by SM Reine
If there was pain to come, Lincoln couldn’t feel it. Being torn open by magic didn’t hurt.
It felt like he was breathing for the first time ever.
The world changed. The beach fell away. The distant sounds of the pack faded.
Lincoln blinked.
He and Sophie stood beside a tent made of hide, decorated with prey bones and tiny gold bells. The sky had the same bronze cast as when he’d been marrying Elise while inside Inanna’s body. Yet he was himself when he looked down.
Inanna stood beside him. Distinct and separate.
Sophie gazed around the encampment in wonder.
“You see it?” Lincoln asked. “You really see this?”
“It’s beautiful,” Sophie said, clutching his arm. Her fingers were solid on him. He smelled ink.
“Come inside.” Inanna swept aside the flaps of one tent and vanished inside.
It was dark and smoky within the animal hides. Only a small hole in the center of the roof allowed smoke to spiral out and light to filter in, illuminating the censer from which the smoke originated. The air hung heavy with the smell of jasmine.
There were pillows strewn across the floor, though they were flatter than Sophie’s, stuffed with something that resembled straw. The fabric was scarlet with bronze threads glittering in fractal patterns. Inanna perched upon the biggest of them, using a poker to stir the coals within the censer.
Fresh smoke engulfed Lincoln, and he breathed deeply. There was something other than jasmine in there too—a scent he didn’t recognize, which made his head spin as though he were drunk.
This all felt so real.
“Is this real?” Lincoln asked Sophie. He’d never have expected such an immersive experience for a conversation.
“We’re inside the Inanna portion of your soul, so it’s as real as you are,” she said.
“This is inside me?”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sophie eagerly folded herself onto a pillow in front of Inanna.
Lincoln hung back against the door. If this felt so real, then it would not just be the spices and pillows that felt real. He didn’t trust that there wouldn’t be real danger if Inanna decided to stab them, like she had with Susannah.
He wasn’t gonna get in arm’s reach.
“Before we begin, please let me express my gratitude for your attention, and this incredible opportunity to speak to you,” Sophie said. “It is the greatest honor I can imagine. I have heard stories of your glory. Your conquering of Irkalla, your tireless efforts to protect humanity from the infernal, the ziggurats you erected, and—”
“My focus is short,” she interrupted. “Ask me what you need to know.” Inanna spoke directly to Sophie, but Lincoln felt as though her eyes were on him. Every inch of him. She saw him from the inside the way that he saw himself inside of her.
In a strange way, he saw through her eyes too. Inanna thought that Sophie was one of the most beautiful women that she had ever seen. It was not merely the symmetry of her features, or the eagerness in her eyes. It was the perfection of her teeth. The smooth hands resting on her lap. The tightness of her braids in such tidy rows, obviously woven by expert hands.
Inanna thought that Sophie looked beautiful, and weak. Not a predator, but a prey. Intellectual. Academic.
Useless.
Surely those were Inanna’s thoughts.
“I seek to waste as little of your time as possible, of course,” Sophie said breathlessly. “On that note, I must know first of all: are any of your Remnants trying to kill me?”
Inanna stirred the coals again and fresh smoke fogged around them. It burned Lincoln’s sinuses with a pleasant, cinnamony tingle. “I have no connection to the other Remnants. I am a fraction of the soul within this hunter.” She didn’t need to indicate Lincoln. Even now, separate as they were, they were one. “Do you hurt the young, the weak, or the old?”
Sophie looked aghast at the mere thought of it. “No, of course not.”
“Do you oppress the poor, or take advantage of those who cannot defend themselves?”
“Of course not, but—”
“Then I will never have reason to visit your door, and my Remnants will be disinterested in you. I do not know why our paths have crossed as much as they have.” Her calloused hand gestured between the two of them, as graceful as though she were weaving a blanket on a loom. “There is no love between you two, no passion. I can only assume that my Remnant has his reasons for remaining obsessed, but my interest in you is nonexistent.”
