Second Skin (Skinned) (19 page)

We bolted around the tables and chairs, heading into the hall.

“Where did you see her last?” Alec said. The commanding tone of his voice told me he’d slipped into hunter mode.

“In the basement,” Brit said, breathless as she trailed behind us. “Once we knew Eryn was okay, she said she was going to grab a pop upstairs and then that’s it. I haven’t seen her since.”

I growled, pissed at Brit, but also at myself. If I’d stuck by her side, Paige would still be present and accounted for.

“No luck?” Matt asked Brit as he joined us at the back entrance.

Brit shook her head.

I reached for the doorknob, a thought crossing my mind. I turned to the crew. “Paige told us Wade’s been texting her. Has anyone seen Wade with a cell phone? Ever?”

Wade drove a vintage sports car with no power steering and crank-it-yourself windows. He was practically a technophobe. What would a vamp with superhuman speed, hearing, senses, and the ability to control minds need with a cell? He could reach out and bleed someone to death just fine without one.

“So who, or what, was contacting her?” I asked.

“The night mare,” Kate said, shuffling down the hall, dressed in a blue-and-red Betty Boop-themed bathrobe. “It projects our fears, but also our deepest desires. With my magic out of whack, it must have tapped into Paige’s obsession with Wade.” She lifted her chin. “Brit told me why you were so angry with me, Eryn.”

I nodded. “Paige said a witch had him under lock and key.” I met her gaze and then bowed my head in apology. “We thought it was you.”

Kate took in a deep breath. “So, she discovered Wade wasn’t here and took off, looking for another witch. Who else would fit the bill?”

Alec stared at Matt and raised a brow.

“No.” Matt frowned as he dug into his pocket for his phone. He tapped the screen and held it to his ear. “Mom? Wait, I’ll put you on speaker phone.”

Marie’s voice cut through the night, sharp and sassy. “Do you want to tell me why Paige McCain broke into my house and tried to choke me with a designer scarf? I’ve got her tied to a chair if you want to pick her up before the girl does some real damage.”

I groaned, letting my forehead drop to Alec’s shoulder. A

shoulder that shook with laughter.

“Wade’s not here,” Paige’s voice, frantic, crazed, crackling through the phones, made the situation seem less like funny and more like sad. “I have to find the witch.”

Alec touched my hair. “Eryn, what do you want to do? Leave her there for the night?”

I lifted my head, considering the options. Taking a witch- hunt crazed Paige home and having to monitor her every move. We’d lucked out so far, with little questions from my aunt or uncle about our comings and goings as long as I had Paige send Sammi the occasional checking-in text, and we needed to continue to stay under her radar. But if Paige went home in this condition, it would be game over.

“Mom can give her a sedative,” Matt said. “Paige will sleep through till Monday if you want. When she wakes up, we’ll have the night mare taken care of, and she’ll be back to normal.”

“You know in the movies, when the last survivors of some horrific ordeal try to get rid of annoying characters, they always turn up at the wrong time.” I chewed on my lip.

“This isn’t a movie,” Alec said.

Brit shook her head rapidly. “It’s Redgrave.”

“Perhaps this will influence your decision,” Kate said. “The night mare will be able to assume corporeal form on Samhain, otherwise known as Halloween. It will be the best time for us to attack. We need Paige out of harm’s way until then, or the night mare might use her against us.”

Sending Paige off to la-la land
was
a convenient way to keep her out of trouble. Who knew when the last bit of Kate’s spell would fail, and Paige would come back to her full Medusa glory? Paige, with her full memory back, knowing what we’d done.

Hell hath no fury…

A lump of dread settled in my stomach. When this was over, I’d make it up to her. I’d make it right again.

But first I had to keep her alive.

All I had to do was hang her
Death to Those Who Enter
sign on her bedroom door, and neither Sammi nor Marcus would even think to question if she was inside.

“Okay, knock her out.”

We gathered a few supplies, more ironclad charms, and candles with protection sigils carved into the wax to purify our dreams and repel the night mare.

One more sleep, and then we’d take the demon on. I was going to face the night mare and stop it from harming another innocent Redgrave resident, with or without Wade to guide me through the dream realm.

Kate handed me a few wedges of sweetgrass that I respectfully placed in the plastic container she’d given me for the rest of the supplies. “You know Wade would be here if he could,” she said. “I didn’t believe it when Marie told me you two shared thoughts. You know what that means, Eryn, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t mean much to him, obviously. He hasn’t tried to contact me for days.”

Kate scattered herbs into a small canvas mixing bag. “He’s protecting you from Logan.” She paused, her gaze searching my face. “A sire and his progeny share a telepathic link. If Logan discovered that you and Wade also have that level of connection, he’d exploit it to the fullest.”

“Yeah, that’s what Wade told me.” Just before I’d blacked out, my shoulder ripped to shreds by a werewolf.

“You’re half wolven. You’ve bonded with Wade in the way of your kind.” Kate leaned her hip against the counter. “Pack members use telepathy to keep track of each other over long distances, to focus an attack. Have you never shared thoughts with your mother?”

I frowned. How did Kate know so much about wolven? Had she ever had a wolven familiar? The thought of Kate
owning
one of my kind was…unsettling. Memories surfaced, just out of reach. My mother’s voice echoing in my head. A scream. A command to run. I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” Just what was Kate getting at?

“That’s unfortunate. Maybe your mother restricted her use of that particular skill. Perhaps to further create a normal human experience for you growing up. Either way, the ability is yours.” Kate took a breath. “Wolven mates also share a mental bond, one that can’t be severed.”

I blinked.

“If your link with Wade is that of a potential mate, then no one, not even Wade himself, can block you from reaching his mind. Just how hard have you tried to contact him?”

