The Danger of Destiny (23 page)

Trowbridge twisted to follow my gaze. “You told him everything about the Gatekeeper and the Safe Passage?”

“No!” I wanted to howl in frustration. “It wasn't like that. We weren't talking like you and I are talking now. It was a stream of conscious thing, with Mad-one acting as a conduit. The Gatekeeper issue was random. Either Lexi or Mad-one must have gone deeper into my mind and seen things I hadn't anticipated them seeing.”

“Are you telling me you were mind-fucked by your own brother?”

I studied the fury growing on his face.

“No,” I said slowly, ice forming in my heart. “He didn't ‘fuck' my brain. Only mystwalkers can screw people's brains without their permission. So if you're talking about brain-fuckers, then you're basically talking about me.”

“Bullshit,” he said, returning his interest to the bandage. “You'll never get your kicks out of messing with people's heads.”

“How can you be sure?” For once I had, if only briefly.

“Tink,” he said, teasing the edges of the wrappings. “A lot of us have abilities we wish we didn't have. I'm good at killing. I didn't know how good I was at it until I came here. I'm also a champ at warfare. That's who I am now. But I don't kill for fun and I never will. Does that make you want to run from me?”

“No.” My eyes burned.

“So … ditto. But I'm not giving your brother a pass for him going where he had no business going. And you shouldn't either. He's a predator. He took from you because he could. He'll keep doing it. I keep telling you: the kid you knew is long gone. What you have now is a manipulative son of a bitch who you shouldn't trust farther than you can throw. There was—”

“He felt remorse.” I touched my chest with my fist. “I felt it right here.”

“You felt what he wanted you to feel.” Mouth flat, Trowbridge took the bottle and poured another thin stream of liquid over the dressing.

“Yeah?” I jackknifed over my leg and pressed down on the gummy bandage. In response to the pain, Lexi moaned low in his throat, his features twisting. “He took my agony.” My gaze held my mate's. “I told him I was lost and scared and he sent me the Gatekeeper.” I switched into my mother's tongue. “I told him that I didn't know the language and he gave me the gift of Merenwynian.”

A terrible flatness crept into Trowbridge's eyes.

“I know he's done some terrible things,” I whispered. “To you. To the wolves. To me. And I'm angry that he's done them.
Really
angry. But I can't hate him … and I can't leave him here. If he's a bad guy with no redeeming features, then none of this makes sense. I need to believe he's salvageable.”

*   *   *

My mate studied my toes as if an answer lay in them. Then he shook his head. He lifted his gaze to mine. “You also need to hear this. It's going to break your heart and leave a scar, but I'd rather tell you the truth and leave a scar than tell you a lie and watch you die. Hedi,” he said grimly, “there was ash in his fire.”

I stared at him in confusion. Ash? In what world was that important?

“Whose fire?” I asked.

“Your brother's.” He softened his tone to the pitch a doctor uses when giving really bad news. “Lexi spent the night here. He made a fire, and he burned wood all night—there was too much ash for it to be a morning fire. Unlike you, he wasn't injured, and he wasn't lost. Oldbrooke Forest is not that big. If you know where you're going, and how to get there, you can cover the ground pretty quickly. I'm guessing he could have reached you in three hours, tops, and done it without breaking into a sweat. He could have sprung you from the trap. Been the hero—the whole nine yards. But he didn't.”

I felt sick. As if I'd eaten something that hadn't agreed with me and now it was stuck in my craw, like a fur ball. When Lexi had said he couldn't come to rescue me, I'd understood that to mean that he was still in the Creemore portal, being healed of his addiction.

Because that's where he was
supposed
to be.

Being healed. Getting over his sun potion addiction.

I stared at my twin, my brain searching for a plausible excuse. “Maybe Lexi crossed the portal last night, as soon I called for help? He traveled as far as he could to get to me, but he'd stopped when he realized that the Gatekeeper would get there first?”

Still in dreamland, Lexi's arm was curled over his head as if to protect it.

