by Allison Moon
Winter was on the horizon. She shivered and turned, eager to head home and plot her next step.
Chapter 24
At the border of Archer’s territory, Lexie picked up her lover’s faded scent as it traced a faint path into the woods and along the river. Its familiarity eased the trauma of the unraveling truths that tangled in her mind. She pushed away the doubts that dogged her. Now was not the time to worry about such things. Archer’s gentle, cedar scent ended in a swirl at the base of their tree. Lexie would have come here anyway, regardless of picking up a scent, knowing where her lover would pace, tending her troubled heart.
At the highest bough, Lexie caught sight of her lover silhouetted by the dying sun. Lexie nearly leapt forth in relief. She was sorry and was ready to say so, wishing only for solace and a friend.
With her first step onto the platform, Lexie realized her mistake. Blythe sat with her legs dangling off the edge, admiring the sunset. She turned when Lexie’s feet hit the wood. Her smile was practiced in its perfection.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Blythe said, as if this treehouse were her home, and she was hosting a party.
Lexie’s heart sank.
“I’d like to have a frank discussion with you. Will you join me?” Blythe gestured to the spot next to her, providing a view through the forest to the ocean. Even from the distance to the edge of the platform, Lexie saw Blythe’s icy shape shift. November’s full moon would rise soon.
Lexie sat.
“This is a lovely spot. It took me forever to figure out where you were. Archer did a great job of ensconcing you up here like Rapunzel,” Blythe said. “She never took me here, must be new.” She was barefoot, her sneakers placed neatly next to her, each holding a sock rolled into a little ball. She inhaled deeply, “Smells like sex.”
Lexie held her breath, avoiding Blythe’s game while trying to track it.
“Lexie, let me just dive in here. I think you might be caught up in something you don’t understand.” She placed her palms in her lap, attempting a gesture of equanimity. “I want to honor the fact that you haven’t been in possession of all the facts, and I think it’s unfair to you. For my part in all of this, I apologize. It was never my intention to put you in the middle of something you didn’t consent to. I hadn’t realized what you’ve been going through. If I had, my sisters and I would have been there to support you from the get-go. Do you understand me?”
Lexie nodded. She thought she was beginning to understand Blythe better than Blythe understood herself.
“Good,” Blythe smiled. “I think it’s only fair that you learn the whole story. In the end, if you would prefer to not stay with the sisters of the Pack, I’ll be disappointed, but I will understand. Likewise, if what I share with you makes you want to stay a part of our family and leave this thing with Archer behind, we will all be elated. Agreed?”
Lexie sat in silence, wondering where the truth was in all this. Blythe was articulate but her intentions confused her. She wished for the clear simplicity of communication with Archer, where the truth was self-evident in her lover’s eyes.
“I want to talk to you about Archer,” Blythe continued, straightening her shoes as if they weren’t already perfectly aligned. “I think it’s important that you know the truth about her. I know you have been spending a lot of time with her. At first, I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone. You never shared it with any of us. I can only assume because you were scared of something, and while I’m disappointed you felt the need to keep your relationship a secret, I think your instincts were correct. I wish you had come clean earlier with the sisters, so we could have avoided heartache. I wish it didn’t have to be the case, but I want you to know I’m here for you.” She paused and offered another studied smile.
“I assume you know Archer’s true identity. You know that she’s not a real woman. Not a real person. Archer poses as one of us at her convenience, to partake of the privileges women like us have won for her.
“You’ve been dealing with your own changes, maybe thinking you might be like her. I know this is confusing, but the truth is so much better than that for you. You’re more than just a wolf like Archer. You’re a wolf, and a real woman. But most importantly, you are a peacespeaker--a seer and an interpreter. You are blessed to be from a noble line of wise women.”
