"I know exactly who I want to kill. I saw her just before that damn thing in the kitchen laid into me. A tall brunette with red fox jacket and big gold earrings. Late thirties, early forties. She just glanced back toward me and said 'kill it' and walked out. Walked." He nearly roared the word and flung himself into the passenger seat of the Jeep. It rocked under his weight. "Like I was nothing."
In place, he subsided, panting.
"You done?" Elise did not want to get in beside the angry werewolf.
He took deep cleansing breaths before murmuring, "Yes. Done. Get me out of this place. Please."
* * *
The nearest Earthblood spring was in Ferris Lake Wild Forest, over an hour away. Cabot lay silent the entire way. Much as she wanted to ask him questions, she didn't want him angry again while she was trapped inside the car with him.
The spring was deep within the park. The Earthblood spilled out a granite outcrop to gather in a grotto. Despite the overcast sky, the "water" shimmered with the telltale gleam of the pooled magical liquid.
She waited until after he'd half fallen out of the Jeep and crawled into the grotto's pool. Red clouds formed and drifted away as the Earthblood cleansed his wounds.
"I was expecting Samuels to come and laugh at me," Cabot whispered. "We did rock-paper-scissors and I picked what sounded easier."
"A Wicker deep in the country? Easy? Amateurs." She pulled out her phone and found the photo of the dead wolf. "Is this Samuels?"
Cabot breathed out and closed his eyes. "Yes." He was silent for a minute before speaking again. "I suppose I did get the easy job then. The witch he was going after?"
"Dead."
"And the others?"
"What others?"
"The seniors were doing some kind of haunted house to fund their prom. Eleven kids had gotten out early for it. Samuels would not have gone down without a fight. What about the other kids? Was there collateral damage?"
She showed him the collateral damage.
"Jesus." He breathed and closed his eyes against it. "We royally screwed this up."
"You were after Wickers. What did you expect?"
"We weren't! Not originally! The first we knew that there were Wickers in the area was when we walked into the school. That damn smell: myrrh and fresh bruised greens and something dead long enough it started to rot. We decided to split up. I'd follow the witch's trail back to her lair. Samuels would go on to the haunted house."
"Why were you at the school?"
"Wolf King's business."
"Don't give me that bullshit."
Cabot snarled, showing teeth.
She slapped him hard on the snout. "There's dead scattered all across the tri-state area and you'll be out of it for days yet. I need to know what I'm dealing with here."
He swore, rubbing his snout with a huge paw. "I don't know! Alexander said merely that a youngling was a senior at the school and that we were to find him and bring him back. Only there's no pack in this area; the closest is Albany. Their younglings go to a private school the pack owns. If a youngling goes past thirteen without being changed, it's usually because they chose not to become a wolf. Those kids go to a boarding school on the West Coast. Alexander didn't give us a name; he just said that we'd know him when we found him. There was a youngling; we tracked his scent through the school. He was in among the bunch of seniors heading to the haunted house."
She hadn't realized that younglings smelled different from normal humans, since they weren't werewolves until they were bitten. She'd always assumed that younglings were humans. If the Thanes could pick the youngling out of a crowd, then the boy wasn't completely "human."
It meant that Samuels had gone to the barn without knowing which of the kids was the missing youngling. Was Joshua actually the child that the Wolf King sent the Thanes to find? Cabot couldn't tell her.
He rose to his feet and shook, spraying her with Earthblood.
"Hey!" Elise backed away from the grotto.
"Sorry." He stretched and changed. He was a flowing dark gleam as if his entire being became glowing liquid. It started black and shifted to a dappled green and then stabilized to bare skin and honey brown hair.
Cabot made a tall, muscular man. Seriously ripped. His shoulder-length hair was surprisingly honey-colored, a blond nearly dark enough to be brown. His thick eyebrows, beard and chest hair were darker still. His eyes were a golden color. Fringed with the black lashes, they almost seemed to gleam.
