Forbidden Alchemy (Elemental Book 7)

by Rain Oxford

  Unless it was to save someone.

  I couldn’t see myself refusing to endure another’s death to save a life, even after I almost died from it. I drank the healing potion since Darwin didn’t need it anymore. I knew Rocky had returned to her post and Darwin was still okay.

  The potion was soporific, as the good ones usually were, but the healing effects always take time to kick in, so I wasn’t perfectly coherent.

  “What happened?” Ace asked.

  “I know who killed them, and it wasn’t Darwin.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t tell you.” I couldn’t tell them it was Victor, because it wasn’t Victor. Veronica had been in control; his eyes had been white. Victor didn’t even know he had been involved, and it would kill him if he did.

  I couldn’t articulate any of this, because my heartbeat was throbbing in my head and I had never been more dehydrated.

  “He needs to rest,” Henry said.

  “Tell me who killed Reese and Riley!” Ace demanded.

  Victor’s name almost slipped out before I stopped myself. I couldn’t tell her it was Veronica because that required an explanation. I could barely keep my eyes open. I swayed and focused all my energy on staying on my feet. Finally, Ace realized I was in bad shape and said something. The next thing I knew, Henry and I were shoved into the cell with Darwin. Henry caught me before I collapsed and eased me onto the floor. Rocky vanished, giving us space.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Darwin said. “You know your visions are getting too powerful and that you could be hurt. I almost died from seeing Victor’s death, and my brain is much stronger than yours. You’re an idiot!”

  “I’m gonna hit you with a bullet,” I said, half asleep.

  “You’re concussed. I’ll scold you in the morning. Go to sleep.” If he said anything else, I didn’t hear it.

  * * *

  Saturday, December 3

  I woke with a stiff neck, which was thanks to the stone floor I had slept on rather than the injury I received from the vision. Not surprisingly, Henry was asleep in his jaguar form next to me. I sat up slowly and rubbed my neck. “Better now?” Darwin asked.

  “Yeah. Have you gotten any sleep since they locked you up?”

  “I can’t feel my arms, but I’ll be good once I can shift. I got some sleep. I look forward to sleeping in my bed again. Is Amy worried about me?”

  I nodded. “She left the school to comfort your parents, but I suspect she’s just sharing their worry. I saw who killed Reese and Riley.”

  “Veronica,” Darwin said.

  “Yes, but she didn’t use her own body to do it. She used Victor.”

  Darwin made a face. “What a trashy slag. What are you going to tell them?”

  “I don’t know. The truth.”

  “That you’re fighting a woman who can possess people and she killed them using their own brother to set me up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have no proof. Alpha Ace is going to want proof.”

  Henry shifted so that he could join the conversation. “You do have proof that Darwin didn’t do it. Show her what you saw.”

  “She would turn on Victor, who is innocent.”

  “So is Darwin.”

  “I don’t want Victor or me getting blamed for Veronica’s scheme,” Darwin said.

  The door opened and two men stood in the doorway. “Come with us,” one of them said. Henry and I ignored him until the other man stepped forward with a key and released Darwin. We followed him out and down several hallways to a study with Ace and three of her pack members, including Victor.

  Darwin, Henry, and I were forced into the chairs. Darwin and Henry were tied, but I wasn’t. My friends couldn’t shift in this position, so they were effectively disarmed. Ace wasn’t worried about me because I wasn’t as fast as them and couldn’t bite them.

  “You saw who killed Reese and Riley?”

  “I know who killed them, yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Her name is Veronica. She’s paranormal, either fae or a witch.”

  “Veronica who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then how did you see her kill them?”

  “It’s complicated. She can possess people.”

  “That’s not a normal wizard power, by the way,” Darwin said. “She’s been on our asses for weeks. She attacked a school of paranormal kids, which is why we went to get help.”

  “She can also disguise herself as other people, and appear and disappear out of thin air,” Henry added. Quietly, he mused, “She’d make an exceptional thief.”

  “How do you know she can possess people?” Ace asked.

  “The person’s eyes turn white when she’s in control,” I said. I was reluctant to admit that because my own eyes turned white when I saw through Rocky’s eyes. I figured it was because Rocky’s eyes were white and there was no connection. However, I doubted other people would see it that way.

  But we needed Ace to believe us if we were going to keep the peace, and the best way to build trust was to be trustworthy.

  Ace nodded. “Okay. Let’s say I believe you. You saw someone attack Reese and Riley and their eyes were white.”

  “The attacker, yes. The attacker also wouldn’t have attacked them if he was himself.”

  “And I suppose the attacker was Darwin.”

  “No.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Veronica is the person responsible.”

  “Who killed them?”

  “I’ll show you, because you wouldn’t believe me otherwise.” She nodded and I closed my eyes. I unleashed my power and felt the minds of all the shifters around me. Their wolves bristled against my invasion, and I realized that there was something so much more primal about them than other wolves I knew. I ignored them and focused on the alpha.