Blythe’s eloquence was surpassed only by her diplomacy, at least in her own mind. Despite the mendacious delivery, Lexie felt like the puzzle of her own mental health was complete and she could see the cracks clearly, as integral parts of the picture itself. The realization jarred Lexie with a tangible tremor.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m sorry to be throwing so much information at you so quickly, but Archer has me backed up to a wall here,” Blythe said. “The Morloc-sired males continue to multiply, and their aggression is going completely unchecked. The Pack is the only army fighting the male menace. Without a peacespeaker, we are at a huge disadvantage,” Blythe said. “Simply speaking, we need your help. With a peacespeaker, the Pack can eliminate the Morloc males completely. With your assistance, we could neutralize the situation within a year.”
Lexie expected Blythe to whip out a prospectus next, her points so well-honed and clinical.
Lexie shook her head before she even noticed herself doing it. “I can’t do that.”
“You’ve seen what these men can do,” Blythe said.
“Yes, but--”
“Half the members of the Pack are with me because they had their insides gouged by a monster. They had their dignity and their humanity stripped from them while the rest of the campus worried about finals. You want to know a fight, Lexie? Imagine going up against one of those werewolves when you were just a normal girl. No weapons, no means of fighting back but to scream or cry and finally concede.”
“Christ, Blythe,” Lexie shooed her voice away, not wanting to imagine such horrors.
“What happened to Duane was nothing, nothing compared to what three of your sisters experienced less than two years ago.” She spoke each syllable deliberately to ensure her point was sinking in. “In refusing to help our cause, you are implicitly siding with the rapists, the killers, and the bigots of this town. You’re helping them with your inaction.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair, Lexie, is sitting on your hands when you have access to a precious gift that none of the women you care about have. You’ll never know what that’s like, to be pinned and terrorized like my girls, because you have your fabulous new powers and a pureblood girlfriend. But your girlfriend let six of my sisters die on the battlefield. What makes you think she’ll save you?”
“I can save myself.”
Blythe smirked. “Care to test that theory?”
“What makes the males so different than us? Who’s to say they’re all monsters?”
“Maybe a small percentage of the males are cognizant during the moon like we are. But they are a small price to pay to eliminate the threat entirely.”
“Easy to say when it’s not you who’s paying the price.”
Blythe fixed Lexie with her steely gaze, but rage burned behind the steel, and the scent of Blythe’s perspiration scalded Lexie’s nostrils. “Women have been paying the price since the beginning of time. Let the men pay for once.”
“Doesn’t sound very egalitarian of you, Blythe.” Lexie tried to capitalize on Blythe’s tiny fractures, to see what would creep in between the cracks.
Blythe sighed. “Lexie, I’ve been desperate for an intellectual equal for years, and it would be lovely if you were one. But you aren’t. Trying to use my intellect against me is a weak, though clever, strategy.”
“You can’t make me do this.”
Blythe smirked at Lexie’s resistance. “Perhaps. Though I do find Archer’s influence on you disconcerting. I’d happily kill her to free up some of your time. Would likely improve your grades, too.”
“Fuck you.”
; “Your working-class roots are truly charming. I admire your aspirational nature, but not your adherence to worn, sexist clich√©s that rely on sexually violent speech to make your points.”
“We’re done,” Lexie rose and walked across the platform, ready to dive headlong through the branches.
“No. We’re not.” Blythe’s voice boomed. “Your ‘girlfriend’ is responsible for too many deaths, and I won’t let her be responsible for your reticence at watching a couple of rapist-murderer-thugs get what’s coming to them.”
“You’re the murderer.”
“Who are we talking about here?” Blythe grinned. “Because I have an alibi.”
“Does Renee?” Lexie asked.
Blythe sighed and rolled her eyes. “They weren’t boys, they were werewolves. Duane is alive because he is human.”
“They weren’t werewolves. You killed Brian because you hated him and for no other reason.”
“No other reason? I can name plenty!”
“You’re a murderer.”
“I am not. But Archer is. Isn’t that right, Archer?” Blythe said.
