“I came here,” Brynn continued, “because I’d hoped to have a vision of some sort. Anything to help you discover who killed your people. But I cannot force the visions. They come or they don’t.”
“Well, I appreciate the thought.”
She glanced at Shay. “Will she be all right?”
“She’ll live. She lost a lot of blood, but she made it this far. She’ll start healing faster once she’s strong enough to shift.”
“I thought shifting exhausted your human body.”
“It does.” Shay wouldn’t need to be in beast form for very long, but the experience would be excruciating and even fifteen minutes on four legs required at least thirty before she could shift again. Not that she’d want to so soon. “There’s no exact science to it, but shifting from skin to beast form accelerates healing to a degree. Now an injured beast shifting to skin is an entirely different world of agony, and those wounds take longer to heal.” Knight would be the first to admit that loup garou physiology was confusing as hell to most outsiders, but—“I’m honestly surprised you don’t know more about my people.”
“As I said, I’m a disappointment to my father. He’s never trained me to take his place in the Congress, and I’m privy to very few secrets beyond what is common knowledge among the Magi.”
Knight couldn’t imagine being so disliked by his own father that he was kept in the metaphorical dark about . . . well, anything. Even though he wasn’t in line to be Alpha, Father kept Knight informed on all run-related matters. He’d always been treated as an equal to his brothers.
“If you’re feeling sorry for me, please don’t,” Brynn said.
“I was just trying to imagine being in your shoes.”
She thumped the heel of one sneaker against the wooden floor. “I don’t recommend them. You have a wonderful family, Knight. Despite my reasons for coming here, I’m glad to have met all of you. I’d honestly never spoken to a loup garou before, much less been trapped in a small room with four at once.”
Her smile faltered, then froze as her eyes went distant, unfocused. For a brief moment, she didn’t seem to be breathing, and Knight leaned forward in his seat, more curious than alarmed. Then Brynn blinked hard and snapped herself out of it.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb. “I’m fine.”
Her emotions skipped all over the place, and Knight couldn’t get a solid read on them. Her Magus half wasn’t helping, either—sometimes it seemed to overpower the loup garou side of her that called to his White nature, muddling her feelings. “Brynn, did you just have a vision?”
A blush stained her cheeks. “It wasn’t about Shay.”
She didn’t deny having a vision, though. “Who was it about? Rook again?”
“No.” She shook her head hard, slick black hair flying around her shoulders. “No, not Rook, either. The vision was very brief. It’s nothing of great urgency. Many of my visions are as simple as a person walking down a busy street. Very few are as dramatic as the vision I had of Rook and my father.”
“Okay.” As curious as he was, her visions weren’t his business, as long as they didn’t relate to his family or friends.
Heavy footsteps up the stairs preceded Dr. Mike by a good thirty seconds. Brynn stepped inside the room to allow the brawny doctor to pass. He gave Knight a sour look, then said, “Ms. Butler will probably sleep through the afternoon, lad. Go home and get some rest before you exhaust yourself.”
Knight started to protest, but it was a useless effort. He’d known Dr. Mike his entire life, and the man’s mind was made up on the matter. He didn’t want to leave Shay, even though he’d be useless to her if he didn’t get a few hours of sleep.
“I’ll stay with Shay,” Brynn said. “It’s something I can do for you, and I don’t have anywhere else to be right now.”
Because I haven’t been given permission to leave
hung off the end of her sentence. She was stuck in Cornerstone until the Alpha said otherwise, as it didn’t seem her own people would be in any hurry to come collect her.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Knight said.
“If I see you sooner than four hours, I’ll sedate you myself,” Dr. Mike said.
“Understood.”
***
Brynn settled into the chair that Knight had vacated, both relieved and uneasy at being alone in Shay’s room. She had no idea what to do if the wounded loup garou woke suddenly, despite Dr. Mike assuring her that wouldn’t happen. Mostly she was glad to have a moment to process the brief vision she’d experienced while standing in front of Knight.
***
A fogging mirror in a yellow-tiled bathroom. Steam rising. A hand wipes away the condensation. He stares at his reflection. Touches the mirror. He closes his eyes. Tears spill down his cheeks.
