Wolfs curse, p.12
Wolf's Curse, page 12
I only realized I’d drifted off when I woke to the sun shining in my eyes, leaves mounded up over my legs and torso to hold in warmth. Drake’s phone was in my hand, smelling very faintly of lemon. When I lifted it to my eyes, I found one paused video waiting to be played.
“You can trust Jack,” Drake rasped as he paced within the same kitchen where I’d descended the stairs yesterday to find the kids playing with a hacky sack. It was night in the video, though. Not the night I’d just slept through, I guessed, but the one before.
Now that I knew why Drake’s voice was so rough, I couldn’t decide whether I hated or loved this evidence of his past as he continued. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
So Jack hadn’t lied. The warmth from the leaves sank deeper into my belly. Became the warmth of partnership, of family, of mates.
My brother-to-be had, however, managed to lull us both to sleep, which meant we’d missed the best window of opportunity to catch Kami. She might still be holed up wherever she went at night though. The sooner we set out, the less likely we’d end up chasing her over the side of another building.
“Wake up,” I said, but Jack didn’t answer. I didn’t even hear him breathing, actually, which is when I realized I’d been duped.
Jumping to my feet, I kicked at the pile of leaves. Nothing, nothing, nothing! Ran around the front of the house to unlock and yank open the door of my car.
I’d been so intent upon defusing what I thought was a ghostly possession last night that I’d merely stashed the ruby under the floor mat and locked the car to protect it. The door had still been locked—relocked?—when I grabbed it this morning but the ruby was now missing.
Jack and our route to finding Kami were both gone.
Chapter 24
Tru
The phone Jack had left for me rang as I snuck in the back door of Rosa’s house quietly enough to, I hoped, prevent rousing everyone out of their beds. “So you’re not a snake,” I murmured, accepting the video call and expecting to see the face of the man who looked like Drake but acted so differently. A man who might possibly have a reasonable explanation for stealing the ruby and preventing me from stopping the recent spate of possessions in its tracks.
Only the caller wasn’t Jack. Instead, Drake’s mother raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow as she responded. “A snake? Is this the part where we trade childish insults? I’m afraid I don’t have time to bond with you at the present moment. Put Drake on the line.”
“He’s busy.” Or at least I assumed he was, unless Jack had lied about that also. I didn’t quite manage to prevent a wince.
But Winter failed to notice, or perhaps she didn’t care. Instead, the woman Drake distanced himself from by calling her the big boss simply spat out instructions on the assumption she’d be obeyed. “I’m sending over two videos. The culprits must be punished publicly and whatever is causing this spate of stupidity needs to end. As for you—stop distracting Drake from his duties.”
Despite myself, the story Jack had told me put a snap into my voice I hadn’t intended to indulge in. “Or what? You’ll stand by while he’s strangled again? Perhaps you’ll even help this time?”
I only realized I’d raised my voice when the rustle of moving people drifted down from the second story. I’d woken up the house after all, and for no good reason.
Because Winter hadn’t even bothered to answer. Instead, she’d closed the video chat and texted over two links without further commentary.
I didn’t usually involve myself in Drake’s work, but he was currently busy elsewhere and the person he’d left in charge of his phone and his role had absconded without explanation. Which meant this was up to me to handle.
So I opened the first video, disappointed but not surprised to recognize a familiar figure.
Erik at the circus three nights ago. His actions must have been filmed before we caught him because the teenager was standing naked at the edge of a crowd of milling people. Standing naked…then shifting down into fur.
Even from a distance, I could tell Erik hadn’t been in control of his actions. His eyes had been glassy, his movements jerky. If I’d wondered before whether he’d lied to us, I didn’t wonder any longer. This was clearly possession, clearly Kami’s fault.
Which meant the video might help us find the perpetrator. I tapped around and discovered that the footage had been uploaded to social media the same night it had been taken. But the video hadn’t been noticed until it was reposted this morning by someone called WolfsCurse.
