I saluted him with a cheeky smile. “The patient has been cleared for active duty.”
Abram pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are a braver man than I.”
He made it sound like mating me ought to come with a free bulletproof vest. “I’m not that bad.”
“Yes,” they said in unison. “You are.”
The healer let himself out while Isaac answered a text. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and he reached for me. “Your chariot awaits, madam.”
“The RVs are here?” I didn’t wait for his confirmation before standing and scooting past. “Let’s go call dibs.”
Leading the way outside, I charged down to the lot near the entrance of the park. It was a longer walk than I was used to, but I wasn’t winded, and I wasn’t about to turn down the opportunity to snoop in each and every one. Isaac kept watch but left me to sate my curiosity without a chaperone.
Once I had exhausted myself poking around, I rejoined Isaac and allowed him to settle me into a lawn chair for a rest. “Do I really get to pick which one I want, or has it already been chosen?”
“As far as I know, it doesn’t matter.” His gaze fixated on a point over my shoulder, and he gave a halfhearted wave. “The witch is here.”
Turning my neck was one on a list of many no-nos for me, so I vacillated between my options while he approached. Enzo took a position at my elbow and whistled. “These are nice. The pack spared no expense.”
“They’re loaners,” Isaac reminded him.
In Enzo World, he bought what he wanted, not borrowed. One of the tightest strings that would take the longest to snap if he ever hoped for true independence from Miguel would be making peace with losing a big chunk of his income. Enzo wasn’t vain, but he dressed to impress and drove cars to match.
The one exception was he’d rented a gorgeous sporty car to use while he was here. I suspected its primary purpose was in making him more difficult to track since his brother didn’t exactly know where he was or what he was doing. The secondary was all flash. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn Thierry Thackeray had signed the rental agreement to further muddy the waters. That girl had fingers in all the pies.
“Dell was about to pick the lucky winner we get to overhaul.” Isaac cupped my nape, his thumb sending delicious shivers down my spine where he stroked my carotid. “Which looks like a good place for a weeklong vacation?”
After much debating, I had to confess there was one clear winner. “The one with the purple stripe. The bedroom’s purple too.” Isaac’s face puckered like he’d been sucking on a lemon. “Don’t give me that look. We’ve been living in your man cave, one end of which is wall-to-wall computer monitors, and I haven’t complained even once. Besides, purple looks good on you.”
Sheepish, he set off to examine our new digs and fit his ideas to the RV’s specs.
Beside me, Enzo chuckled. “I almost feel sorry for him.”
After elbowing him in the ribs, I crossed my ankles to wait on Isaac’s return. “You almost were him.”
“No.” Enzo’s voice carried fondness instead of the tenderness such comparisons used to garner. “If you had wanted me, you would have had me ten times over before you two ever met.”
Asking him outright left me squirming in my chair, but as beta, I couldn’t abide someone under my care hurting. “Are you…okay?”
“Isaac isn’t the only one who’s been navel-gazing lately.” He removed a pack of gum from his shirt pocket and offered me a stick, which I declined, before taking one for himself. “I’d have to be blind not to see the parallels between me and you and Isabella and Miguel.” He popped a second stick into his mouth and punished it between his teeth. “Your incarceration gave me time to think and space to do it in. I watched Isaac fraying at the edges, and it hit me between the eyes that if I loved you, really loved you, I would have come unglued too. But the panic never hit. I feared for you, and I worked toward a solution. It’s one of the reasons why I agreed to our trip to Faerie. But I never came close to breaking like he did.”
“I had no idea that so many of my good friends considered love to be on par with a cancer diagnosis.”
“The work I do now is atonement for my brother’s sins. For mine.” He fell silent for a moment. “He loves Isabella, but it’s her illness that receives all his time and attention. After the sickness, after she stopped being able to shift and started losing her mind to the caged wolf in her middle, he became fixated, obsessed. He searches for a method of suppressing warg genes in an attempt to save her, but the end doesn’t always justify the means.”