She doesn’t recognize the bathroom, only that it isn’t the one she used at the McQueen house. All she truly understands is the grief on that man’s face.
Knight’s face.
But what does it mean?
More important, should she tell him?
Chapter Nine
The conference call didn’t last as long as Rook expected. Jillian and Bishop presented the evidence they’d collected to the other Alphas, and no one could come to a consensus on what it all meant. The idea that loup garou, vampires, and a Magus had worked together to slaughter an entire town and then reported it themselves was beyond ludicrous—but scent was a huge part of loup life. Their noses didn’t lie.
The one thing every Alpha agreed on—other than the fact that every run needed to be on high alert until this was solved—was the need to make contact with Mitch Geary’s run. Rook had a mission.
After the call ended, the sudden silence in the library allowed him to hear the gentle rumble of voices in the hall. Father stood and opened the door. Devlin (who’d excused himself from the room a few minutes earlier) and Knight (who Rook hadn’t seen since the night before) stood outside, frozen in mid-conversation. Father waved them inside.
Knight trudged in with heavy steps and sank into the corner of the sofa. He was pale, with dark smudges under his eyes, as exhausted as Rook had ever seen him. “Dr. Mike has ordered me to get at least four hours rest,” he said. “This counts.”
Father’s eyebrows twitched. “How is Shay?”
“Sleeping. Brynn’s sitting with her.”
Rook sat up straighter in his chair. Brynn had left the house by herself? To sit by the bedside of a wounded loup garou? The idea of her leaving unprotected, even to go a few houses down the street, irritated him. “Did she have a vision?” he asked.
“Not about Shay. I think she was hoping to have one that could help us. Must have thought being close to Shay would jog her precognition.”
“We need to keep a close eye on the Magus until this is sorted out,” Father said.
Knight grunted. “She’s not the only one, apparently.”
“Meaning?”
“Ask Dev.”
Every head in the room swiveled in Devlin’s direction. He didn’t seem bothered by the sudden attention—not much bothered Devlin, who was a good person to have watching your back in a crisis. He closed the library door, then took a few steps toward the center of the room. “I haven’t mentioned this sooner, because I wasn’t certain about it,” Devlin said.
“Certain about what?” Bishop asked. He stood up, allowing his height and scowl to establish his authority in the conversation.
“A scent I noticed back in Stonehill. It was muddled and faint, but one that I did notice on a good number of the bodies. The scent was like spring grass, only it was the memory of the smell of grass, if that makes sense?”
Bishop nodded. “I noticed it a bit, too. Go on.”
Devlin’s head jerked, as if he wanted to look at someone and stopped at the last minute. His gaze stayed on Bishop, but Rook allowed himself a glance at Knight. Knight was staring at the floor. Rook let his nose find what Devlin hadn’t said yet.
“I didn’t think much of smelling it on Shay Butler during the trip home, because she’d been attacked, right? Only when I was in the hall just now, it was all over Knight.”
“He just came from the girl’s room,” Bishop said.
“It’s Shay’s scent, Bishop,” Knight said.
“Someone in the group that attacked Stonehill shares Shay’s scent marker,” Devlin said. “They share her blood.”
“How is that possible?” Bishop asked.
Knight made a rude noise. “You see, when a man and woman get together and have sex—”
“Knight,” Father said.
He snapped his mouth shut and looked at his lap. “I’m sorry.”
“Shay Butler’s mother disappeared years ago,” Jillian said. “Her body was never found. It’s entirely possible she had other offspring. Even half-breed offspring. She was a White Wolf, after all.”
“But to return to her former town and destroy her run twenty-five years later?” Bishop said. “Offspring capable of massacring three hundred people in a matter of hours?”
“It’s a theory that our evidence supports. Unless you’d rather believe Shay was complicit in those deaths.”
“She wasn’t,” Knight said, almost snarling the words. “She’s been devastated by this.”
“Devlin,” Father said. “How positive are you about this information?”
Devlin did not hesitate. “One hundred percent, sir. I’d rather it not be true, but our noses don’t lie.”
“Do we share this with the other Alphas?” Bishop asked.
His father took a moment to look around the room, meeting the eyes of each person there. “That information remains in this room. Until we have confirmation of Shay’s relationship to the people who attacked Stonehill, she is to have a guard at all times—as much for her protection as ours. We don’t know if she was left alive on purpose or by accident, or if someone will come to finish the job.”
