Tarnished (33 page)

Silver dropped her head to hide the confidence seeping back into her. Did the fool really see her stand as co-alpha, see her defend Susan, and still consider her broken? He deserved what he was going to get for underestimating her. She let silence be her answer, to make Madrid think his verbal blow had connected.

“Let me see him.” Silver passed Madrid, giving him a wide enough berth his underling didn’t stir. Madrid smiled at the apparent evidence of her fear. Inside, the last stranger had a hand on Madrid’s beta’s shoulder, holding him back from Dare, who had his head down. Silver hoped he was conserving strength, not that he was so hurt as to have given up.

Dare’s head snapped up as she approached and his eyes widened. “Silver, no! What are you—?”

Silver ignored the words and examined him. He smelled like sweat and old pain and too many healed injuries. His whole body conveyed the tension of not looking in a particular direction. Silver didn’t look that way either yet, but she noted it. She knelt, leaned in to kiss him, and rested her hand on his leg. He flexed his knee so she could feel it. If he could move his legs, his back injury had not been reopened. Good. She set her cheek against his chest, which left her facing the direction his tension pointed.

A silver knife, set to one side. She wondered if it came with a promise of its purpose. It didn’t entirely explain the intensity of his attention, but she didn’t need the details. She had her own associations with silver knives.

“What are you doing here?” Dare asked again as she sat back. His gaze flickered behind her and then back again. He was looking for their allies too. Well, they’d be coming. Silver trusted Susan for that.

He gave a ragged laugh. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Silver squeezed his knee. “Getting you out of trouble again.” His ankles were bound with silver, covered so those without her peculiarities could touch it. With the binding right there, she couldn’t not try to remove it.

The underling left the beta to jerk Silver up by her arm. He said something Silver didn’t understand, and Dare translated it, mocking it by flattening the intonation. “He says ‘none of that now, cat.’”

“You’ve seen him.” Madrid held his arm out toward the exit. “Now we need to leave him to consider his options and come to his senses alone.” He snapped his fingers at the beta, too. Perhaps he wasn’t allowed to be alone with Dare. His expression suggested he shouldn’t be.

Silver tried to put everything she didn’t want to say in front of Madrid into her last glance at Dare—she loved him, and she was going to do whatever was necessary to get him out of this—but she wasn’t sure how successful she was.

She kept her head down, took a few steps as if following Madrid quietly, then grabbed the knife. She had it in her hand before he had fully turned. He lunged for her, probably to wrest it from her grasp, but she laid the flat against her cheek and smiled like Death. That stopped Madrid, made his eyes widen.

He smiled to cover his discomfort. “A nice party trick. I saw you touch silver at the Convocation, and it still looks strange. But tricks won’t help you.” He held his hand out mockingly for the weapon.

Silver suppressed a smile. If he insisted. She reached out to lay the flat of the blade on his palm instead. He jerked back.

“Keep it, then. I have others.” Raul threw a meaningful glance back to Andrew and led her outside. Hints of discomfort remained in his movements. The more off-balance he was, the better, though she couldn’t see how it helped at the moment. She couldn’t take on five even with a knife.

He led her a little ways off, two underlings following at a discreet distance. “What do you want from us, Madrid?” Silver asked. She let the knife fall to her side and looked out at the horizon, but watched him from the corner of her eye. She didn’t have to play-act much confusion. “If you planned to kill him, you would have.”

“Dare needs to understand his position,” Madrid said, discomfort smoothing away. “And why he wants to do exactly what I say.” He caught her sideways observation and smiled. “Don’t worry. I have no doubt he will.”

“No amount of torture—” Silver clenched her hand tighter to keep her voice even. Dare would never give in. This man was twice the fool if he thought he would.

Madrid held up his palms for her to stop, expression pained. “Please. I have no need for torture. He’ll do it because he knows I control his daughter.”

Silver ignored the insulting lie about torture—she’d seen how hurt Dare was—and looked back toward where Dare was held, doubt squeezing off her breath like something tangible. Oh, she could see Dare giving in to that. She didn’t want to, but she could see that. Of all the things that mattered to Dare, his daughter was one of the most important.

