by Anita Oh
Except for my hair. My hair was probably a lost cause. I stuffed it into a black knit cap that I’d never seen Tennyson wear so I didn’t have to think about it.
“If we’re bargaining,” I said as I dressed. If I kept him talking, he wouldn’t get any evil ideas. “You could throw in the location of Hannah Morgan to sweeten the pot.”
“I'm trying to keep you out of danger, not get you killed. Forget that girl, she’s long gone.” His voice sounded final but he’d all but admitted he knew where she was. I’d find out the information, if not from him then some other way.
He hadn’t moved from his spot in the middle of the room, but I knew he was memorizing every detail.
“Let’s go back downstairs,” I said, shooing him out.
“Where are my men?” my father asked as we walked down the stairs.
“They’re safe,” I said. “Where’s Tennyson?”
“You’ll never find him,” he said. “Not alive.”
I could sense Althea quite strongly, and I knew she was close by. Her mood was much lighter than it had been.
“Tennyson is just one boy,” I told him. “True, he’s a very powerful boy, probably the richest boy in the world, with a family who would hunt you to the ends of the earth if anything happened to him. But still, just one boy. Is his life really worth the lives of all your men?”
At the bottom of the stairs, my father turned and smiled at me. He opened his mouth to say something, no doubt something vaguely offensive, but before he could get it out, Althea appeared behind him and cracked him over the head with an antique vase.
“Catch,” she said, tossing me a small glass bottle.
For a moment, I was terrified that I’d drop it and it would shatter everywhere and I’d never, ever be cured, but luckily, I had super reflexes now.
“All of it?” I asked, taking the lid off the bottle.
“Yes, and hurry. I don’t think he’s completely knocked out.”
I quickly swallowed the contents of the bottle. It tasted sweet, and warmth flooded through me as it travelled down my throat. The world tilted, and I fell down the last few steps, landing hard on the floor. I half-expected that searing pain from when the potion had splashed on me, but there was no pain at all. It felt like when you’re in a dark room and you pull up the blinds on a bright morning and the room floods with light. For a moment, you can’t see anything. You can only feel the sunshine on your skin.
Tennyson? I asked. Where are you?
I waited for his response. I wasn’t sure how immediately the bond would return to him after the potion was reversed.
“Nothing yet,” I told Althea.
My father groaned and tried to get to his feet.
“Don’t move,” I told him.
“What should we do with him?” Althea asked.
“Do you think we can get him to the basement?”
She nodded, and we pulled him to his feet. He wasn’t coherent enough to struggle against us, but he was bulky and heavy, and we struggled to drag him down the hallway toward the basement door.
“I really am sorry, Lucy,” Althea said, pulling my dad’s arm over her shoulders and trying to take his weight.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I understand why you did it. I just…” I sighed. “If you’d have just talked to me about it, I could’ve told you that it’s not like that with Tennyson and me. Just because we have the soul bond doesn’t mean it has to be romantic.”
“Lucy…” she said.
I shook my head. I knew what she was going to say. “I love Sam,” I told her resolutely. It felt weird to say that aloud when I’d never really admitted it before. “And I know Tennyson doesn’t have any feelings for me. He’ll do whatever your mother tells him. Trust me. I’ve seen inside his brain. I know how determined he is to take care of the pack.”
“Okay,” Althea said, but although she tried to sound as if she believed me, I knew she wasn’t convinced. I couldn’t help that, though. What more could I do but tell her the truth?
We got to the basement door without any guards appearing or my father coming to enough to fight us, but as we opened the door, I was hit with a blinding pain.
I screamed and fell to the floor.
Even as the pain wracked my body, I knew it wasn’t really my pain that I was feeling. But that only made it worse.
When it ended, Althea was crouched over me, her face lined with worry. Sam and Nikolai were beside her.
“Tennyson,” I gasped. “I know where he is.”
Chapter 22
I struggled to my feet, and Althea took my arm to help me up. I had to get to Tennyson. My father hadn’t been kidding when he said I wouldn’t find Tennyson; without the bond, it would be impossible. Even with it, I wasn’t sure I’d find him in time.
I glanced at Althea. She was still covered in tar, and it made her movements sluggish.
“There was nobody at the lighthouse,” said Sam.
“We know,” I said. “I have to go. Tennyson… He’s not… I don’t think we have much time.”
Althea nodded. “Go. We’ll deal with this. Just please save him.”
I didn’t stick around to argue. Whatever happened with them now, I couldn’t let it be my problem. I couldn’t be distracted.
As I ran through the forest, I felt the bond growing stronger. All the walls we’d built up were gone. We hadn’t needed them when I was under the influence of the potion. I wasn’t sure whether Tennyson wasn’t able to communicate in words or if he hadn’t realized our bond had returned, but words weren’t even necessary. The line between us was clear. I could feel everything he felt, sense everything he was. And he was in a lot of pain.
I rushed toward him, terrified that I’d be too late. Nothing else mattered. The leaves of the forest floor crunched beneath my bare feet and blood pounded in my ears, but nothing mattered except that sense that led me to Tennyson.
