by Leigh Evans
“Mystwalkers aren’t freaks.”
“They should have let the trait die out.” He swiped his hair over his shoulder. “Drowned each and every one of those abominations at birth.”
My mouth fell open, so deep was my shock. Abominations? I’d pried open a can of sardines with my teeth to discover it packed instead with scorpions, stingers raised. Now all I wanted to do was reseal the lid. Painfully, with a sledgehammer of harsh words, but dismay and rage had temporarily choked me of a vocabulary suitable to the task.
“Instead the Black Mage sends me searching for them.” He shook his head, his gaze unseeing. “I brought that little shit in—had to fight off half his family first—thinking he would keep my master occupied for a week or two. Instead, the mystwalker turned out to have true talent. He’ll travel to Threall soon, if he hasn’t already.”
I think he already has. You wouldn’t believe the mess he’s made of Threall.
“I’ll be as worthless as two teats on a boar hog if the little prick succeeds.” True worry creased Lexi’s brows, and the ferret placed a soft paw to his tense jaw. “The Black Mage trains his pets in secrecy, but I know what he means to do. He wants to steal the Old One’s soul, and with it, all his knowledge.”
“You can’t steal a soul,” I said flatly.
“He’ll send me to the Spectacle again.” The hand that petted the ferret faintly trembled. “But this time he’ll have them blind me first, so I can’t use my flare to save myself.”
I don’t ever want to see inside my brother’s soul, I thought bleakly. It would be fear plus bitterness plus fear plus crazy … I softened my voice. “It doesn’t matter what the Black Mage does or thinks. What happens in Merenwyn no longer matters. You’re home. You never have to go back to that nightmare.”
“Of course I’m going back,” he said scathingly. “Earth has no sun potion.”
“Well, get over it,” I replied. “You don’t need it.”
His face grew as mean as the day I’d won his stack of Pokémon cards. “You know, when I crossed that portal, I thought there was a good chance that you’d died of old age. It grieved me. Well, look what I found. My twin’s only twenty-two. She’s still got her whole life in front of her. Not a cloud in her sky, or a useful thought in her head. She’s mated herself to the Alpha of Creemore, and she’s going to live in this nice home, and everything’s going to be roses and sunshine.”
Enough. Nasty did a push-up inside me and said, “Let me at him.”
“Roses and sunshine?” I said acidly. “You think I don’t live with a knife over my head? Well, try this on for size—I’m an ‘abomination,’ too.” I read confusion on his face, and the ugly side of me preened. “My true talent isn’t minor—it’s unique. I’m a mystwalker. I started walking through your dreams back when you were still playing with your G.I. Joes. And you know what? I must be a damn good one, because I don’t need some mage to train me to travel to Threall.”
Disgust rippled across his face.
I gave him a twisted smile. “I could go to Threall and thumb through your memories like they were the yellow pages.” My Fae stirred inside me, dragon eyes slitting open. “You want to know what souls look like? They’re round as a ball, and as bright as stars in the sky. They have absolutely no defense against a mystwalker—they hang like fruit waiting to be plucked from ancient trees. All I’d have to do is touch your tree, and I’d be in your mind. I could see past every lie. I could mine every black deed you ever did or even thought of doing. I could examine your life as ruthlessly as you’ve dismissed mine.”
What caused what happened next? The raw exchange of truths? The reality of my true talent? Or the sudden ugliness that spewed from me?
Whatever it was, it only took Lexi a split second to act.
He whipped the sugar bowl at Biggs.
* * *
Fast as a pit fighter, Lexi pivoted—chair in hand—and brought it crashing down on Cordelia. She fell with an operatic moan. Two steps and he was by her side, yanking Ralph up and over her head. Her wig came off with it, and when she made a quick instinctive snatch for it, he lashed out with his foot. She rolled away, her hand covering her balding head. But she didn’t rise—vindictive and snarling—and bitch-slap him right back to Merenwyn.
My fleeting thought—this from the woman who threatened to hurl me into the pond for forgetting to put the cap back on the milk bottle?—was interrupted by Anu’s scream.
