Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan (25 page)

And even though Rifter alerted Harm immediately after they’d discovered the massacre, Harm still refused to come back. Whether the guilt of what had happened was too much for him or whether it was pure relief that he had no responsibility of kingship, Rifter was never sure.

None of them ever understood why the Elders didn’t enforce any rules on Harm, and they’d been smart enough not to question their ultimate authority. Not to their faces, anyway.

What would happen to them had been unknown. They were supposed to come back from the Running and be mated. Raise families. Live until they were one hundred.

At the time, it had felt like forever.

If they’d only known, Rifter thought wryly. If they’d only fucking known.

From that moment on, Rifter traded one family for another. They mourned. Planned. Ran with the full moon, that celebration more like a funeral, but their wolves necessitated the change.

And still, the Elders hadn’t come to them. Not at that time anyway, and the young wolves mourned for their families. It wasn’t so much that there was love lost. No, it was different with the Dires. Bred for battle, not hearth and home, the pack was more hierarchy than hugs. And although they’d all mourned the loss of their packs, it was more about loyalty and vengeance than love.

It took the Elders four months to pull the remaining Dires to a meeting, and they told them then in no uncertain terms what the Dires already knew—they’d been the ones to smite the pack.

“We were cold and starved, waiting for a death that never came,” Rifter now told Gwen, who had been listening intently. She continued to as he told her how they’d mourned and hovered at death’s door for what seemed like forever. “We had to repent. We’ve been doing that for thousands of years, but it’s not doing any good at all.”

No, they were forced to wander nomadically, dragging their fortune and spoils behind them like the albatrosses they were.

“We’ve lived everywhere. Done and seen everything.” Rifter sat back and looked at his brothers one by one, their faces shadowed by the low light in the room and the lack of any from outside, despite the nearly noon hour.

They’d combed the earth, searching for more like them. They were sure they couldn’t have been the only Dires out on their Running when the Extinction occurred.

Finding Stray had confirmed that, but he’d claimed he’d never met another Dire since the Extinction.

“I can’t imagine.” Gwen’s eyes shone softly—a simple
show of emotion from a woman who’d thought she’d lost everyone related to her as well. With that story alone, she relaxed, but she didn’t stop questioning. “I’m well past twenty-one, so when will I… um…”

“Shift,” Jinx offered. “Normally, I’d say blue moon, but with all this paranormal activity, it’s going to happen sooner than three weeks’ time. You already said her wolf is coming out, right?”

She turned to Rifter as well. “How do you know? And what’s the blue moon?”

“Blue moon’s rare—happens once every few years, and it’s the second full moon this month. And I know your wolf’s coming because I’ve seen the bruising on your back—it’s going to turn into something like my wolf.”

Gwen asked, “Is that what’s aching?”

“Yes—it’s like a bad burn for the week before it emerges,” Rifter said.

She’d thought maybe her back had some light burns from the explosion, but when she’d looked in the mirror, she’d seen only the bruising. It was the oddest feeling, like something was under her skin.

Now she knew that something was. But as long as they were on the topic of burning… “What’s the significance of the fires? I mean, my mom, my aunt and uncle and then my house…”

“It’s how they used to kill witches. They burned them. Sometimes they burned Weres too. But typically, Weres didn’t get caught. Witches started retaliating on the Weres who refused to help by giving them the same treatment,” Rifter told her.

“Revenge,” she said softly. “The witches killed my mother?”

“I think it was someone who wanted you to believe it was the witches,” Rifter said. “Most likely the
weretrappers, before they dragged the witches to their side.”

“So those men at my house tonight—they were witches and weretrappers?”

“They were full human,” Rifter confirmed. “The only witch who’s been in recent contact with you is Cordelia.”

She blanched. “How long had she been watching me?”

A look passed among the Dires, and she knew they were still holding back. She waited a long moment until Rifter finally admitted, “At least six months.”

“How can you be sure?”

