Heat threatened my cheeks, but I kept my expression neutral. “And you’re acting like the cat who caught the canary.”
“This is my souvenir from last night.” He opened his hand underneath the table, exposing a circular membrane in the center of his palm. “Watch this.” His fingers twitched, and the flap of skin parted to reveal at least a dozen rows of serrated teeth. “I recorded it for Isaac.” He concealed his new weapon before it could be noticed. “He’ll want to experience it for himself.”
My mouth dropped open, about to ask what that mean, hoping it didn’t mean they shared women, but I crammed a strip of bacon in there instead. Not my circus, not my twin monkeys.
No wonder he hadn’t stopped by my room again last night. He’d been too busy playing with his newly acquired talent.
“I spoke with Mom this morning.” I took a sip of orange juice, fresh-squeezed, because yes, Graeson had asked before ordering. The man carried a grudge against concentrate you wouldn’t believe. “She’s going to meet us here in a half hour, and we’re going to see what this pendant of hers can do.”
“Do you want reinforcements?” Graeson brushed my mind.
“I would leave you behind if you let me. The fewer people involved, the less risk to those I love.”
“I respect that you’re trying to protect me, and as co-alpha, I veto that plan.” He sipped his juice. “We’re in this together.”
I had figured as much. “What about the pack?”
“Dell will be fine on her own for a couple of days.”
“And if she’s not?” I raised my eyebrows. “We have no idea where this journey will take us.”
“The thing I’ve realized about being alpha is…” he reached for my hand, “…it’s damn hard work.”
Our fingers interlaced, and his presence strengthened in me. “Are you saying you’d let someone else take the reins?”
“No.” He sighed out loud. “It’s a nice dream to have, though.”
Meaning despite our differences, and the state of the pack, he was confident he could hold his rule with Dell as his second. That she had finally come into her own swelled my chest with happiness. She deserved the rank to match her heart.
Theo waved his disturbing mouth-hand in front of my face. “Are you two doing that thing where you talk to each other in your heads and exclude other people at the table who are sitting right in front of you from the conversation?”
Graeson and I answered him at the same time. “Yes.”
“I thought so,” he grumped.
The waitress came to take his order, and the next thirty minutes passed with only the scrape of utensils on plates and the clang of glassware to interrupt the silence hanging thicker than burned waffle smoke in the air.
Mom arrived right on time, and alone. I understood now why she drove solo, and for a fae used to traveling in large groups, it had to be an uncomfortable necessity for her. Her smile faltered when she noticed Graeson, whom I hadn’t mentioned the day before.
“I hope you slept well.” Theo’s flat gaze settled on her. “Cammie didn’t sleep much last night, if you know what I mean.”
“Theo,” I warned him.
“This is Cord Graeson,” he said, voice thready with old anger. “He’s a warg. That means you guys will soon have grandpups to abandon. Won’t that be nice?”
“Theo, you’re entitled to your anger. Ellis is too.” Graeson stepped in front of Theo, cutting him off from Mom. “Now is not the time to be petty or spiteful. Save it for later. Right now our focus has to be on finding your mother and brother before Charybdis realizes we have Mrs. Ellis here to help.”
Jaw flexing, Theo ducked his head. “You’re right.”
With my cousin cowed, Graeson faced Mom and extended his hand. “I’m Cord Graeson, Alpha of the Lorimar pack.”
The opening he left me, to claim him or not, lasted less than a second.
“He’s my mate.” I tucked myself against his side. “He’s going with us today in case we need another set of hands.”
“Your mate?” Tears sheened her eyes. “That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you.” She brought him in for a brief hug. “Both of you.”
“I should have told you yesterday.” I owed her that much of an apology.
“After everything we dumped in your lap?” She patted my cheek. “We’re lucky you remembered your own name by the time we were through.” A timid smile crooked her lips. “You look healthier today. I worried spending so much time with Lori would…but you’re fine.” She exhaled as though she had carried that worry around with her since we parted. “I’m relieved you recovered so quickly.”
