Setting the phone on the table, I resumed the eating of my breakfast, half wishing Aunt Dot would misplace her reading glasses or her paperback, anything to warrant a quick visit. But she rose with the sun each day. No exceptions. By the time I had climbed out of bed, she and Isaac had already eaten and returned to their respective trailers. Her to watch soaps. Him to resume tapping away at his keyboard.
Tempted as I was to seek out their company, I didn’t want to explain my bleak mood last night to Isaac, and I didn’t want to go another round with him either. Not when it meant borrowing from Dell and giving her—and Graeson—access to my headspace.
Writing off my soggy flakes as a lost cause, I dumped them in the trash then washed and dried my bowl before trudging back to bed. I sat on the edge of the mattress, arm extended, about to watch the Charybdis video for the one hundred and second time, when a knock on the door saved my eyeballs from the repetitive strain.
Still dressed in my sleep shorts and tank top, I opened the door without checking to see who had arrived, figuring if it was anyone or anything dangerous, Dell would have taken care of them. Except there was no Dell. The steps had been vacated, and the yard stood quiet and empty. Drawn by a flash of color, my gaze dipped. A scrunchie sat in the dead center of the top step, its edges fluffed and then smoothed. Rose fabric with lemon dots and gold threads that caught the sun. Had someone pulled down a ponytail, the tie would be bunched up with a few strands of hair stuck in for good measure. This wasn’t that random. It had been neatly arranged, almost like a presentation. Almost like a gift.
That or Dell suffered from scrunchie OCD.
The low rustle of voices had me searching for the source. “Dell?”
A reddish-blond head poked around the corner. She spotted me standing in the doorway and called to the person behind her. She walked out carrying a bucket of sudsy water, and Aunt Dot followed holding a dripping squeegee. Aunt Dot must have spotted Dell moping around and put her to work. That was how it worked when we were kids too. Tell her you were bored, and she found ten ways for you not to be. We learned quick to never use the B word around her.
Setting the bucket on the ground, Dell wiped her hands on her pants. “What’s up?” she asked at the same time as Aunt Dot said, “Is something the matter, pumpkin?”
“It’s probably nothing, Aunt Dot.” Eyeing Dell, I pointed down. “Is that yours?”
“Nope.” She ruffled her wild tumble of curls. “Nothing helps with this, so I let it hang loose.”
Each glossy twist was perfect, as though fairies had spent the night curling her hair on rollers forged by moonlight, and here she was complaining about them. Some things transcended species, I suppose. All women wanted the hair they didn’t have. Mine was wheat-blonde and just wavy enough I had to straighten it to wear it down but not so wavy that I could scrunch it and have soft curls.
Scooping up the hair tie, I held it up so they could both get a look. “Did either of you see anyone else out here?”
“No, and I didn’t pass anyone on the way.” Dell tilted her head back and inhaled. “I smell pack and your family. That’s it.”
“There’s something familiar about it.” Aunt Dot dunked the squeegee in the bucket, crossed to me and took the hair tie from my hand. “I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.” She got the oddest expression and lifted the fabric to her nose. “This smells like…” She shook her head. “No, that’s not possible.”
“What is it?” I joined her in the grass. “What’s not possible?”
“For a minute there, I thought…” She shook her head and passed it back to me. “You might have been too young, but your mom loved this herbal shampoo made by a pixie in South Carolina. It turned even the coarsest hair into silk. I’ve never smelled anything like it, and it might be all the pollen clogging my sinuses right now, but this reminds me of it.” A small laugh shook her shoulders. “The crazy thing is, when I saw it in your hand, I thought immediately of Diane. It’s exactly like those hairbands she used to wear all the time. Your momma had the craziest obsession with matching them to her socks. Do you remember that?”
“I remember,” I murmured. “She did the same thing with me and Lori.” I almost smiled. “We hated it.” Unable to resist, I brought the material to my nose and breathed in a peppery-mint fragrance that sparked instant recognition. “Mom never let us use that shampoo except on special occasions.” Those were few, far between and usually involved family portraits. “One night Lori used it as bubble bath. Dad laughed. Mom didn’t think it was funny. She bought a lock for her bathroom door the next day.”
Aunt Dot chuckled. “That sounds about right.”
“Where did it come from?” Who could it belong to? Not Mom, surely. I hadn’t seen her in years. “Could it have—I don’t know—fallen out of something in your trailer and gotten tracked over here?”
I was grasping at straws, and I knew it, but it was the only logical scenario.
“Anything is possible.” A frown touched her mouth. “I was doing some spring cleaning, as you can see. I might have dropped it outside and—” her shrug encompassed the area, “—someone might have picked it up and put it there.”
“Who?” I stretched the elastic. “If not us, then maybe Isaac?” My gaze went to the trees. “Unless someone from the pack came for a visit.”
The look I shared with Dell told her what I thought of that possibility.
“I’m going to grab a water.” Aunt Dot wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. “Can I get you girls anything?”
“No,” Dell and I said in concert.
With a chortle at us like she found us precious, Aunt Dot retreated to her trailer.
Beside me, Dell resumed excavating dirt with her toes. “Do you want me to tell—?”
