Wren was quiet for a moment. A thin line creased his brow, hooding his tawny eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was thinking about your father…” I let my voice trail off. “I realized that I’d never stopped to think about the man he killed–about the life that he didn’t get to live and it made me question what he’d been forced to leave behind.”
Wren swallowed; the skin pulled tight through the column of his neck. Wren turned his gaze toward the creek, speaking in a quiet tone, “Niall chose to sacrifice one for the good of his people. Maybe there was a better way, but that was pack law. It consumed him from the inside out. He could never forgive himself for what he did. That’s the thing about free will. We have to live with the consequences of our actions.”
“If I did that… If I had to kill someone–”
“It would be justified,” Wren interrupted.
“Would it?” I wasn’t so sure…
Wren met my gaze and held it for some time before he spoke. “We all have our Darkness, Quinn,” he spoke softly. “Not a single one of us is all good. The Darkness will use your greatest fears and weaknesses against you, but you have to choose not to become the monster.”
The autumn wind swept dark hair across his forehead, and I swore there was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there a moment before. The burden aged him beyond his eighteen years, and I glimpsed the man he was destined to become. It took all my self-control not to close that small distance between us and wrap him up in an embrace that I prayed conveyed the things I couldn’t bring myself to say.
The moment was ruined when Jamie walked by and tugged on the end of my ponytail. “Lover’s quarrel?” he quipped.
“Seriously though, the look you two are giving one another could freeze a lake,” Huck added.
“Or set it on fire,” Annabelle said. Leave it to my best friend to be exceptionally intuitive.
“We’re fine.” I recovered with a forced smile. “Is everyone here?”
“By my headcount, yes,” Jamie said.
“Then we better count again.” Annabelle grinned and shot him a wink. “God, my thighs are burning. It’s been way too long since we’ve done a distance run through the woods.”
“Yeah, and we still have about three more miles to go.” Huck pulled his arm in a shoulder stretch. “Wren, you up for a little competition? Last one back to the parking lot buys dinner.”
A slow smile tugged Wren’s full mouth upwards.
“Trust me Huck,” Annabelle said, “you do not want to foot that bill.”
“That implies you think I’m going to lose,” he retorted.
“There are no implications needed,” Annabelle said. “I know you’re going to lose.”
Wren laughed and mussed the top of her hair. “I appreciate your vote of confidence, Cat. When I win, I’ll buy you one of those fry boats you like so much.”
“With extra cheese?” Her eyes widened expectantly.
“You got it.”
“Deal.” She clapped her hands and rubbed her palms together. “Runners!” she called. “On your mark…”
Chapter Sixteen
The Council
Huck lost the race by a total of four seconds, though I suspected Wren had intentionally taken it easy on him. Torrance and Shawn met up with us at Jo’s after practice, and Huck, in good nature, bought Wren’s meal. As promised, Annabelle was gifted with a large boat of cheesy fries, and the seven of us crammed into the back corner and devoured an early dinner. About halfway through, my phone started ringing and I dug through my bag to find it. Blaire’s name flashed across the screen. “I’ll be right back,” I said, sliding out of the booth. “It’s Blaire.”
“Tell her I love her,” Jamie called after me as I wove through the maze of tables.
“In your dreams, Jamie.” I laughed and shook my head as I answered the phone. “Hey Blaire, what’s up?” I was at the front of the diner now, pushing out through the doors.
“Have you a minute to talk?” she sounded anxious.
“I’m outside the diner. No one is listening.”
“The Aurora Coven just phoned in and said they’ve spotted Penny. She’s fled to Ireland as we’d expected.”
I drew a breath, leaning against the warm brick of the building as I scratched my eyebrow. “Has anyone tried to talk to her yet?”
“Not yet. They’ve assigned an emissary spy to track her movements.”
“A what?”
“They’re an elite team of Supernaturals with special abilities in tracking. Most members are made up of werewolves and vampires,” Blaire explained. “They’re loyal to the Coven.”
I blew out a breath of air as my brows hitched clear into my hairline. She’d said they were loyal to the Coven, but what I heard was something different. If there were other races of Supernaturals working for the Coven–that meant the Aurora Coven had more secrets than I realized. “You’re more than just a world-class coven made up of witches, aren’t you?”
Blaire let the static linger on the phone line.
“Blaire…” I pressed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing important,” she said after a pause. “I just wanted you to know their aim is to capture her and bring her in for questioning.”
“Good. I look forward to learning what reasons she has for trying to unleash hell on earth, and how she went about doing it.”
“As am I,” Blaire said.
“You okay?”
“I’ll feel a great deal better once we get this meeting over with at Thornwood. Goddess knows we need a win, even if it is a small one.”
“I wanted to be wrong about her too,” I said regrettably. I turned my head to the side, peeking in through the window at our group of friends laughing and smiling. I’d wanted to be wrong about so many things, if only to keep the ones I love safe. “I’ll see you soon, Blaire.”
“Soon,” she agreed.
