Rivals and Retribution

  Derek’s mother just hung her head and we stepped back, the images fading away and leaving me in the dark of the old shed, colder than ever, one thought in my head: adapt to survive.

  Alexi

  “Are you sure I can’t help?” Amy dogged my steps, following me from room to room in the Queen Anne as I opened closets and pulled out gun and knife cases and other things that had become tools of my rather unsavory trade. My time with the black market had served me well. By being one of the bad guys so frequently, I knew how to handle the same sort of people when I had to switch my black hat for a white one.

  “Amy,” I finally said, setting one case on the foot of my bed and popping the latches so it sprung open. “If you want to help, assemble that.” I pointed to the gleaming Glock.

  She stared at me.

  “Then stay out of my way,” I added, grabbing the gun and slamming it together before I opened the Baggie containing the scrap of an old T-shirt still damp with gun oil and wiped down the gun’s muzzle.

  She crossed her arms, and the stare became a glare. “I just want to help get Jessie back.”

  “I know. But right now there is nothing you can do but stay out from underfoot and wait for our return.” I handed the Glock to Cat. “Unless.”

  “Unless what?” Amy asked, stepping closer.

  “Do you pray?”

  She swallowed. “Occasionally” was all she committed to, finding something fascinating about the floor nearby rather than keeping her eyes on mine.

  “Excellent. Now would be a wonderful time to reconnect with your god. Pray for us.” I brushed past her, Cat close behind, Max still in the dining room with Pietr, laying plans.

  “You must not hesitate if the moment comes,” Max was saying.

  “I have not recently been known for my mercy,” Pietr snapped at his brother. “Dmitri believes—”

  “Da,” I interjected. “Dmitri believes you killed those people at his orders. But we know you got them out. You were not a murderer—you were their salvation. The premeditation of murder is more than you might be up to.”

  “And,” Cat added, “if Amy is correct and Dmitri is back in the picture…”

  “There will be additional trouble and perhaps a necessity to premeditate such a severe act. Hesitation may cost us in lives. He will surely have the proper bullets.”

  “And with only one wolf…,” Amy whispered, looking at Max pointedly.

  “I will be careful,” he assured her. “I have much to return to. But, Pietr, if Marlaena…”

  “I am prepared to kill her,” he muttered.

  Something heavy as a stone sank into the pit of my stomach. He said the words, but his tone was wrong—his body language soft and lacking determination. He was not being honest with us about something. Or perhaps not being honest with himself.

  Perhaps he did not even know what it was.…

  I squinted at him, examining his posture. Something was wrong beyond the fact he was still a werewolf—minus the wolf.

  “We need to go,” Cat said from the door, her coat, hat, and gloves on once more. She looked more the part of a fashion plate than someone on a rescue mission.

  “Da. We must.”

  We gathered the last odds and ends that defined us as being officially at war and left Amy and the comfort of the house for one more dangerous adventure.

  Marlaena

  They were bouncing on the beds, doing jumping jacks and moves that’d make a simple human cheerleader jealous of their agility and grace. “Down!”

  Londyn bounced one more time, grinning.

  My growl knocked the bounce out of her and she slipped off the bed to land nimbly on the floor, pouting.

  “Why, why must you ruin everyone’s fun, Marlaena?” Dmitri asked, giving the pups his best She sucks the life right out of the party look.

  “If they create a disturbance, we get complaints. Then the motel’s manager will kick us out or raise the rent.”

  Dmitri shrugged. “Do I not handle all the bills?”

  “Just because you can handle the bills, and possibly the manager,” I said, my gaze drifting to the bulge in his waistband where he kept one gun (there were others), “doesn’t mean we need additional attention.” I glared evenly at each pup. “So keep it under control. You got me?”

  They nodded slowly, lips drawn into thin straight lines. “Under control,” Kyanne repeated, each syllable separated. “Thank goodness you lead by example.”