“The pep in my step is all thanks to him.” I patted Graeson’s chest, realized how that sounded and blushed ten shades of red. “I meant to say that the pack bond helped me recover. Having him near helped me regain my strength.”
Mom’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. Maybe she was thinking the same thing I was, that if the pack bond could sustain me, then visitation with Lori was a real possibility. One I wanted to pursue when this was all over.
Remembering my manners, I asked, “Have you eaten breakfast?”
“I ate at home.” She flicked a ladybug off her shoulder. I hoped it meant good luck. “Your dad has cared for Lori by himself for up to three days, but that’s stretching his limits. There are some things that just go easier with two people.”
“I understand.” Three days. We could work with that. “I don’t think we have to worry too much.”
“Why?” Grasping the implication, she pressed a palm flush with her chest. “He’s here?”
“He popped into a gas station attendant when I first arrived.” I glanced down the street where one pump remained visible at the far end. “He can’t be far.” I frowned. “Or he has a string of hosts in place, linking him to this town.”
“How does he…?” She rolled her hand.
“Touch, we think.” I ignored the vise clamping tighter around my heart, the one reminding me Graeson had touched Harlow, I had touched Bianca, and we had both touched Theo. Not to mention my hug from Dad yesterday, which circled around to Mom… For all I knew we were all infected, primed and waiting for Charybdis to spring yet another trap. “I don’t know the distance requirements or how many hosts he can keep control of at once.”
“We don’t have a choice but to act, so I say it doesn’t matter.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m not walking away when I can help. I’ve done that too much in my life.”
Graeson squeezed my hand, and I got the message. He supported Mom’s stance, that she was as much in search of atonement as I had been all these years.
“Mom gets shotgun,” I told the others. “Who wants to drive?”
“I will,” Theo volunteered. “I want us to get there in one piece.”
It occurred to me then that he hadn’t let me drive, not once. I let it slide that he was calling my skills into question, because the last time he rode with me I had managed to cream a stop sign. I had been sixteen at the time, but Gemini memories stretched long.
“That leaves you and me in the back.” Graeson pulled on my hand, and we started walking. “I’ll try to behave.”
I appreciated the distraction, but facts were facts. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”
His mental laughter warmed me all the way to the car.
* * *
Factor in all the wrong turns we made attempting to follow the pendant’s needle via available roads, we still made excellent time. After discovering Harlow hidden in plain sight at Pilcher’s Pond, I had few doubts Charybdis hadn’t done the same with Isaac and Aunt Dot. He wanted them found. I believed that. Why else leave the clues and wait for me to connect the dots? He was leading me around by the nose, and the only advantage we had was Mom.
“Is this it?” Theo slid the car into park off the shoulder of the road and peered through the windshield at a dilapidated log cabin at the end of the driveway. “Can you tell if they’re in there?”
Mom clutched her pendant, eyes closed, and nodded. “This close I can feel Dot without the amplifier.”
The entire trip had taken about an hour and a half. I estimated the distance from town, as a crow flies, to be half that.
“What’s the plan?” Graeson rumbled beside me.
“I don’t have one,” I admitted, leaning forward to get a better look. “I don’t sense any glamour. What we’re seeing is really what’s there.” I opened my door and stepped out, because why not? If he was waiting in the cabin, then he could see us from the window. Pulling on recalled magic, I completed a partial shift to make use of my wolf’s senses. “There’s no magic in play out here. I can feel a vibration coming from the house itself, but the property is clear. I think we can approach safely.”
The others joined me on the rocky soil. Together we approached the house, searching for signs of life. I stepped onto the porch, elongating my nails as I went, and caught a shimmer out of the corner of my eye. Theo was assuming an aspect too, but I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off the house long enough to parse out what form he had chosen. Mom clutched her pendant and gave off no magic. Living as she had, below the radar, she probably had none to recall.
