“Ellis.”
I faced him, eyebrow arched, and waited.
“I wish that you and I…” He clamped his mouth shut, spun on his heel and strode into the cover of darkness without another word.
Despite my best efforts, I hung on his words. What sort of wishes did he harbor for us? Regret, I was learning, wasn’t a strong enough emotion to deter him from accomplishing his goals. He would use me, and he might regret it later. No. He would regret it, but he had me where he wanted me, and he wasn’t about to let a small thing like a wish he couldn’t verbalize stand in his way.
Dell followed me inside but a male caught her eye, and she crossed to him with halting steps. I waited to see what it was about, but she waved me on with a bright smile that didn’t warm her eyes, and I went because Graeson was right. There were dynamics here I didn’t understand, and the last thing I wanted was to get Dell hurt by sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.
Once in my room, I flopped onto the cot, thoughts circling back to Dell and my partial shift. I relived that sparkling moment of connectivity. The pack bond had glittered in my mind like a serpentine trail winding toward… I wasn’t sure. Contentment? Serenity? Happiness? What might have happened to me if I’d followed the path? Would I have been embraced by it? Absorbed into the collective? What shimmering promise awaited all who found their feet planted on that diamond-dust road?
All the what might have beens were as bittersweet as the memory of Graeson’s feverish caress. He shouldn’t have handled me that way. Not when he barely knew me. Not when I wasn’t pack. He was confused by that brief mental trespass across the pack collective. That was all.
I lifted my hand and turned it back and forth. The thought of shifting into a wolf who could outrun my problems was all too tempting. How lucky Graeson was to have a beast to share his burden.
The shack’s previous owner had skimped on the insulation, which meant I had no problem picking out the rhythmic crunching of gravel invading my thoughts. It sounded like more than two pairs of boots. A set of wargs? Sentries maybe? I shoved to my feet and yanked the soiled tablecloth-turned-curtain away from the cramped window.
A white horse ambled across the parking lot. Preternatural energy flowed around it, buffeting its mane and tail in an unearthly breeze. It stamped its front leg and tossed its head, beckoning me with its liquid eyes, black and gleaming. Taunting me. My fingers pressed into the cool glass. I hadn’t realized my arm lifted until my index finger traced the curve of its spine through dust caking the glass. That spike of cold shocked me aware, and I jerked my hand back.
A final snort and the apparition made a wide turn. Its movements were awkward, like its hooves were sucked into wet sand with every step. Its tail flicked and ears swiveled as its entire body shuddered. Mosquitoes. Horseflies. Something made its hide twitch.
A flash of blue. Short cotton nightgown. Tumble of wild chestnut hair. A small hand stuck to the kelpie’s flank.
It looked like we wouldn’t need Lori after all.
“Graeson.” I slapped the glass with my open palm. “Graeson.”
I hit the stairs at a run and almost tumbled the last four steps. I barreled past Dell, who straddled the male warg’s lap while he growled into her ear, and called louder for Graeson. Drawn by the commotion, the other wargs piled into the narrow hall. I waded through their bodies, avoiding their grasping hands and their questions.
The break room doors slapped the walls as Graeson shoved through them. Gold sparked in his gaze, and his lip quivered as he clamped his hands on my shoulders. “What happened? Did someone...?”
“No.” I sank my nails into his biceps. “It’s here,” I said loud enough for all to hear. “The kelpie is in the parking lot.”
“Where are Revelin and Torin?” he snapped.
“Running the perimeter last I saw,” Dell said, straightening her clothes and her spine. “I’ll find them.”
“You do that. Bring their asses to me. Secure the area,” he barked at the others. “Don’t let it escape.”
Fear curled in my gut. “It’s taken a new girl.”
Bones popped in his hands where they touched me. “Was she alive?”
“Yes.” Though she wouldn’t be for long unless we caught up to them. “She was walking under her own power.” I pushed against him, propelling us both out the door. “Be careful if you catch up to them. Like the McKenna girl, her hand is stuck to its hide.”
