The former alpha tackled her when they intersected, and she let him have that feeling of victory. Now it was no act that she needed the grounding of strong arms around her. Dare’s would have been better, but she couldn’t smell him any longer. Perhaps he’d ceased to follow her and now followed the monster, as had been her first intention.
“Where’s Dare?” the former alpha asked her, settling his fingers as a tight band around her good wrist. “He said he’d lost you and we haven’t heard anything since. I’d have thought I’d find him coming around this direction, not you.”
“I was looking for you. One of you.” Silver twisted to look back over her shoulder. Death padded behind alone. Where was Dare?
* * *
Andrew drifted into consciousness as the car slowed to a stop. It felt like the bullet hole in his back had healed, but it was still hard to focus his thoughts. Silver. Was she all right? He should … should do something. More than just lie here. Then the trunk lid lifted and the sunlight blinded him.
“Welcome back.” Stefan smirked down at him, and manhandled Andrew from the trunk once more, ending with him sprawled facedown on the concrete of a sidewalk or path. Andrew’s thoughts moved faster as each moment healed more of his concussion. Silver wasn’t here, but he’d been unconscious. Stefan could have done something to her, left her somewhere else. He had to warn the pack. His phone. He curled up to hide the motion from Stefan with his body. John was on speed dial. He just had to get to a couple buttons—
Stefan slapped Andrew’s hand away. He patted Andrew’s pocket until he found the lump of the cell and jerked it out. “Now, now.” He dropped the phone on the path, retrieved his crowbar, and smashed it down. “We have no need of interruptions.” The metal glinted in the sunlight, like silver instead of steel. Silver-plated? But Stefan held it in his bare hand without apparent pain.
Andrew pushed to his hands and knees. “Where’s—Selene?” Wherever they were smelled familiar. He recognized the scent as that of the Bellingham house a moment later.
Stefan kicked him viciously in the stomach. Andrew’s head swooped and swam from the concussion and he retched onto the concrete. “You’re keeping me from her, it’s true. But I thought it might be best to pause and teach you a quick lesson.” Stefan bent to snarl into Andrew’s face. “Selene is
mine
. She knows that, too, she’s just lost her way a little. I’ll have to remove the obstacle, that’s all.”
Then he laughed. His face cleared like a switch had been flicked to a pleasant, smiling manner. “But you’re lucky.” He stepped back and Andrew made it to his knees again. So Stefan didn’t have her? He needed to stall, then. He took a deep breath to calm his roiling stomach, fanned his rage to make it to his feet. How could this psychopath claim Silver as his?
Stefan took out Andrew’s knees with a sweeping kick before Andrew’s head could clear from the change in elevation. Back to hands and knees again, palms abraded against the concrete. The futility of it stung like the acid left in his mouth. He had to get up. Had to do more than stall, had to take this man down, so he couldn’t return for Silver. Maybe humans would notice the disturbance if they were out on the path long enough. Call the police. He remembered the house and driveway as all too wooded and obscured from the road from his first trip here, though.
“Help—” Andrew raised his voice, getting barely a word out before Stefan kicked him in the stomach again, stealing all his air. Any humans on adjoining properties were probably still too far to hear anyway. It still all came down to him. His muscles spasmed from the recent kick and his head swam, but he gritted his teeth. No way he was going to give in.
“You know why you’re lucky?” Stefan’s voice was poisonously smooth. “Because even if you tried to steal my mate, I’m going to give you a chance to repent before you die.”
“She’s not your mate.” The words bubbled up before Andrew could stop them, soft from his lack of breath. But maybe he could distract the man, giving Andrew time to heal a little more, and stay on his feet the next time.
Stefan laughed. “What, you don’t believe me? It’s true, she might not remember our … time together. She was a little out of it, once I helped her purify herself in God’s sight.”
The anger this time was so white-hot it obscured Andrew’s vision. It wasn’t true. The man hadn’t done anything of the sort to Silver. He couldn’t have, and Andrew was going to torture him with his own silver before he killed the bastard. He panted, pushing back the anger to summon words. He had to find words to keep stalling. “Purify? Is that what you call it?”
