Lunar Marked (Sky Brooks Series Book 4)

by McKenzie Hunter

  The tension on my hair was getting harder. It wasn’t a nervous tug, I felt like he was ripping the strands out of my scalp. “Ouch.”

  Threads of my hair slipped out of his hand as he unraveled it from around his fingers and released it. “I’m sorry. I knew someone powerful had to be behind this, the magic was too strong. I have blood wards around the retreat and they shattered them as though they were nothing more than a simple ward made by an amateur.” He came to his feet and started pacing. “I hope Samuel still has the third one.”

  Me, too, or we’re done. Ethos had his eyes set on controlling the otherworld and I doubt he had any restrictions limiting what he was willing to do to get it, including threatening to divest us of our ability to shift.

  “If he can’t read them, they are useless,” I said. “But the were-animals, how in the hell did he convince them to get involved?”

  “The Ares have been staying low for a while, but Sebastian suspected they would eventually be trouble. Anderson, their Alpha, gave us the impression he wanted to head more than a small pack. The thirst for more was there. He was just waiting for the opportunity. What’s better than aligning yourself with magic and power like Ethos’s? Ethos probably promised him this pack or something just as enticing,” Josh offered with a frown.

  “It seems like Ethos is creating alliances with everyone.” I told him everything that happened in the woods, including his attempt to get rid of Sebastian as a gift to me in order to allow my “lover” Ethan to take the position.

  “Lover? Ethan?” His brow furrowed.

  Yeah, focus on that part, not all the other horrific things I just told you. “I wonder if Anderson knows. Maybe he does and feels that being the Beta of everyone is still better,” I offered.

  He nodded absently. His thoughts were probably where mine were, on Ethos. He would be coming for me even more aggressively. I was his endgame, the key to his success, and he had an army of were-animals and a group of powerful witches as allies. The more I thought about it the sicker I got.

  Josh’s features were tight and withdrawn, desolation weighing down his movements, and he simply rested against the wall. Ethos wasn’t the only thing on his mind. “How is she?” I finally asked.

  Something changed—a torrent of magic was expelled, like a vacuum, suctioning out the oxygen in the room and replacing it with powerful layers of magic. I suspect this is what it felt like standing just inches from a tornado, bracing yourself to be yanked into the massive wind and hurled with force throughout the world without direction. Josh was magic. His emotions so entwined with it that he wasn't able to separate the two. I liked that he was stronger, but sometimes I wanted Josh, old Josh. The Josh I knew before secrets were revealed and he treated magic like a hobby and being near him and his magic was always comforting. His magic might not be dark but there was something different with it. I didn’t feel the need to possess it because I felt I would never be ever to completely control it, and like Ethos’s magic I felt like it was easier to lose control of it and become subservient and be used as a vessel to do its bidding.

  “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I’m sorry I made you leave, but I couldn’t let you see her like that,” he said softly. “I couldn’t do that to her.”

  Winter might have a lot of emotions but she seemed to be okay with expressing anger and disdain more than anything else. Affection and concern were something she displayed sparingly. It was shocking to see her respond like that. Was it just the loyalty that she had for the pack?

  Josh turned and studied me for a moment, in that way that made me question whether or not he could read thoughts. I was convinced that he and Ethan could communicate with each other in nonverbal ways. But Josh was always more perceptive than most people and tuned to the subtle nuances of emotions. Talking to him never felt invasive; even strangers seemed to consider him a friend.

  “I’m worried about her,” he admitted. “If he doesn’t recover …” His voice trailed off and sat next to me. When I sat up, he slipped his hand under mine and linked our fingers. “He means a lot to her. She will never admit it, but he does. If it weren’t for Sebastian, Winter would have been killed as a child.” The placid blue eyes displayed the same worry that I felt. It wasn’t just Winter who was taking it hard. “I’m assuming she never told you the story of how she came to live here in the states?”

  I shook my head.

