17
“And what
exactly
did I do to earn your thanks?” My voice was low. I had to force the words out through clenched teeth.
Marcus put both hands up in a deflecting manner. He didn’t bow his head. He was too alpha, too dominant, too predator for that, but both empty hands were raised. I stared at the smooth caramel skin of his palms.
No calluses marred their surface. No blood dried in the creases of them. The cuffs of a rich linen shirt sat on his wrists. The cloth was a pale cream unstained with gore that contrasted nicely with his dark skin tone. Slick, shiny black onyx cufflinks held their edges together.
Opening my fist, I looked down at the contrast. My hand was almost black with grime—a mix of dirt, gunpowder residue, and dried blood. It obscured the tattoo across the back of my hand, dulling the colors, making my daughter’s name unreadable. The knuckle of my thumb was split deep, not bleeding but glaring reddish pink as it opened up. When it healed, it would add to the web of scar tissue that spread across all my knuckles, building them thick and tough. There was a callus on the inside of my index finger, a rough patch built from thousands of bullets fired in the last five years.
Marcus spoke, that voice drawing my attention wearily back to him. I had to admit it was a good voice, very soothing and melodious. A voice for sermonizing and motivational speaking. “You put yourself at risk to protect me and my mate.” He took a step toward me and reached out to take my hand and shake it.
I glared at that hand—smooth, clean, and manicured—and left it to hang in the air between us. My eyes snapped back up to his face. His skin was smooth and unlined. The same features as his brother, Leonidas, but softer, more delicate, less feral. He looked at me with dark amber eyes.
“What about the rest of the people who bled tonight to keep you two safe?” I swept the room with a gesture, taking in everyone who was injured. “Everybody else gave their pound of flesh and pint of blood for you tonight. So why the hell are you thanking me?”
Cat eyes blinked. “They are lycanthropes, you are human. You didn’t have to get involved, you chose to.” His hand thrust forward again. “I appreciate it.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Understanding crept up on me. Because he was a predator he expected the others to give themselves to his safety. And they had, willingly, but he took it for granted. I thought I couldn’t get angrier.
I was wrong.
“Why didn’t you join us? I can see not taking on your brother and his gang by yourself, but once we got there, you weren’t outnumbered anymore. Why didn’t you fight with us?”
Finally, Marcus pulled his hand back. It smoothed along his shirt, looking for something to do. “I am a pacifist. I do not believe in violence to solve problems.” His head tilted back and he looked down at me over his wide, noble nose. He actually had the gall to sound superior about it.
“Let me test my understanding here.” Slowly, I stood. “Your problem tonight was that your brother was coming to kill you and your mate.” My knuckles cracked and popped as I clenched and unclenched my fist. “Your problem was solved because we showed up and fought to pull you out of there. Violence saved your ass tonight. Being a pacifist would have gotten you dead without the sacrifice of the people in this room.”
The lioness stepped up beside him. Her back arched, stretching her to the fullness of her height. She didn’t speak, mouth pulled tight into a harsh line. A single crease pulled her smooth brow together as she glared at me.
Marcus flicked smooth fingers at me dismissively. “I don’t expect a man like you to understand.”
A giant throb of pain closed the eye I was having trouble focusing. My one open eye blazed at Marcus through a haze of red. The muscles along my shoulders swelled tight, fury coursing through my veins. The sound of teeth grinding together was loud in my ears.
“What the
fuck
do you mean ‘a man like me’?”
“I know about you, Deacon Chalk.” Marcus drew himself up, lion flashing in his eyes. “Your reputation is known far and wide among my kind. You are a man whose life is drenched in blood. Always fighting, always killing.” He leaned in closer, the bones in his face sliding under the skin. Golden fur sprouted along high cheekbones and brow. When he spoke, his breath had a thick, meaty scent. “You have no idea what it means to live a life of peace.” He leaned back. “You bring every bit of violence on yourself. It is what you want.”
His words slapped me across the face. He was wrong. Not about the fighting and the killing, that he had gotten right, but he was dead wrong about the peace part. I knew peace . . . before my family was taken. My life had been full of fucking peace. I didn’t
choose
this life, it was forced on me. All I wanted was out of this life, to go on and be with my family.
