From the Ashes (Force of Nature #1)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  I smiled tightly, strategically putting myself between Knox and Kat while the rest of the pack looked on, ready to finish what Brunton had started if they weren't pleased with what she had to say.

  “How bad is it?” I asked, squatting down beside her. Knox still held her leg, which made me nervous, a fact that I made plain to her in my beseeching expression.

  “My leg or the shit in NYC?”

  “I can see the former isn't good. How bad is the latter?”

  She frowned.

  “I'm not sure, Piper. When I left, they seemed to have him subdued somewhat. After that first day, something in him shifted. I don't know how to explain it, but I could see it in his eyes. He was still as mad as a hatter, but it was for a different reason. Like he'd realized what he'd done and needed to find you at any cost.”

  “Who sent you? Jase? Dean?”

  “The king...”

  “Fuck.”

  “I know, Piper. I'm between a rock and a hard place in this. But in a strange way, I'm glad that they sent me. I came up with a plan over the time I was searching for you. I think I know how I can play both sides of this, but you need to listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say, understand?”

  I nodded frantically.

  She reached her arm behind her back for something tucked into the back of her pants. Knox, not appreciating the movement, wrenched her leg in warning. She screamed in pain.

  “Knox!” I shouted, pushing him away from her.

  “I have a passport in my back pocket, Piper. I had it made for you. I know a guy in Idaho that does that kind of stuff. A rogue fey who flies under the radar. He had it ready for me when I went through that way.” I reached behind her and pulled it out. “I knew you didn't have one. I also knew you'd be needing one if you had any chance of ever escaping the king's reach.”

  “So your plan is to let her go?” Knox asked incredulously.

  “Well it sure as fuck isn't to send her back to that nutcase. You didn't see what he did to her...” Sad eyes fell upon me as she spoke. “I'm so sorry, Piper. I should have stayed home that night. When the boys told me what had happened to you—it’s all my fault.”

  “It's not your fault, Kat,” I said, leaning forward to wrap my arm around her neck in a half hug, doing my best not to jostle her leg in the process.

  “At any rate, here's the bottom line: the king sent me to find you. Every night, the boys show up to see if I have any news on your whereabouts—”

  “Jase and Dean? They're checking up on you?” Her expression tightened, confirming my worst fears. Perhaps my dream hadn’t been just a dream after all. “But they saw what he did to me.”

  “I know, Piper. But they're in the king's service as much as I am.”

  I felt sick. Completely and utterly sick. Jase and Dean had been my rocks for longer than I could remember. To know that they would willingly return me to the very place where I had nearly met my end was beyond unthinkable.

  Suddenly, the dream I'd had of them and Merc took on a very different connotation. One where they used my feelings for them against me to get what they wanted: me to return to the mansion. And Merc.

  I collapsed onto the ground, Kat's leg propped up in my lap. I couldn't think. I couldn't speak. All I could do was feel the pain of betrayal tighten around my heart, choking it slowly.

  “They'll be here at sundown, Piper. If I don't text them to tell them my location, Jensen will be in a world of shit.”

  “Who's Jensen?” Knox asked, still looming over the two of us.

  “My mate.”

  “He's an enforcer,” I added. Knox's expression twisted to one of disgust.

  “Fuck him. He can fend for himself.”

  “There has to be a way out of this that doesn't result in death,” I said, my mind still reeling.

  “There is,” Kat replied, her voice riddled with anger. She clearly didn't care for Knox's plan. “You need to take that passport and get the fuck out of here now. Put some distance between you and this place before sundown. I'll text the boys and tell them to meet me at your cabin. That I just missed you, but that you'd been there recently. It'll be enough to make everyone think we're close, but give you a head start on your international getaway plan.”

  “She's not leaving,” Knox growled.

  Kat ignored him entirely.

  “I have money. I took all the cash I had—the cash I have stashed at the mansion from tips. My 'just in case' money,” she explained, grabbing my hand and squeezing it tightly. “I know what they'll do to me if they find out I lied, but I'm willing to risk it, Piper. You and I will always be outsiders in their world, no matter how ensconced in it we are. I've saved up that money over the past couple of years because I know that the second something happens to Jensen, I'll be out on my ass. There's just under ten grand in my car. Take it. Run. It's your only chance.”

  “How do I know this isn't some elaborate scheme?” Knox asked. “How do I know that you're not setting her up with an alias that the king already knows about? Money that can be traced?”

  It took me a moment to process what was going on, my mind still focused on the betrayal of Jase and Dean. But once his words really registered, I turned to him with a questioning stare. How did the walking polygraph not know if she was lying?

  “Knox, why are you—?”

  “Because I can't tell if she's lying or not, that's why.” He bent down beside me, taking Kat's leg from my hands. “I think it's about time we set this thing, don't you?” he asked, turning her leg back and forth as though he were assessing the best way to do that. “Here's the thing, Kat. Piper is very important to me. Important to all of us, for that matter. And I don't really like the uncertainty surrounding your role in her retrieval. I'm normally an excellent judge of intention. You could say I have a feel for the truth. But with you, I can't seem to get a read on whether or not you mean what you say, and that's just not going to work for me. So from where I stand, nobody is going anywhere. Especially not you.”

