by Amy Lane
Bracken shook his head. “Not unless you’re up to levitating the lot of us up and over the buildings. I wouldn’t try it. Especially with the chopper here.”
“Emphasis on ‘chop,’” Nicky murmured, in case she didn’t get the danger of throwing a mass of people up toward the whirling blades.
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Shit—” That last sounded like she’d been interrupted, and Bracken’s sigh had a distinctly relieved feel. Good. It was very possible that Green had stepped in with a plan.
Cory’s people stood there and waited—waited for sanity to take over, waited for the wolves to stop killing themselves on Cory’s shield and come to their senses. After what seemed an eternity of frenzied howls and horrible, cracking thuds, Teague looked up from the corpse of the head werewolf and spat out the heart he had savaged from the body.
Cory was still speaking to Green in her head, and the conversation wasn’t going her way.
“I get it,” she said out loud, her eyes looking decidedly elsewhere. “They’re not going to stop. Green, someone’s going to notice…”
She paused.
“But… they’re being compelled. Damn it, it’s not their fault!”
The shield around them flared and brightened, and when Teague looked up, he saw Bracken’s hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t fight him, beloved,” Bracken said softly. “Please. For us.” Their choices were obvious. She could take them out with her power—she was entirely capable of doing it. Or they could fight their way out physically, and that…. Teague felt his wobbling back end, looked to where his mates—not their best fighters—were listening tautly to the conversation.
Oh God. Teague’s mates.
Cory swallowed hard. “It feels cowardly,” she said through a husked throat, and Teague looked outside the shell that enclosed them and realized Green was right. He didn’t even have to hear what Green was ordering to know he was right.
He was going to change so he could talk to her, convince her why it was a forgivable sin, but the thought of changing made him want to whimper. Suddenly Jack was human, wrapping his arms around Teague’s neck and kneeling before his queen. He still had blood on his muzzle from the man—was it the leader? Was it Cujo?—they had taken down together, but he still looked beautiful and innocent for all that.
“Please, Lady Cory,” Jack said humbly with clear eyes. “Please. You’d fight them by yourself, and you’d probably win, but we can’t take that chance. Bracken would be by your side, and Teague and I would guard your flanks, but… but they’re crazed. This whole thing isn’t sane. They’re tortured and in pain, and whoever is in charge, well, I don’t think she’s going to stop. This whole crazy-elf-bitch thing, it’s big and it’s bad and it’s going to bite us in the ass, but not today. Today….” There was another horrible thunking clatter of broken necks and pitiful whimpers. Jack closed his eyes, and Teague licked his face.
Teague’s body hurt, now that he was still. His body hurt, and his breath labored in his chest, and his nerve endings were bitching at him like wolf claws on a chalkboard a thousand miles long. The prolonged pain was starting to make him shiver.
But still he knew how to keep his pain to himself, so he didn’t have to do what he did next. It should have hurt his pride like a mortal wound, because his whole life, of all the things he’d ever refused to ask for, refused to reach for, mercy was at the top of his list.
But Jack was in danger, and he wanted his mates, and his queen should be resting and nurturing what he and Jack could smell growing inside her, and damn it, what good was being a knight, serving his queen, loving his mates, if pride got in the goddamned way?
He whimpered.
He whimpered, and Cory fell to her knees before him and reached up gently to stroke his head. He leaned into her touch, and she sighed and looked up.
“Right,” she murmured and stood up heavily, ignoring Bracken’s offered hand. He grabbed her hand anyway and locked it between his, and she sighed and glared at the shield in front of them. It grew impossibly bright, a tiny solar flare in a back alley of a seaside town, and the next phalanx of furry bodies that hurtled against it caught fire and conflagrated before the tortured wolves even knew they were dead.
“Please take the—” Before she could finish the sentence, the next wave crashed against the shield, immolated to ash, and died. And the next. And the next. Every time a body hit or a werewolf howled, singed but still rushing the wall of death, Cory whimpered and tightened her grip on Bracken’s hand until Teague heard him grunt. And the pretty wall of death flared brighter and cleaner until there were no more werewolves left at all.
