Magic Rises (27 page)

“Lorelei sat next to Curran,” Barabas said.

“In my chair?”

“Yes.”

Curran had lied to me. The realization hit me like a punch to the stomach.

He came into Desandra’s room, lay next to me, held me, and told me I didn’t have to worry about Lorelei, all after she sat in my chair at dinner. He had to know exactly what kind of signal it would send to everyone else. She had literally taken my place and he allowed it.

The Universe spun out of control. I struggled to hold on to it. I had to finish this. I couldn’t drop everything and search Curran out so I could punch him in the face. No matter how much I wanted to do it. No matter how much it hurt.

I managed to make some words happen. “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

Barabas sighed. “I didn’t want to upset you. I didn’t expect them to be so blunt. They don’t want to answer the questions, so they’re trying to exploit any weaknesses.”

Curran lied to me. I tried to wrap my mind around it and couldn’t. All my life, first Voron, then Greg had taught me to trust no one. Trust, intimacy, complete honesty with another human being wasn’t for me. It was a luxury someone with my blood couldn’t afford. I ignored it all and trusted him. I trusted him so completely, that even now, faced with evidence of his betrayal, I was looking for possible explanations. Maybe it was part of some plan he lied about having. Maybe . . .

I stomped on that thought and crushed it into pieces. I had a job to do. I would deal with this later. I stuffed those sharp shards into the same dark place where I stuffed everything. They scoured me on their way down. My storage capacity for the problems I couldn’t handle was getting full. Not much more would fit.

“What’s next?” I asked.

“The Volkodavi,” Barabas said.

“Lead on.”

The Volkodavi met me in their rooms, in a large common area. Vitaliy, the head of the clan and Radomil’s brother, shook my hand. Like Radomil, he was tall and blond. He was handsome but lacked the near perfection of his brother.

I sat in a chair. Radomil sat across from me.

“Where is Ivanna?” I asked.

“She’ll be here,” Vitaliy said.

I asked them the same set of questions and got much the same responses. Yes, they were in their quarters; no, they couldn’t account for their whereabouts; and they didn’t do anything to help or check on Desandra. Radomil wanted to go but Vitaliy stopped him, because Desandra was a nice girl but she wasn’t worth getting hurt over.

“Look,” Radomil told me in broken English. “We don’t mind talking to you, but it’s not going to help. You and the Wilson girl, it’s made things complicated. You not married.”

Like dragging a cheese grater across my soul.
Yes, I know, I’m not married. Yes, Lorelei sat next to Curran at dinner. I’m irrelevant, I’m human, I’m being replaced . . .
“Can I see Ivanna, please?”

Vitaliy sighed and called, “Ivanna!”

A moment later Ivanna walked into the room. She looked exactly how I remembered her—a slender blond woman—except for the left side of her face. Scaly dark patches of damaged skin covered her left temple, disappearing under her hair.

“What happened to your face?” I asked.

Ivanna waved her arm. As she moved, her hair shifted, and I caught a better glimpse: the scaly blotches covered the entire left side of her face, from the temple down over her cheek and neck, barely missing her eyes and lips. Her cheekbone had lost some of its sharpness too, its lines smoothed. I’d seen this before—her bones had been crushed by blunt trauma and Lyc-V was in the process of rebuilding it layer by layer.

“It’s stupid,” Ivanna said. “We have a fireplace in the room. I was really tired after the hunt and Radomil and Vitaliy came into my room and decided to argue with each other. Vitaliy was waving his arms.”

“I got excited,” Vitaliy said.

“He knocked my jewelry stand into the fireplace. I yelled at them, went to fish my necklace out, and accidentally pressed the ignition. A fire flared and burned me. At least I had put my hair up for the night or I would be bald.”

Bullshit. That was a chemical burn, complete with a spray pattern. She was lying through her teeth. Either she was stupid, or she thought I was really stupid, or she just didn’t care. I was betting on the latter. She and everyone else in the room knew that without a clear, indisputable smoking gun I couldn’t force her to do anything.

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“It will heal in a couple of days. Is there anything else you wanted?”

“Yes. We have reason to believe that the creatures who attacked Desandra are hiding here in the castle. We’ve developed a blood test that lets us identify these creatures.”

Vitaliy, Radomil, and Ivanna stared at me, their faces so carefully neutral that it had to be a controlled exertion of will.

