by Unknown
When Bruce looked to her, Holly couldn’t meet his gaze. He had to have known there would be a price. He’d worked with Antoine for how long? Nearly a decade? “Holly?” he asked hopefully.
She couldn’t help but remember Dale sobbing on the phone. “My sister is dead, Bruce. Killed by the snakes you allowed to roam free.” She shook her head. “It won’t bring her back if they kill you. But it won’t bring her back if I save you, either.”
Bruce crumbled then, realizing there was no hope to be had. His jaw trembled as he stood and nodded. Eric took his arm and led him out of the room.
Lucas remained seated until everyone had left the room and it was just the two of them. She stared at his hands, so unfamiliar, even though his nervous habit of tapping one finger as though sending a message in Morse code was the same. “Holly?”
“Yes, Alpha?” His fingernails had been recently trimmed. She knew he went to a nail salon fairly frequently. How could someone trimming his nails not notice the difference between what they saw and what they felt?
There was humor in his voice. “You’re more alpha than me now, Holly, and I’m not your pack leader anymore. You can look me in the eye.”
She started abruptly. It had been so long since she’d actually looked at his face—she’d always been careful to keep the proper respect for his office, and for the wolf. “Oh. I guess I figured—I’m sorry, this is all so confusing.”
He nodded, and she realized his eyes were still the same. Eyes that could hold humor or anger in equal measure. “I know. It’s confusing for everyone. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”
“Do you want me to try to heal you again?” She wanted him to be him again. While he was young and attractive . . . sexy, in fact . . . this just didn’t feel like Lucas.
He smiled and shook his head. “There’s nothing to heal. I’m perfectly healthy, except for being human.”
Holly felt her face heat, even though it wasn’t really her fault. “I know. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that. I never would have believed it was possible for them to—”
Lucas’s face darkened. “For who to do what?”
Now she was really confused. She leaned forward in her chair and couldn’t understand the surprise and confusion coming from him. “The FMU. You know . . . the cure?”
He leaned back in his chair for a long moment, regarding her curiously. “No, I don’t know. You have to understand, Holly. Those on the council who aren’t treating me like a leper are treating me like a second-class citizen. I have been told absolutely nothing about what happened and without my magic, I have no way to force anyone to offer the information against their will. The council is no less secretive than they’ve ever been. Even Ivan seems to have developed laryngitis and short-term memory loss.”
She was completely taken aback. “What? That’s not right! You deserve to know what did this to you. You’re no less an attack victim than I am.” The glaring truth of her own words was both stunning and terrifying. “Dear God, you are an attack victim. We turned into something as bad as them.” She said the words under her breath, but he heard them.
“You need to talk to me, Holly. This could be vitally important. What is the FMU? If there are more than just snakes at work here, I really need to know.” Lucas’s face was worried, but more than that, he smelled afraid. It was an intense dread that was making his muscles twitch, ready to do something.
She nodded. Maybe the council would be angry with her, but she only had Eric’s word they’d even done the hindsight on her. While she couldn’t figure out any reason why he’d lie, she’d feel better if someone she trusted actually heard the story from her.
Lucas sat in silence while she told him about FMU. She even showed him the tattoo under her hair. He began to frown, but let her continue without interrupting. No, she didn’t want to shine too harsh a light on Rose and her other dead friends, but she needed to work out in her own head what might have happened to make them go this far. “I don’t know if you can truly imagine what it was like, growing up like that. And you’d have to, in order to understand what would make them do this to you, Alpha.”
“I’m not—” he protested again, but she held up her hand.
“You’re the only pack leader I’ve ever known. I can’t think of you as anything but. I’ll try to call you Lucas, if I can.” He let out a deep sigh, followed by a small chuckle. Holly tried to think of what might make him understand. There were so many tiny things; like the individual snowflakes that make up a blizzard. She wasn’t sure why the next words came out, other than it was nearly March and once again—“Do you know that I’ve only celebrated six birthdays on my birthday, in my whole life?”
He shook his head, obviously confused. “No. Why?”
