Forbidden (9 page)

He released her throat, but she still couldn't breathe. Because she believed him.

“Clarissa?
Clarissa?
Do you hear me?” The voice changed, became softer, feminine. She gasped for air and sat up in a rush, looking around wildly. She was on a carpeted floor, not rock. The walls around her were painted in pale peach.

A dark-skinned woman had one firm hand on her shoulder. She smelled strongly of owl, and looked … familiar. “Do I know you?”

“Only from your dreams.” The woman's dark eyes grew haunted. “You were back there just now, weren't you? In the cave. You said his name … Justin. I remember him too. We sang songs to each other.”

Claire searched the other woman's face for a long moment. The shape of her jaw, the slope of her nose, the full lips, and yes, a tiny scar at the corner of one eye. The words came out of Claire's mouth in almost reverent tones. “Rachel? Rachel Washington? I thought you were dead!”

Rachel smiled, showing broad, white teeth and Claire knew her. The years fell away and she was suddenly staring at the little girl with beaded braids and a smart-ass attitude in the next cage over. “Pfft! I come from Eight Mile in Detroit, girl. You think a few snakes with glandular problems and a little apocalypse can keep me down?”

“When they took you, I never saw you again. I thought they had taken you to The Room.” Claire needed to stand up, get her legs under her again to shake off the memory of that time and place. Rachel helped her to her feet, then led her over to a plush couch in the corner of the windowless room. “They turned you? Were you in the battle?”

Rachel couldn't look at her. She stared at her own hands, pushing back her cuticles with one manicured, blue-tinted nail. “Yeah. I was turned. Nearly killed when the wolves came. As owls go, I guess great horned isn't too bad 'cause I flew higher than the others and made it to safety. It's better than being a burrowing owl, I guess. No more caves for me!” She chuckled nervously and finally looked at Claire. “But you … look at you, girl! Smelling all wolflike. How did you pull that off?”

It was Claire's turn to shrug. “They took a bunch of us away to a different location—all of us who had been attacked and showed signs of healing, but hadn't turned yet. We were rescued by the Tedford pack and some Wolven agents during the Four Corners battle. I got cut up by one of the birds guarding me and was stitched by a wolf healer who was still bleeding. I guess she thought I was already a shifter so she didn't try to protect me from her blood. Apparently, I was meant to be a wolf because I'd survived four bird attacks without changing, but one dripping doctor and I'm furry.”

“And here we are: Rachel and Clarissa … survivor sorority sisters, trapped in Nowheresville, Washington. Who'da thunk?”

That perked Claire's ears. “I go by Claire now, by the way. You don't like it in Luna Lake?”

“Eh. It's okay, I guess.” Rachel stood and walked to a table across the room where cold drinks and chips had been set up. She fingered the edge of a soda can but didn't pick it up. “I just wish the Equal Opportunity Act applied to Sazi.”

Claire felt her brow crinkle. “What does that mean?”

Rachel opened her mouth to reply just as the door burst open and Marilyn Bearbird raced into the room carrying a large sachel, with the police chief hot on her heels. When she saw Claire sitting on the couch calmly, she turned on her heel to face the chief. “I thought you said she was
dying
. She looks fine to me.”

He held up his hands with a surprised expression. “She fell down the stairs and hit her head. We couldn't wake her up.”

“Was pushed,” Claire corrected.

Marilyn turned back to her while the police chief glared. “Excuse me?”

“I said I was
pushed
down the stairs. I didn't fall. I very distinctly felt a hand between my shoulder blades.”

The healer turned and raised brows at Chief Gabriel. “Is that true? Did someone push a woman who was just in a car accident, who might have a concussion, down a flight of stairs?”

He shrugged and didn't give anything away in his face or scent. “That's not the way I remember it. So, are you going to check her out? She needs to be ready for Ascension at dusk. Rachel, c'mon. Let's get you back in your own
meditation room
.”

