26. CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 26
Noa
Laura arrived at the archive twenty minutes late and offered a flustered apology. She didn’t say why she’d been delayed, but I guessed it had something to do with Anson. The Gathering was not going well. This was day three, and last night, Grayson had come home in a dangerously bad mood. He was dealing with the Alpen’s gloating and insults, after all. The Mule insisted his crimes no longer mattered, compared to Mosbach. At least, he’d never sold children. But his predecessors had, and every time I watched Laura rub the scars on her wrist, I wanted to scream. I didn’t know how Grayson did it. Why he hadn’t attacked the Alpen by now, when I burned with a need for vengeance.
We need him, Bedisa…
There’s no way he can compare himself to you and come close.
I’d been unable to convince Grayson that Mosbach’s crimes did not taint the soul of the Sentinel Falls pack. Or his soul as Alpha. Mosbach was a murderer. One man. Not a culture in the pack.
Grayson had pushed the hair from my cheek while shadows darkened his eyes. Then he’d rolled over, pretending to sleep. But in the dark, staring at the ceiling, I’d listened to him breathe, hurting over the distance between us. In this one thing, I could give him no comfort.
“News came from Cariboo.” Laura snatched a book from the shelf, then a second, slamming them down with unusual disregard for the ancient bindings. “Did Grayson tell you?”
“Grayson left before I was awake.” Another worrisome action on his part, withdrawing into a silence he didn’t wish to share.
“Anson got a call early this morning.” Embarrassment flushed into her face. “He… woke me when he got up to answer.”
“I’m happy for you, if you’re happy,” I said.
“It’s different.” She shrugged. “I haven’t been with anyone before, and…”
“You’re swimming upstream without knowing if you’re euphoric or drowning.”
She turned to look at me. “Is it wrong? He’s the Alpha of Carmag. And Gray…”
“Would approve,” I said, smiling. “In case you haven’t noticed, he loves you.”
“Like family. Which makes it weird when they face off like rivals. My almost-brother and my lover.”
“Like alphaholes.”
She giggled. “They are, aren’t they?”
I touched the back of her hand. “Do you hear his voice in your head?”
“No. He’s just as cautious. We sort of talked about it this morning. Why I was late.”
“You’ll work it out,” I said.
“I’m worried.” She walked around and scraped back a chair, sitting with the abused books on the table between us. Behind her, the fake fire fluttered with monotonous regularity. “He didn’t give me the details, but I guess Cariboo reports are getting bad. An army amassing in a valley. Men and signs of creatures. Probably hybrids, too. It’s been going on longer than they expected.”
“What’s been going on?”
“Making hybrids, although they think the new hybrids are… less stable.”
I frowned. “That’s a lot of information from someone who didn’t give you details.”
“I sort of listened to his end of the phone call,” she admitted. “Is that bad?”
“Not if he knew you were listening. Tell him you’re sorry and offer make-up sex.”
Her cheeks reddened and her laugh turned awkward. “It was hard enough letting him see my scars.”
She meant both inside and out. I hoped Anson would understand, if her eavesdropping annoyed him. We’d find out soon enough if Amal’s aggression was increasing. I pulled one book closer. Read the title: Use of Magical Objects and Tools in Seidr Traditions.
I’d already briefed Laura on my meeting with the nymphs. She was as shocked as I’d been that the nymphs were so profoundly involved. They’d always pretended to have no knowledge since it wasn’t their concern.
Laura shook her head. “I’m worried about Amal… if some part of her remembers the cutting and blood. Although I found a reference in the early literature. It left the door open on whether painting runes with blood was used to frighten people, or if it was necessary for the magic.”
“When Grayson inked my runes, he didn’t need blood.” Only the ink he’d made in the cave, and his lifelong commitment to protect me no matter what the emotions were, or how our lives turned out.
“ Seidr magic always involves bonds.”
“Can we break the magic?”
“Only by going back to the source and putting the original sin to right.”
By returning the wolves to the queens. One wolf. One remaining queen.
Laura opened the book in front of her and read the opening line. “ Seidr magic that properly targets the soul will strip away a person’s power.”
“And your wolves are part of your souls,” I said. “That’s why the sorceress took them. To steal the queens’ power.”
