by Leigh Evans
The thing is, something had birthed inside me as I’d listened to the plans being drawn and redrawn in the Trowbridge master bedroom. As epiphanies go, it was simple—I couldn’t stand the thought of hiding behind people anymore. Which, as personal awakenings go, was stunningly poorly timed. Because, come on. The nastiness unspooling was definitely one instance where it would have been preferable to hide in the shadow of the Alpha of Creemore, mouthing, “It’s his fault.”
Let Trowbridge give him the potion.
But I couldn’t … I just couldn’t. First of all, it wasn’t Trowbridge’s fault. None of it was. And secondly … it felt wrong. Cowardly, somehow. This was my brother. If a proverbial gun was going to be fired, it had to be me pulling the trigger. I don’t know why or how to explain how I became convinced of that.
But I knew it. Soul deep.
It was agony to pull my paw from my jeans pocket. But I found some kernel of strength—for once both my Fae and inner-bitch were leaning on the oars. Then I drew in a long breath and extended my fist toward my brother, fingers still curled around the vial of sun potion.
“Hell?” asked Lexi.
Open your hand. Show him what you have hidden there.
Go on. Do it.
I forced myself to uncurl my fingers to expose the bottle lying on my palm. “You have to drink this, Lexi.”
“That’s unexpected.” He stared at it—one thousand, two thousand, three—his tongue wet his lips—four thousand, five thousand—then he took it from my palm. His smile was as shaky as his fingers as he unscrewed the cap. “But I’ll think better and move faster after a hit, so bottoms up.” My twin took a small sip. This he savored briefly, rolling it in his mouth. Then with a look of utter bliss, he swallowed a measure.
A discreet shudder.
He replaced the cap and began to twist it closed.
That’s when Trowbridge said softly, “No, Shadow. You need to drink all of it.”
“All?” Lexi’s brows pulled together. “That’s too much, Hell. I can’t—”
“It’s the only way,” I told him. “You have to finish the entire bottle, Lexi.”
Some things can’t be swallowed as quickly as sun potion. Things like betrayal. Reversals of fortune. Overdoses. Murder.
Pain swelled in me as I watched him fight against it. But the full realization of my deceit came, anyhow.
It had to. Didn’t it?
His face twisted into something ugly.
“I should have known—you’re not wearing Mum’s amulet. When I saw it around the Son of Lukynae’s throat, I figured he was going to pass it to you at the last minute. But he didn’t want me tearing that thing from your little neck, did he?” His shoulders lifted in a fuck-me huff. “So, what’s the plan, sis?” Venom laced his voice. “Oh, forget it. You’re just his little fuck toy, aren’t you? You don’t the know the plan.” He turned to Trowbridge. “This is how you’re going to appease the Black Mage? You stupid piece of shit—he doesn’t give a damn whether or not I come back dead or alive. Sending my body across won’t stop him from coming here if he wants to.”
“Trust me,” I whispered.
His glance was quick and scathing. “Trust the Son of Lukynae’s whore? I don’t think so. You want me to finish this bottle? Well, then, your mate’s going to have to force it down my throat.”
“No problem,” said Trowbridge.
Faes.
We tend to behave predictably in certain situations. When faced with ruin, my aunt Lou had vindictively chucked Ralph into the pond. When faced with the task of infuriating the Alpha of Creemore, my twin chose the same option.
He twisted for the pond.
Trowbridge lunged—they grappled on the edge. I saw disaster in the making, since Weres can’t swim, so I threw myself into the fray. My hand scrabbled for the bottle. Lexi swung a fist at Trowbridge.
It connected with my arm.
And I screamed in pain.
Lexi froze—both of them did—at the sound of that single, sharp, shrill cry of hurt.
It shouldn’t have burned so much. It was just a glancing blow. But it had landed dead-square on my bandage, and it reopened the pain of the bite like I was back in Threall, on the retreat from evil with a kid hanging off my arm, his incisors chewing through my flesh.
I swear. It so felt like the kid all over again.
And thus, I screamed and immediately felt terrible for doing so.
Hedi, the mouse-hearted. Hedi, the weak.