Miguel had used the Chandler wargs as test subjects for so long it seemed like they had never been free of the threat of experimentation. Isabella’s plight struck me in the gut. It spoke to a warg’s worst fear. Losing the wolf. Forever. But Miguel should have let her go when the sickness peaked. He shouldn’t hold on to her, caging her degrading mind in a failing body while he desperately searched for a cure that didn’t exist. You could no more remove the wolf from a warg than you could remove the nerve center from a human. Both were fundamental parts required for the body and mind to function.
“You wanted to rewrite the past, correct Miguel’s behavior through example,” I realized. “You wanted to show him the right way for a witch to be mated to a warg.”
“Something along those lines.” He tugged on a tendril of hair curling over my shoulder. “It wasn’t consciously done.” He rubbed the strands through his fingers. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t care, that I didn’t want you. I just… I wanted you for the wrong reasons. I’m glad at least one of us figured that out in time. I would hate for the same history you accused me of wanting to rewrite to repeat.”
I was happy we had avoided that fate as well. Our pasts were complicated enough without our futures crashing and burning too. “Does this mean you and Isaac are going to start playing nice together?”
“Too late for that now. The lines have been drawn.” A smile tempted his lips. “Besides, the knowledge that breathing the same air as you irks him is my consolation prize.”
A good ten minutes later, Isaac emerged with fresh drawings on his tablet and fresh bite marks on the end of his stylus. Absently, he sat at my feet and leaned against my legs while finishing up some complex mathematical equation I avoided making eye contact with. I gave him another five before clearing my throat. “Well?”
“I need a few more measurements, but I can get those later. I’m going to get started fabricating what I’ll need, and I’ll begin installation tonight.” He frowned at Enzo as though only just realizing the witch had stuck around. “Do you need the moon for anything?”
I had learned the power of the moon over witchy magic during Enzo’s tenure as pack witch.
“The lunar focal point boosts potency and makes casting easier, but I can set the spell with or without.”
Isaac appeared to come to a decision. “I’ll go get started, see if I can save you a couple hours of moonshine.”
“Why aren’t you home?” Zed’s stern voice banged on the door of my head.
“Isaac brought me to the parking lot to check out the RVs. I got first dibs.”
“I heard about the alphas’ plan. I don’t like it, but I understand why it has to happen.” He hesitated. “We need to talk, and I’d like to do it in person for a change. Can I join you, or is this some couple thing? If you guys are christening the RVs to help make up your minds or whatever, I’ll visit later.”
“No sex, remember?” I grumbled.
“Oh, I remember Abram outlining the dos and don’ts, I’m just shocked you took his advice for once.”
Clearly I had a long road ahead of me if I wanted to earn back his respect. Zed, being the best best friend in the world, had shielded the pack from the brunt of my self-destructive behavior. But much like Abram, he knew Isaac’s decision to stick around was just slapping a fresh bandage over an old wound. I’d had to come face-to-face with the problem before I could set about solving it
. Now that I had a good support network in place, I was well on my way to recovery.
These days I had Zed for backup when conclave business drew the alphas away, my crew for when my construction work required extra hands, and Isaac for…me. That’s not to say he didn’t serve a purpose. Any good mate would support and encourage their partner in their endeavors, not to mention provide a sounding board. But the best ones also provided love and laughter, and that’s what I wanted for us.
“If you’re heading this way, I’ll let Isaac get started on his tinkering. Enzo hasn’t taken his turn inspecting the RV. He can keep an eye on me.”
“I’ll be there in five.”
Amused at the indecipherable scribbles littering Isaac’s tablet, I ruffled his hair. “Zed’s on his way over. You can scoot if you want. He’ll get me home in one piece.”
“I need to take my own notes.” To Isaac’s obvious horror, Enzo pulled a spiral notebook from his back pocket. I wondered if he’d gone low tech on purpose. “I can keep an eye on Dell until her escort arrives.”
