Chapter 9 #2
Johanna looks away from me for a moment, down the line of old brick buildings as if she’s looking directly into the past. As if she can see ghosts there before us.
“I know you think that I’m needlessly harsh.” Her voice is so low that it’s as if she’s one of the ghosts herself. “But I’ve lived a hell of a lot longer than you, Maddox. And I’m all too aware of the dangers you seem to think won’t apply to you.”
“Mom. Come on.” I smile winningly, though she doesn’t look won. “Nothing is going to happen to me.”
“The only reason you think that is because you’ve been given a false sense of security,” Johanna replies, very matter-of-factly.
So matter-of-factly that it makes me pause.
“Wolves believe in fate, but only to a point. Do you think that you’re really the first fated mate who did not wish to take her place? ”
“One thing that you refuse to accept is that I will take my place. I’ll just do it when—”
“Foolish girl,” Johanna whispers harshly. “You don’t have the time you think you do. The king always has a backup plan he can utilize at will, because there is a way out of fate. For him.” She glares at me. “Your death.”
Suddenly, I don’t feel much like smiling.
“If the king kills his mate himself, fate will provide,” she says in the same harsh voice. “You would be amazed how many fated queens meet their end abruptly, usually right around the time they become too inconvenient. Too loud, for example. Too headstrong.”
“Ty would never do that.” My own voice is a whisper now.
“He would never want to do it,” my mother corrects me. “That time that you think you have? Maddox. I’m telling you. You don’t.”
I’m shaken, but by more than what she’s telling me. First, it’s obvious to me that she cares that I live. I can’t quite convince myself that it’s entirely about her status in the pack.
I don’t focus on that part. It might tempt me to get a little maudlin, and that would kill her.
“Ty is not going to kill me,” I tell her instead. “You’re right. You know a lot more than I do, and you’ve seen a lot more pack political nonsense than I ever have, but I know him.”
“I know him too,” my mother says. “And not as a lover. I know him as a leader who will always do the right thing for his pack. The moment that’s not you, Maddox?
What happens then? If you force that man to choose between his pack and you—which way do you think he’ll go?
I know the answer, even if you choose to lie to yourself.
And if I were you, I’d hurry up and give fate a hand. ”
And unlike the mother I thought I knew, who usually sticks around and fights to the bitter end and after, she only looks at me for a long moment. There’s something stark in her gaze. It settles in me like a real, rough winter.
Then she walks away.
I stay shaken all day long. I go to work, because I can’t think of what else to do, and I’m blessedly free of family interference while I’m there.
Bigger shipments left the warehouse on their usual trucks earlier than usual this month in anticipation of the gathering that would draw the pack’s attention.
That means I only have a few creatures to talk to when they come by to drop off the notes I make them keep about their experiences out on their delivery routes.
Maybe because it’s quieter than usual, I start to notice that there have been more disruptions along our typical routes lately.
Not huge disruptions. Nothing catastrophic.
But even though we’ve consistently varied the times and dates of our runs, we always seem to get caught up on Sexton Summit, above Grants Pass.
Admittedly a tricky pass, especially this time of year, but the vampires in Grants Pass rousted out the trolls up that way long ago.
There shouldn’t be anyone there now to cause problems.
I let that sit.
But something about it keeps poking at me.
Later that night, I drive home, intending to leave my car outside of my cottage and then make my way over to the den for another night of bonfires and storytelling and partying that looks perfectly friendly, and maybe even is.
It’s the undercurrents that I’ll be paying attention to now. Especially now that I know some people will be in Ty’s ear, not just talking shit about me but encouraging him to get rid of me and move on.
I even know when they’ll do it, if that’s what they’re trying to do. Every year, when the Wolf Moon rises, all the wolves in every pack pledge their fealty to their king. It’s tradition. It’s how we start wolf week proper.
If I wanted to symbolically and dramatically remove a person like me, that’s when I’d do it.
That means I have only until Sunday, the rise of the Wolf Moon and the official start to wolf week, before they make their move.
If they make their move.
When I get to Winter’s yard and park the Explorer, I think I might go into my cottage and sit in my own space for a moment. A little breather from all the werewolf nonsense. Then I walk up to the front step and know I won’t be doing that.
Because there are a line of sacrifices waiting for me, each one of them pinned to my door so that the blood runs down, thick and dark.
There are four. One for every night I’ve spent in the den.
Yet none at all on the path to the den, I’ve noticed. Not since the day McCaffrey turned up.
I stand there in the dark, staring at the four separate slaughtered creatures and what’s left of their bodies. There’s blood everywhere, still pouring down the door from what must be the newest one. It’s turning everything a dark and sullen red.
“Maddox,” comes a voice.
