by Jayne Hawke
“One in five?” Sky said with a grin.
10
“IS THAT THE BLACKTHORNES?” Briar said in a whisper.
I looked out the window, and sure enough, the Blackthornes were standing on our porch. No good came from this. They were supposed to be away for a few more weeks. I’d been hoping they never came back.
I got out of the car and kept the rest of my pack behind me as I ran my hand over the knife on my hip.
“And what brings you here today?” I asked.
“We seem to have been having some trouble getting in touch with our son,” the woman said.
“That is a shame. We don’t have him hidden in a closet anywhere. So, if you’d kindly get out of my territory,” I said.
“The funny thing is, the last we heard from him, he was setting out to make you our pet,” the woman said.
“He clearly didn’t make it. Perhaps he got side-tracked by a pretty face.”
“Logan was devoted to his work.”
I unsheathed my knife.
“Get out of my territory.”
“Who killed him?”
“How am I supposed to know?” I growled.
Of course, I knew, but if I admitted to it then there was potential for trouble with the council.
Footsteps came from the woods around us.
I snorted.
“You’re so weak you had to bring goons with you.”
“You killed my son! We are here to slaughter you like the feral beasts that you are,” the woman spat.
“Now that’s just not very nice,” I said.
I felt the magic swell where Sky summoned her swords and began weaving something. Briar and Adam were just behind me, their wolves barely below the surface. My pack was ready.
“You will pay for what you did,” the man said.
I couldn’t remember their names. I knew they were dangerous hunters, and that was all the information my mind had held onto.
“You’re making a lot of assumptions,” Sky said.
“This is none of your business, witch,” the woman hissed.
“You’re threatening my friends.”
The woman made a small hand gesture, and the rest of the hunters began moving out of the woods to circle around us. I allowed my wolf side far enough forward to lean on its strength, speed, and fighting instincts. This was going to get bloody.
I could hear Cole’s voice in my mind telling me that this would have long-term repercussions, how I should be thinking more politically. He wasn’t here to hold me back or to think like the councilman and alpha he was.
The woman went straight for me. Rage was clouding her judgement and adding a fierce glow to her eyes. I wondered if she was using some form of magic. Her first blow was far harder than I had expected. It had appeared clumsy and slow. I went to sidestep it, but suddenly her fist was breaking my ribs. The pain sharpened my mind and made something click within me. They were a threat to my pack and all of garou kind. It was time to remove them from existence.
My knife was in my hand, a familiar extension of myself, as the calm certainty of battle descended over me. There was an eerie distance between me and the fight raging around me. Pain blossomed and faded again, but it was fuzzy and irrelevant. There was nothing but the need to protect my garou and ensure the safety of my pack for the future.
Blood dripped from my hands as I watched the Blackthorne woman’s eyes go wide and heard her heart stutter within her chest. Surprise tugged at her mouth, making it pull into an unpleasant O shape as her body collapsed. It took a few moments for the spark to leave her eyes as her heart sputtered within her broken chest. There was nothing left but a bag of bones and puddle of blood. She would never hurt one of my kind again.
Briar and Adam were holding their own in their wolf forms. The hunters were experienced, but nothing could have prepared for them for a wrathful guardian and a pair of witches.
Sky wasted no time in cutting them down with her pitch-black swords. The blades sliced through the warm flesh of the hunters, leaving clean lines in their wake. The stench of death filled the space, wiping away the soft hints of Cole’s scent. I snarled, feeling the anger flare at the hunters and all that they had done. This was far more than trying to hurt us. They had caused countless deaths over the decades and centuries.
I raced through the woods after the last hunter and jumped on his back. I sank my clawed fingertips deep into his neck and pulled lumps of flesh free before he dropped with a gurgle. Never again would they harm a garou.
11
Briar was cleaning the kitchen while the rest of us sat quietly, lost in our thoughts. The rage and clarity that came with my guardian side had slipped away, leaving me with the reality of what we’d done. Unlike the fae who vanished with a puff of glitter, the hunters were human. They left behind messy bodies that needed to be disposed of.
It had been an unpleasant job, but a necessary one. Amy was weaving some magic to keep the human police from looking around for those hunters. How many garou lives had they taken over the years? How many had we saved by removing them from the world?
“The council will not be happy,” Sky finally said.
Her phone rang again, and she ignored it again.
Her face was growing tighter with every ignored call. She glared at her phone as though contemplating setting it on fire. The sound of her ringtone was beginning to set my teeth on edge.
I squeezed my eyes closed. I hadn’t thought about the council and their thoughts. The hunters were something of a grey area. We could fight them in self-defence, but there was supposedly some sort of truce between us. That meant that the hunters didn’t come after us unless we started trouble, and we didn’t go after them. I’d screwed that up. Now there could be a small war between hunters and the other supernatural beings.
I groaned and buried my head in my arms on the table. This was going from bad to worse.
“How am I supposed to handle them?”
Sky shrugged.
“No idea. My coven usually deals with them.”
