She smiled up at me. "I'm glad too," she said. "Sister."
I crossed my arms over my chest at the sound of the word, feeling my throat work to hold back the emotion that felt at once warm and liquid, testing it in my mind and thinking about that purple gauzy veil and the fact that Jeb was outside of it and unable to reach me. I thought about the hunters lining the property, kept only at bay because of that purple gauze. I thought of the alpha out there somewhere, sending forth his little army to threaten and frighten us so that when the true force came, we would be exhausted or we would be cowed. Then I thought of the delirium I had felt when I had connected with Alma before to reach out to Jeb. It was ecstasy, and not just because I loved the man. The magic itself carried the pleasure.
What a way to go if I had to go. Drowning in ecstasy and saving my pack.
"Get ready, Alma," I said. "Take what you need from me. We're dropping the veil."
DROPPING THE VEIL
I knew the moment the veil dropped. I felt it. In the end, it had taken a small amount of blood from my fingertips joined with a small of blood from Alma's. We pressed our hands together, fingers mounted against fingers, palms against palms. I felt something being drawn from me with each breath moving upward in a sluggish manner as though it was water against gravity. The current between our skin where it touched, hummed. For a second, I thought I caught sight of something myself. Visions swam behind my eyelids, swirling like the colours in a kaleidoscope except they never quite took form. Each time I tried to keen it out the way a person does an early morning dream, I felt blackness swimming in from the sides obliterating the vision. It didn't matter what images resided deep in the shadows. The veil was down. I knew it as surely as my own breath. I let go Alma's hand so abruptly that both of us fell backwards, she onto her elbows and me flat on my back.
I blinked up at her as she hovered over me.
"I need to get out there," I said.
Her lips pursed together and then she nodded. I rolled onto my side, gripping the key on the chain around my neck. I was half pushing myself, half running by the time I reached the cell door.
"Start searching," I said. "I want to know where he is as soon as you find him." I looked at her over my shoulder, catching sight of the way she chewed her bottom lip. I was leaving her alone here, vulnerable and unguarded. Left to do magic without protection. I dashed back into the centre of the room and before she could protest, I gripped her hand.
"Never mind," she said. "You're coming with me."
I had to tug her all the way down the stairs and into the foyer. Not one single guard met me to hold me back. I could hear her shouting and gunfire coming from outside. The hunters were in. And every one of the pack was engaged. I plunged from the front door and spilled out onto the front step, pulling Alma along behind me. What met my gaze was much the same as before. Wolves and humans alike were embroiled in mortal combat. Those zombie hunters had come alive when the veil shifted and they were either taking aim and letting go, or they were slicing sideways with machetes at anything that came near. Their dogged determination was frightening and when I noticed some of the shifters lunging for their throats and tearing into the skin, they fell twitching to the ground. Too much magic. Too much silver for a regular wolf.
This was as far as I could let her come and even as she protested I pushed her behind the balustrade, easing her into the crevice between two railings. She would be safe there, at least as safe as anyone could be in this chaos. Hopefully she could locate the alpha hunter long before anyone reached the steps.
"You'll be okay here," I said. She looked up at me with owlish eyes. Frightened. Terrified. I didn't blame her. I bit into my bottom lip, telling myself it would be okay to leave her. I was needed out there where the wolves were fighting and dying even now. Where dozens of hunters had begun sprawling over the grass and slicing through each wolf they met.
I was still debating the need to meet the enemy when the enemy came to me. Two of them came at me with machetes raised, and instinct took over. I spun around, letting my leg fly out in a roundhouse kick and connected with the shins of the first one. He fell sideways and I leapt for his machete, rolling over him and landing neatly on his opposite side, my feet planting into the wood of the porch floor for heartbeat before I launched myself again. This time, my opponent's blade met mine and I grabbed for his arm with my free hand. Pulling him towards me, I bit down hard. With human teeth, there was no way I was going to break skin through the material of his fatigues, but it would give him an awful jolt. Then I kneed him in the groin. He dropped like a stone. I sent my elbow backwards into his temple. When he too fell on the porch, I grabbed his blade and cut through his neck.
