The Thing About Weres

wrist. Blood—sweet-pea scented and bright red—had soaked through the bandage.

“He hurt you?” he asked, his voice throbbing.

Oh Goddess, could this awesomely terrible comedy of hurt get any worse?

“No, Lexi,” I said. “Trowbridge wouldn’t hurt me. He’d never hurt me.”

But abused people? They can’t believe that. There is no such thing as a safe harbor. There are only people who have hurt them and people who will hurt them.

There’s nothing in between.

“Give me it,” he said roughly to Trowbridge.

My mate didn’t hesitate. He passed the vial of sun potion to him, his arm curved protectively around my shoulders.

Lexi looked at it for a moment. Self-acknowledgment, bitter fruit. “I shouldn’t have come back. You are right. I am a selfish prick who fucked it all up.” He drew in another deep breath. Tilted his head back and took two long swallows.

“Hell, I know you think you’ve found a life of happiness here with these wolves,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ll get it.” Another swallow. His mouth curved in a gruesome smile. “At least now I won’t have to fight against my wolf anymore.”

Then his face hardened. His gaze drifted to Trowbridge and paused there for a long moment. What they said to each other with their eyes, I’ll never know.

Then—because he was Lexi, who never knew the meaning of humility—he brought the vial to his lips and tossed back the rest in three quick gulps. When he’d drained the bottle, he wiped his mouth. Gave Trowbridge a glittering smile. “See?” he said. “It’s not going to be that easy. I’ve drunk gallons of this stuff. You’re going to have to sit around watching me for hours. I couldn’t…” His brows drew together. Slowly, clumsily. “I couldn’t…”

My brother’s head turned slowly in my direction. “Hell?”

Then his eyes rolled up and he finally—oh Goddess, curse me—finally, he fell.

I couldn’t catch him. He outweighed me by at least seventy pounds. But I managed to catch his head before it hit the ground, and that I eased tenderly down onto the bed of grass. Then I stared at his bruised, slack face and knew a measure of self-hatred and remorse that took me to a level of misery I’d never sunk to before.

“I don’t want him lying here, like this. Not in front…” My gaze flicked to the pack. “Please, Trowbridge.”

Cordelia. She could move so fast sometimes. I knew—peripherally—that she was over there somewhere. Yet, suddenly, she was right beside me. Her bony knee grazing mine.

“We’ll carry him to the tree,” she said. “Would that be good?”

I nodded.

They were sweet to me. Later, I’d recognize that.

But in the seconds that followed the collapse of my twin all I knew was anger. Deep and festering. I felt the pack watching us—when will they stop doing that?—eyes wide, mouths agape.

Lexi was carried back to the tree. When they went to put him down, I caught Trowbridge’s sleeve. “I need to hold him,” I said, scuttling between my brother and the trunk of the tree.

“He’s a deadweight,” warned Cordelia.

And she was right. An unconscious person is heavier than a lead weight. My shoulders bowed, cradling him. Trowbridge crouched beside me. “Are you okay?” he asked. His scent wove around both of us.

I nodded and pressed my chin on top of Lexi’s head.

This is Karma’s price.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Yes, I was wonderfully calm for about fifteen seconds.

Then the panic started to squeeze my stomach. I had nothing to give comfort to my brother. A blanket—he wouldn’t feel it. Privacy—the house was too far and the pack needed to witness every anguished moment of the Stronghold brat’s fall. All of them—the Danvers bitch and Rachel Scawens. Probably Brad Mosbergen, too.

No, no, no.

I should have talked to my brother first. Pulled him aside. Warned him about wily old goats. It was stupid not to have let him know … what if the Old Mage had other plans?

Oh Goddess. I’ve made a mistake.

Was he afraid? Did he feel alone? How long before his breath rattles in his throat? Minutes? Oh sweet heavens, hours? What does a “rattle” even sound like anyway?

I might wait too long.

Mad-one might wait too long.

Was there a place in heaven for broken men?

Fae Stars. Was there a place for Trowbridge and me?

I squeezed my eyes shut. And in the roiling darkness of my mind, all I could see was Lexi when he was twelve: too thin, too much fire, too much want and desire, mind sly. My ally in those painful, early years. Sending thought pictures to comfort me. Leading me on charges through the woods. Bravely swinging from his pirate rock to the rescue of damsels in distress.

The rest of the stuff … The lies. The hatred I’d seen gleaming from his green eyes. The sour scent of the sun potion leaking from his skin. The wolves’ eyes tatted above his ear. The blood on his hands. The ugly stains on his soul … Those I didn’t recall.

My heart was open—it flowed with hurt and love.

There was just one sacred thing left between us.

Please, Goddess, I’ll pay whatever you want.

I sent my twin a nudge.

Lexi?

Nothing.

Someone coughed. Go away. Leave us alone.

I could smell his blood, sweet-scented like mine.

Lexi? Please, Lexi.

I was on the brink of pulling back and then—I felt him. A faint shadow on the edge of my mind. My brother, my twin. Warmth flooded me.

A “yes” if ever I knew one.

A slip. A slide.

And then I was with my twin’s mind once more.

In his dreams, Lexi sat under the leafy canopy of a very old tree.

It was a tall, single-trunk maple. Fissured bark. Roots so thick they lay like thick-muscled arms atop the soil. My twin’s back was braced against its trunk, one wrist rested on his raised knee. No hat—and no wolfish tattoo or shaved skull, either. Hair uniformly long, one side draped in tangled disorder across his shoulder. He wearily lifted his head; his eyes were sleepy.

“Sit,” he said, giving a faint head toss toward the little hollow between two roots in the dirt beside him.

I did. Close enough that my shoulder could brush his.

We sat on a gentle hill. Words unspoken between us, an invisible barrier. A summer sun shone above, brilliant in a clear sky. Below us lay the Pool of Life, a couple of miles away, or perhaps more. Blue. Not the hue of Trowbridge’s eyes. Bluer.

“It’s beautiful,” I said in awe.

“Yes,” he said, his voice so tired.

Virgin forests, untouched by man. Supersaturated colors. So many greens. Apple and kelly; pistachio and lime. Yellows, too—drifts of tiny starburst daisies nodding in Merenwyn’s wind. Beyond the Pool of Life the landscape climbed, hills dipping into valleys, and then rising again, rolling upward toward distant mountains.