Lexie turned as Archer landed behind her. Archer kept her eyes on Blythe, sizing her up. Lexie brushed Archer’s arm, wanting to apologize for everything but fearing what truths she was concealing.
“Why don’t you tell Lexie how many people you’ve killed?” Blythe said, giddy with control.
Archer grasped Lexie’s shoulders, looking into her eyes with a seriousness that scared Lexie as much as it fortified her. They spoke without speaking and Lexie knew she still trusted her, though fearing the veracity of Blythe’s words.
Archer paced toward Blythe, who rose to meet her. Blythe was taller than Archer, but only by a couple of inches. Lexie’s sight burned them in different colors as they confronted one another, Blythe with an aura of purple like the twilit sky, Archer’s the gold of the autumn around them.
“You look good, Blythe,” Archer said.
“Survival suits me,” she replied.
“You’re holding a grudge,” Archer said, more apology than challenge.
“Why are you back? What do you think you have to offer?”
“I know it was right to leave when I did, but the situation was left unfinished. I’m back to finish what I started. I’d like to help.”
“We don’t need your help.”
“You’ve lost two girls, and the male population has grown.”
“No thanks to you.”
“You’re right. No thanks to me. Now will you let me help?”
“Hardly,” Blythe said.
“I’m still the Alpha of this pack.”
“You were a lousy Alpha. If your leadership was worth our sisters’ lives, you would have seen the Morloc situation a mile off. Instead, you sat chambered in your ego, ruling from the distance of a king. You were oblivious to all of us, especially Natalee. She needed someone to confide in, and you weren’t there for her, or any of us towards the end.”
“I never lost track of you.” Archer’s voice betrayed her emotion. “I was scared. It’s a big job keeping that many alive.”
“I’ve been doing it for ten years, no thanks to you,” Blythe said. “You left your job half-done.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Why do you think my new pack has grown so quickly? It’s those fucking males! They’re still out there, and they’ve mastered their changes. They’re as violent and anarchistic as ever. Completely bestial. You left me with that!”
“I’ve come back. This pack is my kin.”
“They are NOT your kin!”
Watching the two argue like wounded women, Lexie wondered what they had been like as allies rather than enemies. She would have liked to have known them then.
“You left me with a mess, Archer. This is my pack because they had no one else to follow. I didn’t choose these women. They chose me. It’s my pack, Archer. And you can go to hell before I let them follow you.”
“They would follow me if you gave them a choice--”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“And I won’t let you have Lexie.”
“She’s not a possession to be bought and sold.”
“Nor is she another one of your pawns to be trotted out when you’re in a tight spot. What good is she to you anyway?”
“You really don’t know?” Blythe laughed. “I can’t tell if you’re a worse alpha or lover.”
Archer snarled as the women talked about Lexie as if she wasn’t there.
“Well, Archer, it appears our sassy little Summer Pace had a daughter, and she never bothered to tell anyone.”
Archer’s face dropped. She looked agog to Lexie, who herself stood dumbfounded, feeling more naked now than any of the evenings she had slept in Archer’s arms.
“No,” Archer shook her head.
Blythe nodded, lips twitching with glee at Archer’s denial.
“No, no,” Archer shook her head, and Lexie recognized that look. Not betrayal. Horror. “Lexie.”
“You sired a peacespeaker, Archer.”
“I didn’t. I--I’m sorry. Lexie, I didn’t know. I would have told you, but I didn’t know.”
Lexie’s heart felt as though it had ceased beating, and it sat like a rock in her throat. She wanted to sob or console Archer, but she was frozen, watching her lover’s world shatter and not understanding why.
“I want you gone,” Blythe said.
“I’m here to stay,” Archer spat.
“You think the other packs will abide that? You think they’ll let you stay and resume your alpha status having committed the gravest taboo of our kind? Your naivet√© would be endearing if it wasn’t so pathetic.”
“This is my home.”
