Chapter 12
twelve
After tightening our ranks again, I checked on Carmichael and verified he remained stationary.
Not that I would have expected him to come for me himself when I was so well guarded.
We had no real idea how many of the pack had remained loyal to him versus using the split as an excuse to break ties and seek asylum with other, less volatile packs.
The enforcers exchanged glances, their meanings learned through years of experience, and then we started forward again.
A patrol would have returned to their base and warned Carmichael, since wolves can’t use cellphones, but we were being followed. Almost escorted. Maybe they worked in pairs and one peeled off to warn the rest while the other continued dogging our heels.
Whatever their strategy, Carmichael had yet to budge even an inch from where I sensed him. To the point I began to question if I had located him or something else—someone else. As the scale heated on my chest, I listened to my gut and made the call.
This wasn’t right. None of it. I had to stop us before we went any further. “We need to get out of here.”
“Okay.” Dane tucked in tight against my shoulder. “You heard her.”
With a nod from Seamus, the others pivoted until we faced the way we had come as a group.
The edge of the forest was in sight, moonlight beaming down ahead, when the first howl rose.
“We’ll have to make a run for it.” Seamus didn’t bother keeping his voice down now. There was no point with the call for a hunt echoing around us. “We can get a warning to the others if we reach the—”
A blur of gray fur leapt over my shoulder, hitting Seamus in the center of his chest. Impact drove him to the ground, and Dane all but tucked me under his arm and sprinted for the wide-open space ahead.
“We can’t leave him.” I wriggled and fought, smoke ringing my nostrils. “We have to go back.”
“The others will get him out of there.” Dane ran harder. “You’re the priority.”
As much as I had lamented never being a priority, this wasn’t how I wanted to experience it.
“Call your dragon now, and this forest burns,” Dane warned as if he had plucked the thought straight from my head. “Including our allies.”
Defeat left me limp in his hold as my mind spun possibilities that allowed me to help, but I kept getting stuck on his phrasing.
I got the overwhelming sense he knew exactly what type of power I carried within me to caution me, but maybe that was paranoia speaking.
I did have a habit of waving around gouts of flames I couldn’t douse in public areas.
“Ana,” a familiar voice cut through the rush of blood in my ears.
“Mercer.” I gripped Dane’s arm, but he didn’t slow until we cleared the trees. “You’re here too?”
Air rushed into my lungs, but I smelled nothing. Not wolf. Not man. Not truth or lie. Nothing. Our fears about him relying on witches’ charms had proven true. And he wasn’t alone in his bipedal form.
Zoe stood behind him, wearing the exact outfit as Jael, the nocturnal resident who raised my hackles.
Just what had her role in our recent misfortunes been? Nothing good, I was sure. Even when the acts she committed made her hesitate, she always pushed through her unease. Eager to prove herself and climb the ranks.
“Where else would I be?” A cold smile framed his mouth. “I didn’t let your father go for free.”
Dread pulled in my stomach as Dane set me on my feet beside him. “What do you mean?”
“The pack is divided, as I’m sure you’ve heard.
I want my people back. I want my families reunited.
I want dragons out of our lives for good.
The only way that happens is to take out Sartori, and the best way to ensure no one gets any ideas about aligning with the Walshes is to make sure everyone knows they’re the ones who killed him after my show of mercy. ”
A brutal tactic guaranteeing the pack was too afraid to ask for asylum from Mercer with the Walshes.
“I couldn’t make up my mind if you were playing us,” I admitted.
“I almost convinced myself you and Carmichael agreed to this dustup to give him freedom from pack law to hunt me without dragging the rest of the pack down with him. But that’s not enough for either of you, is it?
” I took a risk and pinned the blame on him.
“That’s why you’ve been bombing Brentwood and poisoning its residents. ”
“No innocents were killed,” Zoe blurted, stepping forward with her fists clenching at her sides. “No one was seriously wounded either.”
“Don’t sound so proud of your failures,” Mercer growled at her.
“The other explosions should have gone as smoothly as taking out the Sartori spy, but you couldn’t even do that right.
You picked a hell of a time to have a crisis of conscience.