“Because I was born near the full moon.” She paused as he shook his head. “The pack never really understood the upheaval in our house the nights of the moon. Dad was the omega, so he got all the shit work leading up to the hunt.” She chuckled bitterly. “No, actually I got all the shit work.” Lucas narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, but Holly held up her hand to stop him. “I’m serious, Alpha. On the three nights of every single full moon for my entire life, I have been worked like a slave from before dawn until after dark. It only got worse as my sisters left home. And then I’d be left alone. Rose left home when I was little, and Mom was dead. Everybody else in the family turned, so it was a party for them. But before I was old enough to watch the other kids—which, I should mention, was required of me once I turned fifteen—there was nobody to watch me.”
Lucas shook his head and let out an exasperated noise. “That is simply not true, Holly. There were always people around to watch the children. Tatya insisted on that and I know it happened. And being babysat once a month isn’t a reason to go join a radical hate group.”
Holly was feeling braver by the second, but she couldn’t really figure out why. Maybe it was because while Lucas might backhand her, he couldn’t throw her against the wall or cut off her air until she passed out anymore. “Reality check, Lucas. This isn’t about birthdays or babysitters. The Boulder pack was all about castes and cliques. Nobody included the human daughter of the omega in plans. Are you kidding? Nobody wanted me around, or Bob Salazar, or even Candy Streeter. We weren’t rich, we weren’t cool, and most importantly—we weren’t wolves. You’re right. This is about hate groups . . . and there were plenty on both sides.”
Lucas’s mouth opened in shock and she nodded when he couldn’t get out any sound. Bringing Candy’s name up had been intentional. “You remember Candy, right? Yeah, she was a member of FMU. We all were. Of course, she was only a member until she was murdered when her best friend Karol scratched her. Did anyone ever mention that Karol was put up to it? Candy was on the verge of being cool and Corrine urged Karol to do it, for her own good. Just that last tiny step to be part of the club.”
The heat of anger was beginning to rise and she wanted Lucas to suffer through this the way she had. “We’d been taught our whole lives that the only way to be cool was to get lucky in the gene pool. You were dirt if you were human in that school. Candy dreamed of it, wished for it—just like I did, until we both realized we wouldn’t turn. That’s when we joined FMU, because we realized it wasn’t about being a wolf. And then she was killed, because she forgot to put on a silver bracelet that day.”
It was only last year that she found out what had happened to Candy—that she hadn’t survived her first turn. The kids had been told her family had “moved.” Yeah, her parents moved all right. Ran away to escape the pain.
The entire pack had watched the tape of the failed change. About half of the human kids she knew vomited. She nearly had too. It had been a stark look at what was about to happen to her because it was just after Corrine had tried to rip out her throat. The same thing nearly did happen to her. Her body would have ripped itself apart if Raphael hadn’t insisted on having a bunch of healers present on that first moon.
Now
Lucas looked sick. “Holly, I . . . I already explained I didn’t know the teachers at the pack school were telling people that being a wolf was somehow better than being human. Tatya was punished for it, and several of the teachers were dismissed and moved to other packs. I fully admit it was terrible that you weren’t told about Candy in school, but—”
She shook her head tiredly. “You think this is just about what happened in school? Look, this isn’t about Candy. You asked why I joined FMU. You said there was no reason to join a radical hate group. You’re wrong. Once I got to be ten or eleven the car stopped coming by . . . and it’s not like Dad had any standing to raise a fuss.” Frustration began to edge her voice. She just couldn’t help it. “Of course, there wasn’t money to send me to a movie or hire a sitter every month.” She snorted, remembering all the battles for new clothes or shoes. Being entertained on every moon would have been out of the question. “Hell, Dad struggled every month just to put food on the table—even though the restaurant’s walk-in was packed with meat. That was really hard to understand when we were kids. That the food was the pack’s, not the property of the Sanchez family. That was made abundantly clear by Tatya, and by you. Do you remember that memo? You signed it. It basically told Dad, Cook, but don’t touch. Know how that read in our house? Feed us, but don’t eat. And who do you think got meat in our house when there was some? The human? Do you think I wasn’t reminded every day of my life why my plate was empty?” The laugh came out bitter and angry. He wouldn’t need a supernatural nose to sense her emotions today.
