by Reine, SM
Gwyn shook her head. “Maybe a ghost.”
THREE
Questioning
Seth spent the entire night locked in Abel’s bedroom. “Pagan used some kind of bullet that encapsulated silver pellets. The wound looks superficial, but the damage is deep,” he told Rylie when she checked on them at three in the morning. His eyes were rimmed with rings of exhaustion, and his brother was unconscious. “I keep finding more fragments buried in the muscle.”
“Can you get it all?” she asked, twisting her hands together.
Seth’s eyes were dark as he returned his attention to the injury. “I have to.”
She slipped out of the room. He didn’t acknowledge her exit—he was too absorbed in fixing his brother.
Vanthe was in the hallway outside, like he had been listening in on their conversation.
“What are you doing here?” Rylie asked.
He leaned around her to see into the bedroom. She shut the door before he could get a peek. “Is Abel going to be okay?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, like saying it would make it true.
Anger sparked in Vanthe’s golden eyes. “Who would have dared come into the sanctuary for an attack?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got the shooter locked up, and we’re safe for now. I promise.”
“Who was it?” he pressed, stepping closer.
Rylie squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, staring him in the eye. He was a new werewolf, so he probably didn’t realize that she was asserting her dominance, but it should have triggered an instinctive reaction anyway.
It didn’t. He looked too angry to notice that she was challenging him.
She was already on edge from being attacked. The sting of disrespect was enough to tip her over the edge. “Sit down,” she growled through her teeth.
The weirdness of the command broke through Vanthe’s temper. “Why?”
“Because if you don’t, I might rip your throat out.”
That got him moving. He dropped onto the chair against the wall.
As soon as he was shorter than Rylie, her heart stopped pounding quite so hard. It still took a few deep breaths before she could speak rationally.
“I’m an Alpha werewolf,” she said in a tight voice that was about an octave deeper than normal. “Don’t ever look me in the eye. Hunch your back when we’re talking. And if you’re going to argue with me, you better do it when your head is below mine. Otherwise, I could bite your head off—literally.”
“Abel doesn’t do any of that.”
Her fading anger spiked again.
“You’re not Abel,” she snapped. “Show some respect.”
Vanthe focused his gaze on her feet, and it looked like the effort was physically painful. “Fine. I can do that.”
“Good.” Rylie took one more deep breath and let it out. She tried not to be too obvious about checking her fingernails for blood. They were usually the first thing to go when she was on the brink of wolfing out, but all of them were secure.
“I’m just worried,” Vanthe said, quieter than before.
It was normal for werewolves to seek their Alpha when they were scared—and she had snapped at him. The new guy. God, she was the worst Alpha ever.
She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll get down to the barn.”
He kept his shoulders hunched until he was out of sight.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. There was still blood on her mouth, and her eyes blazed with anger. She looked terrifying. No wonder Vanthe had been scared.
She took a blanket to the porch swing and wrapped herself in it, watching the hills lit by the moon’s waning crescent. The muffled sounds of hammering rang out in the night as Gwyn and the pack locked down the ranch house.
Rylie glimpsed the occasional flash of Bekah and Levi running laps around the perimeter. She watched them for what felt like hours.
But she must have dozed off at some point, because she woke up with the light of sunrise warming her cheeks, and Seth’s hand on her shoulder.
Rylie sat up with a jolt. The swing tilted at her motion. “What’s going on? Are we under attack?”
“Not right now,” Seth said, settling next to her.
“Abel?”
“He’s going to be okay. I think I’ve got everything. I’ll have to watch his symptoms for a few days to make sure he doesn’t have silver poisoning, but he’s stable for now.”
She sagged against his arm. “Thank God.”
They sat together for a few silent minutes, watching the ranch stir with the onset of day. Someone must have taken charge while Rylie was asleep. There were still werewolves running laps around the fence, but Bekah and Levi had been replaced by Trevin, Vanthe, and Analizia.
A few other people had already gotten down to chores, too. Raven was pulling weeds down the hill, and her sensitive ears and nose suggested that others were working in the back acres, somewhere out of sight. Nothing inspired proactivity in a bunch of lazy werewolves like an attack.
“Everything looks normal,” Rylie said.
“Everything is, as far as I can tell. Pagan was alone.” Seth’s arm tightened around her. “But why?”
She leaned over to kiss his cheek. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and his skin was coarse with stubble. “Let’s find out.”
Nobody had gone down to check on Pagan since Gwyn locked her in the cellar. Rylie had been secretly hoping she might have died—not just because she hurt Abel, but because that would mean they wouldn’t have to deal with her turning into a werewolf.
But when they opened the chains on the door and descended down the dark steps, she found Pagan sitting in the corner, wrists tied behind her back, very alive and looking totally bored. She was in the same shorts and camisole that she had been wearing in North Harbor, although they were much bloodier than before.
There was no sign of the transparent skin that Gwyn had reported. But there was blood—lots of it. She didn’t seem to have clotted at all, and the floor under her was drenched with sticky crimson fluid.
“How can I help you?” Pagan asked in a too-bright voice, like a cashier at a coffee shop. She looked totally unimpressed by the rifle Seth had propped against one shoulder.
