All I could hear was yelling and shouting, orders flung around, questions, accusations, and I wasn’t even sure who picked me up to haul me downstairs, but somebody did. I didn’t get my bearings until I was dropped onto the couch. Then Ilsa, looming above me, snicked out a claw and reached down.
The moment we were trapped in was all I could think about, and Ilsa was about to bleed the explanation out of me before I could say a word.
“Stop!” I shouted, with all the energy I had left. It was enough. She staggered back like I’d punched her across the face.
Then Raoul—still in wolf form—thudded to his own stop between us, breathing hard. He didn’t say a word, but something about him was enough to bring Ilsa the rest of the way to silence. She waited, trembling and glaring, while Raoul did something absurdly tender. He picked up a blanket between his jaws and draped it over me as best he could. I clutched its edges and hung on.
Behind us all, Pandora and Ayu were busy hauling Brandon down the stairs, and taking every opportunity they could to slam him against the walls.
“Enough,” Brandon yelled. “You have to listen—she was helping him! I was helping…”
Ilsa broke in, furious. “B, you are going to explain this.”
“I don’t know—”
“Tell me!”
“Enough.”
That word alone, reverberant enough to shake dust out of the rafters, made us all stop.
We’d been followed down the stairs by the walking dead.
The Elder looked like a skeleton draped with fabric and weathered skin, and held together by nothing but willpower. It bled off him, charging the air so that I imagined flyaway sparks all around him. The firelight emphasized every crack and crevice and shadow, but his eyes burned hotter than the fire did. Even Ilsa’s icy composure wasn’t enough to counter that.
“You’ve been busy while I was sleeping,” he said unevenly.
The others moved back as the Elder surveyed us all, obviously trying to judge who knew, who’d been responsible, and who had merely been too stupid to figure it all out. Ayu was gaping. Pandora just looked worried. I couldn’t decide if Brandon was furious or triumphant. And of course there was Ilsa, who seemed to want to kill me with her glare alone.
Raoul, growling low, stood guard.
“I knew you wanted to recruit people from outside my influence,” the Elder said, considering each of us in turn. “People you could mold. Control.” His gaze finally snapped again to Ilsa, and he reached out to seize her by the chin, making her twitch and tremble. She couldn’t pull away. “But there are civilized ways to unseat a leader. Strange that I couldn’t trust you to use one of them.”
He tossed her back, leaving her wounded and insulted. Everyone else was still too stunned to decide what to do. I got up awkwardly from the couch, still hugging the blanket to me. I didn’t want to have woken him up only to prompt a bloodbath, but he looked ready to start one.
Getting away, though, wasn’t really an option. As soon as he saw me move, he fixed that terrifying gaze on me.
“Name Ilsa’s crimes,” he commanded.
I swallowed. I had no choice. “She was drugging you,” I said. “Slowly. Wanted to make it look like a long illness. It was…one of the drugs that broke Marcus down.”
Brandon growled between his teeth.
“One of your own wayward experiments. How fitting.” His smile was enough to give anyone nightmares. Whatever I’d done to him, it had not made him sane. “Can anyone contradict this?”
No one did. Ilsa grimaced, but she didn’t speak. The Elder took another step towards her. “Well, then,” he whispered. “Now that the full range of your transgressions is clear to everyone…we will end this the way I choose.”
“Do you call challenge, then?” she said.
The Elder only smiled again, creasing his ravaged face so unpleasantly that I shrank back. “I do.”
Ayu looked stricken. Brandon was blunt, and considering the Elder’s condition, he had a point. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do you question me?”
I’d never seen the results of mixing a command with a question like that. Brandon rocked back on his heels and had to fight to catch himself. I don’t think there was any possible answer but “no.”
“We will fight for this,” said the Elder. “I will not allow this to be a game of secrets and subterfuge any longer.”
Ilsa at first was unsettled, but then a look of cruel satisfaction crossed her face. “Agreed. Two days from now, after moonrise.”