“Would you be willing to provide us with a blood sample?”

“No,” Vitaliy said slowly. “Blood has too much power.”

“We don’t want to be cursed.” Radomil shook his head.

“Thank you for coming,” Ivanna said. “You’re not a bad person. We’re sorry your man is being so unfair.”

We left. As we walked away, Mahon rested his hand on my shoulder. It was a quiet, almost fatherly gesture.

“Did you see their faces?” I asked.

“We got a reaction,” Barabas said. “I don’t know what it means, but we got one.”

Jarek Kral was my last stop. The Obluda pack occupied the northern side of the castle. I knew exactly what was coming.

“He’ll try to provoke you,” Barabas said.

“I know.” If I gave Jarek any pretext to attack me, he would be overjoyed.

“Don’t react, Kate,” Barabas murmured.

“I know.”

“If he touches you, you can touch back,” Mahon said.

Oh yes. I will. You can be sure I will.

We turned the corner. A long hallway unrolled before us, the light from the windows painting light rectangles on the floor. Men milled about in the hallway. One, two . . . twelve. Jarek had pulled most of his pack out of their beds to give me a proper welcome.

Jarek’s shapeshifters stared at me. Some openly leered. A dark-haired, older shapeshifter on the left stuck his tongue out and wiggled it. Wasn’t he a charmer.

Your tongue’s too long. Come closer, I’ll fix it for you.

I kept walking, Barabas and Mahon behind me. The anger and hurt inside me crystallized into an icy cage. I hid inside it, using it as my armor. Whatever punches Jarek Kral threw at me, they wouldn’t breach it. The ice was too thick.

As we moved through the hallway, the shapeshifters fell in behind us. Someone whistled. Someone catcalled. I kept walking.

Ahead an arch offered a view of a large room. A familiar grouping of cushioned seats and coffee tables waited—Hugh clearly believed that if a furniture set did its job, there was no reason to get creative. Jarek Kral sprawled on the love seat, watching me walk toward him. His inner circle flanked the seat. A tall blond—one of the two brothers who followed Jarek around—an older man with a shaved head and muscles like a heavyweight prizefighter, and Renok, my buddy, dark-haired, with a short beard, and a deep inborn viciousness in his eyes.

This would be interesting.

“Curran’s whore comes to visit us,” Jarek said in accented English.

The three men laughed as if on cue. I glanced at Mahon. “You really shouldn’t let him talk to you like that.”

Mahon’s bushy eyebrows came together.

I sat in the chair. “Your daughter was attacked last night.”

“And?”

“Looking for some fatherly reactions here: is she okay, was she hurt?” I leaned forward. “You know, things men ask when their children are attacked.”

Jarek shrugged. “Why should I worry? That’s why we hired you. To keep my precious daughter safe.”

“Where were you last night at midnight?”

“Here. Wasn’t I?” Jarek spread his arms.

“Yes,” the older bald man said.

“Here,” Renok said and winked.

Jarek Kral leaned toward me.
Oh boy. Here we go.
“What does he see in you?” His tone was light, almost conversational. “You’re not a shapeshifter, you’re not powerful, and you’re not beautiful. No body. No face.”

Behind me Barabas took a sharp breath.

“Do you give good sex?” Jarek Kral propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his fist. “Do you suck his cock?”

Oh look, someone looked up a couple of dirty words in the English dictionary. Cute.

Jarek leaned a little forward, happy with himself. “Does he like his cock sucked? Or did you not do a good job? Is that why your face looks like this?”

Amateur. “Why are you so curious about Curran’s cock? Are you looking for something new to suck? You’re welcome to ask him, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like you like that.”

The three men drew back. Jarek blinked. Barabas laughed under his breath.

“Try to pay attention,” I told him. “I will speak slowly, so you can understand. Your daughter was attacked. There are strange creatures in this castle. We have a blood test that can identify them. Will you let us test your blood?”

Jarek laughed.

He didn’t seem nervous, but he was so animated, I couldn’t tell if he was reacting at all.

“Maybe we should test your blood.” Renok grabbed my left arm. He was fast, but I saw him move and I let him do it. His fingers closed on my wrist. He pulled my arm, bending it at the elbow to expose the inside of the forearm. I waited half a second to make sure everyone saw it and drove the flat palm of my right hand against his wrist. He was strong, but he didn’t expect me to be. His hold slipped. I grabbed his wrist with my right hand and twisted it, wrenching his arm. He bent forward, trying to keep his shoulder in its socket. I yanked a throwing knife out of my sheath and drove it through his trapezius muscle at the top of his shoulder, nailing him to the coffee table with a knife.

