by Leigh Evans
Damn right she could. I gave her a hard nudge, and she swelled upward, brushing past my inner-Were with a sly grin. Magic, fat with temper, fed itself into the tips of my fingers. No more compartments, no more rationing of base desires, no more stomach squeezing, stomping down on natural instinct. I am Fae. I flicked my wrist and felt my mouth shape into a snarl as my otherworld talent spun from my fingers in a long, supple line of green. Fast as a whip, it traveled to the end of its reach, strained for another greedy inch, then—blind as a cave-dwelling snake—turned back toward me. It curled itself over my head, bobbing faintly on a current of air, shimmering with impatience under this world’s sun.
“Where? What?” it hissed.
“Window.”
It flew across the room to the bay and attached itself to a sash. “Open,” I said. Bang! Up went the double-hung—glass panes shuddering—an ample demonstration of my Fae’s willingness to work with me. Forget words. It read my mind, and magic flew to the next sash. Bang! Onto the next—bang! Up all four of them went, one after another, jerked hard right to the top of their frames, in pretty much the same order as they’d been sealed by the Alpha of Creemore, except a hell of lot less pretty and a whole lot faster.
“Isn’t this better?” my Fae purred.
Clean air drifted through the gaping windows, trying to cool my heated throat.
I need to destroy something. I surveyed the place where everything had turned to crap. That’s where it happened—over there in the living room, in that dark corner. That’s where they’d tortured Trowbridge. Everything went to hell after that.
My inner-Were was restless inside me, distressed and fretting to be let out, too. Yes, there, she whined—in rare, but perfect, agreement with my Fae. Hurt that place.
Remember that slash on his belly, those wounds on his thighs.
I stepped into the room and considered my targets. The chair they’d bound him to? The table to which they’d pinned his hand? The floorboards with their dried gore? Or how about the ladder-back chair on which they’d propped me up so that I had a front-row seat to his mutilation? Remnants of my duct-tape manacles still clung to its battered front legs.
Something needed to be turned into kindling in the next minute or I was going to explode. Just as I lifted my hand, target chosen—the table, of course—the front door opened with a protest of its hinges, and the scent of Chanel entered the house, followed by a click of claws on oak floor.
“Leave me alone, Cordelia.” My cable of fluorescent-green magic slithered over the furniture, nose forward, testing the density of the easy chair, slipping over its rounded back to shoot across the open space toward the bookcase.
“I’d love to,” she replied blandly. “But your niece looks ready to shed her wolf, and Bridge sent me in to babysit.”
I slowly pivoted to face my old roommate and my magic curled around me, a sinuous shimmering snake.
Heels, a nice skirt, a twin set. When had she found time to change? All that was missing was the heavy makeup—and she needed a shave. My roommate’s eyes narrowed into slits when my hot gaze rested too long on her jaw.
“Did he ask you to watch his baby or babysit?”
“Let me think,” she drawled. “I believe his exact words were: ‘Take the wolf into the house and find Hedi something sweet to eat. We’ll get this shit-fest straightened out as soon as I’m finished accepting their oaths.’”
Behind her, my niece paced in the small hall, anxious as a dog in need of a pee.
“Trowbridge’s full of orders now, isn’t he?”
“It’s part of the job title, as you’d have known if you ever bothered to listen to me.” Turning to face the hall mirror, Cordelia frowned and rubbed a spot by the corner of her mouth. Long fingers, big knuckles. A square, solid thumb. “So, darling, what sweet thing do you wish? Choose something that takes a long time to assemble—I don’t particularly enjoy the pageantry of the ‘bear my mark’ ritual. As far as I can see, it’s a needless pain for something that amounts to little more than a temporary blood tattoo. Besides, it’s not my duty to stand beside him while he does so.”
She added a long sniff to that last statement—just so I would understand that she considered it my responsibility to stand smiling inanely at the people who’d tried to skewer me to a tree not fourteen hours earlier.
Another small ladle of acid added to my roiling stomach. Instinctively, my free hand went to my amulet friend, hoping for a measure of calm. But Merry was not in a comforting frame of mind. She flashed a light—deep red—from within her stone and then, faster than an old station wagon caught in rush-hour traffic, her temperature rose.