Lincoln didn’t meet Sophie’s eyes, even though he knew she was looking at him. “What about Ereshkigal? He knows that Sophie exists now. Could he be out to get her?”
“The only Remnant of Ereshkigal who knows of her is frozen in orbit around the Middle Worlds.” A modern word like “orbit” was jarring from her lips. She almost sounded like Lincoln. It seemed that the influence went both ways.
“So if only one Remnant knew, then the rest can’t,” Lincoln said. “Everyone Ereshkigal tangled with is safe.”
“Nobody is ever truly safe,” Inanna said.
“What if Ereshkigal heard of me another way?” Sophie asked. She hesitated, and then plunged on. “What if I had broken one of the Precepts?”
“Is this a confession?” Inanna asked. “Did you break a Precept?” The laziness had gone out of her posture. Her muscles were now tense.
“If someone did break the Precepts, would Ereshkigal seek them out?” Sophie asked, keeping her voice neutral.
“What is a Precept?” Lincoln asked.
He was flooded with wisps of knowledge.
The tent vanished momentarily and instead, he saw flashes of wilderness, jungles, swaths of uninhabited land. He saw vast black nights held at bay with tiny witch lights.
He saw the stars and the swirl of the universe and galaxies, as if staring down from the top of a well to the bottommost pool at the bottom.
Lincoln was momentarily infinite.
He shocked back into his body in the vision of the tent. He staggered from the force of it, collapsing onto a pillow next to Sophie.
“That is a Precept,” Inanna said simply.
Lincoln still didn’t know what that was, but he understood that breaking a Precept was simply the worst thing a person could do. He understood the galactic scale of this mistake in a way he’d never understood anything before.
His heart was still pounding, his hands were shaking, he was drenched in sweat.
Fear crept in like cold fingers over his temples. “Did you do it?” he asked Sophie.
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I had to.”
“In order for Ereshkigal to hunt you for this, he would have to know that you had done it,” Inanna said. “As a remnant, Ereshkigal has lost omnipotence. Therefore, he cannot know, and cannot punish you for it.” Her eyes were still swirling with infinite blackness, illuminated by the coral colors of distant nebulas. “Feel lucky that I am the one inside Lincoln, not Ereshkigal.”
“Why?” Lincoln asks. “I wouldn’t hurt Sophie no matter who was inside me. Your souls are obviously going to rot after a few thousand years dead. You keep telling me to do the most insane things.”
“I admire how much you fight me,” Inanna said. “But you are the hunter, just as I am the hunter. You have inherited the piece of my soul which knows only noble bloodshed. You won’t be able to stop yourself from doing what we must.”
“Hunters don’t hunt senselessly.” Frustration stuck in his throat, thick and burning. “I will never kill Sophie or my mother for you.”
“There once was a lion who learned the taste of human flesh,” Inanna said. “She scavenged for food after a battle between men, and discovered that humans are soft, nutritious, and numerous. There was no evil in her, yet from the first time she fed her pride with man-flesh, she signed her death warrant. Certain lines can never be crossed no matter the intent. To do so is to mark yourself for the hunt.”
“But what the fuck does that
have to do with my mother?” Lincoln asked.
Sirens split the air.
Lincoln and Sophie looked behind them simultaneously. There was no rear wall to the tent anymore. Instead, he only saw the slope leading from beach to cottages. The sanctuary was swathed in nighttime, so it was easy to see the glint of red and blue lights reflecting off of the cottage walls.
“Police,” Lincoln said.
He turned back. Inanna was gone. The tent was gone too. Only the smoke from the censer lingered, diffusing in the mists from the waterfall. The sting of spice painted Lincoln’s throat.
“Wait!” he called. “We have more questions!”
Then the headache came over him. Lincoln groaned, letting his head fall into his hands.
It felt like spikes were thrusting through his crown, jabbing out his eyes and ears from the inside. His vision blurred.