She turned into the wind, not caring if Madrid saw her do it. Where were the others? She should smell a hint of them following by now. Had Susan been unable to talk the alphas into laying aside their arguments? It had been a lot to dump on the human. She knew almost nothing about Were culture, after all, so she couldn’t necessarily formulate her arguments to convince them. But Portland and Boston were there with her. What was taking them so long?

After all she had tried to learn about how to get others to trust her, how to lead, it came down to her alone in the end. Well, fine. She could do plenty without relying on anyone but Death. “You speak of him making decisions, but I’m sure he can hardly be thinking at all, bound and hurting. Why not let him go, and I will stay with you as a surety.” If they thought she was broken, they wouldn’t bind her tightly or watch her closely. She need only bide her time, and then she’d be free too.

Madrid’s brows rose. His surprise took longer to smooth away this time. “You can stand less than him, little broken alpha.”

Silver lifted her chin. She could hear in his voice it wasn’t working. Somehow, she had to convince him. Lady, lend her strength. “You said no torture, didn’t you? If you want Dare to think, give him space to think. If you think those thoughts need something to motivate them, I assure you he cares no less about me than his daughter.” She reversed the blade, offered him the handle.

A slight figure resolved itself from the side of the den, moving for the entrance while Madrid and his underlings were distracted. Felicia. Silver saw the girl look at her, probably listening to the desperation in her tone. Silver stood firm and pretended she didn’t notice. She didn’t need the girl’s help. She could rely on herself and Death. After a moment, the girl slipped inside the den. The underling at the entrance let her pass with barely a nod, he was so interested in watching the show.

Madrid smiled, a flash of teeth, and took the knife. He laid it against her cheek in imitation of her earlier gesture and turned it just enough that the edge pressed into her skin without breaking it. “Try again, little broken alpha. No one’s coming, and we have all the time in the world.”

34

Susan wanted to scream. She would have, too, if she’d thought it would do any good. She remembered how Silver’s grandstanding had worked at her trial. But those who had nominated themselves to lead the expedition to deal with the Europeans were competing through volume. Susan noticed their rhetoric had all become very general—defeat the Europeans, not rescue Dare. Because that would be time sensitive, and Lord knew they were wasting a lot of that.

At least everyone besides the major players had calmed down. Three men Portland had labeled Reno, Billings, and Charleston shouted at each other in the center of the space created by dragging the banquet tables to rest along the walls. They looked inches from a shoving match or possibly a bloody battle breaking out.

The front doors opened a crack and Tom slipped in. “I dropped off Ginnie,” he told Susan at normal volume after glancing at all the shouting going on. He probably figured, same as Susan, that no one would be bothering to listen to them. “What’s going on?”

“Silver went after Andrew on her own, and those assholes are still fighting.” Susan bit off the words, and gestured at the knot of shouters. She smiled thinly when Tom’s brow creased with anger. “Look, would you be willing to go get John and offer to watch Edmond so he can come help? I don’t know what he can do—” Susan glanced at the shouting Were. “But he can’t hurt, I suppose.”

Tom nodded enthusiastically and reversed course to bound out the door into the night. Susan remained standing uncertainly near the front doors. The blast of night air introduced by Tom’s passage made her shiver.

“And you think leading one measly little pack qualifies you to direct the Roanoke pack’s united might?” Charleston’s rich brown skin stood out, though lighter than Boston’s. He had some paunch, but it did nothing to diminish his appearance of sheer power.

“And your qualifications are what, following? At least the Western packs are independent, not boot-lickers.” The taller Reno gestured in Charleston’s face, each sweep coming within inches of hitting him.

Boston touched Charleston’s shoulder. “We have a direction, and time is of the essence—”

Charleston held up a hand, forestalling Boston. In contrast to the barely restrained violence of his following finger-jab at Reno, the gesture was almost respectful. Susan snorted to herself. It didn’t matter if people respected Boston if they didn’t listen to him.