I ran until I reached the lighthouse, and then I ran past it. I reached the edge of the cliff, where I hesitated. Katie had been right. This was how they’d got access to the island. There was a series of rope ladders tied to tree trunks and hanging down over the sides of the cliffs. I knew that was where I had to go, but I couldn’t take that first step. I wasn’t good with heights. I wasn’t particularly good with climbing, either. But I could feel Tennyson’s pain, his carefully repressed fear, and I forced myself over the side. At least it was just normal rope, no silver.
I gripped the rope and took that first step over, into the darkness. My foot wobbled against the rope, but I had to force my other leg down as well. Then down another step, and another. The whole ladder swayed from side to side, and I was sure that at any moment, I’d lose control of my body and let go and tumble down into the rocky ocean below.
No, I couldn’t think about that. I couldn’t think about what was down there. I could only think about Tennyson. Step by step, I forced my body down the ladder until I was almost to the bottom.
When I was around three-quarters of the way down, I saw it. This was going to be the hardest part. I needed to get from the ladder into the entrance of the cave where Tennyson was being held. The rocks were slippery, and the ladder didn’t completely line up with the cave entrance. It wasn’t a large opening: narrow and so low that I’d have to stoop to walk.
I held the ladder with one hand and pushed against the rocks with the other, edging my way across. When I got to the entrance, I took a deep breath. I walked my feet up the rocks and into the entrance with no real concept of how to get my body from the ladder into the cave. It didn’t seem possible. I angled my torso around the ladder, and for a moment, I hung suspended, my legs in the cave and my hands gripping the ladder, with only a gaping chasm of darkness beneath me. I pulled forward with my legs and then, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, let go of the ladder with one hand to grab the rock face. When I felt my balance shift from the ladder to the cave entrance, I pushed forward, letting go of the ladder. I let out a long breath before going forw
ard into the cave.
More than heights, more than climbing, I was not good with caves. I tried not to think about it as I squeezed my way through: not about getting stuck in there, not about how it was so dark, or how there were probably rats and bats and snakes and who knew what else. I only thought about Tennyson. Eventually, the way widened out, and I could see a glimmer of light in front of me. I headed toward that light, sure that was where Tennyson would be.
I came out into a large cavern. There was a narrow ledge around the outside, and in the middle, a deep pool of water. Water was falling in trickles around the cave walls and into the pool, the sound of it echoing loudly in the confined space. There was a man standing opposite me, holding a lantern in one hand and a rope in the other. The rope rose up to the cavern ceiling and then over an outcropping of rock and down the other side, and suspended on the end of the rope was Tennyson. He was tied by the feet, and the ends of his hair were grazing the water’s surface. The water glimmered with a strange texture, and I was sure that whatever that was, it was why Tennyson had been screaming in my mind.
The man hadn’t noticed me, so I crept forward, around the edge of the cave. I edged closer and closer, wondering what I should do. If I attacked the man, he’d drop the rope and plunge Tennyson into the water. I needed to get the rope and then deal with the man, but I had zero ideas on how to do that.
“Take another step, and I’ll let go of the rope,” the man said.
I froze.
“Have you heard of colloidal silver?” the man asked conversationally, jiggling the rope. “Tiny silver particles in liquid. People sell it on the internet as a dietary supplement, but there are no actual health benefits. Effective in the war against werewolves, though.”
“You call this a war?” I asked him. “This isn’t a war. This is persecution.”
“You’re young,” he said. “You only know as much as they want you to know.”
Screw that. I had no time for some old crackpot and his hate crimes. I couldn’t see Tennyson’s face from that angle, but I knew he was suffering. The dripping water echoed eerily around the cave, and the lantern light reflected off the pond, casting flickering shadows on the walls. It felt like another world. There was only one thing I could think of to do to save Tennyson, and I’d only get one chance at it. It would take every ounce of control that Tennyson had tried to teach me, and I’d need to do it perfectly. I couldn’t keep trying to fight the lycanthropy, but I couldn’t let it take over again, either. Neither of those things worked. I had to find the place where they balanced inside me perfectly.
Suddenly, I realized that I’d been doing that all along, only not with the lycanthropy. It was no different from my bond with Tennyson. I had Tennyson constantly in my mind, and that presence could easily overwhelm me if I let it. There had been times when I’d just wanted to drown in him and other times when I wanted to push him away completely, but neither of those things made me happy. I was happiest when there was a harmony in our bond, an equality. Things weren’t perfect between us; we both had our secrets and issues to deal with, but when we didn’t push each other away and everything flowed naturally between us, everything else seemed to fall into place as well.
Lucy? Tennyson said.
I’m here, I told him. Just hang on.
I’d explain to him later why that was funny.
I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling for the lycanthropy with my mind. I didn’t push against it, and I didn’t pull it toward me; I just let it flow through me. It was similar to the feeling I’d had that day in the woods with Nikolai, only much better. There was a clarity I’d never felt before. I was neither girl nor wolf but the perfect blending of both.
