14. Paul #5
I rushed forward, intent on saving her as the assassin changed their grip on the sword and clearly meant to thrust it into Penelope’s torso. This time she was no changeling who could just move around their organs like the squishy, shapeshifting things that they were.
But I only made it about half the distance when vines wrapped around my sister’s arms and under her chest, jerking her up to safety.
Definitely owed the Whisper at this point.
However, in the sudden rescue of my sister, Penelope had apparently grabbed hold of the assassin’s cloak, ripping it partially off and over their head, like a kid getting their shirt pulled halfway over their head by a school bully.
It was a completely unexpected moment of levity, but I didn’t let it distract me.
I raced forward, this time aiming for a leg that hopefully wasn’t encased in metal.
Once more, however, I didn’t quite make it to my destination. It wasn’t lightning that struck me, but rather the cloak itself as the assassin ripped it off. The ground below my feet roiled like an actual wave as the sword pierced the floor.
Although everything had been a wild rush from the moment the killer had run our decoy through, suddenly it all seemed to stop as I regained my footing. In the scant seconds it had taken me to recover, the Whisper’s vines had ripped off the assassin’s mask and one of their shoulder pauldrons.
Reddish hair, not quite ginger but deeper than auburn. Gray eyes. The strong chin and boxy nose that were so similar to my own.
“Luther?” I asked, my shifter voice impossibly small as I took in the sight of my eldest brother. “ But you’re dead!”
“Imposter!” Chris cried in his own wolf voice, rushing the towering man in front of me.
But I could only stare. I knew that face.
I knew it like I knew my own. That was the brother who’d helped me through my nightmares, who always had a sad sort of countenance whenever he thought no one was looking.
Who liked special effects and nerdy things but was forced to be the strapping, infallible alpha-heir.
That was Luther.
It had to be a fake. Just as we’d had a decoy for Penelope, this had to be some sort of trickery.
After all, that arm had been tested up and down, and it was thoroughly my brother.
The tissue that was separated out had also been tested as his.
He was dead. Dead! And as much as I would give anything for that not to be true, there was no way that the monster standing before me was actually?—
“ Be still.”
Although I hadn’t been moving, every muscle in my body locked up so hard that my joints creaked. For a split second, there was only confusion and panic in my brain, but then I realized what was going on. I’d only ever experienced it twice in my life from my father and never from my elder brother.
He was using his alpha voice.
Horror flooded every single synapse I had, stalling out any sort of reaction or recovery.
Because only our true alpha would be able to use that compulsory bond to command us.
The alpha voice was an incredibly important ability good leaders never abused, a command given with authority that could only be earned through trust.
Or, in this case, his blood.
“H - h - how?”
“Luther?”
“No! This is—this isn’t real!”
Suddenly, my head was flooded with the shifter-speak of so many others, all of us pinned to the floor by the alpha command.
It shouldn’t have been so strong, since that skill took ages to perfect, and Luther had technically only been an alpha for less than three weeks.
But at the same time, since when could my brother do magic?
“Uhm, what’s going on here?” the Whisper asked as she looked out at everyone who was pliant on the floor. Thankfully, she didn’t waste time waiting for a response to her query. She had her vines gently deposit Penelope up on the second-floor balcony while she dropped down to the floor.
“I’m not big on one-on-ones, I’ll admit,” she said, pressing her hands together like she was praying. “But I’m going to have to ask you to stop doing whatever you are to my associates here.”
Associates? Looked like I’d gotten a promotion without even trying.
Lucky me.
“Not alone!”
There was a snarl and then two more wolves joined in, one with a completely jet-black coat and a much smaller one with silver fur and tawny brown along her flanks.
The niece and the son from the other families!
For as isolationist as our pack could be sometimes, the bonds between us that stretched back hundreds and hundreds of years still proved true.
Those two had plenty of chances to run with all the other fleeing civilians, but they had chosen to stay.
That meant quite a lot to me, even if the foe they were facing down was seemingly my brother.
