The Trouble with Fate (37 page)

It was starting to sound more like my aunt. It explained the bitterness, the fear
of Weres. But why? I asked him, and to my surprise, he answered.

“Because I left her in Merenwyn, when I had to.” He saw my reaction, and his lips
firmed. “We were discovered in the Fae realm and it came down to my wolf’s choice …
if I’d been fully human, I wouldn’t have abandoned her.” His face lost expression,
as his eyes unfocused, remembering. And that scared me even more, because there was
truth, not deception, in the way all those smile-induced lines, now empty of manufactured
mirth, scored his face with deep slashes. “We were at the Pool of Life. I’d become
wolf, and you just don’t think the same when you’re in your moon-called nature, as
when you’re fully human. Particularly over there. I felt more wild there, less mortal …
The guards shouldn’t have found us. We’d taken so much care to be stealthy. We’d made
it to the Pool, and were sure no one had seen us. Lou stood guard as I walked up to
my neck in their sacred water.”

He grimaced. “It took some courage to dip my head under the water, but I did it. And
that’s pretty much all I remember. I came out of the Pool as a wolf, and saw the Royal
Guards riding hard through the forest. So many of them. Armed with bows and arrows.”
The corners of his lips drooped, and his eyes grew sad under his heavy brows. “If
they captured me, it meant a life of enslavement. For her, not much more than a public
censure, and maybe a week or two in the tower. They don’t hurt their own kind … so
my wolf chose. We ran for the gates and left Lou to the guards.” His restless eyes
kept returning to the photo on the mantel. “I’ll always regret that. But my other
nature saw the hunters with their weapons, and instinct is so hard to deny. If it
had been just me, in mortal form…” He shrugged after a moment of reflection, and gave
us a self-deprecating smile. “We’ve gotten off track somehow. You asked about the
pack’s financial issues.”

His sigh was lengthy and somewhat overdone. “In some ways, I hold myself to blame
for all the debt incurred. I should have just calmed down and waited for the powers
that be to bring forth a solution. I’ve always known my destiny was to rule this pack.
But things had gotten so bad … and I didn’t know that Louise was here, right under
my nose all this time. If I’d known that…” He spread his hands. “I’ll never doubt
my fate again. The universe has returned my mate, and soon I’ll have the Royal Amulet.
She’ll call the portal, and a new chapter will begin for my pack.”

“We have friends,” I said, flexing my feet against the tape’s hold. “People will be
searching for us.”

He uncrossed his legs. “Your aunt never mentioned your bounty of friends. Should I
be frightened? Summon the pack to protect us from a horde of your friends?” A fragrant
curl of steam rose from his cup of tea. “Here comes my mate.”

Lou entered the room wearing a shapeless gray T-shirt, and a pair of yoga pants; an
incongruous clothing selection for my haughty aunt. The overlarge T-shirt hung from
her shoulder, exposing her collarbone, sharp and thin as the wing of a primed crossbow.
She shuffled in, and picked a spot on the carpet between me and Mannus.

Yes, I should have spat at her. I should have denounced her too. Instead, my eyes
watered at the sight of her. “Oh Lou.”

She didn’t rush to me, arms outstretched, seeking assurance. Nor did she gasp at the
sight of me silver-wrapped, and bound to a chair. Lou didn’t do much except stand
there, her face devoid of expression—no tears, no sorrow or fear. The canvas of her
lined face was flat, except for the spark in her eyes. Though her flare was little
more than a fleck, I could see it clearly in the gloom—a tiny flash of amethyst fire
deep inside her brown eyes. Her first flare in months.

The Were part of me noted something else. She’d presented her back to our enemy.

“You
are
mates,” I said. Feeling sick, I turned over cards that had always been facedown,
and tallied up their values. “That’s how you got a Were through a Fae portal. It sensed
your Fae blood in him and let him through.”

Chapter Twenty

I don’t know what happened after that. Did I lunge for Lou? Did I lunge for Mannus?
I was on the floor again, panting like I’d hit mile twenty on a marathon. The chair
and I lay sideways. Stuart didn’t need prodding. He dragged me and my chair back to
upright position and stood, too close for my nose, behind me. “We should have nailed
her chair to the floor,” Stuart said.

“Or maybe just her feet,” said Dawn.

