by Young, S.
So caught in the moment, she’d forgotten about the other wolves. But she realized as Conall padded away from her, the energy around him becoming static, that the gray wolf had stopped whimpering. His pelt still rose and fell with deep breaths—he was still alive.
Conall shifted. She knew it was wrong to watch but found herself unable to look anywhere else. First his fur began to shrink, disappearing into golden skin, and then the cracking of bone sounded as his forelegs became arms. He settled onto his hind legs as the transformation moved through his body, until Conall emerged, standing, his skin flushed. He faced her, chest heaving with exertion, and she got a second look at his ripped abdomen before her attention was inevitably drawn downward.
A blush crested high on her cheeks.
Conall was aroused.
Impressively, impressively so.
Her eyes flew to his, and he gave her an unembarrassed shrug. “Pay no attention. Just a side effect of adrenaline after a fight.”
Thea nodded, trying to appear nonchalant. “Well, I learn something new every day.”
He shot her a dry look and pulled on his clothes, turning to do so, giving her the backside view instead.
She wasn’t disappointed by that at all.
The air across the courtyard changed, drawing their attention, and the gray wolf slowly transformed into a man. His groans were not ones of pleasure but of pain. He sat back, naked on his haunches, his belly wound raw and red but closed. Thea remembered Conall said werewolves healed faster in wolf form.
This was the proof.
The man glared his hatred at Conall but didn’t move. Conall grabbed his backpack and strode over to the waiting werewolf.
“Who sent you?”
The attacker didn’t speak.
“Do I need to kill you too?”
The werewolf looked at his dead companion.
“He acted dishonorably. He forfeited and then attacked when my back was turned.”
Anguish darkened the werewolf’s eyes, but he reluctantly nodded. His gaze moved to Thea. “Eirik wants you dead,” the werewolf said in a German accent. “If he wants you dead, there is no escaping that.” Out of nowhere, he pulled a silver blade and Thea went to lunge in front of Conall just as the wolf drew the blade across his own throat.
She grabbed Conall’s arm, her grip probably bruising as she stared in shock at the dying wolf.
After a few seconds, Conall drew her hand from his arm and curled his own around it. He drew her into side. “Eirik?”
Thea shook her head. “I’ve no idea. The Blackwoods?”
Conall exhaled slowly, wearily. “I dinnae think so.”
Realizing there might be more than one group after her, Thea stared up at Conall who was glaring at the dead wolf in thought. If he couldn’t protect Thea, get her back to Scotland before someone else got to her, Callie would die. But somewhere deep down, Thea knew she’d begun to hope that Conall cared about protecting Thea because of Thea.
Something had changed between them, gradually, compelling them forward to a new state of understanding, one that finally sank its teeth into Thea as she watched Conall fight to the death to protect her.
Like he knew she had been fighting for too long.
Like he knew just once someone should care enough to fight for her.
Thea so wanted to believe that.
Only days ago, she would have told herself she was ridiculous to even contemplate trusting another being with her life. But she was so tired.
So tired of being alone.
Of being without faith.
The promise she made to Amanda floated across her mind.
“Iron,” she blurted out.
Conall frowned down at her. “What, lass?”
She licked her dry lips and then unconsciously squeezed the hand holding tight to hers. “My weakness, Conall. The thing Ashforth lined the walls with, the metal of the cat-o’-nine-tails. Pure iron. I’m allergic to pure iron.”
He was disturbingly silent for what felt like forever. And then he turned into her. “You trust me a little then, Thea?”
Although it was difficult, she nodded.
Something flared in his eyes. “I know someone who might be able to give us the answers we need. About you … about the Blackwoods and this Eirik person. Will you trust me to take you to this man?”
There was still a part of her that wanted to flee the truth, to flee trust, hope, but Thea accepted that everything had changed when Conall came into her life. There was no going back now.
“Okay …”
“He’s a friend but he’s also a vampire.”
Surprised by this information, Thea could only nod. She’d been under the assumption that vamps and wolves tolerated each other but weren’t exactly friendly.
Conall tugged on her hand and led her out of the courtyard of death. “Then we’re taking a detour.”
“To where?”
He flashed her a quick grin over his shoulder. “Ever been to Norway?”
“I still can’t believe you have a fake ID,” Thea said as Conall drove north.
He shot her a look, wondering at what point she stopped seeing him as most people did. Everyone else would take one look at him and immediately think “That is a man with a fake ID, a Harley, and a knife collection.”
“Most supes I know have fake identification. Strange things happen around us. We need to be untraceable if the authorities poke around.”
She nodded, seeming to accept this.
Conall had used said fake ID, an ID that Ashforth did not know about, to rent an SUV in Düsseldorf. They were traveling toward Neumünster in northern Germany. It was over a five-hour drive, so they’d stop at a hotel for the night before continuing in the morning through Denmark to Frederikshavn. That drive would be followed by an almost ten-hour ferry crossing to Oslo.
“Ashforth used to scare me with the threat of the government. That they were interested in me after the plane crash and it was only his protection that was keeping them at bay. Do you think the government knows about supes?”
