CHAPTER TWELVE ALDRICH IN THE SMOKE
S ilver smoke rolled through the Sacred Grove, curling around roots and stones as if it knew exactly where it wanted to go.
Marion stood beside Euan and watched it come.
Not behind him.
Beside him.
It was a small thing, considering an army seemed to be breathing in the trees, but it struck her all the same.
Euan had not shoved her back. He had not barked some order for her to hide behind him while men with silver prepared to kill them all.
His body strained with the effort, she could feel that much through the bond, but he stayed where he was.
At her side.
The knowledge made something warm and foolish rise in her chest.
This was not the time for warmth.
Or foolishness.
Especially not with Master Lucien Aldrich stepping from the smoke as if he had arrived late to a dinner party and found the first course more entertaining than expected.
He wore a dark velvet coat despite the snow.
Of course he did. The man would probably dress for a hanging as if attending court.
The silver tip of his cane touched the frozen earth with a soft click.
Behind him, shapes moved between the black pines.
Soldiers. More than Marion had hoped. Their boots made hardly any sound, but she heard leather strain, metal shift, frightened breathing badly controlled.
Horses waited farther back.
And there were canisters.
Many of them.
The smell of silver ash made the wolf inside her curl its lip.
Aldrich’s pale eyes moved over the Grove, taking in the lowered axe, Euan alive, the burned cuffs in the snow, the wolves standing half shifted with blades drawn. Then his gaze settled on Marion.
It did not leave.
“Well,” he said again, almost pleasantly. “I had prepared for grief. Grief is predictable. It gathers creatures into neat circles and makes them poor strategists. But this?” His eyes dropped briefly to the glowing mark on Euan’s neck. “This is unexpected.”
Euan’s growl was low enough that Marion felt it through his chest before she heard it.
Aldrich smiled. “Chief McFarland. Still attached to your head. I must confess, I am relieved. It would have made further study inconvenient.”
Euan took one step forward.
Marion’s hand caught his wrist.
This time he stopped for her.
The bond flared with his fury. It moved into her like heat from a forge, and for one dangerous breath she wanted to let him go. Let him cross the snow, tear that polished man apart, and make all his careful words useless in his mouth.
But Aldrich had not come alone.
And Marion knew men like him.
They never stood close enough to danger unless they believed someone else would bleed first.
“Do not give him what he wants,” she said softly.
Euan’s jaw flexed. “He wants you.”
“Yes. I have noticed men with control issues often do.”
A faint sound escaped Tavish somewhere behind them, cut short when Fergus shoved an elbow into him.
Euan’s gaze flicked to Marion. For all the danger pressing around them, something almost like admiration moved through his eyes.
The heat in her face was entirely inconvenient.
Aldrich tilted his head. “Mistress Bell, I must say death has improved your disposition. Or perhaps it has merely removed your caution.”
“My caution has had a trying night.”
“So I see.” His gaze sharpened with interest that made her skin crawl. “Silver hair. Gold eyes retained after reverse shift. Claim marks active on both bodies. External poison response visible through light emission. Fascinating.”
“Do not talk about her as if she is on one of your tables,” Euan said.
Aldrich looked at him then, calm as ever. “She has been, in a sense.”
Euan’s entire body went rigid.
Marion felt the old memory strike him before she understood. The laboratory. Chains. Silver. Aldrich’s soft voice above wolf prisoners. Men and women treated like specimens because someone had taught the Crown that a soul became less real if called disease.
Marion stepped in front of Euan before he could move.
He made an angry sound. “Marion.”
“No.”
Aldrich’s brows rose. “How touching. He restrains himself for you. You restrain him for his own good. Already the reciprocal bond modifies aggression response.”
Marion stared at him.
There were moments in life when words were simply not enough.
Marion had discovered this when Georgie was born and the midwife placed her slippery, furious daughter in her arms. She had discovered it again when she first saw Euan in chains.
She had discovered it on the altar when death had taken her somewhere without language.
Now, looking at Aldrich’s mild expression, she discovered the opposite.
There were moments when she had far too many words and none of them suitable for polite company.
“You are a very unpleasant little man,” she said.
The Grove went still in a different way.
