Adam swept me into his arms and then shoved me into Cain's. "You know the grounds better than I. Get her out of here!" he ordered his mentor.
"I'm not leaving without you!" I insisted.
"You can't hold them!" Cain argued.
Adam looked into his eyes. "Leave now!"
Cain pursed his lips, but nodded and tugged me away. I clawed and pulled at him to escape his clutches. Behind Adam the deputies gathered themselves and rose to jump him. "No! Let me go! Let me-" Cain raised a hand and I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head. The world went black.
Chapter 12
The next I knew I was tucked under someone's arm and we were bouncing down a pitch-black passage. I raised my head and winced when the bruise on the back of my noggin complained. "Adam?" I groaned.
"No," came Cain's voice. It was he who held me
My memories flooded back. Adam was in trouble. He needed me. I was useless in battle, but I could give moral support. "Adam! Where's Adam?" I questioned him. I listened with my ears, but heard only Cain's shoes on hard dirt.
"Captured."
My heart skipped a beat. "And where are we?"
"In a tunnel that runs beneath the manor," he explained.
"The one we came in?"
"No, another one."
I frowned. "But you said that was the only way in!"
"I lied."
That really got my goat, and gave me incentive to squirm and thrash in his grip. "Let me go! Let me go right-" Cain stopped his running and opened his arm. I dropped to the dirt and rolled over to glare at him, or where I thought he stood. "What the hell's going on? What happened back there?"
"I took a secret hatch to the basement and it led us to the original tunnel through which we'd gained entry to the manor. This tunnel is hidden behind one of those walls and runs parallel to the first one through a secret adjoining tunnel," he explained.
I climbed to my feet and placed a palm against the invisible wall to steady myself. "Wait a second. You're telling me that you ran from helping Adam and now we're hiding in a tunnel you didn't tell us about?"
"Yes."
My fingers itched to slap some sense into him. "What the hell did you do that for? Where the hell does this one lead?" I growled at him.
"Into the walls on the opposite wing. It's a true passage," he told me.
"Well, we're going to use this way to get Adam free." I looked up and down the tunnel. Nothing could be seen in either direction. "Which way is the manor?"
"The opposite direction we are going," Cain replied.
I blinked at the darkness. "You're leading us away from the manor? Why? We need to save Adam!"
"He instructed me to protect you, and I will perform his last wish," Cain insisted.
There. His voice told me where he stood. I marched up to him and bonked my nose into his chest. "It'll be Adam's last wish if we don't rescue him!"
"There's nothing we can do once he's in their clutches. We can only hope they haven't found the car and that we can escape," Cain argued.
"I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you! We're going back there and-"
"And getting ourselves killed. We're no match for so many werewolves, particularly since you are a human," he pointed out.
"Then change me! Turn me into a werewolf so I can help!" I demanded.
"No." His firm voice made me pause, and his hand settled on my shoulder. "I won't do that. Not to the woman Adam loves."
I had to fight back the tears of frustration that rose in my eyes. "But we have to do something! We can't just let him die!"
"The only thing that would save him is my innocence, and we found nothing in the billiard room to prove that. If we cannot eliminate that dark spot of accusation against me than Adam will bear the burden of helping a murderer," he told me.
His words struck a chord in my memory. "Spot, spot. . .spot!" I looked in the direction of his face and jumped up and down. "There was a spot in the room!"
"The blood spot?" he guessed.
"No, a white spot! On the floor beneath the buffet table! My shoulder caught on the floor and it tore away some sort of secret cover! There was something white beneath it like the stuff in the vent!" I explained.
I felt Cain stiffen rather than see him do it. "A white spot? Then that could mean something is hidden there."
"Maybe something that could help clear your name," I suggested.
"Perhaps, but it isn't likely," Cain mused.
"But that means that it's somewhat likely, and that's a good enough chance for me if it means saving Adam," I persisted.
Cain sighed. "You have a great deal of faith in chance."
