The shifting wind brought the smell of the beta. The man was a brick house with broad shoulders and sunglasses covering his studious face. “He is rogue.”
“We need to find a private place to talk,” an alpha with a British accent ordered.
He wasn’t going to be the center of another Mission discussion when the last one nearly got him killed at twelve years of age. It would end the same way. History was repeating itself.
Wolffey meant to move. His head dipped and Rider’s chest whooshed up to greet him. His brain zeroed out on the humming haze. Before he could focus on using the fey exit, blackness whirled in swallowing him whole.
oOo
Sirens whirled in the distance. It wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the number of people with their cell phones out, snapping photos. Mercer’s stomach clinched. The last thing they needed were the photos to go viral and bring unwanted attention.
“Wyatt, see to him. Don’t let him die,” Mercer ordered.
“Step to the side, Long Horn. This is Mission business,” Pembroke demanded.
Mercer stood his ground, though he wasn’t in a position to fight. He kept a steady hand just below the protruding star. The tips pressed against his muscle causing pain at the tiniest of movement. “This is my territory.”
“You might be next in line for your father’s seat, but you don’t have a voice in our decisions until it is official,” Pembroke said.
“I’m much closer at getting Hota back than you are, I can guarantee that,” he promised. Everything inside him said that was an empty promise if Hota was dead. His one contact was looking worse for the wear every day and was no shot. He was running out of options and time.
No, not all options. If he went to the queen and handed over the assassin, she would get him to Chancellor’s. He squished the guilt. He believed in the assassin. He’d never met anyone so determined to make it work even when the odds were against him. He could see why the Unseelie Queen fancied her assassin.
“How so?” Pembroke asked.
“This needs to wait. I need to get Wolffey to my facility and we need to get the throwing blade out of your shoulder,” Wyatt said.
A beta he didn’t recognize approached. “The police are in the parking lot.”
“I’ll handle this and we’ll assemble at the farm,” Tamerlane said.
“We need to get them out of here,” Tristen said, nodding his head towards Mercer.
The group dispersed, giving him a clear view of Rider grabbing Wyatt’s wrist and arguing. Mercer bent down as the two struggled over Wolffey’s shirt. The buttons had been popped open, exposing a body he’d thought too often about. He wasn’t nearly as broad in the chest as the werewolves, but his stomach was all chiseled lines that curved and dipped towards his narrow waist and lean pelvis. His skin was scarred. It was hard to say what caused the wounds with so much blood smeared over his skin. The skin around the clean bandage on his torso was black and swollen.
“You heard him, we need to leave,” Mercer ordered.
Rider, nor Wyatt were listening.
“I don’t get it. It’s not possible,” Rider growled, pulling Wyatt’s hand back.
The wound was gushing blood, but Mercer’s eyes immediately attached to the black tattoo before Wyatt tore free from his brother’s grasp and made sure the torn fabric covered more than just the wound. Among the mangled bloody mess of his shoulder, the tattoo over his pectoral was clear as day. It was the tattoo of the verboden, a paw print with two heave bridging the top like the roof of a house.
“That’s the signature of the verboden. How many have there been in America?” Pembroke said.
Mercer glanced back, surprised that Pembroke was still lingering. His heart was slamming in his chest. His thoughts were too chaotic to find any clarity in the swell of emotions. The brothers began arguing.
“Kivah,” Axel said.
“Kivah’s dead. We haven’t had a verboden for over a decade,” Rider hissed.
“He’s going to bleed out,” Wyatt said, drawing the focus.
“You knew?” Rider asked. There was more than anger in his tone; shock and pain.
Mercer couldn’t begin to comprehend. His thoughts were in battle. Wolffey had said he’d regret kissing him. He was thinking about their laws.
“Fuck” he growled under his breath. “Rider.”
One word, that’s all it took. Rider had Kivah up against him and they were in motion, with Tristen leading them through the gawking crowd. There were too many witnesses. This would get news coverage when two victims disappeared from the scene of a crime.