As shrieks go, it was as piercing as a banshee on moonshine. She charged, mouth in a fearsome grimace, wedding quilt a flying cape behind her. Her father half turned, caught her in full momentum. For a split second he held on to her, their bodies twisting, and then he let go, and she stumbled backward.
That’s your daughter.
My niece’s hip caught the Welsh dresser, toppling some china off its pine shelf. The old earthenware platter—pink spring blossoms on a cream background—fell and cracked into two jagged pieces. Lexi spun for Biggs, but the younger Were appeared to be dazed. A trickle of blood streamed from a cut on his cheek. Seriously? He got nailed with a sugar bowl, and he’s near out for the count? I’ve seen Biggs face far worse. My brother snorted, snatched up the knapsack, and pulled open the back door. He glanced outside, then flashed me one last penetrating glance over his shoulder. One I had no frame of reference for, nor any inclination to untangle its meaning.
He ran.
And for a second I just stood there, stunned, my anger doused by a disappointment so wretched all I wanted to do was sink down to the floor. Was there anything salvageable in my brother? Anything?
Damn right there was something salvageable. He was my brother.
I started for the door, crying, “Lexi, come back!”
Biggs stepped in front of me. “No,” he said, blocking the doorway.
“Get out of my way!” I slapped at the arm stretched across the threshold. When a hard-eyed Biggs didn’t budge, I ducked and tried to slip under his armpit, but Cordelia hooked the back of my T-shirt, and when I tried to slither out of that, she grabbed my hair. My eyes slit as I strained against the tug on my scalp.
I spat through my teeth, “I order you to—”
Cordelia’s voice was firm. “You don’t give the orders now, darling.”
Yeah. That sent me straight into orbit.
What followed was a three-second, undignified scuffle of slapping hands, pulling hair, and blinding fury that ended with my own horrible shriek—not a Xena banshee yell—just a woman’s howl of absolute frustration and impotent rage. They were bigger than me—physically subduing me was a given. Biggs wrapped me in a bear hug, trapping my hands so that no magic could fly, and as he did, the ferret slipped through the maze of our feet.
It raced across the grass, seemingly intent on catching up to my twin.
“Lexi! Come back,” I choked out once more as Biggs lifted me off my feet.
My brother was past the clothesline by the time Trowbridge slid into the room. He’d cleared the hydrangeas when Biggs hauled me away to the back corner and was beyond the old sugar maple when Cordelia passed her Alpha the loaded shotgun.
Oh Goddess, no. “Don’t hurt my brother,” I said in an awful voice.
“One of you take Hedi out of the room,” growled Trowbridge, raising the gun to his naked shoulder. Biggs gave me an apologetic squeeze and started to back us toward the other door—the one that led to that dimly lit hallway and a room with dark memories.
“Don’t shoot him! I’ll make him show you the Safe Passage. I will—”
“Biggs, now!” snarled Trowbridge.
It was an instant, visceral reaction—hands caught, escape impossible—I called up my flare. It came on powerfully hard, its progress from sleep to full light fast as flipping a switch. With it came heat. I felt incandescent, a Fae blowtorch primed for some destruction.
My Fae brushed past my quivering Were—a thinking, clever entity no longer a serpent of doom—and she told me, “Use our wiles.”
“Biggs,” I said in a pathetic whimper. Fool that he was, he looked down to my upturned face and I nailed him. Up close and personal—a sucker punch of a flare. Undiluted by reason or caution. Green fire, made of pure vexed will and Fae spite. At that moment I didn’t give a shit who he was or what he’d done for me.
Biggs made a noise awfully like a baby’s mewl and dropped me.
And I didn’t care.
I was Hedi the Destroyer, and my flare was me laying down the law. Touch my brother and I’ll never forgive you. Stop me from coming to his aid, and I’ll kneecap you. A nicer, kinder person would have let Biggs back away. Part of me recognized that, but it amounted to a white-hankie wave from a limp-wristed sissy. I wasn’t in the mood for taking prisoners or sitting in a sharing circle. My Fae swelled inside me—we are Fae—and my light grew mercilessly fierce. Biggs made another noise—one of utter shame and dismay—and shuffled backward, shoulders hunched, eyes downcast. Then I swung my gaze toward the door, where the man with the dreads stood. You will stop. I will make you stop.
