by Sylvia Frost
And if the deluge of data flickering over the screen is anything to go by, being taken seriously is very important to Stefania. Orion shooting down her theory would get in the way of that.
That still doesn’t explain the discrepancies in my DNA, although even that could be reasoned away as computer error. Stefania mentioned the leech’s fallibility to me herself.
“What new evidence?” Orion presses.
Stefania stiffens her shoulders, although her tallness makes her look more breakable than imposing. “Tomorrow, North. I’ll show you at the meeting tomorrow.”
Orion shakes his head. “There isn’t always an explanation, Stefania.”
“Tomorrow, there will be,” she repeats firmly.
“Very well,” Orion says. He nods at me. “Artemis.”
I glance between them, at Stefania, with her fragile beauty and sharp eyes, and Orion with his effortless power and confidence.
I’m not sure which one I believe.
But I know which one I want to.
The one thing I’ve learned after all this time is that I may not have the luxury of choosing between two ideal options, but I do always get the chance to make a choice.
This time I choose Orion, the devil I know, instead of the tangled webs of possible truths and conspiracy that Stefania seems to be weaving.
But as the doors close behind us and we head downstairs, the image of my dead doppelganger lingers in my mind.
11
Blood.
Some say it is the currency of the werebeast. That they deal in honor, feuds and death.
But all of these are human preconceptions we plaster onto the shifters so that we can better understand them. The truth is far more complicated.
First, let me say that the idea that somehow werebeasts killed the families of generals in the great territory war to gain a magical defense stinks of the victors warping history to their own ends.
Let us be clear.
Werebeasts knew they were going extinct. They knew that if they did not take drastic measures every single one of their kind would be slaughtered by humanity’s hand.
What would we do, do you think, if we were faced with such a situation?
Or rather, what wouldn’t we?
Beasts, Blood & Bonds: A History of Werebeasts and Their Mates
By Dr. Nina M. Strike
I hold off asking Orion what the hell is going on until we’re inside the Camry. Maybe because of how creepy the echo is inside the parking garage, or maybe because I’m afraid that the broken-looking security cameras cramped into the corners aren’t broken at all. So it’s not until after we’ve rocketed back onto the inner loop that I open my mouth. “What the hell was she talking about? What’s bloodmarking?”
Orion guns the gas. “A myth.”
“Well, I’m talking to a werewolf. So.”
He growls low in his throat.
Right. Alpha. Sarcasm and commands do not go over well. I try again. “Please, Orion, I’m a little freaked out here. Would you mind telling me what’s happening?”
That soothes him. Marginally. He eases his death grip on the steering wheel. “How well do you know the history of the territory wars?”
“The industrial revolution pushed werebeasts out of the wild places and reignited a centuries-old conflict.” I parrot blandly the line I had to memorize for AP Were-American History. That’s about all of it I remember, though. As a teenager, I always preferred fiction to reality—even when reality involved seemingly mythical creatures. Mostly I didn’t like learning about supply lines, generals and silver mines.
“That’s part of it. But the battles were bloody. Vicious. Underhanded. More than they had to be.”
“More than they had to be?” Werebeasts were—are—considered monsters; there is no violence too excessive. Destruction is in their DNA.
I swallow at that thought.
Is it in mine now, too?
“There were a few werebeasts who believed that marking their territory in blood would increase the powers of their mates. But there was no proof of it ever working. And all that bloodshed, that murder, was a waste.”
The image of my slowly rotating, red-glowing DNA infiltrates my mind, along with the werecoyote’s mate’s words. “She smells like old blood.” Coupled with my fake death and Stefania’s freak-out, the whole thing is enough to send a spike of adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream. Some of it has to be true.
“What kind of enhanced powers?”
Orion rubs the back of his neck as he switches lanes to pass a slow truck, taking what I’m sure is a wrong turn. “I’m not sure. The old stories have everything from eternal youth to time travel, even the ability for the bloodmarked to shift herself.”
“Time travel?” My heart clenches. Can I change all of this? Would I?
Orion shoots me a suspicious glance. “None of that is true. I don’t care what Stefania showed you. She’s always latching on to anomalies and twisting them into theories. Weredragons, blueberries, nothing is safe from her speculation.”
“There aren’t weredragons?”
“Artemis.”
I shrug and throw up my hands. “I’m talking to a werewolf who was supposed to be extinct. I’m not ruling anything out.”
“What did Stefania show you?” Orion asks in a deceptively quiet tone.
I clench my jaw. Telling him is definitely the right thing to do… if I trust him. I must, because I left the FBSI to go with him. And yet, it’s so easy to spill Stefania’s secrets. My own, on the other hand…
I part my lips, about to dish, and I notice exactly where we are.
That wrong turn Orion took a couple of exits ago?
It was a really wrong turn.
Looming only a mile away is the edge of a dark forest, lapping at the highway like an encroaching sea.
“Orion, where are we going?”
Orion says nothing, but he does ease down on the gas pedal, swerving around a sporty convertible that’s already speeding. The owner of the car turns to give us an odd look. He’s obviously not used to being passed by a Camry.