  I was on her in an instant, my hands wrapped around her neck, my face so close to hers I brushed the hair hanging across her forehead.

  “There you go again,” she croaked. “Leading by example…”

  Strong hands gripped my shoulders and a mouth was by my ear, whispering, “… now. Leave her be. Shhhh. ’laena…” Gareth’s hands slipped around me and traveled the slow lengths of my arms to get to where my fingers pressed tightly to Kyanne’s throat. One by one he loosened them. “Shhh. She’s a child. She’s disappointed. She’s not challenging you.…”

  I rolled back, limp against his chest, my eyes burning with anger. I was trapped in a world where I couldn’t do anything right. The pack was turning against me.

  My family was falling apart.…

  “Thanks, Gareth,” Kyanne said, bitterness in her voice. “She’s a child,” she repeated. “Awesome. Like I’m the immature one.”

  “Shhh,” he urged her. “Then don’t admit to being immature,” he agreed in a calm whisper so close his breath heated the edge of my ear. “But if it’s not that—”

  “Brave,” she snapped. “I’m being brave enough to speak up.”

  “There’s a thin line between bravery and stupidity,” he concluded, his tone so calming it made my skin crawl. His even pitch reminded me of the lapping of the ocean on the shore. Steady. Dependable.

  I closed my eyes and focused on breathing. I heard Kyanne scramble away from me. I concentrated on the rise and fall of Gareth’s chest, the strong beat of his heart, the soft sound of his breathing, his existence anchoring me … and I took sanctuary in that moment.

  “Get up, Princess,” he whispered. “Let’s take a minute. Just you and me, okay? We’ll have us another stroll.”

  I grunted and let him help me to my feet. He slipped an arm around my waist and, guiding me out of the motel room, paused on the long balcony.

  The door closed and the volume inside the room rose once again. But Gareth held me—stopped me from going back inside to shout some more.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confessed. “I’m…”

  The room grew silent, and shadows hinted at figures leaning behind the curtains on the far side of the picture window.

  Gareth nodded. “A stroll,” he said, turning us as one and starting us on our way.

  “They’re going to get us in trouble,” I protested. “They’ll get us noticed.”

  “Since when did you worry about trouble?” He tugged at the ends of my hair, teasing me. My bright red hair had been an issue for the guys for a while, Gareth being quick to point out how memorable redheads are. If we really didn’t want to attract attention, I should dye my hair. Go brunette. Be just like the less memorable majority.

  So I hadn’t.

  “I get it. I’m a hypocrite.”

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “Don’t be like that. Not with me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re so all-or-nothing. Hot or cold. Love or hate. It’s like there are no settings in between. You take things too far sometimes.”

  “I commit. I’m not wishy-washy,” I defended myself.

  He smiled at me. “There you go again. It’s not being wishy-washy to just take it easy sometimes.”

  “They can’t be breaking beds.”

  “They weren’t. They were bouncing on them.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Something’s eating you up inside,” he said, pulling me tight to him. “Tell me what i
t is.”

  “I can’t.” I thought about Jessica Gillmansen. Duct-taped and hidden away. About Pietr and the way his image ghosted around in my head.

  Gareth’s hand slipped from around my waist to hang beside him, his fingertips brushing mine. They stroked the inside of my palm, and the world blurred and tilted as I struggled to keep breathing. “Come with me,” he said, fingers encircling my wrist.

  I nodded, feeling fire brush my face as my ears fought to decode his tone. “Yes,” I replied, not caring what he was trying to do because at least he was trying to do it with me.

  He slid his magnetic key out of his pocket and tugged me toward a door. Room 206.

  Gareth’s room.

  My vision swam.

  “I need you—”

  I didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying because the sound of the ocean—of my pulse fuzzing out—filled my ears. Gareth needed me.…

  The door opened, and we slipped inside, his body snug to mine. Even in the dim room I could see the strong angles of his face: the sharp jawline and crisp cheekbones, the broad and supple lips that rested a thumb’s width from the base of his aquiline nose. And the powerful eyebrows, so much like the bend and sweep of a blackbird’s wing.… Beneath which his lavender eyes lit with just a hint of the wolf’s red.

