The Problem with Promises (16 page)

My touch? Or watching the mage punish me?

“Try not to let him in, Lexi,” I whispered. “Don’t listen to him. Keep yourself safe until I can free you.”

“Don’t
listen
to him?” The slim control he had on his anger broke. He swung around. Weak light haloed his hair. Bright color flagged his cheeks. “I can’t stop hearing him! You tell me how to drown him out, and I will. What you just felt? That dagger through your thoughts? That’s only a fraction of what I’ve gone through.”

The tear that had been clinging to my lower lid spilled, scouring a hot warm trail down my cheek. “I’ll bring you home. I promise you, I will.”

He shook his head. “I told you before, Hell. I have no place in your world. I want to live as a Fae, not as a wolf.”

“You can be both.”

“In what realm? Not here. Not even in your world. When you go back to your realm, do me a favor and take a good look around you. Just how well are you accepted into the pack? Do you and the other bitches braid each other’s hair? Meet for coffee and cake? Can you walk into Pederman’s bar and know yourself welcome? Stars, do you wear blinders? There’s a wall between them and us, and it will never come down.”

“It can come down.” It had to because otherwise…? What life would I have, providing I had one to look forward to at all?

“Really?” The corner of his lip curled. “When you go back, ask your lover about the council’s kill list.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I overheard Mum and Dad one night. Mum was crying,” he said. “Some woman from the pack told her about the halfling kill list. Dad was reassuring her, telling her that we weren’t on it. Children born of Faes were exempt.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ask your mate about that. Then you tell me what you have in Creemore that’s better than the old man’s offer.”

I have a mate who loves me in Creemore. A mother-that-wasn’t. An old geezer Were who calls me “Little Miss.” I have everything.

And then I remembered what else I “had.”

“I have your daughter entrusted in my care,” I said quietly. “Why would you bring her to our world if there was a kill list for half-breeds? Why did you bring her to me?”

His mouth tightened. “She is exempt—she has Fae blood. Besides, she was facing an execution. Saving her was a whim.”

No, it wasn’t a whim. It was an instinct. Even a man as broken as my twin could be surprised by the unexpected pang of paternal interest.

“What has the Old Mage promised you?”

“The moon and the stars,” he drawled.

That probably wasn’t too far off the mark. What could I offer my twin that would come close to the unearthly powers that the old wizard possessed? Did all roads lead to my brother being a mage’s shadow?

Only if you let it. Hedi, the mouse-hearted.

Only if you lack the courage to save him.

“I can’t give you those,” I said, staring into his green eyes. “But I can offer you my word.”

“Your word,” he repeated incredulously.

“I’ve lied to you a hundred and more times, twin. But I’m not lying now. And I won’t lie to you in the future. That’s another promise.” I steeled myself as his gaze turned from cool to mocking. “When we were kids, I could tell when you were fibbing just by the expression on your face. Has it been so long that you can’t read mine?”

He cocked his head.

“Look at me, Lexi,” I demanded. “Am I lying?”

My twin’s brows arched in consideration.

“I can’t promise you that we’ll succeed. But I do promise that I won’t give up. Do you understand? Whatever happens over the next few days, I won’t give up. Come hell or high water I will meet you at Daniel’s Rock and we will destroy that book. Then I’ll bring you home—”

“I have no home in your world,” he spat.

“Then we’ll find you a new one in my world,” I said, without missing a beat. “It might not be a castle but…” I caught myself before I began embroidering his future with butterflies and posies. “No, it will definitely not be a castle. And you may never be rich—not in the way you measure wealth.” My gaze traveled from him to his surroundings, taking in the pestle and mortar, the flagons of sun potion and the thick doors. “You’ll never be ‘the’ mage either.”

“No money, no talent, no prospects,” he scoffed. “How could any man pass up such an opportunity?”

A thin ray of light penetrated the window’s grime. It lit on a strand of his long golden hair, gilding it.

“You will be what you are meant to be—Lexi Stronghold, son of Benjamin and Rose,” I said, my tone hard and unflinching. “Which means you’ll be no man’s puppet. No man’s lackey. You will never be a mage’s shadow again. You’ll be free.”

He inhaled sharply.

“Lexi,” I whispered. “Don’t give up. Not on yourself. Not on me.”