Rachel raced across the room, bounced onto the couch, and enveloped Claire in a bear hug. It was so unexpected that they fell backward laughing into the cushions. “It's so good to see you again, girl!” Claire smiled and hugged her back. But while they were disentangling and sitting up, Rachel hissed, fast and harsh, into her ear. “
Don't agree to anything, Claire. Don't trust either of them. Tell them you want a mentor. Ask for Alek. He's not one of them. Remember—Alek Siska.
” The owl shifter pulled away, all smiles, without a hint in her face or scent of the whispered instruction. “See you at dusk. It'll be a great time.”

A uniformed man appeared at the door and swept his hand out for Rachel to precede him. Was she a prisoner? She shrugged off a hand on her shoulder from the cop like it burned.

Marilyn stepped forward and sat down on the couch next to Claire. “Okay, then. Let's get those bandages off and see where that blood is coming from.”

Chief Gabriel stepped toward the door. “Just make sure she's ready for Ascension. Knock when you're ready to come out.”

“Will do, Chief.”

“Chief?” Claire made sure her voice sounded casual and friendly. He turned and cocked his head in response. “We never did get a chance to talk about what's supposed to happen tonight. Could I get someone to walk me through the process? You know … like a coach? A mentor or something?”

Both Marilyn and the chief of police froze in place. Claire could hear Marilyn's heart speed up until it was a counterpoint to her own. Both fear and amusement rose from her pores when she spoke. “Well, you heard the woman. She wants a mentor.”

The chief's eyes narrowed in barely contained fury. “So she said.”

“And I'm not a wolf,” Marilyn continued. “Neither are you.”

“How about Alek Siska?” Claire struggled to keep her voice light and not react to the obvious discomfort around her. “He seemed nice when he was showing me around town earlier.”

Chief Gabriel ground his teeth and clutched the doorknob until his knuckles were white. “I'll see if he's
available
. In the meantime, I need you to look at one of the prisoners, Marilyn. Let's leave Ms. Sanchez to get some rest.”

Marilyn looked up, astonishment clear on her face. “She's
bleeding,
Lenny. Let me at least get her bandaged up again.”

“
Now,
Marilyn. There'll be time for bandaging later.
After
the challenge.”

So. She'd struck a nerve, hard enough to have a Wolven officer let her bleed.

Don't trust either of them.
At this point, Rachel's ominous words sounded like great advice.

 

CHAPTER 8

Alek slammed a fist down on the table, making the computer monitor nearly topple over. He caught it in time, but felt like throwing it against the wall. He couldn't read the letter from Siberia. It was in some sort of alphabet that he couldn't identify. He'd been searching for hours, using Fred's computer in the back room of the post office and still wasn't any closer to deciphering it. It wasn't Cyrillic or Greek or any other alphabet he could find, including Sanskrit. He knew the pack leader there was old. Could he be using a dead language with no known key?

He picked up the photograph that he'd found in the file folder, of a raven-haired teenager standing in what looked like a tavern. She was wearing a plain, black, knee-length dress and a white apron, with her hair pulled back severely from a heart-shaped face. She had an uncomfortable expression in the photo, as though having a picture taken was something to be worried about. Could it be Sonya? He just couldn't tell. She'd been so young the last time Alek had seen her, just six. The face was similar, but she didn't look like his mother and he didn't know the women in his father's family well enough to tell. He couldn't even tell for sure whether it was a current photograph. From the dress she was wearing, it could have been taken yesterday or fifty years ago. If he could hear her voice, he would know. Even as a child, she had a unique voice—a contralto, deep and sultry. He'd always imagined she would become a singer in some famous opera in Italy when she grew up.

“Any luck, Fred?” He called out to the front, hoping the postmaster had been able to find out more about the package through official channels.

“Nope,” the older man called back. “I even got ahold of a buddy of mine who knew someone from Russia. I sent him a scan of a few of the words but he's never seen anything like it. You might check with your old pack. Maybe the Duchess knows something about it. Or maybe the university in Spokane has a linguist who would recognize it.”