The repost had already racked up thousands of views and shares. The comment thread was varied but someone who sounded knowledgeable had spent an excessive amount of time pointing out reasons this couldn’t be a deepfake. As a result, over half of the viewers seemed to believe the visuals were real.
I shivered, and not from cold. This was exactly what the job of Executioner was meant to prevent. The reveal of werewolves and the subsequent hysteria among the human population.
Much as I disliked the woman, Winter was right. Something had to be done about this lapse.
I was so engrossed in my phone that I hadn’t noticed the mudroom filling up with people. I’d hit play again, searching for clues in the video itself this time, when Lynette’s piercing shriek went off like a fire alarm.
“Whatever’s going on, it doesn’t require screaming.” Rosa’s firm voice had been enough to knock Lynette out of hysterics weeks ago when the girl’s control had slipped and she’d accidentally burned me while passing a salad bowl around the dinner table. It at least silenced the teenager now, if not succeeding at soothing her pain.
Because Erik had already turned to Seth, offering his wrists with fingers spread. “The Executioner warned me this might happen. You still have those handcuffs?”
“You’re not going to punish him!” Lynette flew across the room, pushing between the two werewolves as if they were as harmless as the kitten tangling himself between their feet. “He didn’t do it on purpose. This isn’t his fault.”
“You know fault has nothing to do with it,” I soothed, trying and failing to pull Lynette out of the huddle. Because handcuffs were coming out of Seth’s pocket even as I pointed out the obvious. “We’ll try not to hurt Erik, but we have to deal with this. You’ve lived with Drake long enough to know how it works.”
I started to wrap an arm around the girl’s shoulders but she shoved me away. “Don’t touch me! Where’s Drake?”
“He…stepped out.”
Erik was the one who sniffed the air then frowned. “You’re lying.” The wrists he’d raised in surrender fell back to his sides and now he was shoulder to shoulder with Lynette, his body a barrier between her and the world.
Not that she needed protection. Turning to Seth, Lynette shoved an angry pointer finger into the larger man’s chest. “I told you that wasn’t foreplay in the backyard last night! I told you something was wrong.”
“I did not use the word foreplay.” Seth’s gaze met mine then his eyes fell to the floor as if I was a more dominant wolf…or perhaps a more dominant wolf’s mate? Whatever the reason, he seemed cowed by the entire situation, making no further move to apply the handcuffs dangling from his fingertips.
Which was probably just was well. Because Lynette’s fury boiled over as she returned her attention to me. “You drove Drake away!”
“Maybe it’s a good thing he’s not here.” Erik spoke to Lynette as if the rest of us were absent, their bubble of teen infatuation surrounding them like a shield. “We can figure out this video before he gets back. At least disentangle you from the backlash.”
“No way. We’re leaving.” Lynette grabbed Erik’s larger hand and tugged him away from the rest of us, digging in her pocket as she went for her set of keys to the car the two of us shared.
The key hunt slowed her just enough so I was able to slide between her and the door on fox-fast feet. Then I did my best to defuse the situation verbally. “Lynette, you need to trust us to look out for both you and Erik. You know that no matter what happens between me and Drake, we’ll both always be there for you. You know that…”
“I know that your oath means you have to say that.” Lynette’s feet had paused, but her words only flowed faster and harder. “So how about this? That promise you made to me, I’m changing the rules. You’re not going to ‘be there’ for me.” Her air quotes were vicious. “You’re not going to be anywhere near me. The only way to protect me is to never get close to me ever again!”
And this time when she sidestepped my motionless body and slammed out the door with Erik beside her, I wasn’t able to stop them. Because the compulsion in my belly that had initiated a real relationship with this girl now prevented me from following as she walked out of my life.