I was vaguely aware of Alma's soft sobs. Poor thing was trying her best to do the location spell. And she was losing.
It's the blood, was the thing that popped in my mind. She'd needed my blood to drop the veil and she needed my blood to locate the alpha. I could protect her all I wanted, it would be for nothing if she wasn't able to access our connection. Blood for blood. I'd given much more for my pack before, butt was a horrible risk to let myself be vulnerable for those moments it might take to perform the location spell. I'd leave us both open to attack. Even so, it had to be done.
I reached for her hand but she cowered away. Pushed herself deep into the crevice with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around them.
"You have to find him," I said. "If you don't, we'll all die."
She waggled her head up and down at me but I don't think she registered what I said. There was no look of recognition or understanding in those eyes.
"Alma," I shouted. "Start the spell." I was somewhat gratified to see her crossing her legs lotus style and placing her hands on her knees. She closed her eyes and relief washed over me as I reached out for her, fully meaning to lay my hands on her head or take her hands. Anything. Just connect.
Before I could take another step, another huntsman threw himself at me. This time, he managed to slice into my forearm. I yanked my arm back in reflex and realized as I did so, the blade was coming at me again. Right at my face. I threw my arm up and felt the machete Lodge into bone. I staggered to my knees, bleeding freely. Through his legs I could see a yard full of awful things. But it was the sight of Rena barreling through the gates with the RV that gave me the most hope. I let go a primal type of scream and threw myself between my opponent's legs, twisting so that I landed on my back. I drove the point of the machete upwards and whether or not it went into his rectum or his groin, I didn't care. I pulled my legs free of him just in time.
Holding my arm against my chest, I crawled forward, scrabbling for Alma. I had plenty of blood now to help her. I just had to get her focused. Before I passed out and was no good for anything. I needed to get to her.
I was at least a foot away when I realized I was losing consciousness.
"Use my blood," I yelled at her straining to touch her hand. "Use our bond."
She had begun to vibrate. I could see the purple haze descending around her from the ether. It had started. She was doing it. Even so, it was wavering. I could see the energy vacillating like steam. She needed me. I reached out. Almost there. I pushed myself forward with my feet, grabbed her wrist.
And I was in.
I felt the alpha. I felt Alma. I felt as though there was a connection so strong that I could taste it if I opened my mouth. Like a tongue licking the heel of a battery, I expected the energy to be bitter and acidic. I expected to recoil and clamped down on my will, bending it to obey me. To keep the connection.
There he was. Standing face to sky, purple energy swirling around him. He was calling out to men he had marked and they were coming to him from everywhere. From the forests, from the Lakes, from the oceans. A world's breadth of them newly marked and heading doggedly for his energy like salmon driven to return to their cradle of origin.
All of them connected to him through the tattoo. One tattoo. On the crest of his cheek, amid
all of the rest of the swirling marks, one fleur-de-lis all but hidden in the myriad of other markings. But now in this moment, outlined in red as though it was freshly inked and sore as hell.
That tattoo stood out so clearly it was painful to see. Check. Check was the alpha. In the second I realized it, I felt as though time had done its stretching out thing again, that everyone around me had somehow warped into an alternate time frame, and I was left to wade myself through murk. The rubber band, the soap bubble, all of them were about to reach the zenith of their limitations. I could almost hear it popping when Alma broke free of my grip.
Those owlish eyes settled on mine and I thought for a second I would collapse to my belly as the magic let me go, too spent to lift myself to my feet.
"Both of them," I managed to say. "It's both of them. Artemis and Check." I could barely believe it. I had expected terrible things from my mother, but not this. Sacrificing dozens of wolves so she could take over her pack. I was dizzy under the weight of it.