Stefan swung the end of the crowbar like a pendulum. “God’s favor does not come without a price for those such as us, it is true.” Stefan shrugged. Only one shoulder moved, making the resemblance to Silver not perfect, as she retained some control of those muscles. “The taint has to be burned away.”
“How could you do it?” The need to keep talking had him speaking his thoughts out loud before he could reconsider. “How could you have that done to you and then turn around and do it to anyone else?”
Stefan slid the crowbar under Andrew’s chin and lifted it. Andrew could smell the silver on it and tipped his chin so it wouldn’t touch skin. “You think faith is supposed to be easy?” Stefan rolled the muscles on that side and failed to move his arm again. “This taught me what was important. Made me value what I’d gained. Repent and forsake the false Lady and He can save you too.”
Andrew spat at him. He’d always thought religion was poison, but this was beyond anything he could even have imagined. Humans had tainted his mind with the worst of the religious evil as well as their silver. This was why Andrew didn’t believe. Look what it gave people the excuse to do, encouraged them to do. “There is no human God. There is no Lady. You were tortured in the name of a myth. That’s all gods are good for, torturing people.”
Stefan brought the crowbar up so it sizzled against Andrew’s skin. “There is only one true God. It is the refuge of the weak, to blame Him for their problems. To say that if He does not directly intervene, He does not exist. It is not His place to protect us from every pain of this world. It is ours to have faith.”
Stefan sighed, and turned, letting the crowbar fall. “They didn’t want to listen to me at home either. Some just aren’t willing to allow their souls to be saved. So I had to leave, and find someone else to save. This pack was so kind to me, you know. That’s how I knew they deserved purification. They took me in when they saw what I had suffered, because they didn’t understand how that suffering had been necessary.” He paused as a thought occurred. “It was such a shame about the children.”
Andrew closed his eyes for a moment to check how clear-headed he felt. Now was his moment. He had to do this, to make sure Silver stayed safe. His muscles all felt reasonably solid. He opened his eyes and pushed to his feet in one smooth movement, swinging for Stefan’s jaw.
He hadn’t counted on the silver. Caught by surprise, Stefan’s block was clumsy, but the metal sizzled against Andrew’s forearm anyway. The agony of phantom heat brought tears to his eyes and slowed him enough for Stefan to take out his knees once more. No, part of Andrew wailed. He couldn’t have failed again.
“Enough,” Stefan growled, anger backed by the full weight of his insanity coming into his face. He knocked Andrew to his stomach with calculated blows to propping arms and then shoulder.
Then the crowbar fell on Andrew’s back. The movement ground Andrew’s cheek into the rough concrete. Stefan yanked up Andrew’s shirt and rained blows down on the small of his bare back. Over and over on the same spot, burning, burning, until Andrew would have screamed if he’d had the air for it. He could feel the instant the bar broke the blistered skin, like someone poured napalm into the wound. And the bar fell again. And again. Something in his spine crunched.
“There. Now you’ll have to listen to me properly.” The bloody bar clunked to the ground as Stefan knelt, keeping his hand on it. “It’s a trial, the way those of our kind heal. You never have the patience to remain still and listen. But if you don’t listen, you won’t repent before I kill you. And that would be a shame.” He released the bar and took Andrew’s chin so he was looking up at him, neck twisted sideways at a painful angle. “But now you won’t be walking anywhere, yes?”
Andrew made a noise, trying to make his throat work. Silver. He couldn’t fail Silver. The longer he hung on, the longer the pack would have to get her safe. Hanging on seemed the best he could do now.
“You know, I don’t think I know your name.” Stefan paused, then continued when Andrew couldn’t answer. “Ah, well. Perhaps we will be more comfortable inside.” He flipped Andrew onto his back, and then took a handful of his shirt collar.
Andrew’s sight grayed out with the bumping, jarring drag along the path and over the house’s threshold. With one hand, Stefan couldn’t have been gentle if he’d wanted to. It was clear he didn’t want to.
His back just hurt so much. Andrew tried to concentrate on something else—Silver, hang on to give the others time to find Silver and get her to safety—but the pain dragged at him with every heartbeat and every breath. Maybe it had ebbed, as some healing occurred in the mess of his back even in the wound made by silver, or maybe that was his imagination. His energy had been sapped for so much healing already.