“Stay put.” He bolted onto the porch. “Dell will keep an eye on you.”
A silent figure slipped to my side. She still wouldn’t look him in the eye.
Graeson melted into the night, and wolves in various stages of change followed him. Soon Dell and I were the only ones left, and I was itching to join the others. Was this the end? Would this girl’s death close the circle if we failed to save her? What happened then? I couldn’t stand here twiddling my thumbs and wait for Graeson to bring me back an answer.
My stock had plummeted with the kelpie’s arrival. Lori was no longer required. I should have felt relieved to be off the hook, but guilt sat heavy in my gut that I might have spared this girl had we moved faster. “How does he expect me to play bait if he won’t let me out of his sight?”
I didn’t expect an answer—I was venting—so I was surprised when she offered one.
“He’s relieved,” she said, soft enough to evade sensitive warg ears. “He didn’t want to send you out there. This means he won’t have to.”
Dell was wrong. Her trust in Graeson blinded her to the brutal core of him. I had no such illusions.
“Just so you know,” I informed her as I took the steps, “I’m not waiting here.”
Graeson ought to know better. You’d think a dominate warg would understand how being told to sit and stay would chafe.
“Cord said—”
“This is my job. This is what I do.” The wood steps groaned under my weight. “Are you coming or staying?”
“But Cord—”
“I’m not a warg. He’s just a man in need of a mood stabilizer and a bottle of Nair as far as I’m concerned.”
“I…” She bit her lip. “I just— I don’t think...”
“I can’t wait.” My voice came out raw. “That girl needs me. She needs all the help she can get.”
Alone, I marched into the night. I had run once. I wouldn’t run again. I wouldn’t be content to sit and wait while others did the heavy lifting. I was here. The kelpie had taunted me. I was not going to cower and cost that girl another set of eyes in the search. I would not be standing on this porch, too far away to do any good, when she snapped from her fugue and cried for help.
“I’ll get in more trouble if I let you wander alone than for letting you stray in the first place.” Dell caught up to me without breaking a sweat. “I’ve got your back.” She puffed up her already impressive chest. “While you’re with us, you’re pack.” She synced her strides with mine. “Pack means no one stands alone.”
Walking next to her, knowing she meant what she said, I had never felt lonelier.
Chapter 13
Hours later the mud caking my shoes made each squelching step burn in my thighs and calves. The aroma of dead fish washed ashore to rot polluted the muggy air. I trudged on, but the night stretched for eternity out here, and I lost all sense of direction. I felt the absence of my cell phone keenly. The GPS app would have helped. So would the ability to call for backup once the kelpie made its presence known.
Calling Vause was reflex. I would have done it without thought. Cut off from that access, I had time to think about the fact the witches had been right. One scale had given them Charybdis’s location. How many scales must the conclave have in evidence by now? How much other organic detritus that could power a divination or locator spell? So why hadn’t they found him? Stopped him? Why was he allowed to continue on unchecked? Why bother with the ruse of a cleanup crew at all if they had no intentions of capturing him?
The circle must be the key
. If Charybdis was being allowed to hunt, then it meant one thing. The conclave wanted that circle set, but why? As a magistrate, Vause was in this plot up to her neck, she had to be. That meant I couldn’t trust her with the kelpie’s whereabouts. Not until I understood the stakes of the game we all played. For now Graeson and I would see this through, together, and we would decide how to handle the beast once we captured it.
Fae were an invasive species as far as most wargs were concerned. Even without the urge to avenge his sister riding him, Graeson didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would risk turning the kelpie over to the conclave for punishment. He was mistrustful of them and would take matters into his own claws if I didn’t stop him first. The problem being I was having trust issues myself.
A honey-colored wolf ranged in wide circles, stopping now and then to move in for a scratch between the ears before darting off in pursuit of rodents. I had left exploration of the lake to the pack and headed inland on the off chance the kelpie had decided to flee the area after its brazen display. What had been the point of revealing itself? What was it trying to tell us? Show us? Or was I being paranoid, and it simply happened to cross our path?
