by Lori Drake
Chris stood over the body, staring down at it with an unreadable expression. Joey approached him cautiously.
“Chris?”
He turned his head and met her eyes. The anguish she saw there made her chest ache. She held out a hand, but he looked down at his bloody hands and shook his head, then stumbled away a few feet and threw up. Joey ran to him. She sank to her knees beside him and put a hand on his back, rubbing soothingly while he heaved again and again.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s over, baby. It’s finally over.”
He heaved a few more times, then drew a few big gulps of air and hung his head. His body trembled and shook under her hand, which began to tingle as familiar energy passed through it.
Joey lifted her hand. “Are you sure you—”
She got no further. Chris shifted forms in the blink of an eye and shook off the tatters of his clothing. He glanced over his shoulder at her, then ran off into the night.
Left behind, Joey sighed and got to her feet. When she turned, Jessica and Lucy were standing behind her.
“Is he going to be okay?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah,” Joey said, keeping her misgivings on the subject to herself. “Just give him a minute. How’d we do?”
Jessica dragged her eyes away from the direction Chris had gone and met Joey’s gaze. “Cathy and Naomi kept the worst of the spells away, but Colt got burned pretty bad. I think I, uh, killed the fire guy.” She lowered her eyes. “Sorry.”
The submissive act startled Joey, but she tried not to let it show. She’d instructed everyone to try and avoid killing, but at this point she found it hard to care. “Can’t say he didn’t have it coming. Round everyone up so we can get out of here. The lookouts, too.”
They nodded and headed off. Joey walked back to where she’d left her mother and Ben, giving Madrigal’s weeping widows a wide berth. One of them, the woman they’d encountered in the hallway upstairs, had turned the blade that had killed Madrigal on herself. She lay curled beside him with her head on his bloody chest, glassy eyes staring at nothing.
The rest of Joey’s pack had joined Ben by then, their furry forms crowded around where Adelaide lay. Cathy knelt, wreathed in golden light as she held Adelaide’s head in her hands. Shortly after Joey arrived, the magical light faded from around Cathy and she shook her head, sadness in her eyes. A mournful howl split the air, followed by another. Sam and Jon. Reginald shifted back to human form and gathered his wife’s body in his arms, weeping openly.
Twenty-six years of life, and Joey had never seen her father cry. She sank to her knees beside him, looped her arm around his back, and joined him.
25
Chris didn’t know where he was going when he ran off. Away. That was all he thought of as he sprinted into the darkness, but his demons nipped at his heels the whole time. His wolf form was a refuge from the tangled snarl of emotions that had choked him, but he couldn’t escape them entirely. Grief, like anger, was primal.
So he ran, the night air blowing through his fur, until he couldn’t smell the charred fur and flesh anymore. The blood he carried with him, but there was a small retaining pond on the east side of the compound. He splashed into it, washing the blood from his fur, and emerged wet and cold but smelling of nothing but himself. He shook as much water from his fur as he could, then flopped in the grass and lay there in the moonlight, watching the half-moon gradually sink in the sky.
When he heard footsteps approaching, he rolled onto his stomach and sniffed the air, catching a whiff of a familiar scent. Pack. He sighed and put his muzzle on his paws.
Itsuo crouched in front of him. “What are you doing, Christopher-san?”
Chris whined softly and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Itsuo had seated himself lotus style in front of him.
“Remember the story I told you the night we met, about your father?”
Chris huffed softly. Of course he remembered.
“I’d like to tell you another. A story about a man so broken by grief that he took the coward’s way out.”
Chris’s brows drew together and his ears flattened.