I couldn’t do the job myself. That was a mortal sin and sure separation from them forever. I couldn’t wait around for old age, living with the pain of them being gone for years and years. And with knowledge comes responsibility. Now that I knew monsters and evil existed, I couldn’t sit by and let my fellow man suffer. Now this smug bastard had the
audacity
to sit in judgment of me?
Rage crashed through me, tightening my fists. I drew back without thinking, the desire to smash Marcus’s face moving my arm.
A small hand touched me, firm but gentle. It was a shock through my system, cold water on the fire of my anger. Jerking my head around, I saw Tiff standing there. The look on her face was hard to read. Big blue eyes were brimming with sympathy, and full red lips were pulled into a line of determination. She gave a small nod and a glance down, black and pink hair shimmering around her face.
Her hand was on the Colt in its holster at her waist.
Tiff was ready to follow my lead with the two lions. Whatever I chose to do she was down with. Rock or roll, it didn’t matter to her.
Looking at her, I realized I did know a measure of peace. Her. She had become a delicate oasis of calm in the storm of my life. No, she would never take the place of my family, but here and now she was a place of healing for me. Anger leeched away, ebbing, dissipating.
Not leaving. No, never leaving me. Just dropping to a simmer. Tamping down to the normal level I lived with every day. It left me tired in its wake, the adrenaline dump washing away my energy. I didn’t turn around, speaking to Marcus over my shoulder.
“Get out of my town.”
I could feel the change in the air behind me. Between the lion and me there was a cushion of static that bristled.
Marcus’s voice was thick with offense. “What? What do you mean by that?”
“I mean get the fuck out of my town. Leave. Vamoose. Amscray. Hit the bricks, pal.” Now I turned to face him. Tiff’s hand slid around me, her fingers maintaining our connection. “Take you and your ass and get out of the South. I want you on the road by dawn.”
The lioness stepped forward. “You can’t throw us out of town.”
I felt my lip curl on my face. “The hell I can’t. You will leave voluntarily or I will tie you both up and stuff you in the cargo hold of a Greyhound bus.” My finger stabbed toward her. “Do not test me on this.”
Boothe sat up on the floor, still cradling his arm, still pale and wax-skinned. Pain threaded through his voice. “Deacon, if you send them away, then you’ll be sending the Brotherhood to another town with them. Maybe a town without anyone to make a stand against them.”
Dammit.
Damn
it
.
DAMMIT.
Boothe was right. I didn’t like the fact that he was right, but that didn’t change anything. Now that I was involved, this was my fight. It was my responsibility to put an end to Leonidas and his band of assholes.
None of this made me any less sick of the sight of Marcus and his mate. They were the reason I was standing in a roomful of injured people. It was squarely their fault. My hand waved in the air.
“I don’t care. I will deal with Leonidas and his thugs. I’ll track them down if need be.” My finger pointed at Marcus and Shani. “I still want you two gone where none of my people will be put in danger by your presence.”
Shani seethed with fury. It was written on those aristocratic features, pulling them into an ugly, venomous mask. Claws unsheathed from her fingers with tiny pops, like someone cracked their knuckles. Sleek muscle swelled under caramel skin, changing her shape, giving mass to her feminine form. A deep purr rumbled in her chest, working its way into a roar. Her lycanthropy burned hot within her, pulsing along my skin like an open flame. It pushed on my power, making the room swirl just a little.
This was escalating too quickly.
I put my hand on Bessie. “Marcus, get control of your bitch or she is going to get you both hurt.”
Marcus’s face had slipped back into human, all traces of lion swallowed up. One manicured hand reached out in a blur, closing on the back of Shani’s neck. His voice dropped two octaves, vibrating with a power I hadn’t felt from him before.
“Stop. It.” The command came out chopped. Muscles in his hand flexed against her throat as power rolled off him. I felt the raw edges of it even though it was directed at his mate. It rode through the air like the crack of a lion tamer’s whip.
Shani tensed, her core fighting Marcus’s influence, eyes wide and wild. Then her expression changed. It looked like a switch flipped inside her. She sank to her knees, face lax and loose. Marcus looked at her for a moment, watching her carefully. He let go, moving his hand back to his side. Two steps forward put his body in front of her. It was a dominant move, disregarding her, assuming she would obey regardless of his attention.
He was close to me, shoulders thrown back, chest wide. He looked me in the one eye I had open, still playing the dominance game. I let him feel how little I cared. He blinked, eyes sliding away from mine. His voice still carried the edge of power when he spoke.
