by Eva Chase
He trails off, swiping his hand over his face, no doubt as aware as I am of how unlikely we are to orchestrate that kind of coup, especially within the next not-quite-a-day.
Talia knits her brow. “You tried to get Cole to yield, but he used that ‘right to justice’ thing to get out of it. Wouldn’t they just do that again anyway?”
I shake my head. “The right to justice served can only be invoked once for any given crime. Cole claimed it for anyone concerned with your ‘ownership’ and had his chance to set the terms. But I can’t see any of them putting themselves in a position where we could get the upper hand, let alone all three of them.”
“If they don’t want to involve the rest of their pack, it’ll be just the three of them at any hand-off we arrange.” Whitt rubs his jaw, the sickly pallor fading from his skin as he focuses on the conundrum. “That would be our best chance.”
“They’ll ask for an accord against hostilities,” I point out.
“Hmph. We can negotiate that down to first strike. They can hardly expect us to agree to show up utterly incapable of defending ourselves if they launch an attack.”
August lets out an irritable sigh. “So, your plan is that we provoke them into attacking us and then somehow turn the tables on them? While also keeping Talia out of danger that whole time? They won’t engage with us in the first place if we’re not at least acting as if we’re handing her over.”
Whitt throws his hands in the air. “At least I’m trying to think of some way out of this disaster. If you’ve got a better idea, feel free to contribute.”
The two of them glower at each other for a moment until Talia breaks in. “What’s first strike?”
I turn to her. “We’d give our magical bond that we wouldn’t initiate an attack. Essentially it guarantees their safety as long as they don’t lash out at us. It’s a typical request for a scenario like this.”
She nods slowly, sucking her lower lip under her teeth to worry at it. Her gaze goes briefly distant. Then she aims her attention at me again. “Would you specifically say that you’d only fight if they start it, or only that the three of you won’t start anything?”
“Usually the wording would be more along the lines of the latter, but I expect they’ll also request that we come alone. The most we could hope to agree on is the three of us to match the three of them.”
“But… I’ll be there too. They won’t ask you to swear anything about me fighting them, will they?”
Oh, my precious lady. It’s hard to imagine I once thought of her as a little scrap, slight though she is, when she lets that inner fierceness show.
A pang runs through my heart that I have to say, “You wouldn’t stand a chance against them, Talia. Even if we could arm you for the hand-off, which we can’t. The instant you showed them any aggression, they’d hurt you worse than they already have.”
Her gaze holding mine doesn’t waver. “But there are things I can do that they won’t expect. They don’t know I have any magic. That’s a kind of weapon. And I wouldn’t have to beat them—I’d only have to get in the ‘first strike’ so that you’ll have fulfilled your end of the deal, right?”
In the startled silence that follows, Whitt lets out a rough laugh. “She isn’t wrong. That’s our loophole right there. Find a way to position her so that once she makes her move, we’ll have the advantage, and they’ll never see it coming.”
Everything in me balks at the idea. I promised to keep this woman safe. How can I now toss her to the front lines—to face off against the villains who tormented her for so long, who still feature in nightmares that wake her in a trembling panic?
“She’d be too vulnerable. They’re not going to allow us to surround them or be poised right over them. By the time we get to them—”
“They kept her in a cage, didn’t they?” Whitt interrupts. “Bars can keep a creature out as well as in. If she’s using magic, she doesn’t even need to be touching them.”
Shove her back into a cage? My fangs itch at my gums just thinking of it. I swore to myself I’d give her some semblance of a normal life here, a chance at happiness.
But Talia is nodding. “The only true word I can really get to work is bronze, so maybe there could be something about the cage I could use… I don’t know if I’d manage to injure them much, but if I could restrain them even for a few seconds, that should help you overpower them.”
A grin has stretched across Whitt’s face. I can practically see the schemes spinning behind those bright eyes. Even August has perked up, as if this plan is totally reasonable.
And perhaps it is.