Stefan hauled him up into a chair with one last jerk at his collar. He circled around to the front and adjusted Andrew’s legs to make his position more stable, since Andrew couldn’t himself. The agony traveled over Andrew in waves in time to his heart. For Silver. Hang on for Silver.
Fire settled over his wrists, and he couldn’t move his arms because the muscles were paralyzed. Bound with silver chains. Exactly as Silver’s pack had been. Stefan’s bare fingers still showed no burns from touching those, either.
“Now.” Stefan smoothed lank hair from his eyes, gave a twisted smile, and knelt at Andrew’s feet and placed a hand on his knee. Andrew’s skin crawled. “Forsake the false Lady. Allow yourself to be purified in your death so you can see the light of God.”
Andrew strained to make his arm muscles work, to snap the chains. So thin. But he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t strong enough.
Stefan smiled once more. “We have time, don’t worry. You’ll see.” He patted Andrew’s knee. “Faith comes more easily when the beast has been burned out of your blood. Selene understands. She just hasn’t admitted it to herself yet.”
23
“Dare should have returned by now. Something’s wrong.” Silver didn’t need Death to reply, she could see his answer in every movement he made as he paced back and forth across the room. Though it was hard to tell in his ruff’s deep blackness, she thought his hackles were up. But more than that, she could feel it herself. They’d brought her back to her mother’s pack’s den, and they’d locked her up in the closest room before she could run away again.
And Dare didn’t return.
Death stopped, going from restless movement into utter stillness so quickly it was like a slap. “What would you do if there was something wrong?”
“Help him.” Silver drew her lip between her teeth and bit hard. But where? Where was she going to do her helping? The monster knew how to leave no trail, the same as he knew how to find hers when she tried to hide it.
“You know where they are.” Death sounded exasperated. “Stop running from the answer.”
Silver pressed her palms to her eyes. The monster would take him somewhere he knew he could work uninterrupted. He didn’t work quickly. Somewhere no one would overhear, since he didn’t work quietly either. And he knew Silver’s former home was both those things, from experience.
Silver threw herself against the blocked entrance, bad shoulder first. Sometimes it was useful the snakes had deadened the pain in that arm. “We have to go!” she shouted at the others in the pack. “We have to go back to my home!” No one answered her, though she could hear them outside. Crazy Silver, babbling again. Always crazy.
Silver stepped away and laced her fingers into her hair, smoothing it flat to her head and trying to hold it there. Holding it as if this time it would stay. But she had no more control over that than anything else about herself. It fluffed right back up. “The others will never take me to him just on my word. There’s little I can do without my wild self. I can’t run to him quickly enough, can’t defend him.”
“You still search for her?” Death’s words were simple, but so bleak.
Silver swallowed convulsively. She hadn’t been ready to admit it to herself, but maybe this was the time. If not for herself, for Dare. “She’s not coming back, is she?”
Death yipped in her wild self’s voice. Silver found herself on her knees, tears in her eyes, like someone had torn a hole inside her. But then Death hadn’t torn her open, he’d merely made her acknowledge the wound.
“Now you’ve admitted that, I suppose I have no more reason to be here.” Again, there was the bleakness to Death’s voice, the voice of the man Silver didn’t know. It was the voice Death liked best to use. As Silver watched him walk away, it occurred to her that she would miss him. He had called the fire and watched her burn, but he had never left her. Already, the air near her seemed empty with the lack of anything even shaped like her wild self to fill it.
“Wait.”
He tilted his head back over his shoulder. In that moment, she realized what he looked like. A wild self without his tame. She’d told the stories, but she wondered how she could have missed seeing how empty Death was without the Lady.
“Please. Stay with me. Help me. If we are both without our names, denied the Lady, let us at least be alone together?”
Death considered a long moment, eyes inscrutable. Then he walked into the embrace of her good arm. She’d never touched him before, but his fur was soft, tickling against her chin and neck. One would never have guessed it, looking at his harsh silhouette.
“You have what you need to help him, you know,” he said at length. “You have another self that can get there quickly enough. You just don’t wish to acknowledge her … Selene.”