21. Kate
Iremember the first time I felt Wolfsbane enter my system like it happened yesterday. The thought always sends a tremor through my body. It’s never the prick of the needle or the liquid being forced down your throat that sticks with you no matter how many times you’ve been poisoned with that vile plant.
The internal burning is the worst of it like you’re being cooked from the inside out. Then the fever hits, and suddenly, you’re colder than the coldest winter night. Your insides are like ice while your skin sweats the poison slowly from your body. Depending on how much you’ve been given, it can take hours or days to fully recover.
It took forty-eight hours to heal the first time Dick punished me using Wolfsbane. I was four, almost five years old. Trez had gotten in trouble the day before for breaking a vase while we were playing hide and seek inside Father’s home. He punished my brother by withholding food, so I snuck down to the kitchen later that night and stole several slices of bread from the pantry.
I was caught, but it was after Trez had finished eating. We both had to suffer without meals for three days. Luckily, it was only me that had to ingest the Wolfsbane.
At least that time, anyway.
Eventually, Dick moved on to more physical forms of punishment. He favored striking his subordinates using silver-coated brass finger knuckles over the herb his witches turned into specialized poison. Only the top outer portion of the finger knuckles was coated in silver, but he wore gloves to make sure his skin didn’t contact the metal that weakens us.
Shifters in my pack weren’t allowed to hit the alpha back. Doing so was breaking his law. Punishment was having your head cut off or a silver bullet between the eyes. I’ve never seen him use a sword, but he did shoot a shifter once for arguing with him. No one toed out of line, except for me and sometimes Trez, in fear of what Dick would do to them. He was never challenged for his position. His shifters were too afraid.
Other times, he would force submission out of me in front of the pack. He’d make sure they knew I wasn’t stronger than him. I despise Dick for using his alpha power on me the most. Unlike when Kane did it, my father’s control felt unnatural.
My belief that my father is wrong is what keeps me from challenging him. I’m not afraid, but I am biding my time. I will be stronger than him one day, and he will roll onto his back and show his neck to me if it’s the last thing I do.
But first, I have to find Trez.
That was the plan when… Henrik.
A bone-chilling sensation pricks its way down my spine, remembering he found me.
With Trez missing and after what happened with Kane, I’d forgotten my pack was likely searching for me. I hadn’t expected any of them to cross the border, though.
Doing so could start a war.
Why would my father risk that? It’s not like I’m of any importance to him. But then... it wasn’t just Henrik that discovered my whereabouts. Dick’s witch, Salem, was there too, and what did she call me? What did she say about my brother?
My head is fuzzy from being shot with copious amounts of Wolfsbane. A growl rumbles its way slowly up my parched throat, but it’s not my wolf. She’s still curled in a ball in the deepest part of my chest, unconscious, suffering the remaining effects of the poison.
My eyes snap open, thoughts of my shooter clearing some of the haze. Why was he there?
“Don’t get up,” a whispered voice says urgently. “Please don’t move.”
I jerk my head in her direction, smelling the witch who’s feet from me. Shock must be evident on my face when I realize the girl isn’t Salem. She’s too young—a child or early into her teenage years.
“I’m Ivy,” she says, her words shallow. “I mean you no harm. I swear it.” Her voice is strong despite her teenage years.
Her eyes are brown with flakes of green and yellow, her hair a long shade of sandy blonde. She’s huddled in the corner, her long dress covering knees that are pulled to her chest with one arm wrapped around them and the other flat against the floor. Even the sleeves of her dress are long.
Moving my eyes, I look left and then up, seeing steel bars closed around us on all four sides and above. We’re caged, the earth our floor, and if the smell is an indicator, we’re in a horse barn, yet I don’t sense any animals among us. They’d be restless and spooked with a predator in their confinements.
“Where are we?”
I glance to my right, seeing Ivy with her back to the bars while my thoughts go turn toward Moonwake.
Ashleigh and I have an unspoken agreement. She places a hidden GPS device on my bike before I leave, and I don’t destroy it until I’m fifty miles from Rivermoon Mountain. For some unknown reason, it gives her peace of mind to know we’ve returned home safely. Why I play along is lost on me, but I allow her to continue tracking us anyway. Anyone else and I would have beaten their ass.
Now, I don’t know how I feel about it. A part of me hopes she did it this time, but the rational side knows she wouldn’t have even if she’d known I would be leaving so soon.
Kane doesn’t want us there. He doesn’t want me there.
He threatened to kill any Marked Crest wolf, so despite the friendship Trez and he has, that goes for my brother, too. I just pray Jagger holds true to his promise because now that Henrik has me, I won’t be able to easily escape to search for my brother.
That doesn’t mean I won’t try.
My father’s beta will have to keep pumping Wolfsbane into me or shoot me with another silver bullet if he wants to keep me prisoner.