“Orion!”
“Calm, Little Mate.” Orion’s hand brushes against my shoulder but doesn’t linger long. “I’m taking you somewhere safe.”
“But my house…”
“Isn’t safe. In fact, it’s currently a crime scene,” Orion says curtly as he veers into the exit lane. The one leading right into the forest.
Damn it. He’s not wrong.
But was Stefania right? Is Orion somehow involved in all of this? Is he going to kidnap me and take me to a cave in the forest and claim me to complete whatever ritual the other werebeasts started when they murdered my parents? If he is, there’s nothing I can do to stop it, because even as this thought makes my throat constrict in panic, it also feels a little bit like a deliciously dangerous fantasy.
Fuck, I am so gone if this is my reaction to an impending kidnapping. Damn matemark.
“Can we turn around?” I glare at the steering wheel.
“No,” Orion says with that stern kindness that drives me insane. To make matters worse, we’re now officially off the highway and on a two-lane country road.
Instinctively, I reach out to pat his thigh. But I stop before I make contact. Touching him might win him, but it could very well also awaken his inner wolf.
Orion ignores me and a stop sign.
I could use my werecall, but if I did then Orion would know that I have a werecall. If he really is somehow in on all this bloodmarking business, that’s the last thing I want.
He turns onto a gravel road, driving straight into the heart of the forest. I’m running out of time.
The way the woods swallow us up on either side reminds me of going into the automated car wash when I was little. Suddenly, everything is a hundred times darker, the only visible path the one our headlights cut in front of us.
I remind myself to breathe as we venture deeper and deeper into the woods. I have no idea
where we are, which is strangely a comfort.
At least he’s not taking me back to Letchworth.
Just as I’m about to seriously consider using my werecall to ask Orion to turn around, the car starts to slow.
The crunching of gravel underneath our tires and the dull drone of insects fill my ears, but it’s still too dark to discern exactly where we are until Orion rounds the last bend.
And then I see it.
A cabin.
Although that’s not what makes me narrow my eyes and lean forward out of my seat. Next to the cabin looms a large maple, branches thick with leaves. It’s the tree I saw Orion standing under in my vision, when I was first chatting with him.
Orion slips the keys out of the ignition and smiles at me. A warm, open expression.
It’s this gesture that convinces me that whatever Orion has planned for me, it doesn’t involve any ritualistic kidnapping. But as it soothes one anxiety it stokes another.
He might not be an evil, bloodmarking fiend, but the connection between us is undeniable. And he’s not going to let me pretend anymore.
“Welcome home, Little Mate,” he says.
12
Whether mammal, fowl or fish, all shifters share a common goal after they have bonded to their mates. To ensure their safety.
This can be through violence, but not always. Often the other methods by which werebeasts cared for their mates are lost in the footnotes of history. Spun into being nothing more than romantic fiction. The wolf Romeo and his gentle singing to Juliet, for example.
But violence is not their only legacy.
Nothing is so simple.
Or so easy.
Beasts, Blood & Bonds: A History of Werebeasts and Their Mates
By Dr. Nina M. Strike
I scramble backward, an old fear clawing up my throat. The gentleness in his eyes makes it worse. “No. My house is my home. I—”
Orion strokes my hair. “Calm, Artemis. I didn’t mean that your old home isn’t yours any longer, just that this place is your home, too. And currently your old house is a crime scene.”
I quiet at his touch, looking up at his powerful, shirtless form. Need courses through my still-aching limbs, but this time I don’t have to tell myself to suppress it; the fear following soon after does that job all by itself.
With all of my worry over the bloodmark I almost forgot about the warning Orion gave me earlier. Will this touch be the last one he can handle? Or will this touch be the last one I can? Either way I’m in danger.
Orion’s eyes darken and he removes his hand from my shoulder. “We need to get you to bed. Both of us have a big day tomorrow.”
“I’m not going into your bed. I’m not ready—”
“I said to bed, not my bed,” says Orion as he reaches past me and opens the passenger door. “But you still need to rest.”
I stare warily at the driveway leading up to the dark cabin. “You know this is how people end up murdered in horror movies.”
“Artemis,” he says, although it sounds more like an exasperated whine than a growl, and he’s still got that grin twitching at the corner of his mouth.
I get out of the car. “Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m coming.” Swallowing both my anxiety and my pride, I jump onto the driveway. An instant later Orion is there beside me. He shuts the door behind me, and we stroll up the walkway. Perhaps aware of how close I am to running, Orion walks next to me instead of in front.
The cabin itself is innocuous. If you had asked me where I would guess a werewolf would live—if not a cave—this would be it. With its rough-hewn cedar beams and half-wild landscaping, the whole structure looks rugged enough that I can imagine someone building it by hand.
“How long have you lived here, if you just moved to Rochester?”
It can’t have been long, and he can’t have ever been here before. If he had, the nearness of him would’ve triggered the dream much sooner.
“I recently purchased it from a friend,” is all he offers as he fishes out a key ring from a pocket. Said key ring is laden with a bunch of different bobbles and shiny knick-knacks. It’s the kind of keychain I’d imagine a seagull having, not a werewolf.
