by Sierra Dean
“N-no.”
“Then shut up. You were defending yourself. It doesn’t matter that you are spooked by the results later. At the time, your body knew it was in danger, and it reacted in whatever way it needed to in order to keep you alive. That’s nature. You didn’t seek her out to kill her. You didn’t do it for fun or for money or for some other sick nameless need. You’re not a monster. What you did was natural. The only thing that makes it so messed up is that you have means of defending yourself not many others do.”
I stared at him slack-jawed. I wanted to protest and give him a million different reasons why he was so wrong, that I was a nightmare creature not to be trusted, but I couldn’t. The truth was, there was some merit to what he was saying. I hadn’t wanted to kill Morgan. I hadn’t even been mentally present when it happened. I’d been so fucking scared I had totally shut down, and my body had protected me by running on pure instinct.
Now, there was an entirely different mix of problems that revolved around what my subconscious was capable of when I was backed into a corner, but the heart of his statement was legit.
I just wasn’t sure I was ready to forgive myself yet.
“Forgiveness isn’t the problem,” Memere said quietly from the other side of the room, as if she’d been reading my mind this whole time.
“I feel like I have plenty of problems to go around,” I said.
“The real trouble is that the curse on your head isn’t one you can break by saying some pretty words and reversing it. This isn’t even something I can help you with.”
“Then how do I break it?”
“The curse will only be broken one of two ways. Either you will commit those following you back into the earth, or they get what they want.”
I blanched. “You mean if they kill me.”
“Yes. Killing the one who cast the curse would resolve everything.”
“Peachy.”
She got to her feet slowly, grabbed her cane, and rubbed the wall nearest her. “Now, let’s go find the idiot friend of yours who has himself lost in the bayou, shall we?”
Chapter Seventeen
Memere was already out the newly opened hole in the side of the tree before her words had properly sunk in.
One second we were talking about how it was kill or be killed with this fun little curse I’d put on myself, and the next minute she was talking about someone we had to go rescue?
What?
Wilder and I exited the tree behind her, and the trunk fused closed after us. I was used to it after so many years of seeing it every day, but Wilder did a double take, not quite able to believe his eyes.
We followed Memere on a very particular path through the bayou, one that left us hopping on slim roots and finding narrow passages through the brush. There was a way to get around here without a boat, as long as you knew the right places to step. Memere knew all the ways.
After about ten minutes we emerged onto a hard-packed parcel of land I recognized immediately. The paths were overgrown with moss and new plants in the years since I’d last seen it, but it was unmistakable.
The Loups-Garous encampment.
Seeing a little metal boat not unlike the one Wilder and I had rented the day before made my heart skip a beat and my throat suddenly go dry.
They couldn’t be back, could they?
The area looked as if no one had lived here in ages, but that boat was a telltale sign of trouble.
The encampment wasn’t right on the waterfront, but rather set back a few hundred feet. We’d had to know where it was when I’d lived here, because avoiding these maniacs had practically been a full-time job. Seeing it so run down was a relief, but also vaguely unsettling, like it had been left here just waiting for them to claim it again.
I wish Callum had burned the place to the ground when he’d come to clear them out.
We made our way from the shoreline where the boat was parked, deep into the trees where an encampment of ragged, rotting tents was built around a packed circle on the ground where the dirt was still darkened by years worth of old blood stains.
A few rickety looking building remained upright, but even from where I stood it was obvious the roofs had all caved in, making the area totally unlivable.
I kept watch on the ground for the pits I knew they had dug to keep prisoners in. Secret had once been in one of those, and she hadn’t spoke too lovingly of the memories.
We were almost at the center of the camp when a sound from inside one of the shacks made me freeze. Wilder took a step in front of me, pushing me behind him out of instinct. He tried to reach for Memere but she shook his arm free and hobbled towards the shack.
She took the steps slowly and they creaked under her feet as if even her light weight might be too much for them to handle after this long. When she pushed open the door, I half expected a wild-eyed maniacal werewolf to come charging out at us, fangs bared, ready for a fight. My body was coiled and ready to jump into action.
Instead, it opened on Santiago pulling a shirt on over his head, his muscular tattooed back exposed to us. I didn’t need to see his face to recognize him.
He glanced over his shoulder, took one look at Memere and smiled broadly.
Much to my complete astonishment, she looked right back up at him and smiled herself, an honest, open, downright shameless grin. Then she held out a hand, he offered his arm, and they walked out together, joining us back in the center of the camp.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
“Are you two old friends or something?” I snapped, stepping out from behind Wilder.
Santiago was still beaming when he looked at me, but the second he recognized the fury on my face he smile faltered. “No. We’ve never met. I told you that.”
“Yeah, well, to be honest I’m not entirely convinced you’re ever telling me the truth. You knew what had cursed me, didn’t you? You could have told me when we were at your house.”
He went pale and glanced to Memere who gave him a faint nod, her fingers still wrapped around his elbow.
“I knew.”
