by Dean, Sierra
The way his jaw tightened around the words His Majesty made a chill run down my spine.
No.
I knew what was coming before it happened, but it was one of those moments where my brain simply couldn’t accept the thing it knew. Callum’s words sunk in, and the blond head suddenly became familiar, but it wasn’t until the man in the chair turned around that the reality sunk in.
He lifted a hand in a wave and said, “Hi, Genie.”
Lucas Rain.
Chapter Twenty
I would have sat in a chair if there had been one behind me.
Instead I sat on the floor.
I suppose the more accurate statement would be that I passed out, except I don’t remember losing consciousness. I just remember standing and then… not standing.
Perhaps I should have expected Lucas to be among those back from the dead. It made sense. After all, he’d been in the hotel with Secret and I when I’d done what I did to Morgan. And even though I’d been out cold after killing her, I still knew what had happened to him.
When we’d been fleeing the burning building, he’d gone through the floor. That was it. No big, bold, blaze of glory death. He’d saved my life, and then he died.
Except now he was sitting in a chair in my uncle’s office, looking none the worse for wear, which seemed completely impossible since his body had never been recovered thanks to a whole fucking building burning to the ground on top of it.
At this point I probably shouldn’t have been looking for a logical explanation. Magic and logic hardly ever went hand in hand.
I really must have passed out, because when I looked up Wilder, Lucas, and Callum were all standing around me. Wilder had his hand on my face, gently shaking me awake.
“Does he want to kill me?” I muttered stupidly.
Lucas glanced up at Callum, “Now wouldn’t be the most ideal time for me to announce intentions like those, would it? But no, Genie, I’m not here to kill you. I honestly don’t know why I’m here. Or how.”
“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” Callum looked at me meaningfully. “We’re not really accustomed to having so many old friends come to visit.”
Lucas helped me to my feet and I couldn’t help but touch him just to confirm he was real. Somehow being dead for nearly four years hadn’t done any damage to his muscle tone. He was built like a solid wall of abs and biceps. I placed my hands on his cheeks, staring right in his pale blue eyes like I might be able to tell if he was a fake version of the man I’d known.
This was really Lucas.
My hands started to shake and I knew I could no longer avoid the inevitable. I’d told myself this whole time I didn’t need Secret’s help, and I could manage everything on my own.
Keeping her on the outside when her soul-bonded former husband was standing in front of me? I would never be able to forgive myself for not calling her.
She had to know.
She had to be here.
“We have to tell Secret,” I said quietly.
Lucas, who had been calm and nonplussed to that moment, suddenly went rigid, his soft smile fading. It was as if until then he hadn’t thought of her name, and now that I’d said it he was confronted with the entirety of his former life.
It was his turn to need to sit down.
“Secret. Is she… is she here?”
I shook my head, finally making my way to the chair next to his. I wasn’t sure how much I should tell him. Certainly there were things she’d want to explain for herself, but so much had happened since he’d died. She had died, for starters. And he wouldn’t know she was human now.
Not to mention the whole being married to his best friend thing.
“She’s in Los Angeles right now doing work with the FBI. A lot has changed since you’ve been gone, Lucas. People know about us now.”
He shook his head, and I knew this wasn’t all that important at the moment. “Is she…” He sighed like he didn’t know how to finish his thought. He must have a million questions. “Is she happy?”
The question kicked me in the stomach and chased away my breath.
When I was able to get words out again, I said, “She is.”
“Is my pack okay?” This he said to Callum.
My uncle nodded. “Desmond has done a credit to your family line. Your father would be very proud.”
“Desmond.” Lucas thought about this then gave a small nod, as if he was piecing together the puzzle all by himself. The logical leaps weren’t that hard to take, and he was a smart man. “So he and Secret…”
“Married.” Callum pulled the Band-Aid off, not one to sugarcoat anything. Best to just punch someone in the face with the truth. No wonder he and Secret got along so well.
There was also the whole thing where Callum hadn’t liked Lucas very much in life, so I suspected having him back from the dead and hanging out Callum’s office wasn’t a welcome development.
“Eugenia, as pleasant as this reunion is, and as much as I’d love to ask where you’ve been for the last two days, we have a more pressing matter at hand to deal with.”
“More pressing than this?” I indicated Lucas, pointing him out as if he were a literal elephant in the room.
“Do you doubt, at this point, that we’re capable of having bigger concerns than a werewolf king returned from the grave?”
“There’s a lot going on in that question.”
He frowned, which was impressive considering he’d already looked completely miserable. “You are an Alpha, I need you to behave like one.”
Oof, dressed down in front of others. Now that was a low blow.
“I’m sorry.”
“We came across Lucas quite by accident when we were looking for Mercy, and I’m afraid he has distracted us somewhat from our mission. Things took an unpleasant turn in your absence. Your mother came back, and this time instead of burning anything down, she took something with her.” His brows creased. “Someone.”
