Thank God. She looked almost normal. Considering I knew for a fact that at least one of the Three was anything but, that was reassuring.
“I'd like to purchase something from you,” I said, getting right down to business. A meeting like this wasn't intended to last long. Each second that we stayed here, there was a chance that something could go wrong.
“Purchase?” the Mother asked, leaning back in the green velvet chair she was sitting in. Mm. I guess it was more like a throne, towering over her head and making the lavender color of her hair and the snow white of her skin pop. On her head sat a crooked black hat, tall and pointed and wicked as a winter night. It was nothing like the black hats Halloween stores sold for trick-or-treaters. Instead, it stood almost two feet tall, charms, little bones, and bundles of herbs sewn into the fabric, ready to be used at a moment's notice. “What kind of something?”
I flicked my eyes to the Maiden, sitting at the far right of the desk and looking at me with unmasked curiosity, her dark brown eyes hooded with white feather lashes, her ebony skin decorated with tiny jewels and bits of silver and iron that I knew were pierced straight through her flesh. She, too, wore a hat, but it was shorter than the Mother's, jet-black and empty of spells.
She was a new addition to the Three for sure. It happened a lot, the frequent rotation of the Maiden. To hold that position, she'd not only have to remain a vestal virgin but also abstain from taking life or inflicting physical harm on others. As far as sex went, that was the Mother's area of expertise. And for the latter two items … those belonged to the Crone.
“I want a map,” I began, taking long, slow breaths and trying not to choke on the thick heaviness of the tobacco smoke from the Crone's pipe. “One that will show me the borders of the Blood territories in North America.”
A cackle from the far left of the desk made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
“What does a wolf want with vampires?” the Crone grated, her voice like broken glass and needles. I felt my nails extend into claws, my skin rippling with the change. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay human. I knew for a fact that the Crone would be dipped in spells, spells for fear and confusion and frustration. But I also knew that as a werewolf, I had a natural immunity to it. Whatever I was feeling now, it was all in my head. It took more than just ambient magic to affect a werewolf.
“I don't have to explain my reasons to you,” I said, straightening my spine and dropping a hand to either of the boys' heads. Anubis turned his muzzle slightly and gently took the tails from my sweaty grip, holding them in his mouth so I could dig my fingers into the thickness of his coat. Just like Nic, he felt like Pack to me, safe and grounded and comfortable. I used the two of them as anchors.
I was the next Alpha, and not just of Ebon Red. Of all the packs. In North America, there were currently half a million werewolves. At the end of this year, I'd be in line to rule them all. I needed to show Coven Triad that I meant business—and that I wouldn't be pushed around.
A cat mewled from somewhere in the shadows and several sets of glowing eyes blinked … and then disappeared.
I turned my face to look at the Crone and felt my throat get tight and my heart begin to hammer.
“If you don't intend to share your reasons, then you'd best have something good to name as our price.”
She leaned forward in her chair, bringing with her the scent of long dead things and mildew, the sweetness of rotting vegetation and the emptiness of decay. I choked involuntarily, lifting my hands up to blanket my throat. But as soon as I did that, I lost contact with the boys and collapsed to my knees. They pressed in close to me on either side, giving me strength, reminding me that even if I was looking at the face of death and decay, I was still very much alive.
My eyes met with two orbs of perfect black, no whiteness to be seen, and curls of what was probably once beautiful red hair cascading down in thick tangled snarls around a cragged face and a nose as big as my skull. Thin lips stretched back over rotten teeth as the Crone grinned at me and smoked her pipe, her fingers nothing but rotted skin over bone. Spiders crawled across her broken, bleeding flesh, and her witch's hat was drooping and ragged, threadbare and wilting.
This … this what was became of witches of who took life and didn't pay the universe back in turn, who reaped magic and sowed pain. The Crone did not, as some humans believed, represent repose and compassion, and the witch who took this spot in the Three did not have to be old. Instead, this was the ultimate punishment, to sit as head of the coven and impart hard-won advice to those foolish enough to follow in her footsteps. She made the difficult choices for the group and exacted punishments and retribution, waiting to see if another witch would make the same mistakes as she did and one day take her place.
