The Thing About Weres

Lexi really think that it was as simple as stealing a car and hitting the road? Fae Stars—what about his daughter? How about Ralph and Merry? And here’s one that was at the top of my list: what about me? And the long-held fantasy of mates-forever that was poised on a knife’s edge?

“Promise me you won’t leave with him,” Trowbridge had asked. “Let me explain.”

Could anything get us past this? Brother gone bad? Mate bond fractured? Trowbridge coming back so foreign he barely matched the man of my memory?

And really, could he—the man of few words—find the right ones to “explain” all this?

I thought back to that slow stroke of his thumb on my knuckle as we stood in front of the assembled pack/would-be Hedi murderers and wondered if he’d been dumb enough to think a touch, a feel, a press of skin was the equivalent of a talk. I had a growing sense that he’d been trying to bypass the awkward necessity of speech, cagily trying to speak to me with his skin and his heat.

Cheater. Some words are important. Strung together, they can save people a world of hurt. For instance, “No, Hedi, I never told your brother to sweeten the pot.”

My twin drummed his fingers on the table, impatient for my response.

I answered with a vehement headshake.

“Why not?” he said out loud.

Cordelia turned, sponge in hand. Biggs straightened from his slouch against the door.

“Because I’m not ready to,” I snapped.

Without permission or delicacy, my brother shot one final image through the open channel between us. It surged into me like a tidal bore, too fast to repel, too powerful to outrun. A small pack of wolves—maybe seven or eight of them. Viewed from some vantage spot above them. Freeze-framed in the moment of their bloody victory. Prey had been felled—a man, legs akimbo, arms flung out, mouth open in a soundless scream—and the wolves were clustered, shoulder to shoulder, around his body. Slick smears of red on the grass. One large, gray wolf tearing a sinew from the man’s neck. The others’ lips curled into snarls, poised at the point of a rumble for the choicest meats.

I gasped and tried to rinse the image out of my head, but the vision was so ugly, so sickening. “Don’t ever do that again,” I said in a shaky voice.

His face was sweaty and pale, his eyes bruised. “That’s who they are.”

Cordelia moved to stand between us. “What’s going on?”

I focused on slowing my breathing, clearing my mind.

“You’re a fool if you ignore that.” His Merenwynian accent was back. “Can’t you see them for what they are?” Then he dared to send another mental nudge.

I stood up so fast, my chair overturned, and Merry tumbled off my shoulder. She swung from my chain, flashing yellow-orange in alarm. “I’ve had enough of being pushed around today,” I said in a raw voice. “If you ever try what you just did again—I swear I’ll level you.”

Lexi lifted his lip in a superior sneer that pushed buttons I’d thought long buried, then said, “You needed a few home truths delivered.”

I did, did I?

“I’ve had enough truths to last a lifetime.” I flattened my palms on the pine table and leaned into his space. “Why don’t you take a turn? Here’s a home truth for you. Our father would be ashamed of you. He would have been horrified by what you’ve done.”

“Move away from him,” Cordelia murmured to me.

But I couldn’t. Lexi’s eyes had widened with a hurt that somehow had turned around and bit me. Oh Goddess. What had I done? “Lexi. I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry. I’m just tired and —”

“You think you’re fit to judge me? You?” Lexi rose slowly, cradling the ferret. Sweat dotted the shorn side of his scalp. “You have no fucking idea what it’s like to find yourself in another realm, cut off from everybody. Look at you.” He flicked a dismissive hand. “You’ve never gone hungry. You’ve never been too afraid to shut your eyes. You haven’t got a clue.”

No. I didn’t know what life in Merenwyn was like, and for that, I owed him. Ten years ago, when the Fae had carried him through our kitchen, Lexi’s gaze had swung to me. He’d seen me, sitting hunched in my hidey- hole, and then, he’d deliberately looked away. He’d done it to protect me. And because of his sacrifice, I’d had a life of sorts. Boring and quiet, and yes, equipped with my own set of nightmares. But nothing like the horror his life had been.

His ferret looked at me with accusing eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said, shamed. “I’m so—”

“Save it.” Lexi cocked his head to the side. “You know what I see when I look at you? Just another one of the Son of Lukynae’s well-trained bitches. Sit,” he said, his tone set on hurt. “Come on, ‘sit.’ Or do you only answer to your master?”

And bam. Just like that my emotions heated right back to simmering rage.

“You have magic,” he taunted. “Do you know what I could have done with that back home? Even gifted with a minor talent like yours, I could have made something of myself with it. I would have taken it, shaped it into something useful, honed its edge every night until it was sharp as a blade, and it would have protected me!”

“You were given a magical gift,” I said through my teeth.

“Being able to see magic isn’t a gift. It’s a fucking curse!” he shouted. “Sure, I can see it—even steal it and use it for an hour or two—but it won’t stay with me. It’s not mine. I have nothing of my own except my wits and my balls. The rest of it—my clothing, my food, my bed—it’s all a short-term loan. One misstep, one stupid gesture—it’s gone and so am I. No one except the Black Mage knows that I have a talent. The men of the Court give me a nod, but I know what they’re really thinking behind their masks—that I’m just another of the Black Mage’s pets and it’s only a question of time before he loses interest. As far as they can tell, I butt-fucked my way out of the kitchen, and sooner or later, my protector’s going to tire of me, and then all his little bonus gifts—like the temporary magic I sometimes demonstrate, or the right to eat at table—will be taken away. The bets are already being laid about his newest acquisition.” His mouth curled into a smile of self-derision. “You know what the worst part of it is? I’m the dickhead who brought that little mystwalking freak into the castle—”

“Mystwalkers aren’t freaks.”

“They should have let the trait die out.” He swiped his hair over his shoulder. “Drowned each and every one of those abominations at birth.”

My mouth fell open, so deep was my shock. Abominations? I’d pried open a can of sardines with my teeth to discover it packed instead with scorpions, stingers raised. Now all I wanted to do was reseal the lid. Painfully, with a sledgehammer of harsh words, but dismay and rage had temporarily choked me of a vocabulary suitable to the task.

“Instead the Black Mage sends me searching for them.” He shook his head, his gaze unseeing. “I brought that little shit in—had to fight off half his family first—thinking he would keep my master occupied for a week or two. Instead, the mystwalker turned out to have true talent. He’ll travel to Threall soon, if he hasn’t already.”

I think he already has. You wouldn’t believe the mess he’s made of Threall.

“I’ll be as worthless as two teats on a boar hog if the little prick succeeds.” True worry creased Lexi’s brows, and the ferret placed a soft paw to his tense jaw. “The Black Mage trains his pets in secrecy, but I know what he means to do. He wants to steal the Old One’s soul, and with it, all his knowledge.”

“You can’t steal a soul,” I said flatly.

“He’ll send me to the Spectacle again.” The hand that petted the ferret faintly trembled. “But this time he’ll have them blind me first, so I can’t use my flare to save myself.”

I don’t ever want to see inside my brother’s soul, I thought bleakly. It would be fear plus bitterness plus fear plus crazy … I softened my voice. “It doesn’t matter what the Black Mage does or thinks. What happens in Merenwyn no longer matters. You’re home. You never have to go back to that nightmare.”

“Of course I’m going back,” he said scathingly. “Earth has no sun potion.”