“They started following you again in earnest just before Rogue and I were captured,” Rifter admitted.

“I didn’t know you were captured as well,” she said, and he nodded. “How did they know before all of you did? About me, I mean?”

Again, the men gave each other sideways glances, remained silent for a long moment. Vice muttered, “Fuck,” and Jinx pushed away from the table and stared at the dark sky. She started to wonder if there would ever be daylight again, or if this Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole thing was simply going to continue for the rest of her life.

Which was still pretty damned precarious.

“Please,” she said. “I can handle whatever you need to tell me. But if I don’t know everything about my own life, that makes me vulnerable.”

Rifter glanced at her, his face a tight mask of pain. “I hate that they’re after you.”

“Earlier, you said they were after me
again
. Which means they’ve known about me for a long time.”

“You were well hidden with your mom for ten years, and with your aunt and uncle for much longer. You became vulnerable, but the witches thought you were sick too—they were pretty sure you wouldn’t make it through the shift. And now there are people who want to hurt
you because of what you are. To use you. Some Weres are turning their own kind in for profit.” Rifter was incensed. She couldn’t blame him, but humans had been turning against one another since the beginning of time. Why should wolves be any different?

But obviously they were.

“You said Weres. So why is Harm chained up if he’s a Dire, like you?”

Rifter shook his head. “Not now, little one. You’ve got too much to process already.”

“Yeah, see, that might work on your wolf groupies,” she started, and he looked a little too pleased at that. “Tell me what Harm did. Because I heard him tell you that you should’ve let me die.”

The anger flashed hard and fast in his eyes again, but then he smoothed it away with a control that astounded her.

Gotta get me some of that.

“He’s saying it for your own good, even though every fiber of my being protests agreeing with him… for many reasons.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“We don’t know if you will be fully like us. Immortal.”

“As in, living forever? So I’ve gone from immediate death to immortality?”

Something flickered across his face. “We don’t know anything yet—about your shift… what could happen.”

“Liam’s a Were. You’re Dires. What’s the difference, besides the wolf on the back?”

Jinx spoke first. “Transitioning to a Were is easier on the body. You’ve got to be strong to survive a Dire shift, especially the first three shifts. And with you having human DNA…”

“Plus, I’m weak from the years of meds.”

“They affect a wolf’s metabolism differently.”

“
It explains so much, but I still have so many questions,” she murmured, more to herself than to them. “I’m a Dire who might not survive. And even if I do, I might not be immortal.”

When she said it, Rifter’s heart twisted, and he turned away before she could settle her gaze on him.

S
eb ran now, through the woods in the driving rain he’d had a hand in creating, having shifted into a small coyote, like the Native American shamans had taught him. He’d done this with the Dires too many times to count, loved the freedom of the change, the lightness of his body.

These days, there was nothing light at all. Worst of all, he wished Rifter had let him die during the witch trials in the 1600s. Seb had been alone on the platform, with the rough wood planks under his bare feet, heavy twined rope twisting around his neck—already tight enough to make him dizzy.

That noose was much like the invisible one he wore now.

Then the crowd surrounded him, their venomous hate enough to make him weak. And the young wolf that broke through the humans, the only one brave enough to save him, and all because Seb had saved a local child. He’d used natural herbs, not magic, but they’d tried to kill him anyway for his witchery ways.

He hadn’t hated them, because of their ignorance. But now a hatred burned through him, stronger every day. He paused to stare to the heavens. The sky was hidden
by bands of treacherous rain meant to intimidate and harm. The air smelled like sulfur and fear, the moon a ticking time bomb.

Tonight, Seb would make sure the moon was full of voodoo pasted on an inky sky.

Rifter would know the weather wasn’t natural—his dreams had been interfering with Seb’s work for months now.

And unnatural things should never be raised. The dead should be left dead. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago—he thought his family had too. But once they’d given themselves over to the dark side, it was too late for them to come back.

Being good was just as difficult as being evil, maybe more so. Now he’d been on both sides of the coin.

