by Lucy Lyons
Ashlynn extricated herself from me and glanced down, frowning. “We need to get to the others and make sure everyone is OK,” she reminded me, but Dirk laughed and shook his head.
“Believe me, everyone who was breathing when that surge of energy went through us is just fine now.”
Ashlynn checked the wardrobe and pulled out a simple black tank top and black leggings, chuckling at the monochromatic wardrobe.
“I guess that’s one way to make sure no one has to worry about how they look,” she chuckled. “It’s OK if I use these, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what they’re there for. We all donate every so often to the spare-clothes fund,” I grinned. “I’ll have to thank whoever decided that skin-tight and low-cut would be the most universally liked outfit to stock the cupboard with.”
“Like you’ve never noticed before,” she huffed. I shrugged and scratched my head. “Sweetheart, when you’ve got mostly naked burlesque performers running around backstage while you try to work, you just get sort of desensitized and stop noticing women who don’t matter to you.”
She opened her mouth to speak then shut it again. It wasn’t the “I love you” she was looking for, but it was the truth. I didn’t have time or energy for another woman.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you, Clay. I just couldn’t stand the thought of strangers taking Rae and hurting her, or the baby.”
“Possibly babies, according to some of the Fae,” I replied.
“Oh no. I don’t think so,” Rae gasped. “I’ll do this again, but I’m not wolf enough for a whole litter, thank you very much.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.” I feigned fear as held up my hands in surrender. “The Fae said babies. I assumed she meant in your belly right now.”
“Yeah, well from the rumors coming from the camp, you should probably be asking about your own futures.” Ashlynn coughed and jerked her head toward the door, and I nodded to the couple and followed her out, managing to only glance at the smooth plane of her stomach once as I shut the door to the medical wing.
“Time to go to prison, Ash,” I sighed. “They’re waiting for us.” I took her hand and threaded my fingers through hers as we turned down the only dead-end corridor in the hive. With any luck, all the final answers we needed would be with one legitimately insane half-breed. I just prayed the magic had spent itself before it got to her and the other prisoners or we’d have a whole other can of worms to deal with.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I’d dreaded going to the prison level because it was always so deathly quiet and lonely, but Ash and I had a difficult time getting through the crush of bodies to find Caroline and Nick. Wolves swarmed us the moment we passed through the reinforced steel doors that led to the prison wing. Happy wolves jumped up on Ashlynn, and more pressed against her legs, sniffing her hands and legs as I tugged on her wrist, pulling her toward Fin and Nick who flanked Haley’s cell.
The remaining cells were empty, which made me think either Nick had done some housecleaning before we came down or he’d finally weeded out all the problem vamps and sent them packing to male Rowena safer. I suspected the latter. Nick was only bloodthirsty when he had to be, and the prisoners were still his people, unless they asked to leave. Fin said he hadn’t witnessed a single execution since he’d been in security, which was twice as long as I’d been on the job.
The walls were dark and damp from the underground springs that fed into the bay. If you could ignore the gently blinking blue and green light displays on the cells and imagine the cell doors were made of splintered wood and iron, it was a dismal place.
But the technology softened the atmosphere and made it feel like we were in a spaceship instead of a dungeon. The science fiction effect was heightened when Fin led Nick and me into the computer lab at the end of the hall while the wolves examined Ashlynn and made sure all her parts were attached. I motioned to Jodi, who was back in human form, and he nodded and flashed me a grin before taking up the guard position outside Haley’s cell. I gave her one last look before I ducked into the lab, but she was curled in a ball on the cot with her back to the armored glass door. Seeing her that way, I had to force myself to remember that she’d made the choices that led her to where she was and there was half-breed Fae blood on her hands.
The lab was well-lit with long LED lights that ran in three parallel rows along the ceiling, augmented by the computer screens that seemed to have multiplied since the last time I’d been down. Now over two dozen screens showed both the hive and the club above it. In the glow of the monitors, I viewed the humans milling about and enjoying themselves in real time, oblivious of what lie beneath.
“Thank goodness you found a use for all that power, Clay,” Fin said with a shake of his head. “I didn’t know how to keep the wounded vampires from feeding on the club patrons until you made with the big share and presto-change-o, the vampires were not only healed. They weren’t hungry.”
I tried to smile, but it fell short of enthusiastic, and my stomach sank.
“I wish I’d been able to raise the ones who fell before I arrived,” I admitted. I knew the image of that room was going to haunt my dreams for months to come, and that would be after I went to Henny for some herbal remedy to help me forget how I felt when I first encountered the smells and the slick, blood-pooled floor of the training room and the floor strewn with broken weapons and bodies.
“But you saved the wolves and the rats by sharing your magic before the battle. The pack has good soldiers, Clay,” he reassured me, “but I can’t count the number of my men who’ve come to me and told me how a wolf saved them in the battle on the docks then when we returned and saw the vampires under attack, none of them hesitated. They’re the reason Rowena’s being held by her mother right now. Your wolves are the reason I’m standing here telling you that you did everything you could.”
