Tarnished (31 page)

But Silver at least knew screaming or scolding was not the way to go. The girl’s wild self huddled beside her hip, tail and nose tucked in like no one would notice it if nothing disturbed the sooty line of its flank. The girl looked at Silver and then away again, like she too hoped that Silver might go away if she didn’t acknowledge her.

“You’ll need her name if you want to command her,” Death said. He nosed at the girl’s wild self, forcing it to uncurl to avoid the harassment. It edged away and tucked its head back again. “I don’t think she’ll respond well to ‘Hey you, girl.’”

Silver reached deep, a quest for the name before she even began the quest for information. “Felicia.” She knew it sounded strange, coming all in a relieved burst, but it got the girl to look up again.

“What?” Felicia said, sullen and challenging. Her wild self started to shake very slightly.

In that word, Silver found the steady ground that she needed to choose words of her own. Young or not, Dare’s daughter was enough of an adult to be paralyzed by what her conscience told her when it clashed with what others did. Silver could smell the panicked confusion on her. She needed to give that attack of conscience a firm push. “You know where my mate is. You know it’s not honorable that your pack captured him by playing on his need to protect.” That had been Susan’s realization, but Silver saw it hit home when she used it.

“Did you know that it was a trap? Did you really believe that Roanoke would bother to mention his plans for a meaningless human to you? Or were you delighted to help them, delighted to punish your father for crimes he never committed, except in the minds of your relatives?”

“I didn’t know!” A growl started in Felicia’s throat, but she suppressed it and kept her words to a soft intensity, perhaps conscious of ears below. “I just wanted to talk to him. I didn’t care what Roanoke did or didn’t do with a stupid human.” She glared at Susan. “But I thought Father should at least know. I didn’t know Madrid meant to— And then he—” She trailed off into angry words in a language Silver didn’t know. It took her several moments to realize that was the problem, not that Felicia was speaking of things too tied up in this world for Silver to understand.

“And then Madrid what?” she prompted.

“Treated me like I was just—something to trade! For Madrid’s political shit.” For a moment, Dare showed strongly in Felicia’s face and voice. Silver couldn’t pin it down, but some spark of temper had been passed on.

“That’s what alphas do when they seek power for power’s sake, not to fulfill their instinct to protect people. No matter how they start, they always end up sacrificing people for the power in the end.” Silver took a deep breath. She couldn’t push her too hard, no matter that this was the most important question yet. “Do you know where Dare is? What they’re doing to him?”

Felicia bit her lip until the skin bleached white in a line beneath her teeth. “Yes. I know where. Madrid called in the rest of the pack that came over and they’re holding him until he agrees to give up trying to be alpha in exchange for Madrid giving me the choice to stay.” She hugged herself. “Father didn’t even
consider
it. And he claimed he hadn’t wanted to leave me behind—”

Silver grabbed Felicia’s wrist and yanked her to her feet. Her patience only extended so far when a crisis of conscience began to turn into whining. “Of course he didn’t consider it, because he’s not Lady-darkened
stupid.
” She dropped the girl’s wrist and took her chin in the same firm grip. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’d consider staying for even one heartbeat. Or would you do exactly as Madrid planned?”

Felicia hit her wrist, but Silver ignored the pain and held on. The girl wasn’t hitting seriously yet. “Lady! That’s what he said. Why does everyone assume that about me?”

Silver smiled, showing teeth, and channeled the tone Death had used so often with her. “Prove us wrong, girl.” She switched her grip to the girl’s wrist again and dragged her downwards, nodding to Susan on the way. “We have to gather help before we go, if Madrid called in his pack. More than just the Seattle pack.”

“Planning on making another scene?” Susan threw her a tight smile as they descended. At the foot of the stairs, Felicia hesitated, but jerked into movement again as if Susan had shoved her from behind.

“If they’re going to impose their religious imaginings on me I suppose I might as well.” Silver didn’t look at Death, who was loping along beside them, but from the corner of her eye she saw him bare his teeth in edged approval.

