Lunar Marked (Sky Brooks Series Book 4) (34 page)

Sebastian’s hand laid over my front legs, firmer this time, and I felt the tinges of the change. My body elongating and reforming, heart that stopping just for a moment, the tension on my ligaments stretching to the limit only to rebound and reconfigure as I molded back into human form. But all that didn’t matter because my back and chest were on fire, like someone had dropped acid on me. The pain ripped at me, and I felt like I was physically being flipped inside out. I screamed at the top of my lungs, but still that didn’t relieve the agony and then I was whole—human—but the pain compounded. I couldn’t see anything; my eyes were nearly swollen shut. I ran my fingers over my stomach, this was more than just blood. I felt something that didn’t feel like skin but all the things that skin covered. I am sure my back looked a lot like my front where a claw had dug in and dragged across it. Each breath hurt so badly that I was forced to take small, shallow ones.

“Close your eyes, Skylar.” I was trying so hard to force them open. Ethan held my hand. I think it was Ethan, it felt like his touch, but something was off. It was missing his emotions. He was forcing himself into an odd calm just to hold my hand. Unlike the turbulent intensity of who he was, this felt like the touch of a stranger.

I tried to sit up. The pain cut through me like a knife and I dropped back on the bed. “Don’t,” Dr. Jeremy advised, and then seconds later I felt a sharp prick in my arm and a haze overtook me, followed within seconds by darkness.

W
hen I awoke
, I felt odd. My body was so used to a high amount of pain that it felt strange not to feel it.

“Slowly,” Steven instructed, moving from the chair next to me to help me. There were so many bandages on me, I felt like I should have been in a horror flick as an old-school mummy. I started to pull off the ones on my stomach when Steven’s hand covered mine to stop me.

“Don’t look at it yet,” he ordered, his appearance dull against the vibrant green eyes that where wide and lively looking despite the bags under them.

“When is the last time you’ve slept?” I asked.

“I’ve been here two days since Dr. Jeremy sedated you.”

“Then why do I still have injuries?” That was one of the perks of being a were-animal, we take a licking and keep on ticking, and if we don’t it’s just a day or so and we’re back to it.
Okay, maybe bullets left us a little more damaged, but all I have are claw and bite injuries.

“They’re healed, but he wants to make sure you don’t have scars. The scars were pretty bad yesterday.”

When I picked at the edges of the bandages on my abdomen, he grabbed my hand.

“I just need a quick glance.”

“No you don’t.”

“If I can tolerate looking at your sword wound and Sebastian’s bullet wound, and the damage done to Winter last year, I am sure I can handle it.”

“Fine.
I
can’t handle seeing them again. Please don’t take the bandages off.” His gentle eyes entreated, and I couldn’t help but obey.

I didn’t touch the bandages. It wasn’t until Steven sat back in his chair that I noticed that Samuel was leaning against the wall.

“Hi,” he said. “How’s your leg?”

Good question.
I scooted to the edge of the mattress and then slowly moved to my feet. They seemed relieved when I bore my own weight. Samuel looked like he had seen better days—his hand was bandaged, there was a small scratch on his cheek, and he had a cane resting next to him.

“Is he dead?” Everyone knew exactly who I meant. Ethos.

“No,” Josh said while walking in. He didn’t look as bad as Samuel. He had just a bandage on his hand but he’d obviously had a battle that didn’t go his way. “He was gone by the time we got there, but we have the protected objects.”

“Even the Aufero?”

Josh grinned. “Especially the Aufero. Marcia didn’t give it up without a fight.”

A fight,
he must have really won and be very happy about it.
“Is she …”

“I wish.”

Based on the grimace on Samuel’s face he seemed to share the same sentiments.

“What about Anderson?” I was sure he was dead, along with the were-animals that were with him.

Steven made a noise.

“What?”

“After Ethan saw what they did to you—” He stopped and made a face. Steven had a high tolerance for violence so it had to be pretty bad. “Marcia and one other witch got away; the others weren’t so lucky.”

I couldn’t say I was unhappy about it, but we were responsible for killing two members of the Creed—how would that play out? After being on so many ends of the political spectrum of the politics of the otherworld, I was aware that things like that had consequences. Things always had consequences.

