45. Viktor
Viktor
The coven compound was a bit of a mess.
There were no guards in the building that led in from the road, but the gate was still closed, shutting the whole compound off from cars arriving.
Ingeborg scoffed and motioned expansively, and instantly, the gate shoved inward, faster than I suspected the mechanism could ever function.
My new understanding of the magic shared between Daire and me meant I felt it properly this time, when the wards went off. Or maybe it was just that this time, I understood what was going on.
We pulled down the drive to the front of the house, Aleks entirely unworried about the threat the witches might pose to us. I wasn’t sure if it was because of Ingeborg, or Daire, or if he was simply finished being frightened.
They had more reason to be afraid of us than we them, after all.
By the time he turned the truck off, witches were starting to pile onto the porch. Part of me wanted to immediately go into fight mode. I even had my wolf this time, and wouldn’t be such easy prey for them.
Daire seemed to read my mind, and grabbed my hand, squeezing tight and looking up at me. I didn’t know if he wanted reassurance, or if he was trying to give it to me.
He needn’t have, if it were the latter.
I wasn’t worried.
And more than that, no one needed to be. The moment Ingeborg stepped out of the cab of the truck, the lot of them were cowed. There were gasps of shock, quiet muttering, and a lot of fidgeting, but I didn’t see a single hostile face when they looked at her.
Oh, a few of them still glared at me and Daire, but not her.
I smiled back and waved at the one with the angriest glare, privately making a note to kill her first if a fight broke out.
“You really want Destiny to hate you, huh?” Tristan asked, looking at me like he thought I was crazy.
Destiny. I would have to remember that name. She was going to be trouble, that one. Maybe I should warn Ingeborg, not that I thought she would need my help.
Regardless, none of them were my problem anymore, presuming they accepted Ingeborg as their leader and didn’t force us to kill or bite them all.
“I”—Daire started to speak, and a dozen heads turned to look at him, half of them glaring.
He paused, took a breath, and leaned into me before raising his voice again.
“I realized this morning that Ingeborg’s illness was suspicious, and if my mother was willing to betray anyone and everyone in the name of power, she had probably done the same to her own aunt. ”
The angry women, Destiny, started to open her mouth, but Ingeborg ignored her, stepping forward.
“And he was right. The power-hungry bitch cursed me because I didn’t approve of what she was doing.
And I see she’s led the coven to the brink of destruction, continuing to grasp at any hint of what she can steal or coerce out of others. ”
The woman made a sour face that reminded me more of an abstract painting than a human visage, and decided she was finished listening to anyone. “This isn’t Ermengarde’s fault. Daire murdered her. He consorted with mutts and murdered his own mother. He let the bloodsucker go, too.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Ingeborg said, with a sigh that sounded genuinely relieved. She turned to look at Daire. “Are you all right? Is he?”
“We’re both fine,” Daire answered, then smiled. “Altair is . . . well, he’s actually very nice when he’s not being imprisoned for doing nothing wrong and starved half to death.”
“He’s a bloodsucker,” Destiny barked, and Ingeborg snapped her hand up in a motion that was clearly intended to say something like “shut up.” Destiny kept moving her mouth, but nothing came out.
Ingeborg’s eyes narrowed as she stared at her, and the woman continued to try to speak for a long, silent moment.
Finally, Ingeborg nodded. “I see. Is anyone else here entirely loyal to a monster who betrayed her own aunt, her own child, and her own coven? Think we should be trying to murder everyone who disagrees with us, and dominate all other magic users in the world?”
The witches glanced nervously at Destiny, then Ingeborg, and slowly, finally, there seemed to be a consensus among them that wasn’t just about following Ermengarde’s madness.
They shook their heads. Most of them looked and smelled of discomfort, as though they had somehow missed what their coven leader had been up to, trying to make herself into a witchwolf.
I made a note of the two faces who looked like they were just going with the majority and had probably been fine with everything Daire’s mother had pulled.
I needn’t have bothered, though, because I watched Ingeborg’s shrewd eyes take in precisely the same thing, watching those two in particular.
Then she motioned to three of the coven, not those.
“Take Destiny to the cell, since it’s apparently empty.
We’ll need a few days to brew the tabula rasa. ”
There were breaths sucked in all around, and Destiny tried to lunge down the stairs at Ingeborg. The older witch simply pinned her with a glare, literally. She glared, and Destiny froze, unmoving, while the witches assigned picked her up and carried her off.
I didn’t know what “brewing the tabula rasa” was, but I suspected that Ingeborg would also be doing it for the other two we had both noted.
As much as I didn’t remotely want to stay in the coven compound for another minute, I considered offering to stay until the brewing was done and the threats were neutralized.
I didn’t want them coming for my pack again.
We needed this to be entirely over, with no witches hanging over our heads.
Daire clutched my hand even harder, trying to disappear into me, but that was when a strange, mournful sound broke through the noise of the afternoon.
I hadn’t even noticed him slip away, but Drew came rushing around the house in raccoon form, something gray and black and lumpy clutched in one arm. He was where the sound was coming from, and the smell of him . . . I worried he’d discovered more murders wherever he’d gone behind the house.