Mannus said, “What did she mean by the gates recognized your blood in mine?”

Lou rubbed her ring with her thumb before she turned to him. “The child has always
been obsessed with blood.” Hands clasped, thumb pressed hard on the emerald, she radiated
innocence as she lifted one shoulder and said, “The gates do not recognize one type
of blood from another.”

I felt like pointing a finger and shouting
“Liar!”
but I didn’t. She was playing a deep game, but I couldn’t work out what it was and
how I figured into it. But one thing was clear: Mannus didn’t know that touching her
ring allowed Lou to fabricate on the spot. She stood easy as her mate cocked his head
to listen to her heart. After a beat or two, he said, “You speak the truth.” And just
like that, her hastily crafted fib went sailing over the finish line, with a jaunty,
“gotcha fool” flag fluttering from its mast.

Mannus said gruffly, “You can have your five minutes with her. After that, she’s mine.”
He went to the desk and opened a drawer. I swear to the stars that I could literally
see the cold air pour out. What the hell did he have in there? Mannus reached inside
and brought out what appeared to be a short piece of leather. Not that scary. He tossed
it, and it landed with a thunk on the dusty desktop. I felt another shudder of cold.
Is it a whip?
My skin did an obligatory crawl at the thought.
They’re just trying to soften you up with your own fear
. If so, full marks for them.
Go ahead and label me intimidated.
I’d have sold my soul to know exactly what artifact from hell he’d summoned from
the bottom of the desk’s drawer. I was frightened but not in terror. But you see—I
still didn’t fully believe that Lou wouldn’t step up, at the last minute. That everything
wasn’t just a whisper away from destruction.

“Where is my Royal Amulet?” Lou asked in a querulous tone. When I wouldn’t lift my
gaze past the logo on her shirt, her dry fingers touched my chin. The tape tightened
at my throat as she lifted my face till I got the full impact of her little flare.
“Tell me.”

“Tell me.” I felt the long familiar suck of depression just taking in the greed in
her eyes. “It’s been the pattern of our life together, hasn’t it? Do this. Do that.
Don’t cry. Don’t ask questions. If you’re frightened, count until you’re not. Stop
sulking. Come find me. Does that sound familiar? It should, because I came running.
But you were never in danger, were you? Scawens never got staked with a silver spike
and you never were held captive in a room lined with silver. It was just another fabrication.
You’ve been feeding me a buffet of lies as long as we’ve been together.”

“I warned you to stay out of my head.”

“Then why haven’t you stayed out
of mine
?”

“I am dying here. I need the Royal Amulet to open the portal and return home. I can’t
die here among…” Lou paused, and reconsidered her word choices. Then she cut to the
chase. “Tell Mannus where it is.”

“You know, that’s the part that really kills me.” Bitterness made my jaw ache. “You
can’t
open a portal. You tried. Remember? Over and over again. We spent weeks traveling
from place to place, trying to summon one. Can’t you get it through your head? The
gates to Merenwyn are closed!”

“Not to one who summons it with the Royal Amulet. And Mannus has made a pledge to
me—”

“Do you actually believe—”

“If you tell him what he wants to know,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “He
will release you. You may carry on with your life.”

“And what about Trowbridge?”

Her eyes turned scornful. “He is one of them.”

“No.” I stared her down. “He’s mine.”

Trowbridge shifted. The padlocks swung and sent a thread of his scent to my nose.
“Don’t, Hedi,” he said. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“This is going nowhere fast,” said Mannus.

A familiar expression flitted across my aunt’s face as she examined me. “You smell
like them now,” Lou said with deep disdain. Her eyes sparked purple, a quick hint
of amethyst before fading to flat brown.

How quickly love turns to hatred. Think of a way out of this. Think.

Someone knocked on the door. Scawens inhaled through his nose and said, “Biggs.”

“It better be good.” Mannus folded his arms. “Tell him to enter.”

I recognized Biggs as the dark-haired Were from the Laundromat who’d been reluctant
to join the fight. He had clever eyes, and a flat mouth, but his most noticeable feature
was his height. By human standards he was diminutive, by Weres’ he was Lilliputian.
Help us,
I silently pleaded. Biggs’s face didn’t soften, but his lips got thinner.

“What is it?” asked Mannus.

“The witches won’t accept the check,” said Biggs.

