Tarnished (26 page)

“The rules about humans exist for a reason,” Roanoke said. “Can you imagine what danger we would be in, if they knew about us? They’d kill us, cage us, study us.”

“But Sacramento was the one who—” Susan tried to break in with the next line before Roanoke warmed too much to his theme, but he continued right over top of her. Susan clenched her hands so she wouldn’t break down and start screaming. If she let him bully her into that, she was the one who looked weak and emotional.

“Think of all those she might tell these secrets to, now she has them. And all those they might tell in turn.”

The man had a powerful voice. Susan fought a rising tide of helplessness as Roanoke grandstanded on about the danger of humans. No. She hadn’t been helpless when Sacramento had Silver in his hands. She wasn’t helpless now.

“Sacramento was the one who—” Even shouting it didn’t help. Susan gave up trying to talk through him. If she couldn’t sound confident, she would have to look confident. Silver would think of something, and if not, Dare would be here soon. She concentrated on believing in that.

27

Silver listened to Roanoke’s pretty speech and imagined having a wild self to slam his to the ground and hold her teeth in its neck until it whined in surrender.

Tom burst in and skidded to a stop next to her. “I found his trail, but it twists and turns so much, I could waste all day following it to him when he was just over the hill in the other direction, I didn’t know what to do—” He paused long enough to take in Roanoke’s rhetoric and swallowed convulsively. “Silver, I’m sorry.”

“Just you now,” Death said in her brother’s voice. Just her now. Silver put her hand on Tom’s shoulder to let him know she wasn’t angry, but could spare no more attention. All right, just her. In a contest of shouting, there was no way she could best Roanoke. Some might say that was when you should try even harder, but Silver knew better than that.

That was when you
changed the rules.

First, she removed her bad arm from the sling and tossed the sling aside. It ached sharply even with that small movement, but she’d need it in a moment. Roanoke was blocking the other alphas’ view of her, so she climbed up behind him on the table. She stood tall, feet planted, her head now far above his.

She saw she had the others’ attention. Silence splashed down with the suddenness of a flash flood, but for Roanoke’s continuing irritating whine. She saw in the brace of his back muscles he knew she was there, but he didn’t turn. Perhaps he was trying to show how little he considered her a threat. He hadn’t realized she’d changed the rules yet, the fool.

Silver didn’t hesitate as she pulled out her silver metal chain, a replacement for the one Sacramento’s underling had destroyed. She’d worried before, but now it was time to run and pick up momentum and not stop for anything until you’d run right up and over the obstacle in front of you. This would work or it wouldn’t, she had no time for worry.

She tangled the chain’s end in her fingers on her bad side. She could curl them enough to keep it there and that was all she needed. Even now, she could see the others didn’t understand. She always stank of silver metal, part of her essential scent. They didn’t yet realize that this piece of silver was separate from that.

She looped the chain up and over Roanoke’s head to rest around his neck like a real necklace. She kept it low, touching only fabric. For now. She rested a hand on either shoulder, so he knew the moment she pulled her hands back, the chain would be tight around his throat. Then, finally then, he stopped talking, shock at the smell of silver stilling him for a breath.

Then he lunged against the chain, clearly thinking to snap it too quickly to cause much pain. Silver knew better than that. She’d seen it tried. Roanoke should not have underestimated the amount of pain silver ground into one’s skin could cause. He fell back, sobbing with the agony of the line now seared across his throat. Silver shook her good hand to settle the chain onto fabric again. For now. This time, Roanoke remained still.

Whispers chased each other around the room. Several alphas had half-stood while Silver wasn’t paying attention, perhaps meaning to lunge at her and stop her. “Under the Lady’s light, I have a story to tell you all,” Silver said. The alphas slowly returned to their seats when she made no more threatening moves, fragile stalemate tightening around them all.

Silver closed her eyes. Worse than the agony she’d awakened in her shoulder already, this was going to hurt. But even if the memories left her flayed and bleeding, this was how it had to be. To protect Susan.

