Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (39 page)

“What?” both of them exclaimed.

I blinked. “You didn’t suspect him at all?”

Mark slapped his hand against his forehead. “Oh god, no. No, of course not. He’s always been so upset over this whole thing. The necessity of it has been tearing him to pieces.” He shook his head, and the intensity of his worried expression made me wonder, yet again, if he might have been a suitable partner for me. If only he hadn’t been a human—or a shaman. “Impossible.”

“Oh bloody hell,” James muttered.

“James?” There was a twinge of doubt in Mark’s tone.

I kept quiet, watching them both as they thought it through.

“He’s insane. A mad wolf.” The weakness in James’s voice was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him, not that I felt much pity for someone who had tried to assassinate me.

“He’s been ordering you to kill his pack, member by member, since he’s failed to find a natural-born Alpha to join him. He’s been forcing the ritual, forging new packs, and leaving them without an Alpha to teach them.” I linked my hands together and stretched my arms. “You’re right, James. He’s insane. Rabid, even. Through the pack bond, he’s probably felt every last death of the wolves he’s had murdered. And he’ll keep killing until he gets who he wants.”

James and Mark exchanged troubled looks. I couldn’t help but wonder how long they’d worked together, because after a moment, they nodded to each other in agreement.

“Can you prove it?” James asked.

“No, a pack-bound Alpha might be able to, but I can’t.” I hesitated, pressing my palms together. “I suspect I know who he wants, but I have no proof. It’s just a guess.”

“A guess is better than what we have,” Mark replied bitterly.

“Victoria, you’re dominant and an Alpha. Why can’t you prove it?”

“I have no pack, James. Without the pack bond, dominance and Alpha-status mean nothing. I’m a lone wolf. A rogue. My pack died long ago. You should know that.”

James lowered his head and presented his throat.

“How long ago are we talking about here?” Mark leaned his shoulder against the window, staring at me.

“You don’t want to know, Mark,” I replied, biting back a sigh. Words alone couldn’t describe the truth.

It had taken an entire generation of watching my friends die, and then their children die, while I remained an ageless monster observing from the shadows. Shamans and witches would enjoy normal life spans, so long as they survived the Inquisition.

I envied them.

“Tell me.”

“I was born over a hundred years ago.”

“You’re lying. That’s—”

“Impossible?” I asked in a whisper, staring out into the darkness. I glanced at Mark out of the corner of my eye. His mouth hung open. “I’m old, Mark. I’m sorry. The Allison you knew was a lie, a convenience to let me move around in the world. She’s like many of the other lives I’ve led. It’s as James said. My name is Victoria Hanover, and I was born in 1851.”

“That’s insane.” Mark shoved away from the window to pace around the room. “My god, you were alive during the Victorian Era.”

I flinched. Not only had I lived through it, I was a direct product of it, a forgotten legacy erased from the history books. I had been discarded and sold, shipped off to an East Canadian werewolf pack at age six so my mother’s shame would not be known.

How could I admit that to anyone? I hadn’t been a slave. Slaves, at least, were useful to someone. They were desired. Wanted.

I’d been my mother’s secret, a shame so devastating to her that I had to be hidden away from those who wrote history, erased, thrown to the wolves, and locked away in a cellar. I’d only been permitted to see the sky when I agreed to become one of them, however unwilling.

I closed my eyes. A hundred years ago, I would’ve wept at the memory, but I had no more tears left. I’d cried them all out.

“Allison?” Mark whispered.

“Forget it, Mark.”

“You’re really that old?”

“Yes, Mark. I’m really that old.”

He made a thoughtful sound, then a faint smile pulled the corners of his mouth upwards. “Okay. Fine. You’re old. You’re not my grandmother or something, are you?”

“Preposterous,” James snarled.

I couldn’t help it, turning to the Brit, I crossed my arms over my chest and asked, “Are you some sort of fangirl or something?”

“I’m sorry, Your Hi—”

“Don’t you even dare!” A flush burned my cheeks at my high-pitched cry.

With a clack of his teeth, James shut his mouth. I stepped forward, unable to stop from trembling. I had to force my words out through my tight, aching throat. “You tried to kill me, James. You killed a lot of people trying to kill me, too.”

James paled to the white of the snow outside. “I didn’t know who you were.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I was in a coma for over a week and there are a lot of dead people now because of you and the Inquisition.”

“Most of them were uncontrolled werewolves infected with plague,” he replied in a whine.

“That’s only because their Alpha is mad and needs to be put down like the rabid cur he is.” I rammed a finger into his chest. “You better live a long time to make up for your crimes,
wolf.
”

James whined again, exposing his throat to me. My irritation surged, and I sank my teeth into his neck, biting as hard as I could without drawing blood. He stood statue still.

When I stepped away, I wound up and slapped him so hard his head snapped to the side. The print of my hand was a white mark on his cheek. “I should curse you for what you’ve done.”

Mark
refused to look at me or James, eyes fixed on the floor. I bared my teeth.

I didn’t know the extent of Mark’s skill as a shaman, but at least he knew enough not to cross an Alpha.

“You really know who is behind all of this?” he whispered.

“That encompasses a lot, Mark. The Shadow Pope of the Inquisition is the one ultimately responsible for ‘all of this.’ But Devonshire is at least the one who has started the forced rituals.”

“You’re serious. It’s really possible to force the ritual on people?” James asked with a sheepish expression. “I thought it was the hypothermia talking.”

“What?” I narrowed my eyes, scowling at the other werewolf.

Both men looked embarrassed.

“You were ranting when you were unconscious,” Mark admitted.