That wasn’t in the slightest bit helpful. I glanced over and saw that Sky was beginning to retreat into her head. I needed her there with me.
The council put people who broke the laws in a deep dark pit.
I sighed.
“Does my being a guardian give me a loop-hole or something?”
It was a bit of a long shot, but I had to ask. We had lost Cole; I couldn’t leave the siblings to fend for themselves again. They were just starting to get their feet under them.
“Probably,” Sky said with a shrug.
She was staring at her phone and poking at it with firm jabbing gestures. Her gaze was distant, and her mouth was pressed into a thin line. Gone was the usual vibrant witch.
“Found something good?”
“No. Trying to decide if I want Chinese or pizza,” Sky said distractedly.
There was no way that she was just thinking about her stomach. Everything about her was tight with tension and preparation for something far bloodier than a delivery guy.
“Why are you avoiding your coven?” I asked.
This needed to be resolved. I needed her head in the game.
“It’s complicated.”
She didn’t look up from her phone. I wasn’t going to let this go.
“Simplify it.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
I resisted the urge to growl at her.
“Stop making excuses.”
“I’m just having a bit of trouble with the coven and my place in it. It’s normal.”
It didn’t sound normal, but I knew when to stop pushing.
SKY HAD DISAPPEARED with muttered reasons into town somewhere. Briar and Adam had settled on pizza, and I didn’t care much. Amy sat on the couch with me while I trawled through the Grim looking for anything that could be used to figure out what we needed.
The pieces of our little pack weren’t sitting together correctly, and it ate at me. I knew that I
was supposed to pull everyone together, but I didn’t know how. Sky refused to open up and talk to me, but she wasn’t pack so I couldn’t just alpha-glare her into talking. The siblings were doing their best, but I saw through their brave faces. They were terrified they’d be without a pack again.
I’d found that Natasha had once been someone, and she blamed Cole for the fall of her pack. The Bellefleurs, Loxwoods, Canagans, and O’Connells had once been the four primary packs in the north. They owned and maintained the largest territories and had the dominant members on the garou councils. The Bellefleurs had begun running into trouble, but that looked as though it was rectified by the engagement between Natasha and Cole.
I couldn’t help but smirk when I saw the look of dismay on Cole’s face in the photo where they were officially engaged. It wasn’t a pairing of love, but a political one. There were notes about how they grew to care for each other, but I skimmed over those. It was far easier to revel in my delight at Cole’s displeasure at being stuck with her than to consider he did have feelings for her.
When the Loxwood pack was slaughtered by the blood witches, the Bellefleurs were starting to lose their grip on everything. The Loxwoods had kept them afloat both politically and financially, but then they were gone. The final straw was when Cole cancelled the engagement to Natasha. Her pack was pulled apart and lost everything.
It was hard to see exactly what happened after that. I got the impression that Natasha managed to keep hold of a small sliver of their former territory, but the rest of the pack moved far away to join other packs. Natasha’s parents were ashamed and blamed her before they were killed by hunters. I suspected that she had killed them herself, but there was no evidence of that.
That explained why Natasha wanted to sacrifice Cole, but it didn’t help me see why or how she got close to the Apophis witch. I groaned and looked around the room, needing a break from the laptop screen.
“She’s torn between two gods.”
I frowned at Amy.
“What, now?”
She gave me a sad smile.
“Sky. She’s torn between two gods.”
I couldn’t imagine how that must have felt. As far as I understood it, the god a witch was tied to had their claws in the witch’s very soul.
“That sounds really painful.”
Amy’s smile widened a touch. She relaxed and shifted the laptop.
“She was handed to the Morrigan when she was born, as is normal in covens. Then when she started coming into her magic, I’d guess around nine given her talent, the Morrigan officially chose and claimed her. However, another god, and my money’s on Set, is trying to claim her. They’re vying for her attention, and that’s a very difficult thing.”
The consequences seemed huge, and the pressure of making that decision must have been unbearable. Yet I couldn’t help but think that must also have been an honour. To have not one, but two, gods choose you.
I went back and forth on it in my mind. I didn’t know much about either of the gods, but witches seemed to bow and scrape to their gods. The gods controlled their magic. I thought that I was far better off staying off of their radar.
“What happens if she chooses Set? I don’t know much about him.”
Amy shrugged.
“She’ll be kicked out of her coven and have to become a solitary witch. Her magic will transition over to Set’s. He’s a complicated deity. A lot of people consider him to be something akin to the devil; however, that is similar to the way Christianity turned a lot of pagan things into demons and the like. Set was originally a god of chaos and storms, but he was also a protector. He protected Ra from Apophis every night, and many people turned to him for protection of their homes. He was viewed in a very positive light, originally.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“You said that way too casually. And I’m assuming that means there’ll be some stigma if she chooses Set?”
Amy gave a small nod.
“It will be very painful. She’ll lose everything she ever knew, and the transition in magic will be difficult. And yes. Set witches aren’t always well received within the community. Many believe that the chaos aspect is too dark, and they believe that Set is more the darker, devil form.”