“Already done, sister of mine.”

“Then why did you come back through the portal to find me?”

He walked to where the Book of Spells sat on the wooden lectern. Mouth set, he touched the leather binding. “Come hell or high water?”

“Pinky swear.”

He lifted his chin, then stared long and hard at me. “Hell, if I could—”

Suddenly, all his features tightened into a spasm of pain. The struggle was horribly brief. The wizard shouldered past my brother’s defenses that fast—one moment I was measuring the modicum of hope blossoming in my brother’s body language, and the next, I was staring at an arrogant man who wore my brother’s face.

Revulsion roiled inside me, squeezing my gut, catching my breath in its sweaty grip.

“’Tis the Mage,” breathed my Fae.

Shut up.

“I will give him power,” he said, coldly. “That, and the opportunity to live to see the Black Mage humiliated and executed.” He folded his hands at his waist as if he still was an old man with a potbelly. “Once our souls fully merge, we shall be the most powerful mage in our realm. We shall know glory beyond glory.”

“The last time you sought glory, you reached too high.”

“This time I will be cautious, I will be prudent.”

Not with Lexi, you won’t.
The squeezing heartbreak of loss had been there, ever since I’d opened my eyes and found myself in front of my brother. But now? Anger melded itself to hatred.

“We will live a long life,” he said, arrogance rolling off each word. “And a far more valuable one, respected by people of great influence. Let your brother live a life of honor and prestige. Release me from my vow.”

I hate you, mage. With all my heart, I hate you.

“He’s still a wolf. The moon will still call him.”

“I will deal with that.”

My gaze moved to the bottles of sun potion lining the shelf. “What are you going to do? Take him back to the portal for periodic rehabilitation?”

“I will cleanse him as needed.”

You’ll hang him out to dry, like a paper towel used over and over again.
And over time, all that was Lexi—the brightness and the dark—would dwindle into gray. My twin would die a slow soul death and eventually the only entity left inside the husk of his body would be that of an old wizard.

“I won’t do it,” I told him. “I will not release you from your vow. You will keep your pledge to me, mage. You will wait for us at Daniel’s Rock, and together we will travel to the castle and destroy your Book of Spells.”

“You risk all our lives, nalera,” he said. “Do you not understand how dangerous it will be for you to travel in the company of your mate? He is wanted by the Black Mage.”

“He’s evaded him before.”

“But now, his own kind hunt for him, high and low. They consider the Son of Lukynae a traitor to his pack and now believe him to be a false prophet. They know his scent. They will run him to the ground.”

“We’ll take our chances.”

“We will wait for you at Daniel’s Rock. But if you do not hold to your part of the bargain, then mine is null.”

The ward. Goddess, the ward. It has to be broken.

“Lexi, if you can hear me, remember: Strongholds hold.”

The world started to dim, the colors to swirl, and the figure of my brother started to fade. “You will regret your choice, nalera,” I heard my brother’s voice say, as the darkness swept over me.

Chapter Nine

I woke. As fast as that. Return to this realm came hard, with none of the usual slow and drowsy crawl to reality. An unaccustomed weight pressed me hard to the hard-packed earth. Heavier than gravity. Solid. Sealing my mouth. Smothering me.

They’re burying me! In the spit of land at the end of the wolf cemetery, behind a high stone wall. Just another trapped Fae spending eternity with the pack.

I lashed out. Feet, teeth—then, oh so stupidly—with my hands.

A pained grunt. Mine? His?

Don’t bury me.

“Calm down!”

My flailing knee hit something solid and warm. “Shit!” swore Trowbridge. Throbbing arm pinned to my chest, I staggered to my feet. Wildly, I swung around. I was Hedi among the headstones. The worry and fear I’d felt for my brother—and had kept so carefully cloaked from the mage—now ran rampant inside me.

Trowbridge rose from his half crouch. “Hedi?”

I danced out of his reach. “No, no, no.” Frustration bit at me, making me inarticulate with haste. “We have to break the ward. Right now.” I started to stumble toward it. Perhaps I could tear it again. Make a hole in it large enough for all of us.

“Hedi, come back!”

But I was already running, slaloming between the tombstones. Sprinting toward Casperella’s tumbled-down wall, praying that the ward’s skin was still thin there, even as my Fae said quietly, “Haste will not help. The ward is sealed. It is done.”

