She reached up and cupped his cheek while looking into his eyes.
He’d have been tempted to say that was just soft, sweet, Mari. There was something new in her eyes. A kind of knowing that wasn’t softness or sweetness. She saw him.
She really saw him.
And she still wanted to touch his face like that. Still wanted to be his mate.
He didn’t understand it.
Warner could hear Westwood in the back of his head telling him not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but if the Trojans had bothered to look inside their gift horse…
Was that what Mari was? A Trojan horse that once he let her inside, she’d break down all the walls?
She splayed her hand on his chest and leaned her head on his shoulder.
He knew she wasn’t made of spun glass, but she still seemed so delicate here in his arms. He hadn’t broken her last night, he reminded himself. And not for lack of trying. They’d tried to break each other.
He couldn’t remember too many details from the night before. He remembered the pleasure. Goddess, the pleasure.
He remembered when he Changed with her, there hadn’t been as much pain. It had been more natural. More streamlined.
Or maybe his body was becoming accustomed to this new form?
Except, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like there was something different about her Change, too.
She hadn’t become the pretty white wolf he knew her to be. It had been her warrior form, but…
“You usually remember what you do as a wolf, don’t you, Warner? What about in the beginning,” she went on. “Your early Changes. Did you always remember?”
“I suppose since we’re mated, it’s not unusual for you to read my mind. I was just trying to remember last night.”
Lenore emerged from the trees into their camp.
“That’s just rude, Warner. You spend the night with a lady, you damn well better remember,” Lenore teased. “Kick his ass, Mari.”
“I can’t really remember much of it myself.”
“Oh. Should I fuck off for a few hours?” Lenore grinned. “I could go catch some big boy bass for breakfast. Learned to how to do it with my hands when I was a kid. Keep the reflexes fast.”
Part of Warner, mainly his cock, thought that was the best idea he’d ever heard, but he knew they needed to get down to business.
Not that business.
Mari laughed. “No, it’s all good. Although, if you had an extra pair of jeans I could…”
“I don’t do jeans. I do have a pair of leathers, though.” She grabbed her pack from the ground and tugged out a pair of leather tactical pants.
Oh Goddess. No. No way could he handle Mari’s ass in those pants. Nope. Nope. Nope.
And worse, wrapped in leather, she’d smell like food.
Or at least, she would have. Before.
“Thanks.” She disengaged from his lap and took them gratefully.
“I’ll make some coffee if you two want to take a quick dip in the river. You should both be present for what I have to say.”
That didn’t bode well. Not at all.
About an hour later, they convened around a small, contained fire. Lenore had a magically enchanted, foldable fire pit she carried in her pack. Westwood made is especially for her. It was guaranteed to be forest-safe. Never a stray spark would escape it, and with a single word, it would extinguish itself and fold up into a small square. Leaving no trace. Warner thought it was pretty brilliant and he thought it spoke to the kind of person he knew Lenore to be. She cared about what she left behind, how she impacted the world around her.
It occurred to him then that if Lenore believed in him, if Westwood believed in him, if Mari believed in him, then maybe he could believe in himself, too. Maybe it was time to learn a new way.
He guessed maybe you could teach an old dog new tricks.
Although, that shit wasn’t easy. They needed lots of help.
And treats.
All the treats. He was thinking of Mari’s breasts. The way her nipples puckered in the cool night air, the texture of them on his tongue…
He had no problem remembering that.
Lenore poured steaming cups of hot, black coffee.
Mari sipped hers and wrapped her hands around the mug, and Lenore did the same.
“Okay. So.” Lenore exhaled heavily. “The Three did know what was happening. And they promised not to tell Westwood we asked them either.”
“I didn’t ask them not to.” Warner sipped his coffee.
“We didn’t have to. Apparently, the Three have concerns about how much power Westwood has at her disposal now. The Three were queens in their own right and since Westwood married the goblin kind… but that’s neither here nor there.”
“What did they say?” Mari asked.
“There’s a prophecy,” Lenore began.
“Well, that would’ve been nice to know before all this shit with your brother blew up,” Warner grumbled.
“Right? There’s a prophecy about me, too. They wanted me to wash their glass eyes with my tongue before they’d tell me that one. I said fuck it.”
“Fuck it, you did it, or fuck it, it’s not worth it?” Mari questioned.
“It’s not worth it. Not a chance. I think they just wanted to see if I’d do it. Which… no. Anyway, back to the prophecy at hand.” Lenore took another drink. “A darkness will rise in the north blah blah… a Dark Champion… blah, blah.” She shrugged. “We know all that. Oh, by the way. The Dark Champion can only be born into the world by the best of us, the witches said. Only the best of us can channel that kind of power without being corrupted by it.”
Warner snorted. “It’s like…” he struggled for the words he wanted. “Distilled corruption. Like evil nitroglycerin.”
“Damn it, will you just take the compliment?” Lenore grumbled.
“I didn’t know I was avoiding it.”
“You always do,” Mari said. “It doesn’t feel out of the ordinary, because it isn’t.”