Aldrich blinked.
Then Tavish choked.
Morna muttered, “Saints preserve us.”
Euan looked down at Marion as if she had just handed him a sword made entirely of sunlight.
Aldrich recovered quickly, though a small tightening beside his mouth gave Marion unreasonable satisfaction.
“Insults are often the refuge of frightened subjects,” he said.
“I am not your subject.”
“No,” he said softly. “Not yet.”
Euan moved so fast Marion barely had time to grab him again. This time he caught himself before she pulled. Progress, she supposed, though his eyes were bright enough to light the Grove.
Aldrich’s attention slipped to the place where Marion’s fingers held Euan’s arm.
“Remarkable,” he murmured.
“I am beginning to hate that word,” Marion said.
“I am beginning to understand why you survived.” Aldrich took a step closer.
Several wolves growled. He stopped, but only because he chose to.
“Your healing gift does not merely resist silver. It alters response. And now through the wolf form...” He smiled faintly.
“No wonder the old records were so carefully destroyed.”
Morna went still.
Marion felt it. “What do you know of old records?”
Aldrich’s eyes glittered.
Too late, Marion realized she had given him something.
Interest.
He enjoyed that.
“Oh, fragments only. Songs. Burned pages. Confessions from wolves who lasted longer under silver than expected.” He tapped his cane once. “Enough to suspect human born mates had uses beyond breeding complications.”
Euan snarled.
Rhona stepped forward, her face white with anger. “You butchered our people for songs?”
“No,” Aldrich said mildly. “I butchered them for results. The songs merely suggested where to cut.”
The words struck the Grove harder than any weapon.
Several wolves shifted at once. Bones cracked. Fur rippled over skin. Fergus drew his blade. Tavish had already drawn his and looked young and murderous.
Aldrich lifted one gloved hand.
From the trees, soldiers raised crossbows tipped with silver.
The wolves froze.
Marion counted without meaning to. Twelve visible. More hidden. Three canisters near the east trees. Two near the path. One larger device strapped to the side of a horse half hidden behind brush. Men with masks hanging at their throats. They had come prepared for smoke.
“Easy,” Aldrich said. “I have no desire to ruin such a rare specimen with unnecessary violence.”
Marion’s hands curled.
Euan’s voice went dangerously quiet. “Call her that again.”
Aldrich looked amused. “Specimen?”
Euan lunged.
This time Marion could not stop him.
He moved with savage speed, crossing the snow before the nearest soldier could fire. A wolf warrior shouted. Crossbows lifted. Marion’s heart lurched into her throat.
“Euan!”
Silver bolts flew.
He twisted, impossibly fast, but one grazed his shoulder. The scent of burned flesh hit Marion and the bond flared with pain. She cried out, more from feeling him than seeing it.
Euan reached the first soldier and struck him hard enough to send him crashing into a tree. Another soldier swung a silver tipped spear. Euan caught the shaft in one hand, ignoring the burn, and snapped it.
For half a breath Marion simply stared.
He had been kneeling for death moments ago.
Now he looked like death had changed its mind and chosen a side.
Then the first canister burst.
Silver smoke erupted low across the snow, thick and dark. Wolves coughed. One dropped to a knee. Another half shifted and screamed as the change caught wrong in his bones.
The sound tore Marion out of shock.
She ran toward him.
Not Euan. The fallen wolf.
Her healer’s body moved before her mind could argue. She dropped beside the young warrior, a girl no older than twenty perhaps, with gray fur trapped along one arm and human fingers clawing at her throat. Silver smoke clung to her skin like living ash.
Marion pressed her hands to the girl’s chest.
Gold light rose.
Then silver.
The smoke recoiled.
The girl gasped.
Marion felt the poison try to bite into her hands, and for one horrible second her old fear rose. Silver. Pain. Aldrich’s laboratory. The collar he had threatened her with. Her body breaking in the forest under Duncan’s silver charm.
No.
She pushed.
Light flared beneath her palms. The smoke hissed back and thinned enough for the girl to drag in a breath.
“Mistress,” the girl rasped.
“Breathe,” Marion snapped. “You can thank me after no one is dead.”
The girl obeyed.