Yeah. Right.
I lumbered over soggy ground and prayed the snakes kept to themselves. There were water moccasins in the area. The wargs had killed one near the porch. It was a petty concern in the grand scheme of things, but fearing the burn of venom from their bite helped distract from the sound of lapping waves and the fact mud slurped at my boots because I was in spitting distance of a massive body of water.
The ocean roared. Sand caked my feet. Lori screamed.
I crammed the past down before it choked me, and carried on.
As the pink fingers of dawn striated the sky, I came across a well-worn trail and thanked my lucky stars. It was packed higher than the surrounding area and sloped to drain. I stepped onto the path and followed it out of sight of the water until I reached a campground. Already I breathed easier. I gestured for Dell to hang back while I investigated.
Hunting wasn’t my thing. Fae didn’t need guns or permits. Their teeth and claws worked just fine. But I was pretty sure humans were allowed to hunt in certain tracts of national forests, which Charybdis frequented, and I had no clue if I should expect armed campers or not based on the season. Wolves weren’t on the menu for humans, I didn’t think, but I wasn’t about to take a chance on Dell getting hurt in case they mistook her “tame” behavior as sickness.
Picnic benches cozied up to simple black grills cemented into the ground on thick metal posts. A gleaming RV had claimed one slot in the modest lot marked with six parking spaces. A battered truck with a ratty camper shell occupied another. At the far end a boxy red subcompact car took up a space beside a simple dome tent pitched in the spot next to it.
A teenager with sleep-matted hair bulldozed me. “Have you seen a young girl?” Her fingers dug into my forearms. Delicate magic tickled my skin. Her classification popped into my head. Sylph. “This high? Brown hair? No? Did you see anyone in the water?”
Dread sent my stomach crashing into my toes, and I proceeded carefully. “Did you lose someone?”
“No. I didn’t lose her.” She blinked rapidly. “She knows we’re leaving this morning. She probably went to the lake to look for her stupid fish.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “Her mask is here. She never goes anywhere without it.”
I kept my voice level. “Her fish?”
“My sister caught a brim yesterday. It was her first catch. When she saw the hook in its mouth…” The girl heaved a long-suffering sigh. “She wanted to release it, but I’m not great with getting them off the hook. Its cheek tore. She begged me to let her keep it. She wanted to take it to a vet. The fish was hurt, and I didn’t want to deal with tears if it died, so I tossed it back before she could stop me. She’s been trying to find it again to check on it. I had to pull her out of the water last night.”
“I need you to take a deep breath, okay? I’m here to help, but I have to ask you a few questions. Did you hear anything strange last night?” The pitiful cries of an animal in distress… “Did you see anything unusual?”
“N-no.” She wiped her cheeks dry, and her red-rimmed eyes focused on me for the first time. I saw the moment she processed I wasn’t just another camper. I was too calm, and I asked too many questions. Ones she knew instinctively involved her missing sister. “Who are you?”
“Camille Ellis. I work for the Earthen Conclave.”
“I’m Daphne Tanner. My sister is Veronica.” Her voice went soft. “Roni.”
Roni Tanner. Another name etched into my memory. I hoped like Elizabeth McKenna, I would remember her as a girl who survived, and not one who was fallen.
“Are you familiar with the area?” I guided the young woman toward a composite bench, the type made from recycled plastic, and we sat across from one another. “What brought you out here?”
“I’m attending college out of state. I came home for the weekend, and Roni begged to go camping. Just us girls. Our folks come up here all the time, but they have an RV. It’s not really camping when you can watch TV and walk around in your bathrobe, you know?” Her gaze lit on their tent. “I can’t drive the RV anyway. It’s huge, and the roads out here…” Her bottom lip trembled. “Roni was guilt-tripping me about never spending time with her, so I borrowed a tent from a friend.” She glanced over at me. “One night. That was it. How did this happen?”
I took her hand and squeezed her fingers. “Walk me through what happened last night.”