“Near Port Angeles in upstate Washington is what I heard a few days ago,” she tells me, pulling my focus back to the here and now.
“Days?!” I ask, my tone giving away my shock. “How long have I been here?”
How long was I unconscious is what I should have asked.
Shit.
But the girl said we’re in Washington. Why are we still in the States? Why didn’t Henrik take me home to face my father?
“We’ve been here almost three days, but you’ve been out for four.”
I can hang up any rescue attempt. Ashleigh definitely doesn’t know where I am. Even if she’d tracked my bike, I doubt Henrik brought it with him when he took me from the diner, and well, let’s face it, even if she did, Kane wouldn’t have cared.
I’m not his mate.
He doesn’t want me.
And that’s fine. I’ll figure my way out of this and make my father’s beta pay with his life.
My only priority is getting out from within these bars and finding my brother.
“Good. Our little momma is finally awake.”
“Salem.” Her name falls from my lips without thought.
I shouldn’t be surprised my alpha sent his witch to fetch his daughter. She probably used her magic to find me.
“So, you have heard of me, or has our little Ivy girl filled you in about me?” There’s a giddiness to her tone that doesn’t match her dark, haunting eyes. They’re slate gray, but if you’d asked me the other day, I would have sworn they were black, the same as her long, straight hair.
I take notice of her hands and wrists peeking out from her long-sleeved dress. They’re free of the black ink I saw.
How is that even possible?
Were they not tattoos?
“She hasn’t told me anything,” I say, suddenly feeling protective over a young witch and unsure why. I don’t know Ivy, but there’s something so innocent and sad about her that makes me want to shield her if this dark witch means her harm. Ivy is, after all, caged with me.
Make no mistake about it. Despite the black, inky markings missing and her eyes not as dark as I thought, this woman is very much into dark magic.
“I doubt that.” Salem glances from me to Ivy. Something softens across her face, but it’s gone within a blink of her eyes when they pop back to mine. “She’s a talker like her mother was.”
Ivy’s abrupt intake of air through her lips tells me there’s a story there and not a good one, and by Salem’s words, that must mean her mother is dead.
“Was?” I can’t help asking, my curiosity getting the better of me. Hell, it’s not like I’m going anywhere. My ankles are shackled. Though they aren’t made of silver, so my strength may get me out of them, but the bars won’t be so easy.
Salem’s eyes flash, darkening with a hint of red coloring the whites as her jaw locks. After a beat, she breathes and tilts her head, cracking the bones in her neck. She blinks and her eyes are dark gray again.
“That is neither here nor there. Frankly, wolf, it’s coven business. You are not coven. Your pack has been searching for you for four nights now. Your mat?—”
“Why would my pack be looking for me when Henrik found me? I’m guessing I have you to thank for that.”
The real question is, why are we still in the U.S. and not back home?
I’m about to ask her when she inserts a key I hadn’t noticed in her hand. The latch releases, and the door creaks as it opens. Reaching into the pouch resting on her hip, she pulls out a bottle of water.
She tosses it at my face, and I catch the plastic container on reflex.
“Drink it. You must be dying of thirst from the amount of herbs you absorbed. Not to mention that nasty gunshot wound had gotten infected by the time we arrived.”
I’d momentarily forgotten I’d been shot with a silver bullet. Henrik, if I had to guess, though, I suppose there could have been other men from my pack with my father’s beta to apprehend me.
“The bottle is sealed. It’s just water,” she adds when I don’t immediately drink the liquid.
She isn’t wrong. I’m thirstier than ever, but I won’t allow her or anyone else to know that.
Twisting the cap off, I lift the bottle to my lips. The second the cold fluid hits my throat, I have to suppress a moan and force myself not to guzzle the contents.
Parched doesn’t come close to describing the way my throat felt while I’d been speaking. It was like a desert took up residence in me. My mouth was dry and my stomach ached from emptiness.
It still aches, but nothing I haven’t experienced before. All part of surviving as a Marked Crest wolf for the two decades of my life.
I pull my bottle away before it’s half drunk, knowing from experience that it’ll only make me sick if I drink the whole thing too quickly.
“Wolfsbane is poison, not an herb,” I tell her, then lick my lips of the remaining water.
“One person’s allergy to a plant is another person’s healing medicine,” she comments like it’s not a big deal.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”
Stepping just inside the door, she kneels down and extends her arm toward me, and says, “Take my hand.”
I stare back at her, not saying anything and certainly not touching her. Who knows what she plans to do to me. I’m not going to help her. She wants to subdue me? Let her try. I won’t go down without a fight.
“I’m not going to harm you. I’m doing you a favor,” she says like it’s an annoyance. Like my unwillingness to cooperate is futile.
“My father sent his witch to escort me home. I’ve been shot up with two types of poison and lost four days of my life. I’ll pass on your offer. I won’t be indebted to a witch.”