“Why do you think he robbed my bank account, again and again? To buy a new stove, to buy a new freezer . . . to feed you. Pack members had to be granted credit, and were never required to clear their accounts. We couldn’t raise our prices because it would be unfair to the pack. We had to pay our monthly tithe, even though we never saw a single benefit. Never mind that the little human girl wouldn’t have new school clothes, or decent meals, or someday go to college. What would that matter?”
Lucas was totally stunned, looking almost silly as he blinked with an open mouth. “It’s funny, you know, that even after you found out he’d stolen every dime I ever made, and after I was attacked and turned, everybody conveniently forgot to replace the money. Yeah, there’s something to make a girl feel welcome in the pack.”
He tried to speak, but no words came out. His scent was horrified, sad, and angry, all at once.
Holly felt tears burning her eyes. It was hard to remember it all without getting angry all over again. She snuffled, and let the salty wetness fall down her face. It was time he saw this . . . heard this from someone. Maybe he was finally in a place in his life that he could understand. “I wasn’t an isolated story, Lucas. Every human family member who saved their allowance, or dug through dumpsters for soda cans, or sold birthday gifts, or even stole money from someone, just so they could sneak out of the house and escape for a bit could tell you the same. Is it any wonder we banded together—all the left-behinds who weren’t quite good enough to be pack, or pride, or nest? We formed Family Members United as a place where we could have some acceptance; a sense of belonging. The forum opened on the first night of every full moon and we’d yell and cry and scream to each other. It was online therapy. Well, we’d talk until the mighty hunters came back home to make our lives hell again, that is. Trust me, you don’t want to hear about the bruises and concussions and cracked bones we put up with. So long as nobody broke skin, nobody cared. It was a wave of the hand and ‘oh, you’ll heal.’ ”
“Holly,” Lucas finally said, his voice filled with something close to outrage, “Why didn’t you ever tell anyone? How in the hell were we supposed to know any of this?”
She leaned close enough to him that he would feel the pressure of air on his face. Her hands were clenched into fists and she realized she was shaking, not from fear, but from years of pent-up rage. She slammed her fist on the table, not even realizing she did it until she felt the sting of pain. The words spilled out so fast she couldn’t stop them. Didn’t want to stop them. “Why should I have to? Why didn’t you notice? We were kids. What were we supposed to do? Who were we supposed to tell?”
She stood in a rush and threw the chair against the wall. It felt good to see him flinch from the noise and motion. “We . . . weren’t . . . pack! Don’t you get it? Only the animals got to be pack and live the privileged life of a Sazi with healers and therapists and pack leaders to talk to. The rest of us just got to keep the secrets and clean up the blood and make up the lies so the rest of you could be the exalted rulers. I would have been tossed out of your office on my ear if I’d asked for an appointment, and probably would have been grounded by Dad for a month for having the gall to bother you. No, the only support network we had was each other, because nobody else wanted to hear what we had to say. Do you know what that feels like, Lucas? To know that nobody really wants you around? You’ve been a second-class citizen for a fucking day. Try it for a lifetime. At least people are being nice to you after you turned human. Try having everybody hate you because the fact you lived caused someone they actually liked to die? All the wolves loved Corrine. She was vicious and nasty and spiteful. That’s how she got to be third female. I was the friend of a cat who stole our land and stole our Second male. I was human scum who was a wannabe wolf . . . and I had no right to live. I wasn’t supposed to live. Even Josette says so.”
Holly had wanted to be a wolf so desperately she could taste it, and all the real wolves had always snickered that she would dare to dream it. Now it sickened her every time she thought about the fact that she was an alpha, one of the elite. And it had made her an entirely different person—one she didn’t like so much.
