“Who?” RJ pressed. “Who stopped you?”
“I better start from the beginning,” Mason mumbled.
RJ crossed his arms. “Good call.”
I shot him a look that said “back off” but he ignored me.
Mason shifted his legs under the sheet and sat up straighter, looking at me or Koby as he talked. “I should start by telling you that my dad is pretty tapped in to the underworld. He belonged to some organization before I was born. Not CHAS. A sort of unofficial informational network of werewolves. Anyway, he retained a lot of those contacts over the years—”
“I bet he did,” RJ said.
I glared at him. “Stop interrupting,” I said.
RJ glared back. “Well, his dad has been under suspicion for years for possibly working with—”
“My dad isn’t a bad guy,” Mason cut him off.
RJ went silent, looking unconvinced but thankfully not interested in arguing the point right now. I turned back to Mason. “Continue.”
He nodded, his mouth pulled into a tight expression. “We began hearing of these infections about a year ago.”
“That’s six months sooner than CHAS heard,” RJ said but instead of accusing, he sounded only surprised.
Mason nodded. “Like I said, he’s tapped in to the darker scene of werewolves. The guys that won’t sign the treaty. He keeps his hands clean—mostly,” he added with a quick glance at RJ and then back to me. “But he has friends in low places. Those were the guys who began to be affected first. So we knew before CHAS did. And my dad was actually scared of it. That was my first clue this was a big damned deal.”
RJ snorted.
Mason ignored him and went on. “My dad had a friend. A medicine man from China, from a place called The Stone Forest. Three months ago, my father and I went to see him and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You just happened to have a medicine man friend from China on speed dial?” Brittany asked, suspicion lacing her words and I realized RJ wasn’t the only one who was having a hard time trusting Mason.
Mason took a deep breath and instead of looking irritated, he just looked overwhelmed. “Like I said, it’s a long story,” he said, staring down at his hands.
RJ uncrossed his arms and reached out, booting the door shut with a thud. He leaned against it and slid down until he was sitting, his hands dangling over his bent knees. “I’ve got time. You have somewhere to be?”
“RJ.” I shot him a look and then turned back to Mason. “Just do your best,” I said. “If you get too tired, we’ll come back later.”
I ignored my own exhaustion, growing larger by the minute, and nodded at him encouragingly. If he didn’t finish this soon, I was going to pass out right here. And I had a feeling sleeping with Mason wasn’t the best way to send a message of platonic friendship.
RJ muttered something that sounded like, “Like hell we will.”
I let it go.
Mason continued. “Anyway, my father and I visited The Stone Forest and the man consulted our legends citing the prophecy about the lover’s feud between Hina, the moon goddess, and Ea, the ocean god. At my father’s request, after we returned home, the man traveled to the remote locations cited in the old stories to gather information about this theory.”
“In Thailand,” I offered, remembering what Kiwi had told me about the ancestry research she’d done.
Mason shrugged apologetically. “I think so. I didn’t pay much attention at the time, honestly. A month later, the medicine man visited us, and he said that the prophecies were true. He said the infection was sent by Ea and that there would be a war for survival. That it was already upon us and the infection was not an infection at all. He said werewolves are made of two souls: human and wolf. And that something was using dark magic to remove our human souls.”
“Thereby removing your humanity,” I added quietly.
Mason nodded. “My father wasn’t satisfied with that. He wanted to know how to cure it. All of his friends were sick. He was terrified of losing himself,” Mason admitted. “So he paid the man more money to search for a cure.”
Mason’s eyes flicked to me. “That cure led him to Hina, the moon goddess, and the prophecy about her return should Ea succeed in destroying the wolves. According to the Chinese man, the only hope for a cure was in the magic Hina had left behind to protect the wolves.”
“The women she gave her magic to before she died,” I murmured.