Good.
Marion liked obedient patients.
Pity her mate was not one of them.
Euan fought his way back toward her, bleeding from the shoulder but still upright. His eyes went to the girl, then to Marion’s hands, then to her face. Pride flashed through the bond so fierce it almost startled her.
Then fear followed it.
Of course.
“You are exposed,” he said.
“So are you.”
“I am harder to kill.”
“Do not tempt me to test that.”
He bared his teeth in what might have been a smile if the circumstances were not appalling.
Aldrich’s voice floated through the smoke. “She can repel active silver ash on contact. Increase exposure.”
More canisters hissed.
Aodh shouted orders. Warriors scattered to drag the weakened back. Rhona pulled a dagger from beneath her cloak with a competence that made Marion like her more. Morna was already moving among the fallen, cursing as if profanity itself were a medicine.
Then another voice cut through the chaos.
“Well, well.”
Marion’s blood chilled.
No.
She turned.
Sheriff Duncan Bell stepped from behind two Crown soldiers at the edge of the Grove, his dark coat dusted with snow, his face thinner than it had been in the village, but his smile exactly the same. Respectable. Mean. Certain that the world would eventually put women back where he preferred them.
His eyes moved over Marion’s silver hair, her glowing throat, the blood on her mouth from Euan’s claim, the torn shift clinging to her skin.
For the first time in all the years she had known him, Duncan looked truly afraid of her.
Then he hid it poorly under disgust.
“Marion,” he said. “What has he made of you?”
Euan’s growl became something almost inhuman.
Marion stood slowly.
The girl she had healed scrambled back, away from the smoke.
Duncan’s gaze flicked to Euan, then returned to Marion. “Step away from him. Whatever corruption this is, the Crown can still help you.”
Marion almost laughed.
It would have been unwise.
She did it anyway.
“Help me?” she said. “Is that what we are calling cages now?”
His mouth tightened. “You are not yourself.”
“No. I am more myself than I have ever been. That must be terribly disappointing for you.”
Aldrich watched this exchange with bright interest, which made Marion want to throw something heavy at his head.
Duncan took one step closer. Euan matched it before Marion could blink.
“Do not,” Euan said.
Duncan swallowed. The sound was delicious.
Still, he lifted his chin. “You have no authority here, beast. By Crown law, Marion Bell is a widow under investigation for witchcraft, treason and unlawful association with rebels. Her child is also subject to Crown protection.”
Marion’s vision sharpened.
Georgie.
Euan felt the change in her. His hand found hers again, fast and hard.
“She is at the castle,” he said low.
“With Morna,” Marion answered, though the words did not calm her as much as they should have. Morna was here now.
Tavish.
Tavish had promised.
Her pulse pounded.
Duncan saw he had struck something. His smile returned a fraction.
There he was. The same man. Always looking for the tender place to press.
“You were always a danger to her,” he said.
Marion took one step forward.
The bond flared, and Euan moved with her. Beside her. Not before.
Duncan’s smile faded.
Good.
Aldrich lifted his cane slightly. “Enough. Mistress Bell is to be taken alive. The child, if recovered, may prove useful but is secondary.”
Duncan stiffened. “Secondary?”
Aldrich did not look at him. “Do not confuse your domestic obsessions with Crown priority, Sheriff.”
For one brief second, Duncan looked like a man who had just realized the wolf was not the only beast in the woods.
Marion might have enjoyed that more if silver smoke had not thickened again.
A canister rolled between the roots near Aodh.
Larger than the others.
Euan saw it the same time she did.
“Back!” he shouted.
Too late.
The device cracked open.
Dark silver vapor exploded outward, not drifting this time but rushing low and fast through the Sacred Grove. It struck the first line of wolves like a wave. Men dropped. Wolves snarled. Someone screamed as half shifted bones locked in agony.
The smoke reached Marion’s ankles and crawled upward like cold fingers.
Her bite mark burned.
Euan staggered beside her, hand flying to his chest.
Through the bond, something scraped.
Not at skin.
At them.
Marion gasped.
Aldrich’s soft voice came through the fog.
“Now that,” he said, sounding almost pleased, “should be far more instructive.”