“There once was a small pack, stubborn and independent. A crippled Were came to their den one day and begged for shelter. Compassionate, they invited him in. He charmed them all with his politeness and gallantry. He stank of silver from old injuries, and there was something strange in him, but they dismissed it. Aren’t we all a little strange, they said.”

“What does this have to do with—” Roanoke blustered with his words though he didn’t try to move this time. Silver tightened her fingers to just kiss his skin with the metal. He fell silent.

“Then, one night when everyone was in the den, he picked up one of the cubs to play with her and suddenly he had a silver knife at her throat. And he said that no one need be hurt, if they would sit quietly. He only wanted to talk to them, he said. And then the cubs would be safe. So they sat, and he bound them with silver.

“But he’d lied, because there is no honor in one like that. So he killed the cubs one by one with his silver knife in front of us—of them—” Silver’s voice failed her, but her eyes found Death. Death sat still and tall, and she found strength in him, ignored the strangled gasps among the alphas. Seeing their horror would make it horrific all over again.

“He killed them because they were too young to receive his mercy, he said. It was mercy he offered the rest of them, he said. Pure and cleansed of their wild selves. So he poured the liquid fire into their blood to clean it, only it burned them all away too.”
But for one,
her lips said, but she didn’t give it voice. That wasn’t the point of this story today.

“He said it was for mercy, but in his eyes, I saw a light. A light of joy. The pain of others was joy to him, the purest joy this world had to offer. He said it was for mercy, but oh, he liked it.”

Silver paused. Her hands were starting to shake. Quickly, quickly, before the memories made her bleed out. “I’ve seen that light again. The former Sacramento had that light. It was a flicker compared to the flames of the one who tortured each of my former pack, but may Death cast into the void the voice of anyone who says I do not know that light when I see it. Does anyone say I do not know it?”

Everyone was too frozen to answer at first, but Boston bowed his head to her. Then Portland and Sacramento followed suit. Here and there, Silver saw someone press a thumb to their forehead, invoking the Lady.

“There is no snuffing out that light while the one who has it still lives.” Silver made her voice ring. “Dare and I killed the one who tortured my former pack and Susan killed the one who tortured my current one, and may the Lady bathe me in Her light, I would do it again, and she would do it again. She protected all Were with that action, in her pack or out of it, and so is more true alpha than half of those sitting here. She should go free.”

Sacramento’s beta—or mate—shoved to her feet. “She is still a human!” The woman’s voice was shrill, but it carried in the silence. “It doesn’t matter what she
did
; because of what she
knows,
she must be executed to keep our secrets.” She tore the “executed” from the air like a chunk from a deer’s throat. Perhaps, seeing that her case was failing, she thought that any death would serve her wish for revenge.

“You think—” Susan forged her fear and desperation into action, as Silver had seen her do once before with a weapon in her hands. She spread her hands wide, taking up the center of the room, jerking attention to her rather than wavering under its pressure. “You think if I would
kill,
to save a
single
Were, that I would speak a word to another human that would harm all of you and my
son
?”

Susan didn’t have Silver’s skill with a story, but Silver realized her single sentence had the same effect as her weapon. One precisely aimed thought to knock everyone down.

A breath, another, and the whispers began again. But Silver didn’t want people to talk themselves out of it, so she hurried to speak. “Susan is pack of my pack, bound with ties of family, and friendship, and love, the same as any of us here. That is why she fought to protect them. That is why she would never betray them with a careless word.”

Silver would have liked to sweep her hand across the crowd, but she tilted her chin up instead. “Now, under the Lady’s light, I say: who stands with us?”

Silver couldn’t keep the shaking down as she waited. She prayed to the Lady. Please, for Susan, let them stand. For what Susan had done for all of them, she did not deserve to be punished; she deserved a reward.

This time Sacramento began it, though Dare’s other friends stood only a split second later. Madrid sat expressionless, only sign of his thoughts his crushing grip on Dare’s brother-in-law’s wrist. Madrid probably intended that pain to wash out the shock on the other man’s face. Other North Americans followed Sacramento, more and more as each looked around at those who had stood before, until the last stood with frowns at how they had been shamed by the majority. Silver didn’t care. Her knees tried to collapse, so great was her relief. But she was not quite done yet. There was Dare’s challenge yet to think of.