The men of her family were just as angelic in their looks as the women. They were elegantly beautiful to the point of being androgynous. (Their gaydar was utterly useless as even straight males hit on them.)
Cabot's face was pure strength, drawn in rugged lines. Every part of it alone suggested brute force. The solid square jaw, the high cheekbones, and prominent brow ridge could have been ugly, but together they created a raw animalistic handsomeness that was impossible to deny.
Elise realized she was staring and turned around, blushing. "You could warn me you were suddenly going to be naked."
"Sorry." He gave a slight laugh, as if he was too weak for anything more. "I'm not thinking clearly. I assumed you had some clothes I could put on. The police are looking for a wolf, not a man."
He wasn't the only one having trouble thinking. Did she have clothes he could wear? He wasn't fitting into her spare clothes. She remembered that she had a fresh pair of coveralls for Decker. (He had a thing about not ruining his fine tailored clothes and monsters tended to spawn in the sewers.)
"Yeah, I think I might." She headed toward her Jeep. "You'll have to go commando."
"I'll live." He was trembling when he reached her side.
"Sit." She shoved a towel at him. "Put this on until you're bandaged."
He wrapped it around his lean hips and perched on the narrow back bumper of her Jeep. He had dozens of wounds on his muscled torso. The shallow ones were already angry scabs but the deeper punctures were seeping blood. "You know my name. What is yours?"
"Elise."
Various types of magic had a smell. The scent of his change clung to him. It was a soft, woody smell like sandalwood, mixed with a rich sun-warmed grass. He leaned against the frame of her Jeep, eyes closed, as she bandaged the deepest of his wounds. His skin was surprisingly soft, like a newborn's, only it covered hard muscle. She tried to remember what Joshua had felt like when she'd checked his pulse.
She realized he'd opened his eyes and was watching her. "What?"
"I know our people aren't always on the friendliest of terms. You could have left me to die. I owe you."
"Yes, you do." Elise snapped her mouth shut after her kneejerk reaction had spoken for her. He hadn't done anything remotely like the mouth breathers. If anything, she was the one quietly lusting...
She blushed hot at the realization. Oh, you hypocrite! She ducked her head and tried to focus on bandaging him. Unfortunately it meant focusing on his body. How their legs had to tangle together for her to get close enough to apply the bandages. The heat of his body. His scent.
Questioning him would be safer than working in silence because without anything to think on, she found herself wondering if he tasted as good as he smelled. "So you don't have any idea what the Wickers are planning?"
"I think they're after our youngling. After I tore their construct apart, I noticed that the house was practically empty except for a handful of textbooks and some enrollment papers from the local high school. The house was a staging area."
"Did the Wolf King tell you the name of the youngling?" Were they looking for Joshua or was the boy merely more collateral damage?
He gave her a long measuring stare. "Why are you interested in our youngling?"
"The Wickers are standing their ground after tangling with two Thanes. I want to know why."
He closed his eyes. "I didn't get around to exchanging names with the Wickers. They might not realize who the hell came tearing through their kitchen."
"They know the car
at the barn belongs to the Wolf King. Only an idiot couldn't put the two and two together."
He fell silent. He breathed so deeply that she wondered if he'd fallen asleep.
She busied herself with putting away her first aid kit. "You need put on clothes and get into the passenger side before you can pass out."
His edge of his mouth lifted in a ghost of a smile. "I know what I need to do but I'm not sure that I can."
"Do you need help?"
A tired laugh. "Unfortunately, yes."
The next ten minutes proved to be the most conflicted of her life. Putting pants on a man turned out to be as sexy as taking them off. Nor could she just stop there as Cabot's wounds and the coveralls' design made it necessary for her to put both arms around him and pull the back up so he could get his hands into the sleeves. She wanted it to be an innocent act done without awareness of the heat of his body or how their hips pressed together. That she couldn't keep either out of her mind made her angry with herself; she was reacting just like the mouth breathers.