As long as Majka had been alive, there'd only ever been one Crone.
I stayed on my knees, but I kept my head raised and held my males close on either side of me, fingers once again twisted in their thick fur, my nose filled with their wild scents. I suddenly yearned for Pack, for the Hall, for the forest around it.
Maybe this meeting was a good thing? Sitting here in front of these three women, I didn't quite dread the Pairing as much as I had.
“You'd have the good graces and the favor of Pack Ebon Red,” I said, and was met with the Crone's raucous laughter. The sound was enough to make a human's ears bleed.
Good thing I wasn't human.
“Are you hungry?” the Crone asked, and I felt my stomach lurch painfully. That question, coming from her, took on a whole new meaning—one that I really, really didn't like. “Because I am,” she continued, leaning back in her chair, still smoking that pipe and grinning at me with a mouthful of soft, black teeth and bleeding gums. “In fact,” the Crone said as a side door opened and the young witch in the tank top appeared, a silver tray and several goblets floating along behind her, “I'm downright famished.”
She reached out and wrapped her bony fingers around the handle of an old broom, sitting with its bristles facing up and its handle down. There were more charms, more bones, woven through them that jingled as she rapped the broom on the floor.
“I'm so hungry that I'm willing to make you a deal.” The Crone grinned, lips stretching back beneath the gargantuan monstrosity of her nose, like a giant beak that almost took up her entire face. “For flesh.”
“Flesh?” I echoed as three of the silver—actual silver and not just shiny metal—goblets floated our direction and hovered near my face. “My guards are not to eat or drink while on duty,” I said airily, even though that wasn't necessarily true. But I wouldn't subject Nic or Anubis to whatever was in those cups.
Two of the goblets crashed to the floor and rolled across the rugs, spilling liquid everywhere. With a considerable amount of effort, I released my grip on Anubis' fur and used my right hand to grab the third.
As soon as my fingers curled around the silver, they began to burn, blood oozing up through my pores and draining down my hand in fat, red droplets.
'Catch them,' I projected to the boys, and Anubis crawled forward to catch the blood on his tongue, dropping the old tails to the floor. There was no way in hell that I was leaving a single drip here for the coven to use against me. Blood magic was harsh and unforgiving; it was devastating. And I would not have any of that cast on me.
I forced the cup to my lips as Nic growled from beside me, bristling with violence as I felt hot heat and pain take over my mouth, blood oozing down the sides of my chin as I took a drink. Nic was right there, licking my mouth, cleaning the metallic copper taste away. At least the wine I'd been given was sweet, like pears and pomegranates.
'Screw these witches,' Nic said to me, and I smiled, using my shirt to clean off the last of the blood from the silver and setting the goblet aside. 'They're clearly sadists.'
'Clearly,' I agreed, but whatever this was, it was some kind of test—and I was determined to pass it.
“What kind of flesh?” I asked as the Crone s
elected an item from the tray with her bone-white fingertips and pushed it between her rotten lips.
“Wolf flesh,” she told me and I felt my entire body go cold. “Bring it to me before the sun goes down and we'll start work on your map.”
The silver tray floated to the Mother and then the Maiden, before coming over to rest in front of me. It looked like a meat and cheese tray from the supermarket, but it didn't smell like anything. That frightened me, as did the fact that in the same breath that she'd mentioned werewolf flesh, the Crone had offered me this food.
“We can have it done in three days,” she continued, clearly waiting for me to select something off the tray. I took a piece of what looked like cheddar cheese and lifted it to my lips—there was no way in hell I was touching the carefully rolled pieces of red meat arranged in a decorative half-circle.
“Promise me and my pack members protection until the night after we come to pick up the map,” I said as Nic pushed his body hard against my left side.
'Zara, what are you doing? We can't bring them fucking wolf meat. Are you crazy?'
