The Liar Among Creatures (Howl for the Damed: Book Two) (Howl for the Damned 2)

by D. Fischer

  I roll my eyes. “For the hundredth time, she may not be my aunt!”

  Bia pipes up without lifting her head. “Chip’s research was pretty thorough, Skinwalker.”

  “And the internet lies all the time,” I respond, peering at the mantel. Are the trinkets . . . whispering?

  Bia snorts.

  “Besides,” I say to Sara distractedly. “I have you to be my buffer. If things go wrong –”

  “I’ll skewer her like a kabob and hurl her back to the sixteenth century. I know, I know. We’ve discussed this a million times.” She observes her nails and their chipping paint then murmurs a spell. I turn to watch in fascination as vines grow from her fingertips and curl around her knuckles like living jewelry. She holds her hand out further, observing her work, and then sighs. The magic pulls away and seemingly sucks back into her body.

  “Show off,” I mutter and then take a sip of the coffee. I wrinkle my nose and set it down, offended that it’s gone cold.

  “I’m not the one who can turn into a dog,” she retorts, raising two perfectly shaped eyebrows. Honestly, it has to take hours to look that well put together every damn day.

  I refrain from correcting her.

  As a daughter of a shaman and a daughter to a witch, their gifts blended upon my creation. The union – I refuse to call it anything else – shared by desire but wrecked by loyalty, made me the only skinwalker on this realm. At least, that’s what I believe. No one here has ever heard of a skinwalker. Only my father’s people have ever claimed to know anything about them, and what they claim isn’t good. I’m an abomination to their kind. Someone they’re to kill on sight or stay away from entirely.

  That’s the other problem I face. How am I supposed to convince my aunt once she learns who I am? What I am?

  As a creature in between both species, I can neither command the living spirit of animals nor the elements of nature. So far, I’ve turned into a mystical wolf. That’s it. Nothing big. According to Cinder, Sara, and Jacob, my white wolf’s fur shimmers. I don’t know what that means nor if it means anything significant at all. I sure as hell don’t want to speculate on it. Not right now.

  The library door opens without a sound. Chip, gangly and tousled hair, strides inside. I hadn’t noticed before, but he’s starting to hunch in the shoulders, probably from too much time spent bent over lab equipment. His skin appears a bit pale, too. When was the last time he was outside?

  Chip heads to Bia, presses a kiss to his mate’s cheek, and murmurs something in her ear. I watch the couple from the corner of my eye. Bia’s face turns a shade of scarlet, and then she glowers at the back of Sara’s head.

  As if we had all gathered here to wait for him, Cinder enters, beaming, with his arms wide open. Does he expect me to get off this warm and toasty couch to give him a hug? I give him a particularly vulgar gesture and internally hoot when he pretends to be offended.

  Sara, catching the gesture, turns curiously. I remind myself that she wouldn’t have heard them; Both shifters were near silent upon entering. Lazily and satisfied, she snuggles back into her couch at the presence of Cinder.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen this many shifters in the library before,” I grump.

  Mock offense over, Cinder strides across the rest of the library and plops himself next to Sara. He drapes a casual arm over her shoulders, and she nestles into him. He looks exhausted with puffy under eyes beginning to take on a purplish hue. Almost as exhausted as Jacob looks, and I try not to cringe over the reason why.

  Sara is keeping him up all night, and against my will, her naked body under the moonbeams comes back to mind.

  The bar owner glances about the room as if he’s never stepped foot inside, observing the spines of the books with interest. I quirk a brow at him, wanting to know why he interrupted my caffeine time. Chip openly watches us, shifting his stance as if waiting for his cue.

  “Is there a reason for this visit?” Sara asks, pressing her nail into the jeans snugly fitting his thigh. “Or did you just miss me?”

  I mock gag.

  Ruffling her hair, Cinder says loudly, “Actually, Chip came to confess. I’m only here to make sure he does instead of tucking his tail and running back to his lab like a whipped puppy.”

  “Oh?” I glance at the shifter in question. “Has Armageddon begun?”

  “The first wave of a plague?” Sara chips in, glancing over the back of the couch.