“I took Colette from them. She would’ve saved so many. She’s the fiercest warrior in the clan.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, and she’d probably be with the others waiting to be burned if she had. Stop second guessing yourself. As the pack alpha, you’re doing just fine.”
I glanced back to the door of the pack in the hallway beyond before answering. “Yeah, but we have a dozen vampires to burn, and their murderers to punish. Do we know how many escaped, and did they take any hostages with them?”
Instead of answering me outright, Fin typed on the nearest keyboard and turned the monitor so I could see the video recording of the corridors after the fight. Five human or Fae in their signature black hoods had a single vampire with them. She glanced up at the camera and I groaned.
“Not Rachel. Hasn’t she been through enough already?” I hissed. It had been Rachel’s kidnapping and the demands the former vampire master of Seattle had made that had culminated in my becoming a werewolf and the death of my brother-in-arms, David. Rachel had been tortured and imprisoned in her own mind. God only knew what horrors they’d subject her to in their quest to steal the magic from the Fae.
I kept watching, intent on finding the door they’d escaped from. We’d come in the back door, and the elevator to the club was shut down, so where had the hooded kidnappers taken Rachel? Suddenly in the feed, Rachel glanced up at the camera as if she were aware that someone would see her. They were near the back door, and according to the time stamp, we should’ve run right into them. Almost imperceptibly, I saw Rachel’s eyes flit to the left.
“Back up the feed a little,” I said. Fin complied and rolled it back a few seconds. “Watch Rachel. I think she’s trying to tell us something.” I pointed at the screen, and he slowed the video by half. Just as I’d seen before, she looked up at the camera then shot a glance to the left, even though there was no hallway there.
“We need to go back there and see what she was trying to show us,” Fin declared. “Maybe it was a glamour. Maybe they never left.” I glanced back toward the door that led to the prison section. Haley needed to be questioned. The wolves needed a
n explanation of the power surge and what it might mean to the pack. When I’d been just a soldier, it had been so easy to choose what was most important. As the alpha, everything was high priority, no matter what I wanted the most.
“We need to question Haley and get guards and cleanup assigned for Caroline and Ro and the training room,” I reminded the wererat. Nick hadn’t said anything during the exchange, just leaned against a desk with his arms folded, staring at the floor. He’d almost died, but I guessed that he was feeling the loss of his people and of Rachel. He’d promised she would never be imprisoned again, and despite his best efforts, she’d been taken, and even if we got her back, it wouldn’t bring back the people he’d lost.
“Nick?” I asked, and he shook himself and managed a grim smile in my direction. “Nick, we did something unbelievable together, something I believe these humans, or Fae, or whatever they are want to be able to do.” He nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“They didn’t know we could do that, Clay. Chronology is important.” He sighed and straightened up. “I’ve got to get Rachel back. You take care of the Fae prisoner and watch over Rowena and Caroline,” he ordered.
I shook my head and put a hand up to stop him, stepping between him and the door.
“Just hear me out, OK, Nick? They stole my wolves, and the ones who attacked you did so before we got Ash and Rae out of there. What if, just for the sake of argument, what if they knew we could do that before we did? What if they took Rachel, expecting to do exactly what we did?”
Fin gasped, and Nick’s face got hard and angry, his eyes blazing with that same sickening glow I’d seen in Caroline when she hovered above the hooded man in the aftermath of her battle.
“What happened to the one who survived?” Fin asked. “He might know more than the little Fae girl does.”
“Maybe, but I know we have a better chance of her answering questions,” I countered.
“Especially since my loving wife put my attacker in a coma,” Nick added. “I’ve come to understand why the Venatores valued and feared her so much. If I didn’t trust her so, I might be tempted to limit her power also.”
Fin’s eyes met mine and a cold shiver ran down my spine. Caroline had been terrifying to me when I thought her power was in line with her husband’s. Hearing that she’d made a master vampire as powerful as Lord Nicholas D’Elbrecht nervous made my insides clench.
“Great. Then we’ll get some of the wolves out of here and patrolling and question Haley,” I offered. “Maybe some wolves and some wererats can, uh, secure the nursery and start gathering bodies to be burned?” I asked, my eyes flitting sideways to Fin.
“Get your wolves together. I’ll help hand out assignments after I double check the blueprints we have on the compound. Maybe there’s a blocked off hallway or hidden doorway the Glory put in when she was master of Seattle.”
Nick and I agreed and as he followed me into the cell-lined corridor the wolves clamored around us, asking us questions about the wild magic and if we were going after the stragglers who had managed to get away.
Haley sat up and paid attention too, sitting on the edge of her cot and swinging her feet inches above the floor. Her silver hair was simply gray, and her skin had become almost translucent under the bright overhead lights.
“Haley, are you all right?” I asked, pushing the intercom button on the side of her cell. She tilted her head to one side and peered up at me through her hair, hiding behind the lackluster, oily strands.
“The box you put me in is bigger than the one the others were going to use, if that’s what you want to hear,” she hissed, her voice rattling. She coughed, and I watched her work to swallow.