They all sat there for a moment, staring into the vacant alleyway in horrified silence. Then the shield dropped abruptly, and Cory burst into tears.
Teague’s back end flopped uselessly behind him, and he sank to the ground, resting his chin on his paws with a whine of concern. He watched as Bracken swung her up like a parent with a six-year-old and held her to his chest as she came completely apart.
Katy was suddenly a wolf again, licking Teague’s nose and ears in comfort, in concern, but Jacky stayed human. By the time a giant black bird landed in the alleyway and turned into LaMark, Jack had hoisted himself to his feet.
“Jesus,” LaMark breathed quietly to Jack. “What the hell happened? We got a call saying you were surrounded. Where’d everybody go?”
Jack grimaced. “Man, this is not my story.”
Nicky leaned over and kissed the top of Cory’s head, then sighed.
“It’s not anybody’s. Is Mario nearby with the car?”
There was a rumble at the end of the alleyway, and Mario hopped out of what looked to be Arturo’s Cadillac. If nothing else, that broke the cycle of sobbing that had taken over Cory’s body.
“Jesus, Mario! That man must love you like a son.”
Mario grinned, the smile lovely in his Latin, lean-cheeked features. “Of course, chica! You ever doubt it?” The grin faded and Mario looked at the little group again, making eye contact with LaMark, who shrugged his shoulders.
Cory started to sob again, and everybody’s eyes met, and Bracken suddenly took charge. “Mario, please tell me you have some pants in there. A shirt. Something. Somebody is gonna arrest Jacky and Katy for indecent exposure or something.”
Jack bent down and, heedless of his junk just flapping in the breeze, put his arms underneath Teague to pick him up. Teague made a wolf grunt and picked up his own back end. What? He’d already asked for help once. He’d whimpered, for sweet chrissakes!
“Tough,” Jack said roughly in his ear, sinking to an ugly-naked crouch and apparently not giving a shit. “Tough, you dumb Irish motherfucker. You’re in pain, and I need to hold you, and you’re going to let me pick you up because—” Jacky’s voice about broke, and he had to breathe hard through his nose to finish. “—because if I have to watch you fall down one more time, it’s going to break something in me, and I’m going to be like our lady, okay? We are a team, and you are my beloved, and she is my queen, and only one of us in our little group gets to lose it at a time, and right now, she’s got dibs.”
Teague sighed as only a wolf or an old dog can, and Jack hoisted him and stood. Teague wondered briefly if changing into a man might not solidify all the hairline fractures that were making him ache so viciously. It was not as bad… not nearly as bad as it had been the first day, and it was certainly not a fraction of the pain he’d endured to turn wolf, but it was irritating and distracting, and he felt useless and infantile with his forepaws dangling from Jacky’s arms and Katy trotting along behind them. He must have shifted, made some sign, sighed, or tightened his body, because Jacky growled, “Don’t even think about it, you stubborn asshole. I’m not kidding. I’ll kick you out of my bed for a month.”
Teague lifted his head and stared, surprised, because Jacky loved being in Teague’s bed and they both knew it. But Jack’s soft, wide mouth was firm and his pretty blue eyes were burning bright with ange
r and pain for Teague, and Teague suddenly knew how Cory had felt for the last week. He managed an ingratiating wolfy smile before Jack altered his stride to avoid some glass and the jouncing hurt worse than he was expecting.
He stopped a whine before it came out and flopped limply in Jack’s arms. He felt like shit. He’d put himself in danger, and they were pissed. He wanted them to forgive him for that, because he needed them more than they could ever imagine, more than they could possibly ever need him, and Cory depended on him, so he needed his heart to be okay.
He raised his head to where Bracken was tucking himself into the back seat with Cory on his lap. Their little Goddess was down to deep breaths and little sniffles as she fought to control herself. Yeah. He knew exactly how she felt, he realized, and he forgave her a little too.
Nicky whispered something to Bracken, who nodded. With a leap and a flutter of feathers, he was a bird again, setting off toward Cinnamon’s in the sea-scented air. LaMark followed, so there was enough room in the Cadillac without Jack or Katy having to turn wolf.
