Wolfs choice, p.11
Wolf's Choice, page 11
They had no weapons other than fangs and claws, but there were so many of them. A sea of snarling faces crowded up close by the time we reached the bottom step.
Good thing Honor and I were both adept with our swords. Without having to speak, our shoulders settled against each other. One hundred and eighty degrees of werewolf faced my blade but my back was protected and Honor could say the same.
Swish. Block. Jab. In tandem, we sidled toward the door, carving open space to pass through via the threat of sharp steel.
Most wolves kept their distance. But one lunged closer and I acted without thinking. My sword sliced deep into his shoulder and the scent of blood curled up my lips.
I was the sword and I was thirsty.
Wait. No. I wasn’t the sword. I was human. I was injuring a wolf whose sole crime was defending his home turf. The one I’d cut yelped and curled in on himself, suggesting it would take weeks to heal the damage. Longer maybe.
And yet my tongue slid across my lips. I could almost taste that blood. I wanted…
Honor must have noticed something even with her back turned. Because she broke the rule of silence we’d set for ourselves. “Go find something to slow them down,” she hissed.
We’d reached the first doorway, a defensive position that Honor could hold alone if I let her. I didn’t want to let her. I wanted to embrace the headiness that came when I slashed out with a sword that was a part of myself. I wanted to carve through enemy wolves as if they were rice to scythe down one stroke after another. I wanted to cling to the exhilaration bubbling through my veins.
“You go,” I countered.
Then I went silent as a familiar scent coated the inside of my mouth. Black pepper and tangerines, the same aroma I’d noticed then forgotten from when I was drugged at the horse show. The memory slapped me back to reality.
A pelt stolen from a child. At least one of the pelt stealers here inside this room. That was what mattered, not blood on my sword and the hunger it awoke inside me.
Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done about Merry’s pelt now. Nothing other than following Honor’s order and retreating as we’d planned from the get-go, reconvening later to come up with another way to hunt the stolen pelt.
So I countered my own refusal with a single word: “Going.” Then I pounded down the hallway. At the far end, I recalled, there was something that might block the door for a good long while.
The massive cross had been set into brackets and was just barely light enough for me to heft off when I strained every muscle in my body. I couldn’t hold it aloft for more than a moment though. The bottom of the post thudded to the floor an inch from my toes and I barely managed to steady it by pressing my entire body against the upright before the whole thing toppled over.
I’d worked as fast as I could, but Honor was close already. I could smell her and also hear her. The wolves had pushed her down the hallway, had likely figured out she was doing her best not to harm them and had grown more aggressive in response to that fact. They were looking forward to spreading out and surrounding us again once they passed beyond the confines of the hallway. They knew as well as we did that, even back-to-back, Honor and I would never make it all the way out of O’Connell territory without a head start.
Which meant I had a single chance at this.
Working fast but also cautiously, I stretched my entire body until my foot was able to slip behind the door. Could I kick the door shut and drop the cross so it wedged behind the heavy highboy on the other side, timing everything so Honor made it through but no one else did?
Perhaps, as long as our tenuous pack connection held and Honor acted the instant I told her to. “Run! Now!” I yelled.
From the sound of it, Honor didn’t hesitate. She was through the door and I was kicking and dropping and swearing as the cross struck my cheek a sidelong blow on its way down.
My sight went blurry for a split second as pain strobed through me. But my ploy worked. When I was able to see again, I found no eyes but Honor’s boring into mine.
The wolves were stuck in the hallway, for the moment at least. Time to implement Emergency Plan B.
In tandem, Honor and I breathed hard on our hands then rubbed our palms along the banister as we raced up the main stairwell. We wanted our path to be followed and the deodorizer made that impossible unless we added new scent to the mix.
Entering the alpha’s suite, we left the door wide open behind us. Already, we could hear distant shouts from shifters who had returned to humanity. The cross wouldn’t last long holding back an entire clan of them. So we didn’t hesitate, just slammed open the sliding glass doors, stepped out onto the balcony, and opened our bags.