  Moving backward, my calves bumped up against the edge of the bed and my breath caught. He bent down, flowing like deep, dark water, and untied my shoelaces, slipping off my sneakers. Then his eyes met mine again and he grinned, his lips twisting at one end. A sliver of white showed from between them as they parted to reveal his perfect teeth.

  “Ready?” he whispered, stepping on the heel of one of his sneakers with the toe of the other to shirk them both off.

  I nodded, mute. With Gareth, I felt ready for anything.

  His hands closed around my waist and he lifted me onto the bed. The grin, all devil now, widened, the beads at the ends of his dreadlocks bouncing.

  He jumped onto the bed and looked down, stooping over me, the entire mattress rocking. He took my hands. “Up, Princess,” he said, rolling his weight back and forth so the bed moved like the waves on an unsettled ocean.

  “You’re kidding,” I whispered, glad the bad lighting hid the blush rising in my cheeks. “You brought me here to…”

  “Bounce,” he finished with a laugh. And, holding my hands, he started bouncing in small but growing increments and forced me to join in as his jumps got bigger and crazier.…

  I laughed, my head rolling back as the sound poured out. I was bouncing, my feet quick to leave the fluff of the comforter and reach for the ceiling instead.

  Gareth laughed, watching me, his eyes crinkling as his mouth opened to let out bigger and bigger laughs—laughs that bordered on shouts of joy.

  And then, suddenly, his face became serious—intense—and he stopped his jumping, his legs spread wide to keep his balance as my own jumping died down, my face getting as serious as his.

  “What?” I asked, reaching for him. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” he replied, his tone flat, eyes shining. “You were laughing.”

  I nodded.

  “Everything’s right.” He grabbed me by my shoulders and kissed me. Hard.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jessie

  Noise outside the shed made me peel my eyes open again. I was still nauseated from my last vision of Derek. Being inside his head—or, more properly, having him inside my head—was unsettling at best.

  Had Derek been bred like his memory showed? Had some dark agenda been going on in and around Junction for years? What sort of group would arrange marriages in today’s society just in hopes of getting kids with freaky super powers? Sure, it wasn’t like the bite of a radioactive spider was enough to do it (and how many people would volunteer to try, spiders being creepy and all—especially the ones with hairy legs), but getting married to someone just because of the kids you might produce seemed even worse.

  What sort of group would have that much power over people to encourage that sort of behavior?

  Of course … Derek’s parents did both come from money. Perhaps that was how the other half lived—bizarrely.

  There was a scratching noise at the shed’s door. Too light to be a wolf or dog.… A shadow moved in the little space between the doors, and a small nose with whiskers poked its way into the opening. A mouse wiggled inside and pulled itself up on its haunches to sniff the air and peer at me with tiny black eyes.

  Snow peppered down from a small hole in the shed’s roof, flakes tumbling not far from the mouse’s twitching whiskers.

  Great. Add insult to injury by dumping me in a mouse’s nest. I growled and thrashed toward it, and it let out a little squeak and dodged back out the way it had come. The brief sense of victory I had was quickly replaced by the knowledge I was still trapped. Still bound and gagged and helpless.

  Alexi may have trained me to fight hand to hand, and Wanda may have increased my combat shooting capability, but no one had trained me for this scenario. Once again I was on my own—left to my own limited devices.

  I didn’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t want to constantly worry about the rivals of werewolves and their relationships or retribution for me just being me and loving who I wanted to love and living the way I wanted to live.…

  I was babbling.

  Something chewed at the edges of my vision, and a shiver ran through me, making me tremble from the inside out. I felt him like static when laundry was fresh from the dryer on a winter day, making the hairs on my arms prickle and rise even covered as they were in my long sleeves and jacket. I itched with the sensation of Derek again taking hold of me, and I cried out as the view of the shed’s interior was violently ripped away and replaced with the quivering view of another posh room in what I could only presume was Derek’s expansive home up on the Hill.