“There’s water in there, Haley, and if you’re hungry, I can bring you food,” I assured her. “But I won’t let you out until I know you aren’t going to try to kill anyone, and nothing you say will make me feel guilty about that. What you did was wrong.”
“I suppose I should be thanking you,” she whispered and wiped wetness off her cheek with one hand. “I just wanted to have the wild hunt. They promised me I could run in the wild hunt if I did what they said.”
“I am the wild hunt, Haley. Me and my wolves. We only run with those who do no harm. If you give me the information we need to stop the ones who are hurting the Fae, the ones who kidnapped our pregnant packmate . . . well, if you aren’t going to attack anyone else, then you can run with us.”
Haley tucked her hair behind one long, pointed ear and chewed her lip. Her legs weren’t swinging anymore, but she still seemed shrunken in on herself, as if the large cell were actually compressing her, making her smaller.
“Can you take me somewhere that isn’t so much metal?” she asked. Her voice was barely a whisper, and as soon as she got the words out, she collapsed on her side, half her slim form hanging off the side of the cot.
With a curse, Nick unlocked the glass door, and it slid open with a futuristic whoosh as he ran into the room and picked her up, running past us and into the hive outside the prison section. I followed with a trail of my packmates behind me and Ashlynn by my side.
“What’s happening?” she panted, and I shrugged.
“I don’t know. I think the cell was making her sick,” I suggested as I saw Nick turn a corner far ahead and raced to catch up before he lost me completely. “Either that or she was faking, and our vampire master just got himself caught up in a Fae trap.”
Ashlynn matched me stride for stride as we turned corners and raced up the halls toward the backstage stairs. Two of Fin’s rats were working the door, and Mikhaila put an arm out to stop Nick before she realized who it was behind the diminutive Fae girl.
“I need to get her out to the greenspace behind the club,” Nick ordered. “Open the door and let us through, but no one else.”
“Ah, I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nick,” I countered. I turned to Ashlynn. “Are you completely healed?” She nodded and I continued. “Ash will go with you and Mikhaila. I’ll let Fin know to add a guard so Dimitri doesn’t get lonely, and if that little some-hundreds-year-old girl tries anything, do whatever is necessary to protect Nick.” He opened his mouth to complain then glanced down at his cargo, who was trembling against his chest. He nodded, and Mikhaila and Ashlynn started to follow him up the back stairs.
I grabbed her by the arm and tugged her against my chest, pressing my mouth to hers and deepening the kiss when she opened herself to me.
“Keep him safe, but don’t put yourself in harm’s way, OK?” I pled with her between soft nips of her full bottom lip.
She sighed and kissed me one last time then saluted me as she pulled away to follow the others.
“I’ll be back, and you can finish what you started,” she purred. The beast inside me strained to follow, but I forced myself to turn around, only to see Fin watching.
“You’d better just go, Clay. God knows what kind of trouble they’ll get into if one of us isn’t there to be the voice of reason.” Without hesitation, I spun on my heel and took off up the stairs, two and three at a time. Fin could handle the wolves, I knew. What I needed was to not let Ashlynn out of my sight, when Fae magic was thick in the air and betrayal the currency the High Fae dealt in best.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When I caught up to the others, Nick was kneeling on all fours in the shadow of a Japanese maple in the garden with Haley standing over him. I glanced around for Ashlynn and found her near the High wall several feet from the pair. Our eyes met, and she gave me a terse nod before tilting her chin up and sniffing the air again. Mikhaila approached from the back wall with a limp and managed a painful shrug in response to my stare at the gash that ran the width of her torso.
“Glad you sent us all, boss. They seemed shocked to see us,” she chuckled. I helped her to her knees and took off my shirt for her to pack against the wound. As vicious as it looked, she’d have it healed in no time, so long as the blade wasn’t silver. We’d found out through the painful experience o
f battle that silver was as painful and debilitating in a wound to wererats as it was to us wolves.
“Let’s get someone to help you back inside,” I offered, and she nodded in agreement
“Plain steel, Clay. I’m OK. Nick took it right in the gut, though. I think we upset a breaking attempt.”
I rubbed my scruff and cursed. “Great. OK. You got your phone?” she shook her head, and I tossed her mine. “Call Fin first, then Colette, then whomever you report to directly tonight. We’re already on high alert and killed a grip of them. What possible reason could they have to come back?” I fumed. “Well, they want to see how high we can take the threat level? We’ll show them what we’ve still got up our sleeves.”
I motioned Ashlynn over to the wounded guard’s side and jogged over to Nick, who was still on his knees, but at least upright, with Haley still standing over him, glancing all around her as if she was waiting for another attack.
“You’re on your feet, Haley. That doesn’t look good, you know that?” I asked, and she shuddered and hugged herself.
“I know what I did, wolf. I don’t expect trust or mercy from you. But I didn’t hurt the master vampire. That wasn’t me. I’m still too weak to be of any use to anyone. All that iron and steel and electrical wires . . .” she sniffled and sighed. “No nature except for stone, and that was too hard to penetrate with my magic.”