“What do you think?”
Amy smiled, a gentle knowing smile.
“I think that Sky is a protector by nature.”
I squeezed Amy’s arm, knowing that she was talking from experience.
“I got extra pizza because wolves eat an obscene amount,” Sky shouted.
Briar went rushing into the hallway, and I heard the sound of her absconding with half of the pizza boxes and running to re-join Adam. I wasn’t entirely sure what the siblings were doing up there in their rooms, but I left them to it. It seemed better to let them hide from the stress and tension if they were so inclined.
“Come on before the terrible twosome eat the lot,” Sky said.
“Don’t say anything. She’ll talk when she’s ready,” Amy whispered.
I nodded. It sounded like a difficult topic.
“We can trust her, right?” I whispered back to Amy.
“More than anyone else.”
I felt relief as an unseen weight lifted. Sky was a good warrior, and beginning to become a friend. We needed all the help we could get with this situation.
“Find anything while I was gone?” Sky asked.
I stole two pizza boxes from the four-box heap Briar had claimed. Briar grinned at me before she stuffed most of an entire slice in her mouth.
“Such ladylike behaviour,” I teased.
She swallowed down her food and grinned even more broadly at me.
I shook my head.
“Not really. I got the details on Natasha’s hate of Cole, but that doesn’t tell us anything about the Apophis witch. You?”
Sky wrinkled her nose.
“I have a couple of leads. I’m hoping to have something workable tomorrow.”
“Tell me,” I demanded.
Sky rolled her eyes.
“I’ll tell you when I have something. Amy, got anything?”
Amy placed a large pitcher of ice water in the middle of the table.
“I’m working on some location-finding stuff. It’s difficult as I can’t quite pin down the witch’s magic. That’s the problem with chaos.”
Sky nodded.
I was itching to get going, but hassling the witches wasn’t going to achieve that.
“Keep digging. Into the witch and Natasha,” Sky said around a bite of pizza.
“We’ve been talking to our people,” Adam said.
He had somehow managed to come down the stairs silently. I’d almost jumped when he spoke.
“You have people?” Amy asked.
Adam looked down and away.
“Yea. We do. Anyway, there’s a fae thing going on. That uprising those pixies talked about in the cabin.”
I wrinkled my nose.
“They have one or two of those a year.”
“This is different. They say they have witches on board.”
I looked between Sky and Amy.
“It’s not entirely unlikely. Some smaller covens are desperate for power,” Amy said.
“Are they going to interfere with our hunt for the Apophis witch?” I asked.
“Maybe. We’re not sure yet. We need more information,” Adam said.
I exhaled slowly. The fae were such a pain in my ass.
“I vote we ignore it,” Sky said.
“Agreed,” I added.
“The fae are always pushing and trying to claim their piece of the earth plane. It never gets that far, and I’m pretty sure they have people devoted specifically to making sure it stays that way. Let the specialists handle it, and we’ll focus on our problem,” Sky said.
I took another piece of pizza and agreed with her.
“What’s their deal, anyway?” Briar added.
“Some people think they just want land and power, others think
that Fae is losing its magic so they need to flee here. I once heard someone say they thought they could steal the gods’ magic if they got a good grip on the Earth plane,” Sky said.
Amy laughed.
“The very idea of them stealing the gods’ magic is completely absurd,” Amy said between laughs.
“I wouldn’t put anything past the fae,” Sky said.
“Is it true there are witches who capture them and try to harness their magic?” Briar asked as she sat on the arm of the couch.
I guarded my pizza with bared teeth. Briar quickly looked away.
“There are covens who try,” Amy said.
“Some people are desperate enough to try anything, but there are those ruled by their curiosity. They have to pull things apart to see how they work,” Sky said.
I wrinkled my nose, trying to hide my horror and understanding. There were people who kept garou as pets. It wasn’t a surprise that there were those who cut us into small pieces just to see how we ticked.
12
AN UNFAMILIAR SET OF tyres came up the driveway and I tensed, wondering who was approaching my home now. Briar was at my back in her wolf form, hackles raised and teeth bared as I opened the door.
The car in question was a bland black car like those driven by people in upper management who wanted to blend in with their fellows. A pair of older people stepped out of the car. Each had touches of silver at their temples and hard-worn faces showing the creases of time. I sighed and held my hand out flat to tell Briar to remain still. They were councilmen.
The woman, a witch judging from the pendant and the crackle of magic as she held my gaze, held her mouth in a thin line. I beamed at her; I’d had more than my fill of witches and was not in the mood to be chewed out. Her nostrils flared and her magic pulled tight around her, adding a cold steely grey to her dark blue eyes.
The old cougar shifter with his tawny blond hair approached me first. His golden eyes pierced mine. Flickers of the dark markings smudged his cheekbones. I refused to look away and took a step forward. They were in my territory, and I wasn’t going to screw around showing submission. Council be damned.