  A horrific crunching sound echoed through the yard, followed closely by a shriek from Kat. He had apparently decided that fixing her leg wasn't in his best interest. Breaking it further seemed more to his liking.

  “Knox!” I screamed, shooting to my feet. He slowly uncurled his body to stand in front of me, not a hint of apology in his stare. Cold indifference met my eyes. “She's not lying. Kat and I have been friends for a long time. She wouldn't lie about this. She's trying to help me.”

  “Just like your boys are? The boys that had your back all the time?” he countered, silencing me. “If she's in deep with them, then she can't be trusted.”

  “But she said that they'll be here by nightfall.”

  “Not if she doesn't message them.”

  “And how long do you think it will be before they track her phone, Knox? An hour? Maybe two? They'll hunt her down.”

  “And we'll be waiting for them once they do.”

  “This is insane!” I exclaimed. “Even if you take them down, more will come. And they'll keep coming until they get what they want. You can't fight them forever. There are more of them than you. This is suicide, Knox.” He stared at me, unfazed by my argument. “I know you made me a promise, but knowing what we know now, you can't keep it. I'm asking you not to. For your sake and the sake of the whole pack, back out, Knox. Back out now. Let me run. I'll be okay. I'll get word to you as soon as I'm out of the country. I'll let you know everything is fine.”

  “No.”

  “Why won't you see reason in this?”

  “Because they will find you and kill you.”

  “You don't know that,” I argued weakly.

  “Yes. I do.” There was a finality to his words—a certainty behind them that gave me pause. There was something Knox wasn't telling me, of that I was certain. “You're a target they can't lose sight of, Piper. We end this now. My way.”

  I could see in his eyes that he was unwilling to cave on the issue. Like it or not, the showdown
with Merc was going to happen sooner than later. I feared for the fate of us all.

  “Then fix her leg,” I said, looking down at the hideous angle he'd created with her lower limb. The sight of it made my stomach roll.

  “Why?”

  “Because we'll need her.”

  “And if she's a traitor?”

  “That's a chance we'll have to take. Besides, how many of your boys did it take to bring her down?”

  Knox scanned the pack for an answer. A show of hands said that three of them had captured Kat. She was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

  “You're willing to bet your life on her loyalty?” he asked, eyeing me tightly.

  “Yes. I am.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Truth...”

  “You're the one that keeps telling me I call to nature. That I'm connected to it. That's partly why you all took to me so quickly. Why you chose me,” I argued. “Why would Kat be any different? She's fought for me before.”

  “And I'll do it again, Piper,” she bit out from her position on the ground. “But I can't condone this plan. It really is suicide.”

  “We'll see about that,” Knox grumbled under his breath, taking Kat's leg in his hands again. With no more care than he’d taken with it before, he snapped it back into an anatomically correct position. Kat screamed, breathing hard as Knox released her appendage, letting it fall limp to the ground. “It should be fine in an hour. Foust, take her to the holding cell. Lock her in there until I say to let her out.”

  “It'll be okay,” I whispered to her. The set of her features told me otherwise, but she didn't bother verbalizing it. She'd already made her stance clear.

  “Take her phone too,” Knox yelled at Foust. “We're going to need it later.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked, fear rising within me.

  “Precisely what she’d planned to, only we're going to do it just a wee bit earlier.”

  Oh my God...

  “They'll burn,” I said, breathing the words as though saying them too loudly would make that reality worse somehow.

  “They'll get what they deserve, Piper. They betrayed you. They don't get mercy.”

  “But—”

  “No buts on this one. I don't mean to be an asshole about this, but I have to plan an ambush. I'm going to need you to hang out in your room for a while.”

  Before I could argue, he walked inside, presumably to make sure Foust had Kat locked away. The others followed him in, leaving me in the front yard to ponder what in the hell had just happened. My best friend was taken prisoner. My boys had betrayed me, which, if Knox had his way, was going to cost them the ultimate price. And I was likely to face the male who had nearly taken my life. Maybe both of them, for that matter. It was all a lot to absorb.

  But worse than that, there was something niggling at the back of my mind. Something that didn't quite add up. I needed answers, and there was only one place I was going to find them.

  I walked inside to find the pack embroiled in a discussion regarding strategy, so I took that opportunity to head off toward my room. At the last second possible, I diverted down a different hall. The one that led to the holding cell.

  Kat and I had a few things to discuss.

  * * *

  She was locked up tight when I found her, so there was no need for anyone to stand guard. If I was going to get the answers I wanted, it was now or never.

  “Kat,” I whispered as quietly as possible. “Are you okay?”

  “My leg feels like it had a date with a wood chipper, but other than that, I'm stellar. You?” she replied, smiling.

  “Things are a bit tense at the moment...”

  “Interesting friends you have here. Figures that you of all individuals would try to go underground, only to move in next door to an entire pack of werewolves.”

  “Who'd have thunk it, right?”

  “If I'd have known they were here, it might have been the first place I looked, knowing your luck.” Her jovial expression fell to one of sadness. “Listen, Piper. You have to believe that this isn't what I want.”

