Deceptions: A Collection (32 page)

I grabbed the clothes I’d slept in and draped them over the shower rod. We needed to wash clothes if we were here more than another night. With my hair still wet, I left the bathroom.

Damon was standing at the window, talking in a low voice on the phone.

His conversation carried on, consisting mostly of grunts, repeated intermittent use of the words
yes
and
no
, and an occasional
hmmmm
thrown in for variety.

Hard to figure out who he was talking to, but I knew it wasn’t the Queen Bitch. His voice just didn’t have that blind adoration, that
yes, ma’am, I’ll kill whoever you need me to kill
obedience to it.

I opened the fridge and spied the box of pizza sitting there. We’d polished off two and half pizzas last night—I’d actually eaten nearly an entire one, plus some spaghetti and buffalo wings.

Pulling it out, I saw there were only two pieces left. But there was some spaghetti. He must have had some, too, because it had been half full last night and now there was just enough for me to have a bowl. That was fine. All I needed, really. Breakfast of champions: pizza and spaghetti. The carbohydrates would do me good, I figured.

I nuked the pizza, but ate the spaghetti cold, guzzling two cups of coffee while I waited for him to finish up his phone call.

By the time he had finished, I was done eating, had my socks on and was lacing my boots. “We should have ordered another pizza,” I said.

“We’ll get something from one of those fast-food joints you love so much,” he said, watching as I started slipping my weapons into place.

“Don’t bother on my account. I got enough.”

He prowled across the room and settled on the bed just a foot away from me. Too close. Too close—

Trying to ignore him, I pulled on my vest, wrinkling my nose a little. It was stiff with sweat but it had too many places to hide weapons for me to
not
wear it. “If we’re here past tomorrow, we have to stop long enough for me to wash my clothes.” I settled it into place and reached for my garrote, working it into the collar.

“Do you always carry that many weapons on a job?”

I shrugged. “Depends on the job. If I’d figured yesterday’s hike would turn out like it did, I would have brought
more
.”

He stood up, laughing a little as he reached out and hooked his hands in the front of my vest. “Kitten, just how many more weapons can you
carry
?”

“My bow.” Bitterness twisted my gut as I thought about the sleek, pretty carved piece I’d left at home because I hadn’t planned on needing it. Plus, I still had to abide by U.S. laws and if I was caught carrying something as conspicuous as a bow and arrow in a national park, I’d be in major trouble. The sword, I could easily convince the authorities was part of my job, and the other weapons I carried weren’t hunting weapons, but anybody who looked at the bow and arrow would think I’d gone into the ′glades to hunt—

Hunting
—

“Hunting,” I murmured.

Memory flashed through my mind. The boy. The wolf who’d been found.
They had him trapped somewhere…He tried to climb out. For a long, long while
.

“Hunting games…”

Would they?

“What are you mumbling about?”

I turned away from him, my mind whirling. In a rush, I finished with my weapons. I didn’t strap my sword on yet. It wasn’t easy to drive with her in place and it wasn’t like I had to carry her for her to be handy. “We need to go,” I said, shoving my hands through my damp hair. “Whatever we need to talk about, we’ll do it on the road. But we have to go by the witches’ house. I need to talk to the girl.”

“She wasn’t exactly in talking shape,” Damon said, still studying my face.

“Maybe the mother and her healers worked wonders.”

“It’s you again.”

I smiled at Kori, although I suspected it fell something short of charming.

The other day, her brows had been…well. Normal, I thought. Today, they were intersected with bare patches, like she’d decided to either wax or shave parts of the brows, but not others.

And instead of pink and blue in her hair, it was green and orange. She really, really made my eyes hurt.

“Hi, Kori.”

She just grunted and then looked past me. “I guess I have to let your boy in, too.”

“He’s not mine,” I said, trying not to think about the way his hand rested on the small of my back. Trying not to think about the way he’d had his tongue halfway down my throat earlier.

“He’s not, huh?” Kori started to laugh. “Anybody told
him
that? Or you, for that matter?” She stepped aside and gestured down the hall. “Healing hall down at the end, through the mirror, on your right.”

I blinked at her. “Did you say through the mirror?”

With a blinding smile, she said, “You heard right. It’s always good to make sure we keep our weak and sick well hidden. In case somebody was lucky enough to take me out.” Then she winked. “But trust me…nobody is that lucky.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t going to challenge her in any way on that. Hell, I still had the memory of my cooked hand dancing large in my mind. Tate had done me some serious damage. Yes, it had been for a purpose, but still, damage was damage and Kori could wipe the floor with Tate.

“Hey, kid.”

I paused and looked back at Kori.