  She had endured a long and hard life, but no one ever questioned her position because she was a woman. She was like a mother to them; she loved them all unconditionally. If they acted up, she put them in their place without compromising their relationship. She was also lonely when she saw her pack members in pairs with children of their own. Her life was so focused on taking care of everyone that she never had time to find a person to love.

  Not the time for this, I mentally scolded myself. I replayed the memory in her mind, distancing her from the emotions like she was watching a movie instead of being one of the characters like I had been. I showed her Henry walking away, their drive, and then stopping because they spotted Victor. An instant before victor tore into Reese’s throat, I felt Ace’s gasp of horror and my intuition stopped me. I withdrew my power.

  She was white as a sheet. Victor, completely innocent, grabbed her arm because he was afraid she would fall. “Are you hurt, Alpha? What did he do?”

  She wouldn’t look at him, just shook her head. “I’m fine.” Her voice shook slightly. She wasn’t fine, but she would never admit that. She knew what she had been about to see.

  “Who killed my brothers?” Victor asked. “Did you see?”

  Ace nodded, and I didn’t need to be in her head to know she was playing out scenarios in her mind, weighing consequences, questioning her own morality. She finally nodded. “I didn’t see her, but it wasn’t Mason.” She looked at me. “How close are you to destroying this monster?”

  “Every step we take, we seem to get further behind. She’s got schemes going down everywhere.”

  “Do you know why wolves are the strongest paranormals in the world?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know they were.”

  Darwin rolled his eyes.

  “It’s because we form the strongest packs. No lone bitch can defeat an entire pack, and she has challenged us. That was a monumental mistake on her part. We will make her suffer.”

  “We have to catch her first.”

  “Anything you need from us to capture her, y
ou will have it. We will take part in her punishment, though.”

  “I have no problem with that.”

  She motioned to Darwin and Henry, and her men untied them. “Does that mean you’re not going to attack my pack?” Darwin asked.

  “Me and mine won’t harm your pack or the Mason pack.”

  “His pack is the Mason pack,” I said, confused.

  “She means us, because we’re not wolves, but we’ve protected him as if we were,” Henry said.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times, you are my pack mates,” Darwin said.

  “In that case, I guess we’re going to need a truck.”

  “Your previous… truck… was unsalvageable,” Ace said.

  “It was a rental. We’ve probably ruined Henry’s credit.”

  “I’ll take care of that later,” Darwin volunteered. “Are we going back to the school?”

  “Unless we can find someone better to question than the kids. We should wake Benny and the girls now that we have more information and can safely use our magic. Dealing with vampire hunters is going to feel like a cake walk after this. I just hope that Jillian hasn’t given up on me and slaughtered them all yet.”

  “Jillian?” Darwin asked.

  “I guess I forgot to mention her when I told you about the hunters and the surveillance. We were so busy trying to save the school that it slipped my mind. Clara’s mother returned. I didn’t even know she had a mother.”

  “No, man, Clara’s mother died. She was killed by her family’s coven.”

  “That doesn’t make sense; I met her.”

  “Are you sure she wasn’t a…” He shot Henry a look and whispered, “G-H-O-S-T?”

  I rolled my eyes. “She was alive. Stephen, Clara, and Marcus talked to and about her.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, bro. Jillian, the wife of Stephen Yocum and mother of Clara, died when Clara was a toddler.”

  “In that case, I have a better plan. We know that Veronica must be stationed somewhere powerful. I think it’s time we find out who the woman posing as Clara’s mother really is.”

  Chapter 18

  Ace booked us a private flight that got us as close to the coven as possible. Before we took off, I called Maseré and told him that Darwin was safe. Darwin wanted to talk to them and reassure them, but he knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get off the phone.

  Henry’s jaguar didn’t like planes, but he naturally hid his discomfort. I had to keep myself and my magic calm at all costs, so I warned Darwin not to talk at all. He didn’t have a problem with that, because the moment we got into the air, he couldn’t open his mouth for fear of vomiting.

  I wondered why his family moved around so much when Darwin was a child if he was this badly affected by it. It was miserable to watch him tensed so tightly that I was afraid he would break if we hit turbulence. Henry asked him about it.

  “My dad made a treaty with the Shikta tribe because three wolf packs around us were in the process of merging and that would have made them the largest pack in all of North America. My dad had focused on making his small pack powerful by not letting any outsiders in. He realized he was going to be under threat if he didn’t do something, but he didn’t trust outsiders. Hell, he couldn’t trust his own pack members. He really had no love for his pack at all at the time.”

  “That’s a drastic change.”

  He nodded and then had to pause for a moment to keep his stomach contents down. However, it looked like talking was helping him. “Dad made a pact with Shikta because they were known for honoring their pacts and they were ruthless against their enemies. Mum got pregnant, but until I was born, the pact was void, so they wouldn’t lift a finger against anyone unless they hurt my mum.”

  “They wouldn’t even protect her?”

  He shook his head. “They would attack only after the fact. Unfortunately, some of Dad’s own pack members challenged him because they didn’t want a pact with fae. Some of them went after Mum behind his back. So, he left the pack to the only member he trusted and got us out of there. He didn’t know or care if the pack would still be there when he got back.”

  “That’s not surprising.”