“What?” I hissed, hunching my shoulders against her stone’s sudden scorching heat.
In answer, a strand of ivy pointed an accusatory finger at Cordelia.
And then, I realized, belatedly, what I’d missed.
“You’re wearing Ralph?”
Cordelia examined my serpent of magic coiling in the space between us for the count of three—she was the only Were with eyes clever enough to actually see my magic—then calmly shut the door behind her. Indifferent to the danger. Dismissive of our rage. “Yes. I am the temporary guardian of this amulet. Mine to serve and protect, at least until Trowbridge finishes outside.”
“Temporary guardian?” I repeated.
At that, my amulet friend gave herself a vigorous shake, and presto! She’d morphed from pretty pendant to Merry-the-stick-figure—four strands of ivy called into duty as appendages. My incensed Asrai pal stalked up the Valley of the Boobs, her golden chain looping behind her, and found a place about two inches below my right collarbone. From there, she glowered at me; the pulsing red light deep in the heart of her amber now distinctly tinged amethyst.
“I did protect him, Merry—”
One ivy arm took a tighter grip of my T-shirt, the other undulated in the air; a cat’s tail, twitching with irritation. She canted her body back, ready to deliver a slap-down.
“Really?” I asked through my teeth. “I did two A.M. feedings. For five weeks. I found him the best shrubs, the sweetest trees. And, I did not give him up to the pack. He made the choice himself last night when he opted for a wolf’s protection over mine. If you don’t like seeing him hung around a Were’s neck, then you should talk to him, not me.”
Cordelia said, “Now there’s a conversation I’d like to listen in on.”
“And you!” I growled. “Have you forgotten how Ralph likes to strangle people? With no warning? Usually when you’re not expecting it?”
She peered down her nose to study the amulet in question with about as much enthusiasm as one would a third nipple. “If it snags even one thread on this silk shell, I’ll turn it into a coat hanger.”
The Royal Amulet, clearly offended by her lack of deference, flushed red from deep within his blue jewel, suffusing his stone with a hint of purple far pissier than Merry’s most outraged hue.
There’s a match made in heaven—Merry and Ralph’s fights would be more awesome than Canada Day fireworks.
My amulet fought for balance as I ran a distracted hand through my hair. “I need everything just to stop for a second. I can hardly think anymore.”
Karma gave a toothy grin to her friend Chaos.
And suddenly Anu cried out and did a drunken sprint toward the back door. She got about three feet before her paws went out from under her, and she slid, belly-first, down to the floor.
“Damn,” said Cordelia, moving the hall table out of the way. “I’d hoped to get her to the mudroom before she fell into her change.”
Un-freakin’-believable. I had to witness my replacement’s transformation?
“That’s it.” I turned my back on Cordelia and the she-wolf from Merenwyn. “I’ve had it. You need to shovel Anu-the-new-dog-treat from the floor, and take her elsewhere. I don’t care where, just get her out of my sight.” Fingers hooked, I sketched an angular figure eight in the air with the marker, watching with grim fascinatio
n as my magic rolled through the loops with exquisite precision.
Silence from my ex-roomie, a guttural groan from my new niece.
I shot a glare over my shoulder. Cordelia studied me with pursed lips. “I perceive your feelings have been hurt.”
“Ya think? The Alpha of Creemore raised my hand and said, ‘We’ll stay forever.’”
“And you take issue with that.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Have you forgotten that the pack tried to kill us last night?”
“They won’t try it again.”
“Everybody keeps on saying that.” My Fae floated over toward the bad corner, touching first this and then that bad stain. Tasting them with a shiver. She turned her blind head back toward me, as if to say, “Mmm, wolf blood. May I have more?”
No. You can’t. I jerked her away from it.
“You know,” Cordelia drawled. “Bridge didn’t have any other choice than to do what he did. The man returned home last night, and found what? A welcome banner? No, he found you—presented in a wonderful homage to The Perils of Pauline—and a leaderless pack in a positive agony to tear something apart. And from that moment onward, his choices were whittled down to kill or be killed. Dominance or death.”