“Why are you hunting us?” Rylie asked.
“I’m watching you for Cain.” She twisted her arms in their bindings. Fresh blood flowed around the ropes, filling the air with the iron scent of blood until Rylie couldn’t smell anything else. “He told me to reconnoiter, but to save your deaths until he could enjoy them properly. But it’s hard to pass up the opportunity to kill when it arises.”
Seth crouched in front of her, gun aimed safely at the wall. “Who’s Cain?”
“He’s your reckoning.”
He turned the barrel so that it was pointed at her chest. She didn’t even glance at it. “Tell me who Cain is.”
“Oh, please.” Pagan focused on Rylie over his shoulder. “Is he serious?”
“Deadly serious,” Rylie said, hoping that it sounded threatening. She had never needed to question a prisoner before.
“Who are you? What are you?” Seth asked.
Pagan gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “You don’t have the testicular fortitude required to get me to talk, little boy. I’m older than I look, and I could tell you things about my life that would give your grandkids nightmares.”
“Maybe he’s not going to do anything to you, but I could,” Rylie said, baring her teeth.
“Be my guest. I still have another arm for you to eat.”
Rylie didn’t really know what to do when she got called on her bluff. She wasn’t really going to bite Pagan again. Just the thought of trying to torture someone made her queasy.
Pagan saw the doubt in her eyes, and she laughed again.
“I can prevent you from bleeding to death from your injuries if you talk to us,” Seth said.
“I can’t bleed to death. Are you kidding? My God, this is the most
fun I’ve ever had being captured.” She kicked her feet up on a box of canned green beans. Pagan grinned. “I bet it’s going to be even more fun when Cain frees me, and we kill every last one of you.”
Seth stood. Stepped back beside Rylie. “Is he coming?”
“Oh yes.” Pagan shifted on the floor to bare her wounded arm. Her hair fell over her neck. There was a tattoo on her neck of an apple dripping with black blood. “And your flooding fluids will taste so sweet.”
As if to illustrate, she twisted her arm hard. The rope dug into her wrists. Fresh blood cascaded down her hands.
And she kept laughing.
“She’s not human,” Seth said after they had locked the cellar again and returned to the surface.
It was a warm, bright day, but Rylie felt cold all over. “If she’s not human, than what is she? I couldn’t smell her. There was way too much blood.”
He gave a stiff shrug. He looked pale and tired. “Werewolves aren’t the only dangerous thing out there. Some hunters kill other monsters.” He cast a glare at the cellar door. “Like demons.”
Rylie shivered and crossed herself. She hadn’t been to church in a long time. She wasn’t even sure she could walk on holy ground now that she had become one of the scary things that lurked in the night. But the gesture made her feel better.
“You mean we have a demon in my cellar?”
“Maybe.” Seth glanced at the bright blue sky. “I guess we’ll be able to tell in three days. If she doesn’t transform on the new moon, she’s definitely not human.” He sighed and started unloading his rifle. “We need help on this, Rylie. I’m going to make some phone calls.”
He dropped the rounds into his pocket and headed for the house.
Rylie bit her bottom lip, watching his retreating back.
“Seth?”
He paused in the doorway. “What?”
“Last night… when you proposed…”
Seth seemed to know what she was thinking. He gave her a lopsided grin that lacked its usual brilliance. “The timing was bad for that. I don’t need an answer now. Just… think about it. Okay?”
She wanted to tell him that she didn’t need time. That she was totally ready to marry him, even though she was only eighteen, and they hadn’t seen each other much lately.
But that wouldn’t have been true, would it?
Remembering Abel’s stricken expression when he saw Seth’s proposal made her feel sick.
She took a deep breath to brace herself. “Have you ever heard of something about… mating? In relation to Alphas?” It was hard to make the words come out. She wanted to crawl into the cellar with Pagan and die.
Seth’s eyebrows drew together. He stepped away from the door. “The only Alphas I’ve ever seen were in small family packs. One was married, and one was some guy with two kids. Mating wasn’t an issue. But I didn’t spend a lot of time studying the werewolves before killing them.”
“Oh,” she said.
He dropped the rifle to his side. “Why are you asking?”
“Levi mentioned it,” Rylie said, her pulse speeding. Before she could think better of it, she went on to add, “And I’ve been feeling weird about Abel lately.”
“Weird?” Seth echoed.
“Yeah. Like… drawn to him. Levi suggested it might be an Alpha thing.”
Seth stared at her for a long time. She had no idea what his expression meant, but it made her feel about three inches tall.
“That would actually explain a lot,” he said, and there was no anger in his voice.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not blind, Rylie. I noticed you guys are acting… weird. Like you said.” He shrugged one shoulder. “There’s still a lot we don’t know about werewolves. Nobody studied them other than my dad.”
“How do we get more information?” she asked.
He smiled again. It was a little brighter than before—almost encouraging. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
Seth went inside, and the screen door groaned shut behind him.
FOUR
Reinforcements
A black SUV with government license plates arrived the next day. It had a bumper sticker that said “Union of Kopides and Aspides,” and long antennas drooping over the hood. Both of those were normal for a Union transport. They were terrible at subtlety. The government markings, however, were new.
