20. CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 20
Grayson
The healing proceeded as if it was ordinary. Set slit her wrist, allowed the blood to drip onto Julien’s wound. The healing eased the fire from Julien’s body. The skin knit back together. For added insurance, she ordered him to feed. As Julien’s fangs descended, pierced Set’s white skin, I turned Noa away. She didn’t need to relive those moments when she’d been so desperate to save Julien’s life that she’d offered herself. I wasn’t worried about Julien. The vampire was too honorable to take advantage of her. He would realize her offer came from a generous heart, and it wasn’t in him to betray her trust.
But once a human—or a wolf—felt a vampire’s tug, the rush of sensual pleasure became a drug, addicting with the first hit. Noa would struggle with the craving for the rest of her life.
“Do you know who betrayed Julien?” she asked. “Barend’s side, or Amal’s loyalists?” The unspoken addition to that list was someone in Set’s inner circle.
We sat on the couch in my childhood home, side by side on the sagging cushions. The furniture was decades old. I’d kept the house the way it was, in part to conceal the hidden refuge only steps beyond the bathroom. Other than Fee, Julien was the only other living soul who had ever been in that pocket, besides Noa and myself.
She’d been afraid of my reaction when she revealed the secret to Julien— for Julien—but I’d rather have him know if it meant she’d been safe during those moments before I arrived.
As it was, every minute we spent with that venom in her runes meant exposure, but I wasn’t about to trust Set with any knowledge beyond what she witnessed in this house.
Even Mace and Fallon were unaware.
Set was regal in an upholstered chair, her legs crossed. Julien rested in the chair’s mate, close to her side. Their frequent, fleeting eye contact made it clear that Julien was a favored son, and the relief Set tried to hide was too innate for betrayal.
Her dark hair brushed like a curtain against her shoulders as her head turned toward my mate. “I’ve considered every angle of the betrayal, including the one you haven’t mentioned. Both Barend and Amal would have a motive to stop Julien.”
“Who knew what he was researching?”
“Only Julien and myself. But others were aware of his human career. They noted his appearances in the archives, and remembered my history with Amal. No one would have difficulty guessing what he was looking for, and why I might want it.”
My money was on Barend, eliminating any advantage Set might use against him. She’d been at a disadvantage with Julien pinned to a wall, but Noa had changed the balance of power, so he opted for destruction.
But I would not overlook Amal. She’d destroyed Azul to retrieve her book. She may have discovered Julien’s connection to Set, wanted to send the same message as Barend.
And Amal used Brin, sent the girl into the heart of the beast, hoping to lure Noa closer. While Barend had fallen for the ruse like everyone else, desperate to turn a faille , a gift too coveted to be questioned.
Awareness brushed against the pack bond an instant before Mace’s voice drifted through with a droll, I’m outside. Vampire energy everywhere.
I sent back, Set’s here. Private meeting.
Mace snorted. Tell Julien I’m relieved the rumors were untrue.
Barely.
Were it not for Noa, in the nymph cave, pouring healing water, then feeding him, those rumors of Julien’s death would have been true. Noa saved him. Offered her blood. Practically carried him through the passages and into this house.
My breathing faltered.
Mace paused before he said, I’m guessing that’s why Set is inside.
Noa finally let her through the door.
She’s smarter about these things than you are.
Asshole.
I cleaned up your mess.
You helped with that mess, I growled, skidding my hand down Noa’s hair to calm her slight tremors. Don’t make it all mine.
You’re the dread lord. Makes it yours. I’ll post sentries in the forest. Try not to disturb them until morning.
I barked out a laugh, which had Noa looking at me strangely. If I had my way, I wouldn’t be leaving this house for days, if not weeks. But we still had to deal with Noa’s venom, something she was refusing to think about, mentally running interference with the rhymes she used as shields.
“Would you mind?” Set asked, setting aside the coffee she’d been pretending to drink because Noa had gone to so much trouble to prepare it. “I’d like to look at your scars.”
Noa flinched, rocking forward to set her mug aside. She stood stiffly. “Where would you like me?”
“Anywhere the light is good. Take your shirt and bra off.”
Noa’s fingers trembled slightly as she gathered the tee shirt hem, dragged the material over her head. When the neckline tugged against her braid, I reached out and settled her hair, then found a blanket because she’d crossed her arms, embarrassed. Gently, I wrapped it around her front.
“What about this chair?” Set stood beside one of the wooden kitchen chairs. “Straddle it, please, with your back to me.”
I dragged a second chair close to the first, sat down facing Noa, arranging the blanket as she got into place, offering comfort and modesty. Her smile wavered as I closed my hands around her cold fingers. “I’m right here.”
“Promise?”
“Always.” My fingers tightened. The light in her eyes darkened, and it wasn’t because she was half naked and bra-less in front of two vampires, one of them Julien. Or because the position on the wooden chair had to be uncomfortable after the day she’d had. And the day before that.
She was reluctant because she hated revealing the scars, the constant reminders of how helpless she’d been beneath the vampires’ hands. Grief lay in those obliterating marks, grief over the loss of the wolf rune, the magic she thought of as a friend. The twitching that let her know she wasn’t alone.
Set traced delicate fingers over each rune and scar. Down the length of Noa’s spine. I rubbed my thumb over the back of Noa’s hand.
The vampire murmured, “I’ll need to see her wrist, too.”
I moved my fingers. “How much venom?”
“They left it in every wound like a connecting web. I’m tracing the pattern, trying to find the source.”
“How accurate is the tracking?”