“You sure you don’t mind?” He powered down his tablet to illustrate I held his full attention, proving he must worry he was overlooking me sometimes too. “I can make time.”
“You guys have twenty-four hours, that’s nothing. All projects experience unexpected complications. You need every second you can get.”
Pressing a kiss to my jean-clad thigh, he stood. “I’ll keep my phone on me. Call if you need me.”
Not long after meeting me, Isaac had given up on me carrying a phone. With all the shifting and nudity, it was just too hard finding a place to stash one. After his return, he had fashioned a type of bracelet that was part smartwatch and part panic button so that we could communicate regardless of my current form. GPS came standard too, of course, because he accused me of leading with my heart instead of my head. One of these days, I would take his constructive criticism to heart. After all, my head was much harder.
“I think I can manage.” I waited until he got almost out of sight and hit the panic button. He whirled on his heel and lunged a step back in my direction before he registered my manic cackling. “Oops. My finger must have slipped.”
“You’re cold, Dell.” Enzo chuckled along with me. “Ice cold.”
“If you’re talking beers, I’ll take one.” Zed appeared at my elbow, filling the spot Isaac had vacated, sounding hopeful that one of the witch’s many tricks involved pulling ice-cold fermented beverages out of thin air. “I could use a stiff drink after the morning we had.”
“That bad, huh?” I leaned my head against his side. “Did I get you in trouble with Cord?”
“Nah.” He flung his arm around my shoulders. “I get the impression he’s too grateful that me playing reporter means you don’t go snooping for news yourself.”
“Hmph.” I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m tired of being babied.”
“Tough titties. You go mother hen on us when we’re sick or hurt. You cluck around worse than Abram.” He pinched my upper arm. “Let us return the favor.”
“Ouch.”
“Are you good here?” Enzo acted torn about leaving me with my new tough-love babysitter. “I can hang around if you need me.”
“We’re good,” Zed answered for me. “Me and Delly have some talking to do.” Privately was implied by his curled lip.
“Did you miss lunch?” I patted his bony hip. “You’re so growly when you skip meals.”
“Lunch can wait.” He helped me stand then wrapped an arm around my waist to support me. I didn’t need to lean on him, but I did. Contact soothed his wolf, and I was the only one he let get close. The tactile deprivation must have been rough on him during my incarceration. “Let’s go down to the creek.”
“Okay.” I hadn’t been much of anywhere this week, so another short walk wouldn’t kill me. I had been cleared by Abram. Why not put my body through its paces? I would rather discover my breaking point in the company of friends than learn it the hard way in the field later. “You’re acting all mysterious.”
Zed kept his lips zipped until we reached a ribbon of water slicing through a bed of rock. I took a seat at its edge to catch my breath and fished out a stone from beneath the cool surface. With Faerie still fresh in mind, I kept expecting the thing to sprout eyes and wink at me or ask for the latest pack gossip. I was relieved when neither occurred.
“I think the sirens’ visit was more than a formal request for the return of their stolen property,” he began. “They figured out quick last time that their arrival tripped sensors that sent us running to the water’s edge. Their hearing is every bit as acute as ours. I’m betting they noticed the alarm in the camp last time and put two and two together.”
I tossed the rock and gave him my full attention. “Go on.”
“They couldn’t slip past us, and they knew that. What I think they did was appear front and center to distract us from a small contingent who splintered off from their party. It’s not like we can parse the exact number of trespassers.”
“Can they do that?” The prince could go invisible for short bursts, but he was an alkonost. Then again, so could Enzo. But he had limits too. I wasn’t sure what theirs might be. We would have to know if their theoretical hunting party was comprised of alkonosts or sirens or some other winged cousins Rilla had recruited as henchmen.
“We don’t know for sure. Cam contacted Thierry to ask her opinion, but any delay in her response means you’ll leave before we know for sure.”
“You think they’re going to tail the RV when it rolls out for ‘repairs.’”