Only Axel and Dax stayed beside him. The other three were ahead, moving the opposite direction of the parking lot. They couldn’t turn into werewolves in the middle of the city and in broad daylight. The smell of fear and compact prey was heavy in the air.
“This way. My car is parked in the back,” Tristen said, leading them away from the parking lot, and towards the hotel buildings.
That explained how the Mission arrived so quickly. Now Hota wouldn’t be the only thing they disagreed on when the Mission returned to the farm house. He mentally braced himself for the fight, though his concentration was on a larger issue. Could he separate himself from the verboden?
Everything inside him said no. Wolffey wasn’t verboden, but how he ended up with the feys was in question and those questions gave him fuel when the pain in his shoulder started weighing him down. Axel offered his aid, lending him the extra strength and he didn’t pull away.
TWENTY-FIVE
Aire jolted from deep within comfortable darkness back into the torturous light. He wiped his free hand over his forehead, expecting sweat. There wasn’t any. The blackout was sudden. The sunlight pressed yellow heat against his nocturnal vision, making even his covered eye water and burn.
He had to stay awake. Despite his twisting gut and bubbled, exposed skin, he felt dread for Wolffey. It wasn’t the first time he felt trepidation for the werewolf, though the Topside child often surprised him with his durability. Lotus was no small matter and neither were the hostilities the protégé started between the Unseelie and the fey sectors.
Aire shifted his weight, made heavier by the sun, and squinted into the bright clearing just ahead of him. From the direction of the light, the sun was moments from being directly over head. It wouldn’t be long before it reached the table and the cuff on his wrist.
He felt along the ground where his fingertips could reach, brushing away small twigs until he found a sizeable limb. He stood again, bracing his stomach against the edge of the table and clamped his teeth around the stick. The taste of earth immediately added to his thirst as dirt coated his tongue.
His heart slammed against his chest, waiting for that moment when the pain would override his conscious thoughts. He was doing this for the Unseelie, for his queen and so help him, for his protégé. The sunlight was so close now that the reflection of it on the edge of the iron chain made his skin sizzle.
Quiet rolled through his head. Not a thought pierced his mind as he took a deep breath and held it. He thrust his hand into the sunlight. The table against his stomach, supporting his weight was the only thing keeping him on his feet. The sheer fire of the sun shot through his nerves, snapping fireworks in his head.
The stick broke under the pressure of his clenched jaw. The taste of blood was sharp in his mouth, wetting it after hours of thirst. It cleared the chaos; sharpened his senses. It was a window of opportunity, a very small window allowing him one last chance to preserve his life. A heavy blackness was closing in at the edges of his eyes, promising cool darkness. If he passed out, that would be it. He’d be comatose waiting for the sun.
It wasn’t his time to die. He jerked back and his slick hand slid through the tight ring, scrapping against exposed bone. The shadow of the tree did little to relieve the fire burning under the surface of his smoldering wound. That pain radiated through every nerve in his body, making it difficult to breathe.
The skin was seething black ash and raw pink stripped to the bone. He swallowed hard, taking dirt, stick and blood down his throat. His hand was useless. He hand was useless and so was he during the daylight hours.
He had time to see the healer and consider his next move to find Wolffey.
oOo
At Wyatt’s insistence and Rider’s physical persistence, Mercer sat on a swivel chair with a bandage on his shoulder, feeling more somber by the second. The longer his mind cycled the worst the feeling grew. Kivah wasn’t dead.
Now he understood what the assassin meant when he said, we can't do this. You're going to regret it; regret kissing a man who had been marked verboden as a child. It was forbidden for a verboden to leave the house or have physical relations. They were treated like the plague, creatures that should be well covered and hidden from society and the pack. In most countries, the pack killed their sickly runts at birth.
That verboden child lingered in Wolffey’s subconscious. For someone who swore they weren’t a werewolf, Mercer had only seen him dressed in clothes that, though not verboden issued, were damn well close enough covering him from neck to foot. All he lacked was the scarf to cover his hair.