There was an audible gasp. She’d called for the night of the new moon, when it was hardest to change. Raoul’s brief, choked protest was curtailed by his father, who raised his hand and said, “If we must. All the normal rules,” he added, “must be observed.”
Ilsa nodded, doing her damnedest to look somber and beneficent. I didn’t buy it. This was the bargain, then? They were going to shake hands on the terms of some ancient custom, then tear each other to shreds like good little boys and girls—and this was what the Elder meant by “civilized”?
I might have laughed, if I hadn’t been completely terrified.
“We will both need to prepare,” Ilsa said.
“Indeed.”
“Then I will take my seconds. As is the rule.”
“What rule?” I whispered.
Ayu heard me. “Backup,” she said quietly. “And defense. To stop anyone from interfering.”
Sickly, I read the undercurrent to that: to kill anyone who gets in the way. Sort of like what Pandora and Ayu had done with Kane. No wonder Ayu’s hands were shaking.
“You name yours,” Ilsa said, with disturbing sweetness.
He merely pointed. Raoul, unsurprisingly. Brandon. He didn’t look at me, but his skeletal finger pointed straight between my eyes. I huddled deeper into my blanket, wanting fervently to vanish.
“Brandon still awaits his final punishment,” Ilsa whispered. “For what he did to her, no less.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to see Brandon let off the hook, but if it ended with anything like this…
“His fate can be decided after this is over. My choice is made.”
Ayu made a small, unhappy sound, but he only told her, “She will need her fighters.” It was laced with a depth of sympathy I didn’t quite understand, but also with so much disdain for Ilsa that it made me shudder. “Go with her.”
Ayu bit her lip and retreated to Pandora’s side. Ilsa stood before them both, folding her arms.
“We will go, then, and deal with our supposed threat.” She spoke as if she’d lapsed straight into some ancient, brutal fairy tale. “Two nights hence, then. Be ready.” She made a sharp gesture, and Pandora and Ayu reluctantly followed her outside.
There were a few seconds of total silence. Then the Elder collapsed.
Raoul snapped out of wolf form so quickly it hurt to watch. Still, it wasn’t quite enough to catch his father before he hit the floor. Brandon got there first. I stood helplessly, shaking. My knees hurt just like old times, but I don’t think it was their fault that I couldn’t move.
“Damn it,” Brandon muttered. “Breathe, man.”
He did, but it sounded raspy and painful. Whatever strength the Elder had was burning up fast. How on earth would he be able to fight Ilsa like this?
“We have to get him something,” I breathed, but the Elder cut me off with a weak wave of his hand.
“No more. Too…late for that now.”
I crouched uneasily before him. Raoul sat to one side, Brandon to the other. The three of us looked at each other, equally speechless. The Elder, though, seemed strangely calm. “Either way, the new moon will decide things. Help me up.”
The boys did, carefully depositing him onto the couch I’d vacated. He looked weak, but I could see a sore healing up on his arm. Was it healing fast enough? Who knew.
“I kept you here for a reason,” he said. “You three in particular…”
“What about t
he others?” I said. “Shouldn’t we be worrying about them? Especially since… Well, I’m sure Ilsa knows this is my fault.”
“She might have killed you for a stunt like that. Consider yourself lucky someone made such a dramatic interruption.”
Brandon snorted and went for a chest at the corner of the room, from which he pulled out a couple of bathrobes. He put one on, then tossed another to Raoul. I’d almost forgotten I was the only one fully dressed. Go figure. “Well, Elder,” he said, “it’s nice at least that you’re sounding…what’s the word…”
“Cogent?” I said.
“Ten points to the English genius,” Brandon said. “I guess that shit school did something for you after all.”
My brother the tutor, more like, I thought sadly, but luckily, nobody heard me.
Brandon, meanwhile, was still staring at the Elder. “Just so we’re all clear,” he asked, “exactly how fucked up are you right now?”