For the record, I used everything I had on him. Theoretically, he should have felt at least a little singed. But Trowbridge is, was, and will always be incombustible. He grimly lowered his eye to the gun sight.
I darted forward—I don’t know what I meant to do, pull his dreads? I was beyond thought, beyond plan, beyond reason. Half of me was protective twin, half of me was pissed-off Fae. So, I never saw it coming when Cordelia intercepted me, her square hand already primed.
She slapped my face so hard I saw stars.
I tottered for a second, holding my cheek. My BFF took quick advantage of my shock—one light kick behind my knees, and I crumpled. No sooner had I hit the floor, than she’d clamped my head between her big hands. Slowly, she forced it downward. Nails, blunt and wide, dug into my scalp. My neck was strong, but her hands were stronger, and soon green light bathed the Trowbridges’ golden oak floors. “Put it out,” she hissed. “Right now.”
My Fae recognized the odds, even if mortal-me was beyond calculating them. She gave up before I did, sinking back to my gut, where no one could hurt her. Without her presence to bolster my all-too-mortal fury? My rebellion was pitifully short. My light sputtered, and then—as despair filled me—it flickered out.
Only then did Cordelia ease her pressure. “That was unforgivably stupid,” she growled.
I stubbornly lifted my chin, and stared with watering eyes past her.
My twin’s flight had brought him to the line that divided civilized from quasi-tamed, where overgrown grass gave way to a beaten track leading to the pond. His long blond hair streamed behind him, his feet were light and fast.
Run.
And he did. Fae Stars, he did.
Trowbridge’s muscles tensed, and I thought I saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
“Don’t do it,” I said, my voice thin and small. But I knew, even as I tightened my blistered hand into a useless fist, that what followed would be ruin and despair, and the heavy thing inside my chest would grow, and grow, until I couldn’t take another breath.
“He can’t leave this realm with an amulet,” said Trowbridge, his voice warrior hard. “He’s chosen his end.”
“Then let me take him back to Merenwyn.”
He stilled then said, “I can’t risk you or Merry falling into the Black Mage’s hands.”
I figured that was his final statement—Trowbridge’s justification if there was ever to be one declared. And I prepared myself. Holding my breath, tensing my muscles, knowing—it’s going to happen any moment now. This time I couldn’t stop death.
Then Harry stepped out of the bushes at the edge of the cliff. Old man, my ass. He swung a bat at my brother’s knees with the strength and accuracy of a ballplayer in his prime, and Lexi dropped to the turf. My twin rolled, once or maybe twice—I was losing detail because my vision was so blurred—trying to dodge another blow. The two Weres who’d lain in wait with Harry slunk out of their hiding spots. All three fell on him, with fists and rope. He fought and cursed in my mother’s tongue.
Wolves in human skin, I thought.
My gaze fell to the floor as he was trussed, and I stared at the dark seam between one aged plank of oak and another, telling myself, I’ll think later. I’ll feel later.
“Biggs.” Trowbridge’s tone was as empty of inflection as an old gunfighter’s. “Put the shotgun back where it belongs.”
Red sneakers shuffled past me. “He was after the amulet, just like you said he was,” I heard Biggs mutter to his Alpha. I must have flinched, because Cordelia patted my shoulder—gently, the way you do when very bad news is given.
“Cordelia, step back,” the Alpha of Creemore said sternly.
“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Cordelia said in an undertone, but she did what she was told. Knowing that it was time for my ass-whipping, I lifted my eyes to stare into my mate’s harsh face.
Blue comets spun around his dilated pupils.
Don’t use your flare on a Were. Don’t use that Fae shit in this house. Well, hadn’t I just done that. I’d aimed my flare at a pack member. More significantly, I’d tried to make him submit to it. In front of his people, who used to be my people, but evidently lines had been blurred, and polarities had been exchanged.
