Beneath the Dust (Force of Nature Book 4)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  “Grizz!” I snapped. “Knock it off!”

  His growling dulled. Then he snorted and fidgeted with his clothes like they didn’t feel right on his body.

  “Can someone tell me again why we didn’t kill that fucker Mack last time?” Kat asked.

  “Because Piper was hijacked by the fey king, and then Liam kidnapped her away to Faerie, remember?” Knox replied.

  “Ah yes. That shitshow. Got it.”

  “We almost had a repeat of that again tonight,” I said as I climbed into the back seat.

  Her head swiveled to face me with eerie calm. “Come again?”

  “We think the explosion was just a distraction—that the fey king orchestrated the whole thing just to get to me.”

  Kat stared at me with disbelief, then shot Grizz a glance. “You don’t look surprised. Did you know about this?” He merely shrugged in response before walking to the back of the SUV and climbing in the door. “And you didn’t think to communicate this somehow?” she yelled after him. “Asshole.”

  Another growl escaped the man-bear.

  “Don’t be mean, Kat. Something’s bothering him—and none of this is his fault.”

  “Fine…”

  “If it’ll make you feel better, you can be the one to beat Mack into submission,” Knox offered. “You seem like you could use a good outlet for your emotions.”

  Kat went stiff at his words. “The only feelings I do are anger, hunger, and horny, but I’ll happily knock that prick around for shits and giggles.”

  “Do you really think he’s going to tell us something we don’t already know?” I asked, wondering what we hoped to gain from this impromptu interrogation. Even if Mack confirmed our suspicion, it wouldn’t really get us anywhere—not unless he knew what the fey king was planning, and I somehow doubted that he’d been forthcoming about that with the alpha of the city’s pack.

  “I don’t know if he will,” Knox said, “but I know I’m not letting him get away with this stunt. It nearly killed Brunton—”

  “And it did kill many of my kind, including enforcers,” Merc added, the bitterness in his tone thick. “If he indeed had a hand in this, there is only one course of action to take.”

  “Kill the fucker,” Kat said as though the idea didn’t excite her at all. But I knew it did. She was spoiling for a fight. “One less fey spy to deal with.”

  Knox gripped the wheel tighter, still bristling from Merc’s words.

  “He’s mine to deal with.” His sentiment was a mere growl.

  Merc turned to face him. “We shall see about that.”

  ***

  I used my magic to confirm that Mack was in his penthouse when we pulled up outside. Merc ghosted Knox and me into the building, then went back for the other two. I turned to ask Knox a question but was silenced when, once again, he kicked the alpha’s door down and rushed the room.

  But this time, Mack heard us coming.

  He tackled Knox as soon as he set foot in the penthouse, and the two were quickly embroiled in a fight. But Mack hadn’t anticipated that the vampire king would be with us—or at least that was my assumption, given the look on his face when he saw Merc walking toward him like he’d tear him limb from limb.

  Merc ripped him away from Knox by the throat, then slammed him against a nearby pillar.

  “There was an attack this evening,” he said, his voice too calm, his delivery too indifferent. He was a bomb waiting to go off, and I knew how that ended. “Did you have something to do with it?”

  “I would tell him now if I were you,” I said. “He’s near the end of his tether…”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re—”

  Merc squeezed the wolf’s throat so tightly that I heard cartilage snap. “The attack at my mansion. Did. You. Help?”

  Garbled sounds escaped Mack’s throat, but nothing coherent.

  “Put him down,” Knox ordered, stepping up beside the vampire king.

  “He will tell me what I want to know…”

  “He won’t if you crush his throat.”

  “Then I will get what I want another way.”

  Merc pinned hate-filled eyes on the wolf, concentration creasing his brow. Then he frowned. “I do not believe he was involved.”

  “And I was promised an ass-kicking to hand out…” Kat said, sounding bored as she sat down on the couch.

  Merc dropped Mack to the ground. It took a couple of minutes, but the alpha’s voice eventually cleared, having healed. He stood up and brushed himself off, smoothing his suit coat.

  “You satisfied now?” he asked.

  “I’m not,” Kat replied, raising her hand.

  “Five minutes in the back room with me and you will be…”

  She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t last two.”

  “Maybe you weren’t involved in what happened tonight,” Knox said, “but I’m willing to bet you’ve been in contact with the fey king since we saw you last. I want to know what he’s up to.”

  “I haven’t talked to him—I told you that. You burned that bridge for me. Thanks for that, by the way.”

  “Knox is deeply sorry, I’m sure,” Kat said. Her sarcasm was duly noted.

  “What did the fey king do, anyway?” Mack asked. “Had to be bad to bring you all down here.”

  Merc and Knox studied one another for a moment, a non-verbal conversation obviously occurring about whether or not answering Mack’s question could be helpful.

  “He came after my vampires. There was an explosion. Many were lost,” Merc said. My eyes went wide at his revelation, but I got my shit together before Mack took notice. Merc was working an angle of some sort. I just wasn’t sure what.