“She kidnapped someone?” I asked, astonished. I didn’t think Mercy was just going to parade into Callum’s compound and spirit someone off in the night. Not to mention there weren’t any children on site, only adult wolves. How could she take someone?
“No, it seems he went quite willingly.”
My gaze cut to Wilder and my first reaction was to ask, “Hank?”
Callum let out a bark of laughter, the first sound of mirth out of him since we’d arrived, but not a noise of any real amusement. It gave me a chill.
“No, surprisingly. It would appear Hank’s intention to behave himself remains intact.”
I could see Wilder’s sigh of relief even if the expression on his face never changed. I felt guilty for assuming the worst.
“Then who?”
Callum scratched his chin. The man who had just been able to brutalize Lucas with the truth was quiet, and I didn’t like that.
“Mercy took Ben.”
Chapter Twenty-one
My emotional state bounced from terror to rage and back again like a Ping-Pong ball. I was so stirred up with feeling I couldn’t land on a single thing, and as a result the room was spinning as I processed Callum’s words.
Mercy had taken Ben.
No. Ben had gone with Mercy.
“That fucking idiot.” I thought at first I’d only said the words in my head, but when everyone stared at me in surprise I realized I’d spoken them out loud. I didn’t regret it. “That butthurt asshole. He didn’t get to be Alpha so now he’s running off with the woman who wants me dead? Are you kidding me?”
Ben had been hostile and shitty towards me ever since I’d come back from the bayou with Secret when I was eighteen, but I’d thought it had been typical sibling jealousy. I’d believed he was looking out for me when he’d warned my off Wilder a year earlier. I thought he cared and didn’t know how to show it.
Now I was wondering if I’d been blinding myself to his true nature all this time because I’d wanted to think deep down he lo
ved me. We were twins for crying out loud, how could I be so disconnected from his true feelings? Weren’t twins supposed to share some insane psychic connection with each other?
How could he do this?
I was terrified for him, but I also wanted to kill him with my bare hands. In order to do that, however, I was going to need to get him back.
“Did anyone see him go with her?” I asked. Better to focus on the problem itself. I could get emotional and furious when I knew he was safe.
“One of the night guards saw her on the property, and said that Ben did not appear to be in duress or struggling. He just walked away with her into the woods and didn’t come back. And before you ask, yes, we checked every inch of the property and there was no sign of either of them. We don’t believe she’s done anything to him.”
So he was safe. But he was also somewhere with our homicidal mother, and he’d gone willingly.
Swell.
I rubbed my temples. A headache had been building behind my eyes since our fight with the wolf pack in the bayou, and now with all the added stress heaped onto me in just the last fifteen minutes, it had blossomed into a full-blown migraine.
Oh, right. The Loups-Garous.
“Not to pile more problems onto the plate,” I said with a sigh. “But it would appear your rogue wolf pack is back in action in Maurepas.”
“I beg your pardon?” Callum asked. I suppose of all the things I could have said right then, this wasn’t one he had anticipated.
“That’s where I’ve been the last two days. I went to find La Sorciere hoping she could sort out all this.” I waved my hand over Lucas, who smiled in polite confusion. “While we were there we were attacked by the pack. From what I gather they’re a lot less organized and not nearly as intimidating as they once were, but they’d definitely still pose a threat to human tourists. They seemed, um, what’s the politest way to phrase this?”
“Rapey,” Wilder offered.
“Yeah, they weren’t a really pleasant lot.”
For the first time, Callum showed an emotion other than annoyance. He hefted a sigh and shook his head, and I gathered I wasn’t the only one working on a grade-A migraine right now. I didn’t want to add to his worries, but the pack in the swamp would need to be dealt with, and that was sort of his job as king. As much as I would have loved to leave it for another day, he needed to know.
Which left us with two other things that needed to be addressed immediately. Ben was off somewhere with Mercy, for God only knew what reason. That created a whole avalanche of smaller issues. For one thing, Ben knew everything about my life in the city. He knew where I lived, knew about my pack, my friends, all of it. Which meant if he was now on Mercy’s side, nothing in my city life was safe anymore.
“Call Magnolia,” I told Wilder. “She needs to know that she can’t trust Ben.”
I didn’t want to believe that Ben could hurt Mags or the other members of my pack in the city, but if he was bitter enough about losing the Alpha role to join up with our mother—which seemed the most logical reason to me—I wasn’t sure where his line in the sand was anymore.
He wanted to hurt me, and the easiest way to do that was to hurt those close to me.
Wilder nodded and left the room to place the call. We’d make our way home as soon as this meeting was done, but in the meantime I wanted to know Mags was okay and prepared for the worst.
Then there was the other problem.
The tall, muscular, handsome, royal problem sitting beside me.
“You’re alive,” I said to Lucas.
“It would appear so.”
“But you died in New York.”
“I did.”
This complicated things. Timothy Deerling had returned to the scene of his death, which was likely close to where he’d been buried. Mercy had returned to the place where we’d buried her head, rather than where she’d died. Lucas had come here, to where I was, but he hadn’t died here or been buried here, which confused the hell out of me.