Chapter 25
Tru
I tried to tell my feet to rush after the ward I’d grown so close to, but she’d done an admirable job with her oath-twisting. Instinctively, she must have realized what I knew already—oaths for kitsunes were never one-sided. Lynette had accepted my promise last month, had latched onto it deeply and fed it far more power than it boasted originally. And now she’d changed her mind, turning that emboldened oath inside out.
The upshot was, no matter how hard I tried to move in Lynette’s direction, I ended up taking shuffling steps in the opposite direction instead.
Luckily, I wasn’t the only one in the mudroom. Rosa was a sixty-plus woman still recovering from a concussion, so I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t try to prevent the teenagers from leaving. But Seth had no excuse for drawing out his cell phone as if bored by the entire drama.
“What are you doing?” I demanded as the dull roar of my car’s engine sprang to life out front then became quieter and quieter as it rolled away down the street. All the while, I tried to move toward the sound and butted up against an invisible barrier with each effort.
Seth tilted his screen toward me while he answered. “Checking the location-sharing app I asked Erik to install on Lynette’s phone.” Sure enough, a glowing dot on the map took the first right then the next right also as if trying to throw a follower off their trail.
The strumming terror in my gut eased up. Lynette loved her phone, had bedazzled it with fake gemstones and filled it with so many apps I expected the device to be able to cook us all dinner in the very near future. Wherever she went, the phone would go also.
And Erik, it looked like, was willing to protect Lynette in ways both covert and overt. She wasn’t as defenseless as I’d initially feared.
Which didn’t mean I intended to let her wander off on her own, of course. “Good idea,” I said, plotting out a solution as I spoke. “We’ll accidentally stumble across wherever they end up in a few hours and talk Lynette down after she’s cooled off. Rosa, any chance we could borrow your van?”
“Of course.” She tossed me the keys which, when my feet still refused my commands, I passed over to Seth along with a reluctant question:
“Can you handle Lynette alone?”
I hated this. Hated the way my oath bound me away from the girl I cared so much about. But I’d grown to trust Seth over the last couple of days and I’d seen the way Drake depended on him for backup. So when Seth nodded, I didn’t delay him. Just watched him walk out the door to protect my ward.
Which left me alone and unable to help resolve matters. Well, not quite alone. Before I managed to draw in a full breath, Rosa was rounding the counter to draw me into a hug that smelled faintly of lavender. The hug soothed a fraction of my terror for Lynette while also making me aware how on edge I’d become.
“Teenage girls do this,” Rosa promised as she let me go again. “They say things they don’t mean, yank your heart out, then decide the next day you’re their best friend forever. She’s feeling safer in her own skin or she wouldn’t have pushed you away. And that means you’re doing a good job.”
“I hope you’re right.” And there was absolutely nothing I could do about Lynette at this moment. So it was time to put out other fires instead.
Fires like Drake’s mother. Winter wouldn’t put up with being ignored indefinitely, so I’d need to head back to Gate City and try to find the original filmer of that video. If whoever had posted it publicly retracted their sighting, perhaps we could pry Erik’s neck back out of the noose.
“Any chance you have another van lying around I could borrow?”
My question had been intended as a joke, but Rosa’s dark eyes twinkled. “Well, since you ask, Drake did buy you a brand new station wagon.”
“He…what?”
“That man is a catch. If you don’t pin him down soon, I might have to start parading him past my grand nieces.”
“Rosa.” Despite myself, I was smiling now. “What do you mean he bought me a station wagon?”
“Oh, that? He had it delivered three weeks ago then changed his mind and asked me to hold onto it for you. It’s been parked at my nephew’s ever since.”
Three weeks ago was when Drake and I had spoken about the driving test. When I’d shut down his request to purchase a more dependable vehicle for me and Lynette.
He’d already bought the car, but he’d shelved it until I was ready. Despite everything, I was smiling as Rosa dialed up the relevant nephew and arranged a drop-off at her house. I was smiling as I hit play on the second video.
I wasn’t smiling by the end.
