The Thing About Weres

Lukynae to lead them to their promised land.”

His Raha’ells?

The fetid stench in the room made me want to heave. I watched the bag swing from the hook, back and forth, and listened with half an ear to the faint scratch of tiny nails on leather, the tick of the clock in the kitchen, the start of the furnace. The heartbeats. The inhales and exhales. All the time thinking, I sent him to hell. I told him to find his way to the Pool of Life, no matter how hard it was.

The little brown wolf nosed Trowbridge’s thigh. If she so much as turned her head and looked upward, his dick would be the last thing she saw in this realm. He looked down at her and then he said in a voice I found terrible, “The Raha’ells had enough water and game for the winter. We’ll leave right away.”

“Do you think the Black Mage’s wolves haven’t backtracked your trail?” Lexi asked, dripping scorn, and corrosion, and hurt—a splatterwork of destruction over all my hopes. “It’s over!”

“What I think is that you made a bargain, and you’re looking for a way out of it.” Trowbridge’s eyes were too bright, his face too still. “You listen to me, you Fae bastard. I did my part. You wanted to come home and now you’re home. You’re going to deliver your end or I swear to God I’ll kill her myself—with my bare hands—right here in front of you.”

“Stop,” I said in a small voice.

Anu leaned against Trowbridge’s naked leg, panting lightly.

“Kill her, then,” spat my brother. “Her death means little to me.”

The air grew heavier, almost a pressing foul weight on me. Lexi rolled his head on his neck then tucked his chin in. Morning light played over his tattoo. The wolf’s eyes gleamed, yellow and feral.

No, no, no.

“Stop it!” I shouted.

And for once, everyone heard me. They stilled—even the ferret quieted. I rocked for a bit on my heels, a hand pressed to the base of my throat, then I whispered, “I don’t understand what’s happening, okay? None of this is making sense to me, so you guys have to stop now. Everyone just needs to … stop yelling and arguing and…” My voice broke. “Who does Trowbridge want to kill?” I turned to my mate. “Trowbridge? Who do—”

“It’s Anu,” broke in Lexi. “He wants to kill one of his own with his bare hands. The savior of the Raha’ells— what a load of shit that is. She’s just leverage, isn’t she, Son of Lukynae? Disposable—even though she has some of your pack’s blood.” His mouth twisted in a sneer. “You Raha’ells are as racist as the Fae.”

“I don’t use bear traps,” growled Trowbridge. “I don’t follow a bleeding animal for threescore miles, stretching it out. I don’t sound a horn to let the wolf know it’s being followed. I don’t make it run until it can’t anymore. I don’t close in for the kill when my prey is close enough to see home. When I do it, it’s quick.”

“Lexi?” And I heard myself speak in a voice that sounded dead. “Tell me that’s not true. Tell me you didn’t hunt him.”

“He’s Raha’ell,” said Lexi.

“No,” I said slowly. “He’s not. He’s Robson Trowbridge, and he’s my—”

Lexi’s chin was out, begging to be hit. “If I hadn’t hunted him down, someone else would have trapped him. The price on his head was too high. Every bounty hunter, every Fae who was looking for a brass ring was searching for him. He was lucky that I was the one who caught him.”

Oh Goddess, I’m going to throw up.

“Don’t you look at me like that,” my twin spat. “You don’t understand anything—”

“Then explain it to me!” I cried.

“Can’t you see?” he shouted back. “He’s not one of these watered-down wolves anymore! This wolf—this animal you bonded yourself to—is responsible for more turmoil and misery in my realm than you can imagine!” His chest heaved. “In the nine winters he’s been leader of the Raha’ells, they’ve gone from a nuisance to a constant threat. A Fae can’t travel from one city to another without an armed squad. You can’t leave a gate open or even take a piss too far away from the campfire.” A look of frustration. “Your Trowbridge is more than just their Alpha. They believe him to be the Son of Lukynae—sent by the Gods to deliver them from the Fae.” Lexi gave me a bitter smile. “If you don’t believe me, ask your ‘mate’ why he turned down my first offer.”

First offer? I turned to Trowbridge. He closed his eyes briefly, then gave me a little shake of his head—his expression sad.

“I offered him freedom,” Lexi said, when Trowbridge wouldn’t—couldn’t?—answer the question in my gaze. “His life in return for guiding us through the portal. Do you know what he said?” My brother’s wolf crouched, ready to spring. “Your mate said, ‘You need to sweeten the pot before I’ll ever go through those gates again.’”

A heavy thing—ugly and dense—expanded inside my chest.

It fed on those words. It drank from the hurt.

If I let it, that heavy pain would grow so huge my knees would fold. I knew this. Just like I understood my twin wasn’t quite finished. The prospect of victory—not yet his, but soon and certain—glittered on his face. It was there, plain as day, obvious in the anticipation widening his eyes, recognizable in the twisted smile he wore—the same gloating smirk that had always made me want to punch him when he slapped the final heart down on the top of the deck when we were kids. We deliberately edit our memories, don’t we? Wanting to remember only the good? And so, I’d forgotten. How my brother liked to surge ahead of me, heedless of everything—caution, care, compassion—blind to it all, nothing ahead in sight except the sweet rush past the winner’s tape.

He opened his mouth. Here it comes—

“He didn’t want to come back,” he said. “Not to Creemore, not to you—not unless he could bring his entire pack with him. He’d rather face the interrogation and the Spectacle again than leave his precious Raha’ells in Merenwyn.”

But his eyes still glittered, and so I asked, “Then why is he here?”

“The only amulet that will open the Safe Passage is here.” He gestured to Anu. “She wears it about her neck.”

Ah, and there it was. The queen of hearts slammed faceup on top of the pile.

My gaze fell. Someone needed to wipe down the side table. It was gritty with accumulated dust.

“Hedi.” Trowbridge’s voice was a low, rough rumble. “I told you he’d do this. That he’d—”

“Lie. That’s what you said before you turned into your wolf and went for your moon-run with the pack. You said, ‘He’ll lie and charm and steal to get what he wants.’” There was a palm print on the thick dust coating the table. Large. Probably a man’s. If we were playing Clue instead of Truth or Consequences that print might have meant something. But now, it was just another element of grunge in a room swollen with all kinds of squalor. “Here’s a truth,” I said slowly. “When I look at Lexi, I don’t see the Shadow. I see my brother and I know his lying face.” I chewed my lip and thought back—double-checking my instincts.“No. Lexi wasn’t wearing it.” My gaze turned toward the man I’d loved since I was eleven. “Trowbridge, are you telling me that you didn’t ask him to ‘sweeten the pot’?”

The skin tightened around the Alpha of Creemore’s eyes. “Hedi—”

Oh Goddess, why does this hurt so much? Why can’t this heavy thing inside me smother all the sharp pointy parts of this terrible pain? “Just give me a one-word answer. Yes or no.”

“There were reasons. You need to understand—”

“No I don’t,” I said quietly. “I already understand the most important point.”

I’m a heart-blind fool.

Trowbridge’s scent reached out for me, but I shook my head and took a step away from the chair, away from him, away from anything he’d ever touched. I stood, an island, in the center of the old Alpha’s living room, thinking truths have sharp teeth and an endless appetite. They take a bite of you—one big sharp snap of their jaws—then, having found entry into your soft parts, they keeping nibbling, eating inward, until you’re hollowed out.

Belatedly, my twin’s expression softened into shame.

“I’m sorry, runt,” he said huskily.

“I need to go,” I said in a little voice.

“Where will you go?” asked Cordelia softly.