Most of dinner was cleared away, but a good number of the Were lingered in the main room, talking over drinks. Silver scanned the crowd, finding Boston first, and then Portland. Allies, good. She took a beat longer to make doubly sure neither Roanoke nor Madrid hid in a shadowed corner, then exhaled in relief.

Felicia balked again, and Silver let her feel her strength by nearly jerking the girl off her feet. Dare didn’t have time for this. “Alphas,” she said in a ringing voice. “In the Lady’s name, I need your assistance.”

Silence rippled unevenly through the room and Silver waited until it was complete. A few young ones slipped outside in the pause, undoubtedly to spread the news of something interesting happening. Silver would have to work quickly in case they found Roanoke.

She lifted Felicia’s wrist high. “One of Madrid’s own pack has honor enough to reveal that Madrid has captured my mate, to avenge what they imagine to be his crimes.” The girl swallowed hard and then straightened to hold her own hand high, forcing confidence into her body. Silver sent her silent thanks. “We need to stop them.”

“Lady-damned Europeans!” Portland strode to the front of the crowd, clenched hands the only physical sign of the rage that vibrated in her voice. “We need to drag them out of our territory by force.” A tide of voices rose behind hers.

“Just wait,” Death said, his voice low against the alphas’ rising volume, but catching Silver’s attention all the same.

“I agree completely.” At first, Roanoke couldn’t manage silence the way Silver had, but he crossed his arms and intimidated it out of those standing nearest the entrance where he had just appeared. “I take full responsibility for the way they tricked me with their talk of a new, more peaceful relationship between us. Normally I’d lead the force to take them down, but in light of my mistakes, I leave that to another.”

Silver had one split, frozen second before the room erupted to realize what Roanoke had just done. He’d thrown a kill into the middle of starving lones and stepped back to watch them tear each other to bits over it. After all, who asked questions about the thrower when the prize was so fat and juicy?

She thought it had been loud before, but now she could hardly think for everyone trying to shout everyone else down and claim the position of authority. Roanoke smirked, but no one seemed to even notice besides Silver and Susan. The human drew closer to her in automatic reaction to the noise. Silver wanted to sink to the ground and put her hands over her ears.

She caught Portland’s eyes instead, and the other woman looked as helpless as Silver felt. Portland too was silent, not proud enough to put her personal advancement before saving Dare like the others.

“We don’t have time for this.” Silver drew a deep breath and beckoned Portland to join them. The woman slipped between the intervening Were, using her short stature to advantage in some places, and her elbows in others. Boston started the same journey from another direction, using the weight of his presence to make people move aside, though it didn’t stop them arguing.

“
I
could lead this clusterfuck better than them,” Susan muttered, and used a parody of an alpha’s tone. “All of you. Together. Go that direction.”

“Not a bad idea,” Silver said as she calculated a path to the exit. The Were might laugh at a human trying to take charge, but then again someone outside all existing hierarchies might be what they needed. At least the attempt might distract them from their own personal ambitions long enough for them to remember the important things about the situation.

Silver leaned close to Susan. “Can I leave it in your hands? I’ll go ahead and stall them.” She dragged Felicia toward the exit.

Susan followed. “Silver, no! Where are you going?”

“Just to stall. Nothing dangerous.” Silver tipped her chin to her bad arm, since her hand was full. “What could I do against them otherwise?” And why would she want to attack them straight on, when looking weak until backup arrived was much better tactics?

Susan didn’t look convinced, but Portland’s arrival distracted her. Silver seized the opening to escape, dragging Felicia out. She heard Susan give a human growl of frustration, but she didn’t chase. “I guess we do this without Silver. These alphas have their mates with them, right? Any way we could enlist their help in making people shut up?” The wash of argument cut off the rest of Susan’s suggestion to Portland.

In the chill air outside, the girl started struggling again. It still seemed like half a struggle against her conscience, because she was close enough to full-grown that Silver could never have held her if she was really trying to get away. Death nipped mockingly at her wild self’s heels. The wild self bristled up its ruff, the motion exposing variations of sooty black so different from Death’s absence of color.