Together they huddled in the car as Mario drove them back to Cinnamon’s tiny faerie hill on the cliffs of Pebble Beach.
Planning
GREEN’S VOICE over the phone was quiet as he planned and tried very hard not to panic or make assumptions.
“You’re sure it was our mark?” he asked for the seventh time. As horrible as that moment had been, that image was not going away.
“I was there that night,” I said softly. “So was Bracken. So, for that matter, were Nicky, Mario, and LaMark, if they’d gotten a chance to see it. I know what it looks like when our mark cuts through the skin of a traitor.”
We were both quiet for a moment. Our mark—the tattoo of oak leaves, lime tree leaves, and twining, thornless roses I’d had etched voluntarily into my flesh, and my friends had gotten in order to show their allegiance to me. Anybody who joined Green’s people had a mark like that blown through their skin. Bracken had one twining around his wrist. Katy’s was on her ankle. Teague’s was on the inside of his wrist and palm. Jack’s was… well… private, for lack of a better word.
But we’d seen this mark the first night it had been issued, the night Green and I and everybody who loved us had blown touch, blood, and song through everyone in our part of the country and given them a choice. Follow us or die.
A few people had chosen to die horribly, that mark carving through their skin and flesh and bone until it finally reached their hearts.
That mark, which had been designed to guarantee the loyalty of the people who followed us, had been used to punish the disloyalty of people who followed our enemies. The ways this could happen… well, they were few, and they were terrifying.
“Do you know anything else?” Green asked at last, his voice heavy. I shifted on the couch next to Bracken and burrowed closer against his chest. We were huddling in the sitting room at Cinnamon’s while Teague rested in the big hospital bed that overlooked the ocean. Jacky and Katy were stretched out next to him, naked and uncaring, because Teague had looked like shit when we finally got here to this little slice of fey in central California.
And we really didn’t know much, sadly. We didn’t know if that was all the wolves she had—but it had to be close!—and we didn’t even know if the guy who’d spoken to us was Cujo. Somehow I didn’t think so. I figured any guy flamboyant enough to take that name would probably have bragged about it a little, even if he wanted to die.
“One thing,” I said softly, looking at the werewolves shivering in their sleep. “I know all the wolves said they smelled like crazy elf bitch.”
Green made a sound particular to the moments when he was pinching the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb. “Of course,” he said. “There’s really only one way to pass that particular magic along, luv. We knew that.”
“She had to feed them her blood,” I said out loud, for all of us. Touch, blood, and song. She might have slept with every werewolf there, that was true, but to keep up the power of the borrowed mark? It had to be done often, and it had to be done thoroughly, and it had to be done well. A combination, I thought now, sickly. It was probably a combination of sexual fluids, forced sharing among the pack, and a gift of sweet sidhe blood for those who pleased her.
There was a horrible, weighted silence in the fog-bright twilight of Cinnamon’s sitting room.
“Do you think this was what drove the werewolves this last winter?” I asked, thinking out loud. I almost jumped out of my skin when Teague answered, shifting painfully on the bed and trying hard not to disturb his sleeping lovers.
“I’m thinking,” he mumbled. “I’m thinking it had to be something. We never did get any explanations, you know? Why they were acting like that, why they’d come and take over. But the smell wasn’t there—maybe she hadn’t kicked up the magic yet to get them to do her thing.”
“I’m sorry, weren’t you supposed to be healing?” I asked him, letting my irritated bitch slip, and underneath my head I heard Bracken grunt with something like humor. Cinnamon had bitched Teague out but good for leaving the house AMA, and I was pretty pissed myself. All of this—what? He didn’t trust us to have their backs?
“Now, beloved…,” Green prompted gently on the phone—reminding me how much he could hear, actually!—and I sighed. Teague was looking at me with that angel’s mouth all twisted, as though he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“I think you’re right,” I said by way of apology. He untwisted his mouth, and I rolled my eyes. “I think you’re right—and you know what?” I brightened at this thought.