“Listen, we don’t need a Warner’s Awesome Party. We need to—”
“Why not? I’d love a Mari’s Awesome Party.”
“Hey, me too. I’d love a Lenore Rocks Party. We should do that.”
“Like herding cats. Goddess Above.” Warner sighed.
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Anyway.” Except Lenore didn’t say anything else. She looked back and forth between Warner and Mari.
“Holy Goddess, woman. Spit it out. It’s not like not telling us is going to change it.”
“Stop taking her name in vain, Warner. She’s going to smite you,” Mari teased.
“Look, either I’m her favorite or I’m not. There should be some perks to this Dark Champion garbage.”
“Fair enough. Before I go on, I have to ask something personal. Mari, is that a true mating mark on your neck?” Lenore looked worried.
“Yes. Why?” She bit her lip.
Whatever Lenore was going to say, Warner knew that it was going to hurt his Mari. Goddessdamn it. Why? Being with him had only brought her pain. She deserved so much better.
“The Three say that whence the Dark Champion rises, so too does his mate.”
Mari closed her eyes for a long moment. “What does that mean? Aside from the fact that we all know it’s not me.”
Warner hated the surety in her voice, but he couldn’t argue. Being with him had made her darker, but she wasn’t—
“She will be a Wendigo.” Lenore took a breath. “She will rise from the dead to join her mate in the fight. Wendigoare monsters. They’re the source of a lot of human lore about werewolves. They’re… insatiable.”
“And they feed on their own.” Like me, Warner thought.
A small voice inside of him said he wouldn’t have to be alone. To rejoice. That he wouldn’t have to hold back with this mate. That she would be his equal in every way. He couldn’t hurt a Wendigo.
Not like he could hurt Mari.
“Oh. I
see,” Mari said aloud.
He was afraid that she did see. If he could’ve saved her this pain, he would’ve. And damned if he hadn’t tried. He’d tried to leave her, he’d tried to stay away. He’d tried not to touch her, but she’d demanded he surrender and so he had.
“It’s going to be Arianna, isn’t it?” Mari continued flatly. “She was meant to have been Warner’s in life, now in death, she will be. She’d come back to fight for her pack and her family.”
Lenore reached out and squeezed her hand. “We don’t know who it is. The Three tried to scry to see, but her face was shrouded from them.”
Warner opened his mouth to speak, but Mari turned fiery eyes on him. “If you even think about telling me to go back to Aphelion, I swear by all that’s holy you won’t make it to your next mate. She’ll have to raise you from the dead, too.”
That had been exactly what Warner was going to suggest, but he’d since thought better of it.
“Uh, no. Nope. I was just going to ask if you wanted more coffee.”
“No. I don’t. I’m ready to head north and find these fuckers.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Lenore said.
“It’s probably the leather pants. They make me feel like a badass.”
“You are a total badass. You’re brave and smart and strong,” Lenore said.
Warner looked at Mari and saw her in a new light. He knew that she was all of those things, but somehow, it hadn’t clicked in his head.
Of course she was brave and smart and strong. Mari was amazing.
Which was part of why he didn’t want her anywhere near where they were going.
Warner’s ears pricked. Gooseflesh raised across his body and all the hairs he possessed stood on end. He realized he probably looked like an agitated cockatoo, but it hit him hard and fast.
Their time was running out.
Something had happened.
“What is it, Lassie?” Lenore teased.
“Eat a dick, Lenore.” He snorted. “But seriously, we need to go. And we need to go fast.”
“What’s happened?” Mari asked.
“I don’t know, only that something has. We need to run.” He turned to look at Lenore. “I’ll carry you. I don’t want to hear any complaints.”
“You won’t get any.”
“I might after you see what I look like when I Change.” Christ, but he hoped he could keep it together long enough to carry the hunter as far as they needed to go. He prayed the beast would keep his shit in check and realize how much they needed the hunter.
He Changed.
To Lenore’s credit, after she whispered the magic words that cleaned up the camp and made their supplies small enough to pocket and she simply climbed onto his back and held on.
It wasn’t long before they were running so fast it was like flying and Mari kept pace beside him.
9
Utter devastation.
That was what they found when Warner finally stopped running.
Mari didn’t know how far they’d run, but she knew it had to be quite some distance. Mari, for her part, was rather amazed she was able to keep up.
It was probably the mating bond.
The one she’d wanted, gotten, and was going to lose to some dead girl who decided to come back and stake her claim.
It broke her heart.
Although, her heart, even as it was breaking, it knew, too, that Warner needed a mate who was his equal. Not someone like her.
Because for all of her wishing, hoping, and trying, she would never be his match. Even though she wanted to be.
A woman who was a match for Warner wouldn’t be thinking about her own loss right now.
She’d be thinking about that poor, small town that had been reduced to… meat and gore.
That’s all that was left.
Mari smelled it before she saw it, but that was all she needed to know not a single living thing was left in the town.
This was why Warner was needed.
A Dark Champion who had the power to save these people.
And why she’d step aside when it was time.