  “I was born defenseless, so we moved around until he felt I was old enough to defend myself. He found out the other packs ended up fighting and not going through with their merges. Instead, he took them in and trained them, which was highly dangerous. Because he showed them trust, they trusted him. He is fair and kind, but he is merciless when someone tries to hurt his pack.”

  “So he learned to care about his pack once he let new shifters in?”

  Darwin shrugged. “I think his fatherly instincts kicked in after he had me and he used that to transform a handful of bad apples into the most powerful pack in the country.”

  I caught a warm expression on Henry’s face. He was thinking that he was a better man since getting his son back.

  When Darwin started looking sick again, I decided to keep him talking. “I think you mentioned your aunt once.”

  “My mum’s sister dropped in every so often to report to her tribe that the pact agreement was being met.”

  “What was the deal with protecting your pack from Ace’s?”

  He rolled his eyes. “I told you. Alpha Ace and her pack are not normal wolves. They would have destroyed my family. Now that they’re our allies, we shouldn’t have any problem defeating Veronica. I’m hoping to work in a deeper treaty between them and my dad’s pack.”

  “What’s so special about them?”

  “They’re dire wolves, Devon.”

  “I thought dire wolves were extinct.”

  “Life finds a way.”

  “But I saw them, and they weren’t that different from your pack.”

  He rolled his eyes. “To a wizard, maybe. Yes, they smell like regular wolves in their human forms, but any canis lupus could tell a canis dirus when he sees one in furry form. True dire wolves were only about twenty-five percent larger than modern wolves. However, the shapeshifter gene is all about adaptation. These guys are wolves the way Henry is a jaguar. They aren’t the only prehistoric shifters in the world, either. They had to hide what they were or die out. A couple hundred years ago, the paranormal world was brutal as fuck, and it only gets worse the further back you go.”

  * * *

  When we arrived at the private airport, Maseré, Anya, and Amelia were waiting for us. Maseré and Anya held back as Amelia ran to him the second he touched solid ground and hugged the stuffing out of him. His parents desperately wanted to do the same, but they knew better.

  “How did you know we were here?” I asked. I hadn’t told them where we would be because I hadn’t known where the plane would land. I wasn’t surprised, of course. Three guards stood to the side, probably because of Anya’s presence.

  “Alpha Ace called us,” Maseré said. “Thank you for saving him.”

  I nodded. “Are you going with us to Stephen’s coven?”

  “I wish. I am still dealing with Wilson’s pack.”

  “Is Sytro not accepting them?”

  “He is, but another Canadian pack is trying to stop them. If Monkey wants us to stay…”

  “No, Dad,” Darwin said. “Go take care of work. We’ll see you for winter break.”

  “Are you sure?” Anya asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Very well. I still have more arrangements to make for your wedding.”

  Darwin rolled his eyes. “Oh, Mum, I hope you’re not making a fuss.”

  Anya scowled at him. “I only get to plan a wedding for my son once. Do you really want to take this from me?”

  Darwin lowered his eyes and sulked. “Sorry.”

  “But I can help you,” Amy said, intertwining her fingers with Darwin’s.

  Darwin’s mood soured. “Actually, I want you to go back home.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “This enemy of ours is targeting people Dev cares about,” Darwin rushed to exp
lain. “She’s already infiltrated the school. I’m afraid she’ll go after you if we continue to piss her off. You’re safer away from the school and me.”

  Remington would have been fuming had I suggested she stay somewhere safe, and I probably would have needed medical attention afterwards. However, Amelia wasn’t like that. She thought of him first, and she knew he needed her to be safe. After a moment, she nodded. “Okay. Come and get me when she’s been defeated.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Darwin and Henry were both very protective, but the way they expressed it was very different. Henry was confident in his ability to protect everyone, especially his son, and wanted us as close as possible.

  Although Darwin’s wolf was as much an alpha as Maseré’s, his fae nature clashed with the wolf. Darwin was very confident in his own intelligence, but not in his ability to protect his loved ones. His two natures were constantly struggling for dominance that he was afraid that he would freeze up when it actually came to protecting someone.

  This was one of the few instances where I thought he was wrong. I had seen him prove time and time again that when push came to shove, the claws came out. His wolf and fae natures worked perfectly together when he was up against a threat.

  Nevertheless, he vehemently believed that Amelia was safer with his parents than with us at the school. After a long and dramatic goodbye, Maseré was finally able to peel Anya away from her son when she started insisting that he needed guards. She hated them as much as Darwin did. “I’m a wolf, Mum. I can handle myself.”

  “You’re fae. Vampires love fae blood.”

  “The vamps ain’t the enemy here; Veronica is.”

  “I was thinking we could use rubies in the kengalt,” Amy said to distract her future mother-in-law.

  The horror on Anya’s face almost made me laugh. “With your hair? Absolutely not! They will be blue sapphire!”

  “Shouldn’t the bride get---” Darwin started.

  “They will be blue sapphire!” The look she gave him made him shut up. Amelia and Darwin didn’t really care. Anya planned their wedding because she did care about tradition, so they were happy to let her take full control.