He slumped against her, head on her shoulder, breath warm against her neck. "I know that I'm weak as a baby. I'll recover after a night's sleep. Hopefully. I need to go back. If the Wickers were after the youngling and are standing their ground, then the kid is still in the wind. I need to find him and get him to safety."
He wanted her to take him back. Until he got back on his feet, he also needed her protection.
At least, she was fairly sure that was what he was saying. Wolves were usually fairly straightforward creatures. Not like some monsters that twisted words around until yes was no and the sun was the moon.
"You're suggesting an alliance?" she asked to be sure.
"Yes. I need your help. You're going after them, aren't you? We can work together."
It was ironic that she'd had an hour to think on the drive to the Earthblood and she hadn't considered the ramifications of saving him. He wasn't a human law officer who could be turned into a weapon against her. Nor he was the clueless puppy ignorant of all things related to Wickers, Grigori and werewolves. This was a Thane. The only danger that he posed was to her libido. There was no good reason not to agree on an alliance.
"Yes, I'm going after them. We can work together."
Oh, God help her.
10: Seth
Driving to Utica from Ithaca was like playing a redneck version of Grand Theft Auto.
Seth had taken back roads out of Ithaca since they led in the direction he could sense Jack. The two-lane "highways" could barely qualify for the name except they showed up on his GPS system as actual interstate routes. The Porsche's powerful engine and the twisting roads through farmland and state forests tested his driving abilities.
Every light he hit was red.
Children and animals darted out onto the pavement with annoying frequency. The cats and dogs and whitetail deer he expected. The cows and bison and alpaca tipped the experience to surreal. (Since when were there bison in Upstate New York? And what were they doing standing in the middle of the freaking road?)
Half of the vehicles were slow-moving Subarus, it being the older redneck car of choice. The other half were a dangerous mix of impatient pickup trucks and random giant farm equipment.
The GPS claimed it was a two-hour drive. Between the bison herd and the slow moving tractors, it had taken three hours. Seth pulled the Porsche into the Utica gas station that Wonder Woman Alvarado had used. The gas gauge read empty and he felt blurry at the edges from exhaustion and hunger.
The Wolf King's power washed over Seth as he climbed out of the low-slung sports car. Half a world away, the strength of Alexander's presence was still stunning. Seth leaned against the Porsche's roof, growling softly. He'd hoped that he could find Jack before the king realized Seth wasn't safe in Mexico anymore.
A phantom brush of fur. A massive ghost nose drawing in his scent. A great shadowy foot prodding at him. Alexander didn't seem angry. He seemed puzzled. Was it because he didn't expect Seth to be in New York?
Seth's phone rang. He didn't even have to look at it to know it was Bishop. How much more trouble would he be in if he didn't answer? He was fairly sure he knew why Alexander had sent Jack to Utica, but he wanted to verify his guess. Of course, Bishop was going to order him back to New York City.
Seth was tempted to punch the top of the Porsche but that would dent the roof. He was in enough trouble already. He answered his phone. "Yes?"
"What are you doing there?" It wasn't Bishop. Alexander was actually growling through the tiny speaker. Somewhere in the world, pigs were flying.
"Looking for Jack," Seth said. "You know he's hurt. Samuels isn't answering his phone."
"Samuels is dead."
It was like getting punched in the stomach. Seth bent in pain. Samuels had been a good friend; one of the few people at the Castle he trusted as much as Jack.
Alexander continued. "There's a coven of Wickers in that area."
"The ones that killed Anastasia?" Seth asked.
"Most likely, which is why it's too dangerous for even you to be there alone. Go back to the Castle."
"I need to find Jack."
"Isaiah is on his way. He'll deal with the Wickers when he gets there. Go home."
Alexander hung up, confident that he would be obeyed.
"Boston is home." Seth growled at the lost connection signal. He closed his eyes and focused on Jack.
Something had changed during his drive to Utica. Jack's connection to the Source was no longer blocked. He must have found a pool of Earthblood. Seth focused harder, pushing through the link between them. Seth wasn't Alexander; he couldn't project strong enough to make Jack aware that Seth was looking for him. Seth could tell, though, that Jack had been stabbed a dozen times in the chest. His cousin lay in the magical spring; so weak he could barely move. He was so vulnerable that it scared Seth.