I hesitated, thinking about the building crumbling next to me and my cousin in there unconscious and unable to protect herself. “What about Senna, is she okay?”

“She’s upstairs, and I doubt she wants to see you any more than us. She locked herself in the room and is doing a great impression of an overwrought teenager,” Josh said.

“Well she’s not much older than one,” I reminded them. “Why haven’t you all taken her home?”

“We need to keep her safe until we find Ethos, if not, he’s going to try to get to her again.” Josh’s wry smile showed he was sympathetic to what she was going through. She was probably scared after being taken from her home, and the were-animals weren’t known for their hospitality.

“Ethan, Gavin, Sebastian, and Winter are cleaning up the situation with the Ares,” Steven said, his voice tense as he sagged back into the chair. “Ethan and Sebastian don’t want any more packs in the area. They helped with all the attacks, and Ethan and Sebastian think that Ethos wouldn’t have gotten this far if it weren’t for Anderson and his pack’s help. They are now without their highest-ranking members, and Sebastian wants the remainder of them to disband.”

Marcia didn’t have the Aufero, nor did Ethos; I’m sure her alliance with him would soon be severed. All the protected objects were now in our possession, but I was sure the Clostra would not be for long. As before, Samuel would be given one. I doubted his assistance wasn’t contingent on it. His motives were ruled by his doctrine and delusions of a magicless world. We weren’t going to change his path or beliefs any more than he was going to change ours.

D
r. Jeremy wouldn’t release
me until my scars were totally gone. Then he came at me with the dreaded jar of hellfire. Of course, he called it by another name, but cream of hellfire seemed apropos. He had used it the day before, and it was like acid on my skin. Having the scars didn’t seem so important. Scars built character.

He sat next to me to remove my bandages. Part of me thought they were to keep me from seeing how bad the scars they were. But the bandage on my face looked worse to me than any scar. He took the one off my face first and studied me for a while. “I thought you were going to lose the eye,” he admitted, “but everything looks good.”

“Because you’re the best.” I gave the preemptive compliment. We often made a point of blandishing him with them or he would go into his soliloquy about being unappreciated. And he wasn’t entirely incorrect. We had gotten used to him and probably took him for granted. If Dr. Jeremy couldn’t fix you, no one could. When I suggested he hold off on putting the cream on my back, which for some reason hurt worse there than on my face, he simply said, “If I don’t do it, you won’t be able to wear those bright pink tank tops with the cat on it that you’re so fond of.” He turned me around. “You do realize you’re a wolf, right?”

I was willing to give my Hello Kitty t-shirts up if it meant never feeling the sting again and told Jeremy the same thing.

“You say that now, but I know better,” he said as he shushed me.

After ten minutes of excruciating pain, I was re-bandaged and still feeling the dull sting of the medicine that remained on me.

Ethan laughed as he walked through the door. “Some of the things you yelled out aren’t even curses. Are we making up languages now?” I had taken a page from Sable, and it kind of felt good. It was a mixed bag of whatever words came to me. So what if
crap-snacks
wasn’t a real word, it made me feel better.

“Let me put it on you and see how you like it.”

He scooped some into his hand and spread it over his forearm. His jaw clenched tight as he as he rubbed it into his skin, but he didn’t make a sound and let out slow easy breaths, accepting the pain as part of him as the skin started to bubble a little and then melt way to reveal a smoother layer underneath.

“It does hurt,” he acknowledged.

“Really? My screaming wasn’t a good enough warning? You had to see for yourself.”

“You’ll be fine,” he teased, before kissing me lightly on the lips. Dr. Jeremy was the only person in the room, but it was the first time he’d done anything like that. PDA wasn’t Ethan’s thing. He remained close, his lips brushing against my cheek as he spoke. “How are you?”

“I feel better than I look.”

He nodded and his lips kinked into a half smile. He was still off, and I hated him like this. I didn’t always like being inundated by his emotions; but they were him, tightly held to his very being. Without them, it wasn’t Ethan.

“We should remove the magic again,” I suggested, moving back so I could look at his face.

“I plan to, but I want Josh to do it.”

