Punished

by Samantha Stone

  Mary didn’t think. She ran at Richard, palming as much salt as she could. She brought it over his head, pushing it into his blowhole before Richard could realize what she was doing, Molly, Wish and even Natasha’s faces forming at the forefront of her mind. He started choking, his face turning bluer than the water as he gripped his neck and clawed at his throat. “Bitch,” he managed, sinking to his knees.

  She punched him as hard as she could, feeling bones both in her fingers and his face breaking beneath the force of her hand. She smiled through the pain, turning to Raphael in time to see the shield melt. Nathaniel slowly reached over to take the blade off the floor. It lifted from his hand and embedded itself in Richard’s heart, its speed akin to a bullet.

  “Now he should be well and truly dead.” Nathaniel wiped his hands on his neatly pressed khaki pants. “Let’s go see how everyone else is doing.” He ambled off, his hair appearing different shades of blue as he went.

  A glance at Raphael revealed he was still shaking. Richard, dead and bleeding before them, had done nothing to improve his temperament.

  “Raphael, sweetheart,” Mary said, moving toward him. “You did it,” she murmured. She ran her hands up his chest, cupped his face. “You saved all these people.”

  His glare was pure, sharp onyx. “But I didn’t save you, did I? You, who should be protected above all others.” When he lifted his hands, water rose from the pool, flowing around the glass walkways and into the air. There was no water left beneath them, only the stone bottom of the pool, its embedded lights glowing yellow. The water crystalized above their heads, some pieces of ice rounded, others tipped in wicked points. All were aimed at the fragile glass structures Mary and Raphael stood upon.

  “Let’s go.” She pulled Raphael into the hall. They were in the stairwell when the ice fell, its clattering sounds mixed with that of breaking glass and separating stone.

  “I don’t need saving,” Mary said, placing Raphael’s hands on her waist. “See? I’m fine, completely whole.”

  He lifted her face up to his. “The deal you made with Jeremiah,” he said through gritted teeth. “Tell me everything.”

  She did, leaving out no details. When she’d finished, she said, “I just didn’t want to lose you. I love you, so much.”

  His expression unreadable, Raphael pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in a tight embrace. He shook and Mary could feel wetness falling into her hair, on her shoulders. “Mary,” he said roughly, fisting a hand in her hair. “My ülikena, my mate.”

  That was what they were—Raphael was her mate. The sound of it felt right, and it caused something to click into place inside her.

  But there was nothing right about Raphael sobbing over her. Mary clutched him firmly, trying to make sense of his words and actions, all of which pointed to one thing.

  Now she knew, without question, how big of a mistake she’d made in approaching Jeremiah.

  *

  Upstairs, voices assailed Raphael.

  Keeping Mary’s good hand firmly in his, he followed the voices to the mansion’s kitchen. An unharmed Sophia was putting ice in bags and handing them to bruised human guards, some of whom were sobbing uncontrollably. All of them had haunted expressions; they’d seen more than any person ever should, all while having no control over their own bodies.

  “They’re going to need counseling,” Mary said sympathetically.

  Raphael murmured in agreement. Keeping one hand in Raphael’s, Mary rushed over to Sophia, taking him with her. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Mary asked, looking her over. Sophia shook her head angrily. “They chained the others and me, then left us. It wasn’t long until Sebastian found me.”

  Relief brightened Mary’s expression, mirroring what Raphael felt. Judging from the human men’s freedom, all of the botos were dead. Their plan had worked; he almost couldn’t believe it.

  But nothing can be done for Mary. The thought made him bitter.

  He tightened his grip on her hand until she yelped, sending him a surprised look. Raphael quickly apologized, kissing her hand.

  Members of Sophia’s pack were bandaging the humans’ wounds and those of their own. Cael sat on the floor with a bottle of salve in his hand, Aiyanna asleep on a chaise behind him. She must have overused her healing abilities.

  Cael was putting the salve in any woman’s hand that was thrust at him. They rubbed it on the angry rings around their wrists and ankles, tears in their eyes.

  Raphael and Mary sank to the floor, leaving the cushioned seats for those more injured, physically or psychologically.