Sophie’s hands steadied him, studying his shoulders.
“It hurts,” Lincoln groaned. “Holy shit, it hurts.”
“I know. We expected this. It won’t kill you.”
But the pain was so much more severe than Lincoln had expected. Opening his mind, closing it again—it felt like someone was literally performing brain surgery on him, carving slowly through the bone, and even Sophie couldn’t hold them up for long. He collapsed on the sand.
For endless hours, Lincoln knew only the pain. He couldn’t even open his eyes.
But it did subside. Slowly, like the tide going out at midday, it receded.
He opened his eyes as soon as he could manage, squinting through the ache at the flashing lights.
There were still police in the sanctuary.
Worse, he could now hear shouting.
“Help me up the hill,” Lincoln said.
“Rate the severity of your pain from one to ten,” Sophie said, wringing her hands.
“It’s one fucking thousand. Help me up the hill!”
“The spell is clear: you should rest afterward, lest the pain will worsen next time Inanna appears,” Sophie said.
“I’ll rest later!” Lincoln had seen so much within Inanna—so much more information than anyone had spoken in words—and the most important thing that he had taken away from it was the size of the universe.
Human lives really were nothing. Absolutely nothing. Easier to snuff out than a single finger under his heel.
If the cops were there, that probably meant Noah. And if Noah was picking fights with the pack, his whole family was in danger of being snuffed out.
He couldn’t stop clutching his head, but Lincoln got all the way up the hill even while his beating heart felt like it might erupt out his temples.
The worst was confirmed once he could see far enough: three sheriff’s department cruisers parked in the main street of the sanctuary.
At this distance, they were only lights, but he was confident that Noah was there.
The knowledge propelled him forward. He was halfway up the road when Sophie caught up to him, and she wrapped her arms around one of his. “At least let me help stabilize you,” Sophie said.
“You don’t want me around you,” Lincoln said. “You heard Inanna.”
“You’re going to make yourself look like even more a fool in front of the law enforcement personnel if you do not take my help,” she said.
Lincoln grunted his assent.
Summer Gresham was the first to spot Lincoln and Sophie approaching. Panic flooded her features. “Sheriff Adair is here. He said that Abel has killed a dozen victims at the hospice—and now he’s arresting him.”
Chapter 34
Four men had Abel Wilder pinned to the hood of a car with his hands yanked behind his back, face down against the metal.
Four men.
It was simultaneously overkill and nowhere near enough to arrest an Alpha werewolf.
Lincoln was less worried about looking weak when his brother-in-law was making himself look so ridiculously ignorant. Didn’t he know that every single sheriff and deputy in the state could have tried to pin Abel and still been unable to restrain him?
The only reason that Abel was in the undignified position against the hood of the car was because he allowed it. Because Rylie Gresham was standing next to him, calling the police officers “sir,” and quietly urging Abel to cooperate.
Lincoln could only see a sliver of Abel’s expression over his shoulder. Even with his mate’s soothing voice, he looked to be a hair away from ripping the deputies to shreds.
“Sheriff Adair!” Lincoln boomed.
“Please stay back. This is official business.” Noah smirked in a way that bared his teeth, which, from a werewolf, Lincoln would have read as a challenge. It wasn’t that different coming from a man.
Noah wanted a fight. He wanted to piss off the werewolves.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lincoln asked. “You know that he didn’t murder anyone.”
“There are now a dozen deaths attributable to the serial killer. All the evidence we’ve got points to a monster who prefers claws. Abel Wilder has refused to present us with a verifiable alibi, and he’s been acting suspiciously,” Noah said. “I shouldn’t say more. This is official police business, and unless you’ve really gone off the reservation, you aren’t his legal representation.”
Shouts from the deputies.
Rylie had reached for Abel, and a deputy had reached for his gun.
“Don’t get between them!” Lincoln shoved past Noah, swinging between Rylie and the deputy before Abel could see what was happening. He spread his arms out. “Just let them talk. Let them be together.”
