"Let's have some delicious sex," I murmured against his lips. "Let's taste each other and get rid of this awful sour feeling."
He pulled my hands from around his neck very gently. "While I'd like nothing more than to make love to you, now isn't the time, Shana. You know it as well as I do. You have to face her. Maybe the pack can use her for now. If she has information, we should hear it before you--" he waggled his brows.
"Kill her?" I finished and he nodded.
I didn't want to hear that. I'd wanted to avoid it altogether. But I knew he was right. Pack came first, even above my desire for vengeance and closure.
"You're not helping," I said. I peered up at him from the corner of my eyes.
"Rain check on the delicious sex," he said.
With a sigh, I pushed myself to my feet. While the rest of the pack and my father had been devastated when Artemis left, I had felt immense relief. I had been my own shifter finally, even if her influence was admittedly hard to shake. If I hadn't done so up to now, perhaps now is the time to do it.
I hated the thought of facing my mother. Even more, I hated the thought that I might need her. Everything she gave came at a cost. I just wondered what price would be exacted this time.
THE DEATH OF CANNED GOODS
I walked up to the house with a heavy heart, knowing facing Artemis would be a complex mixture of emotions that I couldn't even name knowing I'd be standing right in front of her, and knowing they'd no doubt all come rushing out all to the once in a black tarry miasma of confusion.
I gave Jeb a quick kiss on the cheek as we entered the mansion, and I knew he understood that I wanted to go it alone. I adjusted my dress around my hips, and took a deep breath. I was about to march myself up the stairs, when Lynden vaulted his way down them and came running over to me.
"She wants to see you," he said.
Of course she did. She would not have taken kindly to being locked up. That didn't explain why he knew it. I felt my brows draw together in what I hoped was a good imitation of a stern and matronly look.
"Have you been to the panic room to see her?"
He hung his head and toed the tiles. "You said she was your mother," he said. "I wanted to know what she was like."
It hurt him, I know, that I had a mother who wasn't his. With his own so recently deceased, I imagined he felt a pull in the direction of anyone who might be able to fill that role. I wanted to at once be that mother he needed and pull him into a comforting embrace, but I was more afraid of the bond he wanted from my mother so badly he gravitated to her without thinking. And he couldn't possibly know the consequences of that relationship. He would never know it if I could help it.
"Listen Lynden," I said, putting my hand on his head. "She's not the kind of woman you think she is." For a second, I froze as I imagined his little body being sprayed with colloidal silver or being wrapped in chains. I wouldn't put it past my mother if she thought the boy had any meaning for me. When next I spoke, I did so with such acid in my tone that he jerked his eyes to mine.
"You should stay away from her."
He shook his head. "I can't. She wants to see you."
"Then I'll see her by myself."
He lifted imploring black eyes to mine. "Please, Shana," he said. "I want to know what she's like."
Something in my belly lurched and my throat went tight. Poor thing. I wanted to pull him close, protect every hair of his head, savage anyone who came close enough to take that innocent flush from his face. It was almost manic, the desire to protect him, and I knew that somewhere deep down, I saw myself in his place.
"No," I said to him, with just a note of sadness. "You don't. Trust me."
"But she's nice," he protested. "She told me I was handsome."
My heart squeezed a little at that. He was handsome. And apparently very naïve. Despite my aversion to having him spend any time at all with my mother, perhaps he needed to see what she was.
I crouched in front of him, all the better to meet his gaze at the same level.
"She seems nice," I said. "Many people will seem nice when they want things from you. You should know this."
He pulled his bottom lip in and chewed at it with his teeth. He wasn't a stupid boy. He understood what I was saying. He just didn't want to believe it. Part of my father's stubborn trait, something we had both inherited. I saw the characteristic and I couldn't help a resigned sign.
"I'll let you come with me, but not because you want to see her or because she's nice. But so that you can see what it's like to make tough decisions."