“We don’t know for sure we have a problem, which means we don’t know for sure how big that problem is. All we know is they want the prince back before hostilities break out, and it sticks in my craw that she made an appearance today of all days after weeks of silence.”
“The day we learned about the conclave’s upcoming field trip.” So much for the theory a mourning period had ceased hostilities. There was more here. There had to be. But we were missing the subtext.
“Rilla can’t take the throne herself.” He grunted. “Faerie is too paternalistic, and she’s not mated. Her nephew is the best puppet she’s got.”
“There was one recent exception.” Thierry had been on her way to being queen. Perhaps the revelation that a woman could win the throne had set Rilla on this path. “Has it ever occurred to you he might be her backup plan?”
His utter stillness spoke volumes. This new Faerie Thierry had helped usher in, and its flexible rules that bent toward bloodshed, was far more dangerous than any previous version on the books.
The absence of the Huntsman meant the Coronation Hunt couldn’t proceed. Rook was counting on that as insurance. But what if Rilla was counting on that too? What if she planned to usher in a new dynasty baptized in blood? Reverting to the old ways of slaughtering humans and pillaging our cities might earn her enough popular opinion that ancient fae, those who recalled the bloody feasts and battles fondly, might lend her their support despite her inferior sex.
“The truth is, this won’t change the alphas sending you away. Believe me. I checked.” Disgruntled, he paced, kicking stones to hear them splash. “The siren threat is unknown. The conclave risk is known.”
“We aren’t going far, just down to the coast. If Isaac and Enzo do their jobs right, we’ll be impossible to track except by the pack.”
“We’ve got company.” Nathalie’s voice in our heads cut our meeting short. “Three Hummers are rolling up the driveway. I can smell Thierry from here.”
The conclave had arrived.
Chapter 15
“Shit on a shingle.” Zed raked furrows in his hair with twitchy fingers. “Can you get up to your cave alone?”
I conducted a quick inventory of my aches and pains. “I won’t be good for much of anything after that, but I think so.”
“Then go.” He clenched his fists at his sides. “Those bastards. Do you think they suspect?”
> That Lorimar was harboring a fugitive or that a prince was roosting in the trees? Neither looked good for us, or Thierry.
“Thierry ought to be at Macon watching Theo’s six. I doubt chaperoning this field trip was her idea.”
Unless she was more pissed about the Morrigan than she had let on and had come to collect her pound of flesh.
“She’s one rung down the logic chain from Theo if he was discovered. The conclave may have brought her along to force a confrontation with Cam over how her cousin ended up in her beta’s cell.” Stiff limbs protested as I rose and set out for the mountain. “Keep me updated.”
Zed embraced his change then raced toward the parking lot and our early guests.
“Watch your back, Delly. There’s enough food and water up there to last you a couple of days. There are blankets and a battery-operated generator.”
“Are you serious?” There had never been more than bear poop and dust in that cave. Well, except for the few months where I secreted away one of Isaac’s old flannel shirts to curl up on in wolf form. “Why would you do that?”
“I didn’t.” He sounded offended by the idea a warg needed providing for. “You can thank your mate for that.”
My mate. Each time I heard him called mine, my heart fluttered. Or maybe it was the wolf’s bliss that her claim had been acknowledged that gave me heart palpitations. Or maybe it was the trek up the mountain. Had the incline always been this steep? Who added all these extra rocks? And why had I thought crossing a stream to reach my hideaway was a good idea?
Eventually, after reconsidering my cupcake-heavy diet from the past few weeks, I reached the comfort of my cave, sweet cave. Wriggling in was easier in wolf form. I didn’t have much choice but to suck in my stomach and crawl arm over arm into the welcoming blackness that felt cushier than I remembered.
With the sun overhead, I considered the idea of sitting outside, soaking up the rays as I added to my freckle collection while pondering our upcoming trip, but I dismissed it as too dangerous. The threat of siren scouts made even my safe place feel unwelcoming.
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