I nodded. It wasn’t a slight against me. I found out about Ethan being a dark elf before Josh and it was a source an animosity between them.

“Do you plan on telling him about the Veritas?”

I tried to read the stolid look but as usual I couldn’t, and the only thing he offered was a noncommittal “We’ll see.”

“I stand by what I said. Either you tell him or—”

His finger pressed against my lip, cutting me off. “You know how I feel about threats,” he warned.

I bit his finger—hard. Enough to draw blood. He pulled back and brought it to his lips trying to stop the bleeding.

“You know how I feel about people doing that to me.” I held back the grin as Ethan scowled. “I understand why some things need to be kept secret, but there shouldn’t be any between Josh and you.” The one he was keeping from Josh was the only secret we had. They had opened the closet and spilled everything else just to bring down Marcia.

“I’ll think about,” he said, before he backed out of the room and left.

He could have just said no, because the amount of time he was there was about as much consideration as he planned to give it.

D
r. Jeremy had moved back
to his desk in the corner, looking over papers while scanning his computer. His frowned deepened.

“Did the man say anything else besides Kelly’s name?”.

He actually didn’t say Kelly’s name, either, but I had a feeling he needed that to be the case. “No. Did you find something?” I looked over his shoulder. Most of the pages consisted of lab work and photos and comparisons of the differences between a born were-animal, a turned were-animal, and the manimal that died in David’s home. Steven was the only turned were-animal that I knew of, but there could be more, it just wasn’t discussed. Changing a person to a were-animal didn’t happen often and was usually a final option in trying to save them.

Leaning back in the chair, he scrubbed his hands over his beard before he said, “I hope she isn’t going through what he went through.” His face was solemn and his voice laden with sorrow and guilt. The sorrow I understood, but not the guilt.

“This isn’t your fault, you know that, right?”

“Then whose is it?” Pain reigned over his features, his words tinted with a heartbreaking sadness. His guilt was woven from fraternal love that he had for Kelly. In his mind he was supposed to protect her, and no matter how little control he had over a situation he would find a way to make it his fault that ’he didn’t.

“You’re positive Liam wasn’t involved with it?” I hated referring to the manimal as
it
or even
manimal
but I didn’t have a much of a choice.

“No, there isn’t any magic present. He was injected with a virus, look at this.” Dr. Jeremy went on to explain in the only way he knew how, unnecessarily complicated. In essence he was injected with a virus that replicated all the enhancements of the were-animal, but a binder forced the body not to change. It was definitely science. Someone was creating animals, strong, with enhanced hearing, vision, and speed but in human form.

“So it has to be in a lab or something.”

He nodded. “Winter said you saw something like that a few days ago. Where?” He brought up a map. I pointed to a spot close to Kelly’s home. He marked it, Kelly’s home, and then David’s.

“I bet you the lab or wherever it is being done is near David’s home,” said Sebastian’s satin baritone voice. I jerked in his direction, surprised by his presence.

We are going to have to discuss the bell thing. Everyone needs to wear one.

He moved in closer, frowning as he looked at the map. “If she sent him to get help, she would have sent him to the closest pack member’s home near where she is,” he suggested.

As Sebastian continued to look at the map, he said, “Gavin has been looking for homes, but we should be looking for buildings as well. We’ll send a team to look for her. I’ll call Joan and ask if she can send some people up to help. She has great hunters and investigators.” He took out his phone, then made a face. “We need to get in touch with Chris, too.”

“I think she should stay lost,” I blurted before I could tame my renegade tongue.

“Any other time I would have to agree, but things like this are her specialty. She will know something about it.”

“Are you sure she is actually missing?”

She seemed to be okay with her new role as Seethe Princess and Demetrius’s mistress or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Although she adamantly denied a sexual relationship with Demetrius, whatever was going on between them was far from platonic. I would never understand the polyamorous relationship he and Michaela had and Chris was deeply entwined in it.

Jeremy’s relief was palatable as Sebastian made a few phone calls, one to the Alpha of the East Coast Pack and one to Joan.

Being around Gavin was one of my least favorite things, but he needed to know what was being worked on. All I had to do was find what corner he had skulked into becoming nearly invisible to anyone who was looking for him.
Here kitty, kitty. I have some information for you
.

