by Callie Rose
Their bodies are at war. The shifter side and the shadow side.
Goddamn.
On the heels of my horror comes the pity.
What a shitty way to live.
I stand, smoothing my sweaty palms over my jeans. “I’m… I need to use the bathroom.”
“Down the hall and left,” Frost offers, then chooses another shelf and gets back to work.
I ignore his directions and go downstairs, needing space from him. From all of them.
Someone wedged the front door back into place, though there’s a giant split in the middle from where Kian damn near tore it in half. I stop in the darkness beyond the foyer and wrap my arms around my middle, breathing through the turmoil inside me. A few feet away, Kian and Malix talk in the living room, discussing things they find as they work. Malix says something, and Kian laughs, and the sound is so real. So rich, like the burst of caramel inside a molten chocolate candy.
I don’t want to feel sorry for these men.
I don’t want to feel anything for them.
I fought tooth and nail to overcome what Kian did to me all those years ago. It took every bit of willpower I had to compartmentalize my emotions, the mate bond, the affection I felt for him in just that one night. When I shoved it all away, I was left with emptiness. More emptiness than I’d ever felt before. And I clung to that void inside me because it fueled my rage and kept all those warm fuzzies away.
Until I got dragged into this mess. Their world.
Malix’s humor. Frost’s honesty. Kian’s loyalty to his brothers.
I can’t see them as people. I can’t see their goodness because it erases the void. As long as I only see them as monsters, I can survive this and do the job I came here to do.
Suddenly, from inside the bright living room, Malix crows.
I rush around the corner, thinking he’s found exactly what we need. Maybe Erik lied to us, and he had a whole jar of Tree of Life sap waiting in his cupboards.
But no.
Malix stands near the cabinets filled with Erik’s supplies, a big grin on his face and a bottle held aloft.
Not the ingredient we need.
Whiskey.
I roll my eyes.
These assholes will be the death of me.
Chapter 17
An hour later, we’re no closer to answers regarding the Tree of Life, but we’re about halfway through the bottle of whiskey. We’re sprawled out on Erik’s couches, exhausted and frustrated at not having found any hints about where to find the damned Tree of Life.
The whiskey helps though, I gotta say. So do the bags of chips and pretzels Malix rustled up from somewhere in the kitchen.
“Weirdo had decent taste in liquor,” he observes, rotating the bottle so Kian can see the label.
I lean over to catch a glimpse, since the bottle isn’t one I’m familiar with. “Tullamore Dew?”
Malix nods and tosses back a chug straight from the glass rim. He smacks his lips, then lets out a satisfied noise. “Damn. That’s the good kind of burn.”
Frost—who’s taken the cushion beside me on the couch—holds his hand out for the bottle. “Tullamore Dew is a top-shelf Irish whiskey. First introduced in eighteen twenty-nine. Forty percent alcohol.”
Kian intercepts the bottle before it reaches Frost, then throws back a shot.
“Thank you, Rainman,” Malix says, swiping the bottle back from Kian. He hands it off to the original intended recipient as he adds, “A hundred fifty a pop for this guy.”
“I doubt the little asshole paid for that,” Kian says. He’s brooding. More so than usual.
Frost toasts him with the bottle. “Maybe instead, he received the bottle as payment.”
“Oh, like I was payment,” I say wryly, reaching into the chip bag on the coffee table. Frost hands the bottle back to Malix with an agreeable tilt of his head. The action brushes his soft, silken white-blond hair over his shoulders, and my fingers twitch to run through the locks.
Stop. No.
Malix grins, brandishing the bottle in my direction. “Come on, kitty cat. Take another shot. Grow some balls.”
I swipe the bottle from his fingers with a snarl. “I’ve got bigger balls than you, puppy dog.”
Kian and Frost laugh, and Malix sucks in a breath in over-exaggerated mock surprise, falling backward against the couch cushions as he claps a hand to his chest.