  “Oh!” A soft thud sounds as I slap the cushion of the couch. “Utopia has been formed, and we all get to live on the beach!”

  “Endless margaritas?” Sara asks.

  I snort. “It wouldn’t be utopia without tequila.”

  “Every day is margarita day for you two,” Chip grumbles dryly. The arch of his top lip twitches in a sneer. “Glenda told me all about your cabinet invasion last night.”

  I point at him. “Glenda didn’t have to share her secrets. She could have kept the whereabouts of the liquor cabinet to herself.”

  “Glenda adores you,” Sara mutters scornfully. “She’d never keep that information from you.”

  It amazes Sara that Glenda has taken a quick liking to me. Even more so, it pisses her off. Glenda shows no remorse in her distaste toward my witchy friend.

  I admit it shocks me as much as it shocks the rest of the pack. I’ve never had anyone who was instantly on my side. All my friendships and relationships, aside from Sara’s, were birthed from mistrust, uncertainty, and previously conceived judgments. But not with my favorite Russian shifter chef.

  I grin. I help her in the kitchen every spare moment I have and noted with pleasure that damn near every drawer had some form of weapon. Besides the obligatory steak knives lined next to the silverware or nestled in their proper holes of the knife block, there’s a shotgun wedged behind the fridge. Several throwing daggers are hidden under the pot lids, sandwiched between wash clothes and tucked in an empty tin foil box. Personally, I’m fond of the small hatchet casually dominating the cupboard of multicolored coffee mugs. Come to think of it, almost everything in a kitchen is a weapon. The Russian made flay knife in her large and dusty gumbo pot is certainly not for freshly caught fish.

  Both of us have a fondness for herbs, too, and I enjoy her quiet humming while she stirs uncooked noodles in bubbling pots. I’ve heard her sing before too, old melodies in her Russian tongue. For a brute of a woman, her voice is lovely. Gravelly and hard to understand, but lovely just the same.

  As for Sara, I don’t think Glenda approves of Sara’s outfits. “Useless,” she had muttered about a particularly short skirt Sara had worn the other day. There’s nothing that can be done when trying to convince Glenda that Sara isn’t so bad, but the shifter’s good company and brash comments are something I find myself looking forward to each day.

  Cinder curls his top lip, pulling me back to the present. “You two are wasps. That was the last of the liquor.”

  We both tuck our lips between our teeth to keep from laughing and then look expectantly at Chip. He squeezes his mate’s shoulders, and as soon as he reaches us, he places his hands on the back of the couch Cinder and Sara occupy. Despite his towering stance, the way he flexes his fingers speaks volumes about his anxiety.

  “I tested the pendant again,” he confesses, pushing his large glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  While I was in the hospital room, Cinder had taken the cursed wolf pendant my father had left for me to Chip. Chip cleaned it but hadn’t given it back until several more tests were run on the wolf bone carved into a wolf. Eventually, they gave it back before he was sure of his findings, and a few days later, Chip had come into my room and asked if he could run one more test. It had raised my suspicions, but I had agreed. What was I going to do with the pendant anyway?

  “I know,” I drawl. “Find what you were looking for?”

  I look down at the object in question as Cinder passes it to me. It’s warm, and the hum of magic is still there, kissing my skin. None of the other shifters s
eem to notice it, but Sara has always eyed it with suspicion. The pendant has power, and as my mother used to chant, “Power calls to power.”

  “It does contain the bone of a wolf as your mother said, but not an ordinary wolf.”

  Sara rubs her eyebrow with the pad of her middle finger. “Spit it out.”

  “It’s the bone of a shifter,” Cinder says, pressing his lips to her hair. The stubble on his face tugs a few strands of her hair from their place when he pulls away.

  My breathing hitches. The bone of a shifter? Who the hell would carve a pendant out of a shifter’s bone? I blink up at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I didn’t stutter,” Cinder mutters sarcastically.

  “You’re telling me this thing around my neck was carved from the body of your species? Then cursed? A curse I can’t break on my own?”

  Chip nods. “It has the strength of shifter bones too, and surrounded by so much magic, I couldn’t x-ray it. The image comes out all fuzzy. I believe the Bane shifters are telling the truth. The souls of their wolves are trapped inside your necklace.”

