Anna didn’t bother trying anything fancy. She just ran, back and forth and in dizzying circles. When she hit something she sliced at it, but kept going. Distracting it.
Charles staggered to his feet and launched himself at the creature again. This time, dizzy from hitting the wall and then the floor, he had no idea what he hit – all he knew, all Brother Wolf knew, was that they had to protect their mate. But luck favored him and he got a clean hit. It was flesh and bone beneath his fangs and he sank his claws in deep.
He didn’t know when Beauclaire joined the fight. Just suddenly he was there, his face icy and more beautiful and inhuman than Charles remembered it. He was taller, too, and thinner, and he fought with a knife in one hand and magic in the other. He was quick and tough, fighting blind, but he scored again and again with the knife – and when he used his magic, Charles couldn’t tell what Beauclaire did, but the horned lord felt it and shuddered underneath his fangs.
Charles was pretty sure that it was the magic that turned the tide. As soon as Beauclaire attacked him with it, the horned lord quit fighting to win and started fighting to get away.
The fae beast that Charles clung to screamed, this time a raw, drum-deep sound that hurt his ears, and threw itself on the floor, rolling as if it were on fire, first one way, then the other. Charles hung on for two rolls, but fell off on the third. Beauclaire, having neither fang nor claw, lay motionless on the ground after the first roll.
Free of his attackers, the creature made for the stairs – and Charles got a good look at what they’d been fighting, because whatever it was that kept it invisible had quit working. Its antlers were huge. He thought at first that they were shaped like a caribou’s, but it must have been a trick of shadows because they started … glowing faintly with an icy white light, and they were the horns of a deer – a huge ancient deer.
It had a silvery coat that whitened as it staggered upward – and Charles realized he’d been mistaken earlier because it had four legs, long and delicate looking. Black blood disappeared even as he watched, absorbed by the silvery coat of a great white stag taller by a hand or more than any moose he’d ever seen.
Brother Wolf wanted to chase it down and kill it because they wouldn’t be safe until it was dead. Charles agreed, but decided that since one of his shoulders was out of joint or broken, having one werewolf go after a creature that was healing as it retreated faster than a werewolf could was stupid. Especially when it had nearly defeated three werewolves and a tough fae already. He wondered if the horned lord, a half-blood, was really that tough, or if his borrowed magic made him that way. Either way, Charles wasn’t going after him, no matter what Brother Wolf wanted.
He wasn’t going to leave his Anna defenseless.
Brother Wolf roared his frustrated rage and took what satisfaction he could when the stag leapt up the last five or six stairs, staggering at the top when its left rear leg, still healing, didn’t support its weight.
When it was out of sight, Charles turned to survey the fallen. Isaac was still on the ground, but he’d rolled to a sphinxlike pose and blinked a little stupidly at Charles. If he wasn’t dead, he’d heal soon. Beauclaire was on one hand and his knees, trying to regain his feet with limited success – but everything seemed to be moving all right except for an obviously broken wrist. Anna … Anna was crouched next to Lizzie Beauclaire and crooning to her, or as close to a croon as a wolf could get.
The girl … He’d seen photos of her on her wall and she’d been beautiful. Now scabby wounds decorated her forehead and cheeks, all of the skin he could see. She was wearing her father’s shirt, but was obviously naked underneath it, and her formerly flawless skin was covered with sigils and bruises – just as Jacob’s body had been. On a living, breathing person it was even worse, because she was also covered with a miasma of black magic that he could see – like a fog of invisibly small fleas. Lizzie blinked at him with drugged eyes and moved backward, stopping abruptly with a little gasp because something hurt.
They’d broken her knee. Shattered it, if he was any judge – and he was. It was deliberate – and he wondered if she, a trained athlete, had been a little tougher than they expected. Her feet were bruised and bloody, as though she had broken free and gone running through the rocky terrain barefoot. She’d have had no chance of really escaping, not unless she could call upon the merfolk – and he doubted that. They tended to be standoffish or aggressive, even with their own kind.