“Do you mind me asking how you got here?”
He shook his head. “I don’t mind, but my answer isn’t going to help you. I woke up on the side of the road not far from here and just started walking. I knew who I was, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to be alive, but all I could think was, I have to find Genie.”
“That’s bizarre.”
“You’re telling me. I’ve been dead for what, almost four years? And suddenly I’m here? And no offense to you, Genie, but coming back from the dead after four years, you aren’t the McQueen I want to see most.”
I gave him an apologetic smile. “It’s my fault.”
“How do you figure that?” Callum asked.
“Because I apparently had so much guilt about people around me dying I inadvertently cast a spell to bring them back. Except most of them seem to want me dead.”
“Personally, I’d just like to go home,” Lucas said.
Which brought me full circle to the most complicated issue of them all. I looked to Callum and asked, “Do you want to call Secret, or should I?”
Chapter Twenty-two
“Hello, Secret, I just thought you should know I used the intense power of guilt to bring your ex-husband back to life. And also the woman who tried to kill you on your wedding day. And also our mother. How was Bolivia?”
I stared at the cell phone in my hand and let out an exhausted sigh. No, that line wouldn’t work. She needed to know, she deserved to know, but now I felt terrible for not looping her in on this sooner. I’d wanted to save her the hassle, but things had gotten so, so much worse since then.
I had avoided telling her about Mercy because I thought I could handle that situation on my own, but also because I knew Secret’s history with Mercy was much more fraught than my own.
To put it lightly.
Mercy had tried to kill Secret at least three different times, and had damn near succeeded. Putting the two of them back together was a recipe for disaster.
Now things had gotten about a thousand times more complicated with Lucas’s return. I had no choice but to tell Secret, but I was still hesitating. This was going to turn her entire world upside down. Her relationship with Lucas had been complicated, considering he had stood her up on their wedding day, among other things, but she had loved him and had mourned his death. Now she had a new life, and him being back was going to make a huge mess of things.
I had her contact page open on my screen and my finger hovering over the call button, but I couldn’t bring myself to take the plunge.
“Do you want me to do it?” Wilder was at my side suddenly, making me realize how zoned out I’d been.
I was standing on the back deck outside my bedroom, watching the backyard in an offhand way, half expecting Ben and Mercy to reappear at any moment. The idiot part of me that cared about my brother wanted to imagine he was doing all this just to trick her.
The realist knew he was up to something much more selfish.
“As much as I’d love to take you up on that, I don’t think this is the news she should here from a stranger.”
We were planning to head back to New Orleans as soon as I made the call, but I’d wanted to stay here in case Secret wanted to talk to Lucas. She might need to hear his voice to believe it was real.
Hell, I’d sat right next to the guy and even I was having trouble believing it.
“Here.” He took the phone out of my hands before I could protest, and hit the call button, making it look so easy. I heard Secret’s voice say, “Hello?” on the opposite end as he thrust the cell back into my hands.
“You shithead,” I groaned.
“Excuse me?” her voice came through the line.
Wilder smiled at me and leaned against the railing. What a jackass. He was lucky I was so damned in love with him.
“Not you,” I said into the phone.
“I should hope not.”
“You’re not deep in the jungle are you? God forbid I’m racking up your long dista
nce bills.”
“No, I got back a couple days ago.” I heard her say ow and then curse at someone. “Business as usual, you know.”
Business as usual.
“Secret, you might want to sit down.”
“Are you pregnant?”
I blinked several times, not expecting to hear those words at all, they totally threw me off. Wilder, who was standing close enough he could hear everything she was saying, blushed furiously and I could smell the fear coming off him.
“No.”
“Engaged.”
I narrowed my eyes at Wilder as if daring him to act scared. He was busy looking at his own phone, a deep crease between his brows like he was reading something unpleasant. He gave me a half-hearted smile then returned to the bedroom to leave me alone with my conversation.
“Secret, this is serious.”
“Babies and engagements are serious.”
“No, like, bad serious.”
“Babies and engagements can be bad serious.” She laughed and then stopped abruptly and said, “Jesus fucking ow Tyler, it was already broken what the hell are you doing?”
Tyler, being Tyler Nowakowski, was a former New York detective who had also been working for the FBI in establishing their paranormal branch. He was now a member of a small team that Secret worked with dealing with all manner of absurd paranormal issues.
“Is this a bad time?” It sounded like a bad time.
“This fucking vampire in Bolivia broke my arm, and since I don’t have any magical healing powers anymore, we’re testing this contraption Tyler has been working on, but he’s not doing it very well.” She growled audibly on her end of the phone.
“Tell your sister you’re a whiny baby and I’m doing my job perfectly,” I heard him say.
“He says to tell you he’s an obnoxious asshole and is at least six inches too tall.”
Tyler snorted.
Good to know the day job was treating her well. I had about a thousand more questions about whatever they were working on that could help heal her broken bones, but I would just be avoiding the inevitable.