Trowbridge sank to his knees, the Shadow all forgotten. “Hedi?”
I bit down on my lip, trying to quell its tremor.
“I’m good,” I said huskily.
The bottle of sun potion had been dropped in the scuffle. It had landed, improbably, in a tuft of crabgrass. It hadn’t broken; it hadn’t even fallen over on its side. It stood, looking pristine and poisonous, upright in the weed’s tough blades.
Behold the Stronghold soap opera.
Did I reach for it? Pass it silently back to my brother?
No.
My anger came spewing up. “Why couldn’t you resist it?” I screamed at my brother, frustration frothing up. “You knew it was dangerous and yet you took it anyhow! Why couldn’t you have just held off? Accepted your wolf? You stupid, stupid … stupid man. You turned into a fucking junkie … You’ve ruined everything.”
Yeah. I heard myself somewhere in there.
But my mouth was a runaway horse. It was running on in terror. Bad things were behind it. Safety was just … there. Somewhere up ahead.
No—not here.
Not here, where once the boy of my dreams strummed the guitar.
Not here, where a broken girl sat on her ass in a bed of crabgrass.
Words dried up. And in truth, I don’t exactly know all I said before they dribbled off. But eventually there was silence. Not even a cricket had the balls to chirrup. My chest heaved. I counted to seven. Then I yanked my gaze from that bottle and painfully forced my repentant eyes upward.
“Forgive me.” That’s what I wanted my eyes to say to Lexi.
“I’m sorry,” too.
But Lexi wasn’t looking at me—or, for that matter, the sun potion. He was staring at the bandage above my wrist. Blood—sweet-pea scented and bright red—had soaked through the bandage.
“He hurt you?” he asked, his voice throbbing.
Oh Goddess, could this awesomely terrible comedy of hurt get any worse?
“No, Lexi,” I said. “Trowbridge wouldn’t hurt me. He’d never hurt me.”
But abused people? They can’t believe that. There is no such thing as a safe harbor. There are only people who have hurt them and people who will hurt them.
There’s nothing in between.
“Give me it,” he said roughly to Trowbridge.
My mate didn’t hesitate. He passed the vial of sun potion to him, his arm curved protectively around my shoulders.
Lexi looked at it for a moment. Self-acknowledgment, bitter fruit. “I shouldn’t have come back. You are right. I am a selfish prick who fucked it all up.” He drew in another deep breath. Tilted his head back and took two long swallows.
“Hell, I know you think you’ve found a life of happiness here with these wolves,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ll get it.” Another swallow. His mouth curved in a gruesome smile. “At least now I won’t have to fight against my wolf anymore.”
Then his face hardened. His gaze drifted to Trowbridge and paused there for a long moment. What they said to each other with their eyes, I’ll never know.
Then—because he was Lexi, who never knew the meaning of humility—he brought the vial to his lips and tossed back the rest in three quick gulps. When he’d drained the bottle, he wiped his mouth. Gave Trowbridge a glittering smile. “See?” he said. “It’s not going to be that easy. I’ve drunk gallons of this stuff. You’re going to have to sit around watching me for hours. I couldn’t…” His brows drew together. Slowly, clumsily. “I couldn’t…”
>
My brother’s head turned slowly in my direction. “Hell?”
Then his eyes rolled up and he finally—oh Goddess, curse me—finally, he fell.
I couldn’t catch him. He outweighed me by at least seventy pounds. But I managed to catch his head before it hit the ground, and that I eased tenderly down onto the bed of grass. Then I stared at his bruised, slack face and knew a measure of self-hatred and remorse that took me to a level of misery I’d never sunk to before.
“I don’t want him lying here, like this. Not in front…” My gaze flicked to the pack. “Please, Trowbridge.”
Cordelia. She could move so fast sometimes. I knew—peripherally—that she was over there somewhere. Yet, suddenly, she was right beside me. Her bony knee grazing mine.
“We’ll carry him to the tree,” she said. “Would that be good?”
I nodded.
They were sweet to me. Later, I’d recognize that.
But in the seconds that followed the collapse of my twin all I knew was anger. Deep and festering. I felt the pack watching us—when will they stop doing that?—eyes wide, mouths agape.