No one argued. Rook turned the declarations over in his mind in a repeated chorus. He understood their father’s need for caution, as well as for keeping this new development to themselves. Not every Alpha would be as rational in the face of such news—the idea that one of their precious White Wolves had born half-breeds capable of such slaughter. They’d have Shay questioned mercilessly, regardless of her mental state, in order to get answers. Their Alpha would never allow that to happen.
“What’s our next step, then?” Jillian asked
“Same as before,” Father replied. “Rook and Devlin will visit the Potomac run and find out what Mitch Geary’s been up to. Until Shay wakes up and we can question her about last night, we have little else to go on.”
“What about the Magus we smelled in Stonehill? Should the Congress of Magi be told?”
“If the Congress is in any way involved, then they already know a Magus was present. If they don’t know, I want more evidence in my pocket than ‘my people smelled one.’”
“Fair enough.”
“Rook, Devlin, I want you both ready to leave in half an hour.”
“Yes, sir,” Devlin said in harmony with Rook saying, “We will be.”
“And you, young man,” Father said, turning to face Knight, “to bed.”
***
Brynn paused from her oral reading of “Sleeping Beauty” and rolled her neck, stretching the tired muscles. She’d discovered an ancient copy of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
on the nightstand, and as she wasn’t good at sitting quietly and doing nothing, the book had been a godsend. Reading silently had seemed selfish when the wounded woman in the bed ought to know she wasn’t alone, so Brynn had started reading out loud.
She’d skipped through “Cinderella” when the one stepsister cut off her toes in order to fit into the slipper, alarmed at her faulty memory of the tales. The versions she recalled had certainly been sanitized of violence, and Shay did not need to hear about self-mutilation, even if the woman was sleeping. “Sleeping Beauty” was fine until prince hopefuls were being torn to shreds by the thorns surrounding the castle.
She glanced up at the doorway and nearly dropped the book on the floor. Rook was standing there, silent and still as a statue, watching her. He’d changed his clothes into something much more intimidating than the day before—black jeans and a black t-shirt that showed off parts of his swirling tattoos. And clung to his finely muscled biceps. He looked every bit the strong, capable warrior, and her pulse jumped at the sight of him.
“How is she?” he asked, tilting his head in the direction of the bed.
“The same, I think.” Why was her heart pounding harder now that Rook was here? She felt no fear of him. “Dr. Mike says she’s sleeping more deeply now, so she should be able to get some real rest. How’s Knight?”
Rook’s mouth twitched. “He didn’t like being ordered to bed, but I bet he passed out as soon as he got there. Listen, I can’t visit long.”
“I’m sure you have quite a lot to take care of after last night.” She didn’t need him to babysit her all day.
“I have to go out of town for a few hours, maybe a day.”
Her stomach sank; she hadn’t expected that particular announcement. She stood up, clutching the book tightly to her chest. “You’re leaving?”
“It’s an assignment relevant to last night’s killings. We’re leaving in a few minutes. I might be home tonight, but tomorrow morning is more likely.”
Disappointment curled around her heart and squeezed tight. “You came to say good-bye.”
Rook stepped deeper into the room, close enough to touch. His scent overwhelmed her senses. He seemed sad, though, rather than happy to be finally rid of her. “I don’t know, but if you’re gone when I get back . . .”
She waited for him to continue, to give some hint that he might actually miss her. She didn’t know why it was important to hear him say that, or why the idea of never seeing him again made her want to scream. She came here expecting to confront a killer, and now she wanted . . .what? To be his friend? Something more than that?
Impossible from the start, foolish girl. Let him go.
She put the book down and offered him her hand. He quirked an eyebrow. “It’s not poisoned, I swear,” she said.
With a dazzling smile, Rook did more than shake her hand. He clasped her elbow, aligning their forearms in a more intimate touch, and she matched his hold. A soft jolt shot up her arm at the warm contact, the sensation so much like before. She didn’t understand what it meant, only that she liked it and feared it at once. Her heart beat harder, and she swore she heard his doing the same. Pounding with something she would never call want, never call desire. She wasn’t supposed to want him.