by Layla Nash
I didn’t try to be friendly, though I didn’t bother with the ice-queen mask. It would have taken far too much energy to keep up that level of disdain for a whole day. I needed to save it up for when I had to face Evershaw again—if I had to. He wasn’t anywhere around that they would tell me, and Mercy even let me into his quarters so I could look around for a hint of how he’d been poisoned.
The suite where he lived was easily two or three times the size of the expansive guest suite I’d been given, with smaller apartments connected to it so guests could stay in his quarters but with their own space. It made me wonder who he invited to stay, since none of the other rooms looked like they’d been disturbed even to be cleaned.
He had terrible taste, which I could have guessed just from the way he dressed. Everything was dark wood and heavy and masculine, with no real colors or textures except cream. Dark and cream, dark and white, brown and white, a surprise splash of gray and white. The place gave me the hives, although there was something else about it... I couldn’t explain it. It felt…familiar. Some of the uneasiness of wandering around the pack’s giant building uncoiled when I stepped across his threshold.
I checked for wards or other protections, or some hint of a charm that promoted relaxation, but there was nothing.
Mercy stared at me like I was going to do a trick any moment as I lingered in the doorway and ran my fingertips over the frame. She practically vibrated with the need to ask me questions, though I’d put a cap on how many she could ask in a given hour. She’d already used up nine of her ten, with twenty minutes to go. I glanced at her sideways and took pity. “Do you sense a difference between the hall and inside this room?”
“Should I?” she breathed, eyes wide. Without waiting for an answer, she leapt from the hall into the room, looked around, then launched herself into the hall. She repeated the leap enough times that it made me dizzy, and I caught her arm to shove her into the room.
“Sometimes you have to be quiet in order to hear, Mercy.” I rubbed my temples and exhaled, closing my eyes as I rested my hands on either side of the door frame. “Breathe. Wait for the air to speak to you.”
She breathed, all right. Breathed right in my ear. I searched for my patience and found just a tiny little shred left, so I didn’t haul off and hex her right there. I couldn’t find anything that signaled magic or ill intent, so I directed Mercy into the main living area. She knew her way around and started on the tour right away. “This is the kitchen, and the living room, and the formal dining room for when he has guests—even though he never has guests, and this is the bathroom, and that’s where Evershaw sleeps and his bathroom and closet, and—“
“Take a breath, Mercy,” Henry said. He shut the door behind us and leaned back against it. “Just let her look around.”
“Is there anywhere I’m not allowed?” I didn’t look at either of them, not wanting to break the concentration it took to See around me and search for any ill intent or bad magic.
Mercy took a breath but Henry beat her to it with a firm, “No. Go where you want. Touch whatever you need to.”
And Mercy sounded just a heartbeat away from giggling, but I couldn’t spare her more than a brief thought. I searched the main room and let the Sight guide me, tracing the angry red paths of Evershaw’s movements through the rooms. I followed the cooler orange drift of someone I thought might have been his cousin, the tall one who promised me a lot of money to save Evershaw’s life, and Mercy’s trails, which were—of course—pink and sparkly.
I smiled to myself, imagining how excited she’d be to learn she left a glittery pink wake behind her. There were faint marks in greens and yellows all throughout the quarters, but they seemed to correspond to a closet where I found vacuums and mops and other cleaning equipment.
“How many people clean in here? How frequently?”
Mercy hopped onto a stool near the bar-height kitchen island counter, still watching me closely. “Every couple of weeks, whenever the alpha is away or I can convince him it has to be vacuumed. He wouldn’t let anyone in here if I didn’t make him.”
I made a thoughtful noise and ignored the green trails, meandering over to where Mercy indicated Evershaw slept. Only his red path crossed the threshold. Interesting. Neither Mercy nor Henry followed me in, even after I looked back over my shoulder at them, and I almost held my breath as I proceeded on my own. The bedroom was large, with more of that ugly heavy furniture. He hadn’t made the bed and there were clothes overflowing from a hamper in the corner.
Typical.
Still, though, the place didn’t smell bad and instead there was a hint of vanilla in the air. It wasn’t unpleasant, just very masculine. After a lifetime living alone or with my mother, I wasn’t accustomed to places where men lived. Even when I’d dated more actively, I never stayed over at the guy’s place or let them stay over too long at mine. It was too much of a commitment to inhabit someone else’s space.
I started moving again, feeling the laser-focus of the two wolves in the living room after I’d paused, and focused on the Sight instead of a couple of books on the nightstand next to what was clearly his side of the bed. At least he had nice windows and a pretty good view of the city, although the heavy drapes were drawn and he’d shut out the world as much as possible.
Only he walked through the bedroom and his bathroom; there weren’t any hints of anyone else, which meant he’d been alone for at least three months. I wondered if he had mistresses or girlfriends, more from the morbid curiosity of the kind of woman who’d put up with a guy like him, and made my way back out to the living room. Mercy and Henry both looked at me expectantly, like I’d solve the whole thing right there, and I stared back at them.
Mercy couldn’t take the silence for more than a few seconds, bouncing on her toes. “Well?”