Lizzie was clearly in no shape to walk. She’d have to be carried out, and, looking at the others, Charles knew he would have to do it. With a broken wrist, her father wasn’t going to be able to, and Anna was still too new of a werewolf to change back and forth this quickly. Isaac was dazed and confused, and pretty new as well. He’d been Changed about the same time as Anna, as Charles recalled, only a few years ago. So Charles was just going to have to manage one more shift to human right this minute.
It hurt. He’d forgotten how badly it hurt to change when something was wrong. He was old and changing would help heal any injury that wasn’t caused by silver – but the change healed the same way salt water kept wounds from getting infected: accompanied by a lot of pain.
Charles didn’t cry out. He didn’t howl and scare the poor little dancer who had wrapped herself around Anna as if the werewolf were a stuffed puppy. Sweat poured off his body even before he should have been human enough to sweat. And then he became human, kneeling in the dust-covered cement, wearing a red T-shirt soaked with sweat and his blue jeans, which – he noted with a hint of amusement – were old-style button fly.
It took Charles a couple of tries to get to his feet, and even then, his hands were still shaking. But the shoulder must have only been dislocated, because that injury the change had healed completely, other than a lingering soreness.
When he and Anna got back to their apartment, he was going to have to sleep for a week. He looked around to do triage, with the idea of getting everyone up the stairs and on their way to the boat before the horned lord came back to finish them.
Charles left Lizzie Beauclaire with Anna for a few minutes more and walked over to crouch in front of Isaac.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Are you with us?’
The wolf just panted, not focusing.
‘I’m going to touch you,’ Charles told him in a tone that brooked no opposition: dominant wolf to less dominant wolf. ‘To see if there’s anything that needs mending. You won’t like it – but you will let me do it. Growls are acceptable. Biting is not.’
After a quick exam, during which Isaac growled a lot, Charles was pretty certain that, though there had probably been other damage initially, the Boston Alpha had healed most of it. What was left were a lot of sore spots and a humdinger of a concussion that would work itself out in a few hours with adequate food. Charles hoped that Malcolm had more in his bait boxes than squid, chum, and worms – though protein was protein.
Charles stood up and looked around again.
Beauclaire had managed to get to his feet and walk unsteadily to his daughter. He sat down on the ground a foot or so from her and reached out to touch her hair with a light hand. She flinched and he started to sing to her in Welsh.
Ar lan y môr mae lilis gwynion
Ar lan y môr mae ’nghariad inne
He had a good voice. Not spectacular, as Charles would have expected from a fae of rank and power (and the fae who’d fought beside Charles this night obviously had power), but good pitch and sweet-toned, though that was somewhat affected by the unshed tears in his voice. Another song might have suited Beauclaire’s range better, and this particular song wasn’t among Charles’s favorites. He preferred those that had a story, powerful imagery, or at least better poetry.
Charles took a step forward and, though Beauclaire didn’t look up or quit singing, Charles felt the fae’s attention center on him. It felt like the attention of a rattlesnake just before it strikes.
‘ “Beside the Sea,” indeed,’ Charles said softly, watchi
ng Beauclaire’s body language.
The fae lord quit singing and looked up. Charles saw that he’d read him aright. Beauclaire was ready to defend his daughter against anyone who got too close. Like Isaac, he’d taken quite a beating on the unforgiving stone, and he looked a little dazed – something Charles hadn’t noticed in his first assessment. Being wounded made the fae all the more dangerous. The long knife had reappeared in his good hand and it looked very sharp.
‘Ar lan y môr,’ sang Charles, and watched Beauclaire stand down just a little, so he sang a few more lines for him. ‘All right. Allies, remember? We need to get everyone on the boat. Maybe have Isaac’s witch do something for your daughter so the black magic doesn’t eat her – I don’t know if you can see it, but I can. We need to fix your wrist.’
Beauclaire shut his eyes and banished his knife. Magic, Charles thought, or quick hands. The fae nodded, then winced and grimaced. ‘Right.’ His speaking voice was less steady than his singing voice had been. ‘We need to get her to safety in case the horned lord comes back. I can’t carry her.’