Mason nodded. “My father went a little crazy doing research, digging up identities of those original women and their blood lines. At the same time, the infections were getting worse and worse. My father became obsessed with finding the magic. He brought me on to help and we began tracking down all the women descended from that first line of villagers.”
“And that led you to me,” I said.
“Not quite,” he said and there was something about his expression that was almost ashamed.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my own exhaustion making it hard to think straight or even read his expression properly. My lids were drooping; I could feel it. I wasn’t going to last much longer. But I needed to hear this. “The moon goddess—” I began.
“I learned about your connection only after I arrived,” Mason said. “By then, I’d already made contact with the woman I’d really come here to find.” He hesitated and then added, “By then, I’d already been changed by the magic.” He stared back at me, his eyes full of remorse. “I’m so sorry about attacking you. It wasn’t me. I was being forced—”
“I know,” I assured him, wrapping his hand in both of mine. “I don’t blame you.”
It took a moment, but Mason’s words finally sunk in. It wasn’t just vague magic or a random attack. Someone specific had done this to him. Someone else that he’d come here to find. With ties to old magic—
I struggled to put it all together through the haze of my own lethargy. But my mouth was dry and my limbs heavy; my thoughts jumbled.
“Tell your aunt I’m really sorry,” Mason added, shoulders still drooping in guilt.
I blinked, my mouth half-open in confusion. “My…aunt?”
“I was ordered to go and look for any clue about where you’d gone,” he said apologetically. “And when the anger took over… I mean, it was all I had by then… and I got carried away when I couldn’t find you.”
Realization hit. “The break-in at Kiwi’s. That was you?”
“Sorry,” he said again. “You weren’t returning my calls or texts. I tried going to your house, but your roommate wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Damn right,” Brittany muttered, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting out her hip.
“And then I went to the store but it was always closed. I even tried questioning your friend in the park. Harold.”
I shivered at that, suddenly terrified for Harold. “Is he—? Did you—?”
“I didn’t hurt him,” Mason said. And even though I’d seen Harold since coming home from Guam, I only relaxed after Mason’s reassurances.
“Who changed you?” RJ demanded and I looked over to see his hands clasped tightly together, his knuckles white. “Who forced you to hurt Sam?”
“It was Indra, wasn’t it?” Brittany blurted, and I shot her a look for interrupting. “What?” she muttered. “It has to be.”
I rubbed my temple. “Just let him tell it,” I said sharply.
The exhaustion from healing Mason combined with all of these revelations was finally taking its toll. Patience was the first to go.
“It was Indra,” Mason confirmed. He looked over at me intently. “She’s one of the original descendants from the legend.”
I nodded because it made such perfect sense that I could hardly be surprised. If I hadn’t been so wiped, I would have figured it out myself. Probably. “She can do what I do,” I said.
“No.” The single word was firm and stronger than anything he’d said thus far. “She’s not like you, Sam. I followed her for a while before I made co
ntact. But I didn’t know. Not until it was too late.” He shut his eyes as if it pained him to remember.
“Knew what?” RJ asked, all business. He also sounded firm and I knew that to him Mason was nothing more than an informant. He’d betrayed us, betrayed me, and RJ would never trust him again.
It was the way he’d been trained. The way they all had. Except for me.
“Indra’s entire life’s mission is to destroy werewolves. She was the one who infected me. And then she used me to gather intel on you, Sam.”
“Me? Why?”
Mason hesitated only a second before he said, “Because the only thing she hates worse than werewolves is the moon goddess.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Brittany said, breaking the silence that had fallen. I let her argue it; I couldn’t make my tongue work. “If Indra comes from the original tribe, that should mean her magic also comes from Hina.”
Mason shook his head. “Indra might be descended from the original tribe but she’s not on the side of the good guys here. Along the way, her bloodline twisted into a very gnarled, very obscure branch. A different kind of family tree. She’s a different creature.”
“What does that actually mean?” Brittany’s eyes narrowed. “Is she like a druid or something?”