  He released my hand, came to his feet and started to move slowly throughout the room. “I only know the story passed down from member to member. Ethan wasn’t the Beta then and Sebastian had only been the Alpha for just a year or two, I think.” He stopped pacing, considering his words very carefully. “There aren’t a lot were-snakes. Some like to guesstimate that there are about fifty. Winter is the only one I know personally. An anomaly that some people consider a curse.” He frowned, running nervous fingers through his hair.

  I waited patiently for him to continue, but whatever he was thinking about seemed to irritate him. The frown became a fixture on his face, deepening with each passing moment. A hard, coarse wave of magic shot through the room. It scraped across my skin; the smell of his old magic was still there, and little remnants of “old Josh” magic still lingered long after the assault of its stronger companion. Josh—our Josh—my Josh—was still there.

  “When she changed into a snake at four, her parents freaked out, especially since neither one was a were-animal.” He made a face and stopped moving. “I will keep my speculations to myself because they don’t put Winter’s mom in a favorable light. But I find it odd that Winter doesn’t have any of her dad’s features. Needless to say they tried to find an answer to why their child was turning into a snake. A shaman directed them to their city’s pack.” Josh inhaled and took a moment to exhale before he continued. “They accepted Winter into their pack, or so Winter’s mom thought. But they didn’t: their intentions were to “fix her” because turning into a snake was an abomination or the result of a curse. After a long pause, “They considered Winter someone they had to save the city from. You turn into a wolf every full moon, no one has problem with that. Change into an oversized house cat when Mercury rises, and it’s no big deal; but I guess turning into a snake during a lunar eclipse is the line in the sand. That’s the thing that is just too weird to exist,” he said with annoyed sarcasm. “The pack used all their resources to try to get rid of her curse and to rid the city of the dreaded ‘snake-girl.’ From my understanding, she had been to every witch, shaman, and magical being they could find to try to rid her of her curse. The Alpha decided if they couldn’t ‘fix’ her then they would have to get rid of her.” His face was red, jaw set as he clenched his teeth so hard that there was no way that it wasn’t painful.

  He started pacing again, but it didn’t help. He was still flushed, his hand brushing away the hair that used to being there—he must not be used to the new shorter cut. He went to his “tell,” biting on his nail bed. I waited for him to continue. “Winter’s mother found out their plans and I’m not sure how she did it, but she got in contact with Sebastian and within twenty-four hours he had returned from Egypt to the States with her and her family.”

  “That pack just gave Winter to him?” I inquired, surprised. It was hard to imagine an Alpha anywhere, that was as obstinate and dogmatic as Sebastian, allowing someone to overrule his decision.

  “Probably would have been better if they did, but of course they didn’t. Sebastian had to challenge the Alpha and take over the pack. He wasn’t the Elite then, but it really wouldn’t have mattered. That status doesn’t extend past the United States. But the rules of a challenge are standard everywhere. That day he challenged and won the position of Alpha. Of course the Beta challenged him and lost. The challenges continued until he had won against their five ranking pack members, and then Winter and her family were brought here. So she is alive because he pretty much demolished a pack to save her.”

  Sebastian was the king of jerks and definitely enjoyed wear
ing that crown, but he had a code that he lived by. Most of the time he seemed to be the only one privy to the boundaries and rules that made them, but this explained Winter’s blind loyalty to the pack—to Sebastian.

  Josh had taken a position near the door and I had a feeling he was itching to go check on Winter. “She’s the only were-snake we know of.”

  “Joan said there were more,” I said.

  The smile didn’t quite fully emerge; it was a polite response. “Ask her to introduce you to one. No one has ever seen another were-snake. There are rumors, but not one of them have been confirmed. I think it’s something we’ve perpetuated because Winter isn’t the type who enjoys the “special snowflake” title. She needed to think she wasn’t the only one, but based on what I’ve seen, she is.”

