Tempting the Enemy (33 page)

“Nothing,” he said, as if it didn’t matter. “Kennison said he’d throw the trackers off the trail while they wrap up the investigation, but there’s no going back to Moonridge for me. Too many people saw.”

“Can you still…help people?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I think it’s time the Alpha took his place in the pack, don’t you? The others Dee Tenorio

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will handle the Underground for me. You never know, it might work better this way. The way it’s supposed to.” He finally let his gaze touch the gates, his voice coming out almost grudgingly. “You should let them know they’re not as safe as they think they are behind those gates.

Kennison says the government’s already started the tagging. Death squads aren’t going in guns-first this time.

They learned from the last genocide taking so damn long.

When they come for the Sibile, there may not be anything left to save afterward.”

Jade gave the gates a disbelieving look, seeing the top of a towering stone building just over the hundred-year-old trees. How hard it must have been for him to give that warning, protecting people he’d spent more than a decade despising. For her.

“If you’re going to go, go now,” he suddenly ground out, gripping the wheel so hard it should have bent.

“While I can still let you.”

She wanted to kiss him, to hold him to her one more time, but it was asking too much of both of them. Silently, she opened the car door, lifting the pack that was far heavier than when she’d first left, and stepped out. It was only a few measured steps to the gates. It felt like a hundred miles, each step harder to take than the last.

Normally, she’d need the Rouges to let her in, their power the reason no one could breach them. All she did now was raise her hand and push them open with a burst of heat. It was effortless. Painless.

Walking through them without looking back, though, was what made her feel as if her soul were tearing in half.

The gates closed with a violent clang behind her, but Jade kept walking down the dusty road.

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Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t make him
bleed any more than you already have…

She was still in the shadow of the trees when a figure ran toward her, cape flying, cinnamon-colored hair streaming. The woman came to a breathless stop in front of Jade, her worried eyes taking in Jade’s chopped, uneven hair and the lack of claws on her changed hands.

Jade felt a push against her mind, but Sage-Scarlet’s telepathic voice didn’t invade.

“I can’t hear you,” Sage whispered, shocked. “Jalla-Rouge said you were here, but I didn’t believe her.”

Jade didn’t have it in her to be surprised anymore.

Sage could hear the thoughts of even Rouges if she was close enough, which was why they avoided her like a plague. Only Jalla took the risk, trusting Sage to keep her telepathy to herself.

At least, that’s what Jade had always thought. What if Jalla couldn’t be heard, either?

“I can feel you though. Your power…” Sage winced.

“It’s almost too much to take.”

“I need to see the Tribunal.” Until then, she would wrap herself in power, protect herself until she was sure Pale and his people were safe.

Jade sensed Sage’s hurt at her curt words, her confusion, but she could say nothing to soften it. Sage must have understood, because she nodded, shrugging off her unease as if it had never been.

“That’s why Jalla sent me. They’re waiting for you.”

Sage looped her arm through Jade’s, as they’d done a million times before. For the first time, it felt wrong. Not because of Sage. Because someone else belonged at her side.

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“What’s wrong, Jade?” Sage pulled her forward, her haste in every taut line of her body.

She couldn’t know that every yard they crossed, Jade’s heart tore open a little more. This was wrong. Her soul was screaming that it was wrong, the Instinct practically howling in her mind, but she forced herself to keep going. He was hers to protect.
Hers
.

“I can’t hear you, but I can still feel your heart breaking.”

Jade could only shake her head. There was too much and none of it needed to be on her friend’s shoulders.

“The Tribunal.”

The road split three ways in front of them as they came out of the trees. Left and right led to the farms and the homes of the others. Straight ahead lay the edifice that had always seemed so grand, so magnificent. The Hall of the Order.

Now it was just a building, a school where lies were taught.

Sage walked with her quietly after that, opening the heavy doors so they could both enter. Together, they made their way through the rooms she’d once thought so large, so imposing with their gleaming dark woods and polished stone walls. Everything felt small now. Too small.