No. It is
not
done.

With blind hope I knelt before it, stick in hand. I gave the veil a prod.

Evil. Everywhere.

Trowbridge sank to one knee beside me. “Hedi?” Warmth, home, mate—those were the things I had, and my brother so lacked. I leaned into the heat of Trowbridge’s chest. Accepted the strong, impenetrable shield of his protection. Inhaled the scent of him—wild, woods, with a subtone of something pure.

“You stopped breathing again,” he said tersely.

“I saw Lexi in Threall,” I said brokenly. “He’s not really Lexi anymore. He’s shadowed, Trowbridge. The mage is there with him, behind his eyes, censoring his words … he tried to trick me … tried to act like he was Lexi. Using my brother’s mouth…”

Trowbridge eased me away. “Sweetheart, we have to make tracks. We need to bring the Sisters back.”

A new worry hit me. “How long was I out?”

“Only a couple of minutes,” said Cordelia. “But you stopped breathing again. You have to cease going to that place, do you understand? No. More.”

Lexi, remember who you are.

*   *   *

The windshield was dirty and the wipers weren’t any good. The air in the truck was redolent with tense Were, ferret (Anu sat behind me), blood (Gerry’s and Cordelia’s), and fragrant pine. The latter was due to the fact I was sitting in the front passenger seat, holding an ornamental pine shrub in my lap.

Another clod of soil fell to the floorboards when I shifted my leg. If we’d had more time before piling into Harry’s truck, we might have thought of wrapping the roots in a green plastic bag. But it had been a scramble—Biggs had shown up in his own vehicle, just as we rounded the corner of the house. His radio had been blaring; his phone lay forgotten in the console between the seats. He’d said that he’d been doing the rounds and hadn’t heard or seen anything. It was the way he’d spread his hands, and said, “What?”—trailing the
a
into three notes—that had done it.

Trowbridge’s fist had swung. It was a lights-out punch, square to the jaw. Biggs went flying into the forsythia, down for the count. Trowbridge had told Harry, “We’re heading south on the 400. Swing by and pick up Rachel. If we lose the Sisters’ trail, we’ll need her help.”

Then he’d flown into the house and had come out approximately two seconds later, tucking Knox’s personal effects into a knapsack. He’d hurled that into the backseat of the car, almost nailing Anu, and turned for me.

“Merry needs to be fed,” I’d told him, expecting him to grab a can of syrup. But Trowbridge had simply spun around and uprooted the bush with one hand. Then he’d one-armed lifted me into the truck’s passenger seat, and deposited Merry’s snack in my lap with a terse, “Tell her to chow down on that.”

Merry hates pines.

Disquieted, I searched for her among the pine boughs, and found her buried deep. Merry’s usual bright light had dimmed; the honey tones of her amber stone had dulled to a sickly brown. She’d taken the worst of my hurt into her, healing me while I traveled in Threall. I stroked her with a finger that should have been disfigured, but now was only plump and lobster red. In return she issued a halfhearted blip of yellow.

It had been a tough night for the Faes.

I will hold but I wish things were different.
That I was just an ordinary wolf, mated to an average Were, looking forward to arguing over wallpaper and whose turn it was to take out the trash. That I didn’t have a brother stuck in some portal passage that no mortal—or Were for that matter—knew existed. That wizards belonged only to Hogwarts, that evil was vanquished with a swipe of sword, that fairy tales always ended neatly.

Lexi.

I gave Merry another stroke, trying to rid my brain of that new and ugly thought—what if it all came down to the same result? In the end—no matter how hard we fought—we lost. One us died, which meant the other two toppled over like dominos? Perhaps our fates were already set in stone, our destinies chiseled out by some stonemason working for a displeased Goddess.

“You okay?” Trowbridge asked gruffly.

The Alpha of Creemore drove with a fierce competence that belied the fact that he’d spent nine years in another realm where horsepower meant
horse
power. The speedometer’s needle had climbed steadily since we’d left the side roads and merged onto the highway. Had I ever been in a car moving this fast? One hundred fifty-five kilometers—thirty-five over the speed limit.
That would be a negative.
Thankfully, since it was half past midnight, the cops were conspicuously absent on the 400 Highway.