“I intend to change that,” Blythe said. The secret behind her smile was revealed as the breeze shifted. Smoke. It came from the east and grew thicker by the moment.
Archer drew machine-gun inhalations as Lexie rushed to the east edge of the platform. Above the trees rose a thin plume of smoke.
“Goddammit, Blythe!” Archer shouted.
“Lexie, this is the choice you have,” Blythe said. “Follow a failed leader or become a part of a family that will give you purpose and community.”
Not waiting to hear Lexie’s decision, Archer leapt out of the tree and bolted for her cabin.
Blythe’s turned to Lexie with a smug smile. “Well, I guess we know where her priorities are.”
“You know what, Blythe? Fuck off.” Lexie turned and leapt out of the tree.
As her feet hit the earth, the howling began.
Chapter 25
The flames had risen above the tree line when Archer and Lexie dove across the river. The sky glowed purple along its edges; the full moon would rise soon. Their footfalls carried them to the final trees before the clearing and Archer’s cabin. The women of the Pack stood back from the house, watching the fire crawl over the walls. The timber, with the addition of kerosene, had ignited like kindling. Smoke poured from the cracks between the logs. The women were silhouetted by the flames, watching as their handiwork took hold. A haze of smoke swirled in the space between the burning house and the forest’s edge.
Renee was closest to the cabin, holding Archer’s ax in one hand, watching rapt as the fire licked at the stone chimney. Corwin and Sharmalee stood off to the side, Sharm’s arms crossed against her chest, her face to the ground. It appeared as though she were crying, though it may have been the smoke. Perhaps she was just holding her breath, waiting for the moon. Mitch held the can of kerosene by the handle, looking shell shocked in the firelight. Hazel and Jenna stood farthest away, nearly in full shadow. In Lexie’s eyes, all of the women’s faces shifted between wolf and human.
Hazel gasped and shouted, “They’re here!”
The women shifted their stances. Renee’s eyes caught Lexie’s before moving away. In the fire’s light, Renee’s bloodshot eyes held a mixture of doubt and rage.
Archer and Lexie took a ten
tative step into the meadow, and no one seemed to know what to do.
Blythe bounded from the woods and leapt onto the cab of Lexie’s truck as if she owned it. Towering over the women, Lexie watched her pale skin glint with firelit white fur.
“You’ve been siring,” Blythe said to Archer, theatrically, as though they hadn’t already spoken in the treehouse. This confrontation was for the benefit of the Pack.
“You were exiled. Now you’ve sired a peacespeaker. You’ve broken the rules.”
“What rules?” Archer asked impertinently.
“The rules of our kind.”
“I TAUGHT you those rules!”
“Just like a pureblood, to fight against the very rules you espouse when it suits you.”
Archer snarled, her diplomacy tapped out in the face of her burning house.
“Nobody ‘sired’ me,” Lexie interrupted, feeling silly even as she opened her mouth to defend Archer. “I drank from a footprint.”
“I’m not here to quibble over details,” Blythe snapped at Lexie before turning again on Archer. “Your crimes are plenty. Even if you didn’t sire this peacespeaker, you did kill one.”
“What?” Lexie said, the word catching in her throat. She swayed, the growing heat from her mind or the flames, she didn’t know. She thought about swallowing and how she might accomplish that, to settle the roil that shook at her stomach. Despite countless, careless moments in the treehouse, she felt that here on the ground was the first time falling was a real possibility.
She inhaled, forcing air into her diaphragm to silence her nausea. She couldn’t . . . it was too much . . .
A tear cut a path down Archer’s cheek and evaporated. “Lexie, listen to me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of it.”
“She’s dead?”
Lexie’s heart felt as though it had ceased beating, and it sat like a rock in her throat, making it difficult to breathe. “Because of you?”
Lexie looked to Archer, whose stunning and pained face glowed like it did the night around the fire when Lexie sang and fell in love.