Or was it just his anymore? After dealing with the former Sacramento, she’d let her fear of leadership go, but something in her sang at the thought of it now. She’d helped Susan to protect herself because she’d needed protecting, and it felt so
right.
Like this was what she’d been made for. And perhaps the Lady had made her that way.

“Seattle has business,” Silver said. She braced her weight against Roanoke’s back and ground her thumb against his burn when he seemed likely to try to take advantage of her weakness. The unexpectedness of a wound that could still pain him, however he might know intellectually that silver burns healed slowly, bought her a little more time.

“When the one who tortured me and my former pack was abroad, searching for me and his next victims, this coward called his enforcer home to protect the alpha, and the alpha alone. Is that not correct?” She found the beta’s eyes, and his fierce triumph gave her the strength to stand straight again.

The beta stood. “That’s correct. And not only that, when Dare broke with Roanoke rather than follow such a fucking stupid order, he kept all of us too close to the house.” The beta clenched his hands, anger vibrating in every syllable. “That madman took Ginnie, because we didn’t have enough warning. If we’d been in a proper guard pattern, we’d have smelled him from a mile away, but we were so close, he darted in and grabbed her before we could get to him.”

Silver spared the time to send him a thin smile of thanks. “We will challenge for Roanoke at a time of your choosing.” She jerked the chain and Roanoke snarled. It was a full, rolling noise, directed not only at her but undoubtedly at his beta as well.

“‘We’? I’d be happy to beat the delusions of grandeur out of you, crazy pussy.” Roanoke clenched his hands. As if that would scare her after what she’d seen, memories dragged bloody to the surface of her mind.

“Division of labor.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up in Silver. “He’s brawn, I’m beauty, and sometimes I let him share brains with me.” Several of the others laughed, a punchy note to their tones as well. “Dare will meet you in the challenge fight at the time of your choosing. Under the Lady’s light, does any dispute it?”

No one did. Silver let the chain fall free of her bad hand, gathered it into her good, and turned from Roanoke. She jumped down and the impact jarred her shoulder so shadows swallowed her vision. She hardly knew if she was still standing and which way was up or down until she felt Tom’s hand under her arm, holding her up.

“Seattle! Ma’am. Please, wait.” Roanoke’s beta loped to her. Silver made Tom stop them both by moving her grip to his arm and squeezing. The beta went to his knees before her. “I no longer wish Roanoke as my alpha.”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t. Not with the punishment he’ll get for stepping out of line like that.” Death used the former Sacramento’s voice, heavy with the weight of all the punishments he’d probably inflicted in his lifetime.

Silver worried she’d fall if she took her hand from Tom’s arm, but she couldn’t ignore the beta. He was in this situation because he’d helped her, and helped Dare. She gritted her teeth, mentally told the shadows Death would rip them to shreds if they didn’t behave, and put her hand on the beta’s head. If he felt her weight behind it, how she needed the touch for balance, he said nothing. “Seattle welcomes you. My beta will tell you anything else you need to know.” She nodded to her cousin, because she’d smelled his sudden tension, presumably fearing his status might be stolen.

Enough. Silver didn’t want to deal with anyone else’s temper, or soothe anyone else’s misplaced fear. She wanted to get out of here, and curl up deep somewhere until the shadows could fade from her. She left the Convocation, leaning on Tom’s strength, with her Were behind her. Silence lingered in their wake.

28

Andrew found Tom’s scent on his backtrail as he returned to the cabins. Tom was supposed to be helping Silver. Why was he chasing after Andrew? Had something happened? Andrew took the rest of the path back to their cabin at a run.

Silver slammed out of the door as he arrived. The fabric of her shirt was bunched under her sling like it had been put back on in a hurry. “There you are,” she snapped. Her hand was out like it rested on Death’s head, which worried Andrew more than the anger in her voice. She talked to Death in public sometimes, but she never touched him. “I’ve arranged your challenge.” She seemed to choose her path specifically to have to shove him out of her way. “Death and I are going for a walk,” she shouted back over her shoulder.