She came closer, all long, muscled limbs and coiled grace. Tightly coiled grace, like she was ready to spring to action. She caught my hand and lifted it, studied it closely. “Takes balls to face somebody like Tate the way you did,” she murmured. “She’s not…”

A sad look entered her eyes. Then she shook her head. “Not all there.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that in any way that might not piss her off so I just kept my mouth shut.

“We need fighters,” Kori said quietly. “But we don’t need cruelty.”

“Nobody needs cruelty.”

Kori shrugged. “It has its place at times in our world.” She let go of my wrist and then backed away. “Our house is here when you need it, kid. I’ll be ready.”

Again, I didn’t know how to respond. It was an offer too generous for a mere thank you, but it was all I had. With a short nod, I said, “Thank you. If you ever need a sword…well, it’s not magic like you have, but I’m damn good with it.”

“I bet you are.” She grinned and nodded. “Go find the little cat. I think the mother finally got through to her earlier, but…”

She craned her head around, studied Damon. “You might want to leave the boy elsewhere. He’ll scare her.”

“I know how to handle kids going through the spike. And just so you know? The boy has a name,” Damon said.

“Yeah. I think you growled it at me before, but I forgot,” Kori responded. “If I was at all interested, I’d ask you again what it was…but you don’t really want me knowing yet. If I take that much interest in
your
name, it would be because I want to fuck you or kill you.”

I managed to swallow my laugh.

Barely.

Down at the end. Through the mirror on your right
.

I stared at the mirror and twitched at the massive amount of energy that hovered over it.

“It’s just a mirror,” Damon said, standing behind me.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yeah, it is. If they had the girl around here, I’d smell her and I don’t…”

I listened to his words trail off as I pushed my hand through the glass.

This was amazing…

“Son of a bitch,” Damon said from behind me.

I took a step forward. Then another.

I was halfway through the doorway when his hands closed over my shoulders. I could smell it now—it was like a sick house. A hospital. Like the healing hall back at Aneris, where I’d lived the first fifteen years of my life. Some of the healers in my mother’s family had practiced a magic that was much like a witch’s ability to heal and I could recognize the herbs just by scent alone.

All the time I spent at Colleen’s had only added to that ability.

Rosemary, mint, alder bark, cardamom, Solomon’s seal.

“Damn it, Kit.”

I glanced back and looked at Damon. “Come on, are you afraid of a mirror?”

He hadn’t been holding me as tight as he could have and I took advantage of it, twisting out of his grasp to push completely through the glass. His fingers swiped through, brushing over my hair, but I was inside the room now.

If he wanted me, he’d have to follow.

“Oh, he wants you.”

I searched the gloom for Es, moving away from the glass. I found her sitting by a narrow bed. “What?”

“He wants you, I said.” She smiled up at me. “I believe it’s already been mentioned that he’s in rut.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I glanced back over my shoulder, a little surprised that he hadn’t come through the mirror yet. “Several people have used the phrase, but I’m not too familiar with it. What, is he in heat or something?” I wrinkled my nose at the thought. “That would get weird.”

She started to laugh. “Oh, it’s more complicated than that. Don’t worry. He’s not going to go spraying the grass where you live or anything. If he decides to mark his territory, it will get more personal.”

“Gee, that sounds so very reassuring.” He still hadn’t come through.

“Magic unnerves some of the shifters,” she said quietly. “Even though they are as much a product of it as we are.”

“I’m not very magical.” I could go invisible and I could call a sword. That was it.

“That’s it? You almost always have luck on your side. You have an uncanny insight into things. And you can
see
magic,” she murmured. “And you see it better than most others. Like her…what do you see when you look at her?”

I looked at the girl on the bed, kicking myself for not noticing earlier.

“I see a girl who’s been hurt,” I said flatly.

“That’s not what you see.”

Sighing, I stared again.

“She’s hiding,” I murmured. “Like she’s curled up in on herself and won’t come out.”

“Yes…she fears her change now. Even though she’s spiking…ah, there he is.”

I looked back and saw a hand appear through the wall. It wasn’t a mirror on this side. Just a wall. Seeing a hand poke through it was…odd. Very odd. It disappeared a second later and then a moment later, he came running through like he was ready to mow down anything in his path.

I applauded—quietly.

The mother chuckled.

Damon snarled at me.

“He keeps doing that like it’s supposed to mean something,” I said, turning back around to face her.

She smiled at me. “This is what I mean by it’s so much more complicated. Don’t worry. It will make sense in time. Come. I want you to talk to her.”

“She’s sleeping,” I said.

“Yes…a deep, deep sleep. Your voice won’t wake her. But you may help her. Come. Talk.” She patted the bed by the girl’s feet. “Talk…and I may be able to show you what you wanted to ask her. There are…awful things in her mind. Awful, Kitasa.”

I blew out a breath but before I could take a step, a hand clamped around my neck. “Not smart,” Damon growled. “She’s spiking.”