Even as I recoil from the possibility, I can’t deny it. The strategy isn’t solid yet, but it holds up to every challenge I’ve made.
Every challenge except the one resounding from deep in my soul.
I hold out my arm to Talia, and she comes to me, lowering herself onto the bench next to me. I bring my hand to her cheek, studying her expression. “Are you sure about this? We have more time to discuss—there might be another way. I would never ask you—”
“I know,” she says quietly. “I don’t expect it to be fun. But given the alternatives… I’m not going to give up without some kind of fight. And I’m not going to let them tear apart your pack to get to me. No one else should have to get hurt when it’s me they want.”
A tremor runs through her voice with those last few words, but she keeps her chin defiantly high. A rush of affection courses through me. This beautiful human woman, more concerned about the fate my pack might meet than the danger she’s throwing herself into.
It’s an honor to have earned her love. Right now, I wish I could offer her my own. This deep, unwavering desire to bring her every possible joy doesn’t have much in common with the whirlwind of emotions I felt for Isleen, even the positive ones, and I loved my soul-twined mate for all her flaws. I’m not sure I want to place Talia in the same category as her—and not because it would diminish Isleen any.
But exactly what to call my ever-growing fondness doesn’t matter. What matters is that the woman who’s given me her heart and her trust is asking me to trust her now, to believe that she’s capable in taking part in this battle in her own way. To accept that taking on those risks might even be what’s best for her.
If I made my old promises for her benefit and not my own, it shouldn’t matter how much giving her this opportunity pains me. How can I deny her?
“All right,” I say. “Then you will be the bait and the trap in one. Let us work out as many of the details as we can before we reach Oakmeet. I want every particle of this idea so solid there’s no chance of it ruining us instead.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Talia
I pause in the keep’s upper hallway, torn between knocking on the door in front of me or simply easing it open and slipping inside. It’s past dawn, thin light just starting to streak through the window at the far end of the hall, the birds outside picking up their twittering. The faint clink of dishes that carries from downstairs tells me August is already up preparing breakfast.
We all turned in for the night fairly early after our long hours of planning—Sylas insisted on it so we’d be fresh and alert for our final preparations this morning—but I suspect the man on the other side of this door is still asleep. These aren’t the sort of hours he normally keeps.
Would it be better to startle him awake with a rap on the door or to take a gentler approach?
In a few hours, I’m going to be confronting my most vicious enemies. I shouldn’t be this afraid of facing one of my allies.
My gut twists. I dawdle a moment longer and then turn the knob.
The door glides open without a sound, none of the creaks and rasps of our house by the border. I didn’t appreciate how finely crafted this building is until I had a much less polished construction to compare it to. How long did Sylas and his cadre spend coaxing the wood from the ground into the massive form around me?
Stepping into the roo
m, I nudge the door shut. At the click of the latch, the figure in the bed stirs beneath the thick covers. That damned wolf hearing. I freeze, my pulse stuttering.
Whitt rolls over with a swipe of his eyes and peers toward me, his gaze still bleary. At the sight of me, he sits up with a start. The covers fall across his well-muscled frame to his lap, revealing the full expanse of his tattooed chest. With a tingle that ripples straight to my core, I wonder if he sleeps totally naked.
“Mite,” he says, his voice airy but his hands clenching on top of the rumpled fabric. “Clearly I need to start locking that door. If you’ve come to seduce me, let me save you the trouble and pre-emptively decline.”
His wry tone melts most of the nerves that had been prickling inside my stomach. Whatever’s happened in the past few days, he’s still Whitt. I’ve heard how he speaks to and about people he dislikes. There’s no acid in the words he just directed at me. I might even have heard a little genuine amusement.
That realization generates enough confidence for me to roll my eyes. I limp over to the side of the bed, glancing down at my T-shirt and jeans before meeting his wary gaze again. “If I was trying to seduce you, I’d have come in the middle of the night in my nightgown, not first thing in the morning fully dressed.”