Billings pushed between the other two men, maybe planning to play the role of authority figure separating two squabbling children. Reno spun him out of the way by his elbow, sending him almost crashing into Portland, who was slipping through the crowd around the fight.

Portland pulled back into the crowd and spoke to another woman, gesturing with clear exasperation to the three arguing Were. Susan couldn’t see what she was saying, but she could imagine the gist. The woman shook her head and crossed her arms, apparently planning to wait until the fight played out.

At least people listened to Portland. Those Susan had tried to talk to earlier just stared at her blankly.

Susan bit her lip. She was failing Silver and Andrew, but she didn’t know what to do. If even Boston couldn’t talk them down, what was she supposed to do as a single human, formerly accused of murder?

Susan drew in a breath as a realization struck her. She’d been just a single human when Sacramento threatened everyone before. No one had helped her then. She’d go after Andrew. She’d see if John would come with her, but even if he wouldn’t, she’d be a single ally more than Andrew and Silver had before. Screw werewolf noses—she could call up satellite photos on her phone and see if the ranch had any other buildings. She doubted they were just holding Andrew randomly in the middle of the woods. She could go check them out, call 911, and have help follow her GPS location once she found the right one. The Spanish Were wouldn’t be expecting that, she was sure.

Portland had worked her way back around nearly to the front doors and Susan closed the few steps between them. “Fuck the others, I’m leaving now,” she said in a low voice. The nearest Were turned, responding to what Susan would have called the fundamental human instinct to eavesdrop on something they thought someone was hiding from them.

Susan didn’t wait for Portland to answer before she pushed the front doors open. The blast of night air hit her full in the face and she shivered. Fuck them. She could do this herself.

Running footsteps followed her, and Portland drew level with her a beat later. “I’ll help with the trail,” was all she said. Susan nodded. Two allies. Even better.

Boston didn’t have to run to catch up. He lengthened his strides instead, making his approach quieter. “You have something of the Lady’s light of your own, girl,” he said, his voice a quiet rumble.

John arrived a moment later, panting. He must have seen her leaving the hall from the cabins and sprinted the whole way. “Tom said Silver went off after Dare on her own again?”

A bubble of hysterical laughter formed in Susan’s chest at the parental mix of fear, anger, and exasperation in John’s tone on “again” but she swallowed it down. “We’re going after her.” With or without him. Susan didn’t bother trying to be authoritative in her tone, just put in her absolute certainty of that. He dropped his head in acknowledgement, didn’t comment, and fell in behind her.

Susan heard more leaving the hall and following behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She didn’t want them to see the tears beading up in her eyes. She could hardly believe it. Had she really been the one to succeed in leading the Were?

It seemed so.

*   *   *

The building’s walls made it impossible to pick out words in Silver’s conversation with Raul, but Andrew strained to hear it anyway. What did she think she was doing, putting herself in danger?

Andrew jerked his wrists against the silk-covered chains. No one was left inside to watch him. If he could escape now … But the chain wouldn’t break, and he couldn’t move the piece of farm equipment more than another half inch. His muscles screamed as he bucked again. Why had Silver come? This was his burden to bear, his mistakes to suffer for.

The door creaked and Andrew froze. Felicia slipped inside, head down and hair hiding her face. It reminded him of how Nate’s daughter had looked. Was Felicia really so ashamed of him? Andrew tried to find words, but after all that had happened, he couldn’t. If only. If only things had been different with her. But they weren’t different, and he needed to accept that.

Felicia circled around the wheel beside Andrew. He couldn’t turn his head far enough to follow her, but her shoes scuffed like she’d crouched behind the axle at his back.
“Why would she offer herself in your place?”
she whispered in Spanish, as if speaking to herself.

Andrew choked. Silver was—Lady! “Silver! Don’t you dare!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, bucking the wheels desperately.

“Why would you walk into a trap for a human just because she called herself a member of your pack?”
Felicia whispered into the panting space when Andrew had to rest from the effort of lifting the metal.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Andrew snapped. He couldn’t explain it any better, and at the moment he didn’t feel like trying. If only Silver and Raul would move closer so he could hear what was going on.