India’s hair was a different color, but that wasn’t the biggest difference between the Stray I’d helped evacuate and the woman who stood naked in an apartment that seemed to lack even a single stick of furniture. No, the biggest difference was her voice, higher-pitched than I remembered. Well that plus the way her eyes flitted right to left, right to left, over and over again as if seeking an escape.
Also her behavior, which was nothing like the Stray I’d met.
“This isn’t CGI,” she told the camera. “Soon, I’ll make another post with a time and place so you can come see the show in person. And I don’t mean this show…”
She waved one hand down at her bare breasts while also managing to flinch away from her own overtness. Then she shifted so slowly I could almost feel the grinding of her bones.
Her face contorted as if she was fighting against her own transition, even though that would have made the pain ten times worse. Still, inch by inch, fur overcame her. Inch by inch, her human body turned wolf.
I swallowed down nausea, forcing myself to watch until the bitter end of the video. This one wasn’t a repost but was instead a direct upload by WolfsCurse. And it already had more likes and comments than Erik’s did.
No wonder Winter had been so adamant about the issue needing immediate attention. Whoever WolfsCurse was, they appeared to have a vendetta against werewolves.
I drew out my phone and copied over the number Jack had given me yesterday. Drake might have been too deeply involved in hunting whoever had taken India to answer me, but surely he’d reply to his own twin.
He did. I inhaled for what felt like the first time in over a minute as his raspy voice was funneled out of the speaker and into my ear.
“Jack?”
“No, it’s me.” The relief of hearing Drake’s voice was so profound that I didn’t dive into an explanation immediately. Just clung to the phone as if it was his hand. Breathed in and wished I could smell his signature lemon-meringue pie.
“Well, well, well.” Drake’s voice remained raspy, but it didn’t sound like the man I loved any longer. This was gloating amusement. Malicious pleasure. “Little fox. Perfect timing. Did you see my video?”
“Your video? Who is this?”
“You don’t recognize me? Your own husband?” He laughed that long, rolling laugh I’d last heard at the grave site. I’d thought it was a memory, but it hadn’t been, I now realized. That sound had been the joy of an evil spirit flying free from Ambrose Reed’s dead body, flying free then possessing shifter after shifter with a single goal.
“Ambrose.” His name tasted like blood between my teeth. “You did all this to get at me, didn’t you?”
“The little fox finally figures it out. And now you’ll come back to me willingly.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because this body I’m possessing, it knows all sorts of fun secrets. It knows where every Stray is hiding. Wouldn’t it be amusing to watch each one star in a video that will write their own death warrants? Wouldn’t it be amusing to let Drake’s hands snap their ungrateful necks?”
Drake had become the Executioner, in large part, to protect his Strays. I couldn’t let Ambrose force his body to murder those same innocents.
My voice sounded nearly as raspy as Drake’s when I demanded. “Where are you?”
“How about you use that mate bond you’ve been ignoring to figure it out? I recommend you do so quickly. I bore easily and some of the Strays are very close at hand…”
Chapter 26
Drake
I woke to my name on her lips. “Drake, if you can hear me, I’m coming.”
For one split second, joy suffused me. Then memories from the body I shared with evil slammed into me like my father’s fists.
I couldn’t allow Tru to walk into the trap Ambrose had set for her. “Don’t…”
I managed only a single word before my hands ended the call. Before Ambrose stuffed me back down our shared throat. The ripples of his humor vibrated through both of us. When he spoke, my rasp grated against our shared ears.
“Awake again? Good. I’m bored. India, come here.”
His command slapped the naked woman I hadn’t even realized was present until this moment. She stank of terror but, I was glad to note, of nothing worse. Not yet.
Unfortunately, India didn’t have an alpha bone in her body. She couldn’t fight the compulsion forcing her to sidle toward the horror that was both me and Ambrose. All she could do was move slowly on the theory his interest might peter out before his patience.