He chuckles. “Spoken like one who’s done it before.” When my cheeks flush, he raises his eyebrows. “Ah. Well. You have gotten up to all sorts of adventures since you’ve arrived here, haven’t you.”
“I’m not here to talk about that either,” I insist, willing the heat from my face.
“Do tell what you’ve come sneaking into my bedroom for at this wretchedly early hour, then.” He folds his arms over his chest, but he draws his legs up under the covers at the same time as if giving me more room. I perch carefully on the edge of the bed by the footboard.
Now that I’m here and he’s listening, the words I rehearsed in my head jumble together, every arrangement sounding cringingly awkward. I drag in a breath and force myself to look at him again. “You’ve been avoiding me since that morning when—when Sylas suggested… I’ve barely seen you. It’s okay if you’d rather not have anything to do with me that way. I won’t bring it up again. I still liked what we already had—being friendly, or whatever you’d call it.”
A lump fills in my throat, and I have to lower my gaze and gather myself before I can go on. “I just wanted to see if we could talk it out.”
Whitt is quiet for a moment. Then he says, in a voice gone rough despite its light tone, “And you thought now was an ideal time for that?”
I swallow hard. “I think now’s the only time for that if I want to be sure we actually get to talk about it. We don’t know what’s going to happen with Aerik today.”
“Talia.” He says my name like a command, and when I glance up at him, his eyes are so fierce my pulse hiccups in the second before he speaks again, just as vehemently. “We are not going to let that mangy bastard or his stinking cadre get one claw into you. However things work out with our plans, they won’t walk away with you.”
I wish I could believe the situation was that simple or sure. “Still, I’d feel better going to the meeting knowing everything’s okay—or as okay as it can be—between us.”
This time it’s Whitt who looks away. His arms loosen, but his jaw stays tense, his eyes stormy. His chest rises and falls with a sigh. Then he turns back to me.
“You haven’t done anything wrong. It isn’t even exactly about you. And it’s not that I’m not interested. It’s a complicated situation.”
With Sylas and August being involved too, he means? I duck my head, the lump in my throat expanding. “If I’ve ended up messing up your bonds in the cadre after all—”
Whitt is shaking his head before I can finish the sentence. “No. There are factors that developed well before you were ever in the picture. I promise you, you’re not to blame for any of this.”
“And because of those factors, you’re not comfortable with anything happening between us.”
“That’s the gist of it.” He rubs his hand over his face. “I didn’t mean to make you feel shut out. I assumed it would be easier for everyone if we all had some space, but maybe I was mainly thinking of myself.”
I make a vague gesture, not sure what to say. “That’s all right. And if you still need space, you shouldn’t have to—I mean, just because I—”
Whitt cuts off my fumbling by leaning forward and slipping his hand around mine where I’d rested it on the covers. At his touch, I fall silent, waiting. Trying not to let the feel of his warm, strong fingers provoke too much giddiness. He contemplates our joined hands and lets out a sigh with a hint of bittersweet laughter to it. “Oh, mite. I don’t know whether I’m more afraid I’ll ruin you or you’ll ruin me.”
I blink at him, my spine stiffening. “I wouldn’t hurt any of you. Not purposefully.”
He meets my eyes, his a clearer blue now but no less vast. “I know that. But sometimes events spiral beyond our intentions, faster than we can catch them.”
The remark cuts straight through me in a way he couldn’t have intended, slicing through blood and bone down to the hollow that formed in the pit of my stomach the moment Cole threatened Sylas. The anxious tension coiled there swells into a vicious ache.
I open my mouth to take a breath, and a sob slips out instead. Tears flood my eyes so abruptly the salt stings them.
I fight to draw them back, to get a hold of myself, but my body starts trembling despite my best efforts. Dropping Whitt’s hand, I pull my knees up to my chest and hug them tightly. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”
“Of course you don’t. I wasn’t implying—” The bedspread rustles, and Whitt’s arm comes around me tentatively, his fingers stroking over my hair. “It’s all right. I can look after myself, and Sylas and August aren’t any slouches either.”