“Where are you going?” I asked Wren. He’d just driven past the main parking lot of the Were bar and was turning down a narrow side street. The alley was cracked and dimpled and full of potholes that looked big enough to swallow a black bear. The Pontiac dipped low over a bump, and I smacked my elbow into the side of the door. I rubbed at the sore bone, grimacing.
“Sorry,” he said, taking note of my pain. “Roy’s family owns this convenience shop, if we park around back with the employees, no one will know we’re here.”
“We should have taken the truck,” Blaire added. “It’s a little less conspicuous than your Firebird–as if you don’t already stick out enough. Driving around a classic muscle car with a gold bird on the hood,” she muttered under her breath while shaking her head. “What is this anyway–an eighties model?”
Wren smirked, glancing back at her in the rearview mirror. “Seventy-nine.” He parked the Pontiac in a diagonal space next to a beat-up Ford in front of the brick building. The foundation was crumbling at the base and weeds sprouted through the cracks. When I climbed out of the car, all I could hear was the old air conditioning unit rattling like loose change in a tin can.
Wren led the way down the dark alley with Blaire and I close on his heels. I watched him sampling the air; his keen eyes taking a full sweep of the shadows as we headed for the Were bar. What had Ryker called it–Club Canis Lupus? The Thornwood werewolves were a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them.
Sal opened the back door when we reached the platform. Her cropped hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail with flyaway strands framing her face. She crossed her arms, leaning against the doorframe as her gaze raked over us. “Ryker was only expec
ting Wren,” she said hesitantly, like maybe she couldn’t quite figure out what do about the three of us–maybe she was wondering if there was anything she could do.
Instinct had me reaching for the amulet. Sal followed my movement with her eyes, and I watched her shrink back into the doorframe. “He sees all of us or none,” I replied coolly.
The corner of Sal’s mouth rose into small sneer. “Follow me,” she instructed. She stepped away from the doorframe and allowed us to step up into the small hallway. I heard rock music playing from the overhead speakers and knew we must have been near the pool tables. She jerked her head toward the right, signaling us to move along. At the end of the hall, she knocked on a wooden door that had deep claw marks scratched into the surface of the wood. She noticed me gawking. “They don’t always come willingly.” Sal grinned and pushed open the door.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but a neat office wasn’t on the list. The walls were the color of snow, clean, and free of posters or tack marks. A simple black desk was pushed up against the wall with an expensive looking office chair. I narrowed my eyes, studying the tidy stack of papers and binders sitting on the desk in their individual organizers. The Thornwood pack emblem of the wolf’s head and bloody roses made up the screensaver on the monitor.
“Ryker will be right with you,” Sal said, closing the office door behind her. The three of us exchanged wary glances.
“Can you feel that?” Blaire said a beat later.
The office was too quiet–too clean and ordinary. I realized that it was meant to look that way. I sensed it in the air, the cool hum of energy pulsing through the invisible particles of the atmosphere. “It’s spelled,” I said.
“It feels like Old Magic,” Blaire said. She was waving her palm through the air, seeing things I couldn’t. “I can’t really get a good read on the witch who spelled it.” She squared her shoulders, extended her arms with her palms facing up and said, “Nochtann.”
The very air in the room rippled, and white paint melted down the walls–reminding me of the famous Dali painting, Persistence of Memory. The paint washed away to reveal plain, cracked cement beneath. The desk was still there with its organized office supplies, but the room smelled foul, like the stale air of a basement. Wren stiffened, and I looked over my shoulder to see that another door had appeared within the cement wall. This one was deadlocked by a heavy iron bolt.
“I’m impressed.” Ryker’s deep voice echoed behind us. He’d literally materialized from the wall and he wasn’t alone. He was standing next to a girl with copper skin. She looked to be about fifteen with deep, sapphire eyes and choppy jaw-length chocolate hair. She was staring right through me, those sapphire eyes searching some deeper part of my soul. Ryker leaned against the wall, crossing his bulky arms over his chest. “I should have known a member of the revered Trinity would be able to sense a spelled room.”
“You know who we are,” Blaire said, lifting her chin. “Don’t suppose you’d like to share how you came by that information?”
“A little bird told me,” Ryker said, pushing away from the wall. “I have to admit… we were hoping to speak to the three of you but I didn’t expect it would be tonight.” His gaze cut to me and lingered on the moonstone pendant hanging from my neck. “We have a lot to discuss.”
“We wish to make an appeal before the council.” I curled my fingers into fists at my side to keep from reaching for the amulet.
If Ryker was surprised to hear this declaration, his placid expression wasn’t any indication. He simply turned his face to the side, looking to the young witch. She laid a slender hand on his bicep and said, “I’ll assemble the others.”
Ryker nodded and the young witch vanished from sight. “We have someone who might be of interest to you,” Ryker said to Wren. He waved us forward as he unlatched the heavy bolted door. At once, the scent of rot and must wafted up the staircase in a wave of cooler air. “Watch your footing, the planks are steep and uneven.”