The Elder only raised an eyebrow. I was the one to answer.
“He’s about as sane as you, from the looks of it,” I snapped. “You’re just out of days in a cellar for going berserk on me, he’s been a vegetable for weeks, I can never tell what’s going through his head”—I pointed at the still-silent Raoul, who proved my point by not bothering to argue—“and I have no idea what we’re doing. We’re not exactly Team Competent here. So why did you round us up, dare I ask?”
That last question was directed to the Elder. He was almost, in a grim sort of way, smiling. “For the entertainment value,” he said. “Get me water.”
Raoul, who hadn’t put on his bathrobe, went. I was too shaken to even enjoy the view.
“You’ve all got something she doesn’t,” the Elder said when Raoul returned. He drained his glass in one harsh gulp. “I wouldn’t trust Ilsa with any of you. She’s probably furious. But she stayed with custom, and let me choose first…so I picked you.”
“But why?” I asked. “What is it we’ve got?”
“Power,” he replied.
Brandon rolled his eyes, holding out his bruised arms like he was some kind of sacrificial victim. “Right. The coward, the reject and me. We’re saved.”
“You could have superiority if you ever believed it.”
Brandon stared at the Elder like he really had lost his mind. “If I could have taken command before all this, I would have,” he spat. “You think I haven’t tried? You think I’ve enjoyed—”
“Brandon, not now,” I said.
He swore at me. “The hell with this. He’s way more broken than even you used to be, and if it’s him against Ilsa, we are screwed.”
“That’s the point,” I said quietly. “That’s why he wants us as seconds. As backup, if anyone cheats. Which she probably will.”
“That’s…not the only reason.” The Elder’s eyes flashed, as if he was about to explain, but Brandon interrupted before he could finish.
“It’s still terrible enough on its own,” Brandon said. “I never asked to be stuck cleaning up after you.”
“I will be stronger by then—”
“How?”
The Elder turned a terrifying focus on each of us in turn. “Ilsa’s games…were born of impatience. She may think her medicines and poisons are the only ‘cure,’ but she’s wrong. What we need the most…we already possess. We have the strength within ourselves. In both halves of ourselves. And you—all of you—are more than you think you are.”
With that, he hauled in a deep breath, then said, “For now, however, if I’m to face her…I need true sleep.”
I had more questions, so many questions, but I didn’t get the chance. He just slumped back into the couch. Soon, he’d slid under once again.
“Oh, that’s just great,” Brandon muttered, while Raoul set about arranging his father in a more comfortable position. I didn’t find one myself. I tried to get up, but shook and stumbled when my back cramped, and ended up leaning against the wall, my head spinning.
You are more than you think you are…
Whether or not that was true, we weren’t going to have much time to figure it out.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Raoul took me back to my cabin that night, heedless of Brandon’s dour stare after we went.
It was quiet in there, and awfully cold. Raoul waited while I stumbled to the sink. The well water still tasted awful, but it was better than how my mouth tasted just then, so I did what I could to freshen up. I still hurt all over when I was done, but at least my head was clearer.
“Are you all right?” I said. “You’re being awfully quiet.”
Eerie was the word, actually, with all that unspent energy crackling around him, but I wasn’t going to say it. I waited him out.
At last he answered. “I hardly know what to say to you on normal days.”
“Have we had any of those? I must have missed it.”
He sighed softly. “B, you know I’ve spent most of my life outside the pack. Kane ordered my silence more often than not. I was under someone’s orders all the time. That…can weaken you, eventually.”
I felt sick at the idea. Years on end of this…I couldn’t imagine how Raoul had gotten through it.
“Speaking at all still feels foreign, sometimes,” he murmured.
I perched on the edge of my bed. “I can see how you’ve changed, though.”
“I know. And you’ve helped. I just wish…” He was looking out the windows. The dark tangle out there was at least symbolically apt. “My father was all I had, most times, and I was kept from him. And now this. I wish I’d changed sooner. I could have…”
I felt a deep stab of guilt. “I’m so sorry.”