They reached the mouth of the stone tunnel, where Jade stopped. She turned to Sage, at once both sad and relieved that her friend couldn’t read her mind. “Go back to our room. Wait for me there.”

Sage’s green eyes darted down the dark cavern nervously. “What if they don’t let you come back?”

Then they’ll die.

“Um…Jade. I think I might have heard that.”

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Good, she’d meant her to. “Go.”

Sage hesitated only a second, then turned and ran.

When she was gone, Jade opened her hand and imagined a ball of light, ironically the same kind of thing that Challen had been throwing at her to force her into the basement. A good idea was, after all, a good idea.

Satisfied that the orb would light the way, she started down the path, pondering Challen and the monster he’d become. Her exact opposite, but he’d given in to his gift long ago. The conclusion had hit her somewhere in the night. For all his evil, for all that he’d stolen, Challen hadn’t been wrong about himself. Not entirely. Because one of the gifts that she removed from him hadn’t belonged to anyone else. The darkness, the thing that every stolen gift became tainted by. An atracere to her lucescere.

Like her, he could draw on it, become it. That was why his signature changed, she decided. The black entity he left behind was a signature of his dark form. That was why he dumped the body parts at dawn or dusk…no one would be able to see the hazy shadow as it teleported in and out. Camouflaged in the twilight.

The small tunnel led to its inevitable end, a round wooden door that had been so terrifying when she’d first been given the assignment to find Pale in Moonridge.

Jade raised her other hand and, as with the gates outside, simply pushed it open. Then she walked through, already widening the sphere of light as it floated before her.

The dark stone room illuminated as if she’d brought in the sun. Thirty-three faces watched, expressionless, as the sphere rose to the sloping ceiling, flattening out and allowing them no shadows to hide behind.

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Behind the podium, the Magistrate, Verda-Rouge, scowled, but rather than address Jade’s blatant disrespect, she moved directly into the inquisition. “Did you complete your assignment, Jade-Scarlet?”

“Yes, Magistrate. The Woodsman has been apprehended, but there’s more to the case about which the Tribunal must be made aware.”

“What might that be?” Verda-Rouge’s dismissive tone meant she probably wanted to get to what she thought was the heart of the matter.

“Because the killer was a Rouge.”

Voices echoed from all members, some in outright disbelief, others in simple shock. Jade kept her eyes on Verda. Much safer that way for all involved.

“Speak sense, scarlet.” Verda gestured broadly with an open hand in each direction. “As you can see, all the Rouges in the World are here. Waiting on you.”

“Not all.” Jade lifted her chin. “One more is in the Moonridge City Jail, preparing to face trial for the murder of four unidentified women. Who’s to say how many more are out there like him.”

“
Him?
” The Magistrate had the temerity to laugh, though it lacked any humor at all.

The laugh died altogether when Jade tossed the pack she’d been carrying in front of the dais. Two rolled robes fell out of the open top. “There are seven more in there.

One for each of the scarlets he’s killed, including my mother.”

Silence filled the room like wet cement.

“He stole their blood, stole their gifts, and used them to kill again and again. Nine scarlets missing and you did
nothing
. Warned
no one.
” She looked around the room, but apart from their nervous stares at the fallen robes, they 296

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showed no remorse. “What did you think was happening?”

“It is not your place to question this Tribunal, child.”

Verda-Rouge’s powerful voice boomed through the room, bouncing off the walls and curving back toward Jade.

Jade formed a sphere around herself, hardening the light as a shield and deflecting the force away. “Then whose place is it? You left them to suffer in those dead bodies, in
him
. How could you torment them that way?”

Verda’s eyes narrowed with anger, but she kept her gift in check. “What of your Wolf-mate? What does
he
know of this sacrilege?”

“He knows that we face a different danger. The humans are retargeting their war. They’ve been tracking us, pushing some kind of device into the necks of the scarlets they can touch. They’re preparing for an opportunity to strike against us. He told me to warn you.”