I heard Jeb muttering behind me to the guard at the door as I stood and tangled Lynden's fingers in my own. He didn't approve. Well, normally I wouldn't have either. But the boy was too soft. He took things at face value, and although I wished I could leave him that way for all the last few years he had until his puberty, I knew it was for his own good. I pushed back into the tail end of my mind the thought that perhaps my mother had been doing horrible things to me as a child for my own good.
"Let's go," I said and tugged him along behind me. He caught up quickly and let go my hand so he could launch up the stairs.
"What do you mean by a hard decision?" he said, halting at the fifth step and turning around to face me as I dragged myself up behind him.
"I mean she can't stay here. At least not alive."
There were two echoing gasps: one from the bottom of the stairs in Jeb's direction, and the other one from above me. I chose to look at the more innocent face in response.
"You mean you're going to kill her?" That last came out in a squeal, and I looked up at him, realizing for the first time exactly how childish he truly was. He'd been far too coddled, too protected, living in a pack that had been at peace for over two centuries. It had been a long time since I'd been his age, but even before puberty, I had already endured enough pain both physical and psychological, that I had been far older than my years. At ten, I was already a hundred.
"We'll see," I said in concession, and in truth, it made even me feel better to leave the possibility open. I couldn't look back at Jeb after we'd agreed not to kill the woman, but it felt good to leave the matter hanging in the air, all manner of possibility waiting to be picked. It felt downright hopeful if not a tad spiteful. I thought I could live with that.
The walk across the portico to my mother's suite was an agonizing one. It hadn't been that long ago it had been me inside that panic room, imprisoned because I was the alpha's daughter and my foster brother needed me to cement his takeover of the pack. Now it was me on this side of the bars, and it was my mother inside. The thought of returning to the suite at all was one I avoided in the days since I had taken back to the mansion. I had even refused to take residence in my father's wing and had instead decided to stay in my old bedroom because it seemed the most normal and nonthreatening.
It had suited me just fine, but now knowing my mother was back in residence, I might have to return to my father's suite after all. Something niggled at the back of my brain, telling me I needed to exert my superiority over her. I couldn't let her think she had the upper hand. If I spent the time in my old bedroom while she was here, I might lose whatever psychological advantage I might have. And psychological advantages were very important when it came to dealing with my mother.
The guard outside the door when I drew up was the same shifter from earlier. I struggled to remember what Gerald said his name was when I'd asked.
"Thank you, Franco," I said to him. I hoped his name was Franco. Since he didn't correct me, I assumed I was right. "How have they been?"
"Very quiet," he said. "Gives me the creeps."
I nodded at him. Mother was a strikingly beautiful woman with long platinum hair and a pert nose. But even a stupid man would feel the chill that would rake his body as he looked at her. There was something ethereal and frightening about her. The child I was always believed it was the old blood, but now that I was an adult, I assumed it was just because the woman was cold herself
.
I clumped my way over to the bars, careful not to put my hands on them. Caleb had painted them with silver, and I hadn't had time to strip them. I wondered if my mother had discovered that yet.
I stopped short of the bars and peered in. For a flash of a second, I remembered Caleb standing there, falling to a crouch as he inspected me in my captivity, demanding my submission. Now I was the one on his side of the bars, and it was my mother inside there with her tattooed man and their envoy. I knew they were far more comfortable than they should be. The bed was soft and covered with silk sheets. It would be almost as my mother had left it all those decades ago minus the weapons and the canned goods, however. For a second, I was almost grateful to Caleb for cleaning house of them.
The drummer held his bongo in the gap between his knees and he ran his fingers over it like a lover might a beloved's skin. He leaned against the wall that led to the bathroom with his eyes closed, while the man who held the bat earlier, lay on the bed with his eyes wide open.
My mother and her tattooed man sat on chairs. She had undone her braid and let her hair hang free. For a split second, a flash of paranoia bolted through me. Had she heard my confession to Jeb, had she found eyes and ears to follow us about to report everything back to her? Then I pushed a resolute thought along behind it, like Sisyphus with a boulder, to find my sense of equanimity. She couldn't have done that. This was not her pack. It was mine.