That hair in question was no longer unruly with curls. It was darker too, like someone had dipped his head in melted chocolate. The brown was lush with honey brown highlights and the strands as straight as the fey could make it. Except for the ears, one could easily mistake him for what the movies portrayed as the faire folk.
This was the little boy he had seen for the first and last time in the field, defying pack law and leaving the farm house. He’d been so small, unable to string words together due to his strong stutter. He could hardly defend himself and he didn’t try. He had waited for the Mission betas to tear him apart. He was trained at an early age to stay out of everyone’s way, but he wasn’t doing that now.
“Why are we doing it this way again?” Briley asked. It was hard for him to stay still with his arm stretched over the board, donating blood straight to a bag.
“He said he’s infected with venom. We can’t risk touching him directly.” Wyatt answered the question while sewing Mercer’s wound. Wyatt stretched the needle string and cut the extra wire. “Demon venom.”
Mercer huffed. He had enough with demons. He stood and gave his shoulder a test roll. Luckily, the damage was minimal. “How long before you force him to wake up?”
With as much damage as his body sustained, it wasn’t going to be pleasant for the assassin, but he needed his questions answered before the Mission arrived. They needed to get a few things straight. For one, Kivah was not verboden in his eyes. He still wanted him as his equal.
“Not long,” Wyatt sighed. He pulled off his gloves, washed his hands and pulled on clean gloves before checking the assassin. The young doctor didn’t agree with his order, but didn’t argue.
“When did you know that he was Kivah?” Rider’s question was a growl in the corner of the room.
Mercer had seen the brothers in a bad mood, but nothing compared to this. Wyatt circled, taking everyone in. He was clearly exhausted.
“Not when I first met him, if that’s what you think. He’s not the brother we grew up with. We don’t know this person that he’s become,” Wyatt replied
Dax unfolded his arms and shifted his weight. “Obviously. He doesn’t think of himself as a werewolf.”
Scars crisscrossed over Kivah’s body, a map with stories. Black tattooing started under his armpit in a straight line down the side of his torso where it disappeared under the seam of his pants. It was a language he’d never seen; something archaic and alien, like his weapons and his aura.
“He’s a werewolf, he belongs with us,” Briley said.
Rider pushed his hand through his hair. “He’s not verboden. We can’t make his decisions for him; however, the fey had no right taking him and that needs to be addressed.”
Mercer kicked away from the wall. “It will be handled.”
Wyatt pulled a drawer open and withdrew a small bottle and a clean syringe. Mercer folded his arms and regretted it when the muscle gave a sharp pinch. He was restless. Wolffey would wake up with the assassin’s mindset, not the verboden’s mentality.
“The Mission isn’t going to be happy about a verboden having left the home for a decade and a half,” Briley pointed out.
The room quieted. Wolffey’s breathing was shallow. The relief it brought was vast. He growled under his breath. “Wake him up.”
Wyatt measured out the liquid in the syringe and added it to the tube of saline. Mercer held his breath, waiting. The movement started with a tick in Wolffey’s finger, then he lifted the hand on his uninjured side, drawing it over the sheet.
Kivah chuckled darkly. His lavender pupils were dilated under his heavy lids. “I feel like death, so I guess I’m still alive.”
“Careful, you don’t want to stretch the stitches. They’ll hold, but you need to shift and heal your body,” Wyatt said.
The assassin tentatively raised his hand, noticing his bare arm and frowned. That same hand brushed over his bare chest and he cursed in a language that Mercer heard in the past when the assassin was pissed. The fluid foreign dialect stirred warmth. He forced his thoughts back to Chancellor and the Mission.
The assassin brought his hand to his temple, making the muscle in his biceps flex. “Where are my clothes?”
“Easy, Kivah, don’t pull your stitches,” Mercer said.
Kivah snorted. With effort, he sat up with Wyatt’s help, but immediately pushed his brother’s hands away. “That’s not my name.”