My fingertips brushed the doorknob, and the metal shot a bolt of agony zinging through me before it opened. “He spelled it.” I shook out my hand. “I can’t tell if it was rigged to send him a warning or if it activated defenses already in place.” Prickles coasted up my arms. “I should have considered the reason the property read as clean was because the magic was latent.”
Genius that I was, I had activated it with a touch.
Graeson came to stand beside me, and the others joined us on the creaking planks. “Do you smell that?”
Now that he mentioned it, I couldn’t stop my nose from itching. “Fresh. Damp. Earthy.”
We puzzled over it for a second, but Theo’s curse brought our attention zooming to the far edge of the property. The earth shook, and the house groaned behind us. A smattering of rocks that might have once been part of the landscaping rolled free of their sunken depressions and clashed in deafening cracks. The mound rose taller and taller until a form began taking shape.
“Oh shit,” Theo said eloquently.
Graeson rubbed his jaw. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“A megalith,” Mom gasped. “I haven’t seen one of those in decades.” She darted a frantic glance around the area. “They live in family groups. There could be three or even a dozen more, depending on the size of the mound. Entire sections of the Smokies are made of them.”
They must have lived undisturbed for a long while to be buried so deep in the soil, to be so lichen-spotted and weathered by years of exposure. I had no idea how rock creatures reproduced, but they would have had plenty of time, space and resources for it here on this forgotten tract of land.
“How do we fight that?” Theo’s hands began glowing red, the skin blackening and splitting to reveal a lava flow for veins. “Are they being controlled?”
“I doubt it very much.” Mom wrung her hands. “They’re simple creatures, peaceful for the most part. They defend their lands and young aggressively.”
“Of course they do.” I touched Graeson’s arm. “Distract them for me?”
“There could be worse inside.” His scowl deepened. “I don’t like the idea of you going in alone.”
“I’ll go with her.” Mom paled, but her chin lifted. “I haven’t used a donor in years. The conflicting energies caused Lori distress, and we had to sell the RV to buy a proper house for her, so we quit cold turkey.” Meaning she could no longer rely on the wards to siphon her borrowed magic. “I have no magic to recall. I’m no use to you out here.”
Without her magic, she was little better than a human. At least if she stuck with me, I could keep tabs on her.
Theo’s lip curled. “Now might be the time to revisit that policy.”
Easing between them, I faced my cousin. “Let’s keep juicing her up as a last alternative, okay?”
With reluctance, Mom agreed to take blood if we needed the backup.
“Get moving, Ellis.” Graeson rotated his torso, limbering up for the fight to come. “We can keep them distracted for a few minutes, but the quicker you get out the better.”
“Be careful.” I rose on my tiptoes and kissed him. “You too, Theo.”
“Aww.” Theo mimed wiping a tear. “You do care.”
I rolled my eyes and took Mom by the hand. “You heard the man. Let’s go.”
Light poured in through the broken windows, making it easy to see inside the cabin once we jiggled the swollen door open. The floor had bowed, but the walls and roof appeared sturdy enough. This place had been crafted to endure. We made a quick circuit of the space, which was one open room, but I sensed no magic and uncovered no clues.
“The pendant indicates she should be right here.” Mom knelt and began fingering each dusty plank, prying at the boards with her nails. “I don’t understand.” She sat back on her ankles when she found nothing loose. “It’s never been wrong.”
Casting my gaze around the room, I was debating shifting my fingers to claws and drawing on my warg aspect’s strength to rip out the floor when the whole house trembled. I ran to the window, desperate to spot the guys, but they waited where we had left them. Three more giant rock men stood in the clearing, their bodies forming pebble by pebble, which meant they weren’t to blame for the earthquake.
My gut sank into my toes. There must be more of them. “They’re under the house.” I hauled Mom to her feet, primed to run if the floor buckled. “Oh crap.” Lightning-quick, it hit me. “Aunt Dot and Isaac are under there too. That’s what the pendant was trying to tell us.”
Her eyes rounded, and her fingers shook in mine. “Can we get them out?”