“So why send me all the way out here? Why make me waste so much precious goddamn time when you could have given me the answer yourself?”
“Because then he couldn’t follow you here,” Wilder answered for him.
The obviousness of the answer was like a slap in the face, and I felt so stupid for not having seen it myself. Of course. Of course the only reason he would send me out here was so he could finally meet the great La Sorciere for himself.
Fucking selfish asshole.
I couldn’t tell if I wanted to throttle him, or applaud his sneaky cleverness. So I quietly congratulated him for getting precisely what he’d wanted from me all along.
Then I punched him square in the mouth.
Pain flared in my hand, and Santiago hit the dirt like a pile of bricks. I hadn’t put my all into the punch, but there had been more than enough anger behind it to really throw the poor guy for a loop. He probably wouldn’t have any broken bones, but he was going to have one hell of a bruised face when he got home.
He lay on the ground moaning slightly, and Memere gave me a solid whack in the ribs with her wooden cane.
“What?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes as if to say you know what, young lady.
Oh, but hitting him had felt so good. It was like all the anxiety and fear and uncertainty I’d been feeling finally had an outlet, and by punching Santiago, I’d been able to let it all go.
The nagging awareness of my own guilt, the weight of what I’d kept pent up for years without knowing why was still there. And I had a feeling it was going to take me many, many more years to sort through it all.
But the woe-is-me mopey feeling had lifted even as the bloom of pain from where my bones had met Santiago’s face had flowered across my knuckles.
Wilder hung back, with a hint of a smirk on his lips, and watched as Santiago struggled back into a sitting position.
“I probably dese
rved that,” the witched admitted.
“You definitely deserved that,” I replied, then bent over and offered him my hand. Surprisingly, he took it without hesitation and let me help him back to his feet. On solid ground he was taller than me, but I could see there was a newfound respect in his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time he looked at me.
“In my defense,” he said. “Even though I knew who had cursed you, there was no way I could have explained how. I’m not sure you would have believed the truth unless it came from someone you trusted. My motives might have been shady, but there was still a little altruism to it.”
I frowned at him and grunted, which was about as close as I would come to admitting he was right.
After Santiago had collected his bag, we made our way back to where his boat was pulled ashore.
In spite of all my wariness and everything that had kept me vigilant up to this point, I was still somehow surprised to see a group of three men standing next to the fiberglass boat, rooting through the contents as if someone had just dropped a Christmas present at their front door.
They looked up when they heard us arrive and we all froze, a stunned portrait of seven people who had no idea what to say or do to the others.
The men had a smell of wolf about them and I knew right away they had to be werewolves, but what I didn’t know was if they were just run of the mill lone wolves who were living beyond the scope of Callum’s pack, or if they were the last vestiges of the men who had been living out here back when I did.
They were dirty and smelled of sweat and rotting. The lean, hungry expressions on their faces told me it had been quite some time since they’d had a proper meal, and also, I suspected, since they’d seen a woman.
Hunger looked the same regardless of what menu item it was they were craving the most.
Each of the three sported a patchy beard. One had dark hair and dead eyes, the other two were both gray-haired and gaunt, their expressions showing only need rather than any kind of personality.
I knew what they saw when they looked at us. An old woman, a girl, and two men who they might have some trouble with.
Then the breeze shifted and three pairs of nostrils wrinkled in unison. They realized in that moment two of us—though they probably couldn’t tell which two—were werewolves, suddenly making the odds a lot less simple.
One of the gray-haired ones cast a glance down the shoreline, and I suspected he was weighing his odds if he decided to make a break for it. The dark-haired one, though, was who I was most worried about. His gaze hadn’t moved from me since the second we’d walked onto the shore, and in spite of Wilder and Santiago flanking me, his attention never wavered.
“Hello,” he said. His voice was calm and even, but ice cold. I shuddered as the two syllables reached my ears.
“That’s my boat,” Santiago announced, and I had to give him props because he didn’t sound shaken in the least.
“Oh, is it? We found it unattended. You see, usually unattended things in these parts don’t belong to anyone. Finder’s keepers.” He was still staring at me when he said this, which made the phrase finder’s keepers sound especially ominous.
“Well, that belongs to me, so if you fellows don’t mind we’ll just be going now.”
“You see, though, we do mind, because y’all have stumbled onto our property, and that makes your trespassers.”
This didn’t seem like the ideal time to point out to him that this was national park land, and if anyone actually owned the landed it was the U.S. government. I felt like, perhaps, the distinction might be lost on them.
Santiago must have sensed the futility of the argument as well, because in spite of his tense expression he said nothing.
“We might be willing to negotiate a trade, though. For safe passage. Give you your boat back and think no more about this.”
“I’m sure it’ll be a very fair offer,” Santiago grumbled.
“Y’all got yourself a pretty girl there. Could use a pretty girl a lot more than I could use a boat, let me tell you.”
My lip curled in a sneer and a pit of disgust formed in my belly.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and decline that offer,” I said.
Dark Hair looked at me like, bitch did I ask you?