They lounged on either side of the table, holding hands. I swallowed hard. The last time I had been in there, that table had held a bowl full of fruit. The apple at the top had been the weapon Jeb provided me to escape Caleb by jamming a razor blade inside the belly so I could cut Caleb and find myself free.
I had to shake myself of the reverie. That was over. I had a new enemy to face.
"So, Artemis," I said. "Do you want to tell me why you're really here?"
She stood to her full imposing height of nearly five eleven and placed her hands delicately on her hips. "I missed you," she said.
That just about tore it. To restrain myself from yanking open the door and throttling her where she stood, I gripped the bars. My palms felt like I'd placed them on a hot griddle but I refused to let go. Yup. Silver nice and pure. I leered in at her, knowing she could smell the metal as well as I could.
"Shut your lying mouth," I growled at her. The guard next to me shifted uncomfortably at the vehemence in my voice and took a step back toward the stairs. Lynden quailed and followed suit, stopping at the railing and clinging to it with such a grip I knew he would bolt back downstairs to the foyer and yell for Jeb if I so much as reached through the bars. Let them go. Now that I had Artemis in my sights, I could see nothing else anyway. I had the feeling my face had turned into a twisted mix of fury and betrayal. I could barely hiss out my reply through the tightness of my lips.
"If you missed me, then why did you leave in the first place?"
She shrugged and the silvery hair slipped free its perch on her shoulder and cascaded down her chest.
"I had done my best for you," she said. "But with your father paying more attention to you..." She lifted one spare shoulder as though she were helpless and we both knew that wasn't the case. "Well he was making you weak."
"He and Galen made me strong," I countered. "The kind of strength you couldn't understand."
"Oh I understand it," she said, strolling across the floor to face me. She took great pains not to touch the bars, and I suspected she had gripped them earlier. Good. I hoped she had burned herself bad enough to hurt for days. My own tolerance was waning and my knees felt weak.
"I'm not sure why you're here," I said. "But you won't be here long."
"I'm here to help you, Shana," she said. "Don't be foolish." This time she placed both hands on the bars directly over top mine and wrapped her fingers completely around. She held my gaze with her own steely one.
I shook my head free of the temptation to let go first. "Your help never comes free," I said.
"You make me sound like a vagabond in my own home."
"If I never see you again, it will be too soon. If I had my way, you'd be dead right now."
"And kill the old line?" she said, scoffing. "Easier said than done."
"That's where you're wrong. I could so easily cut your throat, you'd be gurgling in your own pool of blood before you even realized what I had done."
"You're being foolish." One by one, she peeled my hands off the bars with tender fingers. "You were always so stubborn."
"I'm being smart. If I had my way you would die right here in the cell." I pulled my hands free of hers and let them drop to my sides. I would have killed her, except for one thing. One important thing.
"I have a pack to worry about now and you have information."
A slow smile spread across her face. The tattooed man behind her crossed his legs.
"So you do need me," she said.
"I don't need you. I'm going to use you, and if you play nice, I won't execute you after."
"She brushed her palms together as though some filth had transferred itself from my palms to hers and she needed them clean. "I don't mind helping you. You are my daughter after all."
I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling the tight grip my hands had on my biceps. I was alpha. I had earned my place, not been given it by an ancient bloodline.
"Start with why you came here."
"Very well. I didn't come here by accident, Shana," she said. "I came here to save you."
A NAKED RUN
I knew I couldn't keep her in that suite indefinitely, but I was loathe to let her run free until I had assessed whatever threat she and her companions might hold for me and the rest of the pack. I certainly had nowhere else to put them in the meantime, and I kind of liked the idea of my mother stuck in that damned room of hers waiting for me to let her out, at my pleasure. I'd happily let her rot in there except it would mean she'd be too close for me to ignore. I took in the lot of them, my chest starting to heave with anger and the supreme desire to just walk away. She had put me in a tough spot once more whether it was physical or not. I felt my fingers working to clench into a fist and even that made me angrier. I shouldn't have to feel like this. I was a grown woman. An alpha, for god's sake.