  “That sounds like it has more to do with the war than the fey king,” Mack replied. “He’s too subtle for that. Besides, he’s in it for her.” He pointed at me. “That’s the prize he’s after. Why would he put her in jeopardy? Seems reckless if you ask me.”

  “But we didn’t ask you,” Kat said. “Maybe that’s exactly why he did it—to make it look like it wasn’t him. Had he succeeded in taking her, he wouldn’t have been the most likely suspect. We’d have had no way to link the crime to him.”

  “Sounds pretty genius to me,” Knox agreed.

  “I’m telling you, that’s not his style,” Mack argued.

  “And how would you know that?” Merc asked. “Are you so close that you know his every move? His every intention? No, I think not. He’s older than time and a master at deception. You’d never know the truth from him because he’d never let you. He’s far too smart for that.”

  Mack’s expression darkened. “Even if you’re right, that doesn’t make me wrong about the attack.”

  Kat sauntered over to where Mack stood. She stopped in front of him and smiled.

  “So you think it’s a complete coincidence that a female vampire, loaded with enough C-4 to take out a small army, blew herself up at the king’s coronation ceremony, and the fey king just happened to show up at that exact moment to try and steal Piper away again, using the smoke as cover and his magic to lure her to him?”

  Mack went a bit pale at the thought, but he pulled himself together quickly. “I’m just saying that you’re looking at this with tunnel vision,” he replied. “Maybe, for just one second, you should consider the possibility that someone else set this in motion—or worked with him, at the very least.”

  Silence.

  “Who?” Knox asked.

  “I don’t have names. That’s not how it works. I just know that they exist. And that they’re powerful.”

  “Truth…”

  “Well that’s delightfully specific, yet ambiguous—and completely unhelpful.” Kat closed the distance between her and Mack. She leaned in close, her lips at his ear. “Who do you think did it?”

  His breath shuddered slightly as he exhaled.

  “I think the question you really need to ask is, who had the most to gain from killing the vampire king, Knox, and possibly Piper, t
oo?” More silence. Kat pulled away from Mack to stare into his eyes. He smirked at her in return. “Do you know why this war even started?” he asked her as though there were nobody else in the room. “The new vampire king and Knox weren’t here when it was set in motion, but you were. You were right in the thick of it with that dead mate of yours, but even you can’t see what happened. How things started.”

  “I saw pricks like you and Kingston making plays for power.”

  “And why would we do that?”

  “Because you’re disloyal bastards?” she asked.

  At that, he smiled. “That just gave us the motivation—not the opportunity.”

  “In plain English,” Kat said, sounding more put-upon than usual, “and make it quick. We have more important things to be doing than slumming with a soon-to-be corpse.”

  “Any of the other supernatural factions would stand to gain from killing us,” I said, pulling Kat away. “Each of us poses a potential threat to any one of those groups.”

  “True, but as I said, Mercenary and Knox were already out of the city when the war started.”

  “Leaving me…”

  He nodded slowly. Somehow he managed to make that look condescending. Kat took offense and slapped Mack across the cheek.

  “I like it when you use your manners,” Kat said. “I’d find them. Quickly.”

  Mack gritted his teeth and swallowed back whatever retort he had planned. Instead, he dropped a bomb.

  “The war was a means to flush you out,” he said. “A way to find this all-powerful magical the fey king knew existed.” Every single one of us stood motionless and stared at Mack in utter disbelief. “He approached those of us he thought he could leverage with the promise of power to pick apart the treaty until the inevitable happened.”

  “A war among the factions,” Merc said.

  Mack shot him a smug look. “It was far easier than it should have been.”

  “How’d you do it?” Kat asked. I could practically feel her anger blossoming. She’d been around when the tensions had grown and the treaty had been primed to fall. She’d known what was happening to the community as a whole. I could only imagine the stories Jensen had told her—and the ones she’d heard secondhand at the bar. By the time everything finally went to shit and the treaty fell, how many deaths had amassed?

  And how many had Mack and his wolves been responsible for?

  “We set the ball rolling—made sure a few strategic bodies dropped to amp up resentment and accusation. The rest took care of itself, really.”

  “Was the former vampire king in on it?” Knox asked.

  “No.”

  Knox looked to Merc and gave a curt nod.

  “What about Reinhardt?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  “We didn’t need him.”

  “Because you had Kingston,” Kat said with a shake of her head. “You two assholes are more alike than I realized. Raging hard-ons for power and no moral compass. You’re the fey king’s wet dream, no doubt.”

  Mack smiled at her, and it made me shiver. “I think that’s Piper. But you’re mine, Kat. I dream about fucking then killing you all the time.”

  “Get in line. That queue wraps halfway around the city.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Knox started as he began to pace the room. “The fey king didn’t know who the fey queen’s child was, just that she was in New York, so he thought that by starting a war he could smoke her out somehow? Like she’d just been in hiding all that time?”

  Excellent question.

  “I don’t know all the details of his plan,” Mack scoffed. “You know him better than I do, which means you’re aware that he gives out information on a need-to-know basis. I was to start shit that led to the fall of the treaty. I imagine Kingston was told the same—the others, too.”

  “It would seem that his plan worked, in a fashion,” Merc said.