“The geography's wrong,” I heard my mate reply. “He'd have used the Creemore portal. That's hours northeast of here. And he would have had to detour around the Faelands to get here, which would have added more time. No way could he have done all that and still burned a fire all night. I'm sorry, sweetheart, but when he was ‘talking' to you last night, he was doing it from Daniel's Rock.”

My hand went to the ball of Merry and Ralph. I felt a flash of heat and a flicker of cold and knew that I had touched both.

“There's more,” he said, his tone heavy.

I didn't want to hear more. I wanted my brother to still be redeemable.

“There's always fur and crud left over following a Were's transition. But there's nothing here. Not in the cave, not anywhere inside this ward. Lexi didn't change into his wolf last night. It was a full moon. The only thing that would stop the process would be a dose of sun potion. So, I'm thinking your bro might not be clear of his juice addiction.”

“What is Lexi playing at?” I whispered.

“I don't know. But for both of our sakes, don't put your trust in him.” He studied the sodden bindings; then tenderly—oh so gently—my mate pinched the end of the linen between his grimed fingers. “So you sure you don't want another hit before I do this?”

“No.” I lifted my gaze to meet his. “
I
won't feel it.”

Trowbridge's gaze moved to Lexi. “Works for me.”

And with that my loving mate ripped my bandage free.

My twin cried out like a man who'd been branded with a hot iron. Chest heaving, he shot upright to a sitting position. For an instant he was awake.

He saw me. And I saw him.

Ashes in the fire
, I thought.

My twin's eyes rolled up toward a heaven he didn't deserve to visit, and he fell into another deep faint.

 

Chapter Fourteen

Despite Trowbridge's judicious use of light slaps and “hey, asshole,” Lexi's slow crawl to consciousness was a frustratingly long process. When my brother's eyes finally opened, he stared blankly at the sky for a long moment. His nostrils flared—the air was heavy with a perfume of rank flowers and bruised sweet peas. Then he rolled his head toward us.

Purple circles under his eyes, dots of sweat beaded his forehead. The illusion of health the old wizard had presented to us had disappeared when the old goat had stepped back to let my brother take his hits.

Lexi moved his jaw to test for breakage. “Your boyfriend sucker punched me.”

“It was your trap,” I said.

My brother briefly closed his eyes before reverting back to a study of Merenwyn's unblemished sky.

I studied my leg. My skin had made an effort to knit together since the juka had been thoroughly rinsed from the wound. Healing was in progress. Holes that should be filled had. Though not completely, and probably the indents would always be there. An ankle bracelet I'd carry forever.

“The first fifteen minutes after you hear the snick of the jaws closing on your hind leg are pure, stark terror,” I said, my tone conversational. “It takes an hour or more for your wolf's panic to ebb into exhaustion. That's when you start thinking. You've really got two options. You can wait for the hunter to come to check his trapline—”

Trowbridge interrupted. “Which, if the lazy bastard is strung out on sun potion, could be a couple of days.”

“Or you can go for door number two,” I said. “You can chew off your own leg. All things considered, that's the kind of internal conversation you don't ever want to have.” Still no comment, except a tightening of my twin's jaw, so I went for the lash. “Dad was a wolf. Would you have set your traplines for him too?”

“I can go back to sleep,” Lexi said quietly, “and you can find yourself talking to the wizard inside me.”

“You know, I'm not sure how much of a threat that is. I'm not fond of either of you right now. He lies. You lie. What's the difference?” My hands curled into fists. “But since you're here, why don't you tell me how much time we have left?”

“For what?”

“Lexi, I'm done with games. I know, okay? Last night you weren't communicating with me from some portal between this world and the other. You were here. In the cave behind you. Sitting by your fire. That's why I heard you so clearly. Which means that we're already out of time, or we're
almost
out of time. So which is it? Are you and the old wizard a permanent couple? Have you seen three sunrises in Merenwyn yet? Or do we have some time left to get this thing done?”

He didn't say “doh” or smack his head in surprise. “There's time.”

“How. Much?”