“Here’s a counter offer.” I elbowed my way past Wilder and Santiago, bless them for thinking they needed to stand in front of me and defend my honor or whatever, but I was an Alpha and I was pissed the hell off. “You go away, leave us and our boat alone, we never see or hear from you again, and I keep letting you live this pathetic little existence you’ve carved out for yourselves.”
The two gray-haired ones definitely weren’t looking as confident as they previously had. They stank of fresh, nervous sweat, and they kept checking the surrounding area, gauging whether or not they could run for it.
That, or they were watching for reinforcements.
This wasn’t my first rodeo.
“Keep an eye on our backs,” I told Santiago. “There’s a chance they’re not alone.”
He looked like he might argue, and I got it—the more obvious threat was at our front—but after a serious glare from me, he turned to face our rear approach.
Wilder stayed close, but now that it was apparent I was taking the reins on this, he didn’t speak up. I had no doubt he would have had a brutal comeback for these guys, and an even more brutal assault if it was needed, but for now I was in charge and he would let me handle it until I needed help.
These guys didn’t seem like the type to listen to anything I had to say, so I had no doubt I would need a little backup the second they decided they were bored of feigning interest.
The entire time this was happening Memere was patiently leaning on her cane, her blue eyes fixed on the men.
One of the gray-haired ones observed this at the same moment I did.
“What’s the old lady staring at?”
“A coward,” I snarled.
“Hey b-bitch, I ain’t no fucking coward.”
“Say it next time without the st-stutter.” Okay, mean and a cheap blow, but I had no reason to be nice to the men who wanted to trade Santiago’s boat for ownership of me.
Seriously, I was worth more than a boat, wasn’t I?
Not the point, dummy.
“Enough,” Dark Hair spat. “Give us the girl and the boat, and we let you walk away with your lives.”
“Oh my God, are you kidding me?” I rolled my eyes. “Have you been out here so long all your good lines come from Jean-Claude Van Damme movie villains? No. You are not getting the girl or the boat, because the girl says fuck you, and also, guess what, this isn’t your turf. It’s mine. You’re on McQueen land, and if you haven’t figured it out yet I’m a McQueen.”
Dark Hair’s confidence wavered for a second, but he was quick to paste his sneer back in place. He was trying to look like he didn’t care who I was, but I was willing to bet he’d been around when Callum had cleansed these woods of the Loups-Garous . I was also willing to bet he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that kind of wrath again.
Callum wasn’t the only McQueen he should worry about.
Now that I was aware of what I was capable of when push came to shove, so I hoped this guy wouldn’t push, because neither of us would like my shove.
Already I could feel magic tingling under my skin. Right now it was within my control, but it could sense my heightened anxiety and like all good protection measures, it was preparing itself in case I needed it. A porcupine could raise its spines without poking someone. A vampire could bare his fangs without biting. My magic was the same. It was there if I needed it, but if I didn’t, all the better for everyone involved.
I still wasn’t okay knowing what I’d done to Morgan, and probably wouldn’t ever really be okay again, but there was a small comfort in knowing that when shit got real I had what it took to protect myself. I didn’t like the methods, but I was alive today and Morgan wasn’t, and that said somethi
ng.
Except for the part where her walking blackened corpse had been following me around for a year.
Yeah, okay, that part was a little concerning.
And another question for the heap of others I was coming up with. For now, I had to focus on the three stooges who still hadn’t gotten the point.
“I don’t see your uncle here, girl.”
Oh, points. He had enough of a sense of deductive reasoning to realize who I was based solely on my last name. Good job, wolf-man.
“You’ve been gone a while, so maybe your mail got lost in the shuffle. It can be so hard for delivery folks to determine the difference between One Shithole Street and Two Cesspool Lane. Callum isn’t the only McQueen Alpha anymore, pal.”
He gave me another one of those long, roving glances from head to toe and back up again. This time, however, there was nothing lustful in it. He was finding my measure, as far as he could judge it, and trying to decide whether or not he had any reason to be scared of me.
He frowned again, and I couldn’t decide why.
“You gotta be the most wee, dainty slip of an Alpha I ever seen in my fucking life. Whatcha weight like a hundred pounds soaking wet?”
A snort stuck in Wilder’s throat that was so quick I doubted anyone else heard it, but I had to hold the urge to slap his arm. Yeah, yeah, we get it buddy, you’ve lifted me.
“I weigh enough to kick your ass.”
“Now which one of us is relying on bad eighties movie dialogue?” he asked.
I really, really hated this guy.
“Step away from the boat,” I said.
“Make me.”
“Genie,” Santiago said. “Trouble.”
I knew it. I knew these pricks were just distracting us. Goddamn I hated being right sometimes.
A rustling sound from the bushes grew steadily louder until six more rough-looking men emerged, effectively boxing us in and blocking all routes of escape. Now it wasn’t four against three, but rather four against nine. All nine of them were werewolves. We had two wolves, and two witches, one of whom was well over a hundred years old and in no condition to participate in a physical brawl.