Itsuo held up a hand. “Hear me out, Christopher-san. When your father died, I was devastated. He’d been my friend, my anchor, my Alpha, for many years. I had great love for him, as if he were my own blood. When Eric sought his place, I could have stopped him, but I was lost. I retreated into the forest, leaving behind everything I had, everyone I loved, including my daughter. For two decades, I wandered, lost. But the grief, the sorrow, it never left me. It was there whenever I returned to my human self. Instead of letting it run its course, I ran from it and I lost everything. My Lillian, Jenny’s mother, she still has not forgiven me. I have not forgiven myself. But I do know that running away from it is not the answer. I cannot pretend to know what you are going through, Christopher-san. But I know that this”—he gestured at the big gray wolf in front of him—“is not the answer.”
Itsuo unfolded his legs and stood. “Also, your mate refuses to leave without you.”
Chris watched him walk away, then sighed, rose, and followed in his wake, tailing him like a furry shadow in the moonlight.
When they reached the front of the house, there was no lingering trace of the battle beyond scorched grass and the scent of blood. Both sides had claimed their dead and wounded and retreated. Joey paced back and forth in front of the open gate. Beyond her, several vehicles were parked. She halted when she saw them approach.
Itsuo laid a hand on her shoulder in passing.
“Thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes. He nodded and kept going, walking along the line of cars.
Chris transformed mid-step as he approached and came to a stop in front of her. The emotions were still there, just as Itsuo had predicted. Grief, shame, regret… they twisted and twined, roiling in his gut.
“She’s gone,” Joey said softly.
“I know.” He held her gaze, waiting for an accusation, censure, reproach… something.
Instead, she looked into his eyes with stunning vulnerability and asked, “Will you come home with me now?”
Chris pulled Joey against him, crushing her against his chest, and dipped his head to breathe in her familiar scent. “Yes,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “Yes, I will.”
26
Joey stepped into the bar and pushed her sunglasses up to perch atop her head, scanning the room. They were all there, as Justin had promised.
“Hey, Joey! We thought you’d left town,” Zach said.
“I did,” Joey said, wandering toward them. “But I had some unfinished business to tend to.”
Carter leaned aside and peered past her. “Is Dean with you?”
Lucian rolled his eyes, while Zoe shot Joey a glare that could’ve curdled milk. After recovering from his initial surprise to see her, Mike avoided meeting her eyes.
“No, he had some unfinished business of his own,” Joey said.
“I guess that’s kind of his thing, isn’t it?” Carter said. “Unfinished business.”
Joey chuckled, though there was little humor in it. “I guess so.” The few hours of sleep she’d managed to snag hadn’t done much to invigorate her, and the loss of her mother was a thinly scabbed wound. Nonetheless, she had to take care of this before they could take Adelaide home. She pulled an envelope from her back pocket and tossed it on the table in front of Zoe. It was thick with cash, and landed with a quiet thump. “For your car. It should be more than enough. If not, I’m good for it. My number’s inside.”
Zoe opened the envelope and glanced inside, then nodded at Joey. “Thanks.” At least some of her hostility had faded. Who said money couldn’t buy happiness?
Lucian stood and fetched another chair from a neighboring table. Zach scooted over to make room, but Joey held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I can’t stay long. I have a plane to catch. But there’s something I wanted to talk to you all about.”
She waited while Lucian went back to
his chair.
“What is it?” Carter asked.
Joey stood behind the empty chair, fingers resting on its back. “Three days ago, I came to Silver Springs for help. My mother and boyfriend were kidnapped by that cult out at Eastgate.”
The wolves around the table exchanged glances. A low murmur rose, as they conferred over whether any of them had known about it. Mike started to rise, but Justin put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down.
“Go on, Joey,” Justin said, and everyone quieted down. “We’re listening.”
Joey nodded and continued, “Mike agreed to help me, and arranged a meeting with representatives of the cult. He wanted to keep it on the down-low. I thought it was to protect you, but it turns out it was to protect himself. He double-crossed me at the meeting. The cultists kidnapped Dean and they all left me for dead. If not for Justin, I very well might have died.”
Mike glanced sharply at his second. Apparently that tidbit hadn’t come up.