I take a tentative sip, and the liquor burns so good. It’s smooth. A little spicy, a little lemony, a little buttery, with that sweet smoky undertone that makes me think of Kian. I haven’t touched whiskey since I met him—it’s funny that I’m popping my Never Again cherry sitting on a couch across from him.
Funny, or absolutely devastating.
Malix leans back against the cushions and tosses his arm around the headrest behind Kian. “Guess we aren’t going back to the hotel.”
I laugh. “Not unless we want to pay for damages.”
Kian takes the bottle from Frost and motions toward the door. “We drew a lot of attention out there. Our best bet is to lie low tonight, then head out at first light.”
I hold out my hand for the bottle. “We don’t even know where we’re going.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Kian says, a low growl in his voice. He pointedly hands the bottle to Malix, even as my hand keeps hanging in the air over the coffee table.
Gritting my teeth before I leap across the table and throttle him, I shove my hand in the pretzel bag and grab a few.
“There’s another witch just across the border,” Frost says. “We could be there by early afternoon tomorrow.”
“No,” Kian barks. “No more witches. And definitely no border crossing. We don’t need the government knowing our location because we went through border patrol.”
I take the bottle from Frost for my third drink, raising my eyebrow at Kian. “In trouble with the FBI or something?” I accuse, then toss back a long, long slug of liquor.
As I gasp and pass off the bottle yet again, Kian glares at me. “No. Invisible to the government, and I’d prefer to remain so.”
A steady, delightful burn has settled into my chest. I pop another pretzel in my mouth, the hard, salty bite crunching between my teeth as Malix suggests we ask around town about the Tree of Life. Kian shoots that down too, but I’m not really listening.
This feeling—this heat fanning out from my diaphragm and into my limbs, making my face hot and my toes tingle—it reminds me of the night I met Kian. I’m a casual drinker, with the metabolism of a wolf shifter, so alcohol doesn’t affect me as much as the average human. Not usually. But that night, I had a few, and I got drunk on gin and Kian. It was such a pleasant burn. The kind of feeling that makes a girl feel invincible. A little bit tipsy, a little bit daring.
A little bit about to ruin your life.
Frost tries to hand the bottle back to me, but I wave him away. The last time I got drunk, I gave myself heart and soul to the one man I never should have. Maybe it’s the poison racing through my veins as we speak, but the alcohol is hitting me way too hard.
I can’t relax. I can’t let go.
Bad things happen when I let go.
Frost’s murmuring something about possible magical trees in the desert when I cut him off and say, “Have you ever fought shadows before? Like the ones we fought at the hotel?”
All three men share a glance, communicating without words in that strange way they often seem to use.
Kian snatches the bottle away from Malix. Before he presses the rim to his lips, he says, “No. The shadows are new.”
Malix shrugs. “Felicity must’ve learned to control them to use against us. She can’t keep that shit up though. She isn’t strong enough.”
I sigh. “Again, could anyone tell me who Felicity is?”
Kian gives me a narrow-eyed look, and I think he isn’t going to respond. Until he does. “Felicity is our alpha’s mate.”
Shock tingles up my spine. My alpha’s mate is Sable, and
I just can’t… she’d never hurt her own people. I grab the bottle from Frost and take another sip. Smaller, this time, just to calm my nerves.
“What the hell?” I say out loud, keeping my thoughts to myself. “Why would your alpha’s mate send shadows to attack you?”
Malix leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. The easy smile he often wears fades away, and there’s a hard note in his voice when he speaks. “Felicity doesn’t think we should exist.”
It’s pretty clear from the stormy expressions on all their faces that there’s a history there with Felicity, and a lot of bad blood.
It’s not like I care. Because I don’t. Felicity’s right—they shouldn’t exist. They’re the three horsemen of the apocalypse, and I’m here drinking this ridiculously expensive whiskey with them because my goal is to rid the world of them.
But still… despite myself, I can’t stop being curious about them. My life was sheltered before I left Montana, and even in the ensuing years after, it’s been nothing more than boring and monotonous. They’ve got powers I’ve never seen before, and secrets I want to pry open with a crowbar.