The muscle in Wren’s jaw bulged as he clenched his teeth. He started down the steps, taking the lead in front of Blaire and me. When we reached the bottom, the smell only worsened. The hall was lined by several rows of silver bars that stretched from the floor to the ceilings–cellblocks, I realized. By my count, there was a total of eight–four per side. The narrow passage was lit by old gas lamps that were fastened into the walls. I swallowed hard, training my eyes on a shadowed figure slumped over in the last row.
Her stringy hair hung lank in her face, dirt and dried blood streaking her bare arms. Nyla looked up as we approached, and the flames reflecting in her caramel eyes revealed her fear. When I looked at her, I only saw the blade at Niall’s throat gleaming in the moonlight. I blinked as my memory replayed the image of Nyla slicing open his neck and hyper-focused on the scarlet curtain that pooled from his throat. My stomach tightened with boiling sickness and resentment.
“Death is coming for you, Stone Keeper!” Nyla shouted from her prison cell. “The Dark One is coming after all of you–no one is safe!” She lunged forward in the blink of an eye, wrapping her hands around the bars. I startled, stumbling back into the solid wall of Wren’s chest as Nyla screamed. Her cry coalesced with the sound of burning flesh as wisps of smoke lifted from her skin. She let go and grit her teeth against the pain. “Let me out, Ryker!” She fell to her knees and began to sob. “No one is safe. No one.”
“What the hell happened to her?”
“Prolonged exposure to pure-grade silver messes with our brain,” Ryker explained. “The scent alone is enough to trigger a psychological breakdown.”
Wren was staring at her; his yellow irises swirling as canine teeth poked the soft flesh of his lower lip. I felt his breaths coming quicker against my spine.
“What are you going to do with her?” Wren asked.
“Your questions will be answered soon enough.” He ushered us away from Nyla’s prison cell. The hall forked at the end and Ryker pushed through a set of double-sided doors to our right. The room was dimly lit; the walls were wooden paneled and a long table stretched through its center, holding a total of twelve chairs. I spotted Maddox and Sal–and also, to my surprise–Hailey. I didn’t recognize the fourth, an older man with a thick head of silver hair and drooping dark eyes.
“Sit,” Ryker instructed, pointing to the seats in front of the others. He glided to the head of the table and eased his muscled body into the chair with grace. I swallowed over the lump that had risen in my throat, forcing myself into the chair opposite the older man. Sal and Hailey took the chairs in the middle, leaving Maddox to Ryker’s right-hand side.
The council greeted us in a formal manner. “The Thornwood council wishes to recognize the Trinity and welcome them to our table,” the old man spoke. His voice was calm, but it rang with authority–rough with years of experience and hardship. “My name is Thomas Donovan, Elder and former Alpha Master of the Thornwood Pack. I believe you’ve already been acquainted with the others.” His gaze swept around the table before settling on me. “The original purpose of this meeting was to speak with Wren about his fealty to the pack, but it seems we’ve other important matters to discuss.” His dark eyes lingered on the amulet. “It’s been brought to our attention that Rionach the Dark’s amulet has fallen into the Trinity’s possession. We understand that the Dark Witch held imminent rule over the binding of werewolves in their animal skins with the stone alone. According to legend, it’s also my understanding that such a talisman cannot be destroyed. While it remains in existence, the Thornwood pack cannot allow it to rest in the hands of a witch.”
A warm fire spread through my veins and filled my core, mixing with equal parts of ice–two natures–one belonging to me, the other manipulating my mind. I had to fight against one to gain control over the other, but I desperately
wanted to wield that ice as my own. “You want the amulet.” My voice was filled with a calm strength I didn’t recognize as my own.
Although I hadn’t phrased the statement as a question, Thomas nodded. “If that stone is able to control my kind, you must understand we cannot let it fall in the hands of the Dark Witch–or any witch that knows how to use it.”
“And you believe that you have the power to keep the amulet safe should the Dark Witch return?” Blaire’s dark ringlets spilled below her shoulders, bouncing as she spoke. “The Trinity was made to stop the Darkness–we’re the rightful Keepers of the Light.”
I held up my hand. “It’s okay Blaire.” I felt warmth pooling inside me now and knew what to say as though someone else were guiding my words. “If you understand the amulet’s origin, you also know the Dark Witch cannot return to full power or physical form without it…What if I told you the amulet could be destroyed?” I offered as bait.
I watched as Ryker clenched and unclenched his jaw, flexing his hand into the shape of a fist. “We would need proof,” he answered.
“We intend to have the amulet destroyed. It’s like Blaire said–the very reason behind the Trinity’s existence is to stop the Dark Witch from ever returning to power. We’re the balance between Light and Dark,” I said. “The Trinity doesn’t want to control werewolves, we believe in free will as the Mother goddess originally bestowed, and as the White Witch granted to the enslaved wolves of the Ossory line.”
“She’s telling the truth,” the young witch spoke up. She’d been so quiet I’d forgotten she was there. She stepped forward from the shadows, standing just behind Ryker’s right shoulder. “The White One wants to destroy the amulet, but the amulet wishes to control her.”
My head snapped in the young witch’s direction. “How do you know this?” Blaire asked, craning her neck toward the young witch.
The Calling of the Trinity (Trinity Cycle Book 2) Page 19