Lexi was carried back to the tree. When they went to put him down, I caught Trowbridge’s sleeve. “I need to hold him,” I said, scuttling between my brother and the trunk of the tree.
“He’s a deadweight,” warned Cordelia.
And she was right. An unconscious person is heavier than a lead weight. My shoulders bowed, cradling him. Trowbridge crouched beside me. “Are you okay?” he asked. His scent wove around both of us.
I nodded and pressed my chin on top of Lexi’s head.
This is Karma’s price.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Yes, I was wonderfully calm for about fifteen seconds.
Then the panic started to squeeze my stomach. I had nothing to give comfort to my brother. A blanket—he wouldn’t feel it. Privacy—the house was too far and the pack needed to witness every anguished moment of the Stronghold brat’s fall. All of them—the Danvers bitch and Rachel Scawens. Probably Brad Mosbergen, too.
No, no, no.
I should have talked to my brother first. Pulled him aside. Warned him about wily old goats. It was stupid not to have let him know … What if the Old Mage had other plans?
Oh Goddess. I’ve made a mistake.
Was he afraid? Did he feel alone? How long before his breath rattled in his throat? Minutes? Oh sweet heavens, hours? What does a “rattle” even sound like anyway?
I might wait too long.
Mad-one might wait too long.
Was there a place in heaven for broken men?
Fae Stars. Was there a place for Trowbridge and me?
I squeezed my eyes shut. And in the roiling darkness of my mind, all I could see was Lexi when he was twelve: too thin, too much fire, too much want and desire, mind sly. My ally in those painful, early years. Sending thought pictures to comfort me. Leading me on charges through the woods. Bravely swinging from his pirate rock to the rescue of damsels in distress.
The rest of the stuff … The lies. The hatred I’d seen gleaming from his green eyes. The sour scent of the sun potion leaking from his skin. The wolves’ eyes tatted above his ear. The blood on his hands. The ugly stains on his soul … Those I didn’t recall.
My heart was open—it flowed with hurt and love.
There was just one sacred thing left between us.
Please, Goddess, I’ll pay whatever you want.
I sent my twin a nudge.
Lexi?
Nothing.
Someone coughed. Go away. Leave us alone.
I could smell his blood, sweet scented like mine.
Lexi? Please, Lexi.
I was on the brink of pulling back and then—I felt him. A faint shadow on the edge of my mind. My brother, my twin. Warmth flooded me.
A “yes” if ever I knew one.
A slip. A slide.
And then I was with my twin’s mind once more.
* * *
In his dreams, Lexi sat under the leafy canopy of a very old tree.
It was a tall, single-trunk maple. Fissured bark. Roots so thick they lay like thick-muscled arms atop the soil. My twin’s back was braced against its trunk, one wrist rested on his raised knee. No hat—and no wolfish tattoo or shaved skull, either. Hair uniformly long, one side draped in tangled disorder across his shoulder. He wearily lifted his head; his eyes were sleepy.
“Sit,” he said, giving a faint head toss toward the little hollow between two roots in the dirt beside him.
I did. Close enough that my shoulder could brush his.
We sat on a gentle hill. Words unspoken between us, an invisible barrier. A summer sun shone above, brilliant in a clear sky. Below us lay the Pool of Life, a couple of miles away, or perhaps more. Blue. Not the hue of Trowbridge’s eyes. Bluer.
“It’s beautiful,” I said in awe.
“Yes,” he said, his voice so tired.
Virgin forests, untouched by man. Supersaturated colors. So many greens. Apple and kelly; pistachio and lime. Yellows, too—drifts of tiny starburst daisies nodding in Merenwyn’s wind. Beyond the Pool of Life the landscape climbed, hills dipping into valleys, and then rising again, rolling upward toward distant mountains.
“Have you ever seen the Pool of Life up close?” I asked.
“Once I swam in it,” my brother said. “I thought it might cure me.”
I drew in a sharp breath and then realized that I had a sense of smell—something I never possessed in my own dreams. Oh Lexi. Here in the world of my brother’s fantasy, where there was only truth as he knew it, my twin carried the scent of the wolf. Woods and the wild, with the faintest trace of summer flowers.