“No.” I crushed the fabric in my hand. “He’s the last person I want to see right now.”
“What you saw last night…” She dragged her fingers through her hair, leaving it artfully tousled. “You don’t get it. We aren’t like you.” She slapped her chest. “There’s an animal inside us, right under the skin, and if we aren’t careful, it can do horrible things. There’s a reason why packs are ruled by alphas. We need that guiding hand to keep us in line.”
“What I saw last night was a powerful warg tearing into lesser wolves.” After replaying the scene over and over in my head, I remembered why some of them looked familiar. “Those were the wolves Graeson brought with him to Mississippi. They were the ones he said were his best.” I cringed as she wilted before me, but I kept going. “Is that why they’re loyal to him? He’s beaten it into them?”
Dell’s shoulders ratcheted up to her ears. “You don’t understand.”
“No.” I shoved the scrunchie into my pocket to investigate later. “And guess what? That’s because neither you nor Graeson have made any attempt to educate me. He’s doing what he does. He’s blocking me out because he thinks he’s always right.”
“He didn’t want to do it,” she said, lips barely moving.
“Then he shouldn’t have done it.” Problem solved.
Her body shook, close to tears. “You don’t—”
“Don’t tell me that again.” I sighed, exhausted by her defense of him. “It’s a weak excuse, and I’m tired of hearing it.”
I was wrong.
Dell hadn’t been about to cry.
She exploded.
Her hands trembled with rage as she fisted my shirt, lifted me and pinned me to the wall of my trailer. “You said it yourself. Those were Cord’s best wolves. His. Not Bessemer’s. His.” She thumped my head on the metal. “When Cord needed them, they left the pack. They left. He didn’t ask them to. He would never endanger them like that. They lied to him, told him Bessemer gave permission for them to go, and he believed them because he’s still so twisted up on the inside he can’t see straight. By the time they reached Abbeville and he could read the truth for himself, it was too late. The damage had been done.”
An u
nsettling calm stole over me. “The wolves in the clearing were being punished.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“It was Bessemer’s idea, wasn’t it?” My throat tightened. “He made Graeson punish those who trusted him.”
“No.” A watery smile. “The wounds he inflicted were healed by sunup.” She dropped me and swiped her fingers under her eyes. “They weren’t ever the targets. Not really.”
Graeson. Bessemer had been gunning for him when he orchestrated the beating of those loyal deserters.
A fragment of doubt lodged itself in my breast. One thing I knew well was how to snuggle up with blame every night like a warm blanket that would tangle around your throat and choke you in your sleep. Graeson blamed himself for his sister’s death. He was so like me in that respect—and yet so unlike me. He was confident, a leader. He never doubted, didn’t hesitate. He acted, not reacted. Even when his first impulse wasn’t the best solution, he still rolled with his gut. And I, being the worst fake girlfriend ever, had leapt to conclusions based on my own sense of morality, without giving him or Dell a chance to explain. I hadn’t spared a single thought for how he was coping after last night, because I hadn’t understood that living with his actions was the true punishment.
Suddenly, the surveillance marathon could wait. “Take me to him.”
Deep into Chandler pack land, skin crawling under the watchful eyes of unseen wargs, I came to a standstill beneath a massive oak tree that dominated this section of forest.
“This is as far as I should go.” Dell rested a hand on a wooden slat nailed to the tree trunk. “Are you good with heights?”
Squinting into the sun, I tilted my head back. Way back. Far above us, I glimpsed the base of a platform built around the thick cedar’s upper branches. “I’m not not-good with heights.” Though this climb might test those limits. “Is this safe?”
She patted the bark covering his hideaway. “If it held Cord, it’ll hold you.”
With those words to recommend it, I gripped my first handhold, tested my first toehold and hauled myself up three feet off the ground.
Only twenty or thirty left to go.
“You can do it.” Dell popped my bottom and winked at me. “I’ll be right here to catch you if you fall.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” She might be supernaturally strong and fast, but I would be a hundred and thirty-eight pounds of dead weight if I lost my grip. Huffing out a breath, I found my next grip. “Here we go.”
I made the rest of the climb in silence. Each step was as sturdy as any ladder, and though the tree had begun claiming the slats, growing over the edges anchored against its trunk, each remained clean and treated. The platform above me, when I reached it, also appeared to be solid and free of mold or warping.
This, I knew before reaching the top, was Graeson’s sanctuary. Too much care had been taken for it to be labeled as anything else.
A generous square had been cut where tree met platform, but I hesitated, unsure how to climb through the gap without losing my grip. The concern was wrested from me when a corded forearm, wrapped with cypress ink, extended toward me. I clasped his warm, strong hand and risked gripping a handle near Graeson’s foot. Somewhat certain I wasn’t about to plummet to my grisly end, I half-climbed, was half-hauled up, onto the platform.
“Give me a minute,” I panted. The exertion wasn’t as bad as my nerves. “This is my first time pretending I’m a squirrel.”
He squatted before me, hazel eyes heavy with shadows, and brushed a few stray hairs from my eyes that had been annoying me but not enough to chance sweeping them away while on the move.