“That shouldn't be a problem,” the Crone continued as the tray returned to her and she picked up several rolled pieces of what looked like pastrami, sliding them one after another into her rancid, pus filled mouth. “As long as you bring enough werewolf flesh to make a meal.” Her grin was rictus and awful to look at, like a smiling corpse with nostrils big enough to swallow my head.
“Can it be from more than one wolf?” I asked carefully.
“Irrelevant,” the Crone said, waving her hand so fiercely that a candle snuffed out at the edge of the desk. The Mother and the Maiden sat quiet and patient, their eyes focused on me, both their faces stuck in an expression somewhere between pity and sorrow.
“Then it's a deal,” I said, knowing that I was taking a huge risk here. There'd be a contract involved, one signed in blood and sealed in magic. If I'd been in a fae court, I wouldn't even have attempted to come to any sort of agreement. There was always one key rule when working with faeries: never bargain with them.
The Crone waved her hand and a scroll slipped off a nearby shelf, revealing a crouching cat behind it. The calico flattened its ears against its skull, opened its mouth in a pink tongued hiss and then leapt off the shelf in a flurry of scattered papers and tumbling books. I couldn't tell exactly where it had disappeared to.
I grabbed the scroll and unrolled it in front of me, reading the words printed in scrawling black ink across the page. It was exactly as we'd discussed, no more, no less. A meal's worth of werewolf flesh in exchange for a map that showed the North American vampire territories.
'Zara …' Nic warned, but I knew what I was doing.
I used the still bloody pad of one of my fingers to sign the document and watched as it floated over to the Crone so she could do the same. She dipped the pointed tip of her bony finger in her mouth, teased some red-black blood from her moldy gums and signed below my name. Zara Wolf. At least I knew that blood used in a contract couldn't be used in magic against me.
A swirl of ink lifted off the page and floated down to me, wrapping around my wrist in a series of interlocking moon shapes—just like the ones I'd seen on the girl's tank top. The pattern repeated all the way around, making a sort of tattooed bracelet on my skin. As soon as I fulfilled my end of the deal, it would break and disappear.
The same mark appeared on the Maiden's wrist. The Crone may have made the deal, but if Coven Triad's end wasn't fulfilled, it was the youngest of the Three who would pay the price.
I slipped the piece of cheese between my lips and felt a sudden wave of horror pass over me.
As soon as it touched my tongue, the cheese was not cheese at all; it was meat.
My skin rippled with goose bumps and a surge of nausea washed over me as my eyes flicked back up to the Crone's.
She was smiling.
“Eat it, Alpha,” she challenged, leaning back in her chair and grinning wildly at me.
'Zara, what's wrong?' Nic asked as Anubis pushed his big head under my hand and tried to get me to look at him.
I couldn't look at anyone but the Crone as the taste of Pack filled my mouth. It was the taste of blood licked from a pack member's wound, from an out of control scuffle, something I'd experienced few times but would never forget.
Wolf. Family. Pack.
And not just Pack—but Ebon Red.
There was a piece of one of my missing pack members inside of my mouth.
“Eat. It. Alpha,” the Crone repeated, leaning forward in her chair and looking me straight in the eyes.
My hands trembling and tears running down my face, I swallowed and then lurched to my feet.
I took the old tails from Anubis' mouth after he picked them up and threw them at the Crone's feet.
“Werewolf flesh,” I told her with a snarl, my skin rippling as my body fought desperately to shift. Once again, I pushed it back. “Enough for a meal.”
The Crone narrowed her solid black eyes on me, as greasy and grimy as used oil.
“That is not a meal,” she said, but I felt myself smiling, even through the tears.
“I just took a bite half the size of one of those tails,” I told her, lifting my chin up in defiance, “and I couldn't possibly stomach another. I'm full and the meal …” I had to stop and take a deep breath. “Is over.”
The tattoo I'd just gotten on my wrist shattered, and the yowling of angry cats followed us all the way upstairs and onto the street.