"I'll have some food sent up," I said, training my eye on the drummer who had begun some sort of staccato rhythm again with his palms. It was unnerving, and it only added to the tension when he looked up at me to stare silently as though each blink was enough to punctuate the sound of his music.
"You've cleaned my rooms," Artemis said.
"Damn straight," I said, although it hadn't been me who had swept the room for weapons and cleaned them out. It had been Jeb and Caleb's orders. I was glad of that now. "It's been vacant for so long, it seemed a shame to waste all of the canned goods and weaponry." I would never tell her I had been held there very recently.
As though she were reading my mind, she curled her fingers inward to study her nails and let go a very innocent sounding question. "And Caleb?" she said. "Where is he?"
I stared at her for a long moment before I answered. "Same place as my father."
She made a noncommittal sound low in her throat, a cross between a hum and a snort that made me grit my teeth. She knew, damn her. She knew my father was dead and she stood there as though it was the first she'd heard it.
I finally couldn't stand anymore and spun on my heel without saying goodbye. I needed to get out. What I really needed was a good run. I stopped in my room on the way out of the mansion and grabbed a satchel to stuff my dress into before I discarded it into the bushes. The act made me think of Jeb and how he changed me in these weeks. Always be prepared. It would keep my clothes dry so I didn't have to return to the house in damp clothing.
I met him as I got to the bottom of the stairs and he started to follow me. He must've understood from my tense jaw and posture, I needed to be alone, so he hung back, calling out a soft hope for a good run. I stormed past several guards on
my way to the gardens and if any of them wanted to talk to me or ask me any questions, they too afraid to do so when they saw the expression on my face. I was fuming. This many years after my mother had left and here I was sulking like a child, the very thought of it made me even angrier. Even so, it was about getting out into the woods and letting my beast take over. Running off the fury and adrenaline because if I didn't, I would have made short work of killing her. It was true, I knew we did need her. But if she thought I was going to release her, she was playing a game of chess with the wrong player.
The grass smelled newly mowed and the woods beyond it beckoned me with the smell of moss and old leaves. My nostrils caught the scent of rabbits and squirrels as I peeled off my clothes and stuffed them into the satchel without folding them. I dropped the bag onto the grass as I shifted, and I was off into the woods in less than a heartbeat. The glory of running stole all of the stress from my body. I leapt over trees and circled around alders too big to leap over. Several times, I flushed a rabbit out from its warren and gave it chase, not because I wanted to kill it, but because I wanted the frenzied run. I knew the woods like I knew my own heartbeat, and the pulse of the forest sent a familiar thrum through my tissues.
If I headed west, I would avoid the little cubbyhole that Jeb and I shared when we wanted to be alone, and I would be off into more familiar, but far less recently used territory. That way lay all the twisting paths I had run during my youth when I needed to get away from my mother. I hesitated only a moment before I set out that way, running hard enough that my lungs felt as scorched as sand paper against raw flesh. Still, I didn't stop. I took the same trails I did then, heading towards the stream that I knew meandered along the border of the property. Twice, I thought someone was following me, and I paused, tongue hanging, to scan the woods around me. Nothing.
I felt almost normal again by the time I reached the stream, and by then, the sun had long set. I dipped my head to taste of the cold running water and avoided studying the reflection that met me. I couldn't see the moon through the trees, and neither did it reflect any of its light into the water below me, but I felt that it was on the wax. Council meeting would be in another couple of days. I would need to be ready for them with an answer. Explain to them why I held my mother, the Alpha female so many of them remembered, as a prisoner. I wondered what they would say. I knew many of the elder wolves in my pack remembered my mother. Some of them had come with her from England and settled in this territory with her and my father. Gerald did, certainly.
Rogue Breed (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 2) Page 10