Remember his scent.
“The Pool of Life’s water is cold,” he said drowsily. “Like the creek used to be in spring. You have to pick your way carefully because the bottom’s all shale. But there are no weeds or eels … I hate eels.”
Lexi’s hand lay limp by his hip, fingers half curled.
“I remember.” I stared at his bluing nails.
You’re cold.
With a silent prayer, I reached for his hand.
The odds were heavily weighted that he’d withdraw from my touch. I waited, knowing he had the absolute right to do so. But, no. Lexi didn’t resist or stiffen. He allowed me to curl my fingers around his icy ones so that I could warm them with my heat.
“The water is really clear; you can see right to the bottom.” He made a low, wistful hum. “The deeper you go, the rougher the ground gets.”
“With rocks,” I said, thinking of Trowbridge. “Some of them are slippery.”
A slow nod. “So you know.”
Yes, I know. So many things I know too late.
“I’m tired, Hell,” he said heavily.
A dark bird flew overhead. A hawk? A raven? Some bird of prey, winging its way back to its nest with something small and limp hanging from its beak.
“I can’t remember what Dad looked like anymore.” Quiet misery a dragging weight to each word. “The only things I can remember well are his hands. He had big hands.”
“Yes, he did.” Very much like the one I clasped.
“I wish I could remember his face.”
The tree line blurred and I took a ragged breath. “I can show you if you want.”
“Yeah?”
“You bet.” I riffled through my memories and chose my favorite.
“Ah,” he breathed as he received it.
It was a simple thought picture. Mundane even. The four of us—Dad and Mum, Lexi and I—sitting at our pine table under the golden light of the old brass lamp. The kitchen’s old faded red-checked curtains pulled tight against the dark of the night. A heaping platter of roast beef down at the boy’s end of the table. A bowl of maple syrup in front of me. Mum’s honey-laden spoon close to her parted red lips. Dad’s head thrown back, his dark eyes twinkling as he laughed at something Lexi had said.
“We were so young,” he
marveled.
“Yes.”
Lexi’s eyelids drooped. “You were right. Dad would have hated what I’ve become.”
Twin, forgive me for the hurt I have caused.
“Lexi, I was talking trash. You have to believe this—Dad would never have hated you.” A breeze, pine fragrant, without the slightest trace of honeysuckle, stirred the leaves overhead. “He would have raged over every blow that you received. He would have mourned for every choice taken from you. You survived, Lexi. Dad would have been so happy that you did.”
“I had a few choices, Hell,” he said. “But I always chose life instead.”
As I have for you, Lexi.
I pulled a wisp of hair free from his eyelashes. “Believe that, okay?” I coaxed. “He’d never have stopped loving you.”
He needs proof.
So, I brought up one last thought picture. It had been seared into my memory; my covetous eyes had snapped it in a moment of pique. The two of them as seen by me from the back steps of our old home. Dad stood, both hands in the back pockets of his jeans, looking out over the pond. His thick dark hair cut short so his tanned neck was visible. At his elbow, a young Lexi. Same haircut. His shoulders sparrow thin. His hands thrust into his pockets.
Two wolves inspecting their territory.
The picture had always stirred my jealousy, but now, I blessed it. Pleasure, sweet and pure, softened my brother’s face.
“I miss him,” he said huskily.
The urge to tell him, to offer him hope, was so strong.
Silence is the price, Hedi of the mouse heart.
“I’m tired,” he said. “So tired.”
“You can leave, Lexi.” I rested my head on the hard rounded swell of his shoulder. “If you have to go, you can.”
“I will soon.” He sighed. “It’s nice like this, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said simply.
The bird of prey lifted off from his perch with a fast flutter of strong wings. A peregrine? Yes, probably. I watched the falcon beat his way high into the clear blue sky, searching for a thermal current, finding it, then spreading his feathers wide. Lazily, he glided on it. Slipping from airstream to airstream. Thieving power from the wind. With a harsh cry, he turned away from the Pool of Life. Another beat of wings. Upward to another current. He used it to soar toward the hills. Free. Beautiful.