Starting with this damn stubborn lycan.
“I’m going to assume that you weren’t working on your own,” Ryder began in a conversational tone. He set the chalice aside on the stone floor and leaned forward, the dagger dangling in a relaxed grip. The lycan glared at him, a wariness creeping into his gaze that wasn’t there before. Good. So far everyone had underestimated him, but this lycan had seen what he’d done back at the Woodland den. He knew what he was capable of, and feared it. Ryder wasn’t averse to using a little fear to his advantage.
“Wolfsbane is so dangerous, it’s hard to come by, and most wolves won’t go anywhere near it, let alone carry it in a box and deliver it.” Ryder lifted up the blade and stared at it. “So someone told you to do it, and I have my suspicions, but I need you to confirm it. Who gave you the wolfsbane?”
The lycan bared his teeth. “I’m not telling you dick.”
Ryder concentrated on the blade, calling forth a little lightforce, just enough to make the blade glow with heat. He ignored Vassi’s gasp and thrust the dagger into the lycan’s other thigh, and listened to the high-pitched wail as the lycan thrashed in pain. The smell of scorched skin wafted through the air. Ryder arched an eyebrow. Kind of like bacon.
“Feel that, lycan? That’s your skin burning from the inside,” he said, leaning forward until his eyes were on level with the pain-filled prisoner, letting the lycan see his determination, his ruthlessness. “I can make it stop,” he murmured softly. “Hell, I can make it feel so good, you’ll want to bottle it up and crack it open for Christmas, but you’re going to have to tell me what I want to know. Otherwise I’ll keep using you as a pin cushion.”
He removed the dagger, then stabbed the lycan in the right shoulder. The lycan rocked back on the chair, screaming as the blade burned through tendon and muscle.
“Oh, God, okay,” the lycan groaned. “I got it from Rafe.”
Ryder nodded. He’d guessed as much, just needed to hear the lycan say it. “Why did Rafe want Jared dead?”
The man lowered his head. “This is pack business. I can’t tell you.”
Ryder twisted the dagger. “You made it my business when you brought your pack business into my clinic. Why did Rafe want Jared dead?”
The lycan gritted his teeth, the growl in his throat low and animalistic. “He didn’t,” he gasped. “We just wanted more land. We would have fought for it, but someone came up with this idea. We could either ask for a boon, or else take advantage while Alpine Pack sorted out who their new alpha prime would be. Either way, we could win.”
Obviously they hadn’t met Matthias, Ryder thought. From what he’d witnessed, the white wolf would ferociously defend the Alpine Pack. He frowned. There was something else, though, something possibly more disturbing. “Someone? Who?”
The lycan shook his head. “I don’t know,” he panted, sweat dripping off the end of his nose. “Neither does Rafe.”
Ryder arched an eyebrow. “You don’t know where the idea came from? Come on, you were ready to start tribal warfare and you don’t know why?”
The lycan shook his head. “I swear, we just received encrypted emails from someone, we don’t know who.”
Ryder glanced over his shoulder at Vassi. The man’s story was ludicrous, so ludicrous he had to wonder why he’d come up with such an outrageous lie and expect to be believed … unless it wasn’t a lie.
And his sexy little vamp seemed to have her own inbuilt lie-detector. Her eyebrows rose as she met his gaze.
“What?” she asked, her tone innocent.
“Is he lying?”
“How would I know?”
“Well, you seemed to have a pretty good idea back at the den.”
She shrugged. “Hugo gave me a creepy feeling, that’s all.”
He rolled his eyes. “Rafe.”
“Whatever.”
“How is it that you get Dave’s name right, but nobody else’s?”
She looked at him as though the answer was obvious. “Because he’s a Dave.” She folded her arms, trying to avoid his gaze. “For what it’s worth, this guy doesn’t feel so creepy.”
He stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to meet his gaze, which she did, reluctantly and ever so briefly. She was—scared. He blinked. She was scared, damn it. Of him? She’d already shown him her little skill, did she think he didn’t know? Or maybe she didn’t want him to know. He sighed. He didn’t know why. Surely, after everything they’d been through, she knew he wasn’t a threat to her. He’d just have to convince her that her secret was safe with him—later.
His gaze shifted to the witch leaning nonchalantly against the rock wall, who shrugged as well, only his attempt at looking innocent was almost laughable.
Ryder turned back to the lycan, frowning. So Woodland was behind the wolfsbane in his clinic. He could see what their gain would be, but who had put them up to it?
He leaned forward. “Where did you get the wolfsbane from? Or should I say, from whom?” Wolfsbane and verbena were hard to come by, the werewolves and vampires had tried to destroy all stock in an effort to eradicate the weapons that could kill them, but there were still places that some people knew of but most didn’t openly talk about, where the poisons could still be purchased. His gaze slid back to Dave. Like witches.
The lycan shook his head. “I don’t know.” He cried out when Ryder twisted the blade again. “I swear, I don’t know. My job was to deliver it to you. Rafe gave it to me. I think it was just delivered to us, we have no idea who sent it. It was better for everyone, that way.”
“Better?” Dave asked, and Ryder sensed the witch’s interest.
The lycan nodded. “Yeah. Better we don’t know.”
Ryder glanced at Vassi, who gave him that ridiculous wide-eyed stare, before she lifted one shoulder. “Again, not so creepy.”
He finally nodded, satisfied he’d gotten as much information as he could out of the lycan. He called forth a flare of lightforce, sending it down the blade as he slowly withdrew it. The lycan screamed, then bellowed when Ryder pressed the scalding blade against the skin, sealing and cauterising the wound. He then pulled the power back within, and handed the cooled dagger back to Dave.
Dave arched an eyebrow. “You know werewolves self-heal, right?”
Ryder smiled. “Yes. But that will still leave a scar.”
Dave nodded in approval, then strode over to the nearly unconscious lycan. He pulled a drawstring bag out of his back pocket and opened it, pulling out a pinch of herbs and waving it under the lycan’s nose. The lycan startled awake at the scent, his pupils dilating until his iris was completely black.
“Do your thing, Vassi.”
Vassi frowned, her hands going to her hips. “You had a compulsion concoction this whole time, and you’re only now bringing it out? We could have used it hours ago and avoided all this,” she said, waving a hand at the bloodied lycan.
Dave tsked. “Where’s the fun in that?”
* * *
Vassi looked up as Dave entered the cavern again, dusting off his hands.
“Right. I dumped him a couple of blocks from here. When he wakes up he’ll have no memory of what happened—or how he got his new scar. Oh, and here.” The muscular witch tossed her a little pouch, and she glanced inside. A compulsion concoction, one to replace the lipstick Max had taken from her.
“Thanks, Dave,” she said quietly.
“That should tide you over until you visit your mother. Best you do it before you get more lycans a-courting. Just remember, no compulsion spell can permanently wipe memory—a scent, a familiar sight—can always drag those hidden memories back.”
She nodded. Perhaps that explained why Max remembered their kiss. She’d never kissed a liar more than once. Not until her client. “I still think we should have kept him.”
“He’s not a pet, Vass. He’d probably just pee all over the place and chew on anything he could get his teeth on.”
She hadn’t agreed with letting the lycan go
, had wanted to keep him until they could get him to testify in court, but Max had insisted. He’d served his purpose, they had other avenues to pursue. She glanced over at her client, sitting at the wooden table Dave used as a witchy-woo cook-up counter. He’d surprised her—on so many levels.
When she’d first met him, he’d been in a vulnerable position. Handcuffed, wounded, yet he’d still had a mild strength about him. He’d allowed her to take charge of their situation, she recognised that now. She’d called the shots, but only because he let her. She’d seen that knife glow and didn’t know what the hell to think. There was something hidden, something mystical about her ‘mostly human’ companion that both intrigued and frightened her. What she had considered a mild strength was more like an unbreakable wall of ruthlessness.