“Thrill me,” said Teague.
At the same time, Green said, “By all means, tell us what?”
Bracken didn’t say anything. He just sat there like a big giant breathing rock and soaked it all in. All the better to talk about later, I guess.
“I think there are not that many werewolves she can throw away at a time,” I said. They both blinked as though they hadn’t thought of that before. “That’s why the first guy we killed last winter—the psycho. She was trying to recruit. We took out her first crew in November, and it’s taken her this long to build another crew. I’ll leave the vampires to look around, but I’m betting she’s long gone, just like she blew out of LA when we took her guys out before. I mean, whatever this was—and I’m thinking it’s just a matter of means and opportunity, you know? She smelled some of Green’s people, and she thought she could take them out—she blew all her guys on it. She’s not going to go after us until she’s got another crew, and we’ve got at least a week or two to figure out what’s going on.” It didn’t sound like much—not really—but given we’d been in Redding a week ago, it could have been worse.
“That is happy news,” Teague mumbled. I smiled at him from the couch, and I might have moved to talk to him face-to-face, but Bracken’s arm tightened around my chest, and I figured maybe not.
“It definitely means you can rest and heal up, wolfman,” I told him softly. He barely nodded before his eyes closed again and he went back to where he should have been. Fast asleep.
“That goes for you too, beloved,” Green said softly. Bracken grunted above me, and I remembered how tired I was. I’d fallen asleep on the helicopter ride over. In a thousand years, I would not have even fathomed that was possible. I’d never been in a helicopter in my life, and there I was, looking out the window and thinking, “Ooohh… pretty!” and suddenly we were over Monterey.
It had been Nicky who had spotted Jack and Katy, and… well… it hadn’t looked good. I’d gone from drooling on Brack’s shoulder to saying, “Hey! Let’s jump out of a helicopter together!” in about two seconds. I guess the major guilt meltdown was something that came with the mood swing, right? I hoped so. I was known for long-standing, angsty, self-directed guilt/blame fests. The violent moments of remorse were sort of a new development.
But suddenly Green’s voice in my ear, Bracken’s arms around me, and that whole adrenaline-bleed/tantrum
afterglow was working on me, and I was abruptly so tired I couldn’t think. I felt Bracken gently take the phone from me as I mumbled, “’Bye, beloved,” and then I was asleep in his arms. I didn’t even feel him move me, but when I woke up the next morning—starving!—we were in a guest bedroom down the hall, with Bracken on one side of me and Nicky on the other.
We stayed for two days. One to rest up and kill the whole idea with discussion and see if the birdmen or vampires could sniff out any more crazy elf bitch, and the other to go sightseeing, because I’d been right. Crazy elf bitch was apparently nowhere to be seen, heard, or smelled.
Jacky and Katy took us around the town. Teague could hobble around by then, so we walked along Cannery Row and bought a zillion tons of fudge and ate clam chowder out of a sourdough bowl and sat on the beach for a long, long, peaceful time while I leaned into Bracken’s arms, watched Nicky and the other birds fly above us, and reflected that Bracken hadn’t been angry at me for nearly three days.
I cried on him a lot in those two days. Something about the awfulness of letting those bodies hurl themselves into death….
I wasn’t sure I would ever get over it. That sort of violent mind-fuck leaves a terrible, sick wound.
But Teague and his lovers were at peace. That was the only way I could describe it.
From the moment Teague and Jacky had arrived on our doorstep this last fall, there had always been conflict, pain, and a terrible make-fit between what Teague’s lovers wanted for him and what Teague was willing to reach for himself.
Jacky had hated me for it. Teague had wanted so badly to serve, and Jacky had resented the hell out of my place in Teague’s life, and Teague had been so torn. Serve me, serve Jacky—the conflict had brought us some truly painful moments.
But not now.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever know what impulse brought Jack to the front to guard me, shoulder to shoulder with his mate. I didn’t know how I had rated that sort of loyalty from a man who had always seemed so sure I deserved nothing from him at all—especially since I’d been the one to let Teague down in the most real of ways.