“We will go. But I refuse to leave without all that is mine.” Honey amber eyes cut down to the Were-dog still huddling behind the cowgirl. “
Come
to me, Sophia.”
The Were-dog crouched, lowering her belly to the ground. Her mismatched eyes closed. A whine, high pitched and thin, cut through the air. Tiff knelt down, her hand pulling skirt between thighs modestly. Sophia tucked her head under Tiff’s arm still whining. The girl looked up at me, eyes questioning.
“Deacon?”
The power coming off Marcus doubled in strength, pressing hard against my skin. It stretched into a rope between him and Sophia. My nose wrinkled involuntarily as the rank musk of cat filled my nostrils. The Were-lion pointed his hand at Sophia and that dominant power jumped, sparking and crackling like static electricity.
“Sophia, come to me.
Now
.”
Shani’s eyes bored into Sophia, upper lip pulled into a snarl. She didn’t move from where Marcus had put her, but she vibrated with the desire to. Her upper body leaned forward, straining against the command she had been given.
Sophia pulled away from Tiff. Turning, she took a small step toward Marcus. Her belly skimmed the ground, her whine louder and sharper. Marcus smiled wide.
My fist smashed into his throat.
The connection between the Weres snapped in two as he fell to the ground. He floundered on his side, trying to yank air into his lungs. Shani roared, vibrating the air. She came to her feet, claws out. Boothe and Tiff both had guns out and pointed at her.
I was grateful for the backup, because I couldn’t have drawn my gun if I had wanted to.
I took a step back, hand finding a wall. Black spots clustered at the corners of my vision. My stomach soured, pushing bile up my throat. I swallowed convulsively, trying to keep from throwing up. Fever raged across my skin like an inferno. Punching Marcus had sent pain searing along the nerves in my head. My brain throbbed inside my skull, each throb another nail driven into bone.
Fucking head injury.
Breathe in, breathe out. Try to keep it together.
I leaned on the wall, helpless for a few moments. Slowly, the room stopped swimming around and the blackness pulled back until it crowded only the edges of my vision. My head was still pounding, but I could stand up now.
I almost felt human again when a beep cut across the room, high and shrill, sending another spike of pain through my eyeball into my skull.
There was a crash as Charlotte jerked and convulsed on the table in the grip of another grand mal seizure. Long spider legs flailed out, knocking equipment over. Foamy blood spurted from her mouth, spattering around her chest and face. Larson wheeled over like a madman, ducking spider legs and grabbing medical equipment.
“She’s crashing!”
18
Larson was out of his chair, on the table, and laying across Charlotte. His legs hung limp off the edge, and ginger hair swirled across his eyes, sticking to blood running from a cut on his brow. One spider leg had clipped him in her convulsions, splitting the skin open over his eye. Defibrillator paddles hummed in each of his hands. Charlotte jerked and convulsed under him.
Kat stood by holding a syringe as long as my hand, finger-length needle gleaming wicked sharp. Her brow creased in concentration. Larson nodded in her direction. She didn’t hesitate, driving the syringe through Charlotte’s gray fur and breastbone. Once it was home, her hand flashed, pushing the plunger down. Clear liquid gurgled into the Were-spider’s chest cavity. Syringe empty, it was yanked out cleanly and Kat stepped back, out of the way.
“Clear!”
The paddles came down against Charlotte’s chest. The hum became a buzz, crescendoing into a loud, cracking
ZAP!
The smell of burnt hair filled my nose. Charlotte twisted up, torso raising off the table. Larson lifted up, riding the wave of her body. He jerked the paddles off her, breaking contact. Her shoulders slammed back down as the electricity stopped. She lay limp and boneless, like she had been spilled.
The heart monitor beeped.
Once.
Twice.
The long, uninterrupted beep was a small scream of anguish. That thin green line on the monitor cut with finality.
Larson started yelling orders to Kat in short, precise sentences; words clipped like gunshots. His hands pushed down on Charlotte’s chest, performing CPR. The heart monitor continued its one-note wail.
I stood at the end of the table. Charlotte’s lycanthropy washed over me. I could
feel
her slipping away. My power searched for her spider, dashing out, running to and fro inside her. I found it curled up on itself.
Shrinking.
Collapsing.
Dying.