She hadn’t intended to say any of this, but now it all seemed to be flowing out of her in a stream she couldn’t stop. “Do you know that we dreamed . . . we prayed in the FMU for the day someone would come along and wave a magic wand to either turn us into Sazi or turn you into humans? But when I was turned, I became one of the animals to them. I lost my humanity with the wolf, and lost the wolf to my humanity. I’m the worst of both, a wolf who hates being one. A healer who terrifies the animals she’d hoped to heal, and doesn’t want to heal the animals like her.” The reality of her situation hit her like a blow to her chest. “And now the FMU actually created the wand to make it all better, and they picked the wrong Sazi. How whacked is that? You’re human . . . when it’s me who wanted to be.” She shook her head. “And as much as that tiny part of me still wants to laugh and point and tell you, ha, ha, serves you right . . . it’s not fair. To either of us. It should be a choice, not a cowardly attack. I’m sorry for that, Lucas. More than you can ever know.”
She was tired. So very tired of all of this. What she wouldn’t give to still be in Boulder, going to vet school and not having the end of the world hanging over her head.
But then you wouldn’t have Eric. She felt a dull lump in her stomach, and knew it was probably true. Without magic, she probably wouldn’t be mated. She didn’t even know if he’d still like her. She’d just been a kid when they’d gotten to know each other. Was she even that person anymore?
Lucas looked lost. He shook his head, trying to process everything. “I honestly don’t know what to say to you, Holly. Here I’ve been struggling to protect the Sazi from outside enemies, only to discover that we’ve been creating an enemy in our own home who hates us even worse.” He lowered his forehead into his hands and suddenly smelled as tired as she felt. “Our own family wants us dead?” he whispered.
She shook her head and touched his hand. “Not dead, Lucas. Just . . . human. It’s not a death sentence.”
He looked up then and raised his brows over pained eyes. “I was born in the year 264 A.D., Holly. Tell me how dying sixty or seventy years from now isn’t a death sentence.”
She had no answer for that, and couldn’t quite wrap her head around that long of a life. All she could do was pull back her hand and shrug helplessly. Mostly she wan
ted to leave. There was too much pain, confusion, and anger roiling through the room. No, it wasn’t precisely her fault this happened. But it was a sin of omission, rather than commission.
“Y’know,” Lucas said after a long pause, “this wasn’t at all what I wanted to talk to you about. But now that I know all this, there’s really no need to even ask.”
“You might as well,” she responded with a shrug as she sat back down. “It can’t hurt anything at this point. I’m sure you already hate me, so what’s the difference?”
Lucas sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t hate you, Holly. I’m not really sure what I feel about you. I thought I’d gotten to know you pretty well over the years, and now it turns out I didn’t know you at all. But if you don’t want to heal ‘animals,’ it really doesn’t do much good to ask this.”
“I already told you. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. You’re no less of an attack victim than me. It turned you into something you didn’t want by force. I’ll fix that if I can.”
A sad chuckle left his lips. “I suppose I’m grateful for that, but I’m not asking for me. I was hoping you could heal Tatya.”
Holly reared back in her seat at the request. The most powerful healer of them all needed healing? “What’s wrong with Tatya that she can’t heal herself?”
“Me.” The word was simple, but the implications were enormous. “I never realized just how much she relied on me—for power, for purpose, and even for a sense of self-worth. I have no illusions about my wife, Holly. She’s cunning and vicious and a social climber, but she truly believed she was doing right for the pack. Unfortunately, after your revelations, I’m even more afraid for her mental state. If she really is as much of a classist as you claim, then having lost me—my standing and power—might be more than she can bear.” Lucas might not be Sazi anymore, but the intensity in his eyes sure made them look like they were glowing. “I was going to ask if you could heal her heart. Can that be done? Can a—I hate to even say the word—but can a prejudice that deep be healed with magic? Is there any way for my wife to stop hating humans?” He paused and looked like he was going to be sick. “I wouldn’t have believed it of her, but now that you’ve said it, I have to think back on all the small signs I’ve seen and ignored over the years. I’m beginning to think that she could do something monumentally foolish and wind up getting put down. And yes, I would be able to lose her now. The mating bond is gone with the loss of the magic, but I’m not positive she could lose me. Not the me that’s human, but the me that was the all-powerful Lucas, or Inteque, or whoever the hell I’ve been.” He cocked his head. “Got a cure for that?”