Set turned Noa’s wrist, followed the line of runes I’d inked on my mate’s skin up to her elbow, then the curve of her shoulder. “Very accurate. It’s surprising Ago took so long to find her.”
“I kept them busy.”
A shudder ran through Noa’s hands.
“You’ll have to keep her still,” Set advised. “I can’t remove the venom. It’s welded into the scar tissue. All I can do is nullify the potency. Over time, the poison will dissolve on its own.”
Noa moistened her lips. “How will you nullify it?”
“With the venom of a sire. My venom. The rune at your nape is the base that feeds everything else. I’ll need to start there, then at points along your spine, down your arm, close to your heart. The wolf rune is the terminus.”
Noa’s breathing turned watery. “How long will that take?”
Set smoothed her hand over Noa’s hair, a gentle mother calming a restless child. She’d turned selected humans over the centuries. Understood how to settle rattled nerves and slow the sudden racing of the heart. Easing the last-minute horror tumbling through the veins.
“Twenty minutes, with so many runes,” she said. “I’ll be biting you, and it will hurt. I can’t numb the pain because what numbs you will neutralize the venom I’ll be injecting. Vampire mechanics, which I’m sure you have no wish to know. However, if my intention was to turn you, I would want the venom neutralized.”
“Meaning she uses the venom to kill,” I supplied, a deadening in my voice as I stared at Set.
“If I wished to kill her, it would already be done.”
Thunder was a strengthening vibration that rattled the roof over our heads.
Set smiled, her red lips slightly thinned. “Careful, dread lord. Trust is hard to reclaim once it’s lost.”
“Should I care about trusting you, Set?”
“You may have need of me. Of my vampires.”
“Shouldn’t you care about trusting me?”
“I care, wolf. I need you as an ally. But I’m willing to face you as an adversary.”
“We agree,” I said.
The trembling in Noa’s hands was heating. She was syphoning, and the energy was tumultuous beneath her skin.
“Set,” she said, her chin pressing down on the top rail of the chair back. “Neutralize the venom before I gods-damn blow something up.”
“You trust me when he does not?”
“I trust Julien, and he trusts you, and I don’t think you want to disappoint him.”
Her determination had me re-gripping her hands, and I squeezed to keep her focused on me and not on the woman who bent toward her back, fangs descending. Noa’s eyes widened as Set pressed her mouth against the damaged nape rune, tightened her jaw as her fangs penetrated.
I scented blood. My wolf growled, a low, threatening pulse in my chest. I quieted him with a warning. Noa needed both of us. Not his posturing.
Slowly, the vampire worked down the length of Noa’s spine. I met each tightening of Noa’s fingers with a strength of my own. Matched my indrawn breath to hers.
“Tell me about the nymph,” I said as Set moved to Noa’s shoulder, where the nerves were close to the surface and the pain more intense.
“She’s a river… nymph. The night I chased Julien when he was supposed to be dead… it was Annora.”
Julien had risen to his feet and stood close to Set’s side. But he stepped around his sire and knelt down beside Noa’s chair. Stroked his fingers along her unmarked arm and said, “Annora told me you cried that night.”
“Bawling my eyes out over a big jerk who wasn’t supposed to get killed.” She was close to bawling again, with moisture gathering on her eyelashes. “Everyone said it was grief and I was holding on too hard. Afraid to face the truth. The next time, she was dragging me upstream like baggage she’d collected, and I didn’t really get to see her because I was underwater most of the time.”
“We found blood in her cave when we entered,” I said.
“She… did it. Called it a diversion in case anyone came, maybe they’d look to the river and not… not out the back door.”
Her lips trembled as she hissed in a breath, closed her eyes.
Breathe, Bedisa…
Grayson… it hurts…
I know, sweetheart. If it gets too much…
She shook her head. Set was halfway down her arm. I studied the small puncture wounds that marked the vampire’s progress. The trickles of blood.
Sent Set a look that had her eyes flashing.
Julien was sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding Noa’s free hand. I was smoothing the hair from her forehead while Set worked on the black wolf rune.
“I never thanked you for getting me off that wall,” Julien said.
“I’ll bet Ago wished he’d stayed there,” she choked, making a sick joke that had me smiling.
“Maybe he got tired of hanging around,” I said.
“I guess my mom was right. Boredom kills.” She tried to roll her eyes, but closed them instead. Set was working on her wrist. “I hope it twitches when you’re done,” Noa hissed to the vampire.
“Private joke,” I explained when Set arched her eyebrows.
“I have one rune left,” the vampire said. “On her breast. Will you overreact, wolf?”
I flashed some canine and relished the blazing heat. “Don’t enjoy it too much, vamp.”
Her fangs glowed like rubies as she smiled. “I have varied interests, but I know wolves don’t share.”
Noa had to change her position on the chair. She was shaky when she moved. I used my arm to pillow her tender back, support her weight. Holding her steady as Set bent her head and went to work. It was done in less than twenty very long, hissing seconds.
Noa slumped forward. I carried her back to the couch, made sure she was comfortable with a soft blanket pulled up to her chin. I’d do my best to heal her after the vampires left. Hold her against my body and not allow her out of my sight.
“Where will you be?” I asked as Set readied herself.
“I’ll be in touch. Keep that phone nearby.”
I held a hand out to Julien. He gripped my forearm and winked. “I’d steal her if I thought you wouldn’t kill me first.”
“You’d take that risk?”
“For her… yes.”
“Love you, too… Julien,” Noa said from the couch, her eyes peeking above the blanket she used to hide her smile. “Don’t end up with more spears stabbed in your side.”
“I’ll try not to, my lady. I’ll try not to.”