My legs are shaky as I crawl out of the bed. I need a few of the potions that I normally reserve for emergencies with the neckers. I yank my pants on underneath the hospital gown, then drop toss it on the bed and reach my hand back for a shirt.
“What the fuck happened to your arms?”
I snatch my hand back, trying to hide the welts even though it’s too late for that.
“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” I say quickly. “Just give me a shirt.”
“Those look new. Did someone hurt you?”
I give up on modesty and turn around, hands on my hips. “No one hurt me. Just give me the damn shirt.”
“Your boobs aren’t going to make me forget my question. What the fuck did you do, Livvy?”
I bite my tongue to keep from yelling at him. I can’t explain this without risking both our lives and everything I’ve worked to build here. My mother had made me swear to never tell anyone, not for any reason. It’s the only promise to her I haven’t broken yet.
“It was a brewing accident,” I lie. “It’s embarrassing and doesn’t matter and I don’t want to talk about it.”
I thrust out my hand again, barely stopping myself from stomping my foot too. Patrick glares at me but hands the shirt over. I slip both arms into the shirt.
There’s a perfunctory knock on the door, then Reilly walks in followed by Georgia and Javier. Reilly’s eyebrows shoot up as I hurry to pull the shirt the rest of the way on.
Javier looks between me and Patrick, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Georgia brushes past them both, completely unconcerned. I finish buttoning the shirt before I look at them again.
“I seem to have arrived five minutes too late,” Reilly says as he plops down in the only remaining chair. “What did I miss?”
I roll my eyes. “Glad to see you’re alright, Georgia.”
“I am glad to see the same. I was concerned you were dead when I first saw you,” Georgia says matter of factly. “You were twitching.”
“That’s disturbing,” I say, raising a brow. “How is your wolf? I can still heal him tonight if I need to.”
Georgia frowns. “You don’t look like you’re in any shape to heal.”
I shrug. “My magic is fine. You said he was getting worse and no good will come from waiting.”
“If you are sure,” Olivia agrees. Her fingers loosen their grip on the arms of the chair like she’s relieved. “I’ll have him brought to your house.”
This is why she’s my favorite. She doesn’t argue or baby me.
“Bring him to the clanhouse actually,” I say.
Javier breathes an audible sigh of relief behind me. I’m not sure what Reilly is thinking, but he doesn’t look upset. I would thank him for whatever he did to help Patrick, but considering he took advantage of the situation to try to extort information from me, he can go fuck himself.
“The doctors aren’t going to like you leaving like this,” Javier says, already hovering. This is why he’s my second least favorite. Reilly still holds the title of first.
“They can just try and stop me.”
Reilly chuckles, and Javier glares at him. I guess Javier got over the formality from when they first met.
“Who even called all of you?” I ask
“I did,” Georgia said. “I didn’t know of any family, but I had Lydia’s number.”
“Lydia is harassing Chief Timmons for answers currently,” Javier says, answering my question before I ask it.
“Has anyone heard from Maybelle?” I ask, suddenly worried. It didn’t look like anyone was there when I stopped by, but...
“Lydia said she was at the police station,” Javier says.
“Does someone have my keys?” I ask, patting at my pockets.
Patrick winces. “About that.”
11
The phone rings and goes to voicemail once again. I sigh and drop my phone in my lap. I was hoping to talk to Maybelle tonight. I’m not sure when I’ll make it into town again.
I slouch down in the backseat Javier’s sleek black car, arms crossed, and glare out the window. Reilly is on his way to the police station, and I’m relieved to be rid of him for a little while at least, but I wish I was there with him. I want answers.
“I still can’t believe my car is totaled,” I mutter.
“The car wasn’t that great,” Patrick offers.
“It was paid off!” I throw my hands up in the air, exasperated.
“You can use one of mine until you can afford a replacement,” Javier says from the front seat.