Charlotte was my friend. She had stood shoulder to shoulder with me and mine to face off against that evil hell-bitch Appollonia. We were bound by bloodshed. Throughout the last several months she had taken in the spiders abandoned by Appollonia’s reign of terror and made them into a community. A family. After she had lost her babies to Ronnie, we had shared food and drink and laughter. Many, many nights over the last few months had been spent in the company of her and Tiff. I loved Charlotte as a dear, dear friend, one that could be called on when needed.
She was my friend.
She was
mine.
And I would be damned if I was just going to let her go.
Reaching out, I touched her leg. Short gray fur prickled my palm. I pushed my power out, unfurling it toward her spider, coaxing it, calling to heal my friend. I felt it stir, valiantly flexing legs and trying to move. The room spun and my head swooned with it, feeling like it was going to be thrown off the top of my neck. I shut my eyes so I could concentrate on Charlotte instead of the sick sensation of vertigo. The theater of my mind opened up and Charlotte’s spider lay before me, strength spent. It twitched a death twitch, jerking once, then again. I felt it fading into darkness, carrying my friend away with it.
Desperate, I cast my ability out into the world, searching for strength to give her. For life to bring her back. I spilled out over the room. Searching. Seeking. Hunting.
George’s gorilla fell into my power with a wash of jungle; all moist heat and the dank green smell of vegetable. His ape reeked of musk and blood as it was drawn up into my power. Pain filled him from hundreds of cuts and bruises. Both his weariness and his deep well of strength that came from love settled in my bones.
Love for the woman he held in his arms. His beast rode in the wake as my power washed over her. Her shape-shifting was different. I could feel Masego like watching him through an open door. The shaman’s curse threaded through them, a bittersweet web tracing veins under both their skins. Lucy the human’s was a delicate lace of humanity. It contrasted sharply with Masego’s heavy net of strength, thick and solid as the earth. Both of them shared the deep wounds they had suffered tonight. They hurt and their strength was enough to hold on, but not to share.
I couldn’t take from the three of them, so I pushed on. They hung on, still connected to me like currents in a stream.
In my mind’s eye an ancient wall stood in my way, trying to block my power. It was like a small rock in a river; I rushed around it, surrounding it completely. My nostrils filled with crisp, thin air and the smell of peat moss. Cold salt spray from the ocean splashed against my face and the world rocked up and down. Ragnar was old, ancient in fact. He came from an era where steel ruled. His wolf was from a time before there was even an America.
Pain crept into my joints, a deep ache that was constant; so constant that the throb from his ruined leg felt dull and distant. He had strength, but it was old and waning. I pushed away, still searching. His beast trotted along as I cast further.
Boothe’s rabbit was deep in its burrow, pulling the comfort of the earth over itself to hide from the blinding, searing pain that arced along his mangled arm. The smell of dirt was strong and I felt pressed close, hugged by the security of the earth.
Strength ran from my knees like water, threatening to drop me where I stood as his injury was added into the sensations I was feeling. Grinding pain dropped inside me like a sack of bricks.
The urge to take my hand off Charlotte was blinding. If I just moved my hand a half inch, I could break the connection. I could stop hurting, stop aching, stop dying.
Charlotte’s spider folded like origami. Crumpling smaller and smaller, twitches weaker as life fled from it.
The prickly gray fur under my hand receded, becoming smooth human skin.
No!
Desperation flared in my chest. Reaching down inside, I forced my power out further, pushing against it, stretching it. My head began to throb. Sweat ran in rivers under my shirt. My power felt like pushing through water, resistance dragging as I forced it to keep looking. Each injured lycanthrope hung in the chain, creating more weight, more drag. My leg and arm were bolts of pain. My skin felt like every inch had been gone over with sandpaper. My bones felt like crushed glass. Every muscle pulled like overstretched rubber bands. Their pain became melded with my pain, knitting into a tapestry of agony. Acid filled my stomach, blasting into my throat.
Then I fell upon the lions.
I broke over them like tide pools by the ocean, rushing into them, sweeping through them. Cat musk filled my nose, and short, coarse fur rubbed inside my skin like cotton candy. Both of them roared in unison at the invasion, but I shoved on, clawing for the hot vitality that bubbled within the two of them.
I found it, two separate balls of power and vitality. The strength of the Serengeti, of the savannah. The strength of the hunt and the kill. The strength of rending claw and gnashing teeth. I latched on to it with all I had, jerking it from them and shoving it down the line. Their beasts dug in claws, fighting, but I would not be stopped. I would not be denied. Not when my friend lay dying because of them.