The Duchess. Alek had nearly forgotten about the elegant white-haired seer, the Alpha female of the Chicago pack. She was old Russian, somehow connected to the former royal family, back when there was a czar. It wouldn't be easy to reach the pack. Nikoli was fanatical about security since snakes had managed to attack the hotel that was their headquarters. He moved the remaining pack members with regularity, never staying too long in one place.

Alek might not love life in Luna Lake, but it was better than forever running from an enemy you couldn't see and wouldn't know was coming. The enemy was within—their own family members who were human. It was like running from your own shadow. There was no way to escape.

He shut down the computer and slid the letter and photo back into the envelope just as Fred called, “Alek? Lenny's here to see you.”

Crap! He'd forgotten all about Claire. She was probably wondering where on earth he was. The search for the alphabet would have to wait.

He opened the frosted-glass door and was startled by the furious expression on Lenny's face. But he didn't smell angry, which must mean he was using the special Wolven cologne that masked his scent. That meant he was beyond angry but didn't want to make the townspeople hide in trees, desperately trying to escape a pissed-off cougar. Most people didn't even know the cologne existed. He had found it by accident one day when cleaning out Lenny's car. It was a clear liquid with no scent, none at all, in a glass container. He'd notified Lenny in case it was an explosive he'd never seen before. Alek had a sneaking suspicion that Lenny wasn't supposed to have told him about it, so he didn't comment on Lenny's lack of scent. “What's up, Chief?” It seemed a good idea to be more formal right now.

“Our new resident seems to be a bit of a jailhouse lawyer. She's made a formal demand, before a witness, for a mentor for the Ascension.” Each word was spit with careful precision … letter of the law wording so there would be no questions later. “You're who she's picked.” He turned on his heel, apparently expecting Alek to follow. He stopped with his hand on the knob. “
Don't
screw it up.”

Alek felt his eyes widen. A
mentor
? He couldn't remember the last time someone had requested a formal advocate in an Ascension challenge. Sure, it was written into the original town charter, but nobody actually requested it. It was tantamount to telling the whole town that the challenge was a fraud. Usually the mentor was a senior town member. He'd never heard of anyone short of the Alpha or Second being named.

Don't screw it up.
There was an understatement if he'd ever heard one. Wait. Had Lenny said “our new resident”? Why on earth would Claire be part of an Ascension? She'd only been in the town for a day and had come from a place where she'd probably never even heard of the games. Who would challenge her, and why?

The brass bell tinkled and he realized that Lenny was already outside and looking back at him. “You coming, Siska? There's only three hours left. It took me forever to find your ass.”

Alek didn't say a word, just followed at the chief's blistering pace. There was something deeper going on here and he had no intention of stepping into a bottomless pit of shit by mouthing off without knowing what was happening. But the truth was they'd known he was going to the post office … had insisted, in fact, that he go. One phone call or a saunter down the street and Fred would have told them he was still there.

It only took a few minutes at a nearly dead run before they reached the police station. Ray was at his desk, with a tense but sympathetic expression on his face, as Alek walked through. He had practically reached the door when Lenny said, “You have one hour for spoken instruction in human form and one hour in either form in the forest. You must be back at the meeting hall no later than five o'clock or she forfeits. Do you understand? Do you have any questions?”

“Yeah, tons. But I guess my primary concern is that I've never been a mentor. Are there guidelines or do I just play it by ear?”

“She's a wolf. You're a wolf. It's a tracking challenge. Same course as normal. The guidelines are about how to appoint a mentor, not what to do when you are one. Okay?”

“Okay.” The word probably sounded a little forced, because it was. Hopefully, it would just sound like uncertainty. But it
wasn't
okay. Lenny had just told a bald-faced lie. There absolutely were guidelines for mentor conduct. He'd seen them. Was this a test to see if he'd been studying, or a trap to catch him in some sort of violation? He just didn't know. The first thing he knew he had to do was to get Claire out of here to a location where there were fewer prying ears.

He descended the stairs two at a time, checking his watch and matching it to the clock on the wall. They actually didn't have the full three hours required to be given for mentoring. Another lie. What the hell was going on?