“Not the point,” I grumble as we pull into the driveway. My car is gone, and so is my chance at making a decent living. Maybe I can guilt Javier into giving me a raise. I think I’ve earned it.
Javier drives past the house to the garage and parks in an open slot. It’s practically a parking lot back here with all of the cars for the vampires and the neckers. Only Javier’s cars are in the garage itself though.
Javier’s phone rings as we get out of the car and he hurries into the house. Patrick and I follow. He’s tense as we walk in, his nose twitching as he looks around.
There’s a vampire, whose name I’ve forgotten, downstairs. He stares wide-eyed at Patrick then scurries off. Most likely to share the latest gossip with the other clan members.
Having Patrick back at the clanhouse makes everything feel right. He slings an arm around my shoulders as we walk into the kitchen, his fingers tight. I pat his hand comfortingly. It’s always awkward to come back after a dramatic exit.
Georgia won’t be here for a little while, and I’m hungry. My chest is starting to ache again, and my cheek is still swollen. I need food. Or a drink.
Patrick hops up on the counter and I open the door to the freezer and dig out some ice. I wrap it up in a towel and hold it to my cheek.
“You think they have any tequila hidden in here?” I ask, opening a couple of cabinets.
Emilio appears in the doorway. “We do not, but some can be acquired.”
“You never get me tequila when I ask for it,” Patrick says with a fake pout.
“You have returned,” Emilio says. I can’t tell if he’s pleased by this or not.
Patrick leans forward with a smile. “Did you miss me?”
“No,” Emilio frowns, turning a glare on Patrick before looking back at me. “Olivia, Javier instructed me to go to your house and bring you whatever you require. What do you need?”
“You need to bring Mr. Muffins here, I’m not leaving her alone at the house for a week if people are trying to kill me. So you’ll have to grab her food and her kitty litter. Don’t forget the canned food in the fridge either, or she’ll murder us all in our sleep.”
Emilio nods, taking my requests as seriously as I would expect.
“I need all of my medicinal brews. My cauldrons too,” I pause. The apothecary has been destroyed, I don’t actually need to brew anything anytime soon. “Just the brews will be good actually. I guess I’ll need a week’s worth of clothes too.”
“I’ll have it within the hour,” Emilio says with a short bow before turning and striding away.
“Don’t forget bras and panties!” I shout after him.
Patrick snorts.
“Not to kill the mood or anything, but you seem a lot...better today,” I say, shifting the ice around on my cheek.
Patrick looks at the floor.
“Reilly fed me,” he says quietly.
“You mean he found you someone to feed on?” I ask, confused.
“He did find someone for me to feed on after, but no,” Patrick says shaking his head. “He gave me some of his blood. It’s something a stronger vampire can do to help someone regain control, but most won’t because it weakens them.”
“Javier gave me his blood after the attack, and in the hospital today. He seems fine.”
“It’s different,” Patrick shrugs, his eyes downcast like he’s ashamed of what happened. “To bring someone back from the verge of losing co
ntrol, they have to give a lot more than what you took. Javier wanted to do the same for me before I left, but I wouldn’t let him. He isn’t powerful enough, it would have half killed him.”
“I’ve never heard of that before.”
“It’s not something that’s widely talked about,” Patrick says sliding down off the countertop. “Someone just drove up. It’s probably Georgia.”
I dump the ice out in the sink and head to the front of the house.
Leslie is already at the door, she opens it and waves the guests inside. Georgia strides in followed by a tall, bearded man. With his shaggy black hair he looks like he should shift into a bear and not a wolf. He’s holding another were, a shirtless boy with black hair that doesn’t even look eighteen. I wonder if it’s his son. The kid’s face is contorted in pain and his skin is covered with a sheen of sweat.
Georgia looks around, apparently never having been here before. Javier appears at the top of the stairs.
“Leslie, you may take them to the front parlor,” he says as he walks downstairs.
She nods and leads the way to the same room I saw Javier laid out in less than a week ago.