Joey smirked. It was nice to have the upper hand now and then. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know—”
“This is ridiculous,” Mike said, thumping a hand on the table. “How dare you walk in here and talk shit about me in front of my pack.”
Joey’s fingers tightened on the chair back as she caught Mike’s eyes and held them. “I paid you six thousand dollars, and you restrained me while your ex-wife stuck a silver blade in my gut,” she said, voice tight. “I came here in my darkest hour, begging for help. How. Dare. You.”
“Is it true?” Zoe asked, forehead crinkled in a frown as she studied her Alpha.
Mike’s jaw clenched and released a few times before he blew out a sigh and raked his fingers through his silver hair. “My hand was forced. I wanted to help, but they have Gabe. I thought if I did this one thing, I could take the money and get a lawyer. There’s a guy in Reno—”
“Holy shit, Mike!” Carter shot to her feet, anger flashing in her eyes.
Mike gave her a level look. “Maybe someday, when you have a family of your own, you’ll understand.”
“Bullshit,” Carter said, then turned to face Joey. “Do you need help getting Dean back?”
Joey couldn’t help but smile—briefly, anyway. She liked the girl’s sass. “Thank you, but no. It’s handled.” Not daring to incriminate herself further in the death of the cult leader, Joey turned her attention to Mike. She didn’t know how magically mind-fucked Tina and Gabe had been, but she’d seen a wounded Tina being helped off the battlefield. “If you want to go claim your boy, and maybe your wife, now would be the time.”
Mike nodded. Some of the tension eased from his features, but Joey doubted it would be for long. She wasn’t finished yet.
Joey took a moment to meet the eyes of every wolf present. “Mostly, I came here today because I thought you should all know what kind of man your Alpha is. Or isn’t. Whether you continue to follow him is your call, but if you decide you want to move on, there’s a place for you in Seattle.”
The Silver Springs wolves exchanged glances again, but all eyes shifted to Mike as the red-faced Alpha pushed back his chair and stood. He looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel, radiating menace that set his subordinates to leaning away from him.
“There’s no way your mother signed off on this. You may think you’re hot shit, but you’re writing checks you can’t cash.”
Joey’s chest tightened as Mike’s words ripped the scab off the wound. Grief welled like blood from its ragged edges, but she managed to keep her emotions in check. Her mother hadn’t been perfect, but she’d been a damn fine Alpha. If there was one thing Joey had learned from Adelaide, it was how to deal with challenges to her authority. Joey leaned over, placing her fingertips on the table as she held his gaze.
“Adelaide Grant is dead.” She paused, letting the words sink in. “As Alpha of the Grant pack, I can make whatever offers I choose.”
Her piece said, Joey walked away, plucking her sunglasses from atop her head as she went.
“The queen is dead,” someone murmured on the edge of her hearing, “long live the queen.”
Chris drummed his fingers on the wheel in time with the music blasting from the stereo speakers. After driving for a solid half-hour in silence, Dean had paired his phone with the rental car’s stereo, and since then they’d discovered a mutual fondness for rock and roll. A muffled thud from the trunk interrupted the guitar solo, and Chris nudged the volume higher until he couldn’t hear it anymore.
Dean turned it down a few minutes later. “Here. Pull over here.”
Chris squinted across the desert plain to the south. “How far did you say it was?”
“Half a mile or so.”
“Faster to drive.”
“There’s no road.” Dean’s voice held an unmistakable note of anxiety.
Chris reached over and yanked the medium’s seatbelt a little tighter. “Relax.” He turned the car off the road and drove south into the desert. The rented sedan bounced along; the terrain might be mostly flat, but the car wasn’t exactly suited for off-roading.
Dean gripped the “oh shit” bar and stared ahead. “Is Sam gonna be pissed when he doesn’t get his deposit back?”
Chris chuckled and rolled down his window, letting the warm, dry air blow into the car. “Sam always ponies up for the insurance. You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah, I just don’t have a very good track record with cars.”