“She’s
sleeping
,” I pointed out. “And she’s not going to do anything. Whatever those bastards were doing, it terrified her so much, she’s fighting the spike.”

“You can’t fight it.”

“Not indefinitely,” the mother said. “But she’s trying very hard. Don’t worry so much, Damon. I can tell if she’s going to stir and certainly you’re fast enough to protect your own…aren’t you?”

“I’m not his,” I said. “Geez, are you all deaf?”

Damon’s hand tightened, just a little, then he let me go. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me that he hovered at my back, just an inch away as I settled on the foot of the bed at the girl’s feet.

“Do you know her name?”

“Lesil. Her name is Lesil,” the mother said quietly. “She was leaving school. Unhappy. The students there are unkind. She was trying not to cry when a car drove up. She knew the boy inside. He made her smile. Said he would buy her dinner. She wanted so badly for somebody to offer her a kindness…”

I knew what that was like.

“You’ve seen what happened to her?” I asked softly.

“Healing can be a deep, intimate experience.”

Bile churned in the back of my throat as I lifted my gaze and met her eyes. “Who healed me?”

She inclined her head. “You were injured in my house. A visitor. By one who is still a pupil. Naturally, it was my responsibility.”

Humiliation, rage, bitterness churned inside me.

Looking away from her, I focused on the girl. “There’s nothing intimate about seeing somebody’s most painful moments, Mother,” I said quietly. “It’s just another humiliation. Another dishonor.”

Her hand touched mine. “I know you think so…but you were never dishonored, warrior. The dishonor is, and has always been, theirs.”

I just shook my head.

“Tell me what I need to know to stop this.” Focus on the job. Just the job.

Not the witch sitting next to me, and not the man behind me, staring at me with eyes I could practically feel searing me to the soul.

“He took her. There is a drug for shifters that incapacitates them—it’s called
night
. I believe that is what he gave her, but I don’t know because all I can experience is what
she
experienced. There was clarity and happiness, and she looked at him and smiled, laughed as she stole some of his fries, then she took a drink.  She realized that something was wrong...got out of the car.  It gets fuzzy, but she stumbled around.  There were men, a van. Then…darkness. When she woke, she was in a hole.”

I closed my eyes, fighting as memories swirled too close.

“
You will not enter the Dominari, Kitasa. You will not shame this family
—”

“
I’m going to try, Grandmother
.”
I’d stood up to her. I was fifteen and by our laws, I could enter if I chose. I had no sponsor and it would be grueling work alone, but I’d run it. And when I didn’t make it, I’d drop down…and die
.

The awful, lovely smile that spread across her face
. “
You will not
.”
Hands grabbing me, dragging me
.

“…she wasn’t alone.”

I gasped as I settled back into my mind, the memories of that time falling away.

Swallowing, I shook my head to clear it and looked at the mother. “What?”

“She wasn’t alone,” the mother said patiently. “There were others with her. She could tell the weres by scent, but she can’t recognize magic yet. Hasn’t seen enough of it, I don’t suppose, to know the taste of it, the feel of it. So the others, she thinks they were human. I wouldn’t know if she is right or wrong.”

I watched her sleeping face. It was a help, but it wasn’t—

“I have images in mind,” Es said softly. “They take them out. Run them, while men chase them. For…
sport
.” She spat the last word out like it was something vile.

Everything inside me went cold.

“So that’s it then. That’s what it is. They take kids and hunt them down.” I’d been right. It was all about a game. A sick, twisted game. Fury gripped me. I wanted to shriek with it. Instead, I tugged out Doyle’s picture.

I showed it to the mother.

“Did she see him?”

She stared at the picture.

Then she looked at me. “I don’t know. There is a boy, blond, handsome. But he’s…changing.”

I shot Damon a look over my shoulder. “This
is
a recent picture, right?”

“Yeah.” Then he shrugged. “But if he’s spiking hard, he could change fast.”

“Not that fast…”

He cocked a brow. “The spike can hit some pretty weird. Like two or three years of growth spurts shoved into two or three weeks. It’s why some of us have to eat around the clock—why that wolf kid might have been in such bad shape. His body didn’t have the physical reserves to heal him because the spike was using them all up.”

Okay.

Okay.

Blowing out a breath, I looked at the girl.

The mother had wanted me to talk to her—

“You were in hell once,” she said quietly. “You know what it’s like to fight your way out. And survive.”

Closing my eyes, I rested a hand on the girl’s foot. She flinched at the touch, but I didn’t move away. “Hey, Lesil. You need to wake up. I…uh…” Blood crawled up my neck and I had to fight not to cringe at the shame and anger twisting, vying for control inside of me. “You got away from them, but if you don’t wake up…
they still win
.”