‘I can, if you let me,’ offered Charles. If necessary, he’d pull the same sort of dominance on Beauclaire that he had on Isaac. But Beauclaire wasn’t a wolf. It might work for a second, but it might also get Charles knifed in the back when he wasn’t paying attention to Beauclaire. Better to get real cooperation.
‘Her knee,’ Beauclaire said.
‘I know. I see it. It’s going to hurt no matter how we do this. But this island isn’t that big. It shouldn’t take us long.’
Beauclaire looked up and gave him a half smile. ‘First we have to stand up and go up the stairs.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Charles.
‘It could be waiting for us up there.’
Charles started to agree, but Brother Wolf spoke up. The old wolf might not know horned lords, but he knew prey, and Charles trusted his judgment. ‘The white stag is long gone.’
Beauclaire froze. ‘You saw it? As a white stag?’
Charles nodded. ‘When we fought it, it wasn’t in that form.’ He’d had time to think about it. Charles knew what he’d touched and it had been vaguely human shaped with legs like the hind legs of a moose. ‘But it ran up the stairs and turned into a stag – just as its invisibility ran out.’
‘It didn’t run out,’ Beauclaire said. ‘He dropped the glamour on purpose. Why didn’t you follow it?’
‘I wasn’t in any shape to take it on by myself,’ said Charles, gesturing around to the fallen. ‘Even with allies, we might not have been able to defeat it had it not decided to run. And I wasn’t going to leave you injured and vulnerable.’
Anna snorted. She knew him, knew who he wouldn’t leave vulnerable.
Beauclaire bowed his head and smiled. ‘I should have known that Bran’s son would be too hardheaded to be led by his nose by any magic – even by the white stag. Had you chased it, you would have continued, never stopping, never catching up until your legs were but bloody stumps or you died.’
Charles looked at him. ‘Thanks for the warning.’
Beauclaire laughed. ‘Bran’s son, no one can guard against the white stag – and knowing what he is and hunting him anyway is very dangerous. Even more dangerous than hunting in ignorance. If the white stag walked past me two weeks ago, I would not have been compelled to go after him. But if I had seen him tonight, after hunting him since he stole my daughter away – I would have followed him, power that I am, until one of us was dead.’
‘I thought fae were immortal,’ said Charles. ‘At least those who can refer to themselves as “power that I am.” ’
Beauclaire started to say something, but broke off as Charles held up a hand.
There was a scuffing sound above them. Someone was upstairs.
‘Isaac?’ It was Malcolm.
‘We’re down here,’ called Charles, relaxing, though Brother Wolf was upset with them. They were supposed to stay safe where he had left them.
Malcolm, the witch, and the FBI came charging to the rescue, bringing more noise and chaos with them than four people should have been able to manage. Goldstein and Leslie Fisher took over, and Charles, tired, aching in every bone of his body, let them.
Leslie stripped out of her knee-length waterproof jacket and helped Beauclaire wrap it around his daughter. The witch dug through her satchel and muttered unpleasant things. Finally she found a Baggie of salt, made them take the coat and Beauclaire’s shirt back off the girl, and dusted Lizzie from head to toe in the salt.
Brutal but effective. The black magic dissipated – but the salt burned in her open wounds. She cried, but seemed to be too deeply under the influence of whatever her kidnappers had fed her to make too much noise. Charles smelled ketamine and something else.
‘We could have thrown her in the ocean and fished her back out,’ Hally told them. ‘But the cold wouldn’t have done her any good. Better leave the salt on. A half hour should be long enough, but longer won’t hurt. It’ll also stave off infection.’
They bundled Lizzie back up and Charles picked her up, to her evident distress, even with whatever drugs they’d given her in her system. She hadn’t been in their hands long – a little more than a full day – but she’d been tortured and who knew what else. Males were not anything she wanted to deal with.
But Anna couldn’t change back, and Leslie, though in good shape, was human, and not capable of carrying Lizzie all the way back to the boat.