In addition to the ropes Honor had intended to use against solo sentries, she’d packed a longer line complete with grappling hook. Attaching it to the railing, she tossed the free end down to the grass below.
For my part, I was rifling through my backpack, checking for anything incriminating. My cell phone went into a jacket pocket, my pelt was already wrapped around my torso, and I kept a tight hold on my sword. But the rest I flung down into the darkness, watching the contents scatter as the bag flew toward the closest trees.
I hoped it would look as if we’d fled, dropping possessions along the way to make shifting easier. I hoped we weren’t being idiots trapping ourselves here.
There was no time to doubt our plan. Footsteps pounded up the stairs toward us, some lupine and some human. Honor sprayed the hands we’d scented, then we leapt up onto the balcony rail in tandem. Without a word, we pulled ourselves onto the roof in perfect synchrony.
Just in time, we flattened ourselves against clay tiles as the alpha’s curly head became visible below.
It started raining soon thereafter, cold drops that turned to ice when they touched frigid surfaces. The tiles slicked around us and my frozen hair popped and crackled every time I moved.
So I didn’t move. Just lay beside Honor, her body heat making one side of me warmer than the other. Getting off this roof would be a challenge, but that was an issue for later. For now, we watched in silence as the O’Connell pack crisscrossed the grounds, hunting for a trail we hadn’t left. And as ice continued to thicken around us, we waited for what felt like hours until the alpha called everyone back inside to regroup and reassess.
Only then did we pick our way back onto the slippery balcony rail then climb down the rope no one had bothered reeling up. Stripping in the freezing rain was a reminder that human bodies came with all sorts of disadvantages. Like the pain as ice-sheathed grass blades jabbed into my bare arches. Like the urgency with which my tightened throat warned I needed to tell Honor what I’d smelled back in that ceremonial room.
I shouldn’t risk it though. She’d demand we continue our search of the mansion when what we needed to do was hightail it before the O’Connell clan put patrols back into place.
And yet, our run together in wolf form had made us partners in a way that turned secrets foul. Words tumbled out from between my lips before I could stop them. “I smelled him. One of my attackers from the race track.”
Honor had been stuffing her clothes into her backpack in preparation for shifting, but now she spun to face me. “Here?”
“Inside where everyone was singing. But we can’t go in now. We have to...”
Just as I’d suspected she would, Honor acted without thought of personal preservation. She was already moving back toward the mansion, buck naked and not nearly as quiet as we’d been when creeping down off the balcony. Just like my craving for connection had made me speak when I shouldn’t have, her need to save Merry was about to lose this battle and likely also the war.
I could have tried to argue with her. Could have brandished my sword and used force until she returned to her senses.
But either method would risk bringing O’Connell guards running. And the taste of blood that had somehow moved from my sword to my tongue kept me focused on the stark reality.
Jack needed me to save Merry. Jack was currently shackled inside a van guarded by a near stranger.
For Jack’s sake, I took the expedient route. Lunging forward, I touched bare skin at the side of Honor’s neck.
Chapter 22
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t steal any more memories without verbal permission. And even before finding myself in a real body, I’d had rules about this.
Namely: Don’t steal anything too recent or too important. The memory I had to take to get Honor moving in the right direction turned out to be both.
No wonder champagne-like bubbles of pleasure came along for the ride as I sucked what I’d said and what she’d replied out of her and into me. I had to slap my left hand across my mouth to halt erupting giggles.
Honor’s reaction was the reverse. Her knees weakened and one hand rose to cradle her head. “Ow,” she muttered, the first weakness I’d ever seen her admit to.
Her pain twinged something deep inside me, but the bubbles made it hard to think. So I just reminded Honor: “We need to get out of here.”
As I spoke, I filled her backpack the rest of the way up with sodden clothing. My fingers had been frozen before, but now they moved easily as they fastened my sword along the outside of the pack beside hers. Heat pressed out of my cheeks as if I had a furnace raging inside me.