Silver released the girl and gave her half a breath to rub her wrist before she tilted her chin toward the starlit trees. “You need to lead us.” She realized she’d slipped a moment later. Her and Death, she’d meant, but perhaps the girl thought “us” meant her and Felicia. Felicia’s eyes didn’t search for someone else, in any case.

Felicia bit her lip and started loping along the slight dip of a trail through the pines. Silver would have demanded greater speed, but this pace jarred her bad shoulder enough as it was. She set her teeth against the pain. No point getting to Dare a few minutes sooner if she was useless when she arrived.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Felicia burst out.

Silver shushed Felicia and frowned ahead as far as she could when pine branches blocked one’s line of sight here and there. She couldn’t smell anything, but if they were upwind, they might still be close enough to their goal for sound to carry. She wanted these people to see her, but not with much time to think.

“It’s a ways yet. I’ll warn you before we get too close,” Felicia muttered, bristling at the shushing.

“I believe you didn’t mean it to.” Silver picked up the thread of the conversation and pressed her lips together to prevent a smile at the girl’s look of surprise. She’d expected a scolding, not sympathy, Silver bet. Well, Silver wasn’t done yet. “That doesn’t excuse you from doing something about it now, however.” She released the smile when Felicia’s surprise turned to sullenness. “Or did you think you would get to just stand back?”

“I’m just fifteen,” Felicia told the ground.

“You’re old enough for the Lady to have released your wild self. You bear the mark of Her trust. That’s old enough to make choices of your own.” Silver took a few running steps, gritting her teeth against the pain, to draw even with the girl and look at her in profile. Dark waves of her hair, dark fur of her wild self, against the stars and silhouettes of the horizon. Darkness and fire in her life, same as there had been in Silver’s, but that didn’t excuse her from running forward.

“But how am I supposed to know who to believe?” Felicia kicked a rock savagely from their path. “Of course my father’s story casts him in the best light.”

“So ask someone else.” Silver squinted ahead. When would they be able to see where Dare was being held? Would she be able to recognize it, or would it be one of the things from this world that slipped away from her?

“No one else was there.” Felicia’s tone dripped with the scorn only the young could muster.

“Not about what happened. Ask someone else whether your father lies. Ask a lot of people whether your father lies. So many that it’s impossible all of them could be trying to protect him. Then ask them if your alpha lies. Then, when you know who’s a liar and who isn’t, return to what they each said about what happened.”

“Well, of course you think your mate’s not the liar!” Felicia took several running steps ahead and Silver let her keep the lead. It hurt too much to keep catching up.

“Am I one of the people you’re going to ask, then?” Silver paused a moment, but didn’t make the girl say it. “My mate is an honorable man, or I would not be mated to him. But if you’re already trying to deny it without asking anyone, I think you must have some idea of what people will say.”

“People say all kinds of things.” Felicia kicked another rock.

“Watch what they do, then. Who do they support? People lie less often with their actions.”

Felicia’s answer to that was stubborn silence. They stayed that way for several minutes until Felicia held up a hand for Silver to stop. She scented into the wind, and then picked her path based on the direction she found. Silver set her feet more carefully. Even though they were approaching from downwind, she couldn’t smell Dare yet. Getting closer, but not close enough.

33

Even when the three other Spaniards arrived with their whips, they inflicted pain no worse than anything Andrew had felt before. Bearable. It helped he knew their methods. You couldn’t really brace for this sort of thing, but it removed some of the fear. He watched the hallucination of Death laugh at him, and thought about Felicia. When she went back to Spain, what then? Someday she’d be an adult, and if he could find her location, his in-laws could no longer deny him the ability to contact her. But maybe she’d deny him that herself.

Bearable became less so through repetition. Andrew’s world narrowed with each lash, graying at the edges. They couldn’t kill him. And the others would come looking eventually. Silver would know something was wrong, would bring them. Raul would have to slink home to Europe and take his imaginary fears of empires with him.

Then, a pause. Andrew’s head cleared in a rush, giving him a breath of clarity between the end of his healing, and the start of the fog of exhaustion it created. Standard procedure, he recalled. Let the victim heal up before you started in again.