and kept her mouth shut about it. Except, apparently, when she didn't.
There were other settlements not far from the big house, clusters of smaller houses built in a style similar to the big house and barn, including three smaller, elegant little homes that I was told belonged to Gert, Juan's mother Dahlia, and long-term guests.
Juan explained the small house clusters. "These settlements are for young wolves, weaker betas, anyone who needs to be in proximity to strong pack alphas to be comfortable. We used to have trailers out there, but this looks nicer, I think. More comfortable for the families."
"This softie even put in a pool down the hill for the kids," Gert teased Juan, though it was done with a smile, not a smirk. "Mind yourself after dark, though, because that's when the young ones can get a little rowdy. Stick close to one of us and you should be fine. Long as you carry the alpha's scent, they won't tear into you."
I made a mental note to have Juan touch all my clothes.
The last time I'd run into this issue was at a Blacke group convocation, when I'd nearly been attacked by Earp in Gila monster form. This was before we were good friends, of course. Lucas had taken off my top, put it on and exercised in it, infusing his scent into the fabric. I have since learned this was unnecessary. He could have simply given me a hug and it would have had the same effect, but he'd apologized for being an ass about it back then, and I'd forgiven him. After all, I'd had to do some apologizing along the way, too.
"I know your dad lives in Austin, but there are guest rooms ready for you here if you want them." Alpha Juan tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "To be honest, I'd feel safer with you close by. I can send some of my family to Henry's house to guard you, but we can make a stronger stand here."
So he was calling my dad Henry now? That must mean they'd become friends over the last month or so. Because I wasn't sure how I felt about that, I didn't broach the subject.
"I do intend to visit my dad, but I'd prefer to sleep here." I glanced at Amir. "If that works for you?"
"That works." The eagle shifter brushed dust off the sleeve of his jacket. "You did say that Gert lives in one of those houses away from the main one?"
"I said it, and you know it, feathers. And it's not that far away." Gert pushed her glasses high up on her nose. "I can be at the big house lickety-split if you need me." She batted her sparse white eyelashes at him.
Alpha Juan crossed his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at his aunt. "Tía Gertudis Martinez, leave Mr. Gamal alone. You should especially mind your manners in his presence after how shamefully you treated him when I sent Luke and him out to your hunting ground with a message from me."
"Why, that was nearly ten years ago. I was a mere slip of a girl then. Capricious, precocious, and full of dreams." She made a gesture that reminded me of an angel playing a harp.
"You were seventy-five," Juan said, one dark brow hiked up.
"Practically a kid." Gert strolled off toward her house. Her bowlegged gait ate up the distance fast. "See you at dinner, Johnny. Neely. Mr. Gamal."
Alpha Juan showed us to our rooms. Mine was bigger than my apartment, and had a private bathroom—with, be still my heart, a huge separate bathtub—a king-sized bed, and a fireplace stocked with split logs. Amir's was equal in size and luxury. I was glad to see it was close to mine in case the dire wolf decided to show up.
"I'll be across the hall if you need me, Neely," Amir said, as he shut the door behind him.
"And all you have to do is call out for me and I'll hear you." Juan leaned a shoulder on the doorframe and watched me walk through my room. "I hope the accommodations are satisfactory."
"It's beautiful." I ran my hand over the cherry wood bed, admiring the quality of the bedding. Beautiful was an understatement. I was going to melt into this comforter the second I was alone.
As eager as I was to get to my father's house and confront him about my mother, I was not at all interested in risking a face-off with the dire wolf so soon. He'd nearly had me today, and I was still shaken. I needed time to recover.
"The first time it happens, it's hard, but for me it was the fourth time that really screwed with my head," Juan said softly.
I gazed up at him as I toed off my sneakers. "You're talking about the dire wolf? The illusions?"
He nodded, sidled into the room, tossed some logs into the fireplace. He made a pyramid using the exact method Lucas did in his fireplace. For some reason, that made me feel a little melancholy. I already missed him.
"Auntie Gert trained me. She and my father were the only elder dire wolves in the family then. But, as I told you, family is able to ward off, or at least soften, attacks from each other. So, when they wanted to teach me what a true attack felt like, they called in an outsider."
"That sounds horrible. What did the outsider make you see?"
"Nothing I care to repeat, but suffice it to say it was brutal. I was fourteen at the time, and it took me damn near a year to recover from it. I still get the shivers if I think about it too much."
I lowered myself to the edge of the bed in shock. "Why in the world did Gert and your father allow that?"
"It was a lesson in how my ability was both a gift and a curse. First, they taught me compassion for my fellow shifters and for humans, and then they taught me how to use my gift. The last lesson was how painful that gift could be, so that I would never, ever use it unless there was no other alternative."
"Tough lesson," I said.
"I imagine you had similar ones."