The deputy’s eyes flicked to Noah.
Noah was red-faced. “I told you to stand back, Marshall. I’ve got absolute authority here.”
“You don’t,” Lincoln said. “There’s no higher authority than God. And He will have no mercy on your soul if you’re stupid enough to do this.”
“If they wanna be citizens, then they’ve gotta be subject to the same laws as every other American,” Noah shot back. “Weren’t you saying they’re normal Americans?”
They both glared at each other, unmoving.
Standoff.
Over his shoulder, Lincoln saw Rylie’s fingers smooth over Abel’s temple. The Alpha relaxed against the hood slowly. Anger turned to resignation. Moments like that had been a relief when Lincoln was a deputy, but now, watching Abel fight against every one of his instincts to submit was physically painful.
It was wrong.
“Let’s talk,” Noah said.
“Tell your deputies to let him up first.” When the sheriff didn’t immediately listen, Lincoln said, “They do recognize your authority. They won’t make trouble. Right?”
“Right,” Abel said through his teeth.
Noah nodded to his men.
Their hands dropped to their sides, they stepped back to their cruisers, and Abel stood up. The Alpha was shockingly well-mannered, keeping his own hands visible as he straightened slowly. This clearly wasn’t his first run-in with the police.
“This is the same number of men I’d bring to arrest a mundane,” Noah said.
“You know that’s bullshit as well as I do.”
“You’re the one challenging my authority in front of the people I’m trying to protect. You know how dangerous it is to disempower me? Do you want anarchy?”
“Fuck no,” Lincoln said. “I just want you to work with these people instead of trying to push them around. Because if you push a werewolf, they’ll push back. And they’ll win.”
“I need my authority,” he said.
“So does Abel,” Lincoln said. “You’re going to have thousands of rioting shifters at your doorstep if you don’t help preserve the appearance of agency. Do you want this entire pack coming after you?”
Noah finally seemed to realize how many people had emerged from the tent city to watch them. And the mood wasn’t good.
Lincoln lowered his eyes and hunched his shoulders, like he was a submissive shift
er too. This was really all about power. Noah’s power—or the power that he wished that he had. “Can you please just trust me?”
Noah nodded after too long a time. “I’m gonna take Abel Wilder in for questioning.”
“Talk to his mate,” Lincoln said. “Rylie Gresham. She’ll get him to cooperate.”
The sheriff returned to the group. Rylie approached him first, draped in a white sundress with her eyes rimmed by tearful red. “Abel hasn’t done anything. I know him, and I understand my testimony must not mean much to you, but—”
“I need to take him in for questioning,” Noah said. “If he cooperates, we won’t ever cuff him. Obviously, a lawyer will be welcome. I’ll make a special exception if you want to come too.”
“I’ll come,” Abel said. “But you aren’t getting my mate.” He wrapped his arm tight around Rylie, and she clung to him—two powerful halves of the foundation that supported the entire pack, looking angry and afraid and worried.
They didn’t want this to blow up either.
“I can’t let you go alone,” Rylie said, her fingers tracing over Abel’s face.
“Just stay with Gwyn and the baby.” He kissed her fingertips. “I’ll be back.”
Abel climbed willingly into the car, though he never stopped scowling. He looked more like he was going to vomit all over the dashboard than like he was going to start throwing punches.
Noah scrawled a number on a notepad, then tore off the sheet for Rylie. “If you got a phone around here, you can call us here at any time. We’ll be in contact soon.”
“I will too,” she said, hugging the paper to her heart.
Noah moved around to the driver’s seat.
“Thank you for your service,” Rylie added quietly.
The sheriff puffed up all over again. Lincoln was amazed that he could fit behind the wheel of a police cruiser with the size of his ego hanging around him, like a guy with a microdick who wanted everyone to believe he was packing a Kirkland hot dog in his briefs.
Lincoln stood with the women while the cars drove away. The whole pack watched them go.