No, not a furnace. A stolen memory. One that turned Honor’s actions unsteady as she tried to wrap her own pelt around her back in preparation for a shift.
She was willing to leave now. She really had forgotten my misplaced admission. But the pelt slid off her damp skin twice in quick succession. The shift wasn’t happening unless I helped.
I reached out to touch her pelt then thought better of the unrequested intimacy. “May I?”
“Of course.” Honor’s words were slurred. “We’re hunt sisters.”
We had been hunt sisters until I stole her free will, feeding myself in the process. And yet the bubbles made me grin as my fingers sank into the warmth of the fur side of her pelt. Honor purred as I wrapped it across her shoulders. “Thanks,” she murmured. Then heat turned to cold on my fingers and a wolf stood where Honor had been.
The beast was steadier on her feet than Honor’s two-legged self. And my own shift was effortless. One momentary slap of cold, then warmth suffused me as thick fur sprouted to keep rain off my skin.
Still heady with the stolen memory, I found the slick ground easy to manage while leading us away from the mansion. Honor stumbled a time or two, but my shoulder caught her shoulder. With that assistance, she made it out of the O’Connell perimeter without incident and it was well before dawn when we hit less-traveled countryside where we could lower our guard.
Settling into a steady lope, we both knew there was time before the hour when we’d agreed Honor’s cousin would put Emergency Plan C into action. So my stomach shouldn’t have felt like someone had punched me. I shouldn’t have jumped at every distant car honk or owl hoot.
I did anyway. Something was wrong. Perhaps it was just the memory I’d stolen when I shouldn’t have. Or maybe I was reacting to the way my body sidled up close to Honor’s even when she didn’t need assistance, the way craving for another memory made saliva pool in my mouth.
I didn’t steal again, though. And I didn’t think my craving was what was wrong.
So when my car and Honor’s van finally came into sight dark and silent, I wasn’t surprised. Yes, Justice could have been standing just out of sight and Lynette could have been sleeping. But my stomach said problems were about to erupt.
My stomach was right. Tripping over the prone body of Honor’s cousin was mere confirmation of that instinct. Shifting and yanking open the door of my borrowed car to find it empty was almost expected at that point.
Honor had shed her pelt at the same time I did and now she dropped down to crouch beside her cousin. “Alive,” she breathed, the word redolent with relief.
That was good, but I barely listened. Because her cousin was a stranger to me, but Jack and Lynette weren’t strangers. And neither was visible as I jogged a quick loop around the parked vehicles, pelt flung over an otherwise naked shoulder making one small part of me warm.
Then something thudded against the metal wall of the van, something pounding on the inside. My damp fingers tried to freeze themselves onto the back door, but I ignored the pain of damaged skin and yanked the handle harder. The sound meant Jack was still in there. Relief made me so clumsy I stumbled over my own feet hopping up.
Only Jack wasn’t in there. The form handcuffed just where Ambrose had been when we left wasn’t large enough to be either my mate or the evil who had taken over his body. Instead, Lynette burst into tears the moment she set eyes on me.
“I’m so sorry! He threatened to kill Justice so I gave him Jack’s pelt!”
I listened to Lynette’s explanation with half an ear while wrapping myself back up in my pelt and falling down onto four paws. The cold of my moment in the spirit realm struck me harder this time, clinging to my bones even after I emerged in fur. It made me hungry. Made me yearn for another sip at Honor’s memories…
As if she could hear my greed, Honor glanced in my direction with eyes narrowed. I turned away, shaking off the frigidity inside me and hunting for any hint of rot or lemon, any sign that might tell me where Ambrose had gone.
Unfortunately, ice had covered up his scent trail just as it covered up any kindness I’d previously aimed toward Lynette. Because even though her explanation made sense, it wasn’t enough. I’d kept Jack safe for weeks and she’d lost him in a single night?