“I’m a licensed stunt driver. Does that help?”
Dean shot him a skeptical look. “You are not.”
Chris grinned, forgetting their ghoulish errand for now. “Okay, you’re right. But I did take a class in stunt driving once. It was a birthday gift. Want me to show you a few things?”
Dean’s face couldn’t possibly have gotten paler. “Oh, dear god, no.”
The thumping from the trunk picked back up, louder now. “Killjoy,” Chris called over his shoulder, and cranked up the music again.
They stopped long enough to dig up Roger’s can, then pressed deeper into the desert. If they were going to do this in broad daylight, it needed to be in the middle of nowhere, with no one around but snakes and sky.
Chris stopped the car when they reached the foothills of a small mountain range. There was at least a little bit of cover, and they hadn’t seen anyone or anything for miles. He climbed out, walked to the back of the car, and popped the trunk. Eric glared up at him, eyes glittering with hatred. They’d bound and gagged him before the tranquilizers wore off, so he wasn’t a danger to anyone. Not even himself. He hadn’t managed to dent the trunk lid, which was great. Insurance or no, that kind of damage would be hard to explain to the rental company.
“Ready to go for a walk?” Chris pressed the button on the switchblade’s handle, and the blade popped out with a quiet snick. “Now, before you go getting any ideas, I should warn you this knife is silver-plated. Wiggle while I’m cutting, and you could get a nasty slice.”
Eric glared at him, but stilled while Chris cut the thick mess of ropes binding his feet. Once the knife was safely put away, Chris hauled Eric out of the trunk and gave him a shove. Eric stumbled but managed to keep his balance, then whirled to face Chris and resumed glaring at him. The gag in his mouth wouldn’t let him do much more.
“I’m going to go for a walk,” Dean said. “I don’t need to see this.”
“Wait, what about Roger?”
“He’s here. Just tell him when you’re ready.” Dean walked off in the direction they’d come, following the tire tracks in the sand. He called over his shoulder, “And don’t dawdle. I don’t think he’ll wait much longer.”
“Don’t worry, Rog. I’m just as eager to get this over with as you are,” Chris said to the air, then focused on Eric again. Hooking his thumbs in his belt loops, he forced himself to look long and hard at the man he was about to sentence to death. The man who, by his own admission, had murdered Chris’s birth parents. The man who had tricked his pack into hunting down and ki
lling an innocent man to cover up his own crimes. The man who’d kidnapped first Chris’s mother and then him, who’d tried to kill the woman he loved, and whose actions had led to the death of his mother—not to mention Chris’s own narrowly averted enslavement. Still, Chris sensed these things were only the tip of the iceberg when it came to Eric’s crimes. They were just the things that Chris knew for certain. How many atrocities lay at this man’s feet, and how many would be prevented by his demise?
Chris cast aside the altruistic thought as soon as it occurred to him. What was about to happen wasn’t for the greater good. It was far, far more personal than that. Stepping forward, he tugged the gag from Eric’s mouth and dropped it, letting it hang around his neck.
Eric surged forward, putting his face in Chris’s and making aggressive eye contact. “Why don’t you finish untying me, and we can settle this man to man.”
“We tried that once,” Chris said, standing his ground. “It didn’t take.”
Eric smirked. “So, you think you’re the better man?”
Chris’s hand was on Eric’s neck in a flash, fingers tightening as he struggled to keep his wolf on the leash. “The better man is sitting in a motel room in Silver Springs, mourning the loss of his wife. You and me… we’re just killers.”
“You don’t have the balls,” Eric spat, growling softly. He leaned into Chris’s hand, all but daring him to tighten his fingers further.
Smirking, Chris shook his head. “Oh, I’m not going to do it. Roger is. He’s more than earned that right, and frankly, it frightens me just how much I want to do it. Killing isn’t something I ever want to enjoy. It’s enough to me that my face is the last thing you’ll see.”