“And is your friend a magpie?”
“Werehawk, actually,” Orion says with a smirk as he slides the key into the lock and turns it.
My stomach flip-flops as I stare at the welcome mat leading to the door.
I’m really going to do this. Enter Orion’s house with him. At night. Alone. On what planet is this a good idea? You want him to take you. You want him to lose control. A dark voice whispers inside of me. That way you don’t have to admit how much you need him.
“Artemis?” Orion drawls. He leans against the door frame and over me at the same time. The bulky muscles of his biceps and torso form a barrier between the outside world and me. I can’t tell if the gesture is protective or possessive. “Come in.”
Something about the simplicity of his words makes the choice easy. Nothing I learned at the FBSI changes the fact that Orion North is my mate, and that deep down, I’m sure he will never hurt me.
So I enter his house.
“What do you think?” Orion asks as he closes the door with his foot and flicks on the light switch. “I had a friend do the decorations.”
It’s only then that I look up to survey the cabin. I surprise myself when I say, truthfully, “It’s nice.”
I shouldn’t like it.
Despite the arched ceilings and the generally spacious layout, the décor is overwhelmingly, obnoxiously male. The walls and floor are inoffensive, wood all around, enough that the whole thing must have cost the lives of a small platoon of cedar trees. But they weren’t the only lives that were lost in the making of the cabin.
Animal-skin rugs haphazardly line the floor. I can count at least three at first glance, a bear, a bobcat and a deer. The cabin itself is comprised of two levels, one an open living room furnished with two leather armchairs and a fireplace—no TV, of course—and the second a lofted bedroom which looks more like a nest than anything else.
Werehawk, indeed.
Even though there’s no fire lit in the fireplace, I can still smell traces of woodsmoke and some other, headier, animal scent that reminds me only slightly of Orion. It may be May, but this feels like a place tailor-made for winter, for hunkering down and waiting out a storm.
A place made to be safe.
Lawrence would hate it. It’s the exact opposite of his shabby chic style, where everything looks artfully decomposed. He told me once he had long since made peace with the transitory nature of things. With loss. And the best he can do now is make it beautiful. When we grabbed a drink together at Bar Lola, I always agreed with him and admitted that it was just my lack of artistic eye that kept me from decorating the same way.
But it was a lie.
I like this. Orion’s hunting fortress. Even with it’s hints of violence. I’d kill more than an animal, if it could keep me safe. If it could bring back Lawrence. In two days, when Cooper’s boss transfers Lawrence at the Castile gas station, I’ll find out if it will. There’s no way I’m letting Orion and the FBSI not take me. With my werecall, I know I can be useful.
Although convincing Orion won't be easy. I start with flattery.
“It’s beautiful, Orion, but I pictured you as more of a Spartan furnishings kind of wolf,” I say.
Orion’s face cracks into a genuine smile that makes my heart ache. “I don’t need most of these trappings.” He strolls in front of me, and I notice he hasn’t wiped off his bare feet on the welcome mat, and thus leaves smudgy footprints in his wake.
My chest squeezes, a thought that seems too heavy to name pressing on my brain.
“How recently did you buy this house?”
Orion pauses and turns around. “You want to know if I bought it for you, Artemis.” His eyes meet mine with that same frank kindness they held in the car. It’s almost as frightening as when they were narrowed in fury.
&nb
sp; “I would never think that you would—”
“I did,” he says.
“A h-house,” I splutter, unable to come up with any way to refuse a gift of this magnitude. I keep looking around the room, searching for some flaw, something to show that he couldn’t have purchased it for me. Other than the eeriness of the dead-animal carpets, I can’t find anything. I wish I could.
Because it’s not just a gift, it’s a promise of the life he’s convinced we’re going to have together after this is all over.
And what kind of life will that be? I try to picture it, but all I can come up with is a black hole. Okay, that’s not entirely true. Frightening images like Lawrence tied up, my DNA mutating and Orion looming over me flit by. But I know that a future with him holds more than that. It has to. The cabin, the way he held me in his arms, the way he looks at me when I say something that surprises him, something that makes him see humanity in a different way, like the windmills all of that proves it.
Finally, after a long perusal of the furnishings, my eyes come to rest on Orion.
He’s staring at me with such need that I can tell that not stepping forward to kiss me is physically painful for him. The intimate light of the cabin makes his skin look flushed. Almost human. I know how soft his lips would taste. I know how much I want him to hold me in his arms, to devour every part of me and leave nothing behind.
“Artemis,” he whispers roughly.
I’m in awe of the wanting in his eyes. My lips part. “What will it be like. After?”
His dark eyes glimmer, and even though the light of the cabin is homey, somehow the shadows seem to find him, making him look for all the world like a predator in the dark. “After what, Artemis?”
He’s going to make me say it, I realize. Just like he wanted me to call him my alpha. He’s going to make me admit that my claiming is something I’m considering. Something I’m expecting. Whether because he enjoys seeing me submit to him, or because it will make my eventual bonding that much easier, I don’t know.