I must recognize it before I turn, because nothing in my body goes on alert. Sure enough, it’s Winter. She comes toward me, frowning when she sees my expression. Then makes a little noise when she looks past me and sees what’s on my door.
“It’s like a psycho-killer collage,” she says. After a moment. “Do not put the lotion in the basket.”
“I think it’s a little worse than that.” Once again, it’s hard to tell which animal is which. I’m beginning to think that’s the point. It’s just senseless ritualistic killing for the sake of it—and the presentation is what matters.
It’s supposed to be gross. It’s supposed to be unsettling. Yet, all things considered, I have to think that it’s down on my list of things to be concerned about right now.
“I had the weirdest dream the other night,” Winter tells me. “Not as muddy as they’ve been lately. And I haven’t seen you since. There was a big fire in some kind of clearing with huge rocks all around, but no trees. High up, under the stars.”
What she’s describing is our gathering place on the hill above the den, and I know there’s no possibility she’s ever been there. In case I needed proof that her oracle shit was real—and I didn’t—she’s giving it to me. I don’t think she even knows it.
“There are wolves everywhere. They’re howling, but it almost seems like they’re singing?” She shakes her head. “At some point, I realize that I’m a wolf. But I’m also you.”
“I am, in fact, a wolf. So that tracks.”
“So I’m wolf you, then,” Winter says, her indigo eyes bright. “And suddenly, out of nowhere, this other wolf attacks me. It’s a boy wolf.”
“Male,” I correct her. “Unless he’s a baby.”
“Male,” she says, rolling her eyes. “He comes at my back and his claws are everywhere, deep and terrible. I have this feeling that I ought to be able to fight back, but it’s such a surprise—such a betrayal—that I don’t. I can’t.”
I let that sit a minute. I try not to let it turn sour. “Can you see the wolf?”
She makes a face. “Not with my eyes. But I know what he looks like.”
I think about what my mother told me. And for a moment, I wonder—
But I don’t believe it. I don’t believe for one second that anyone could convince Ty to hurt me. Still, I’m nothing if not a proponent of trust, but verify.
Winter might not be able to tell a whole lot of wolves from one another. But she got to know Ty in a different way, a more personal way, up on Mount McLoughlin two months ago when he helped her get up the trail to the sacrifice that was supposed to kill her. Enough to recognize him, I’m betting.
“Did you recognize the wolf who attacked you?” I ask.
Despite myself, despite my very real trust in Ty, I feel myself tense.
Winter considers. When she shakes her head, I feel a profound sense of relief wash over me. I knew it.
“No,” she says. “The only wolf I would recognize besides you is Ty, and it wasn’t him.”
She takes a peek at my face then, and her eyebrows rise. “Oh. Did you think . . . ?”
“I didn’t.” That comes out a little too intensely. “But it’s nice to be sure.”
“All my oracle stuff has been weird lately,” Winter tells me, her gaze steady on mine. “But this was crystal clear.”
“Maybe the muddiness is specific,” I say, something a little too close to giddy that it wasn’t the worst-case scenario.
As long as Ty doesn’t betray me, I’m okay—and maybe I need to sit with that.
I focus on Winter’s visions instead. “Maybe there’s a reason for it.
Like someone or something is deliberately cloudy in your head. ”
“It isn’t you,” Winter says. “We know that much. Do you know what the dream means?”
And the thing is, I do.
I lean into my friend, and I stare at the grotesque arrangement on my front door. I’m not sure they’re related. I’m not sure they’re not.
I think about the images that Winter saw. Clearly a betrayal. Clearly an attack from behind, the way a coward always comes.
I think about the night the darkness chased me all the way to Savi’s land. How I ran all that way with that terror thick and heavy on my heels and I didn’t sense another wolf around. Not in all the while I was running for the sorceress’s sanctuary.
I think about the number of times I’ve come back to this house, to my cottage, and found these terrible sacrifices. All arranged in such a way that it would have to take someone some time. Time no one should have been here without being discovered by wolf and vampire patrols.
I think about the number of times I’ve simply made my way through the woods and all the way to the cottage without ever scenting one of my own nearby.
Sometimes I’ve scented members of my pack in the distance, and maybe that’s why I didn’t really notice that I’ve never actually encountered the guards that are supposed to be here all the time.
Not for weeks now, and I know that Ty ordered those patrols. That he insists upon them. It’s the only reason he allows me to live here. I know that hasn’t changed.
It’s like all the pieces fall together in my head with a decisive click.
I don’t like the conclusion I come to. In point of fact, it makes me feel sick, but that doesn’t change anything.
Winter’s visions are never wrong, but maybe, deep down, I already knew. Maybe I needed her vision to push me toward this conclusion that I would give anything not to draw.
Someone in my pack is a traitor.
And they’re gunning for me.