I blinked again.
Mates? Was she freaking serious?
Why had my mother never told me about that part of wolven life? I had a flash of all the long looks my parents exchanged, ones where they seemed to say so much to each other without saying anything at all. I’d always felt like I was missing something.

Guess I was.

“Eryn, you ready?” Alec paused, observing Kate and me with a question in his dark eyes. His jaw clenched as if our conversation had been spelled out in the air for him to read.

I flushed.

“Frankly, no, but I’ll be right there,” I said, snatching the other items Kate offered. I paused at the entrance to the hall, doling out a bit of sage advice myself. “You should call Whip, you know, and tell him the truth. He’s tougher than you think.”

On the drive home I let my mind wander, ignoring the glances Alec shot me in the rearview mirror. I’d climbed into the back seat to avoid Alec’s proximity, but the tension between us was still there whether we were sitting side-by-side or not.

My parents had neglected to tell me about myself, the ways of wolven. I was floundering, taking on battles I wasn’t sure I could win. Putting my friends at risk.

Maybe it was time to go to the source. Time to face my past and take up Logan’s challenge. I couldn’t put it off forever. If I figured out what he wanted with my father’s work, then maybe I’d discover what really happened to them and put my mind at rest. I drifted back to day of my parents’ funeral.

The beginning of my journey.

Burying people you loved, even if the coffins were empty, could change a person. But sinking my teeth into the soft flesh of the restraining hand of a Hunter Council representative seemed a little harsh, even for me.

I was barely aware of the man’s scream of agony as the tang of his blood rushed down my throat, awakening my wolven instincts, bringing me back to reality. I released him and rounded on his boss, Sebastian Rhys, who appeared far too young to hold a position of such power, though he did have that hungry-law- student look down. Only in Sebastian’s case he was hungry for blood. He was one of the few vampires the council had let into their little secret club. Bully for him.

“Eryn, sweetie, was that really necessary?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest. The material of his black suit coat strained at the shoulders as his muscles flexed. Obviously the aging hunter hadn’t slacked off when it came to his training.

“Sebastian, you and your goon here snatched me away from my parents’ funeral. I haven’t seen you in years and then you show up with the
we must speak in private, or it’s your life
drama.” I glared at the man who had run my father out of the Council. “What did you expect? A hug?”

The Council rep I’d bitten snorted, pulled a black satin handkerchief from his suit pocket, and wrapped his bleeding hand. For a second too long, I stared at the blood on his skin, gnashing my teeth to control the urge to bite him again. After my parents disappeared, I’d been left with only a few days’ supply of the drug that stifled my wolven side. I’d been taking half doses, and was already feeling odd.

I sliced my gaze around the narrow room. Who would have thought there would be the perfect locale for an interrogation tucked away in the basement of the funeral home? It was weird how the Hunter Council always managed to find creepy little nooks like this when they wanted to lay down the law.

A chemical smell lingered, infused into the walls, burning my nose hairs. Preservative. At least they hadn’t dragged me into the freezer where they stored the bodies.

I shuddered.

“I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about your parents, how devastated the Council was when we heard about their disappearance.” Sebastian’s hazel eyes were watchful.

“And you couldn’t do that
upstairs
?” I let the rage build. Anger was so much better than tears.

“That part, yes,” Sebastian said. “But there’s more.”

I rolled my eyes. With the Council, there was always more. I blinked at the dull ache in my eye sockets. I’d been crying, of course, but in the privacy of my bedroom where no one could see.

Sebastian gestured to his goon, who then reached into his coat and withdrew a large envelope. “Open it,” Sebastian ordered.

My pulse throbbed in my thumbs as I held the paper. I had a really bad feeling about this.

I turned the envelope, opened the clasp, and reached in, pulling out an eight-by-ten glossy photograph of a cute, new- but-made-to-look-old, two-story home set on a neatly manicured lawn. I gave a shocked laugh. “Are you into real estate now?” I offered the photo and envelope back to him. “I gotta tell ya, strong-arm tactics aren’t the best way to make a sale. Plus. Hello. I already have a house.”

Sebastian and his goon exchanged a look.

“You don’t recognize it?” Sebastian held up the photo. I looked again. “No. Why? Should I?”

“It’s your uncle’s home.”

“Uncle Marcus?” I squinted at the photo, my eyes throbbing in the low lighting. “Oh, yeah, right.” I barely remembered our one and only family visit to my father’s younger brother. I glanced up at Sebastian, that bad feeling sinking into something near dread.

“You’re moving there. Tomorrow. It’s all arranged.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I yelled, and just as I did, the door behind us was savagely ripped from the doorframe.

“Eryn, why do you hide in such a place?” Nikko, my father’s second-in-command, asked, holding the door in his meaty hands, his stocky, broad form filling the doorframe. “People are asking for you.” He tilted his head, assessing me, his full lips pursed. “You must come.” His Slovakian accent was thicker than usual.

Minutes ago, as I accepted the condolences of a sea of people, I’d wondered why my parents had gone missing and not my father’s beta.

The Slovak set the door down. His face hardened when he spotted Sebastian. Nikko pointed an angry finger as he spoke. “I should have known. We had a deal. You were to stay away until after the funeral.”

“Wait a minute.” I held up a hand, shooting Nikko a killing glance. “You knew about this?” I stalked toward my father’s best friend and confidant. “About them wanting to relocate me?”

“It was their idea to have this fake funeral.” He looked at me with pleading eyes. “Little One,” he said, resorting to the pet name he’d given me years ago, a sure sign his emotions were high. “Sebastian will find the truth. Isn’t that what you want?” He crossed the distance to place his strong hands on my shoulders. I swatted them away, then missed the reassurance they’d brought.