“First, that was Henrik, not me. I was simply playing a part. And secondly, the most important thing you need to know: I am not Richard’s anything. He doesn’t own me or my coven.”
“Not how he tells it,” I say because it’s the truth. He’s used Salem’s powers as threats against the pack many times. The pack is as afraid of her abilities as they are the Alpha’s.
“Place your hand in mine, and I’ll show you how I tell it. I’ll show you the truth he’s kept hidden from you for twenty years.”
History got it wrong, or maybe the saying got messed up over the years. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. It slaughtered the fucking wolf because I lift my hand and extend my arm. Reaching out, I slip my fingers along Salem’s icy palm.
Grasping ahold of me with a strength she shouldn’t possess, I go to rip my hand from hers but can’t. Her hold on me is more secure than the metal latched around my ankle.
“We aren’t continuing our conversation until I’m looking at the real you. The girl I concealed years ago.”
Before I can demand she explain what the fuck that spiel meant, an icky warmth washes over me. Whatever she is doing makes any remnants left in my stomach roll. Nausea hits me instantly, as though someone snapped their fingers to make it happen. My mouth pools with saliva as fire bursts from my back, so suddenly it steals my breath. If I weren’t already sitting on my ass on the ground, I’d be on my hands and knees.
A scream works its way up my throat, but I clamp down hard on my teeth, refusing to release the sound she’s aiming for. It’s a pain unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s worse than anything Dick has put me through.
Sweat beads across my forehead and washes past my brow. The water I swallowed threatens to come back up. Unable to keep my mouth closed, my lips part, and I pant.
“Make it stop,” I beg.
My torso tumbles over, my free palm smacking the ground, making loose dirt jump into the air. My claws jut from my nail bed and dig beneath the compacted soil.
“Salem, you’re hurting her,” Ivy says. I barely registered her words from the ringing in my ears. My heart beats faster, hammering against my breastplate as the heat intensifies. It feels like I’m being branded.
“It has to be done,” I hear the witch say.
When smoke wafts up my nostrils, stinging me, I force my head back. My wide eyes land on my bare arm, the limb of the hand still captured in Salem’s firm grip.
My head twists, seeing eerie black lines flowing from behind my shoulder and down my arms like a river with a slow current, crossing onto Salem’s fingers, moving up her wrist, and disappearing beneath the cuff of her sleeve. It’s the same markings I recall seeing outside the diner when I was on the ground looking up at her.
The furnace roaring on my back eases, the burning fades, and finally, my heart rate slows back to regular beats. That’s when I notice the inky, slithering lines vanishing from my skin as they continue slithering just under the surface of Salem’s skin.
“That’s better,” she draws out. “Black looks good on you. Prettier than that sickening unnatural blonde I saddled you with all those years ago. And your eyes… Stunning. I’m almost jealous of that vibrant shade of blue.”
What is she…
I glance down my chest, seeing the ends of my hair covering my breasts. Strands that used to be blonde are now a shiny shade of black. The color reminding me of…
“What did you do to me?” I demand, yanking my hand back. She lets go, and my back crashes against the cage’s bars.
“I turned you back into you, Anna Kate.” A jet-black brow on one side of her face arches.
Goose bumps erupt along my arms as a chill races down my spine.
“Wh-why did you call me that?” Before she opens her mouth, I remember and say, “That’s not the first time you’ve called me by two names. You said it the other day too.”
“Would you prefer me to call you Katherine?”
A growl seeps from between my lips.
“I didn’t think so. Why do you think that is?” She doesn’t wait for a reply, and I don’t have one to give. “Until you and Trey, I had no idea that wolves wouldn’t answer to any other name except the one their mother gave them.”
“Trey?” I say, his name coming out slowly. “Kane’s… brother?”
“Technically, yes, he is your alpha’s brother. But you’ve called him Trez since I taught you how to speak.”
“What the hell is going on?” I demand, jumping to my feet. “Kane is not my alpha.” I ignore how my tongue suddenly tastes sour, the need for answers more pressing. “And how is Trez… Trey?”
“Well, that’s quite a tale. See, there was a very powerful and determined being nearly two hundred years ago, before my time, who fell in love with a woman who was fated to someone else. That woman was a wolf shift?—”
“What does that have to do with Trez and me or Kane’s pack?” I ask, interrupting, the need to know if the thoughts adding up in my head are even possible because…
“I’m getting to that, but you should hear the full story. It might save your son from suffering a fate worse than the one you endured.”
“My son?” Is this witch crazy? I think to myself. “I’m not having a?—”
“You went into heat during a full lunar eclipse. During a blood moon, as your pack calls them. Your mate’s wolf not only claimed you—nice bite, by the way—he knocked you up, dear.”
“That isn’t possible. I’m not of…”
My words fail me as my senses search out the link connecting me to my wolf. She was distant earlier, and I thought…
She wasn’t curled into a ball to protect herself. She’s protecting our baby, our pup.