“You didn’t have to come all the way up here.” His legs folded under him, and he sat beside me. “Dell could have asked me to climb down to you.” He tapped the side of his head. “Pack bond, remember?”
No. Actually I had forgotten their two-way head radio in my haste to ensure he was all right. Dell would have remembered, though, and we were going to have a chat about manipulating me into Graeson’s path very soon.
“Well, I’m here now.” And finding him whole left me full of adrenaline with nowhere to go. “The question is—why are you?”
“I come here to think.” He swept out his hand. “Elevation lends clarity, or something profound like that.”
Not once had I peeked down on my way up, and if I hadn’t had the solid reassurance of his body close to mine, I doubt I would have risked it now. But he was here, and I felt safe, so I forced my gaze past him and sucked in a gasp. “Wow.”
A grin cracked his cheeks. “Wow works too.”
Tucked away in the verdant canopy, I admired the pack lands rolling as far as the eye could see. Nothing but trees and earth and sky. Glitter in the distance hinted at water, but even that failed to dull my thrill. “I can see why you come up here to—” I almost said escape, “—think.”
“I built this for Marie when she was maybe three or four. I brought her up here every night, had tea parties, the whole nine yards. This was her favorite place. We held her birthday party right here every year.” He draped his arm over his knee. “She told me seven months ago she was too old for tree houses and wanted me to rent the roller rink in town.” He shook his head. “Kids grow up so damn fast.”
Unsure what to make of his somber mood, I rested my hand on his shoulder, figuring the touch would do him more good than words.
“You didn’t stay home last night,” he said, broaching the reason for my visit.
“No.” I admitted, “I’m not much good at taking orders.”
The truth of that statement was a fresh revelation. I liked to think of myself as one of the good guys, a cog in the conclave machine that turned the wheels of justice, but enduring my first corrective punishment since joining their ranks had shed new light on my thoughts on the organization. Until being shut out of the Charybdis case and forced to skirt the edge of the law, I hadn’t known I had a rebellious bone in my body. Apparently I had several.
His focus went distant. “So I’m beginning to see.”
“Bessemer put you up to it.” It was as good a starting point as any. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“You don’t believe that.” His gaze cut to me. “I can smell the lie.”
“If you had asked me this morning, I would call bullshit.” I rolled a shoulder. “People are responsible for the choices they make. No one can force you to act outside your character.” But some concessions had to be made. We might live in a human world, but neither of us were one. “There’s a lot about warg society I don’t understand, but bullying and corruption of absolute power transcends species.”
A flash of teeth winked as though I had amused him. “You realize you’re implying I’m being abused?”
“You are.” I swept my hand out, indicating not the vista but those living below us. “They all are.”
I startled when his knuckle smoothed down my cheek, the scars white and thick against his sun-kissed skin.
“Keep talking like that, and I’ll start thinking you care about me.” He tilted his head. “About us.”
“I didn’t come to Georgia for any of this.” I soaked up his caress when I should have snapped my teeth at his hand. “I have a job to do, a job I thought you could help me do.”
“I didn’t expect Bessemer to react this way. He can be cooperative with fae when he must. Being in my head, reading my feelings for you and learning you accessed the pack bond lit his fuse. He thinks I’ve betrayed him, with you and with the others.” His hand lowered until his fingers teased mine where they rested against the planks. “This isn’t what I offered you. I’ve been putting out fires with the pack instead of helping, and I can’t promise that will change in the next few days. It might get worse.” He traced the smooth curve of my thumbnail. “I never would have invited you or your family into this if I’d had any idea how it would all play out. I hope you know that.”
“You expected the pack to close ranks around u
s because you told them to, because they respect you and this is what you wanted.” I spotted the damning flaw in that expectation as soon as the words left my mouth. “Do you ever think this beta gig isn’t enough for you?”
From what I had seen of Graeson, he was driven to protect those he called his own. Even when they didn’t need protecting. His biggest flaw was in failing to see how his calculated machinations pushed away the very people he tried to keep close. He had been willing to sacrifice me to protect his greater good, to bring down Charybdis, but somewhere along the line his prerogative changed. I was now one of the protected, and that meant he felt he had total control over our not-exactly-a-relationship.
“It used to be.” His fingers tapped mine absently. “A switch has been flipped in my head, and I can’t seem to unflip it.”
“Sometimes trauma can cause radical changes in behavior.”
“I can’t blame Marie’s death for this.” He rubbed a white smudge on his wrist. “I was already getting twitchy. The older I get, the worse it becomes, the more Bessemer and I clash over what’s right for the pack.”
I cocked my head at the pale spot, but he kept it covered. “What is that?” I’d noticed it the first time we met, but I had yet to ask what it meant. “Can I see?”
His fingers peeled aside, and I got my first clear look at the full design of his tattoo.
A tiny figure in white ink stood in the pitch black forest with her head tilted back and hair spilling down her back. She stared up at the sky, where the moon ought to be.
“I had it done days before she went missing,” he said softly. “It was her idea. She never did like how dark and lonely the woods looked on my arms, so I promised to ink some life into them, starting with her.”
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