“Druids aren’t real, Britt,” I said.
She pinned me with a look, one brow arched up toward her blond ponytail. “You thought werewolves and witches weren’t real either,” she points out. “I’m not discounting anything.”
“Can we please get back to Indra?” RJ demanded.
I shook my head and turned back to Mason. He’d gone pale—paler than before. And he had dark circles under his eyes. But at least his veins were no longer traced in black. Mine, on the other hand, felt like they’d been filled with sludge.
“A druid would be easier,” Mason muttered. When he caught sight of RJ’s expectant stare, he straightened. “I don’t actually know what Indra is. I know where her ancestors came from according to the services my dad paid for and the research they provided but it was twisted somewhere along the way.”
“Well that doesn’t help us—” RJ began.
“I’m sorry. I came here without all the information,” Mason said quietly. “By the time I figured it out, it was too late. She’d…” He shut his eyes and opened them again. When Koby reached out, offering a hand, Mason shook his head. I wondered if he declined the offer because he thought he deserved his pain. That he figured, like RJ said, he wasn’t off the hook. But when he spoke again, resolve outweighed any guilt in his words. “If you want to stop the infections, you have to stop Indra.”
“We need to know what she is—what we’re dealing with,” RJ said.
“I can tell you who her mother is,” Mason said. “But her father is a mystery.”
“Fine, who is her mother?” RJ asked.
But Mason looked right at me, the look in his eyes a warning from someone who knew all too well the horror he was trying to keep me from. “They call her Sushna, the Witherer.”
Chapter Seventeen
Alex
I watched as Indra stood over a werewolf cut to pieces inside her pentagram, staring while it bled out at her feet. Its crimson blood ran in thick rivulets out of its slashed flesh and down the pock-marked indentations along the scarred floor. I stood far enough away from the entire thing to keep my boots dry. The urge to turn and walk out warred with the temptation to walk over and use the werewolf’s lifeless claws to rip Indra to shreds.
Strange because I shouldn’t have given two shits about the fur ball she’d done away with. Up until now, I hadn’t cared an ounce about any of it. But inch by inch over the last few days, something uneasy had crept up my back. Drinking that poison hadn’t helped matters and although my body had fully recovered, it had created some sort of rift in my mind where Indra’s magic had taken root. And it all led back to her: Indra. The more I saw of her, the less inclined I was to stand by and just watch her destroy werewolf after werewolf.
Some healthy. Some infected. Some started out the former and became the latter. Most she outright executed.
Why did I care?
She was making my job easier, right? And the jobs of every hunter out there. Less werewolves equaled less work for us. But it wasn’t the same and the cells of my body knew it. Even if my head didn’t give a shit.
A faint noise outside brought my head up sharply. Indra’s eyes met mine from across the bloody room, and I knew she’d heard it too.
“Leave it,” she said when I started to head for the door.
“Could be unwanted company,” I warned, my brow rising in surprise at her lack of concern. She was always so worried about privacy; this was new.
“It always is,” she practically snarled. I rolled my eyes. What a drama queen. “They’ve been watching me for days. It’s too late to chase them off now.”
“They?” I straightened and my eyes narrowed. “As in…?”
“Your kind. The hunters,” she said, her lip curling in disgust. She pinned me with a look that morphed from furious to surprised. I hated that look. Like a spider discovering a fly in her web. Fucking black widow. “You didn’t know?” she asked, mock innocence dripping like venom from her words.
I pressed my lips together because no. I didn’t. And I damn sure didn’t feel like admitting that. Spotting a tail or surveillance team was a skill I’d always prided myself on. But apparently I’d slipped.
No, I realized too late. I just hadn’t cared enough to look. Especially since Breck had practically staked me through the heart with that antidote the other day. I’d just assumed he was watching me and content to keep his distance. Or I just hadn’t cared either way.
Dammit.
“They’re onto us, darling.” Indra smiled and I scowled.