Jack's emotions, however, had changed; he was no longer afraid. With the Earthblood, Jack had found safety.
"Are you okay?" a man called.
Seth opened his eyes. A news camera truck had pulled into the neighboring gas pump. The passenger with network-worthy good looks was coming toward him, a mix of concern and reporter curiosity on his face.
"I'm just tired," Seth said truthfully enough. He'd slept on the way back from Mexico but that had been scattered across a half dozen flights. "And I can't figure out how to put gas in this stupid car."
The man laughed. "The engine is in the back, so the gas tank is in the front on the passenger side. You just push on the access panel to release it." He crossed to the other side of the Porsche and pushed against the gas cap hatch, which was out of Seth's line of sight. "But you need to have the car unlocked first."
Seth had automatically locked the car when he got out. He used the fob to unlock the doors. The man pressed again on the side and the hatch thumped open. "Thanks."
The man stayed on the other side of the car, watching Seth closely. "You know any of the kids that were mauled?"
Years of living at the Castle made it so Seth could keep the shock off his face. Wickers in the area. A dead werewolf. Collateral damage had to be expected. "No." And because that seemed too short an answer, he expanded with, "I go to a private school. I was in Mexico until last night---family funeral. How many kids were killed?"
"Ten. The one survivor has disappeared." The reporter waved across the street at an auto repair place. "So, you don't know Joshua?"
Seth swore softly. The reporter had assumed that he knew the victims, which meant they were probably Seth's age. Ilya was ten months older than Seth.
"Joshua is seventeen?" Seth asked. "Almost eighteen?"
"Yes, that's him. Do you know where he might be?"
"He's missing?" Seth felt dread start to rise.
"His parents took him home from the hospital, ran out to do some errands, and came home to find him gone."
Hospital implied that the boy was hurt. There was a world of difference between bitten and m
erely clawed. A werewolf's bite was a magical wound that opened up the person to the Source. The change would have been instantaneous. If the resulting werewolf wasn't anchored, they became feral.
His family had lost a full generation when a newborn wolf bit a youngling. Seth's great-grandfather had been blessed with nine healthy children. He'd taken all of them to the Tyringham lodge to celebrate his oldest son being changed into a wolf. He'd made the mistake of leaving all the children alone afterwards except for his newborn son, Seth's grandfather. The newborn wolf lost his temper with a younger sister who hadn't been changed yet. He nipped at her, meaning only to scare her. When his teeth broke skin, he created a magical wound through which power could flow. She instantly went feral. She killed him, and mauled all their baby siblings. The ones that didn't go feral were torn apart. The surviving monsters descended on Tyringham. A bloodbath followed.
Normally only an alpha wolf could safely change a child. The alpha used their connection to the Source to anchor the newborn within the pack. Could Thanes safely change a youngling into a newborn werewolf?
"Was Joshua bitten?" Seth asked.
The reporter dismissed the injury with a wave. "They're worried he has some kind of brain injury. He had amnesia when he woke up. He lives near Woodford State Forest. They're afraid he's wandered off."
Seth cursed. Amnesia was a side effect of being changed. If Joshua was in human form when taken to the hospital, then he wasn't a feral. It didn't mean he was in complete control of his wolf; that took time and training. In the meantime, he could accidently create a feral that would kill him and everyone around him.
"So you know him?" the reporter asked.
"No." Which got him a look of disbelief. "I think I might have met his father."
The dead puppet had gotten the Viper repaired at the garage. Had she sold Ilya to the mechanics? Was Joshua his long-lost brother?
More importantly, where was Joshua now?
If he was bitten, then he was a newborn werewolf. There was no "maybe" about it. Since Joshua was still a minor, he was a puppy and automatically the responsibility of the nearest alpha. And at the moment, that meant Seth.