"And Adam has a great deal of faith that I'm going to disobey him and get him out of that mess like all the others before him." I patted the wall with my hand and stumbled forward. "Now turn me in the right direction and I'll go it alone if I have to."
I heard Cain chuckle. "You won't need to, but I think I have a better idea than yours."
I paused and snorted. "I don't have any idea what I'm doing. I just know I need to get back to that billiard room before Adam's game is up."
"Neither of us will return there," Cain argued.
I frowned. "Like hell we aren't." He put his hand on my shoulder and I tried to shrug it off, but his hold was much stronger. "You're not stopping me from-"
"-anything. I have an idea where we can investigate the spot without us investigating it," he told me.
"Uh, come again?"
"We will enlist the help of my mate, Lilith. She will check the spot for us."
"Ooh, right. Her. But how do we get to her from here?"
"As I said before, this passage leads to the opposite wing. It also winds itself through the walls to those between the bedrooms, one of which is Lilith's," he explained.
"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's get-" I got moving straight to the ground when my foot tripped over the uneven ground. Cain's hand kept me from falling to the hard-packed dirt. I sheepishly looked up into the darkness. "Maybe you should lead."
"I'm in the opposite direction."
"I knew that."
"Before we go you may need this to ensure your dumb luck continues." Cain pushed something soft and squishy into my hands. My small bag my mom gave me.
I hugged the bag to me and smelled the sugary scent of my mom. "Thanks. Really."
"My pleasure. Now let me lead you back to the house so we can save Adam." He turned me around, grabbed my hand and guided me in the opposite direction I'd been going. In a few minutes Cain slowed to a crawl. "We've come to the stairs," he explained.
Cain helped me up a short flight of ten stairs, and at the top there was light through the wallpaper and white plaster walls. The passage was illuminated enough for me to see we stood in a true secret passage that stretched to the first-floor ceiling, and was three feet wide. Another flight of stairs stood at the end and led to the second floor. I peered through the wall and saw we stood in the far left corner of a study. Through its open doors I could see the entrance hall and the billiard room opposite where we stood.
In the center of the room was a chair, and in that chair, bound in chains, sat Adam. His clothes were torn, and there was dried blood and bruises all over his body. Before him, towering over his seated self, stood Hawthorne. The judge's hands were behind his back and he glared down at Adam.
"I will not ask this again. Where are Cain and the woman?" the judge demanded to know.
Adam shook his head. "I don't know."
"You entered this house with them. You must know where they are hiding now," Hawthorne persisted.
"I don't know where they are," Adam insisted.
On a chair close at hand sat Miranda. She frowned and looked to her mate. "What if he's telling the truth?" she asked him. "Cain is a cunning sort. Perhaps he's hidden himself elsewhere." Beside me I saw Cain flinch.
"Possible, but I still suspect he knows something. We found their bags in the tunnel, but no tracks lea
ding away from the shed at the end. That means there must be an entrance in the tunnel that Cain used. He must have been told about another secret tunnel in case the first should be compromised," the judge surmised.
"Cain told me that was the only secret tunnel to the house," Adam spoke up.
I jumped when Cain set a hand on my shoulder. He nodded at the stairs that led up. I shook my head and nodded at Adam. "We can't leave him," I whispered.
"We can't help them until we help ourselves," he scolded. He gently pulled me from the wall, and I reluctantly followed him up the old stairs.
The stairs led to the hallway of the second floor and turned around to travel between the walls of the two most rear bedrooms on one side of the passage. To our right was Lilith's bedroom, and to our left was another. Through the cracks I could see Lilith chew a long fingernail as she paced from one end of the room to the other.
Cain led me to a part of the wall that showed the white plaster covered a hidden rectangular door. He pressed a release button and the door swung into the room. Lilith spun around and her eyes widened as she watched us enter. She rushed over to us and grasped Cain's shoulders. "What are you doing here? You should have escaped when you had the chance!"
Cain shook his head. "We couldn't abandon Adam."
I snorted. "Not through lack of trying."
"You must leave before they find you!" she insisted as she tried to turn him around back to the secret passage.