Great. With my luck, I had probably spilled every last secret I had without knowing about it. “I’m not hallucinating or ranting. I’d bet my life that Devonshire is the original wolf behind the forced rituals.”

“You think there might be more than one wolf changing people?” There was more than a little alarm in Mark’s tone.

“A mad wolf begets mad wolves.” I bit my lip. While I had never forced a ritual on someone, let alone participated in such a ritual other than my own, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was capable of it.

I hoped not.

Mark looked up from the floor, staring at me with a puzzled expression. “That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

I shook my head.

“How do you know?” James asked.

“Just trust me. I know.” For a little while longer, I would cling to my secrets, all the while wondering if I would be the next one to go mad. I could see the questions in their eyes, but Mark and James remained mercifully silent.

James, especially, wouldn’t believe that one of royal blood had been sold to a werewolf pack.

They wouldn’t understand.

~*~

“We need a plan.”

Mark who broke the silence with the most obvious of statements, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything at all. He was right. Settling with a nod for an answer, I peeled myself away from the window. The storms, both behemoths in their own right, bickered in the back of my head like a pair of unruly kids fighting over a ball during recess.

Maybe I could’ve stopped them for a moment, but they’d continue their fight the moment I looked the other way. I swallowed. Calamity hadn’t been my intention, but it was reality. The only person to blame for our predicament was me.

Maybe.

Maybe if Samantha hadn’t been taken from me, I never would have been driven to the brink of insanity. Maybe I wouldn’t have stolen Mrs. Livingston’s magic. Maybe I never would have gone to West Virginia in the first place. Then again, with the Inquisition involved, control wasn’t something I was good at.

Either way, unless one of us came up with a good plan and fast, we were all in a lot of trouble.

“It’s only a matter of time before they check on Lady Hanover’s suite and discover she’s gone,” James said, pacing across the room. The lights dimmed and the central heating system purred in its effort to combat the storm. “If we had Aurora, we’d have a chance.”

I masked my flinch by whirling to the window. The sky paled with the light of dawn, but the snow didn’t show any sign of easing. “I don’t see how that would help us.”

“Even I’ve heard of Aurora,” Mark said. “Come on, Ally. He’s right. A weather witch would be pretty useful right now.”

James shook his head. “She’s probably dead, Mark. The Inquisition doesn’t like witch wolves they can’t control.”

“They let the Winter Wolf live.”

The two men glared at each other.

I sighed, rubbing at my forehead, wondering how I had managed to get myself into yet another problem too large for me to handle on my own.

“First, the Winter Wolf is a wizard,” James said, flipping his middle finger at Mark. “Second, she’s also unique.” James lifted another finger. “Third, if the Inquisition touches her, they’ll face the wrath of every Canadian werewolf pack, most west coast packs,
and
the remains of the British packs. Unlike
us
, they aren’t plagued anymore, thanks to her.”

“I bet she could solve this,” Mark mumbled, sulking.

“She might be a wizard, but the Winter Wolf is not a weather witch,” James replied, shaking his head. “We’d need Aurora.”

I laughed. “What makes you think Aurora would help anyway, if she’s alive?” I shrugged. “The Inquisition asking her for help likely wouldn’t go over very well.”

James snapped his fingers. “That’s where you come in. You’re an old rogue. You don’t have any love for the Inquisition either. If she’d listen to anyone, it’d be you.”

I tried to imagine how that conversation would go in my head. The Brit had a point. If I were someone else, it may have worked. I wondered when Mark and James would figure out the truth. “Wouldn’t finding a specific wolf be a little difficult in this storm?”

“She’s probably dead,” Mark said with a sigh. “I’ve been hunting her for years without so much as a single clue.”

My heart dropped down to my feet. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you know, Allison? She’s worth tens of millions alive. Every bounty hunter on Earth wants to bag her. She’s worth more than most terrorists combined. If I could land her, I wouldn’t have to dirty my hands ever again. It wouldn’t even be a bad situation for her. England’s the highest bidder for her right now at a smooth sixty-five mil, and they’d have hell to pay from their packs if they so much as hurt a single hair on her.” Mark shook his head. “She gets protected, and I don’t have to kill anyone anymore. I could leave the Inquisition.” He paused with a guilty expression. “That was the side business you were handling the accounting for. I’m sorry.”

“No one leaves the Inquisition alive,” I whispered.

Mark ducked his head and refused to meet my gaze. “I can dream, right?”

“You’re one of the assassins killing the werewolves,” I said as the pieces of the mystery worked their way together in my head. “You vanished at the party because. . .”

Closing my eyes, I shook my head, trying to deny my growing suspicion. By helicopter, it was possible to make it to Baltimore or Washington in less than an hour. With her powers, I had no doubt Mrs. Livingston had killed Caroline without Mark’s help.

But, Mark couldn’t have posed as me and killed Oleran on his own. His mother, however, could have easily made one of the other witches stand in for her at the Plaza, thus able to pose as me in Baltimore while Mark assassinated the werewolf lawyer.

My appearance as Cinderella would have made me much prettier than I was in Mrs. Livingston’s eyes. It would’ve been trivial for them to wait long enough for Caroline to be killed, likely for going against the orders of the Inquisition, dying as an example to the others at the party.

“How many of those werewolves did you kill?” I asked.

“My mother, and by extension, the Inquisition demanded it.”

“Those bursts of income were your bounties!”

Mark bowed his head in acknowledgment of my accusation. “They were.”

I balled my hands into fists. “You killed Samantha.”

James retreated towards the door. The sound that came out of my throat froze him in his tracks. The rich, bitter scent of fear flooded my nose. Beyond the snow and the cloud-covered skies, the full moon’s quiet call strengthened. My breath exploded from my lungs. “You killed my pack.”