“Don’t put us together like that,” I snapped.
Indra’s amusement died and she stalked over to me, her heels clicking sharply against the bloody floor. I watched her, hoping like hell she’d slip in the sticky blood and slide face-first into the mess she’d created. But no such luck. In fact, the sound of her heels against the floor was the only indication her feet even touched the floor; the way she seemed to float along was eerie.
Grace like that was proof this broad wasn’t human.
She walked up to me, her expression a mixture of irritation and flirtation, and ran a hand up my chest until it was hooked over my shoulder. “I admire your fearlessness,” she said. “Most men wouldn’t speak to me the way you do. It’s very attractive.”
I wanted to retort some question about whether actually falling at her feet and calling her beautiful would let me off the hook—but I wasn’t very confident I’d like that answer either.
She smiled and winked at my silence; a cat enjoying the mouse.
“Shouldn’t we be more concerned with the company outside?” I asked. Changing the subject had proven to be the best way to handle her come-ons so far. Reminding her of a possible threat was even better.
But she just rolled her eyes. “They don’t know what to do with me,” she said, waving her hand. “If they did, they would have come for us already. Instead, they continue to slink around outside as if we don’t know they are watching.”
“How do you know they’d come for you?” I said, refusing to let the “us” stand any longer. We were not an us. We never would be an us. If I was going to “us” with anyone, it would be Sam. Just thinking about her, about the sexy pout of her lips as she’d glared at me in Oracle last week… It was enough to harden my cock where I stood. And strangely, it pulled at me in ways I’d mostly ignored thus far. I hated that she’d looked so sad when I’d reaffirmed my alliance with Indra.
“Because they have your girlfriend’s werewolf. Alive. And he’ll fill in any blanks they have.” She said it so casually.
But my chest tightened. Mason. She meant Mason. There was no other werewolf. Huh. So the asshole was alive. Did that mean awake? And Sam. God, I fucking hat
ed when she talked about Sam.
Once again, I was violently close to caring. “Not my girlfriend. Not her werewolf,” I said through clenched teeth. With a grip firm enough to remind her of my bravery—or my subversion—I yanked her arm off me.
Indra didn’t flinch. She only smiled and I knew then I was being played. It had taken a lot less than my show of rebelliousness for the dead werewolf on the floor to meet his end earlier. Indra was baiting me. But for what?
“You say that, darling, but we both know if it weren’t for my magical gift curing your emotional appetites, she would still be yours. And you would care an awful lot about whether that werewolf was hers and what she was doing with him now that he was able to move his own hands.”
“I don’t give a shit what you think.” I shot her a smirk and added, “A fact you should well know since not giving shits is what you pay me for.”
“No.” Indra’s expression flashed with fury. “I am the only one whose opinion matters. Do not forget that.” She leaned toward me and without brushing a single fingertip over my flesh, a wave of aching pain swept my body. I doubled over, coughing at my suddenly tightening lungs.
“It matters very much what I think, hunter. Which is why you’ll prove to me that what you say is true. You will prove that you don’t care. Not for her and not for any of them.”
Indra was staring at me with wild eyes when I straightened. “What the hell do you want me to do?” I demanded, pissed off at the pain she’d caused. I didn’t want pain. I wanted numbness. Or anger. And I damn sure wanted nothing from her. “I’ve already tossed her aside, walked out on my friends, my people. Hell, I’ve practically killed for you!”
The anger helped. It filled the numbness; gave me something to feel. I welcomed it and Indra didn’t discourage it. She seemed glad I was angry. Like it fed her somehow.
Her eyes gleamed at my words and she practically cooed, “You haven’t yet, but you will.”
“What? Tossed her aside?” I shook my head, confused through the aching, but even as I tried like hell to think past it, the pain dialed back and then, all at once, it vanished.
Esperance: (New Adult Paranormal Romance) (Heart Lines Series Book 3) Page 16