Cain clasped her hands in his and shook his head. "No more running, no more hiding. They have Adam, and we must save him. You can help us do that."
She froze and the color drained from her face. "I-I? How can I help? I know nothing about the murder other than what I-"
"This isn't about remembering that night. We need you to go downstairs to the billiard room and look under the buffet table. Chris-" he nodded at me, "-said she saw something there, something that the deputies would overlook because it was hidden from sight and smell." Lilith's hands trembled and her legs buckled beneath her. "Lilith! Lilith, are you all right?" Cain exclaimed as he helped her to the foot of her bed.
She clutched her head in one hand and bit her lip. "I-I'm fine, it's just that-well, it sounds dangerous and I'm frightened." She looked into his eyes and gripped his hands. "Are you sure you won't go away? What if this human's wrong with what she saw?"
"I'm not," I spoke up.
Cain smiled at her and squeezed her hands. "You must do this for me. There might be proof to my innocence beneath that floor, and then we can be together again."
"But what could it hold that would prove your innocence?" she countered.
Cain shrugged. "Maybe a letter detailing a prank gone wrong, or maybe nothing at all. It's worth trying."
Lilith turned away from him. She closed her eyes and nodded. "All right, I'll do it. Let me freshen up for a moment and I'll go."
"That's my girl," Cain cooed.
Lilith stood and walked over to the dresser that stood between the bed and the wall that held the main entrance. She opened the top drawer and dipped a hand inside the container. Lilith snatched something from inside the drawer and spun around. My eyes widened when I saw she held a pistol, and the barrel was pointed at us.
Cain frowned. "Don't cause trouble for yourself by shooting a deputy. It's not worth your being tried, too."
A smooth grin slid onto her lips. "This isn't for the deputies, this is for you." She stepped to the side and blocked our escape through the front door. The barrel of the gun ensured we wouldn't be escaping through the secret passage.
Cain blinked at her. "For us? What is this-" He took a step towards her, but she pointed the gun at him.
"Not another step closer." She wagged the end of the gun towards me. "Get up beside her and both of you hold up your hands."
Cain did as he was told and we both raised our hands. "Lilith, what's the meaning of this?"
"I don't want you opening that secret box, that's what." She grinned and cocked back the hammer of the gun. "Now I'm going to pretend that you two were trying to attack me and-"
"Wait!" I yelled.
Lilith paused and frowned. "Wait for what?"
Now I had to think of what to wait for. I tightly grasped the bag between my hands and a brilliant idea hit me. "You think you can hide what's in there, but you're too late. We found it and took it out," I told her.
Lilith's eyes narrowed and she pointed the gun at me. "You're lying, or you wouldn't have wanted me to inspect the floor," she countered.
I swung the bag in front of my face. "Are you so sure?"
Lilith lunged forward, snatched the bag from my hand, and jumped back. She kept one eye on us as she opened the bag and stuck her head inside. Big mistake. I could smell the fumes from the garlic from the few yards between us. The smell scent of the herbs must have soaked into the bag, but not beyond the bag.
Lilith gagged and stumbled back. She dropped the bag and clutched her throat as a coughing fit overcame her. Cain lunged forward and grabbed the wrist of her gun hand in both of his hands. She countered by grabbing one of his hands, and in their scuffle the gun went off several times into the ceiling. I heard the pounding of footsteps up the stairs and down the hall, and was just in time to snatch my bag from the ground when a pack of deputies broke through the door and rushed into the room. Our merry runaround with the deputies was over.
Chapter 13
They didn't assess the situation, but figured everyone was a guilty party. Four of them wrestled Lilith and Cain apart, and two of them tried to jump me. I held open my bag in front of me and waved it at them. "Back! Back, I say!" I ordered them. They growled and swiped their claws at me, but didn't dare go beyond the smell of the garlic.
Meanwhile, the fighting lovers were torn apart and metal shackles were latched onto their wrists. Lilith glared at Cain. "He tried to kill me! Both of them did!" she accused her mate and me.