It’s recon, I tell myself. Soon enough, the antidote will be complete, Frost and I will drink it, and then I’ll use whatever intel I manage to get now against them.
Easy peasy.
“Why doesn’t Felicity think you should exist?” I ask.
Kian shakes his head. “None of your business.”
“Fine. Whatever,” I snap, falling back against the cushion. Trust this fucking asshole to put a damper on my subtle attempts at interrogation.
Malix grabs a handful of chips, then looks at me. “What about you, kitty? You’re from Montana. What brought you all the way to New Mexico?”
“You,” I tell him with a wolfish, vicious grin.
Malix raises an eyebrow. “Me? Or us?”
“I’ve been tracking all of you for the better part of two and a half years, give or take.”
Frost straightens, his pale brows rising toward his hairline, while Malix and Kian exchange unreadable glances. Not surprise, not really—but definitely a reaction of some kind.
Fuck. I’ve been chasing after them for so long, I sometimes forget that it’s kind of weird for me to have devoted my whole life to this.
When Malix offers me the bottle again… I accept it.
My emotions are too raw, and I’m feeling too damn unsettled. I need to take the edge off. Maybe drinking whiskey isn’t the best way to do that, but I can’t really see a better option at the moment.
We talk some more as we keep drinking. Nothing too personal. Kian clings to his secrets like a spider to his web, and I don’t press. No use pissing him off and ruining any future chance of finding out what he’s hiding. But we discuss places we’ve seen, figuring out how close I came to finding them multiple times over the years—which makes me feel good. I thought I was the world’s worst tracker. Turns out, they were just always one step ahead of me.
When the Tullamore Dew is gone, Kian shatters the bottle on the ground, and Malix finds another bottle stashed in the cabinets. A lesser whiskey that tastes more like rubbing alcohol and cigarette ash. We talk about music and a mutual love of Written by Wolves, which Malix insists isn’t ironic. Then we shift topic to movies, and I’m not really surprised to learn Frost loves documentaries and Malix likes action flicks. Kian’s too busy brooding to bother giving his two cents.
By the end of the second bottle, I’m drunk. Not just tipsy. Not just woozy.
Drunk.
Maybe more so than I’ve ever been before.
“I think…” I say, rolling over the thick syllables on my numb tongue, “it’s time for bad. Bed. Not bad. Ha! Bad. What does that even man? Mean. Fuck.”
I look over at Frost for help, and the sudden movement of my head sends me in a slow freefall. He catches me before I end up in his lap, and across the coffee table, Malix bursts into half-drunk laughter.
“You can’t hold your alcohol, kitten,” he says. I’m thankful his words slur a little too. It makes me feel less like a lush.
Kian’s gold-ringed gaze looks like a supernova. The sun exploding, revealing the black hole beneath. He stares at me, cold, silent, observant. “Yes, I think we should all get some rest. We have work to do tomorrow.”
Malix chuckles. “Right. Tracking down a magic tree.”
I snort and toss a potato chip at him. “You make it sound so mundane.”
He catches the missile mid-air and throws it back at me. A short chip battle ensues before Kian snatches the bag off the table and out of our reach. He looms over us as we stare up at him like scolded children.
“Upstairs,” he bites out. “Now.”
Frost helps me to my feet, and I let him, even though my inner voice is screaming at me. What the hell, Amora?
The four of us make our way to the stairs. Now that I’m on my feet and my blood is pumping, I’m a little lightheaded but maybe not as drunk as I thought. More tired, I think. It’s been a long day of fighting, running, and driving. This bitch needs some sleep.
Halfway up the dark narrow stairway, Malix says, “Are we going to share a mattress tonight?”
I shoot him a look. “Uh. No? No. Absolutely not.”
But it’s too late for me to protest. The moment he spoke, I got a visual—me, naked, surrounded by the three of them beneath the sheets. Their breath on my skin, their limbs resting over me. Sleeping beside them, which is the most dangerous and deadly form of vulnerability a person can have.