  Winter has it right, it’s never a good thing to be a special little snowflake. In the human world, you were adored and received accolades for being unique. In the otherworld, it could get you on the short list for being put down like a disease-ridden animal.

  But knowing that Winter might be the only were-snake made her ability to control her animal half even more impressive. How did she learn so much about herself? “She didn’t have anyone to help her with learning to shift?”

  He shook his head. “Everything she’s learned she did by trial and error. Even learning how to shift intentionally. She’s one of the few who can’t be assisted into animal form.”

  I could still hear noise coming from downstairs, and found comfort in it, but Josh didn’t seem to feel the same way. He went back to biting the bed of his nail.

  CHAPTER 7

  I was a half an hour behind Josh before going downstairs. I didn’t need to see the commotion. Each time I started downstairs I envisioned the grass, sodden with Sebastian’s blood, and the pools of it that met me at the entrance. Death and blood—I had seen so much of it, I figured at some point I would become immune to it. I was still waiting for that to happen.

  Preparing for the worst still hadn’t worked. Seeing Sebastian lying on the bed stilled, on machines, tubes connected to him, was harder than I expected. Ethan lay in the bed next to Sebastian in wolf form, identical marks on his body and blood staining around the open wounds. Gavin, also in animal form, was across the room propped on his paws. I’m sure his position hid similar wounds on his chest. It was something they’d done before, when I first encountered them and Steven was badly injured. The stronger members of the pack were able to absorb some of the injury, which in theory was fine and you saved the life of the one most severely injured, but then you had more injured pack members. I felt its magic and how it worked but I’m not capable of doing it. I assumed that Sebastian had only involved me because I needed it. Steven was dying and I felt helpless, and at that moment I felt like I needed to help—to make a difference.

  Winter and Steven wouldn’t be there. As a were-animal changed and not born, Steven couldn’t have helped, and Winter couldn’t because she was a lesser-species. They both would have had a harder time healing.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I finally asked Dr. Jeremy, who was sitting in his desk chair across the room. Acculturated to violence and near-death injuries, he usually handled crises and emergencies with the expertise and fortitude necessary to deal with such situations—usually with Kelly at his side. But she wasn’t around, and he seemed to feeling the effects of her absence.

  His shoulders dropped with his sigh as he looked over the room at the depleted bodies and our Alpha, who didn’t look like he was going to make it. “I don’t know. They weren’t regular bullets. His body was injected with silver upon impact. I think I flushed it all out, but if I didn’t, then he will heal slower, respond to things as though he is wholly human. I won’t know much more for a couple of hours.”

  That was about all I got from Dr. Jeremy before he began to go into medical terminology, giving complex explanation of his injuries. He was too kind to tell someone he didn’t want to be bothered, so he slipped into MD mode, giving information that a layman wouldn’t understand and eventually would give up on attempting. Kelly ordinarily was there to translate, and times like this I missed her even more. She was the emotion that no one would show, often found in the corner or giving a litany over someone.

  I went to Gavin first and softly said his name as I brushed his silken coat, black with an undertone of midnight blue, which made him one of the most beautiful animals in the pack. Lethargically he lifted his head, the marble eyes dull as he worked to keep them open. He leaned into me, and I started to stroke him until his massive head bumped me away, then a swipe of his paw nudged me even farther. That’s right. Stay true to yourself. Sick or well, you’re always a caustic tool.

  Josh sat in a chair next to his brother, his hands resting on the paw closest to him. Ethan’s eyes were open but he looked as though he was using all his strength to do so. Learning my lesson from Gavin, I simply said hi and started to walk away, when a claw caught the edge of my shirt and gave it a light tug. I sidled in close to him and moved slightly on the bed. Did he want me up there? His massive body took up most of it, so I sat sideways at the top. He dragged his body up a few inches and laid his head in my lap.