  Cinder shivers then points at the pendant. “I wonder which pack the wolf came from.”

  The murmurs on the mantel grow louder, whispering to one another like gossiping ghosts.

  “So,” Sara muses, cutting through the murmurs. They silence to hear what she says, but she’s as oblivious to the whisperings as Cinder and Chip are. “Their wolves are what? Dormant inside them? Frozen? Comatose?”

  I flick my eyebrows. “Magical constipation?”

  Cinder throws up his hands. “Honestly, you two!”

  Chip chuckles, watching Sara and me swap more names. “I don’t think they’re frozen inside it,” he interjects. “Perhaps in a state of sedation, but not frozen.”

  I’d have to agree with him. By the hum of magic, there’s no way they’re frozen.

  “Jinx said those men who attacked her could hear their wolves call to them,” Cinder adds thoughtfully.

  “That has to feel terrible,” I whisper, oddly finding some sort of sympathy for the creatures. They’re only half of who they truly are. I know what it’s like to be lost – to experience only ‘half’ of myself. The other half is gone in the wind, stolen by some bad luck and unfortunate circumstances.

  “But probably warranted,” Cinder interjects, snapping me away from my sympathy like a parent to a toddler with a dirty blanket.

  “So, if we wanted to, how do you break it?” I ask Chip warily, wondering if that’s where he’s leading this conversation.

  “You’d release them,” he says. “I don’t know how yet, but somehow, the spell has to be able to be reversed. Breaking the necklace may not work. It takes magic to undo magic.”

  “Like witchy magic?” Sara asks, her interest piqued.

  He shakes his head. “Shaman magic.”

  “We’re fresh out of those, I’m afraid,” I declare sourly.

  “Are we though?”

  I hold up my hands. “I can’t do shaman magic. I don’t know the first thing about it.”

  “But your aunt might,” Sara chips in, pursing her lips and staring at the pendant. I rest it against my thigh, and her gaze follows it. Powerful as it may be, she doesn’t like that her magic isn’t enough to rid us of this little problem. I can tell by the way she studies it, eyeing it like a rival would another opponent.

  She adds, “And maybe you can learn.”

  Do I want to release the Bane creatures, though? My father damned them for a reason. I may not know what that reason is, but I have to believe there is a damn good one. Would I undo something he risked his life for in the first place? He lost his life for, I correct myself.

  I need to know more. I need to know all of it, all the missing pieces in this puzzle.

  “What about the book? Your father’s leather one?” Cinder asks. “Maybe there’s something in there.”

  “No one can read it. Jacob tried, and he couldn’t. It’s not in English.” I didn’t admit that I don’t dare get close enough to the book. The book feels like my father lives inside it. Like it’s layered in secrets, and the last time I eyed it in Jacob’s office, I could hear muffled voices coming from it.

  He does live inside it. His hands had touched all the pages, and his father, and his father before him. My entire lineage lives in that one book. My history. The scribblings of my blood. The scent of half of my DNA. I can’t. Just thinking about touching the pages – I can’t.

  “Then, I guess you’ll have to ask your aunt when she gets here,” Sara bites.

  “Alleged aunt!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jinx Whitethorn

  Jacob and Rex had been the ones to greet my father’s alleged sister. Even from the library, I had heard the front door open and the voices greeting our guest. My stomach had turned into knots. Turned into knots, flipped over, then twisted some more. As the voices grew closer, I swear I felt my heart take cover behind my spine.

  The alpha and beta of the Riva Pack had escorted her to me. Now, with her standing before me in the pack’s library, I’m at a loss for words. She looks exactly like my father, minus a few shades in the color of her light red skin. It’s more probable she could be my mother than my own mother. She’s strikingly exotic; her heritage is strong in her features. She stares back at me, at a loss for words as well.

  Jacob leers at the shifters in the room with an expression that would frighten a starving raccoon.