"I didn't know," Alma gasped out.
I couldn't look at her. It hadn't been Alma who had brought these hunters here. It had been my mother and her lover. Even so, she was part of this. She had to know.
"If you're innocent," I said aware that the words came out like gallstones rolling through my liver. "If you're innocent, then you better damn well be ready to fight."
She nodded at me, rolling onto her knees and pushing herself to her feet. "I'm with you," she said.
I couldn't take my eyes off the twisted ankle or the way she tried to hide it as she stood. She might not be a fighter, but she had power. She had determination. "You take Check," I said. I swung my gaze over the grass, searching for Artemis. "I'll take our mother."
I wasn't sure how I made it there, I wasn't even sure if Alma still followed. I was somewhat aware of slicing through anyone that came near me, and at times I wondered if I downed wolf or hunter, but such was the blackness of my rage that I barely registered what my arms and legs were doing. I might have been running. I might have been punching and elbowing and kicking and stabbing. Lots of stabbing. Lots of shooting. But I eventually made it. It was almost comical to see my mother in her wolf form black as pitch and tearing out the throat of one of the hunters. I could see blood and drool dripping from her jowls as she tried to withstand the pain of the silver that I knew was coating her throat. No doubt Check would take care of the magic but I wondered what kind of power enabled my mother to remain in her wolf form, transformed and impervious to silver.
Nothing would stop me from sinking my teeth into her throat. She had no magic. She couldn't ingest silver to protect herself. She was just Artemis. One shifter woman from a long line of werewolves, blessed with longevity but not immortality. And that longevity would end today.
Before I was within ten feet of her, I had dropped my weapons, pulled off my clothes and had shifted. I knew I was nothing more than a black streak rumbling across the grass like the shadow from a storm. I leapt at her while she was still burying her muzzle into the belly of a second huntsman. I took her from the side and we rolled together off the hunter and into the grass.
She was quick. I had to give her that. With a growl, she had twisted her neck just enough that she caught me in the shoulder with the grazing of her teeth. Whatever silver-tainted blood was on her canines, sunk into my shoulder and I felt the sting of it like a hot poker searing my flesh. I lost my mind, then. I let the beast take me completely.
I might have managed it, but there was a shout and a jolt of energy that struck me hard enough to throw me sideways. I collapsed onto my side and thought I heard a rib break. All air gushed from my lungs and scorched my insides as they blew through. I lay panting on my belly, trying to pull in more oxygen but my lungs wouldn't obey. Even if they would, each movement made my ribs sing. Broken. At least two of them. If I didn't move, my mother would be on me and I would be dead.
I couldn't keep my form. Not in that much pain. It retreated like a puppy into the corner and I lay on the grass naked and human, panning sideways this way and that to see where she might come from. It was a bare foot that I saw move into my vision. I peered upwards. She stood in front of me with Check just behind her shoulder, his arms raised on either side of her as though he would send another bolt of magic at me if I so much as breathed. That beautiful silver hair of Artemis's was hanging loose around her shoulders covered in blood. The same blood pooled down her naked chest and dripped down her shoulders. I heard myself laughing.
"You think it's funny to attack your mother like that?" she said.
"I think it's funny that you call yourself a mother," I said.
She knelt in front of me, both knees on the grass her breasts swinging in front of me. "I won't ask how you got out, but I'm glad you're here to help."
She reached her hand out to me. I just looked at it. I could breathe easier now. If I didn't move. If I kept very still.
"Come, Shana," Artemis said. "We still have much work to do."
It was Alma who answered her. God knows how long it had taken her or how she had managed it, but she had finally found her way across the grass.
"We know, mother," she said.
Artemis's eyes narrowed down to tiny slits as she regarded the club-footed shifter. Then she looked again at me and all pretense left her expression. Instead, it grew hard and nasty.
"It's my pack," she said. "Your father turned it into something hideous. Something I couldn't recognize. This isn't the way wolves do things," she said. "We don't embrace humans and we don't give our members votes."