“In a way, yes. But they are separate, and you are—”
“A no-wolf.”
“Noa…” Her gaze jerked up, then narrowed. “Where are you going with this?”
“I have an empty soul-space. That makes me invincible, doesn’t it? No wolf, no chance of losing what I don’t have, or being vulnerable to seidr sorcery. I’m the perfect, fated person to go after the Bone Woman.”
Laura’s face tightened, but she said nothing, blinking as she stared at the open book, leather bound in red with gold lettering. Small, the kind of book someone might slip into a pocket or backpack. Hide away in a crevice. So many secret places where that book might have hidden, before ending up in Anson’s archive.
“I thought you didn’t believe in fate,” she murmured.
Sunlight shimmered through the fake archive window. “It’s easier to understand this life in terms of fate. A black destiny. Which is both ambitious and perfectly arbitrary.”
Laura gripped my hands with hers. “Stop right now. You were in a coma for two weeks, Noa. Now you’re reeling with what Aine said, and Amal’s threat, and even that lament—don’t lie. I know how it tore you up. Then finding Julien—yes, I know about that. Anson accidentally let it slip, and I haven’t said a word to anyone about it. But don’t follow this path that you’re on. Stop and put everything into perspective. Give yourself a break, for fuck’s sake.”
A tease tugged at my lips. “For fuck’s sake, Laura? Isn’t that a little blue for you?”
“I’m coming out of my shell on this,” she snapped. “I mean it. Don’t make me worry about you.”
“I worry about you. All of you, the wolves in Sentinel Falls. The Carmag.”
“You’re not allowed to have martyr syndrome.”
“I want to talk to the witch again,” I said. “The one in the Farmer’s Market.”
“And ask her what?”
Before I thought of an answer, the archive doors whooshed open and a woman entered. She was auburn-haired, strikingly lovely. She walked with the aid of a crutch fitted to her arm. A wave of her hair fell artfully to hide the burn scar on the side of her face.
She hesitated on the threshold; her smile wavered before she settled firmly into confidence. “I meant no interruption.” Even her voice was memorable. “I was looking for my brother. The meeting adjourned early and I thought I might find him here.”
“I haven’t seen him,” Laura said warmly. Then, to me, she added, “This is Anson’s sister, Lila Salas. Noa Bishop.”
Lila’s smile was quick and taut. “Welcome to the Carmag. Are you enjoying your stay?”
“As much as possible. We’re all grateful for the hospitality.”
“Of course.” Russet hair swayed as she nodded, then half turned and gestured toward the door. “I’m needed in the medical complex, or I’d stay and visit. If you see Anson, please tell him I’m looking for him.”
“Can I do anything for you?” Laura was also a healer, so her offer was natural.
“Oh… thank you, but no. It’s just some housekeeping concerns, preparing for casualties.” Lila bit her lip. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“We won’t mention that part.”
“Thank you.”
I studied her awkward gait as she walked away, heading for the elevator and not the stairs. “She’s very beautiful.”
Laura smoothed her palms across the table. “She’s a healer, extremely talented. Almost to Gray’s level.”
A cloud hung over the words. There was more to the story, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask. “I haven’t seen her before. She wasn’t in the medical wing where I stayed.”
“No.”
“How long have you known her?”
Laura hesitated, her forefinger floating over the book still open on the table. Pain thudded behind my eyes, a sure sign of a headache coming on. “Laura?”
She glanced at the elevator. The progress light was off. Lila had obviously reached the main floor and was on her way out of the building. “I’m sorry you had to see her.”
I frowned. “Why would seeing her make you sorry?”
“She knows Gray.” They were healers, in the same profession, so it was logical. Laura’s discomfort, though, was not logical. She looked away. “They worked together during the pack war.”
“They were close?”
“Yes.”
Intuition rippled down my spine. I knew Grayson had a private life before I came, so I shouldn’t be shocked to learn they knew each other… more than professionally. But as I listened to Laura’s carefully indrawn breath, my pulse throbbed. “I suppose there’s no delicate way to say they were lovers.”
“It was a long time ago, Noa.”