  “We’ll just–ah–” Cinder stands from the couch, straightens his shirt, and then tugs Sara up with him. Bia and Chip leave with my two friends in silent, graveside fashion. The voices on the mantel remain, however, and I watch as the woman’s gaze drifts to the objects that speak so softly, their voices twin to the wind whistling down the chimney to feed the flaring fire.

  “You can hear them too, can’t you?” I ask.

  Turning his hips to do so, Jacob frowns and looks about the room.

  “Yes.” Her accent is soft, lovely, and ancient. She tips her chin to the mantle. “Treasures of the dead. An echoing piece of their spirit will always cling to them.”

  Uncomfortable, Rex clears his throat and shifts in his stance. Though Sara has been staying with us, her free use of magic still makes him nervous. I suppose this wouldn’t be any different.

  Jacob, who still stands next to the familiar stranger, had introduced her as Kaya Whitethorn. Streaked with ribbons of silver, her long hair reaches her waist, exactly as I had imagined it would, and she clutches a small pocket-sized purse held tightly to her waist. She’s slightly plump around the middle, and her dull brown irises are sharp and intelligent.

  “Jinx?” Jacob probes quietly. I blink at him, as if snapping from my stupor, and slowly peel myself from the cushion. My mug clinks softly against the table, the now cold contents inside sloshing.

  “Right, um,” I awkwardly fling out my arm in request for a handshake.

  After a moment of staring at it, blinking with surprise, Kaya lifts her wide eyes to mine. “You’re truly his daughter.” Her voice is as aged as her skin, and it crackles around the words. A hint of cigarette smoke wafts from her as she takes a step closer.

  “Um, yes,” I say, frowning. “And you’re really his sister?” I mentally roll my eyes as she nods. Of course she’s his sister. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “You look like him.”

  I swallow at the emotion in her words then peer at my ordinary palm, tracing the lines and searching the callouses. What did she see along the surface that solidified the fact that I’m Adriel Whitethorn’s daughter?

  I drop my hand back to my side, masking my confusion as best I can.

  Jacob sighs deeply. “Why don’t you sit, Mrs. Whitethorn.”

  “Ms,” she corrects. “I am not married.”

  Gingerly, she takes up Cinder’s vacated cushion at the same time I retake my own seat. She studies all the shelves lined with books upon books. To my astonishment, she doesn’t flinch when Jacob sits next to her.


  The fire crackles and spurts, and somewhere in the compound, two loud voices boom with a fit of laughter.

  “This is a large place for so many people to live,” she whispers.

  “It’s the Riva Pack’s home,” I say, scowling at Jacob. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “I didn’t need to.”

  Kaya’s small smile exposes yellow-stained teeth. “I knew there were shifters when I saw the two pairs of wolf eyes peeking out of the trees on my way in.”

  “Oh.” I slump against the back of the couch. “Do you know about witches?”

  “I do. My brother made sure of that.”

  “Right.” I pucker my lips, deciding whether I want to push forward with my questions. “The tribe wasn’t happy about who he fell in love with?”

  She softly places her purse down by her feet. “The tribe never found out. I was the only one he told. No one else.”

  “Not even your parents?” Jacob asks.

  “My parents died when I was barely an adult. My father’s wife first, then my father shortly after.”

  What an odd way to talk about her mother.

  “They must have been deeply in love to follow each other so quickly to death,” Jacob murmurs.

  Kaya shakes her head, a small gesture. “It was an arranged marriage, and from their child’s standpoint, they never learned to live or love each other. As the only daughter, I was the one who cared for Adriel. It was a hardship for him.” She looks past me as she dives into her past. “Our father’s legacy and magic passed on to him whether he wanted it or not, and at the time, he did not.”

  “But you don’t have any magic?” I press.

  Her eyes jerk back to mine, her expression blank. “No, sadly. That trait falls down the male line.”

  “I see,” I whisper, barely noticing Amelia placing snacks and fresh drinks on the coffee table. She’s gone before I can get my wits about me and introduce her. Thankfully, Jacob murmured his gratitude for her hospitality.

  Silence stretches taut between us. Laughter continues to filter down the halls and spill through the library’s open door. A clock I hadn’t noticed earlier ticks somewhere among the books. Yips and barks from outside are muffled by the glass of the windows.