  This room had a carefully appointed ceiling, trimmed with crown molding—like the stuff you saw in restored historic houses that had been relegated to becoming museums. Wallpaper with delicate and organic scrollwork coated the walls and gave the place an air of being untouched and unchanged over many decades.

  I gasped, my focus coming back to someone standing right before me. I heard her before I saw her. She was gagging.… I squinted through Derek’s eyes, and she snapped into crisp detail—as did the stinging sensation ebbing through my cheek. It was his mother. Choking. On her tears?

  “Mommy’s sorry,” she said, wiping clumsily with the back of her shaking hand at the water that raced out of her eyes. “But you have to focus. You have to master this lesson before she arrives, otherwise…” Her eyes closed and more tears seeped out. “Auntie will be here in less than an hour, Derek,” she insisted. “And you have to show her…”

  My lips—his lips—were moving, and I heard us say, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t like this.”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” she murmured, wiping at my cheek, her fingers coming away wet with Derek’s tears. “This is why you were born. When you’ve learned all these lessons, no one will ever rival your power. Don’t you want that? To be powerful? To never be afraid?”

  “I want to go play.…”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes flashing. “Most of us don’t get what we really want.” Her head hung a moment, and when she looked at us next, her jaw was set and firm even in that soft-looking face of hers. “You can take some time away after Auntie comes and sees that you’ve learned your lessons. That you’re fit.”

  We nodded.

  “Now focus on her.”

  I gasped, seeing a woman in a jogging suit slumped in a nearby chair. A woman with blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders, and strong features that I’d come to recognize too well now. I knew her even without her signature ponytail.

  Wanda.

  About ten years ago.

  “Be gentle, but be firm. We don’t want to reduce every visitor to a drooling idiot like we accidentally did that Bib
le thumper. All you need to do is slip into her brain and find what she most wants to do in life.…”

  Our gaze focused on Wanda, and the skin of her forehead seemed to peel back and her skull unfolded and we were absorbed into her gray matter. In a moment we stood in the foyer of a dimly lit house.

  “Hurry, baby,” a voice oozed out of the woodwork of the hallway and spurred us forward.

  “Hurry, hurry—find the door.…”

  “It’s not here,” we hissed, spinning to again view all the doors lining an impossibly long hallway. A hallway that, the more we tried to look to see its end, to see where we had entered, the longer it stretched and the more doors popped into existence to fill the walls.

  “It is there. It has to be,” Mommy urged us. “You don’t have much time. She must have some defenses.”

  “Does she know it’s me?” we asked. “That I’m the one setting the trap?”

  “No—not at all. She just knows someone is. But it doesn’t matter what she knows or how she can adapt. You are better. Stronger. More able. Find the door. Open every one of them, if you must.”

  And we did. We raced down the hall, throwing doors open wide—doors to Wanda’s memories: her first kiss, her prom, her entrance exam for the academy …

  “Stop, stop!” Mommy shouted. “Too much too fast … She’s struggling. Look at the doors. Focus on your goal. You’ll see a sign. There’s always a sign.”

  We stood stock-still, spread our feet shoulder-width apart, and balled our hands into fists. Down the hall about halfway to forever the wall had distorted into a door that wobbled and glowed.

  “Got it!” we shouted as we rushed toward it and flung it open.

  We paused inside a tidy office space. Only as wide as we were with our arms stretched straight out at our sides, it was still a happy place with potted plants on the desk and a huge assortment of colorful books and pictures filling a few tall bookshelves.

  “Do you see her life’s desire?”

  We examined the area, running our fingers across the spines of books and watching their titles rearrange themselves, letters rippling and falling into unreadable jumbles at our touch and then straightening again, shaking themselves and climbing back into their proper order and place.