My twin delayed answering—a piece of recognizable leftover childhood behavior—filling in the taunting pause by raising himself onto one elbow to scowl at his right boot. He moved it slightly and bit down on a wince.

Hurting much, Lexi?

“I've been in Merenwyn for a day and a night,” he said, switching back into the Fae language. He dipped his head to swing his long swath of hair over his shoulder. “If the deed is to be done, it must be completed by the end of tonight.”

“So, you weren't in the portal's passage last night.” I answered him in the same tongue and was proud that my tone was matter-of-fact.

“No. I was here.” Wearily, Lexi sat up, his movements slow and careful.

“You useless son of a bitch.” Trowbridge pushed himself away from the wall, the scent of his anger curling into a scorpion's tail.

Three words. Three devastating words.

“You left me there all night,” I whispered.

Lexi stood, and as he did every bit of healthy color leached from his face and his green eyes shone as if inner-lit by a supernatural force. Not a good look for my twin: Dean Winchester would have gone for his stabby-knife. Still, he was Lexi, which meant that he'd go down with a sneer and challenge. “Take your best shot, Son of Lukynae.”

Trowbridge gave him the once-over. “Why waste the energy? You won't feel it. You're still cranked on the juice.”

Lexi stared at him for a second, a bitter smile flitting. “That craving has been cleaved from me.”

My twin's eyes moved to study mine. He gave me a long, measuring look, acutely similar to the one my dad used to give me when I did something inexplicable.

I took in a breath, short and swift. And at my tiny inhale, the mask Lexi held as he'd examined me—this twin who'd pushed him into an unaccountable hell—slipped.

I saw betrayal in his eyes.

It was my due, and even though I was still torn between hating him and loving him, I accepted the weight of it. My mouth opened, a jumble of words poised to spill.

Trowbridge spoke, breaking the moment. “Don't believe any of his bullshit. The son of a bitch didn't turn into his wolf and it was a full moon last night.”

“Unlike you, wolf,” Lexi replied, “I don't have to turn into a dog who lifts his leg to mark every bush he encounters. I have access to powerful magic, and it protected me from the moon's call.”

“You sorry bastard,” said Trowbridge. “You've turned your back on the best part of you.”

“The best part of me?” Lexi arched one mocking brow. “Only a Raha'ell would spew those lies.”

“Don't fight,” I said, suddenly drained.

But Lexi had gained his second wind. “What did he tell you about the life of a wolf in Merenwyn? Did he spin you yarns about the glories of the hunt, the blood, the brotherhood? Did he mention that belonging to the Raha'ell pack comes with the dues of starvation and death?”

Trowbridge's scent spiked. “You don't know anything about it.”

“But you do, Son of Lukynae.” Fist coiled, Lexi took a step forward on his “good” leg, narrowing the space between himself and my mate. “You know exactly what a Raha'ell can expect from this realm. And you let her come anyhow. I should carve out your heart and serve it to your hounds.”

I knew he was going to swing at Trowbridge and that was going to be the beginning of a major brawl. But before my twin could release his anger with the punch he so clearly wanted to throw, he froze.

For a second, he just stood there, a living statute.

“Stand back from him, Tink,” Trowbridge said softly.

A tremor shook Lexi; then, the snarl on his lips slipped and his arm slowly lowered itself to loosely dangle at his hip. His anger, his belligerence, his very essence, melted away in front of my eyes.

He's gone.

The Old Mage cocked his head toward Trowbridge, though I don't think he saw the Son of Lukynae. The expression on the wizard's face was distracted—that of a physicist whose preoccupation had been snagged by a new and troublesome possibility.

“The one named Qae has breached the ward,” he said.

Oh crap. Not now.

Trowbridge grabbed the sword. “Where?”

The Old Mage pivoted to point to the right. “Where the water runs.”

“Stay here,” Trowbridge told me.

Seriously, when had I ever “stayed”? I surged to follow him, pushing aside the man—not Lexi, not Lexi—who hurriedly stepped to block my path.

“No, nalera,” he said. “Let the wolf—”

“I'm not your nalera,” I spat. “And you're not my brother.”

*   *   *