  “And he created enough chaos in the process to make it easier to nab me,” I added, “or at least it should have made it easier.” I looked from Merc to Knox, Kat to Grizz. “I guess he hadn’t banked on my squad keeping me safe until I could do that job on my own.”

  “No. He had not.”

  “What does he want with her?” Knox asked.

  Mack shot him an incredulous look, which was a ballsy move, given the circumstances. It was met with the level of appreciation I expected—a fist to the face, to be precise.

  “I don’t know what he wants!”

  “Then can I kill him?” Kat asked. “He’s served his purpose.”

  “You can—” Knox said.

  Mack’s outburst was instantaneous. “I fucking gave you what you wanted—”

  “—but unless you’re prepared to become the alpha of NYC, Kat,” Knox continued, unfazed, “then I would suggest you think twice.”

  Kat opened her mouth to argue, but then, in a rare act, she shut it. Not a single snarky word escaped.

  “I won’t become alpha,” Merc said, stepping closer to Mack. “His death won’t affect me at all.”

  “Except it’ll break the truce that you asked for,” Mack argued. “And if you really did just take some heavy losses, I don’t know that you want to be labeled a backstabber—put that kind of target on yourself and your kind.”

  Merc’s eyes narrowed and a low rumble of warning escaped him.

  “I don’t have either of those problems,” I said sweetly. “I could kill you and there’s literally nothing anyone could do about it.” Grizz huffed his agreement as he stepped up beside me. “The man-bear and I are our own dog-and-pony show. We don’t really belong to any of the supernatural communities.”

  “But you have pretty strong ties to them,” Mack said, shooting the others a satisfied look. “You think that wouldn’t come down on them?”

  He was right, but I couldn’t let him know that.

  “Not if I tell them you were working with the fey king all this time. That you knew he was stealing witches. That you let him come here and kill werewolves at will—even some of your own. That you and the most hated warlock conspired to take over this city and enslave everyone because you’d have the power of the fey king behind you—”

  “They wouldn’t believe you—”

  “The hell they wouldn’t! They knew me back then, and most know me now. They also know you and Kingston. I’m pretty sure I could say whatever I wanted and have them eat those lies out of the palm of my hand.”

  Mack was beginning to look nervous, which was exactly what I wanted. The truth was, I knew we couldn’t afford to kill him; not yet, at least.

  “If you kill me, the strongest alpha in the city will take my place,” he said, gaze turning to Knox, “and I think we both know who that is—and that he doesn’t want the job back.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance. And I’ll bet he is, too.” I stepped closer, and he retreated a pace. We continued like that until his back was against a pillar. “If you want to live, you’re going to do whatever you can to call upon the fey king and beg for his forgiveness. Drop to your knees so hard that they bleed. Do whatever he asks of you until he accepts you back.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then you tell us every little detail about his requests.”

  “That’s it?” he asked, surprise in his tone.

  “For now.”

  “And what if it doesn’t work?”

  I walked back toward the group, a wicked smile tugging at my lips. I looked over my shoulder at the frightened alpha and winked.

  “I’ll let Kat and Knox flip for who gets to be the newest alpha of New York City.”

  I didn’t bother stopping. I held my steady pace until I was well out of the penthouse; only when I hit the elevator did I let the others catch up. The mix of expressions that approached surprised me. Kat looked proud. Merc, tense. Knox, worried. And Grizz, still super pissed.

  “You know this isn’t going to work, right?” Kat asked as she reached past me to hit the down button.
/>   “Oh, I know. But on the off chance it does…”

  “It was worth taking the calculated risk.” Merc’s amusement loosened his tight features.

  “Exactly.”

  “He can’t be trusted,” Knox added.

  “Of course he can’t, but his newly-planted paranoia can. And once he finds out that we have Kingston at the mansion, I think he’ll make every effort to do as I asked.”

  “And why’s that?” Kat asked.

  “Because in his mind, we don’t need both of them. He doesn’t want to come up short.”

  The elevator dinged just as Kat’s laughter erupted. It echoed through the tiny space as we all crammed in.

  “Well played, Piper. Your cunt of a mother would be proud.”

  My smile widened. “What can I say? I’m desperate for Mommy’s approval.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Where are you headed?” Kat asked as she fell in beside me. Judging by the tension in her face and shoulders, she already knew the answer.

  “The infirmary. I want to make sure I got to everyone before we left—that they’re all as healed as they need to be.” She said nothing, just kept pace with me. “Do you want to come?”

  “I want to run from this house screaming. I want to kill the fey king and disembowel the fey queen. I want to destroy anyone who threatens those I care about,” she said, eyes focused straight ahead. “But I can’t do any of those things, and it makes me wonder what the fuck the point is of being what I am if it doesn’t help when it counts most.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Kat—”

  “It sure as fuck isn’t, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? The end result is the same. Death and destruction, all in the name of power.”

  We descended the stairs in silence, the echo of our footsteps the only sound between us. Her words had impaled me—perhaps because they’d come from the least likely person to admit them—but they were true nonetheless. What was the point? What good was being powerful if we couldn’t stop the chaos from hurting those closest to us?