“We ate around six. Roni was bored, and she wanted to search for that damn fish one more time before bed, but I was tired. I told her no. She wouldn’t listen when I said it had swam off to be with its family.” She made a wriggling motion with her hand. “I was scared it might be floating belly-up on top of the water if she went looking. I’ve been studying for finals, so I was wiped. I didn’t want more drama. We went to bed around eight. I should have heard her when she left the tent. She had to step over my head to get out, but I don’t know. She must have sneaked past me.”
Working under the assumption the kelpie’s actions were being orchestrated by a magic user, it made sense they might also be casting sleep enchantments on the victims’ families. All the better to lure the young and curious without getting caught.
“Is more help coming?” Daphne scanned the road behind me with a hopeful expression.
“I dropped my cell,” I lied. “I’ll have to wait for my backup to find me.” Her crestfallen acceptance forced me to act the part. Even if it got me in hot water with Graeson. “Unless… Do you have a phone I can borrow?”
“Sure.” She whipped it from her back pocket and pressed it into my hand. “I disabled the password so Roni could play games. Just swipe the lock screen and then dial.”
Possibilities and repercussions cascaded through my head as my fingers closed over the slim phone. This gave me an out if I wanted one. It meant I could call a cab and go home, leave the conclave to tidy up their own messes. Dialing in also meant placing a grief-stricken warg who had taken his vendetta too far into custody until the magistrates decided on a punishment for abducting one of their own. Graeson wasn’t in his right mind, kidnapping me proved that, but he was thinking clearer than Vause seemed to be. As tempting as it was to steal that promised call to Aunt Dot or leave the wargs to their scheming, I had to see this through. I was done running when others needed my help.
“Do you mind if I walk up the road a bit?” I propped my lips into a smile. “I’d prefer some privacy to make the call.”
“Oh. Sure.” Her brows pulled into a deep V in the center of her forehead. “I’ll go wait in the car.”
“Great.” I swiped my thumb and dialed random numbers. “I’ll handle this as quickly as possible so we can get more eyes out for your sister.”
Nodding, Daphne turned and started walking back to her vehicle. I took the road and made a beeline for the trees where I last saw the golden wolf.
I needed Graeson, and his wasn’t a number I could dial. It wasn’t like wolves carried phones in their fur suits. We’d have to do this the old-fashioned way, through a howl-o-gram.
“Dell.” I rustled a shrub with my foot. “Dell.” I shook a tree limb. “I need to get in touch with Graeson. Can you do that mind thing and send him a message?” Pitiful whimpers lured me deeper into the undergrowth. “Dell?”
“Right…” a drawn-out grunt, “…here.”
A pale figure curled into the fetal position rocked on the damp carpet of the forest floor. I shoved through the dense undergrowth and knelt at her side. “Are you all right?”
Her stiff limbs extended one by one, joints popping into alignment, until she managed to roll onto her back. Sweat slicked her skin, and her bare breasts jiggled from her shortness of breath. “I’m good.” She sprawled nude in the dirt without a hint of modesty and picked a skeletal leaf from her hair. “I can ring up Cord from here.”
“You’re going to howl like this?” The shock of finding her naked popped the words out of my mouth before my brain caught up to them. Unlike with Graeson, whose nakedness inspired bone-deep female appreciation, Dell’s nudity called my protective instincts to the fore. I would have offered her my jacket to cover herself if I’d worn one today.
“Um, no. That’s not how we operate.” She snorted. “Besides, we need to keep a low profile until the others arrive. Howling in wolf form would announce our position. Howling in human form, well, that’s not something that happens without four or five cases of beer involved.”
The pack bond. A ping of thought bounced off the inside of my skull before I realized I had reached out on reflex to grasp that golden highway before slamming into a roadblock. Damn it. One taste of their connection should not have left me starving for more.
Dell lifted her arm, clearly reading my mind without help from the bond, a smile dancing on her lips. “Or…you can tell him yourself.”
Dead in the Water (Gemini: A Black Dog Series Book 1) Page 14