And now? I had no people.
Except a brother, who’d hauled ass as quickly as he could from his mystwalking sister, and an amulet whose affection for me was momentarily questionable. I glanced down at her. No, not questionable. My pal Merry had gone chilly; her stone muddy brown. Usually, those were her indicators for being sick, or sickened. I was thinking it was a double dose of the latter when Trowbridge hit me with the true flare of an Alpha.
I thank the Goddess and all her little brats that I was already kneeling.
Oh Fae Stars.
For all my inner resentment toward the pack, overall I’d been a pretty good kid in Creemore. The old Alpha had never had reason to look at me, much less gently chastise me with a spark of his signature flare. And I’d already gone through a spin under Lexi’s light show, which had felt stomach-heaving, but three quarters of that had been shock and surprise.
But this? It was so much worse.
Trowbridge’s flare was totally impartial—and perhaps that was the cruelest thing about it. There was no recognition in it that I was his mate, his One True Thing. I was the creature who’d dared to threaten a natural-born Alpha. It was a full-out reprimand. Solid and heavy—an anvil on my soul, draining me of my pride and self-will.
Crushing.
Hurting.
The urge to prostrate myself under its heat was so crushing that I almost forgot how to breathe. I wanted to fall to my knees under its weight, to stretch out a pleading hand.
“Submit,” his flare demanded.
No.
So I held my breath—who needed it?—and I bade my spine not to fail me. Even if my inner-bitch howled at me to go on my belly, to beg forgiveness. Even if we both wanted his eyes to soften into approval and his scent to wrap us in its fragrant, loving embrace.
Fold once, and it will be a lifetime of coming to heel.
I ignored her instincts to heel. Shut her down, and listened to one voice, deep inside me.
The me-of-me.
And she said, “Don’t you dare fold. Strongholds hold.”
So I did just that, even if I trembled like a pooch at its first visit with the vet.
Anu uttered a whine as the kitchen turned electric blue. What would have happened if Biggs had taken longer to put the shotgun back in its place over the mantel? Or if the three-man crew who carried my brother back to the Trowbridge manse had stumbled on one of those prairie-dog holes? Or if Cordelia hadn’t made a humming noise that sounded almost like an involuntary protest?
Would I have held tough? Who knows.
I swayed, but I stayed. Upright. Dry-pantied. Stiff-spined.
And yet … Before Biggs had rejoined us, before Harry had laid my brothe
r at his Alpha’s feet, before I’d swooned and plunged into a pool too frigid to swim out of … Before all of those humbling and hurtful things, Trowbridge’s light eased. From harsh blue, to bright blue, to finally, a pair of tired eyes doused of all fire.
We studied each other.
“Why did you make me do it?” his gaze asked.
“Because you wanted to hurt my brother,” I tried to tell him with mine. “Because I’m never going to roll over for you like a well-trained bitch. Because I was angry and part of me wanted to challenge you. Because I forgot where we were. Who was watching…”
Yeah. I know. Too many sentences.
He brought down a shield between us.
And I was glad.
Because the last thing I read in his eyes was pain and a bitter, aching loneliness.
Chapter Nineteen
Situation normal, all fucked up.
The Weres held court, and the Fae waited.
I was good at that, though—waiting. I’d earned a PhD for it, with minors in Lingering Hopefully, Abiding Patiently, and Marking Time Before Being Royally Screwed Over.
An unasked question hung heavy in the Were-scented air. What should be done with the Fae? With no immediate answer forthcoming, Cordelia had righted my chair and eased me into it. Harry had returned—he of the wicked swings—and had laid a sullen and bound Lexi at Trowbridge’s feet. The grim-faced Alpha of Creemore had rolled my brother over, and pried the Royal Amulet from his bloody hand. Ralph now hung from Trowbridge’s neck. Biggs had found a new place for himself, a little to the left of his Alpha’s shadow. And Merry had slowly—almost thoughtfully—ratcheted up her chain, until she hung like a loose choker, her pendant a warm comfort against the hollow of my throat.