“Four years ago.” I’d had a lover then, too, a shy, awkward boy who was safe. Who made no demands. Ancient history, wasn’t it? And a bond was little more than a whim of magic.
My gaze drifted to the elevators while the headache sharpened behind my eyes. I’d always used the stairs. Difficult for Lila to do. With that crutch, her disability was permanent, but not an impediment to her work. Her determination.
Perhaps it was my faille senses working overtime. That damn sensitivity. But their breakup hadn’t been easy. I’d picked up on the lingering pain sparking in Lila’s eyes and weakening one corner of her smile. Was she the reason Anson warded Westvale against Grayson? Not to keep him from challenging as an Alpha, or even to protect me? Had he wanted Grayson nowhere near his sister?
“Can you tell me what happened… her injuries?” A small portion of my chest had gone cold. I didn’t care if I was insensitive when I added, “I can research for myself. But that would call attention to my interest and people— wolves love to talk.”
“It was an accident,” Laura said after a contemplative silence. If I wanted the entire version, I’d have to ask those involved. Grayson and Lila. It was their private business, wasn’t it? Ancient history that a few friends didn’t want me to learn.
The quiet in the archive turned oppressive. I wanted the cold air on my face, to breathe in natural scents, not those manufactured to soothe me. I wanted to meet a friend for a drink, share a joke and not worry about the secrets hidden beneath the laughter. To have dinner at an out-of-the-way dive that had fabulous food, the kind of place known only to the locals. A place where, if you knew about it, you belonged.
With a murmured excuse, I left the table and pushed through the whooshing archive door. The stairs took forever.
Once outside, I nodded to the security guards, set off at a brisk pace, joining the flashy crowds on the snowy sidewalks. One day, I would actually belong in a crowd like this, not here in Westvale. Maybe not even in Sentinel Falls. Grayson would walk beside me. I’d touch his hand and he would smile. We’d be new again. No past lovers suddenly in the picture, or friends trying to protect me from the truth. No Amal waiting in the wings. No nymphs up to their eyeballs in secrets. There would be wolves, of course. He’d have his, and I’d never know what it was like. We would both deny that it mattered. Unless, of course, the seidr magic got busy screwing things up again.
The Farmer’s Market bristled with activity. I wove between the booths, side-stepped the chaotic masses, walking toward the witch’s booth. It was empty. Cleaned out. Not even the camp chair remained. The sprigs of rosemary. Only a dried-out stem, crushed on the floor.
I gripped my arms, curled in on myself. Lila and Grayson had been lovers. Why not torture myself with the images? Imagine her, touching him the way I did. Imagine him, that sound low in his throat he couldn’t control, as if his world was shattering. I closed my eyes and heard the murmured words as he shared his secrets. As she asked him to touch her, bring her higher.
Did she feel the ecstasy that left me breathless? Did they share stupid, silly moments, like laughing at some television show? Cooking side-by-side? Did he take her to his secret cave? The house of memories? Did she know Fee? Did the King of the Forest do things for her, like beer appearing in a vet clinic refrigerator? Or delivering a pizza oven?
Did he think of her often?
Did I think torturing myself with those thoughts would make it any easier?
A bargain was what we said it was, and a mate bond was one more arbitrary act of fate. A destin noir.
“She’s gone,” said the man selling white liquor. “The witch.”
I turned to face him. “Do you know where she went?”
“Didn’t say. Other than she said you’d come looking for her.” He reached beneath his counter, pulled out an object made of sticks. “Left this for you, girl. Best you take it.”
I stared at the effigy of the Bone Woman. “I don’t want it.”
“She said you’d say that, too. When you did, I was supposed to tell you the answer you came for is in this…” He flicked the effigy with his forefinger until it skidded toward me. “Toy.”
My fingers trembled when I picked it up; a chilling frisson raced across my palm. I thanked him, closed my fingers around the sticks, and turned, pushing through the crowd toward the exit.
The blast of chilled air was clarifying.
So was the view.
Across the snowy, red-paved square, Grayson was crossing the street. He did not differ from the many in the crowd, except for the woman that he carried in his arms. The woman with her head resting against his chest, as if she’d rested against him many, many times before.
Lila Salas.