“You can just lay him down here.” I point to the floor in front of the couch.
The man lays him down and I’m able to see the wound on his side clearly. It’s not very big. It looks like someone stabbed him. Black tendrils are creeping from the edges of the wound toward his heart. I haven’t seen a silver-infected wound on a werewolf in person before, but the signs are obvious.
“I appreciate your hospitality, Javier,” Georgia says.
Javier nods graciously and stands out of the way near the door. He leaves a few feet of space between him and Patrick.
When I spoke with Georgia before she hadn’t seemed all that worried, but she’s standing with her hands in tight fists at her side and a muscle in her jaw is twitching. Perhaps the werewolf has gotten worse since we last spoke.
“I’ll do what I can, but this might be worse than what I can fix,” I say, laying my hands on the boy’s trembling chest. His eyes are wide and he looks terrified.
My magic stutters slightly, and for a moment, I think I must have damaged it when I tried to find my mom. I take a deep breath and it smooths out. I can feel the boy’s heart, beating fast and hard from a mixture of fear and pain. There are no bruises or cuts other than the unhealed wound.
He feels warmer than a human would, but I think that must be because he’s a werewolf. The flecks of silver in the wound are cold spots. I move my hand over it and the boy jerks. I frown, this shouldn’t hurt.
With little jerks, the silver slowly begins to separate and slither out of him. He twitches and the bearded man presses his shoulders down to hold him still. The silver begins sliding out of the wound and winding up my hands. It makes my skin itch, but that’s better than what it was doing to him.
Slowly, I feel the cold spots disappear. The wound still feels odd, like it has gone stale. I press my hand down over the wound as hard as I can and the boy groans.
“Hold still David, it’s almost over,” Georgia says in soothing tones. She crouches down by his head and smooths her hand over his forehead.
I should be tired now. Exhausted even, but I’m not. It’s like the pool of my magic has somehow gotten deeper. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how, though I had no idea stealing different kinds of magic would help like this.
Patrick and Javier have seen me heal before. They’ve seen me exhausted from pushing past my limits, Javier especially, but I can’t leave David like this if I can finish healing him. I push a little farther and feel blood finally begin to seep into the wound. The blood is dripping out onto the carpet now, and it seems to be flushing the wound clean. My jaws ache with something like hunger. I swallow and try to ignore the feeling. This isn’t normal. The boy lets out a sigh like he’s finally no longer in pain and stops trembling.
With every remnant of the silver gone my magic is able to knit his flesh together from the inside out. The wound closes and smooths into a red, teardrop-shaped scar.
I move away carefully and the silver falls from my hands to the carpet. My palms are slick with blood. Patrick is staring at me, brows knit together.
“David, how do you feel?” Georgia asks, brushing a stray piece of hair back.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” David says, his words slurred. “Didn’t mean to be trouble.”
I look up, my mouth hanging open. I had no idea she had a son, much less that he was the one hurt.
“He wasn’t supposed to be there. He followed us and joined the fight against my wishes.” Georgia smiles at me, tight-lipped. “His father, my mate, was killed a couple of years ago while traveling on pack business. The police investigated, but the NWR is good at what they do and good at disappearing their members when they need to. David could not stand to pass up the chance at revenge.”
Georgia chuckles, but it is a humorless sound. “I can’t blame him, he is his mother’s son after all.”
“I’m so sorry, that’s awful,” I say, a quiet rage settling in my chest. The NWR has hurt so many people, and all for something so pointless.
“Thank you for healing him. I could not have stood losing them both.”
I nod. “He still needs to take it easy for a while. There was a lot of silver still in the wound.”
“I will make sure he rests,” Georgia says as she scoops her son up. The bearded man squeezes Georgia’s shoulder briefly, then nods in my direction.
“If he’s still like this tomorrow, let me know. He should be back to normal after he sleeps though.”
“I will,” Georgia says. “He smells right now, though. I am no longer worried.”