“There is no such opportunity.” Verda sounded as if her will alone ensured that, but the faces of the others were starting to express doubt. Seeing that only incensed the woman more. “You useless wretch. You’ve no doubt spilled every secret you know to that shifter of yours, and for what? In bargain for a pointless threat? Is that all he offered you to commit treason against your people?”

“There was no treason. They
are
coming for the Sibile, Verda-Rouge. It’s only a matter of time.”

“You know how this Tribunal treats traitors and outsiders who steal our secrets. The Wolf has served his purpose, the lucescere’s power is freed. Let us kill him and be done with it.”

“No,” Jade growled at the woman angrily. “Killing my mate would stop nothing. The shifters are not our Dee Tenorio

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enemies. The humans are. We arm them with knowledge with every scarlet who leaves our gates. Stop the assignments.”

“Nothing stops!” Verda’s attack wasn’t so artful this time. A full frontal wave of sound came at Jade, jagged and ringing with rage. Glaring at the woman, Jade created a wall of her own, scooped and concave, gathering all that menace and firing it right back at the angry Magistrate.

The older woman didn’t have time to regroup, raising her arms in front of her face to ward off her own sound. She fell back, even as many of the others rose to defend her.

The giant disc of light above shattered into shards, each one flying at the throat of a Rouge like thrown darts, stopping only millimeters from racing carotids. Power filled the arena, strong enough, fast enough, to whip around them all. She could feel their fear, practically swam in it. Nearly everyone there was wondering if this was how their lives were about to end.

As they should be.

“If any harm comes to my mate,” Jade began, turning the light blades menacingly. “Or any that he holds dear, I will not hesitate to incinerate all that you are and all that you have ever known.”

A long pause later, Verda rose, the tip of Jade’s blade guiding her back to her feet. Blood dripped from various cuts streaking her face and forehead. “You would be traitor to your people?” she asked, her eyes locked on the threat she couldn’t evade.

“You were a traitor to me first.” And they all knew it.

“I may be Sibile, but I’m Wolf too, and Wolves believe in revenge. Now swear it. Swear that he and all he protects are safe from your judgments for eternity.”

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“There will be a price for this the likes of which you have never seen, Jade-Scarlet,” Verda replied flatly.

“I’ll deal with that when the time comes.” And it would be worth it.

Finally, Verda nodded. Jade listened as the women voiced the promise, thirty-three voices speaking in chorus.

It would have been beautiful if it weren’t her own death warrant.

The vow kept, Jade allowed the light to disappear, returning the women to the shadows they lived their lives in. Without another word, she stalked back through the open circular door, toward the light.

“Well, that explains why I was always so sure the Sisters didn’t know anything.” Sage sighed, leaning on her elbows as she looked beyond the wall of their dormitory’s balcony. “They really didn’t.”

For the last twenty minutes, they’d stood rooted in the spot, overlooking the grounds, while Jade relayed the past three days and all its unexpected secrets. The truth about her parents, what Jalla was to her, her gifts and, most important, that nothing they’d learned about the history of their people could be trusted.

“It’s not like it’s a surprise. I mean, you can’t be me and not be used to hearing people think one thing and tell you something else. People lie all the time.” Sage’s smile didn’t have its usual effervescence. “Some lies are important, though. Necessary, even.”

Jade shook her head. “No, I can’t believe that. All lies ever do is hurt, leaving you unprepared when the truth comes along.”

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“All I’m saying is that the world, even the little world in this enclave, is complicated. It’s not all black and white. Think about it, what would you have done if Jalla had told you she was your grandmother when you first came?”

“I—” Jade struggled to answer. The truth wasn’t helpful. “I would have asked her about my mother.”

“And if you knew it was her fault your mother died?”

Jade rejected that outright. “It wasn’t. That was on Challen. On the Tribunal. They made the
choice
to kill her.”

“Not to Jalla.” Sage shrugged, peering over the balcony edge again. “To her, she didn’t look far enough ahead. She let her pride lead and it cost her the child she cherished. Do you really think she’d make that same mistake twice?”