The deputies pinned Cain's arms behind his back, but that didn't keep him from pulling forward and snarling at Lilith. "Liar!" he growled.
The judge arrived in the doorway with Miranda by his side, and his eyes swept over the scene. His gaze fell on Cain, and he stalked towards my companion to stand before him. The deputies held Cain still as Hawthorne assessed his prisoner with a cunning smirk. "So you've been caught in the act of an attempting murder?" he surmised.
"She's lying!" I spoke up. "She's hiding something in the billiard room and she wanted to kill us to keep us from telling anybody about it!"
"Quiet! The word of a criminal means less than nothing to me," Judge Hawthorne boomed.
"Look for yourself," Cain challenged him.
"The billiard room has been scoured by my best people. There is nothing there," Hawthorne argued.
"There's something there now. I saw it beneath the buffet table," I insisted.
Hawthorne pursed his lips and looked to his men who held Cain and confronted me. "Take them to their cohort downstairs."
"This human has garlic," his men pointed out.
"And a silver fork," I added as I removed said object from the bag.
Hawthorne turned his full attention on me and wrinkled his nose. "A human that smells like Adam. If you are his mate than you will surrender and join him in his sentence."
"I'll do the first part, but I think we'll both skip the second," I quipped as I stepped back into the secret passage behind me.
"If you leave now I will personally order the execution of him this day," Hawthorne threatened.
Miranda perked up at the warning. She strode forward and grabbed his arm to spin him around. Her glaring eyes looked into his. "How can you threaten her mate when all she wishes to do is save him?"
"Because they are criminals, and criminals must be dealt with without mercy," he insisted.
"You would convict them before they are tried?" she scolded him.
He looked down his nose at her. "Yes, for the good of justice and-" He didn't get to finish his sentence because Miranda sla
mmed her fist into his face. He spun in a full circle and collapsed face-first to the floor.
The mouths of the deputies hung agape as Miranda rubbed her sore knuckles. "His head is as hard as he is stubborn."
"M-Miranda, what have you done?" one of the deputies squeaked.
"What should have been done a long time ago, justice. I will take full responsibility for this attack and for this case." Miranda narrowed her eyes and swept them over the group. "Does anyone have a problem with that?" The half dozen guards furiously shook their heads. "Good." She turned her attention to me and my bag of smelliness. "We won't harm you, but you must come with us."
I grinned and lowered the bag a little. "Can I trust justice?" I teased.
She smiled. "Justice can change its mind in the face of evidence."
"Speaking of evidence, I think I found some in the billiard room," I commented.
"There is nothing there!" Lilith insisted.
"What do we do about her?" one of his men who held Lilith spoke up.
Lilith squirmed and twisted in their grasp. "Let me go! I haven't done anything!" she growled.
"Until we sort out this mess everyone will remain together," Miranda replied. Her eyes fell on the prone body of her mate. She sneered and nodded down at him. "Someone pick him up and carry him with us."
"Um, could you call of your-er, men?" I requested. The pair of them still stood in front of me ready to snatch me.
"Stand down and let her come with us," Miranda ordered them.
The deputies reluctantly pulled away and I hurried past them through the open doors. Miranda led the way into the hall, but I hurried ahead of the group and into the study. Adam still sat in the chair, and he raised his head when I entered.
"Adam!" I yelled at him.
A look of pain passed over his face as I raced over to him. "What are you doing here?" he questioned me as I hugged my body against his.
I snorted and pulled away. "Saving your hide, that's what." Adam looked past me at the crowd of deputies and Miranda who followed me into the room. I sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "Okay, so I need more practice on the whole 'rescuing' thing."
Adam's eyes fell on the body of Hawthorne who was slung over the shoulder of one of the deputies, and he raised an eyebrow. "What has happened?"
"Justice is giving you leniency. For the moment," Miranda spoke up. She pointed at a reclining couch against the front wall. "Seat the prisoners and my mate there." Cain and Lilith were plopped into the seats, and Hawthorne was leaned against another.