I flicked out the claws on my right hand, Wolverine-style, then leapt into the air.
The man stumbled backwards, dropping both the lantern and the rope, but I wasn’t leaping for him. I leapt for Tennyson. I grabbed him with my left hand and cut through the rope with the claws on my right. The two of us landed in a heap on the other side of the cavern. The man stepped forward, but I stopped him with a look.
“You’re stuck in a cave with two angry werewolves,” I told him. “Think carefully about what you do next.”
I didn’t take my eyes off him as he edged his way out of the cave, even as I carefully unwound the rope from Tennyson’s legs. Not until he’d finally disappeared and his footsteps had faded away did I look at Tennyson. He was pale, but his eyes were clear.
“It’s like you’re a helpless princess who constantly needs saving,” I told him, using my sleeve to dry the water from his skin.
The corners of his mouth turned up into a small smile. “Is that my hoodie?” he asked.
“Not anymore,” I said.
His eyes fell shut for a moment, and I really hoped he wasn’t passing out. Even though I was clearly the most awesome person ever, there was no way I could carry him up that rope ladder.
“That was some decent werewolfing you did there,” he said, swaying in closer to me. He was clearly exhausted, so I let him rest his head on my shoulder, even though the silver water in his hair stung where it touched my skin.
“Did you just use the word ‘werewolf’?” I asked him. “And as a verb?”
“I’ve been tortured,” he said. “My brain is addled. But, still, you’re starting to get the hang of it. You may actually be decent at lycanthropy someday.”
I took a deep breath. I couldn’t keep avoiding it forever. It was probably the worst possible time to drop a bombshell on him, but there was never going to be a good time. Better to do it now, when he was too weak to get angry.
“So, about that,” I said. “It’s not actually a permanent condition. Not for me.”
His eyes flickered open, but he didn’t move away from me.
“This, whatever it is that I am, the weird gene or whatever? It’s not the lycanthropy gene.”
“I know,” he said.
I blinked at him.
“That spell you did, the protection spell? It worked. They couldn’t hurt me, not directly. You couldn’t do that with only lycanthropy.”
I couldn’t fully take in the implication of what he was saying. I had magic? I shook my head. I’d think about that later. Right now, there was something I needed him to know.
“I’m going to become one of them,” I whispered. “The Others. I’ll become something else first, then something else, but eventually, I’m going to turn evil.”
It was my darkest fear, and now he knew it. He’d turn his back on me, and I couldn’t blame him.
Even through the bond, it was difficult to tell what he was feeling. He didn’t seem angry or disappointed or any of the things I’d expected.
“That will definitely give the pack a tactical advantage over our enemies,” he said finally.
“The pack?” I asked. “But when I change to whatever it is I’ll be next…”
He shrugged. “The pack is for life,” he said. “Once you’re in, you can’t leave.”
“Like the mafia?”
“Help me up,” he said.
We struggled to our feet and he stood facing me, holding on to my shoulders. He ducked his head to stare right into my eyes. For the briefest moment, I felt sure he was going to kiss me. My heart pounded; I wasn’t sure how to react. He was so weak that if I pulled away, he might fall back into the water, and all my rescue effort would be for nothing, so I’d have to just stand there and let him do it. I held my breath, waiting for him to lean in.
But he didn’t.
“I’ll be the alpha one day,” he said. “No matter what happens, you’ll always have a place in this pack.”
I nodded, and he squeezed my shoulders.
And if my heart felt heavy, it was only because I knew we had such a long way to go to get home.
Chapter 23
“I can’t believe you’re so fickle,” said Nikolai. “Our love had barely begun to bloom, and already it has wilted.”
The five of us were s
itting in the garden of the Golden House, watching the teams of workers finish up the repairs. The headmistress had sent people in early to take away my father’s henchmen, and I was fairly sure those people weren’t regular police. When they’d gone to collect my father, though, they’d only found an empty set of shackles in the basement room. It made me uneasy to have him still on the loose, but I wasn’t surprised.
I’d never seen repairs done so quickly as the repairs to the Golden House. It was only just going on dark the next evening, and already everything was nearly back to how it had been.
Well, almost everything.
“You miss me following you around like a shadow?” I asked Nikolai.
“No,” he said, with a sardonic laugh. “That was sarcasm. You scared off at least five of my actual admirers and none of them believed me when I said I’d never look at you in a million years. I couldn't exactly explain to them I had to endure you purely because we’re in the same pack, though it should be obvious to anyone with eyes that I’m way out of your league. I couldn't even tell you to leave me alone because Althea said that might make the potion react badly. Which was probably a lie and just another part of her evil plot.”
I smiled over at him. Although I couldn’t fathom what potion-struck me had been thinking, he’d been so much more considerate of my feelings through the whole thing than I ever would’ve expected, I couldn’t help but think better of him now. Even when he was being a jerk and basically calling me ugly right to my face. I could remember having those feelings, but not what they’d actually felt like. When I tried to call them back up now, it was like trying to recall the details of a dream – and it wasn’t a dream that I particularly wished to remember. At least, not with him.