Bloodrose

Shay. Each time Ren spoke, Shay bristled.

Shay was a leader too, taking control of this war in which he’d play such a vital part. And he wasn’t ceding pack rule to Ren. By taking some of our packmates, including me, with him to retrieve Tordis, Shay had made it clear he’d be leading wolves, not just Searchers.

How would the pack respond to Ren’s return? Would any new allegiance they felt for Shay dissolve? Nev and Sabine had loved Ren. Ansel and Bryn had thought he was a good alpha. But I also remembered what Sabine had said. Ren made a mistake. If he wanted you so much, he should have come here. He should have been here to fight for you. He was here now, but was it too late? I wondered if she’d still feel loyalty to her former alpha.

Thoughts of my pack, of our bonds, brought me back to the wolf I was the most worried about.

“What about my brother?” I asked Anika. “What have you decided about him?”

“Nothing’s been decided yet,” Anika replied carefully.

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“According to Logan, your brother betrayed our location to the Keepers of his own volition. He wasn’t forced to do so.”

“You don’t understand what they did to him. They destroyed his wolf. They broke him. They promised they would make him whole again. He had no choice!”

As much as I didn’t want to think about it, I wondered if I wouldn’t have done the same thing had I been in Ansel’s place. I couldn’t imagine life without the ability to shift. The wolf was who I was. Without that part of me I would feel like I was nothing. Just like Ansel did.

“We’re taking that into consideration,” Anika said.

“How could Ansel have told the Keepers about the Denver hideout?” I protested, growing more desperate. I couldn’t make my brother a wolf again, but at least I could try to set him free. I turned pleading eyes on Connor. “You saw what he was like. He didn’t have any strength left.”

Connor looked at Logan, who smiled cruelly at me.

“He didn’t need strength,” Logan said. “All he needed was a simple invocation. A spell that revealed the location of the supplicant. The only thing your brother had to do was read the words aloud.”

My throat closed as I remembered two nights before, when I’d tried to turn Ansel. Tried and failed.

He reached into his pocket, pulling out the crumpled paper.

“Ansel, what is that?” I asked, trying to get a better look.

“Leave me alone.” His eyes rested on the dirty scrap for a moment before he gripped it in a tight fist, pressing it against his chest. “It’s from Bryn, okay? I managed to hang on to it while the Keepers had us separated.”

He’d lied to me. There had been no poem. No last words of love from Bryn. Only betrayal scribbled on a slip of paper. Logan watched me, still smiling while the truth twisted like a knife in my belly.

Shay’s hand was on my shoulder. I let myself lean into him, the reassurance of his touch easing my fear about Ansel’s fate. “They won’t hurt Ansel. I made them promise.”

A growl rumbled behind us. “Could you not touch her?” Ren didn’t make it sound like a question.

“Bite me,” Shay snarled.

“Stop it. Both of you.” I rubbed my throbbing temples, pulling away from Shay even though I wanted him to wrap his arms around me and find comfort. If I was going to referee this game, I had to stay neutral. I could see now while it might make me powerful, at times it would leave me miserable.

“We did give our word, Calla,” Anika said. “No harm will come to your brother. But we also can’t risk freeing him.”

“But you’ll let him come and go at will?” I pointed at Logan.

“If you haven’t noticed, everyone in this room is armed,” Anika replied coolly. “Logan was escorted here from his cell. He’ll be escorted back. Make no mistake. He’s a prisoner, not a guest.”

“Thanks, that’s lovely,” Logan said, blowing smoke rings into the air.

I glared at Logan, wishing I could bite off those fingers and let him try to hold a cigarette without them. As much as I wanted to convince the Searchers they shouldn’t trust him, I knew I was right about Logan. He was here because he’d lost his place among the Keepers. Logan was just like his father: he’d only ever been interested in power. Somehow he thought the Searchers were his way of getting it back. I just couldn’t figure out what angle he was playing.

Anika surveyed the map on the table. I knew the conversation about Ansel was over. Fury bubbled up inside me. If I couldn’t fight for him, at least I could fight. Edging forward to peek at the map, I saw mountainous terrain.

“That’s where we’re going?”

She nodded. “Murren, Switzerland. At dawn. We’ll send in the decoys first. The cave is here. We’ll draw the Guardians away from the entrance and then send in the stealth team.”

“You up for early morning bear baiting, Pascal?” Connor laughed.

For the first time Pascal cracked a smile. “Of course, mon frere. It’s what we do best.”

“Huh?” I frowned at Connor.

Connor cocked his head at me, then his eyes went wide. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Oh, man.” Shay glanced from me to Ren. “The other Guardians are bears?”

“What?!” Ren and I exclaimed in unison. I looked at him. The other alpha’s face mirrored the shock I felt.

“Just the Guardians of Tordis,” Silas replied. “You really didn’t know about the other Guardian forms?”

My skin felt too tight. I wanted to shift and bolt from the room.

Ren managed an answer. “No. We didn’t.”

“Was that bear that attacked me when we met a Guardian?” Shay asked me.

“No,” I said, still shaken. “That was just a grizzly.”

Not once in my life had I considered the idea that other forms of Guardians might exist. Our wolf packs were closely knit. We were proud of our ferocity and of our skill as warriors. The Keepers made us feel like we’d been chosen. That we alone could serve them in the war. More lies.

Ren threw me a puzzled glance. “You saved him from a bear?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I want to know more about these other Guardians.”

Silas puffed up. “It’s quite genius, actually. Keepers created Guardians naturally suited to each environment they would protect. Wolves in Colorado. Bears in Switzerland.”

A stocky, dark-haired Searcher from a team I hadn’t been introduced to smiled grimly. “Y las yaguares en Tulum.”

“Si. Las yaguares.” Silas shuddered. “La muerte en las sombras.”

I didn’t speak Spanish, but I knew he was describing another type of Guardian. My stomach twisted. I’d always felt that we were special somehow. Even if we were servants, I’d felt a sense of privilege of lives marked by exception. Now it turned out that we were just convenient.

The shock of learning wolves weren’t the only Guardians created by Keepers wasn’t the only thing gnawing at me. Everything about this scenario-the strategizing, the strike teams. Haldis Tactical was the place where Searchers planned their attacks. Where they’d planned their attacks on Vail. I didn’t have any doubts about whose side we should be on, but I wondered if I would ever feel at ease here.

Silas was still talking. “It would be the perfect system, except for the-”

“If you call them a sin against nature again, I will end you.” Ethan’s hand was on his dagger’s hilt.

“Look who’s a born-again Guardian evangelist now.” Connor laughed. “What’s up with that?”

A blush slid up Ethan’s neck. “Nothing. They’re our allies. That’s all.”

“Sure it is,” Connor said.

Ethan swore and turned his back on Connor.