Charles tried singing to her, the same song her father had been singing. Beauclaire – and Malcolm – joined in, and the music seemed to help.
Goldstein had used a stick and a strip off the bottom of his cotton dress shirt to splint Beauclaire’s wrist. And when they started up the stairs, he wedged a shoulder under the fae’s arm and helped steady him, having evidently decided Beauclaire would be his personal responsibility. Beauclaire shot Charles the ghost of an amused look, and let himself be helped – possibly a little more than he really needed.
Isaac was obviously in pain, panting with stress, but he got to his feet and followed, Malcolm walking steadily beside him. Charles kept a close eye on them for a while – wolves could be a little unpredictable when a more dominant wolf was injured. It was a good time to eliminate the dominant and take his place. It didn’t usually happen when an even more dominant wolf like Charles was around to keep the peace and protect the pack, but better to be safe. Happily, Malcolm seemed honestly concerned about his Alpha.
Anna ranged, sometimes walking beside Charles, but mostly trotting in a wide circle around them, looking for danger. Leslie took rear guard, her gun out and ready to shoot. Hally walked in front of them, leading the way as she mostly ignored them all.
They staggered and stumbled, wounded but triumphant, singing the old Welsh folk song ‘Ar Lan y Môr.’ And if there was something odd about returning from battle singing about lilies, rosemary, rocks, and – for some reason he’d never fathomed – eggs, of all things, by the sea, well, then the three of them made it sound pretty good and only he and Beauclaire knew Welsh.
10
On the boat, Charles stretched out his legs and tried to ignore the lingering ache of that last change. Anna had tried sitting several different places, but the human seats were too narrow and the wrong shape. The ledges she’d used on the way over were slick, and instead of using her claws to dig into the fiberglass, she slid around with the motion of the sea. Finally she’d heaved a huge sigh and curled up by his feet on the deck.
Beauclaire had forbidden any questioning of his daughter until she’d seen a doctor. Goldstein and Isaac had elected to stay behind until the various agencies summoned arrived on the island. Malcolm told them that he’d decided Beauclaire and the wolves might need rescuing when he heard a boat leaving the island. Charles felt safe enough making the assumption that the horned lord they’d fought had left in that boat. Which would mean that very little danger remained – but it was good that Isaac had stayed anyway, just to make sure everything was
okay.
Charles rather suspected that Isaac had decided to put off the boat trip until he felt better, though he’d felt good enough to change back to human. Hally was staying with Isaac to make sure that the residual magic didn’t get a grip on any of the forensic people who were going to go over the island with a fine-tooth comb.
So the boat was a lot emptier on the way back than it had been on the way over.
Leslie left Beauclaire in the back half of the boat to sit beside Charles.
‘She’s in pretty rough shape,’ she said, sitting precisely on the edge of the seat. ‘There will be an ambulance waiting for us at the Daciana’s regular berth.’
The FBI agent looked a little less than professional, wrapped in a blanket from the boat, her hair windblown. Like Charles and Anna, she’d been up for a little more than twenty-four hours. Lack of sleep and lack of the subtle makeup that had worn off sometime while running around the island added years to her face.
It intrigued Charles that she chose to sit next to him with so many seats available.
‘You aren’t afraid of me?’ he asked.
Leslie closed her eyes. ‘Too tired to be afraid of anything. Besides, if you could see my husband, you’d understand that it takes a lot to scare me.’
That sparked his curiosity. ‘How is that?’
‘Linebacker for the LSU Tigers for three years in college,’ she said without opening her eyes. ‘Hurt his shoulder his senior year or he’d have gone pro. He’s six-five and two hundred forty-two pounds. None of it is fat, not even now. He teaches second grade.’ She looked at him. ‘What are you smiling about?’
Charles opened his eyes wide. ‘Nothing, ma’am.’
She smiled a little. ‘Jude says he loves the kids better than he ever did football. But he coaches the local high school team anyway.’
‘You didn’t come over here to tell me about your husband,’ he said.
‘No.’ Leslie looked at him and then away. ‘How old are you?’
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