  Nathaniel, one of the Elders Raphael had stood before five hundred years ago, one of the six who had decided he deserved to die, was nowhere to be found.

  Where are Sebastian and Alexandre? He wanted to tell them and Sophia’s packmates about the other houses. He’d done enough for the night—now he wanted to stay as close as he could by his mate before she was killed.

  Before he would die with her.

  “Where’s Jeremiah?” Mary aimed the question at Cael as she accepted an ice pack from Sophia for her swollen hand. Raphael held it in place for her, the ice numbing the stinging cuts on his palms.

  “By the time we reached Sophia, Sebastian was already there and Jeremiah was gone.” Cael’s frown deepened as he spoke.

  “He was telling me no one would believe me if I spoke of his involvement with the botos,” Sophia said. She handed a wet cloth and some bandages to Raphael. “He even threatened me, told me I could be exiled for spreading lies about a lupus dux.”

  “What did you see?” Mary placed the ice pack on a nearby table and went to work on Raphael’s hands. “Don’t do this to yourself again,” she whispered to him irritably, gently cleaning his cuts. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he wouldn’t be able to.

  “See for yourself.” Sophia pulled out her phone and scrolled through her photo gallery, showing them picture after picture—most of which were blurry and hastily taken—of Jeremiah talking to Richard with a drink in his hand. “They didn’t think to take my phone away,” Sophia continued with a scoff. None of the pictures were damning until she reached a photo depicting a smiling Jeremiah standing a few feet away from a woman in chains.

  Obviously, he was not attempting to help her.

  Mary gasped. Satisfaction coiled around Raphael’s broken heart.

  “There’s no coming back from that,” Cael said. “Especially given another were had been taken, and he did nothing about it.”

  “He didn’t even recognize me until someone came storming in and tearing things up,” Sophia muttered.

  All eyes went to Raphael. He said nothing, only wrapped his arm firmly around Mary’s shoulders, breathing in lilacs. She sighed against him, and he could tell her eyes were drifting closed.

  It had been a long night, and morning was fast approaching.

  Quiet footsteps sounded from outside the kitchen. Cael and Sophia both stood, their expressions turning respectful. The Elder.

  Nathaniel stood over where Raphael and Mary sat. He crouched down level with Raphael, a surprising move. Behind him, Raphael could see Sophia’s eyes widen. He didn’t loosen his grip on Mary, meeting the Elder’s gaze with a scowl.

  “She must go through with her agreement.” There was no mistaking the seriousness in Nathaniel’s tone. He raised his white eyebrows, pursing his thin lips. “It will be the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do, but you must let her go.” The man rose, looked down at him again. “Or you’ll lose her.”

  “I lose her either way,” Raphael whispered. If she fulfilled her duty as thysía, she would die. If she broke her blood oath, she would die. The man made no sense.

  Raphael wanted to trash the mansion until it fell into a quivering heap of sawdust and stone, but he couldn’t without harming those inside it who so desperately needed to heal.

  The air stopped vibrating around him, satisfied with his decision to refrain from destruction. The way he saw it, what Mary did was h
er own decision. He wouldn’t tell her what the Elder said—if she wanted to die in his arms, hidden from Jeremiah, Raphael wouldn’t stop her.

  She didn’t deserve the violent execution of the weres.

  Chapter 14

  “Wake up.”

  Mary smiled at Raphael’s soft voice in her ear. “Just a few more minutes?” she whined.

  She was tired.

  “No, sweet.” Hands on her face, running down her arms. “Sunup is in less than forty-five minutes.”

  That jolted Mary awake. She was to be thysía soon, something Raphael had wept over. Trying not to think about what that meant, what a man capable of helping Richard hurt women would do to her, she rose, stretching her arms and back. Fear curdled in her belly, but she ignored it. She’d made a promise for Raphael, and she intended to keep it.

  No matter what happened to her, if she helped Raphael and his pack she would consider the move a triumph.