I made it about two feet outside the fenced area of the Triad Historical Society before I threw myself over a metal garbage can and threw up.
Despite the fact that we were in the middle of town, Nic and Anubis both shifted into human form and stood naked beside me. Nic pulled my hair away from my face and rubbed my lower back as my stomach seized again and again and again. I didn't stop until I was sure I saw the piece of 'cheese' laying at the bottom of the can.
And then I forced myself to keep throwing up.
As gross as it sounds, when wolf pups are ready to start eating meat, their pack will make a kill and return to the den to regurgitate the food for them to eat. Werewolves had the same lucky little skill, the ability to puke on command like that. I was making sure to take full advantage of it.
“Zara, what the fuck is going on?” Nic asked, cursing more than usual, even for him.
Before I could think twice about it, I stumbled back to the SUV, opened the dash and tore a doggy waste bag from a blue roll. I know, it seemed ridiculous for werewolves to care about well, wolf shit, but it happens and the last thing we needed when venturing into an urban area was to get a ticket for leaving waste somewhere.
I jogged back to the garbage can and reached inside before I could think twice about it, retrieving the … let's just keep calling it 'cheese' … and wrapping it up inside the bag.
Dry heaves took over then and I had to hold onto Nic's naked body to stay standing upright.
'It's them,' I said, lifting my head to look up at a small keyhole shaped window near the roofline. A cat sat there and stared at me from unblinking green eyes.
'Them?' Anubis asked more calmly, putting a hand on my shoulder and drawing my attention over to the crimson color of his eyes. I think my freaking out was making Nic freak out, but Anubis just stood there and looked at me, waiting for an answer, the place where his fingertips touched leaving little metaphorical scorch marks that I was too upset to think much about.
'The witches—or at least Coven Triad,' I managed to get out, letting the touch of both boys soothe me now the way they had inside the house. Overhead, the leaves of a large oak tree rustled in the breeze, decorating Anubis' bronzed skin with patterns of light and shadow.
I forced myself to take a deep breath and noticed a few college kids across the street, smoking joints and snapping pictures with their phones.
I growled and the sound seemed to cut the air in half. I don't know how they heard me—they were just humans after al
l—but the four of them made a quick retreat up the steps of their house and disappeared inside.
“Zara,” Nic said aloud, drawing my attention back to his face, to the eggplant color of his eyes, so familiar, so … beloved. I wanted to kiss him right then and there, take his face in my hands and press our mouths together, taste home and safety and comfort written all over his lips. He smelled like pine and honeysuckle, like Ebon Red, like destiny.
'The witches,' I continued, pulling the plastic wrapped item against my stomach and curling my fingers around it. I closed my eyes, knowing we should get in the SUV and book it out of here. But I had bartered for protection until after collecting the map—the Coven would have to honor that, even if I'd pissed them off—and I wasn't going anywhere until I'd said it. 'They fed me flesh—Pack flesh.'
Both Anubis and Nic tensed up and then suddenly Nic was tearing the bag from my hand and lifting it to his nose. His eyes went wide and he dropped it on the cement, backing up a full step as Anubis bent to grab it, rising to his feet.
“Ebon Red,” Nic whispered, looking at me with horror and concern lacing his features.
I tried really goddamn hard not to think about the fact that I'd swallowed it; I'd had to. That had been yet another test. And besides, if I hadn't eaten it, I couldn't have manipulated the language of the spell—or taken it with me. I wasn't about to leave a piece of one of my missing pack members—no matter how small—here to be eaten by the Crone.
My mind conjured up images of the tray, of those carefully rolled pieces of meat, the squares of cheese, the crackers. Was it all flesh? Was it all my missing Ebon Red pack members the Crone was gobbling up as an afternoon snack?
I leaned over the can again and threw up stomach bile.
'So Coven Triad is not only responsible for kidnapping wolves,' Anubis began, looking a little green around the gills himself, 'but they also don't care that we know they're involved … or that they're killing them.'
Pack Ebon Red (The Seven Mates of Zara Wolf Book 1) Page 11