  I didn’t think I could doze off in such an uncomfortable position, but I had and was awakened by Ethan, who was showered, dressed, and looked nowhere near as worn as the wolf that was in my lap a few hours ago. But he was plagued by the same troubled eyes. Gavin, too, was up and dressed, and as usual he’d splayed in a corner where he seemed to become nothing but a shadow against it.

  Not creepy at all. Nope, totally normal. Gavin, you want to try to be more menacing and weird?

  Sebastian was no longer in the room. “Where is Sebastian?”

  “We moved him to another room.” The machines he was attached to were still in the infirmary: that was a good sign, so I didn’t understand why Ethan looked so bleak.

  “He’s better?”

  “It’s been twenty-four hours so we took him off. His wishes.”

  Twenty-four hours? How long had I slept?

  He fished a set of keys out of his pocket and handed them to me. “You have to leave. Your home has a blood ward and everything was changed early yesterday. It should be safe, but if you want to go back to the condo, I understand,” he said in a stolid voice. He barely made eye contact.

  Something was off. When I saw Steven and Winter walk past the door down the hall I had a strange feeling. Ethan wasn’t looking at me, but past me, speaking in that same tone they switched to with things that involved pack rules and laws. What happens after twenty-four hours? My heart raced, my thoughts murky and chaotic as I tried to think back to the classes. I tried to remember the rules. What happens when the Alpha can no longer lead? What was the procedure? Could he just leave? Did he face a challenge? Dammit, I wish I had listened instead of secretively watching videos and people doing stupid stunts on YouTube. I should have been listening to the boring history, the rules. They took him off the machines—were there some type of DNR rules? My head started to pound and I kept waiting for Ethan to look at me, but instead all I got was a stoic expression and no eye contact.

  They called it “relieving,” another soft word for euthanasia. Did he have a choice? Was this his choice? Did he feel that if he could no longer lead the pack he would rather be dead? Everything about our rules, codes, and dogmas is stupid. We weren’t animals, we weren’t soldiers. We were humans first. Ignore the fucking rules!

  Ignore Sebastian’s requests!

  I thought the words were only in my head until one look at Ethan, and I realized I had shouted them at him.

  The words were suspended in the air. I had said them. All the disdain and anger I had for the pack, for the rules, for this day had spilled out in an uncontrolled rant.

  Ethan looked at me, silently taking in my words, his face blank. I expected anger, censure, and a fervent rebuttal about how the rules kept us strong and were needed for our survival. But all I got was silence. They were th
e rules, and he would abide by them until his death, simply because they were pack rules. Other things he ignored with discretion, but the packs rules were sacred and he wouldn’t.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I finally said. The rules weren’t sacred to me—I couldn’t care less about them.

  “It’s not about your wants, Sky. I am tired, don’t make me force you out.”

  I started to cross my arms, a passive act of defiance, when another person passed the door. I knew very little about him, but I knew that Steven was sure that he wanted his position as fifth. Was this the changing of the guard? Were they so callous as to “relieve” Sebastian and then start promoting people? We were being attacked and I realized things had to be handled quickly, but it just made me angry and I was about to voice it when I looked at Ethan and stopped.

  I thought I’d see anger at my defiance, but it wasn’t there; instead, a hint of grief that must have been too great because he didn’t seem like he could hide it. The day had taken as much from me as it had from him. I could fight, defy, and scream like a banshee and at the end it, Ethan would go by the rule—Pack Rules.

  I dropped my arms and then my head. “Okay.”

  He lifted my chin until my eyes met his and then he kissed me gently on the lips. Controlled and empty and very unlike Ethan. As though everything he had to offer had been drained from him.

  My intentions were to go back to the condo, but I ended up at Quell’s. He studied me carefully as I followed him to his stairs in silence. He frowned, tracing the small line that Ethos had left on my neck when he pressed the knife to it. The cut was barely noticeable and tomorrow it would be gone, but the way Quell looked made me think that it looked worse than I remembered.