  “I know that, Kat. I understand the position you're in,” I said, trying to put her at ease. “What I don't understand is why you said the king sent you?”

  She paused for a moment.

  “Because he did?” she replied, confusion in her tone. “Piper, you know as well as I do that when the king asks you specifically to do something, you don't argue.”

  “Right. I know that, but what I don't get is why he wants me found so badly. I knew Merc would be after me. Maybe even the boys because they were worried, but not the king.”

  She looked at me strangely.

  “He's worried about you being on your own.”

  “What?” I asked, not hiding the incredulity from my tone. “Is that what you think or what he said?”

  “Not that he stopped to explain himself,” she said dryly, “but yes. He did say that he was concerned for your well-being, knowing your history, and asked that I bring you home safely.”

  “He wants to bring me back to the mansion? To Merc?” I nearly shouted before lowering my voice. “He tried to kill me, Kat. Why in God's name would he send me back there? Just because we're bonded?”

  Realization dawned on Kat's face.

  “Piper, are you working under the presumption that the king knows about the attack? About what Merc did?”

  “Um, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?”

  Kat leaned against the cell's bars and closed her eyes, exhaling heavily.

  “We didn't tell him.”

  Holy. Shit.

  “What do you mean you 'didn't tell him'?” I repeated, throwing in some air quotes for effect.

  “I mean that once you left and the boys got Merc under some semblance of control, they had a little meeting about how to handle things.”

  “Who's they?”

  “Jase, Dean, Jensen, and Kendrick. They were the first to arrive home from the king's. They're the ones that found you and stopped him from...”

  “Smashing me to bits?” I asked sardonically.

  She sighed again.

  “By the time I got home, Merc was relatively stable. According to Jensen, he sounded nothing like he had when they'd arrived on the scene and found him with you.”

  “But why the need for secrecy? Why not report him?”

  She looked away from me for a moment before turning her wide eyes back to mine.

  “Do you remember what he said that night?”

  “Um, he said a whole lot of crazy shit that night, Kat.”

  “Jensen said he was enraged, spouting off about the king and you conspiring against him—trying to get him sent away again.”

  “And they believed him?”

  She shrugged.

  “Listen, Merc was sent away before I ever came on the scene, but from what I now gather, he might have been put away for...unfounded reasons. At least that's what Jase and Dean alluded to.”

  “So they're willing to risk my life because they think he was treated unfairly a bazillion years ago?”

  “I don't know what they're thinking, Piper. I already told you that they're all over my ass every night, checking up on my progress. But they're acting weird. Weirder than normal. I don't know what to make of the whole thing,” she said, pushing away from the bars to limp around the cell. “Do I think they're up to something? Maybe. Maybe not. There are too many unknowns in this for me to even begin to sort through, let alone come to a conclusion. All I know is that I jumped at the chance to be the one to look for you because I knew my own intentions, and they're to get you the fuck away from all this as fast as I can.” She turned dead-serious eyes to me. Eyes that glowed a light shade of gold. Wolf eyes that I had never seen before. “But now I can't even do that because Romeo out there has a hard-on for revenge.”

  “He's trying to protect me—”

  “He's going to get you and everyone else in a five-mile vicinity killed!” she snarled a little too loud
ly. Footsteps echoed down the hall. Someone was coming.

  “What do we do, Kat?” I whispered, panic rising in me as I looked over my shoulder to see who was coming.

  “I don't know, Piper. I wish I fucking did.”

  “You two having a nice chat? Getting caught up on old times?” Brunton asked as he approached. Of course he'd be the one to see what was going on.

  “I just wanted to make sure she's okay,” I said, trying to calm my shaking hands.

  “She looks great,” he replied, taking me by my arm to lead me away. “I think Knox asked you to stay in your room until he came for you. In case you've forgotten, that's this way.” He walked me down the hall to where it met another, then turned and escorted me directly to my door. I turned the knob and stepped in, but Brunton's grip on my arm tightened, stopping me. “Piper, I'm not trying to be a dick to you or your friend, but I need you to entertain the idea that nothing is as it seems with your former life, okay? That's all. We all have a lot at stake here, and we can't afford for you to be sentimental and have that cloud your judgment.” His normally harsh expression softened slightly before he continued. “Take it from me. I know a thing or two about that.”

  Just as his words registered in my mind, he walked away to rejoin the pack. His sentiment left me with unanswered questions, not the least of which was what exactly had led him and the others to Knox and the middle of nowhere in Alaska. I knew they each had a story to tell; I'd heard most of them on the way to Anchorage. All except Jagger's and Brunton's. But if Brunton could sympathize with me, then things had been bad for him once, that much was clear. Maybe all the wolves had a little more skin in the game than I'd initially thought.

  Maybe this war wasn't just about me.

  * * *

  I must have spent at least a couple of hours in my room just running through various scenarios in my mind. By the time I was done, I was more confused than ever. I walked over to the window to survey the yard, wondering where the boys keeping watch were, and whether or not Grizz and his friends were still patrolling as well.

  “Piper?” Foust called, poking his head into my room without knocking. “Hey, Knox needs you. A text just came in on her phone. He wants you to check it.”