Conall didn’t like that Ashforth had held government exposure over her head like an axe, but he also wouldn’t lie to the lass. “It would be naïve to think they arenae aware of our world. I’ve heard stories of certain governments … experimentation, captivity, recruitment, that kind of thing.”
“Doesn’t that concern you?”
“As long as they stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of theirs.” He wasn’t looking for a war. His whole mission in life was to protect his pack from that very thing. Conall thought of Callie, whom he’d called from a pay phone before they’d left Düsseldorf. She hadn’t answered, and it was Ashforth who rang the pay phone back.
“The Blackwoods attacked again,” Conall had lied to Ashforth. “They were using the cell to track us.”
“And yet you survived,” Ashforth had murmured. “You’re proving yourself to be quite impressive, Conall.”
He’d almost choked on his bile as images of Thea’s back flitted across his mind. This man had used a vampire to whip Thea with a cat-o’-bloody-nine tails. She’d been nineteen years old. Rage had welled inside Conall just thinking about it, and he’d pulled the phone away from his ear, taking deep breaths and ignoring Thea’s questioning eyes.
Finally he’d pulled himself together. “I’m going to bring Thea back without your help. Your people cannae be trusted.”
Ashforth had sounded affronted. “I assure you they can.”
“Well, that doesnae assure me. I’m doing this my way, which means I’ll be taking an out-of-the-way route back to Scotland to shake any tail we might have. I’ll not lead a dangerous coven into my country and anywhere near my pack. It’ll probably take us a few more days to get home.”
“Frankly,” Ashforth had spat, “that’s not good enough. I’m a businessman, Conall. I have fucking responsibilities elsewhere. You get back here immediately.”
The wolf had risen from inside easily after having been
let loose earlier. The grizzle of the wolf made his voice coarse. “Dinnae ever dare speak to me that way. You’re not alpha here. I call the shots.”
“And I have your sister.”
Conall had let rip a feral growl, not caring who around them heard it. “Aye, but I have Thea. And I think I might only now understand just how important she is to you, so we’re even in that respect. Do you know where we’re not even, Ashforth? I have your scent. There is no amount of money in the world that can protect you from me. Nowhere for you to hide. If you touch one hair on either Callie’s or James’ heads, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and fucking skin you alive. And that’s not a figure of speech.”
Ashforth had gone silent, and Conall had flicked a look at Thea leaning against the wall beside the pay phone, staring at the ground. A small, darkly satisfied smile had curled her lips as she’d listened to Conall’s threat. It’d made him feel about ten feet tall to give her that moment.
“Like I said, we’ll be a few days yet. I’ll call again when we’re getting closer. Now I’d like to speak with my sister.”
And so Conall had a few moments with Callie to hear her voice and assure himself she was okay. She sounded tired and bored, but beyond that, fine.
Afterward Conall made Thea move quickly, knowing Ashforth would no doubt trace the call and try to follow them.
They’d been on the road for more than an hour, mostly driving in silence. Over the last few days he’d learned that Thea, like him, wasn’t particularly loquacious unless you asked her something that required detail. He liked that about her. Their silence was easy, like two friends who had known each other a long time. However, it left Conall to his own thoughts, and his own thoughts were not a good place to be.
Thea had told him her weakness was pure iron. That revelation opened his mind to the most absurd conclusions that couldn’t possibly be true. Which was why he was taking her to his friend, Vik. Vik was a two-hundred and thirty-four-year-old vampire who split his time between Glasgow and Oslo. They’d met when he’d bought one of the oldest bottles of whisky in the GlenTorr collection. Conall had delivered it to him in Glasgow and been surprised to find the buyer was a vampire. They shared a similar sense of humor, and Vik’s breadth of knowledge on many subjects fascinated Conall. He was a devout researcher, with a plethora of degrees from several of the world’s best universities, and contacts all over the planet.
They’d kept in touch and Conall visited anytime they were both in Glasgow. He knew Vik was at his Oslo home because Conall had just sent a small crate of whisky over before he’d left to find Thea.
If anyone might know what Thea was, it would be Vik.
He knew everything about the supernatural world.
He’d be able to dispel the utter nonsense rolling around in Conall’s mind.
Conall flicked a look at his companion. He enjoyed looking at her. Too much.
She’d trusted him.
Fuck but that pleased him.
He wanted to reach over and tuck her hair behind her ear so he could better see her face, but he resisted. Wanting to touch her all the time had crept up on him. And he knew Thea was attracted to him too. He’d scented it.
It was a complication they didn’t need.
One Conall had to ignore.
For Callie’s sake, for the packs’.
For his and for Thea’s.
Conall needed to distract them both. “Did your parents know? About the iron?”
Her cognac eyes were almost black in the shadowed interior of the SUV. Her eyes appeared dark as jet in the photos Ashforth first showed Conall, and their rich warmth in real life had been unexpected. As was their soulfulness. How could he have thought this woman had any evil in her?
Arse, Conall. You’re a total and utter arse sometimes.
Thea’s voice pulled him from his self-derision. “There aren’t a lot of objects made from pure iron. Well, there wasn’t.” She shot him a sardonic look. “Recently there’s been a trend in using pure iron for decorative railings and such instead of wrought iron. That’s been fun.”