“Well what?” I frowned and looked around the living room once more. Something didn’t add up. He had an entire pack of people who’d followed him from somewhere, and the only people who ever entered his quarters was capped at less than five, at least a couple of whom were just there to clean.
“Did you find anything useful?” Henry retreated to the door.
“He needs to do laundry,” I said under my breath, waving at the bedroom behind me. I returned to one of the guest suites, opening the door to look inside, and the sadness of it all struck me rather deeply. It was a lot like my big empty house. If anyone Saw my house, they wouldn’t find anything but my footsteps throughout. Me and Cricket. I didn’t even have a maid to come in and clean.
I closed the guest room door and wandered into the middle of the living room, searching for something I couldn’t name. “It didn’t happen here. But...”
I trailed off, shaking my head, and turned to take one more look around.
“But what?” Mercy asked.
Henry headed for the door. “If it didn’t happen here, then we should go. He won’t want us to just hang out in here.”
“He’ll be fine,” Mercy said. She blocked me from following Henry, her eyes wide and bright. “But what? The poisoning didn’t happen here but something else did?”
I cleared my throat and leaned against the back of the ugly over-stuffed couch that looked perfect for napping. My legs ached suddenly and every part of me was cold. Something wasn’t right. “Something isn’t…something is wrong. Something is very wrong. You need to find him.”
Mercy’s eyes got even bigger, until I worried they’d fall right out of her head. “You mean—“
“Now,” I said. I clutched my stomach and barely held onto the couch, not wanting to fall to my knees in case I landed on some blisters, and Mercy was immediately next to me to keep me upright. Pain radiated from the burns and my stomach and my head, and I could barely keep my eyes open enough to find Henry in the bright red sparks in my vision. “Find him. It happened again. He’s been poisoned. Get him here immediately.”
Henry got a phone out and ran into the hall, disappearing and shouting at the same time. M
ovement erupted and more yells joined him in the hall, and Mercy dragged me to sit on one end of the couch so I wouldn’t fall.
“You can save him,” Mercy breathed. “You have to save him.”
“I’m not going to die today,” I told her. Or so I hoped. “So I’ll have to save him. Get him here fast. As fast as possible. Get…get me my bag. And lavender and sage and...” My thoughts drifted in static and pain, and for a flash, I was in Evershaw’s body, staring out a windshield as an SUV pulled up outside a big-ass building. I wrenched away, not wanting to share my thoughts with that guy for a second, and found Mercy staring at me with her mouth hanging open. I pressed my hands to my eyes and prayed they were pulling up to this big-ass building and not one on the other side of town. “They’re in a car. Get my bag. Fast.”
She hesitated, looking at me, and reached for my hand. “You’ll be okay? I’ll be back really fast.”
“I’ll be fine.” I almost choked on the words, since no one had bothered to ask whether I’d be okay for months and months. I closed my eyes and wished the room would stop spinning. “Go. Fast. Get him here. Neither of us has much time.”
My chest tightened and my breath hitched. Mercy raced off, calling to someone in the hall, then Henry hoisted me up so I was sitting upright on the couch instead of sprawled across the arm, and he kept me there as his attention fixated on the door. “They’re on the way, witch. You’ve got to stay awake.”
“I’m awake,” I muttered. “I’m just in a lot of pain. Mercy is getting my bag. I’ll need someone else to help fetch things if I’ve run out of the herbs I brought with me. I didn’t expect to be gone long enough to do two healings.” And I gave him a sideways look to remind him this was trouble of their own making.
He nodded, stuffing pillows under my arms so I wouldn’t list to the side, and retreated to the door to shout again. He gave instructions and cursed a lot, and then I blinked and Mercy was back in front of me with my bag and a pale face. “They’re bringing him in. He’s not good. You don’t look good, either. Are you sure it’s going to be okay?”
I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I’d never experienced anything like it before. “Send someone to fetch Smith, just in case I am unable to save him. My life is tied to your alpha’s, Mercy. I’ll do everything I can just to save myself.”
Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and she squeezed my hands tight enough my bones bent. “Please. You have to.”
I wanted to reassure her, I really did. And I even took a breath to do so, but then a scrum of bodies barreled through the doorway and through to the bedroom, and shouting voices overwhelmed the stillness, and then Henry picked me up and carried me in after them.
Chapter 17
Evershaw
He recognized the signs a hell of a lot faster the second time around. When he started to feel dizzy and his chest ached, he cursed and held on to the armrest so he didn’t throw himself out of the car from sheer rage. “It’s happening again.”
Todd stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What’s happening again?”
“The fucking poison, man.” Evershaw held out his arm where the familiar rash spread, and he leaned forward to vomit between his feet. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and he hadn’t had anything to drink. What the fuck was going on? “Get us back to that witch.”
He had to close his eyes as the vertigo returned and a few hallucinations as well; he was damn sure Todd wouldn’t have kept driving if there were water filling the car and snakes floating around them, but that didn’t make it any easier to see in front of him. He concentrated on breathing and hoped that whatever the fuck Smith did to tie him to the witch held and the girl would save him a second time.