  “Where is everyone?” She saw a still-sleeping Aiyanna with Cael watching over her, but the humans and Sophia had left. The house was quiet. It seemed even larger now, and even more grotesque in design. Now she noticed chains hidden behind a couch, hooked into the hardwood floor. On a wet bar, next to the whiskey, was a jar of the same herbs Richard’s men had fed her.

  She hoped the mansion’s next owner would gut the place.

  “Sophia and her packmates went to the other houses to free the women there,” Raphael said, “but the humans beat them to it. Once they were free of their compulsions, the guards set every captive free and contacted the police.” A slight smile curved Raphael’s lips.

  His words, his smile, brought what felt like light through Mary. Of course they set the women free. Mary didn’t have to imagine their shock and horror—she’d seen it on the guards’ faces when she’d first come up from the basement. That the men had worked together, helping others and calling the proper authorities, gave her hope that they would all move on from the terror they’d lived through.

  In time, they’ll be all right. She imagined the reunions happening at that very moment.

  “It’s about that time!”

  Glass shattered as a back door was swung open so hard its window broke. Jeremiah had come for her.

  “You don’t have to go with him,” Raphael murmured in her ear. “No matter what you do, you’re not a coward.”

  Mary squeezed his hand, although she disagreed. “I’m going with him,” she said definitively. She looked up at him, into his pained eyes. “Whatever happens, I love you. I don’t regret trying to keep you.”

  But maybe I should have thought through how to go about it.

  When Raphael kissed her, she felt gut-wrenching agony throbbing within him, intertwined with his love for her. She whispered how she didn’t want to live without him, that he was her hero.

  “I love you, my ülikena. Forever and always.” Raphael never stopped combing her hair with his fingers, smoothing the strands over and over again.

  “As sentimental as this is,” Jeremiah said from the kitchen, “it really is time. Everyone’s gathered outside.”

  He appeared frazzled, the complete opposite of what Mary had seen two days ago. His hair was a frizzed mess, as if he’d been running his hands through it, separating the tight curls. His shirt had splotches of brown stains in its wrinkles.

  This time, Jeremiah held a real knife in his hand. Mary wanted to go near it as much as she’d wanted the street water shank to touch her. Hands tightly linked, Mary and Raphael followed Jeremiah to the backyard, leaving Cael’s gentle attempts to wake Aiyanna behind them.

  Beyond the broken door was pandemonium.

  Shoulder to shoulder, Heath and Vale yelled at an unfamiliar older man, advancing toward him until they almost backed him into the kidney-shaped pool. Both hers and Raphael’s names were brought into the argument.

  Under an ornate cabana, Sophia stomped away from another elderly man, angrily swiping tears from her eyes. Sebastian, Alexandre and the twins were arguing with Nathaniel. Three other strangers, two women and one a man, all with graying or white hair, were in a deep discussion away from the younger weres.

  What drew Mary’s attention the most was the mohawked man sitting with his back against the ten-foot high brick wall that surrounded the yard. Using a small dagger, he cut grass away from the soil in precise squares, throwing the pieces in the direction of a middle-aged blond man wearing a priest’s collar. The man stepped away before the dirt could hit him, eyeing the mohawked were in distaste.

  “Here is the thysía,” Jeremiah shouted suddenly, taking her wrist in his hand and jerking her toward him and the pool, away from Raphael.

  Raphael roared, the sound a cross between a wolf’s howl, a man’s yell, and a banshee’s scream. Blood dripped from Jeremiah’s eyes and nose.

  “Do you want her to break her oath?” Jeremiah snarled, using his shirtsleeve to wipe away the blood.

  Raphael stopped moving toward her, but dark promise was clear in his expression. Mary would be surprised if Jeremiah lived out the day.

  “Mary Newman,” Jeremiah began, holding up Mary’s broken hand, “is taking the place of Raphael Saar and Heath Frazier. She will be executed this third day of May in punishment for their crimes, the killing of humans.”

  As the reason for Raphael’s tears crashed into Mary, she turned around to see him running for her. She met his gaze and yelled, tapping into her banshee powers so Jeremiah would hurt and everyone else would hear.

  “They killed no humans.”