“Justice went in the van to check on the prisoner,” Lynette was explaining, her words carrying out of the vehicle toward me. “I heard a scuffle, then Ambrose called my name. I didn’t go in, just to the door—I was careful! But Ambrose had one of his chains around Justice’s throat. He was choking him...”
The words seemed to choke Lynette now. And based on her story, she wasn’t the one at fault. Justice had slipped up, walking too close to evil and allowing himself to be captured by the very restraints we’d used to keep Ambrose captive. As best I could gather from the sobbing completion of Lynette’s story, the teenager had handed over Jack’s pelt to save Justice’s life.
“An understandable trade.” Honor’s voice was gentle. The clanking of chains suggested she was currently freeing Lynette from where the girl had been bound in Ambrose’s place. “I’m guessing Ambrose used Jack’s pelt to shift free of the handcuffs?”
Lynette probably nodded. I couldn’t see from outside as I continued sniffing circles around the parked vehicles. My efforts were pointless; I knew that already. Still, I kept hunting, even knowing that Ambrose’s head start, based on Lynette’s story, was in the magnitude of hours.
“What happened to Justice after that?” Honor prodded when Lynette seemed inclined to veer away from helpful information and into self-recrimination.
“Ambrose took Justice’s pelt...”
“Shit!” A thud as Honor leapt from the van to the ground and rushed back toward her cousin. I was already there, smelling the comatose woelfin beneath the coat Honor had draped around his torso. Justice was breathing normally, but his eyes hadn’t opened and he stank of the same sort of bone-crushing agony I’d felt weeks earlier when Ambrose had used my pelt against me.
“Ambrose twisted the pelt a lot then Justice collapsed,” Lynette explained. She wasn’t bound any longer, but she didn’t come up to stand directly beside us. Just lingered beside the van rubbing her wrists as she added: “I tried to run but Ambrose grabbed my hair and locked me up...”
Honor cut to the heart of the matter yet again. “He took Justice’s pelt when he left?”
Lynette nodded, the dark seeming to press in on her. And I should have found that pitiful. Should have reminded myself that Lynette was only sixteen years old and had a past that would have traumatized a much older woman. That I was the responsible adult who’d made the mistake of putting Jack’s pelt into a child’s hands. That anyone might have instigated the same series of events if the alternative was watching someone be choked to death.
Jack would have found forgiveness easy. I didn’t. The bubbles I’d stolen from Honor seemed to have lodged in my heart, blocking human emotions. All that mattered was Jack. And Jack was gone, taken over by Ambrose then released from his shackles by Lynette’s stupidity.
When I shifted, I ignored the teenager and spoke only to Honor. “Ambrose left no scent trail.”
“No scent trail.” Her eyes narrowed again, then she grabbed my bare shoulder and yanked me in closer. “Scent. You took a memory from me back at the mansion, didn’t you?”
Chapter 23
No one had ever figured out my thefts before. Surprise made me admit the truth. “Yes. Back at the mansion, I smelled the shifter who tried to steal my pelt in November. Black pepper and tangerine. I told you and you were about to break our cover.”
“So you stole a memory.”
If I’d thought the bubbles in my heart turned me cold, Honor’s voice proved that coldness was actually a human condition. Her amber eyes sparked ice as she glared at me. And I’m not sure what would have happened next if a howl hadn’t curled up toward the lightening sky in the direction from which we’d come.
It was almost dawn and we couldn’t be caught here. It was equally clear we couldn’t retrace our footsteps.
Just as it was clear Honor and I weren’t pack any longer. Fury turned her speech overly precise. “Please help me lift Justice.”
We nearly dropped him on the way to the van, our bodies once again working at cross purposes. Whatever alignment we’d achieved during our shared hunt was swept away by the memory I’d stolen.
My theft had been exactly the wrong move. I knew that now. Knew that the time it would have taken to talk Honor out of rushing back into the mansion would have been a better risk than seizing control and dealing with the repercussions. Knew that someone with an inborn moral compass never would have fallen into the trap I’d fallen into.