It can’t be, it just can’t be! I couldn’t tell if I was just thinking or if it was my shifter voice yelling, but did it matter? Luther could never do magic, and he would never kill father, and he’s dead! He can’t be alive or made of metal!
Maybe they’d stolen his head and attached it to some sort of automaton? Surely that was more plausible than my brother standing before me with a metal arm wielding a silver sword with the ability to cast spells!
I was reaching for straws, but what else could I do? I was in a situation straight out of a soap opera but with twice the stakes. Because unlike a serialized television show, I had no idea if I was a part of the recurring cast or about to make my big swan dive.
No.
My story wasn’t ending now. I still had too many people to protect. I still had my family to avenge. Because whatever that thing was, it wasn’t my brother.
I fought to rise to my paws. Alpha commands were exceedingly difficult to resist, but it wasn’t impossible, so I clung to that while the assassin fought the Whisper and the few shifters who weren’t subdued from the alpha command.
At least most of the civilians were gone or hiding. Our plan had been for our security to close the doors once they were all gone, then surge forward in a second wave, but I was sure they were just as subdued as I was at the moment.
Note to self: hire a few security members with no pack affiliation in the future.
Provided there was a future for any of us.
Without any warning, the ground beneath the assassin split in two—not too differently from how it had when Cherry and I had been running from the Whisper the first time, so I wasn’t shocked when a truly impressive mass of vines shot out from it, thicker and thornier than the ones she’d used while perched up on the pillar.
The shifters from the other families used that moment beautifully, surging forward at the same time and going around so he was cut off from any route of escape.
Or at least that was what I thought. Clearly, the assassin wearing my brother’s face had other ideas, because he raised his metal arm, and suddenly his hand went flying like a grappling hook, locking onto a heavy rafter of the cathedral and lifting him off his feet so he could swing over the grasping vines and dive at the dryad.
What in the Inspector Gadget?
She went down hard, the imposter raising his sword as if he were going to lop off her head, but the eldest son of the McElroys slammed into him from the back, sending the two ass over teakettle.
When they landed, the son—I was pretty sure his name was something traditionally Irish like Tadhg or Oisín—tried to retain the upper hand and snap his jaws shut around the assassin’s head, but the hulking man rolled and managed to bury a dagger into the wolf’s throat.
I would have gasped if I had the ability, but from what I could see, it wasn’t silver, so that was a relief.
I wasn’t sure why an assassin sent to kill me and my siblings wouldn’t exclusively have silver weapons, but I was grateful that he didn’t.
Maybe it was in case he encountered other supernatural creatures, which wasn’t exactly that far-fetched of an idea considering all the connections my father had.
The Chevaliers’ niece wasn’t a slacker either, because she went right for the assassin’s knee, her jaw snapping shut as she yanked it in the opposite direction. I heard a crack as the assassin jerked to the side with her momentum, his movement pulling the dagger out along with it.
For a moment, I thought that that would change the tide of the entire fight. But then he bashed his metal fist into her jaw a dozen times in less than a breath, and she had to retreat to recover.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one who could heal rapidly. I watched as the blood stopped flowing out from the holes in his robe and body armor, then his knee realigned itself, cracking once again.
We were so fucked.
It was down to the Whisper. Tadgh had lost his wolf form and rolled to the side, clutching his neck as it sewed itself back together, but not fast enough for him to rejoin the battle.
And although I was sure the Chevaliers’ niece only needed maybe another minute, a minute might as well have been an eternity in battle.
To her credit, the Whisper didn’t back down. No, instead she faced the man defiantly and brought up her hands, which were now the thick, heavy branches of a weeping willow, ready to beat the absolute shit out of someone. No wonder she’d built such a reputation for herself in the black market.
“Who are you, mystery man? You’re no hired hand I’ve seen before.
” While I was sure that everyone else in the room had instantly recognized my brother’s face, it made sense that the Whisper was the one person who would have no idea why we all reacted so strongly to his unmasking.
Especially since I was fairly certain she couldn’t hear shifter-speak.
Even Cherry, who’d never met Luther, had seen photos in the viewing room, and I had no doubt that she’d learned what he looked like from her internet deep dives.