“No. He’s been wanting this fight for a long time. He was just never strong enough to do anything about it. From his perspective, you did him a favor.”
“He’s going to get himself killed.”
“He’d rather go fighting.”
“Can’t he just…coerce her into losing? You know he could.”
Raoul made a face. “The rules say he can’t.”
“And he’s just going to honor that?”
Raoul said nothing.
“Why is everyone here so hung up on this ritual and all these stupid rules? They got you banished, they got people killed—why are you standing up for it?”
He looked weary. “You know what we can do. We can command. Bleed memories right out of another person’s veins. If we didn’t have all these rules…we’d all run wild.” He breathed in heavily. “Ilsa claims to honor the customs, but she’ll cheat any way she can. The Elder wants to hold her to formal terms to prove he’s right.”
“And he never manipulated anything?” I said bitterly. “Anyone?”
“Who’d you rather stand beside?”
“Neither of them. Can I vote for running away to a tropical island somewhere?”
He cracked a smile, but it looked sad. “I have to see this through.”
I swore under my breath, but after a minute I added, “I know.”
In the silence afterwards, Raoul crossed the room to sit beside me. This meant, of course, he was sitting on my bed, too. There wasn’t really anywhere else. I peeked up from beneath my hair.
“You know, being apart from the pack like you were…at least you never got caught up in this mess as deeply as the others,” I ventured. “I’m glad I can at least talk to you about it. I’d have felt completely alone, otherwise.”
“I’d think Ayu or Pandora would be easier friends to make.”
“Sort of, but Pandora’s conflicted about all this, still.” I twisted my hands in my lap. “I’m worried about her. Ayu, too.”
“I don’t think even Ilsa can crush those two.”
He was probably right. I hoped he was, anyway. There wasn’t much to be done about it, though, so I tried to put it out of my head. This left me fumbling for something else to say.
“So you’re staying?” I said.
I meant staying in the pack, and staying throug
h the fight and whatever came after, but he looked at the bed, then at me. “I could,” he replied, his voice low.
Oh. I squirmed, suddenly anxious—and warm, despite the temperature. He looked at my hands, which were twisting around each other in nervous patterns. Then he said my name, very quietly. I lost track of whatever it was I was about to say.
“Maybe that’s too much,” he said. “I—don’t know if you want…”
“We’ve barely even started.”
He looked both embarrassed and frustrated, and he kept speaking in fragments, like he couldn’t quite get the thoughts sorted. “I know. I’ve wanted to, but now…” He broke off, smiling ruefully. “Going wolf is easier, sometimes. You just run with your impulses and don’t worry about it. This is…”
I slid closer. As clumsy as I am, that almost involved tipping backwards on the bed and banging my head against the wall, which really would have improved the mood, I’m sure. I only caught my balance by grabbing his arm. I held on and stared at him for the longest time before I said something completely ridiculous.
“Please don’t tell me that means you…did that…when transformed.”
His eyes widened. Then all at once, he burst out laughing. I think it was partly from nervous energy, partly surprise, and partly just falling apart from the absurdity of the thing. Before long I was giggling helplessly too. The tension completely drained away.
“I take it that’s a no?” I gasped, wiping tears out of my eyes.
“Definitely a no.”
“Only into human girls?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m screwed, then. Not exactly human, here.”
He gently turned me to face him. “No,” he said. “You’re right just as you are.”
Then he bent closer and pressed a slow, careful kiss to my lips.
In the end, we didn’t let ourselves get too carried away. There was just too much happening, and we both knew it. Still, by the time he reluctantly withdrew, I wasn’t feeling like my normal self at all. I should have had something to say, instead of dazedly touching my mouth and then feeling embarrassed about that, and trying to cover it up by covering myself up, since my clothes weren’t really attached correctly anymore. I was still tingling everywhere and feeling disoriented, and logical thought was an awful lot of work.
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