Somehow his reassurance makes the tears spill out faster. The ache spreads all through my abdomen. “It’s not all right,” I mumble against my jeans. “It’s never going to be all right.” Blood splashed red across patches of shadowed green. The shriek, the gurgles, the sounds of tearing flesh. I squeeze my eyes shut, but they overflow anyway.
I’m never going to be able to undo what’s already happened.
Whitt hesitates, and then he’s tugging me closer, leaning me against his solid frame. His summery, sun-baked smell trickles into my lungs. That and the circle of warmth of his arms around me should comfort me, but I can’t seem to tamp down on the searing inside. I’ve been stopping up this feeling, this guilt, for so long, and now the seal has cracked too wide for me to stuff it all back in.
Whitt’s voice manages to be wry and gentle at the same time. “I’m guessing you’re upset about a little more than anything that’s happened just now. You can tell me about it if you’d like. Or you can simply drench me in snot and tears. Your choice.”
In spite of everything, a laugh hitches out of me. I tuck my face against my raised arm so that I’m not actually getting either of those substances on him, but he’s broken the worst of the emotional onslaught. I inhale raggedly and exhale in a rush, sniffling and dabbing at my eyes.
Part of me wants to brush it off, to laugh and pretend my lapse was nothing, like Whitt himself might do. But I still ache from sternum to gut, and tears keep burning behind my eyes, ready to tumble free at the slightest provocation.
And maybe someone should know—what I did, how I failed.
“I already ruined my whole family,” I say in a rasp.
“As much as I loathe giving Aerik credit for anything, I believe he deserves it in that particular case.”
“You don’t know. I—” I close my eyes again when they prickle hotter. “We wouldn’t have been in the woods where he found us at all if I hadn’t been teasing Jamie. My little brother. I dared him to chase me away from the road—I knew he was scared of the dark, that if I called him a couple of names, he’d try to prove he wasn’t. If I’d just left him alone— If
I’d kept quiet when they had me instead of screaming for my parents—” I press my face tighter against my sleeve. “They came running to help us, but there was nothing they could do.” And then the wolves ripped them apart too.
Whitt lets out a dismissive huff. “Skies above, Talia, how old were you? Twelve? How in the world could you have known what might be lurking in the woods right then? You had no idea monsters like us even existed. And I’ve yet to see a child that wouldn’t cry for their parents when they were frightened out of their wits. It would have been ridiculous for you to act any differently.”
“I still could have. I was—I was selfish, and I got them all killed.”
“Aerik and his mangy cadre got them killed. Unless you sprouted fangs and claws, you can’t possibly be anywhere near as responsible as they are.”
I suck in another breath and raise my head. Whitt eases back, giving me room but staying close. I stare at the wall, my eyes stinging when I blink. “I still wish I’d done things differently.”
Whitt chuckles low and raw. “Then you’re in fine and extensive company, mite. But I can at least assure you that my own worries have nothing to do with failings on your part. And it is possible I’m being overly cautious even so. We lost an awful lot over a woman before, but she had nothing to do with you, and you’re certainly not a speck like her.”
I peek over my shoulder at him. “You mean Isleen.”
His mouth flattens. “The less of anyone’s attention she claims now that she’s gone, the better.”
“I could ruin you all, though. Even get you killed. If I can’t pull off the magic I need to today—”
“No one could have expected you to pull off any magic at all. I certainly won’t blame you if it goes sideways on you.”
“I know. But I’m scared. I was too weak when Aerik caught me, and it took me nine years to find the strength to unlock that cage, and now I’m going back into one like I’m giving up all over again. Even if I’m not really giving up, I could freeze up or start stammering—and it’ll be the pack who pays for it if you can’t overpower Aerik right away.” More blood, splattered across the fields outside. My stomach lurches at the thought.