He ignored the comment. “Do you remember the day you went with the faeries?”
Even drugged, he was fluid like a cat. Gravity hardly touched him. His eyelashes fluttered as he fought against the lethargic affects of the medicines in his system and his possible sickness. “Vividly. It’s not every day you’re thrust into another reality. If you want a story, you’re nary getting it from me.”
“Back in the forest—”
“You want to shower and burn your clothes?”
Somewhere deep in the assassin, there was resentment, but it paled in comparison to his self loathing undertone. His dark lashes curved up, framing his golden eyes with the thin ring of lavender. The others were in the room, quiet statues witnessing something far too intimate. Mercer wanted to send them away, but he couldn’t bring himself to draw the assassin’s attention to his brothers.
“No,” he answered.
The edge of Wolffey’s lips twitched, but the smile never formed. God, what he wouldn’t give to know what the assassin was thinking. Bred and born alpha, he was used to going for what he wanted, and he wanted to kiss the doubt from Kivah’s mind, but Kivah wasn’t sport. He really needed to understand what it was he felt, instincts and mating moon aside, because once he stepped over that line, he could do serious mental damage to the both of them.
“You’re not verboden,” Mercer said.
“So I’m a beta then, someone below your status. Obviously, you’ll request that I stay on the farm.” Wolffey swayed against the bed, but refused to sit despite the color draining from his skin.
For one brief second, he wondered if he was that easy to read, or if Wolffey made an educated guess. “Yes, but you’re not domesticated enough to live with a pack. Even with my skills, I’m hardly in the position to keep you in line. The Mission will see you as a threat.”
“I am a threat. I’m verboden. I’m sure the Mission hasn’t changed their principles,” Wolffey hissed.
Mercer stepped into the assassin’s personal space. “I’m trying to save your life.”
Wolffey stood straighter. If he hurt, he kept it from showing on his face. “I don’t need you or anyone to save me. I’m not a child. When I die, it will be in battle, and not because I submitted to a pack of self righteous howlers.”
“Kivah,” Rider growled, stepping forward.
The lavender rings in Kivah’s eyes flared. Mercer ste
pped between the two brothers, putting a hand out to warn Rider. Thankfully, Rider understood the silent gesture.
Wolffey, still hooked intravenous to the blood donation bag, was watchful. “I regret that you learned this about me. It wasn’t my intention for our paths to cross, but you have no choice in understanding this; I’m not your brother. He’s dead.”
“Ghosts don’t bleed,” Rider answered.
The door upstairs cracked open and someone was quick down the steps. Patience stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “The Mission is here.”
“Stay, we need to talk,” Mercer ordered.
The assassin gave him a blank stare. He had very little trust that the assassin would do as he was told.
oOo
Wolffey waited until the door upstairs clicked shut before he peeled the tape keeping the needle and tube in place at the nook of his arm, off. The room swayed from his quick movements, and he held his breath, waiting for it to turn into nausea. There wasn’t anything on his stomach to vomit, except blood and bile, something he wasn’t keen on tasting again.
The basement was well insulated making it impossible to hear the upstairs conversation. It didn’t leave him any less vulnerable. Without his weapons, he was stuck waiting at the mercy of the Mission. As an assassin, waiting for mercy wasn’t his forte.
He pushed away from the bed, finding his shirt in a rumpled heap on the floor. It was torn and bloody. He’d have to take a shirt from the alpha.
He closed his eyes and regretted it when the nausea tightened in his gut. Visualizing his target wasn’t an option today. He knew the house well enough that it took the pressure out of envisioning the alpha’s private den. He whispered the words under his breath, focusing on each word he had learned until the air shifted around him.
The first breath he drew was eucalyptus and mint mixed with the smell of pack and the richer, earthy scent of the alpha. He took another long breath filling his sensory with the man he’d been battling it out with for a long time. His exposed secret changed things, even if Mercer alluded that it hadn’t.
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