The end of my fingers ached from the strain of my curious Fae. “Stop it,” I told my magic savagely, fighting to bring her back to heel. She resisted briefly then acquiesced, returning to undulate above my head.
I twisted around to frown at Cordelia. “Who the hell is Pauline?”
“The quintessential damsel in distress.” She pressed the back of her hand against her forehead to whine. “Oh! Oh! Save me. Oh please. Someone save me.”
“You take that back,” I hissed. “I am not a damsel in distress. I’ve never been a—”
“Have you once stopped to think about the fact that Bridge has been on Hedi’s Train to Hell from the moment you found him in that motel room?” She jabbed a finger at me. “And you don’t know what choices were offered to him in Merenwyn.”
“I know what he passed on!” My magic whiplashed over her head as I whirled to face her.
Cordelia flicked her head upward and gazed at its coiled menace for a long, steady moment, then slowly lowered her chin. She gave me a poisonous smile. “Go ahead. Try it again.”
Oh, I wanted to. I did indeed.
Six months she’d been riding me. Pick up your clothing. Eat some protein. Do something about that amulet, he’s looking sulky. She’d taken the better bed because “I’m bigger than you.” She’d hissed, and hummed, and driven me three-quarters batty. Even now, when any other idiot would have walked away, she stood there, daring me.
She knew no fear, my six-foot mother hen.
For a beat, we had a stare-down. I shook my head. “Maybe Trowbridge did what he had to do. But you heard what he said before the pack arrived. He hates my brother, grieves for his Raha’ells—he’s willing to travel back to a realm where they hunt wolves with bear traps just to bring those wolves to freedom—and it seems he’d rather have faced more torture than come home to me.”
I gestured with my chin to where my blood relative writhed on the floor, one quarter human, three quarters wolf. “To top it all off, I’m pretty sure he’s slept with my niece, who has absolutely no problem turning into her wolf.”
“If she’s a threat, then kill her,” she said softly.
“I can’t,” I replied automatically. “She’s my brother’s daughter.”
Another fact that Lexi hadn’t shared with me last night.
Cordelia’s gaze was scathing—a bristling hedge of fake black lashes around an angry shimmer of icy-blue. “You’re giving her more importance than her presence warrants. She is a nobody. He didn’t even properly introduce her to the pack. You are the mate of the Alpha of Creemore. It’s simple. If you can’t bloody your hands then just kick her ass out of your bedroom.”
“You don’t get it,” I said in frustration.
“What don’t I get?”
“It’s all messed up!”
“Of course it is,” she replied. “It’s life. And life is inevitably messy.” She tilted her head to study me. “Darling, what did you think was going to happen if he came home?”
Bored of the conversation, my serpent of doom drifted to the fireplace’s mantel. There, it slid along the smooth pine until it met the obstacle of a family photo. This object was briefly investigated, a curious tongue testing the rounded contours of its brass frame. Evidently, not tasty. It brusquely knocked the picture off its perch. Glass shattered on its impact with the slate hearth.
I gave it a hard leash correction and pointed to a spot near my feet. “Stay there.”
“That’s a good idea,” Cordelia said, brushing past me. “Your feet are bare and your temper’s up.”
Got that right. My Fae wrapped itself around my ankle—feigning remorse—as Cordelia bent to pick up the broken frame. She tapped it on the floor to rid it of clinging glass slivers, then replaced it on the mantel.
We both stared at the family group shot—Trowbridge in the center, wearing a rented tuxedo and an uneasy smile, standing beside his new bride, Candy. Two teenagers married too young with no idea what was coming their way.
Without comment, she flipped it facedown.
Fatigue. It had been hovering in the distance, a dark threatening thundercloud, and now it hung over me. Pressing down on me. I need to sit. The couch was behind me but with it came the memory of Dawn Danvers’s sly smile as Stuart Scawens nuzzled her shoulder. Were they the last to sit on those cushions?
I chose the floor instead, and rested my back against the side of the sofa, watching my Fae nose dust balls while thinking about would-haves and could-haves.