N
o matter
how many times I came to the retreat the size of it was always overwhelming. Twelve bedrooms, a multiroom basement with two entrances, two spiral staircases, a huge eat-in kitchen, a formal dining room, living room, sitting room and an ostentatious media room, library, gym, fitness center, infirmary, recovery room and an office, it was quite easy to get lost in the house and that made it even harder to find someone. After looking for Gavin for fifteen minutes, I finally found him coming out of Sebastian’s office.

Before I could call his name to get his attention he turned, brushing his midnight hair from his face to reveal deep emotive eyes. His wide mouth pulled into a full line. “Don’t call me kitty,” he snarled.

Oh you heard that. I guess
my bad
isn’t going to cut it.

“What do you want?” he asked in a curt tone.

“I want to discuss Sable.”

“There is nothing to discuss, I am done with her.”

“I get that. I know you have the fractious, ominous, broody, sexy dominant thing going on. Thumbs-up, you nailed it.”

His chuckle was just as dark as his eyes. His vocal cords were probably shocked from producing a sound they hadn’t made before.

“You think I’m sexy.” A smile reached his eyes but barely curled his lips.

“I said like thirty things before that and twenty more after it, and that’s what you took from it? If it weren’t for Sable we wouldn’t have a lot of the information we have now. She’s a very disturbed woman, and the way you ended things with her was cruel. You have to do something about it.”

I was speaking quickly because it was only a matter of time before he lost interest and just walked away from me mid-sentence. It wasn’t paranoia to be worried about it. It was part of the Gavin package—I had watched him do it to others. He didn’t excuse himself; once he was bored enough he simply walked away. Surprisingly, I had his attention and he held my eyes intently as I spoke.

“She helped because of you. I think she’s sorry for what she said.” I didn’t want to have sympathy for her, but somehow it had squirmed its way in. Sebastian was right, she was like Quell, and there was a part of me that needed to help her. Even if helping her was mending whatever the heck was going on with her and Gavin. “Just give her some closure. Something better than telling her it’s over in front of a room full of people.”

When I saw the back of his head as he turned and walked away, it was safe to assume the conversation was over.
Gavin, be weirder.

Before he cleared the corner, he said, “I will talk to her today.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not doing it for you.”

“You couldn’t just give me that one!”

He turned around and smiled.

Did I just get a laugh and a smile from Gavin? I may be a superhero.

* * *

R
iding
high on my conversation with Gavin emboldened me in an odd way. I guess it’s the little things for me. I was ready to see Senna. She Tasered me and tried to expunge Maya the first time we met, so pretty much other than assaulting me or trying the kill me, this meeting couldn’t be worse.

Senna was being a stubborn pain in the ass. The two days I was sedated, she refused to come out of the room, opening it only to accept clothes and occasionally food. I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t immediately answer the door when I knocked.

“What!” she snapped when I knocked harder.

“Open the door Senna,” I urged softly. “Please.”

She was agitated and rightfully so; I doubt she got any more of an explanation other than she needed to stay until they determined she could leave. The pack was very rigid in their tactics and didn’t offer a lot of room for disagreement or even explanation. It was their way, period.

She snatched the door open and then immediately went to a spot at the window. The room was one that I had come to consider mine because it was where I stayed when I first came to the retreat. Her long dark curly hair was stacked on top of her head in a messy bun, the white t-shirt was definitely new or borrowed and was a little too big, but her black yoga pants fit, and if it weren’t for the sneer on her face she would have looked like a person just hanging out at home. Just like I had the first time I stayed in the room, she seemed to have an appreciation for the view. The trees that stretched for miles made a blanket of variations of green that was comforting and serene. She moved closer to the window, her face just inches from the glass, her body resting against the frame.

“Believe it or not, we are trying to keep you safe,” I said, fighting the urge to move closer. She was on edge, probably scared and definitely angry. If she could, without injury, I imagined she was ready to go out the window, like I had the first time I was brought to the house. But she was a witch with the same limitation as most humans. She couldn’t jump from a two-story house without possibly breaking something.