Desire snakes through me, leaving a path of warmth straight through my core. My body temperature spikes, and my breath hitches in my throat.
All three men stop walking and turn to me.
I’m surrounded. Kian behind me. Malix and Frost ahead of me, one step ahead, two steps ahead, I couldn’t tell in the dark. But too close. Way too close. Their scents deepen—sunshine and whiskey, woodsmoke and spice, and it’s too much. Way too much.
I’ve managed to ignore this most of the day. This sexual tension that’s always there at a low level, always within reach.
Now it’s a boiling, raging storm threatening to crash over us.
I don’t know what they want from me. How they feel about this storm of need. They obviously don’t want me as a mate, but they’re just as attracted to me as I am to them. I can feel it.
I can’t deny the heat between us.
It’s suffocating.
I back up against the stairway railing, which is as far as I can go to get away from them. Not far, unfortunately, and the combination of their scents is still stifling me.
“This place is huge,” I mutter, looking out over the dark foyer so that I don’t have to look at them. “There are plenty of places we can sleep without having to share.”
Malix grins when I turn back to face them, just a slash of white in the gloom. “We always share.”
Oh Jesus.
The double entendre has been noted.
“Well I don’t,” I say with a shrug, struggling to keep my voice even. “I like my space.”
Malix opens his mouth to speak again, but Frost hits him in the arm.
Part of me is dying to know what he was going to say.
Instead, they split off and head down the inky hallway, while I disappear into the first bedroom I find.
I close the door and lean against it, sucking in deep lungfuls of air, hoping that each one is the inhale that will let me stop breathing them in. All three of their distinctive scents still linger in the air, as if they’re embedded in my clothes or clinging to my skin.
Dim illumination comes through a window across from the door. It’s a modestly sized room with a four post bed, a matching set of armoire and dresser drawers, and a small fireplace tucked beneath a carved marble mantle. More fitting for a rich man’s country house than a shack in the desert.
I wander over to the bed and brush my fingers over the maroon and gold coverlet. Dust rises in wisps, and I cough, waving a hand at th
e clouds. Why did Erik need a house this big? This room obviously hasn’t been touched in years.
I cross to the dresser, where an old-fashioned mirror hangs from a carved frame. It’s old, covered in dust and speckled by rust between the layers. I swipe a hand across it and stare at myself in shock.
I look… rough. And not because I just drank the equivalent of a gallon of liquor. Maybe it’s not even really something physical, because my skin looks fine. My hair is just as thick and long as usual, and my green eyes are clear, albeit a little bloodshot.
It’s more something I can’t see with my eyes. I see it with my soul.
The poison. Eating me from the inside out.
Between the lingering arousal in my body from the stairwell conversation and seeing this—the effects of the poison on me, the poison that’s going to kill me—I need some air.
Downstairs, I bypass the broken door, since there’s no way in hell I want to deal with trying to finagle it back into place. The living room window is still open from our impromptu drinking party, so I slip over the window sill and drop to the dirt.
Most of the land around Erik’s shack is wide open desert, dotted by sparse shrubs and rocky outcroppings. I don’t want to go too far into the wilderness, but about a mile away, I can see a dense, green copse of trees near a natural rock formation that rises from the ground like a small mountain.
The cold air feels good on my skin. I turn my face to the sky and close my eyes as I angle toward the trees. The heat in me fades, and the sick feeling in my stomach over the poison gradually diminishes.
Trees thicken as I close in on the rock formation, and I trail my fingers over smooth, white bark. Not evergreens like in the woods back in Oscura. Something more scrubby, more desert-like. Too bad one of these can’t be the Tree of Life.
I circle around the edge of the outcropping as I gaze up at it against the night sky. The craggy rocks look like jagged teeth biting the stars, darker than the sky itself. I’m still staring up at the rocks when I realize I’m not alone.