“Who was it?” he demanded, gripping the handle of the door as Todd whipped the SUV through a hard turn and a chorus of honking horns followed them. “Who the fuck did it?”
“I don’t know. How long does it take for symptoms to set it?”
“How the fuck should I know?” Evershaw gritted his teeth. “Call the house. Have the witch ready. Have everyone ready. I don’t know how the fuck they got to me a second time, but this bullshit is ending.”
The SUV’s tires squealed and Evershaw felt his half of the truck go airborne, and he was really fucking glad that he kept his eyes closed, because the terror of Todd’s driving might have killed him faster than the poison.
“We’re almost there,” Todd muttered. He called something garbled into a radio or phone, and the device squawked back, but it all blurred into a curious static in Evershaw’s brain.
His chest hurt and his heart beat oddly. It wasn’t as painful as the first time. Maybe he was building up resistance. He snorted to himself, shaking and trying to hold on to consciousness. He was going to fucking walk into his own building, or he’d die in the SUV and they could drive him straight to the landfill. Un-fucking-believable. Poisoned a second time.
“Was it the coyotes?” His words sounded strange and slurred, though he couldn’t tell if that was because his ears weren’t working right or because his voice wasn’t.
It must have been his voice, because Todd reached over and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “Don’t you fucking die, you bastard. I’m not putting up with this bullshit again, you hear me?”
“I’m going to kick your ass for that,” Evershaw muttered. He slid a little lower in the seat, though he bounced high enough to hit his head when the SUV launched over something.
Todd wrenched the SUV around and then Evershaw’s door opened and hands grabbed him, hauling him out. He opened his eyes to find the pack surrounding him, all of them inside one of the massive garages where the guys worked on cars and build random shit.
Before he could even open his mouth to demand they let him walk, somehow he was floated and they carried him inside. Every time he blinked, it was like five minutes passed and he was lurched forward in time and space. They carried him right into his room and put him on his bed, and then he opened his eyes and found the witch standing over him.
“Oh great,” he muttered, though he meant it. It was great that she was there and conscious, although he thought Smith’s spell was bullshit because she didn’t look like she was suffering the same as him. “Get to work, witch.”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said, perfectly serene. She had that icy bitch expression again, standing next to his bed and looking at him like he was something she’d scraped off her shoe. “I don’t have to save your life.”
“You do if you want to live.” He clutched at his chest as a stabbing pain made it harder to breathe, and his vision darkened around the edges. “So fix it.”
Her dark eyebrow arched just as the corner of her mouth twitched up, and she leaned very close to breathe in his ear. “You’re assuming I care whether I live or die, wolf. That’s something both you and the ErlKing assumed, and it isn’t very clever to just guess about things like that.”
She had to be bluffing. Had to be. He reached up and grabbed the front of the ridiculous flannel shirt she’d gotten from somewhere, and yanked her close enough that he could see her eyes. “Of course you want to live.”
Something in her eyes, though... He sucked in a breath. Maybe she didn’t. There was a hell of a lot more pain hiding behind that mask and the caustic tone, and he didn’t like it one bit. And not just because it might get him killed. No one deserved to feel like they had no reason to live. Well, except for that bitch who’d left him, and Ashley was too stupid to imagine there were reasons to live or die. But the witch... No. It had to be a ruse.
Her soft fingers wrapped around his wrist and she freed herself without much effort, which just confirmed how fucking weak the poison made him. Those green eyes remained locked on his, though, and the deep darkness in them didn’t fade as she spoke to someone else. “Everyone out except Mercy and Henry.”
“I’m not leaving,” Todd said. He stood near the door and started sending people away, but there was no way the witch could talk him into leaving.
She released Evershaw’s wrist and started to roll up her sleeves. “Fine. Then make yourself useful. I need a bowl of hot water, as close to boiling as you can manage. Witch hazel, lavender, sage, rosemary, and garlic leaves. Keep them whole if you can, and bind them with twine into at least three bundles.”
His second stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Are you making pasta sauce?”
“She’s doing magic,” Mercy said. She sounded near tears as she bolted for the door. “We have to do it. We have to! Come on.”
Todd gave the witch a hard look. “Save him. Smith is on his way, so if you fail, you’ll be going to the grave, too.”
Evershaw suddenly didn’t like him threatening the witch, even if Evershaw had done almost the same thing a few seconds before. Something wasn’t right. Something had changed. Maybe it was seeing that look in her eyes when she said she didn’t have any reason to live. Or maybe his brain was fucking scrambled from being poisoned for the second time.
But the moment passed and the pain came screaming back as Todd and Mercy started rattling around in his kitchen and calling people who might have gardens with all the random herbs the witch needed. He struggled to breathe, choking and gasping, and gripped the sheets to keep from screaming and passing out. Holy fucking shit. Whoever poisoned him was fucking sadistic. A knife in his ribs would have been easier to accept and easier to die from, instead of the lingering and limping misery of nightshade or whatever the fuck it was.
The witch held her hands out over him and her eyes drifted shut as she took a deeeeeeep breath.
He glared at her, certain she took such a deep breath just to rub it in his face that he couldn’t. “What the fuck do you think—“