"Well, I don't know any spikers, so no one spiked me as a kid, but it was drilled into me how deadly my ability was. I was encouraged to hide myself and behave 'human.' I had a great life with Tío José, but sometimes I think too much of it was spent running and hiding. Not sure what the alternative would have been, though."
"I've never run anywhere. I live in the house my dad, his dad, and his dad lived in. It's been updated from time to time, but the layout is the same. It's essentially the same house my great-great-grandfather Juan Martinez built. Grandpa added the barn, Dad added the porch and pool, and I put in the smaller houses surrounding us, and the second pool."
"Everyone adds something, puts their own touch on the house." I pointed to the open bathroom door. "I want to know who put in the giant tub, because I would like to give that man a kiss."
"That was me." Juan straightened, having finished arranging the logs.
"Really?"
"No. It was my dad. I don't think he'd mind if I took the kiss, though." One side of his handsome mouth crooked up. "Luke might tear me a new one, but Dad would have loved you, so he'd
be okay with it."
"You're right about Lucas, so no kiss, but I'll take a hug." I stood, walked across the room to the fireplace. "Thank you for helping me today."
"I'm just sorry you're dealing with this." Juan gave me a nice, brotherly sort of hug that I made weird by wrapping both of my arms tight around his back. The angle hurt my injured neck a little, but not enough for me to back off.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome." He cleared his throat. "Uh, Neely? You're squeezing me kind of hard."
"Yep."
The alpha went quiet for a moment, then began to laugh. "You're putting my scent on you, aren't you?"
"I do not want your wolves to attack me." I pulled away from him, then walked to the bed to retrieve my sneakers, setting them neatly in front of the armoire in the corner. "I was nearly bitten by a Gila monster shifter once, and it was scary."
"The one from the sanctuary? Earp?"
"The one and only. This was before he knew me very well." When I'd arranged my shoes and set my suitcase in the armoire, I returned to the bed and sat down. "Why do you say your dad would have loved me?"
"What you did today, facing down a dire wolf, holding your own and then eluding him, that takes incredible will and resolve. Dad always said he loved a woman with guts. It's why he married my mom."
I stared at my hands. "The wolf almost got me today."
"I know. I saw your neck. Speaking of that…" He went into the bathroom and came out with a white metal box. "We keep first-aid kits around for the humans who stay here. I hope the supplies aren't too old." He held up an alcohol pad. "Let's get a look at your wounds."
He swabbed my neck and smoothed antibiotic cream over the claw marks with the efficiency and briskness of a nurse. The man had experience with human injuries.
"How is the wolf able to do this? I thought you guys could only create illusions in the mind?"
"It is all we can do. Granted, an illusion real enough can drive a person to heart failure or worse." His brow furrowed as he examined the right side of my neck. "We can't cause physical harm without touching you."
"What could do it, then?"
He sighed. "A witch? A mystic? A mage? I don't know. Something capable of wielding magic, I'd imagine."
I hissed when his finger brushed a particularly sensitive bruise. "Have to admit, the idea of a dire wolf working with a witch scares the hell out of me," I said.
"It should."
When he was finished, I felt better, though not as good as when Lucas healed me. Speaking of, I needed to call him—and my dad. Not to mention the witches.
Juan put the supplies back in the white box and took it into the bathroom. He reappeared a half-minute later. "Thank you, Neely."
I grinned up at him. "For what? Making you brush up on your nursing skills?"
"For not killing my brother today."
My grin slipped away. "It was a close thing." Not to mention how close he himself had been to being spiked, along with Amir and Gert. Thank the gods I figured out the illusion before that could happen.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"You have no reason to be. You are not your brother's keeper," I replied.
For a moment he looked stricken. He quickly recovered, though. With a smile, he said, "Dinner is at six, though we do drinks a bit before that. Do you eat red meat?"
"I do. Not sure about Amir, though."
"I'll ask. We always have plenty of fish. And fresh vegetables, if he'd prefer that." He headed for the door. "We don't dress for dinner. It's pretty casual here, and what Auntie Gert wore today is as formal as she gets. I just try not to wear my barn clothes to the table." He smiled. "I'll let you rest now. See you tonight."
Once he was gone, I checked in with both of the overprotective men in my life, then thought about running water for a bath. I was reaching for the tap when I considered how badly that could go wrong. I revised my course of action and took a shower instead.
Then I changed into my pajamas, set my alarm for dinner, and climbed into bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
Neely. The dire wolf called to me in the gloom of my dreamscape. Stars twinkled in pitch above me, black grass whispered beneath my feet. All life was shrouded in darkness. The living cowering in the darkest places. En las sombras.
In the shadows.
Neely.
I was exhausted, nearly too tired to be afraid, but I managed to work up a little fear.
How did you enjoy the time travel? That's a small taste of what I can do. It's impressive that you were able to escape, but not entirely unexpected. It hardly makes you special.