The whole thing took half a breath.

“So I take it, that’s a no on the blood?” I asked.

Jarek Kral stared at me.

A rough, jagged growl tore from Renok, part fury, part pain. He strained.

Barabas leaned forward and put his hand on Renok’s neck. The shapeshifter went still.

I rose. “I see no women in your party. That’s a mistake. Desandra is her father’s daughter. She fought last night and she enjoyed it. She will kill you one day, and then she’ll go on to have children who’ll never know your name. Your pathetic attempt at a dynasty will die with you.”

The blond and the prizefighter jumped to their feet. Mahon shook his head. “Think about what you’re doing,” he said quietly, his voice deep with menace.

Jarek said something. The wolves backed away.

I rose and walked out. Mahon and Barabas followed me.

I marched down the hallway heading toward the stairs at a near run. Outside the windows the day was bright: golden sunshine, blue sky, pleasant wind . . . I wanted to punch the happy day in the face, grab it by the hair, and beat it until it told me what the hell it was so happy about. I was keyed up too high and I was sick of this place. Sick of shapeshifters, sick of their politics, and sick of holding myself back. Thinking about Curran just poured more gasoline on the fire. I had to fix myself and I had to do it now, before I exploded.

We came to a padded bench set in the shallow nook.

“Let’s sit here a minute,” Mahon said.

I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to punch something.

“Please,” Mahon said.

Fine. I sat. He sat on the other end. Barabas leaned against the wall next to me.

“I was born before the Shift,” Mahon said. “For me, magic changed everything. Martha is my second wife. I buried my first and I buried our children. I have no love for ‘normal’ people. To me, I’m normal. I’m a shapeshifter, but I’m human. Things that I endured were done to me by ‘normal’ humans, and they did them because they never tried to understand me and mine, and even if they did, they couldn’t. I didn’t belong with them and they sure as hell didn’t belong with me or my family. There was no common ground between us.”

Why was he telling me this? I already felt like I’d been through a gauntlet. I didn’t need extra punches.

“You’ll never be a shapeshifter,” Mahon said. “If you live with us for a hundred years, a newborn werebear will be more of a shapeshifter than you are.”

Barabas looked at him. “Enough. That back there was plenty. She doesn’t need any more shit today.”

“Let me finish,” Mahon said, his voice calm. “You’ll never fully understand what it’s like and we’ll never fully understand you. But it doesn’t matter. You’re Pack.”

I blinked. I must’ve misheard.

“Why take their abuse?” Mahon asked. “I know it goes against your nature.”

“Because it’s not about me. It’s about the panacea, our people, and a pregnant woman. I can make them eat their words, but it will derail everything. They’re counting on me blowing my gasket, and playing to their expectations helps them and hurts us. I would rather win big at the end than win small right now.”

“And that’s why no matter what happens, you will always be Pack. Because you have that loyalty and restraint.” Mahon raised his hands, as if holding an invisible ball. “The Pack is bigger than all of us. It’s an institution. A thing built on self-sacrifice. We’re a violent breed. To exist in peace, we have to sacrifice that violence. We have to praise control and discipline, and it starts at the top. Having an alpha who is a loose cannon is worse than having no alpha at all. The world is falling around us in pieces and will be for some time. It’s all about stability now, about giving people a safe place, a reassuring routine, so they don’t feel frightened and so they don’t feel the need to resort to violence, because if we go down that road, we’ll either self-destruct or be exterminated. That’s why we build so many safeguards. In time, I’d like to see things change. I’d like the challenges to go away. We lose too many good people to those. But it will come with time, a long time, perhaps years, perhaps generations, and it will start at the top. We lead by example.”

I never knew that about him.

Mahon faced me. “You and us, we have things in common. You know what it’s like to not be ‘normal,’ except in this case you’re the odd one out. You may respect our ways, but you don’t have to try to be something you are not. Some people will take longer to adjust, but in time, you will be accepted just as you are. Not ‘human,’ not whatever, but Kate. Unique and different, but not separate. Kate is just Kate and you belong with us. That’s all that matters.”