  She’d barely spoken the words before Jeremiah’s arm reached out, slicing the blade across her throat. She gasped for air, only to choke on her own blood.

  Raphael reached her before she hit the ground.

  She felt herself dying as she fought for breath, but she couldn’t bring herself to be angry. I’m in Raphael’s arms; he deserves nothing but love from me. The world drifted away.

  *

  Mary died in his arms. His Mary, his mate, hadn’t flinched at the announcement for her execution. Instead, she’d called Jeremiah a liar, the truth ringing in her voice like a warning bell.

  The elders were stalking toward Jeremiah, but Raphael didn’t care. He was about to die—wasn’t he?

  Across the pool, Heath watched him strangely. Cael pulled out his phone and called someone, looking perplexed.

  Raphael rocked Mary’s small, bleeding form against him, fully believing he was dying. Surely no one could outlive this pain. All hope for a future, all of his will to live had been slashed with Jeremiah’s blade.

  He had no idea how long he held Mary, his tears soaking her beautiful hair. He only looked up from her frail form when a body thudded onto the stone slabs a few feet away, forcefully enough for Raphael to hear the crack of a skull.

  Jeremiah was dead, his sightless eyes appearing almost surprised.

  Any other day, Raphael would have been merely curious. Today, he was furious.

  He gently set Mary on the ground, taking off his shirt to put under her head. Her blood had poured into the grooves between the stones, turning into a cloud of red in the pool. He roared, punching a hole in the stone.

  “Who dared take my revenge away from me,” he growled, his words still tinged with ear-piercing banshee wail. “He was mine to kill.”

  Whoever killed Jeremiah gave him a mercy the man hadn’t deserved. For extinguishing the bright light that was Mary, he should have had a slow and painful death, not a sudden one.

  Standing among the six Elders, Vale actually smiled, galling Raphael. “Your mate did.” He nodded at Mary.

  Obviously, Vale was insane.

  “They had a blood oath, and she kept her part of it. Jeremiah didn’t,” Vale exclaimed. “He promised that if she would be your thysía, he would treat you and your clan prohibitum fairly in terms of our laws.”

  Nathaniel stepped forward, his eyes on Mary. “The first thing Jeremiah said to us was a reassurance that you have killed humans. His death proved you
didn’t.”

  “Meaning everything he’s told us over the years, regarding all of you, may have been lies,” one of the Elder women added, her eyes narrowed.

  The Elders kept speaking, but Raphael stopped listening. Something else piqued his attention, a slight sound so soft, he barely heard it under the cacophony surrounding him: a feminine cough, followed by a gasp for air.

  He was back to Mary, pulling her to him so he was between her and those around them, before she took her next breath.

  And she did. He wiped away still-wet blood on her throat to find the slash had healed, leaving a trace of a thin line behind. Feeling for her pulse, he found it thumping strongly against his fingers.

  “Mary,” he murmured, almost unwilling to believe what he saw and felt. It seemed almost too good to be true; they were both alive. He needed her to open her eyes, to speak to him.

  Raphael needed to know she was really back with him.

  “Please, ülikena. Wake up for me.” He brushed hair, some of the strands stained red, from her face. He kissed her hand, her eyes and her lips. “Please come back to me.”

  Slowly, green eyes opened to meet his. Obviously weakened, Mary lifted her hands to cradle his face. “I knew,” she said hoarsely, her full red lips turning up into a smile, “nothing could keep us apart.”

  He kissed her with as much love and passion as he could, telling her without words how furious he’d been—still was—and how deliriously happy he was for her to be whole and alive.

  He didn’t need to hear her apology. It was in the tears in her eyes when she said, “No more secrets from each other. I’ll always fight for you, but next time I’ll tell you before I do anything rash.”

  Raphael growled, gripping her tighter. She won’t get the chance to fight for me, he promised himself, noting he should find a way to lock her in her loft. He had no doubt she would find a way out. She was smart and stubborn, his mate, and he knew he would worry for her safety in the future.

  But as he held her slender form, her heartbeat gaining more strength with every second that passed, he couldn’t think of a single thing he’d change about her.