I felt my throat tighten around the words I wanted to hurl at her. She had left. She had no right to judge the governing rules my father had set up for his pack. She had no rights here. Not anymore.
"So you figured you could just take it?"
"Take it, yes, and clean it. The pack needs to be sterilized of your father's foolishness."
If I took hitching breaths, I realized could stave off the pain. I got to my knees slowly and methodically.
One more tottering step and I was almost on my feet. I didn't need to be fully upright, just needed to have enough spring in my step that I could gain the thrust I needed to launch myself. I just hoped I'd have enough energy to change when I found it.
"What you see as weakness, Artemis," I said. "Is really strength. Look at the wolves that you think are weak. Out there fighting for their pack."
My mother let go a harsh laugh. "Only the fittest will survive. Check has seen to that. He has the power to bend those humans to our will. With those marks, they belong to us. Better than soldiers. Mindless killers. All to our will."
My knees had finally stopped their trembling enough that I didn't sway on my feet. I was still hanging over, barely able to enough to pull in enough oxygen to fuel those screaming thighs, and I wasn't about to waste my breath arguing with her anymore. She had lost her mind completely. What had happened to her after she had left here, I could never know, but what she had done to me while she had been here, that was enough to tell me she had never fully enjoyed sanity.
I glanced sideways at Alma and gave her a nod. I hoped she would understand that the only way I would be able to take down my mother was if she handled Check. The girl swallowed, but I was sure she saw me. I threw myself at Artemis despite the pain that lancing through my side, and crushed her beneath me on the grass. She landed with what I knew had to be a painful exhale and she went limp.
There was a sizzling of energy popping through the air and I knew Check had let go a blast at the same moment I had leapt. But it fizzled before it struck me and in the corner of my eye, I saw Alma standing in front of him, her palms held outward. Between the two of them, purple energy sparked as they tried to hold each other off. The girl was strong. Stronger than I could have imagined and I only realized it in the moment that her magic burned bright between the two of them. She might have won given enough time, but in the next second Check's face went completely lax. His mouth opened in a small exp
ression of surprise and then he dropped to his knees.
It was the next heartbeat that I heard the stark clarity of a gunshot.
My mother screamed from beneath me as she saw Check fall and then she began scrambling in earnest to get out from beneath my grip. Not bloody likely. I didn't care how hard she cried or how grief-stricken she was. I lay my right forearm against her throat, leaning in as much as I could so I could pan sideways to see what had happened.
That was when I saw him. Covered in brambles and moss and blood, looking like some half-buried and pulled from the grave Rambo. Jeb. Pistol raised, face set in that impassive expression he pulled over his features when he had to do the hard thing but the right thing. I almost went limp at sight of him. Franco followed along behind, swinging his weapon left and right to give the human man ahead of him cover. Yet there was no need. Every single hunter had dropped and lay motionless on the grass.
It was well and truly over. That was clear.
The wolves around them stood paralyzed with surprise.
I think I let go a sob.
A flash of pain bit into my forearm as my mother wriggled beneath me. She still had hold of my skin and her teeth were sawing back and forth like a bulldog. It hurt like hell to rip my arm free of her teeth. My stomach churned at the sound of skin tearing and blood dripping onto the ground. I couldn't look at my arm. I just rolled free of her and when I did, she jumped to her feet.
"Don't move," I said, panting. One arm was burning like a bastard and my ribs on the other side where hollering like a banshee. I certainly couldn't have done anything if she did decide to move, but nothing could've surprised me more than to see her streak toward Check and fall over him. The curtain of her hair hid her grief from me, but I could hear her murmuring to him, telling him to get up. They had work to do. When he didn't respond, her back went rigid and her shoulders squared. She craned to look over her shoulder at me. I was aware of Alma sidling away from it all, her fingers stuffed in her mouth.
Rogue Breed (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 2) Page 18