One body or ten doesn’t change the fact you’re a killer. ”
Neither rushed to take credit for the poisonings. Did that mean Sartori wasn’t behind those?
The scent on the door at GSG had been wolf but not Sartori. That was hardly definitive proof Carmichael was innocent. He often hired pros to keep his hands clean and his pack out of his shadier business.
If only I had listened to my gut that day. “What about Jael?”
“She’s fine,” Zoe answered when Mercer remained silent. “I only borrowed her clothes.”
“These measures weren’t taken out of malice.
There are those among us who believe we should ally with you.
” Mercer gestured Zoe back. “The same people who refused to speak to you or even be in a room with you alone want to crawl on their bellies and beg you to protect us from your new clan. All because Sartori had to air his dirty laundry on his way out the door.”
Ah.
Now they all knew. That I wasn’t his daughter, or a latent. As much as I wanted to be upset at him about outing me, one final betrayal, I was glad he told them the truth. Without those lies tangling around me, I felt…free. Of him. Of them. Of my past.
“Allies is a bit much, but Rían and I had hoped to forge a truce with you.” The odds of that plummeted with his confirmation he had people setting off bombs in our territory.
“I don’t want anything to do with you or the pack.
I’m happy where I am, with who I’m with.
I only kept the pack bond to find Carmichael.
I have no ambitions where the Sartori pack is concerned.
I want them out of our lives as much as you want us out of yours.
” I drew in a long breath. “For the sake of the Walshes and the Sartoris, I don’t see why you and I can’t come to an agreement without spilling blood. ”
“Except your father’s, of course.”
“You know him better than anyone else, and you’re of the opinion he won’t stop until he gets what he wants.
You’re poised to kill him now. You almost did during the challenge.
So, you’ll have to forgive me if your attempts at guilting me don’t hold water.
Especially when we both know clan and pack law state he should be executed for his crimes against my parents, yet he never got so much as a slap on the wrist.”
“That’s the beauty of being an alpha,” he mused. “If you beat down your people enough, physically or mentally, they won’t care what you do as long as you don’t do it to them.”
“You were okay with that?”
“Brainwashing takes time. Reversing it? Can take a lifetime.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Try as I might, I still fought against the biases and lies drummed into me, and I worried part of me would always react first before I self-corrected and shut down those old habits.
“I couldn’t act until I had a solid base of followers I could trust to stand with me against Sartori.
I knew he had his hooks in the pack, but I didn’t realize he had sunk them in so deep with so many that they would leave their homes and extended families behind to follow him when he left with nothing. ”
Egotistical as he was, Carmichael would never allow his pride to put his goals at risk.
He would have had money tucked away, deeds to properties and homes too.
I doubt he expected to use them to pad his fall from alphadom, but there was every reason to believe he hoarded funds and safe houses in case he ever had to run with me.
A fact Mercer should know, or at least suspect, given the depths of Carmichael’s obsession.
Yet Carmichael ended up out here, in the middle of nowhere.
Again, the feeling of wrongness rose and swept me along with it.
The mental picture of him furry with his back against a dirt wall had been wishful thinking. That or a strategy to coax me out. He wouldn’t have remained belowground for long. He would have missed human luxuries too much.
“You think, after you kill Carmichael, they’ll flock home like sheep to their shepherd?”
“They don’t have many better options.” He rolled a shoulder. “All I can do is try and make them see I can give them a future. And that means I have to remove all threats to that promise.”
“Have you ever considered that you hung around with Carmichael too long? That you developed your own obsession? He might have revered dragons, coveted them, but your hatred runs so deep you can’t let go of them—of me—either.
” I spread my hands. “You could walk away. You don’t have to make me an obstacle to your happiness.
I want the same bright future you’re promising your people for mine. ”
“How long before they realize you can’t shift and your honeymoon is over? You have power now because you’re an unknown. Maybe they think they can fix you. Maybe they just want to breed you. But you won’t always hold the position you do now, and that means I can’t take your word at face value.”
“That’s a very Sartori mindset you’ve got there.” I huffed bitter laughter. “You’ll do a fine job of leading them, right back into the 1800s.” I shook my head. “You don’t want what’s best for the pack, or you would quit ostracizing members who are different and stop viewing women as walking wombs.”