She swallowed hard.
“We’re too late, aren’t we?” Lenore said as she slid to the ground and Warner, still in his new warrior form stretched and paused just at the edge of the forest that surrounded the town.
He charged forward and Mari followed, with Lenore behind her.
Everywhere they looked, there were bits of meat left that used to be werewolf. These were all someone’s mother, father, sister, brother.
These bits had all been someone.
Bile rose in her throat.
And that’s when it hit her.
She’d seen all of this before.
Memories she’d stuffed down as a child, hidden behind lock and key in the deepest recesses of her mind were of this moment. It was as if she’d walked in a place out of time and had watched all of this unfold.
This was why she’d been afraid to transform.
This was why she’d locked her beast away and hadn’t been able to hear her. She didn’t want to. This was what lay on the other side of this.
The bile she’d been holding back surged up and she turned away as she vomited.
A comforting hand was on her back. It was Lenore. “Me too, dude. This is… I can’t even.”
“What if I did this?” Mari choked out after she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“What? Why would you think that? It was Peter’s pack. Obviously.”
“I… know this scene. The name of the town is Morning Lake.”
“How do you know this?”
Mari looked up and watched Warner running through the various shops, and buildings, searching for signs of life.
She knew he wouldn’t find any.
“I dreamed about it when I was a child.”
“All of it?”
“Down to the muck under your foot.”
Lenore looked down. “Goddamnit. I hate it when I get it on my boots.”
“Yeah.” Mari sniffed. “I’d… I’d forgotten. This scene used to make me wake up screaming. This was why I never wanted to Change. I knew I’d do this.”
“You didn’t do this. Stop that.”
“How do you know? You weren’t here last night. Maybe Warner and I did this together.”
Lenore grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don’t even think that. But never say it. Never. Warner has enough doubt without yours too.”
“The truth is right here, Lenore. Why else would I have dreamed it? It was surprisingly easy for me to run this far. I’ve never done that before. And there’s a darkness in me that’s changing me. Like Warner.”
“Shut up with that too. He’s going to blame himself. I get it, this sucks. But he needs your support now more than ever. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe the Wendigois you?”
“Of course not. I’m not dead.”
“That could change at any minute, couldn’t it?”
“No, it’s not me. It’s the love of his life. Arianna.”
“And you’re a witch now? A prophetess?”
“Maybe. I did dream of this,” Mari said.
“Maybe you dreamed of it so you could help Warner. There are all sorts of reasons the powers that be might’ve sent you that dream. It doesn’t always have to be the worst thing.”
“Doesn’t it, though?” Mari realized how hopeless and pitiful she sounded. What did it matter if it was always the worst thing? There were very few things that were within her power. So it was up to her to do what she could with what she could. Instead of complaining like a spoiled child. “You’re right, Lenore. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I know it all looks like shit, now. And I don’t mean to blow sunshine up your asshole, but you gotta get that Vitamin C somehow, amiright?”
Mari snorted. “You’re right.”
“I carried around a lot of guilt for a long time for something that wasn’t mine to carry. But I picked that bitch up and
carried it anyway because I thought it was mine. It wasn’t. Neither is what happened here. That’s not your fault. But if you can, think back to your dream. Can you remember anything else? Any small detail you might’ve seen then that we can’t see now?”
Mari took a deep, shaky breath.
“So, normally in these situations, I’d say it’s just a dream. It’s not real. It can’t hurt you. Only it is real, but it’s already happened. It can’t hurt you. But it might hurt someone else if we don’t catch this pack.”
She began to open herself to the dream. To allow it out of the box where she’d locked it and to let it play before her mind’s eye. Mari watched in horror as the carnage unfolded.
“In the dream, Lenore, it’s me.”
“Step back, then. It’s not you. You know it’s not. Breathe.”
Mari did as Lenore instructed, but she couldn’t change the perspective. “I’m sorry, I can’t…”
“It’s okay. It might take some time.”
“That we don’t have.”
“Tonight, when you sleep, if you can sleep, try to ask it to show you what you need to know.”
“I’ll try,” Mari agreed.
Warner came back to meet them, as a man.
“We’re too late. In the time it took us to run, they obliterated this town,” he said.
Mari was still picking at the tangled threads of the dream when it hit her. While she’d been allowing that awful thing to play, she remembered in the dream she wanted—no, needed—to head north.
And there were survivors from the town.
A whole… herd. Yes, they’d been taken as livestock.
Mari wanted to vomit again.
“Mari?” Warner asked. “You’re so pale.”
“I know where they’re going. I mean… not precisely. Like, I don’t have coordinates. But they’re still moving north.”
“I saw some tracks in the mud on the far side of town that seemed to be headed north as well. Not enough for a pack, but…”
“I dreamed about this, Warner. This scene right here is why I couldn’t transform as a child. In my dream, I’m one of them.”
“I will never let that fucking happen,” he swore.
“Men,” Lenore snorted. “That’s not the point. The point is, in her dream, she has to go north.”
Stealing the Heiress Page 7