It had all started before he met Rifter. Seb could still remember the screams in the middle of the night emanating from his parents’ house. He and Cordelia both lived close on the property in their own houses, and although he and his sister had never been close, they’d both been committed to the close-knit coven they lived near.

Except Cordelia had married a mortal and had a child with him—had done so against all the advice from her family and coven, because, although they were white witches and hence immortal, her husband and child would not share that same gift. It was handed down only through immediate family members and only if she married another white witch blessed in the same fashion.

When her husband and daughter were killed when the river they were crossing on horseback flooded, there was no consoling her.

“I have to bring them back,” she’d said, her eyes wide. Seb had known it was far more than the grief talking and had prayed that after a few days, when the initial shock
wore off, she would reconsider. That his parents would stop her.

But nothing could.

“I can’t watch her like this,” his mother had whispered to him.

“You’ve got to stop her,” Seb had told her. But his parents caved as weeks passed and Cordelia begged for their help.

Seb left home the night they conjured the spell to raise her dead. Retained his white-witch status and the immortality that came with it. He became very powerful in his own right. Much more than his coven could hope to attain on their own, even with the demons’ help Cordelia called upon. Good conquered evil then. But not forever.

Seb’s magic was elemental. Spiritual. Natural and practical. He was strong because of his goodness, not in spite of it. There was no way out of what he was forced to do. The spell Cordelia had rendered was too powerful, the punishment too severe. He couldn’t use his white magic to protect him—he had to fight with some dark magic, and a part of him began to turn dark and ugly as those powers grew.

Necromancy in and of itself wasn’t evil—no, many psychics and seers regularly called on the spirits for divination. But the dark arts raised the dead in order to use them for their own purposes, to control them and force them to carry out wicked deeds.

When Seb cast the first spell for the selfish purposes of the weretrappers, the goodness he’d been cloaked in from birth began to slowly dissipate. He felt it leave his body in increments, like wings of an angel brushing against him. By the time this was all said and done, his soul would be as black as night, like his sister’s.

Cordelia’s husband and daughter tried to kill her when they returned from the dead. Although they looked
like her family, they were shells. Unnatural things that
did
unnatural things. She ended up having to banish them to hell.

She’d been haunted by it for the rest of her days, hence her haggard appearance.

He shook that off and finished his run, his mind still full of dark visions. When he walked inside his room at the top of the tower they’d chosen to lock him in most of the time like some fucking twisted fairy tale, Mars was there. The invasion of privacy rankled him, but since his entire coven was always at risk, he bit back a sharp rebuke and reminded himself of his plan to extricate from the weretrappers.

In time, they would all be free. But for now…

“The Weres you sent to the Dire house are dead,” he told Mars. Most practicing witches of some caliber had animals who helped and protected them when casting spells, and Seb was no exception. Earlier his familiar raven had reported to him by flying in and perching on the top of the mantel. Some of the outlaw Weres had already been spelled by Cordelia, a special army of nearly uncontrollable wolves whose main job was to keep the Dires busy.

“Are you sure? They were strong.”

“Mars, in all these years, you haven’t learned? Dires are never going to let you go through with your plan without a great toll on all of us,” Seb said.

“When we have Gwen, they’ll have no choice. But you’re really screwing this up. The spell to raise the dead didn’t take,” Mars said.

“The sky is still under my control. They dead are very strong—they’ll resist.” Seb shook the water off himself and grabbed for a towel. Living among wolves for hundreds of years made his more primal instincts emerge, but Mars was human, and those sensibilities didn’t mesh well.

“
Rogue is resisting as well,” Mars told him, and Seb fought the urge to backhand the shit out of the little man. It made Seb physically ill every night to recast that particular binding spell.

A deal with the devil was no deal at all—Seb had learned that the hard way. No, he’d known that going in, but still. Seb hated performing necromancy—it was as if Cordelia made sure he got a taste of the hell he was unable to stop her from doing.