Instead, he rushed up to Daire, who dropped to his knees beside me, and also made a small, sad noise. “Mariah Harey,” he said, voice tiny and pitiful.
The thing had, perhaps, at some point, been a fuzzy children’s toy. I could see a few scant inches of unsullied purple faux fur, and a single glass eye, but the rest was a burned, melted mess.
One of the men on the porch cleared his throat, and when I looked up at him, he had the grace to look ashamed. “When you left, your mother declared you a traitor to the coven. She . . . she burned all your things. Clothes. Furniture from your room. Everything.”
Daire pulled the melted former bunny against his chest, and then, after a second’s consideration, pulled Drew against him as well. Together, the two of them mourned the destruction of what tiny bit of childhood he’d ever been afforded by these creatures.
“And you call us beasts,” Aleks said. He spit on the ground between us and the witches, and muttered, “Skotina.”
Apparently, the witches were concerned they’d just been literally cursed, as they shifted uncomfortably in their positions, glancing between each other. Or maybe, there was enough decency in them to be ashamed of taking part in such a ridiculous, monstrous display of inhumanity.
Drew made that sad noise again, then squirmed out of Daire’s arms and rushed halfway to the witches, chittering wildly and waving a fist. Daire was clearly worried and wanted to go to him, but Ingeborg just nodded.
“I quite agree, dear. And with you as well, Alpha Wildwood. It’s utterly beastly, and frankly, means the coven owes Daire even more, simply as restitution. ”
“He did betray the coven,” one of the two I’d pegged as a future traitor said, his tone measured, like he was trying to calmly point out the obvious.
Ingeborg lifted that unimpressed brow at him.
“By refusing to let his mother murder him? I should say the coven betrayed him first. Don’t any of you go thinking we won’t be having a lot of discussions about that in the near future.
You all accepted that behavior and didn’t leave.
Murdering one of our own. Daire can hardly be held responsible for going and not wanting to come back. I wouldn’t either.”
He clearly wanted to deny the accusation, but perhaps he realized, as I had suspected, that the conversation was a test. How the witch on the porch responded was likely to answer what he’d be doing with his whole future.
When Ingeborg turned away from them, though, and I saw the look in her eyes, I knew I’d been wrong. She’d already decided. The conversation was simply confirming her course of action.
She met my eye and again, gave the tiniest twitch of a smile.
Then she returned to us, reaching out a hand to Aleks, shaking his firmly. “Thank you, Alpha Wildwood. The coven is in your debt. We’ll also send Daire’s restitution and gift to your pack, since I can’t imagine him wanting to stay here for even a night.”
Drew rushed back to Daire, leaping into his arms, and Daire let the burned lump of a former toy drop to the ground and stood, holding the chubby little raccoon against him and then leaning his whole body into me.
“I’d rather not,” he agreed. “I’m sure most of them didn’t specifically decide it, but they were going to let Mother murder me. I don’t belong here.”
Aleks nodded to him, then looked back at Ingeborg. “He’s Wildwood, now. Tristan as well, since we were forced to bite him to defend the pack from a coven incursion.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Tristan smile. We’d all presumed he was staying, but this confirmed it.
Then, Aleks turned to Ingeborg. “But I would imagine Daire would welcome visits from you, if not the others.”
Ingeborg nodded to him, serious and formal as she hadn’t been before. “I will endeavor to make up for what my niece did to the pack, and each of its members, in whatever way I can. Even if we’re unable to truly do that, the coven will not trouble you again.”
Aleks inclined his head to her. “We appreciate that you care at all. We would consider the coven under your leadership a neutral entity, if not yet an ally. We’ll hold no grudge against the whole for Ermengarde’s behavior, so long as they hold loyal to you.”
There were a few deep breaths on the porch, and I could see relief on many faces. More of them than had wanted to follow Daire, I had no doubt.
Aleks looked up at the porch then, his expression going hard.
“If something else happens to Daire’s aunt and you lot start attacking innocents again, we won’t hesitate next time.
I’ll bring the whole pack, their orders will be to bite every single one of you, and unlike Tristan, we won’t be taking in those survivors. If there are any.”
I drew myself up, giving them a cold nod, and when I turned toward the truck, I realized even Tristan was nodding along with Aleks. He really hadn’t turned out to be such a bad addition to the pack.
I hoped that Ingeborg found the other witches to be the same brand of decent people who’d been badly misled. I knew there would be a few she needed to weed out, but somehow, I suspected she was up to the task.
Aleks gave her a card with his phone number on it, but then said that the pack was never available for awakenings. That seemed to confuse the elder witch, but she took him seriously and nodded, then thanked him for the pack’s aid.
And that was it.
It was over.
I sighed and looked at Aleks. “We need to go to that horrible store Jojo talked about, with all the things. Daire needs clothing.”
Aleks didn’t laugh, even though he found my aversion to stores amusing. He just nodded and hit the truck’s turn indicator to take us farther into the city.