Conall thought about that. Pure iron was a silver-gray metal, a little more pliable than iron but it was still strong enough to do damage. Thea’s back was evidence of that. Then again, if it was as poisonous to Thea as she said, it wouldn’t matter how strong the iron was. Like silver to a wolf, one touch to the skin would burn.
He blanched, imagining what it would feel like to be whipped by a silver-tipped cat-o’-nine-tails. Fuck, but he was in awe of Thea’s strength.
“So they never knew?”
“Honestly, possibly. But it never came up. Pure iron has less carbon in it, so it isn’t as strong or frequently used as other iron materials. Now there’s more of it. They use what they call commercial pure iron, but it still affects me. It’s what blacksmiths use to make those goddamn decorative railings … but …” She exhaled shakily. “It’s also used in aviation. Pure iron was one of the first things I googled when I got away from Ashforth. There was this page that said commercial pure iron is utilized in aviation.”
Conall was silent as he let this sink in. Did she think … “Thea,” he said, his tone gentle, “most planes are made of aluminium.”
“Aluminum?” She pronounced the u like “ooh” and excluded the last i.
“Aye, that one. But the way I said. The right way,” he teased, trying to coax the taut expression off her face. She couldn’t possibly think she was to blame for her parents’ deaths.
She didn’t smile at his teasing. “But what about all the little parts a plane is made of? There could be commercial pure iron in there somewhere.”
“Enough to make you bring down a plane?” He shook his head. “I dinnae think so, lass. Were you …” He hesitated to take her back to that place, but he felt it was important to assure her. “Did you feel pain or the flu-like symptoms you spoke of when you got on the plane with your parents that day?”
She swallowed so hard, he heard it. “No,” she whispered. “I didn’t know it at the time but what I felt was the feeling I get when I know something bad is going to happen. I get this tingling burn down my neck, my heart races, and a feeling of dread comes over me.”
Conall raised an eyebrow. “And you feel this every time you sense danger?”
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t feel pain that day?”
“No.”
“Then it stands to reason, Thea, that your instincts knew there was something wrong with that plane. You didnae bring it down. Your instincts were just screaming at you it would go down.”
“But what if my emotions made it worse? I fried Ashforth’s plane, blew the windshield off it before that.”
Conall wished he could pull over so he could look her in the eyes when he said this, so she could see his certainty and sincerity. “Thea, you did not kill your parents. You tried to save them … it’s not your fault they didnae know to listen.”
She was quiet so long he thought he’d upset her. Then, “Sometimes I blame them for that. Because they should have known. They knew me. They knew … I was different. That if I thought something was wrong, they should listen.”
Glad he’d steered her away from self-flagellation, he asked, “When did they realize you were different?”
“As soon as I was born, they knew something was up because of the blood tests. My DNA isn’t entirely human. In fact, it’s no DNA that’s ever been catalogued.”
Conall nodded. “Werewolves too. We wolves use fellow werewolves for doctors and midwives.”
“Smart. But my parents were both human, which makes what I am an even greater mystery. The doctors ran the tests again, and they wanted to keep me at the hospital, but after months of tests that didn’t prove my abnormal DNA equated to health problems, another doctor advised my parents to take me home. And they left town. Mom was making good money with Ashforth so they moved to Westchester to be close to the city. Mom and Dad told me it wasn’t until around a year old they reali
zed I might be special. I began talking in full sentences.”
Conall huffed. “That’s fast.”
“Extremely. And I was strong. Stronger than my dad. And I … I could move things.”
He furrowed his brows, not only at the information but at the trepidation in her voice. “Move things?”
“Without touching them.”
Conall snapped his eyes to hers and she was staring at him warily.
Hell, he wished she wouldn’t do that. Keeping his expression neutral, he said, “I wasnae aware you could do that.”
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “I mean, not anymore. Ashforth doesn’t know about it. It freaked my parents out so much and they were trying to protect me, so they asked me to stop. I did. It’s like the years of disuse put a mental block on it or something. The only time I’ve come close to using it is when I’m emotional.”
“Like when you turned the lights on in the hotel room yesterday?”
“Exactly. Obviously, my parents knew something was up, to put it mildly. Dad didn’t even consider the idea I wasn’t his. He trusted my mom completely. Plus, there’s no denying I’m his child.”
Conall looked at her again and she was smiling softly. His gaze dropped to her mouth before moving back to the road.
“I have his dark hair, his eyes, and his smile. My mom was a redhead.”
“So was mine.” Conall smiled in memory. “As is Callie.”
“I, um … I’ve seen a picture.”
“How?”
Her expression was sheepish. “When I stole money out of your wallet.”
“Oh, aye.” He grunted. “That time you broke my neck.”
“It could have been worse.”
His reply was dry. “I’m aware of that.”
Thea smirked, but her smile fell. “My parents started researching and Dad soon began to realize that there was this whole other world around us. And like I said, as I got older my parents taught me to hide my strength, to control it. They absolutely forbade me to use any of the mind stuff. Moving things without touching them and manipulating what people saw.”