Seth was waiting for them at the gate to the ranch. The SUV stopped, and a man with shoulders nearly as wide as he was tall jumped out.
Yasir strode toward Seth. “Hey, kid,” he greeted. They clasped hands. He had pleasantly rough palms, and his knuckles made it look like he punched brick walls for fun. Maybe he did. The Union had some pretty intense training regimens.
“Long time,” Seth said, studying the commander. He had a few new scars and a gold tooth replacing one canine.
Yasir snorted. “Not long enough.”
The last time they had seen each other, it had been in the aftermath of the Union hunters fighting against the werewolves on Gray Mountain. Yasir had made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to have anything to do with werewolves anymore, regardless of what the Union’s command center said.
“Thanks for coming to help us,” Seth said.
Yasir crossed his arms. “Officially, Stripes and I are on leave. This isn’t Union business. Understand?”
“Stripes came with you?”
“Yeah. He was bored. But we don’t have any other support. Got it?”
“Got it,” Seth said. He preferred not to have the rest of the Union getting involved anyway.
Yasir’s eyes skimmed the ranch. “How many do you have?”
“Over twenty right now.” Seth jerked his thumb at the barn. “Most of them are sleeping out there.”
“And the demon?”
“In the cellar.”
Yasir waved to the SUV, and Stripes jumped out. He had a black duffel bag slung over one shoulder that bulged at the seams. Jumper cables hung out of the open zipper. “I’ll see what we can find out,” Yasir said, pointing Stripes toward the house.
Seth grabbed his arm, stopping him before he could leave. “One more thing. You guys use my dad’s research on werewolves all the time. Did you know there were chapters he didn’t publish in his book?”
Yasir nodded. “There were missing chapters on Eleanor’s body when we recovered it from Gray Mountain.”
“Is there anything about werewolf mating habits in there?”
“There might be.” Yasir looked wary. “Why? We don’t have to worry about the pack breeding, do we?”
“We promised that the werewolves would die out, and we meant it.”
The commander nodded. “I don’t know what the extra research said, but I can put in a request to get a copy. It’ll take a few days to pull it out of the archives, though. Would that help?”
It was even better than Seth had hoped for. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Can we go now?” Stripes asked from a few yards up the hill, shaking his duffel bag. “I want to talk with the demon.”
Seth nodded.
The men went up the hill and disappeared into the cellar with Pagan.
Rylie steered clear of Yasir and Stripes and kept her pack patrolling the sanctuary’s perimeter to watch for attack. But there was no sign of any other hunters, much less anyone trying to save the captive in her cellar.
If nobody came for Pagan when she screamed like that, Rylie seriously doubted anyone was going to come for her at all.
Three days passed in a blink. The moon dwindled in the sky. It turned into the barest sliver, and then vanished on the last night.
Rylie sat with Abel as the sun set on the evening of the new moon. He had been sleeping for almost three days straight.
The room smelled like sweat and sickness—the odor of a silver-poisoned wolf. Seth had done two more passes in the wound and still hadn’t found everything. No wonder Abel looked so miserable.
She touched his cheek. The
skin was scorching. “Wake up, Abel.” His eyes opened to slits, and she smiled. “Hey, lazy bones.”
He grimaced. “Don’t bother me. I feel like shit.”
“Yeah, I bet you do. But it’s the new moon tonight. Seth thinks that you have a shot at healing once you transform.”
“Can I do it in bed?”
“Gwyn says that you have to buy new furniture and repaint the room if you do,” Rylie said. “Let’s save a few hundred dollars and go outside, okay? I’ll help you.”
He pushed her away and tried to get up on his own. He staggered.
“Floor’s tilted,” he said when she stepped in to grab his arm.
“No, you just suck at walking.”
Rylie half-carried him outside to the waiting pack. Bekah was at the door, and she took his other arm as soon as they emerged. The rest of the pack was waiting in the field behind the barn.
“Where’s Seth?” Abel asked.
“He and Gwyn are keeping an eye on Pagan in the cellar tonight,” Rylie said. “Just in case.”
He shot her a look. “In case of what, exactly?”
In case she started to transform.
Yasir and Stripes were in the cellar, too, and they had rifles loaded with silver bullets. Rylie had promised that there was no way the werewolf species was going to grow.
If Pagan began to change, they would shoot her.
She laid Abel on the grass, and everyone circled around them.
“Silver,” Vanthe said, closing his eyes to taste the air. “There’s silver in his blood.”
A murmur spread through the pack. Pyper and Analizia actually drew back, like the silver might be contagious.
Rylie raised her voice so everyone could hear her. “Abel’s been poisoned. When he changes, there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to be wild. Whatever happens, we have to keep him in the sanctuary. But don’t get in a fight with Abel. Let me handle him.”
“I can do that,” someone piped up from behind her. She craned around to see who had spoken. It was Eldon, with his nervous laughter and habit of disappearing whenever chores needed to get done. Of course it was Eldon.
Rylie opened her mouth to snap at him, but the energy of the moon rippled over her before she could.