“Now would be a great time for rocks to learn how to bleed.” Stone skin would really come in handy right about now. Too bad monoliths couldn’t be donors. “Keep an eye on the guys through that window, but stay out of sight. I don’t want the monoliths focused on us. Not yet.”
Potent magic rippled over my body, aided by Graeson’s blood, and the now-familiar popping noises of my warg aspect rising filled the quiet room. Sensory information flooded me. Musty boards, damp from the rain. The hum of termites in the walls. The graveled rumble of waking giants under our feet. That last part was the worst.
I dropped to my knees, made a fist and punched a hole in the rotting boards. Through the gap, I saw the earth churning, pebbles rolling this way and that. A stone eye paused to blink at me as it tumbled past, then continued on its way. Sweat dampened my shirt as I stuck my head under the house to search for hints as to where my aunt and cousin might be. “I don’t see any sign of them.” A six-inch ridge of concrete near the outer edge of the foundation caught my eye. “There’s a cellar. Come on.”
We shoved through the back door and circled around the rear of the house, trying to keep hidden from the monoliths focused on Graeson and Theo out front. The cellar doors were bolted with silver chains fresh from a hardware store. The lock gleamed. It was new too. What had appeared to be concrete from a distance was aging plaster. The doors of the cellar were two flaps of corrugated metal similar to what had been used on the roof.
“Stand back.” I flung out my arm, and Mom retreated a few steps. “Here goes nothing.”
I didn’t waste time on the chains. I couldn’t break them, even with warg strength. They were too thick. I leapt onto the doors, which groaned in protest. A heartbeat later, they failed under my weight, and I went crashing to the bottom of the cellar. I landed on my hands and knees, and the metal sliced open my palms as rust flakes rained down around me.
Thank the gods the underground storage area was as large as the house. I had taken a calculated risk that might have meant me plummeting to my death—or Aunt Dot or Isaac’s. Considering imminent death was upon us thanks to the pissed-off monoliths, I figured the worst that could happen is th
e three of us crossed that finish line a little quicker.
“Cammie?” Mom called. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Mostly. Nothing that a drop of Graeson’s blood wouldn’t heal in the next few minutes. “I see a partition in the rear. Give me a minute.”
My tumble had attracted the attention of several mid-sized stones, which burrowed into the dirt and set off another earthshaking event. I got the distinct feeling they were tattling on me. Careful not to step on one of them, I picked my way to the plaster wall that sealed off a good six feet of space. I felt my way around it but found no door or hatch. Another spasm rocked me, and the fragile plaster split. The sour odor seeping from the cracks had me turning my head and coughing against my shoulder.
“Aunt Dot?” I pounded on the wall. “Isaac?”
No answer.
I sank my furred fingers into the cracks and pried chunks of wall free. Soon it became clear that where the seam had ruptured was fresh plaster. It crumbled into my hands while the walls to either side remained unmoved. The smell overwhelmed me, and my gut twisted while the worst-case scenarios ran rampant.
“Hey,” a scratchy voice whispered.
“Isaac?” I tore into the wall with renewed vigor. “Hold on. I’ve almost got an opening large enough for you to fit through.” My shoulders ached and nails bled with the effort. “Is Aunt Dot with you?” The darkness of their tiny room was absolute. “Is she okay?”
“Harlow did something to her,” Isaac rasped. “Mom hasn’t moved or spoken since she put us down here.”
A twinge rippled through my chest at the sound of Harlow’s name. She was a good kid, and Charybdis was ruining her.
“Don’t worry. It will be okay. I brought the cavalry. Mom, Theo and Graeson are here.” I sat back when the path was cleared. “Can you walk? Or do you need assistance?”
“I think I can manage.” He scooted closer to the hole and stuck his head out, breathing deep of the fresh air. “I can’t leave Mom.”
Worrying my lip between my teeth, I settled on the only course of action that made sense. “I can’t carry her alone, and you’re too weak to help.” I turned toward the light and the shadow Mom cast. “I’m going to have to get Graeson.”
Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) Page 16