“Tell them there won’t be any trouble with this check.”

“I told them that, but they’re insisting the outstanding balance be cleared before
they set the final ward on the eastern end of the property.” Biggs’s eyes roved from
Mannus to Dawn, Scawens to me, and then back to Mannus. What he didn’t look at—didn’t
even glance at—was Trowbridge. “The coven wants to speak to you and only you.”

“Without that last ward, I’ll be up to my ass in Weres as soon as the fairy portal’s
scent floats over the pond.” Mannus scratched the bristles on his chin. “It always
comes down to money. My kingdom for a stack of bills.” Suddenly his fingers froze
mid-scratch. His head slowly pivoted to me. Turquoise lights spun slowly around his
pupils, like blue comets with tiny green tails. “Dawn,” he said in the same sort of
voice I’d use if I found twenty bucks in my winter jacket. “Bring me the thing you
took off the mutt’s waist.”

Bile rose in my throat as Dawn pulled Mum’s bride belt off the shelf. Mannus took
it from her and untied the pouch’s soft leather fastenings. He peered inside. “So,”
he said, pouring the Fae Tears into his hand. He held them under the lamp’s light.
Six stones winked from the wrinkled plain of his palm. Mannus settled on one—the smallest
and brightest—and put it aside. He let the others roll down the funnel of his fingers
back into the soft leather pouch.

“How priceless is priceless?” He turned the Tear I’d shed for Trowbridge between his
blunt fingers.

“The witches will recognize its value,” said Lou, in a flat voice. “They’ll pretend
it’s almost worthless, but they will want it enough to agree to anything you request.”

His face turned sour. “I hate wasting resources.” He stood. “My patience is almost
gone, little mutt. I’ll settle this and then I’ll settle you.”

There would be no “settling” of me. A cold thought, but a clear one, cutting through
all those half-formed expectations based on a relationship that has expired. Once
he came back, I had no future to moon over. Lou wasn’t going to help me. Hell, there
was hardly any present left. My heart turned as hard as the stone inside his fist
as the Alpha walked to the door with my Tear in his hand. Just the thought of a witch
reaching for it. Fouling it with her touch.

Fury.

“Don’t you remember the old Alpha?” I shouted in defiance. “Trowbridge’s father flared
electric blue. Bright blue. Just like Trowbridge does.” I was bulletproof in my rage.
“Mannus doesn’t flare like a Were, he flares like a mated Fae. He’s nothing more than
the second son of an Alpha who had to trick a Fae into believing he loved her, just
so he could go to Merenwyn to steal some power and a blue-green flare.”

“Shut up,” said Mannus.

“Trowbridge’s got jack in his eyes,” said Stuart to Biggs. “He doesn’t flare.”

“That’s because you’re poisoning him with silver,” I said. “Real Alphas have a pure
blue light, not a green-blue one. Can’t you see you’ve got the real Alpha chained
up? Ask
Trowbridge
who killed the old Alpha.”

Mannus grabbed the leather thing from the desk and started over the bloodstained floor
in my direction. I spat out the rest rapid-fire. “It was Mannus. I saw his wolf come
through the portal—” Mannus pressed the thing in his hand against my skin. It was
colder than the Atlantic in January. Cold enough to feel like a flame.

Oh my Goddess
.

I looked down at my chest. Held flat against my flesh was a leather dog collar, and
from it hung a long bell of iron.

I screamed.

“You bastards, you bastards,” I heard Bridge hoarsely shout.

The lights went out, and I was walking the dark halls of my mind again, calling for
my Trowbridge, but finding nothing except dark curtains waving in a cold killing wind.

*   *   *

Weak. I’m so weak.

Fingers pinched my chin. My head was wobbling on my shoulders now, no longer held
immobile against the high back of the kitchen chair by a choker of duct tape. That
had been torn off, and tossed to the ground, replaced by a length of leather that
Mannus had fastened around my neck. The dog collar’s iron pendant rubbed against the
hollow at the base of my throat—right in the place Trowbridge had kissed with soft
lips near dawn. My shoulders jerked against the cold burn of its contamination.

“My father made this collar,” said Mannus. “He told my brother and me if we ever saw
a Fae, we were to trap it and collar it. I should have put it on you the moment we
had you in the chair. How does it feel?”

I took in a careful, shallow breath.