My power swelled around them, pulling strength and pushing it back. As I dragged it down the channel toward Charlotte, bits broke off with each lycanthrope it passed, washing them with vitality and healing. It was only the space of a thought, but it felt like minutes when I got the lion’s life force to Charlotte. What had started as a blazing torch had dwindled to a bright candle. I poured it like oil over her spider, saying a prayer as I did.
Please God, save my friend.
Nothing happened.
Larson still pushed on her chest, but he was slowing down, giving up. The monitor still sang a shrill dirge. Charlotte lay limp. I held my breath.
Beep.
Charlotte’s spider twitched.
Beep.
It jerked and rolled over trying to right itself. Legs scrabbling to find footing.
Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .
The spider fell flat, moving no more. Charlotte lay limp on the table.
My spine bowed, yanked out of shape as I reached deep and dug under my power. I threw it back out into the room. Searching, seeking, looking. It dove into Sophia and I pulled some of her strength, sending it down the line. I tasted the scent of the city in moonlight on my tongue mixing with the acid and bile that filled the back of my throat. Her beast did not fight me; instead, it ran to help, putting as much of itself as it could into the channel I called it through. It rippled down the way, spreading to the other Weres as it passed by, leaving just a little for Charlotte. Carefully, I pushed for more and found the three babies she held inside her.
Brushing them was like touching a match to a trail of napalm.
White-gold energy smashed out, stretching the channel to a roaring river. Rushing along, sweeping all the lycanthropes up in its wake. I felt Boothe’s arm grind together as broken bone found its way whole. The pain from it flared along my spine and then ceased with a snap as his rabbit made him whole with the strength of Sophia’s unborn children.
The wave crashed over Ragnar and I experienced the abrading sensation of muscle and skin regrowing and knitting together in moments. Cells rushed together in agonizing creation, the pain blinding until it was finished. Even the ache in his joints was soothed. I felt his wolf rise to burst through his skin and I knew it had been many years of denial because transformation had been too painful to withstand.
The power rolled around George and Lucy, smoothing cuts in stinging strips of healing. It wove in and out of the two of them. I also felt it lap out to Masego where he lay recovering inside Lucy. The power tripped along the lifelines connecting the three of them, binding tighter, tying knots of energy, forming a three-strand cord that would not be easily broken.
None of this diminished the wave of power. Instead, it grew with each lycanthrope it healed. It roared, it rushed, it raged. Just outside of Charlotte, it gathered into a large, quivering pool. I felt it pause and turn to me like a living thing. It searched me, sliding around my power, seeking a way inside.
Somehow I knew that if it could only find a way inside me, I would be healed just like the others. I stood for a second, head pounding, stomach geysering acid into my throat, and muscles feeling like they had all been pulled apart and stapled back together. Ache lived deep in my bones, haunting me with pain. My body was a lead weight. If I did not have the table in front of me to lean on, I wouldn’t have been able to stand at all.
The power could not find a way in. That isn’t the way my ability works. It’s all outside. I can’t take someone’s supernatural inside myself; I can only feel it and manipulate it.
With the last dregs of my strength, I pushed the energy toward my friend. That white gold wave studied me for another second, then turned. It crested, rolling up and crashing over Charlotte like an ocean wave.
Her spider jumped as if it had been hit with a live wire. It skittered up, rushing toward her skin. Charlotte’s body yanked, throwing Larson to the ground. The heart monitor began to scream. The leg under my hand grew hard, shifting and growing longer.
I opened my eyes. Black filled the edges of my vision, leaving me dim slits to look out of. Through them I watched Charlotte’s body stretch and shrink, swell and elongate, until on the table stood a 200-pound brown recluse spider.
It crouched in deadly composure, completely still, eight eyes unblinking, ten-inch fangs open to strike. I didn’t move because I didn’t have the strength. Besides, fuck moving, this was my friend—I didn’t care if her spider form was even creepier than her spider-lady form. The spider gave a shake and shifted again, arachnid washing away and leaving Charlotte in its place. She was whole and healed and unself-consciously nude like only a beautiful woman can be. Her smile was bright as she looked at me and spoke.
“Thank you, my friend.”
I opened my mouth to say no problem.
And promptly passed the fuck out.