He’d been quiet since Dave had left with the lycan. She grimaced. She wasn’t sure where they went from here. Someone had used Woodland Pack, just as they’d used him—but who?
“I’m not sure what the next step should be,” she admitted into the cavern. Her client finally looked up at her, his blue eyes almost silver in the candlelight.
“The communication Woodland received was encrypted. Someone went to great lengths to coordinate this from a distance, and they would have taken every precaution. I don’t think we’ll be able to track them, they’ve been so sophisticated, they would have made those emails untraceable.” He rose from the table. “We follow the wolfsbane.”
Vassi frowned. “How? It’s not like you can pick it up from the health food aisle at your local supermarket. I wouldn’t know where to begin to look for something the werewolves have tried very hard to eradicate.”
Max nodded. “True. We don’t know. But you do,” he said, shifting his gaze to Dave.
Dave stood with his feet apart and folded his arms, looking a little like a fallen angel with a bad attitude—and sunglasses. He smiled. “What’s in it for me?”
Vassi rolled her eyes. She’d thought vampires were good at striking bargains to get what they want, but Dave put every vampire she knew to shame. Except for maybe Vivianne Marchetta, but she was in a league all on her own.
“What do you want?” she sighed.
“Same as before,” he said, lifting his chin to Max. “Anything, anytime.”
Vassi bit her lip. Owing two favours to a witch could be hazardous to one’s health, but she had no idea how to progress from here, and neither did Max.
Max inclined his head. “Fine.”
“Okay, then. You know the rules—” Dave started.
“Yes, we know the rules,” Vassi interrupted. “No innocents are harmed—”
“And we do everything your way,” Max finished dryly.
Dave smiled. “That’s the spirit.” He jerked his head back, indicating they follow him. “It’s still daylight. We’ll head out in the evening.”
Vassi shook her head. “I’m good, we can go out now, if you like.”
Dave walked down a tunnel, the occasional flaming torch casting a golden glow over his skin as he passed. “It’s not for you, Vassi. The person we need to speak to won’t be available until later. You guys may as well crash here for a couple of hours, then we’ll head out.”
He stopped in front of a large wooden door, banded with iron for extra support. He flicked his hand and the door swung open. Vassi gasped at the slight rushing noise, then the candles within the room flickered to life, revealing the interior of the room in a warm, intimate glow. Inside was a massive bedroom, with thick brocade drapes falling from ceiling to floor, masking the rock walls, a wardrobe and chest of drawers taking up space on one side of the room, and a very large bed in the middle of the room that looked like it could hold at least two Daves and maybe a bear like Taylor Henley.
She halted just inside the doorway as Max wandered around the room.
“There’s only one bed,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth to her friend.
Dave snorted. “We’re all adults here, Vass. You guys are jonesing so hard for each other I can practically smell it—and I’m not a shifter.” He backed away from the doorway. “I’m heading upstairs,” he said to Max, then held his hand to his mouth. “That way you can make as much noise as you want,” he said in a stage whisper she was sure her mother could hear across town.
She closed her eyes in mortification as the bedroom door slammed, and Dave’s annoying whistling slowly died away as he left.
She heard a breathy chuckle behind her, and turned to look up at the man who stood in the middle of the bedroom built for sin. Right next to that bed.
Chapter Twelve
“He’s quite a character,” Max observed as he slid his jacket off his broad shoulders, his blue eyes watching her.
“That he is,” she said in agreement as Max strode over to the wardrobe and hung up his jacket, the muscles of his back and shoulders moving under the smooth cotton of his long-sleeved t-shirt.
“And quite the matchmaker, from the looks of things.”
She frowned. “Yeah, although he likes to keep that side well-hidden, apparently.” He’d never shown any inclination to set her up before now. She eyed the man across the room from her, the one that was watching her as intently as she was trying not to watch him.
“Must be the witch in him. You know how they like to meddle.”
Vassi smiled. “That they do.”