"That wasn't time travel, that was make-believe." I sat cross-legged on the grass and stared up at the pinpoints of light in the sky. The air was cold and still.
I'm standing over you in that big bed with my claws at your throat. Cherry wood headboard, fireplace ready for a cold Texas night, bathroom with—
"Of course you know this place. You grew up here."
I was raised in the maw of the devil himself. Took swimming lessons in the River Styx and dined nightly in Eden on the fruit from the Tree of Life.
"Oh, bull. You grew up in a shifter pack in east Texas, Guillermo."
We are Legion—I am Legion, not the person you think I am. And you are not the person you think you are.
I ignored the second statement, focused on the first. "You're Guillermo Martinez, brother of Juan Martinez, son of Juan Martinez, Sr., grand-nephew of Gertrudis Martinez." I wasn't sure what made me say it like that, but I went with my instinct.
I am not that person. I am not that person. A thread of panic weaved through his voice.
"You are."
I am not that person am not that person, not that person not, not, not.
"Look in the mirror. Whose face stares back at you?"
The creature opened his mouth then, and in the darkness I saw only the glinting white of his razor-like teeth, heard the buzzing of a thousand bees, felt the heat of his breath on my face. It occurred to me that if I died in this nightmare dreamscape, I would die in real life, too.
As my fear rushed back to me, I was tempted to run even as I knew it wouldn't do me any good. What would I do? Run away from the landscape of my own brain?
"Guillermo? Are you still here?"
He didn't respond. Still, I knew he was. His breath was hot on my cheek.
"If you let me, I can help you."
Help.
A cry for help, or was he simply repeating what I said?
"I want to help you."
As I spoke, I reached for his brain. It was a slippery thing, a sliding thing that slithered and rolled when I tried to grab onto it. After a lot of unsuccessful tries, I was able to lock onto the sickly energy and spike into his head.
The buzzing was atrocious. As angry as I was with the wolf for what he'd done to me, the buzzing in his brain made me pity him a little. It was loud and constant, nearly musical. The sound drowned out lucid thought, a horrendous song of obedience and pain.
"Your name is Guillermo Martinez," I said. "Say it with me."
I am Legion. Not that person. Not not not.
"Guillermo. Gil."
Not not not.
My heart hammered in my chest as fear boiled through my veins like oil. With every stuttering breath, I anticipated death—or an illusion of it so real it made no difference. Still, I continued talking.
"Your brother Juan has been searching for you for so long. Come home, Guillermo. Your family misses you terribly."
Johnny.
"Yes. Where are you? If you tell me where you are, Johnny and I can help you. You've said I'm needed, and you must know how powerful I am if your boss sent you to find me. I can protect you, Guillermo."
Am Legion. Not that person. Not.
"Would you like me to make the bees leave? I can do that." I wasn't entirely sure that was true, but I thought I could. If the bees were a spell, I'd run into something similar in an alpha's head. My previous
experience with this had ended less than favorably, but I knew now what I had been doing wrong.
Kind of.
Bees. Abejas.
"Are you working with a witch?"
No. I work with the leader.
"Tell me about your leader."
His will is my will. His cause is my cause.
"What is his name?"
All the flowers in the world belong to him. The bees sing his songs. He holds the keys to the kingdom of humanity in his hands.
I drove deeper into the dire wolf's brain, searching for a way to untangle the thoughts in his head, but the bees blocked my access. If it was a spell, it was a clever one.
The leader is all that is beauty in the world. The prophet will ascend on his fiery chariot when Legion's work here is done.
The words were meaningful to him, but they were not his own. I bored deeper, the wall of bees so thick they engulfed me, above and beneath my feet, closing in on me like a second skin. I ignored the rising panic of claustrophobia and pushed against the resistance. The futility of the battle crashed down on my head. It was impossible, pointless to resist. I had already lost. Drenched in despair, I started to back out.
There was a flash of light beyond the bees. A spark.
I spiked into it, using the spark as an anchor and dragging myself closer. Bees crunched beneath my shoes, flew into my hair, my ears, nose, and into my mouth. My eyes were pressed closed, but I didn't need sight to see the light now. My ability led the way. I broke through the buzzing wall and as I crossed into the illuminated part of the dire wolf's brain, a single word popped into my head.
Elijah.
"Who's Elijah, Guillermo?" I asked as I burrowed deeper into his head. "Is that the master you serve?"
Panic thrilled through me. It wasn't mine. My consciousness was so deeply rooted into his, I felt what the dire wolf was feeling. What the man was feeling.
I am not Guillermo. I am Legion. We are Legion. There are many of us.
"That's not true. I'm inside your head. I see the darkness, the buzzing, but I also see your memories and dreams. I see you and Juan and Auntie Gert, riding horses right here on this ranch. You're young, a teenager, maybe. You look so happy. Don't you want to come home, Guillermo Martinez?"