Leslie walks Georgia and the other werewolves back out. A tense silence settles over the room and I have the urge to flee and let Patrick and Javier hash out whatever issues they’re having.
“Olivia, Emilio put your things in the room across from Patrick’s.” Javier pushes off the wall.
“Great,” I say, standing up and holding my hands out in front of me so I don’t smear the blood on anything else. “Is there an attached bathroom?”
“Yes,” Javier says.
“Alright, I’m going to go clean up,” I say as I hurry out of the room. Neither of them move to follow. I’m almost to the stairs when Reilly walks in the front door.
“Have you been murdering people without me, Olivia?” Reilly asks, nose twitching. He cocks his head to the side. “Is that from a werewolf?”
“Yeah, one of them still had some silver in him from the fight with the NWR. I healed him, it got a little messy.” I hurry upstairs, hopeful Reilly won’t follow.
I pause at the door to my room and Reilly reaches around from behind me to open the door. I jump, then glare at him. So much for him not following me.
“You’re welcome,” he says, raising a brow and his mouth cocking up into a one-sided smile.
“I’m not thanking you for being creepy,” I say as I walk inside.
The room is laid out exactly like Patrick’s, though the walls are bare and the bed has a sedate, navy comforter set instead of the colorful one Patrick uses.
I head straight for the bathroom and begin scrubbing at my hands. The blood is already drying and starting to flake. It’s under my fingernails too and that’s always a pain to get out.
“There was another bomb,” Reilly says as he leans against the door to the bathroom. “It was at the cafe. An employee found the old bag it was in and thought it was odd. They tossed it in the dumpster behind the building, and that dampened the explosion enough that it hardly did any damage.”
I stare at Reilly’s reflection in the bathroom mirror and swallow uncomfortably. This could have been so much worse. The cafe had been so crowded that day, just like every other day.
“Why would the NWR go after Maybelle like that?”
“Why indeed?” Reilly asks. “That was Special Agent Brunson’s first question as well.”
&nbs
p; “Didn’t the NWR already take credit for it?”
Reilly nods.
“They’d take credit for someone they didn’t like stepping on a lego though,” he says, shrugging one shoulder and waving his hand dismissively.
“Who would want Maybelle hurt like that? Everyone in this town loves her,” I say, turning the water off and facing Reilly.
“Maybelle told the police there was no one that would want to. That she couldn’t think of a single person,” Reilly says. “She was lying.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” I say sharply. Maybelle has never lied in the time I’ve known her. She’s always been ruthlessly optimistic and cheerful, it’s my favorite thing about her.
“And yet, she did,” Reilly says, spreading his hands wide.
“How do you know?” I demand, stepping toward him.
“I heard her heartbeat.”
I roll my eyes. “Polygraphs are unreliable, and so is your hearing apparently.”
“Go ask her yourself. Perhaps she’ll tell you the truth,” Reilly says, stepping toward me so that he can tower over me.
“She told me not to trust you,” I say pointing an accusing finger at him.
His lips close around the tip of my finger and I’m too startled to jerk away, even as his tongue flicks across the tip of it sending a spike of pleasure through me. My lips open slightly, and my breath catches in my throat. He pulls back, his cheeks dimpling in amusement.
“You missed a spot.”
I lower my hand, a blush creeping up my neck. “Don’t do that.”
“Can you think of a good reason Maybelle would warn you not to trust me when she hasn’t even met me?” Reilly asks, licking his lips slowly.
“You’re with the council, everyone knows you’re power hungry, interfering, assholes. There’s a reason no one wants to catch the attention of the council.”
He walks forward, pushing me back until I’m pressed against the bathroom sink.
“Maybelle is lying, and you need to find out why.”
“I’ll find out, but it’s going to prove she’s telling the truth,” I say, jutting out my chin stubbornly. He might have distracted me with his little finger sucking stunt, but I’m not that easy to convince. My finger is still tingling though.
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