Those “could-have” thoughts are dangerous things. They can live forever in your daydreams, untested and lovely, unless you pull them outside of your head and give them a good shake in the light of the real world. I should know. I’m a real champ with dreams.
Tell her.
“We were going to fill up the gas tank in the old red van that Harry’s got in his garage, and head west for British Columbia,” I said quietly. “You and Biggs were going to argue all the way across Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Once we got there, Trowbridge and I were going to find us a farm or a house—someplace we could all live together in peace. Then, you were going to coach pageant brats and Biggs was going to get a girlfriend who was shorter than him. Harry was going to keep us neck-high in kindling. And I was going to get a job—one I wouldn’t have gotten fired from…”
My voice trailed away. “None of it’s going to happen, is it?”
“No.” Cordelia’s eyes were sad and knowing.
“How did it get to be such a mess?” I whispered. “I can’t abandon Lexi. He’s my brother. I won’t—I can’t—leave him to fend for himself while he tries to get over his sun-potion addiction.”
“Some would think your mate should come first.”
My wrist ached, my fingers were swelling. “Let’s stop pretending, okay? I tricked Trowbridge into saying the words. I took what wasn’t mine and now I’m paying for it.”
“Exactly how are you paying for it?”
“Because I got what I wanted—I got exactly what I wanted. I sat on that damn pirate rock and I stared up at that bright star in the sky and made a wish. ‘Please, Goddess, send them back to me. Bring me back my mate and brother.’” My voice rose in hurt and frustration. “Well, she did. And now I wish … Oh hell … I don’t know what I wish—all I know is that nothing’s going to work.”
My cable of magic slithered up to my lap. I gazed at it, feeling older than Cordelia, Trowbridge, and Lexi all put together. “I can’t be what Trowbridge wants me to be. I can’t leave my ‘Fae shit’ outside of this house. It’s part of me. It goes with me where I go. And I’m tired of trying to keep everything nice in little separate boxes. It’s just…”
“Exhausting,” she said softly. “Almost impossible to carry on, pretending to be som
ething you’re not.”
I nodded in quiet misery.
“Stop worrying about what you think other people expect of you. And stop worrying about being anything other than what you are. It’s a mistake we all make when we’re young—fooling ourselves into believing that we’ve hidden from the world what we truly are. Most of the time, we haven’t. People understand far more about us than we imagine.”
She lifted her penciled brows.
“As for the ‘Fae shit’ issue—Bridge made an unfortunate comment in the heat of the moment. Wrestle an apology from him and move on.” She fussed with her sweater. “You two definitely need some alone time.”
“I’m afraid of what he’s going to say when we are alone.”
Cordelia heaved a sigh. “God, how I loathe living in high drama.”
“Says the ex–drag queen.”
Her features twisted into an impressive scowl. “Brat.” Then she sat down on the floral-covered settee, and for a minute or so, neither of us said anything. Not even my Fae—who drifted off my lap, and headed back toward the edge of the hearth, seemingly intrigued by the dark hole of the firebox.
Moodily, Cordelia said, “I loved someone once.”
I risked a sidelong glance. “How’d that work out?”
“Not very well.” Her five o’clock shadow rasped as she scratched the side of her neck. “Possibly because I decided—based on one off-the-cuff comment—that he wasn’t going to go the distance with me. And then I left Creemore before he had the opportunity to prove me wrong.”
“Another pack member?” At her brief nod, I asked, “He’s still here?”
“He’ll never leave Creemore.”
“That must be hard.”
“Harder to face the fact that I was never going to replace him—that not one of those sweet young things who drifted into my life to bleed me dry has ever filled that hole inside me.” She stared blankly ahead. “I want you to be smarter than I was.”
My shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what to do.”
A size eleven Stuart Weitzman gave my hip a gentle nudge. “Why don’t you start with doing something about that little snake? You’ve been mislaying your magic—little pieces of it—everywhere. It is a gift, is it not? Isn’t that how your people refer to it? A talent or a gift? And look. You’re letting it nose around in the ashes.”