He took a step toward her, then another, his long legs easily shrinking the distance between them until he was standing in front of her. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his gaze never leaving hers.
“So, what do you want to do?” his voice was like a low, sensual invitation, curling inside her with a slow warmth that was tempting to embrace. “Do you want to … talk?”
She blinked. Talk. “Yes,” she said, clutching onto the lifeline he offered her. “Let’s talk.” She stepped away, shrugging out of her jacket and laying it along the top of the dresser. “Why don’t we start with exactly what you did back there?”
He’d used magic, but nothing like she’d ever seen. Knowing he held that much power within, yet had never used it against her, was reassuring, but she’d still like to know what she was up against.
She pursed her lips. That sounded adversarial. She couldn’t help it, her instinct for self-preservation was strong.
He smiled at her, his expression a little knowing, a little wicked. “Only if you share, too.” He sat down on the bed and wiggled up against the wooden headboard. He even scooted sexily. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she was desperately trying to hold on to the thought that this was her client. Handsome, darkly sexy, but her client.
He hadn’t specified exactly what he wanted to share. She could work with that.
“Fine. So, how did you do that?”
He stared at her, his look calculating, before finally relaxing his shoulders. “I’m a light warrior.”
Her eyebrows rose. Okay, so that wasn’t what she’d expected. “I thought they didn’t exist anymore.”
His smile broadened as he lifted his hands, palms up. “Well, just like Old Irondell, we endure.”
She shook her head as she stepped closer. “I thought you all died out with The Troubles.”
He shrugged. “We came close. Decided it was best if everyone thought that.”
She wracked her brain, trying to remember all the history lessons she’d sat through. “If I remember correctly, light warriors were some secret society that could use light as a weapon? And that during The Troubles there was so much political in-fighting that they ended up destroying themselves …?” she asked, frowning with uncertainty. They had become but a footnote in history texts since the time of the Reformation.
Max grimaced. “Not quite. Yes, things got very heated. We were mercenary clans, and were hired for our skills in both warfare and medicine, and sometimes that meant light warriors were pitted against each other by their allies …”
“So, like some fairy ninja?”
His brow dipped.
“Again—not quite. But we learned that those for whom we fought viewed us as expendable commodities, collateral damage, if you will. They were happy to pit us against each other, and didn’t really care that we were wiping out a race.” He shrugged. “So we stopped.”
Vassi blinked. “You stopped? Just like that?”
He inclined his head. “Well, it’s a little more complicated. When we refused to fight, those who thought they’d bought our loyalty along with our force weren’t happy. Every colony, pack, pride, sleuth, gang, flock, pod, etc. we’d ever worked for made it their mission to hunt us down. We were too dangerous to be left to our own devices.”
She gaped. “You were hunted?”
“Not me, personally. My ancestors. We were driven into hiding. Fortunately we’re good at evading hunters.”
“Ah, like those guardians in the forest.”
He smiled. “Yes. So now we don’t advertise that light warriors still walk amongst the living.”
“How did you escape the Woodland den?” She’d been trying to figure out how he’d done it.
“I just sent out a little blast. The shock of it knocks them out.”
“A little blast,” she repeated weakly. She’d felt the effects of that so-called little blast. She’d hate to see him make an effort. She was just beginning to see how dangerous he could be.
His mouth tightened as he correctly read her wariness. “I’m not a monster, Vassiliki. I’m a dentist.”
She bit her lip. “Some might argue they’re one and the same.” He’d mentioned something about medicine. “How does all the healing fit into everything?”
He shrugged. “Like everything, there is balance. We can use our light to heal—or destroy.” His expression saddened. “I prefer healing people with my lightforce instead of—the other.”
The other meaning killing them. Wow.
“So what exactly can you do?” she asked.
He smiled and waggled his eyebrows. “Oh, I can show you many things,” he said in a low voice. He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers, and the room was cast into darkness. She gasped, trying to adjust her night vision. They were underground, though, and no light whatsoever filtered down to their level.
Tribal Law Page 11