The Thing About Weres

else he wanted.”

Ow.

Stubbornly, I said, “Still, he could have just come to see what—”

“No one with any Were in them would take traveling through that gates casually,” Trowbridge said harshly. “It’s like a whacked-out ride at Wild Water Kingdom. Except the walls are made of water not fiberglass. And instead of sliding down, you’re being pushed upward by a wind. Everything’s blurry, but … there are people on the other side of the wall. You can see them. All tight together, twisted, pressing against the surface on the other side. I’m not sure if they’re dead or alive. Their eyes…”

He shook his head. “In some places the passage gets real tight, and then it seems to split into two, sometimes three channels. If Merry hadn’t led me, I’d have…” His lips tightened, then he dismissively lifted his shoulder. “It’s a fucking nightmare in there. Your sense of time is shot. Your wolf wants you to change, and you’re worrying how it will react to all the things it hears and sees. Last thing you want to do is go down one of those blind alleys.”

I gazed at him, remembering how I had sent a half-conscious man through the gates and saw a wolf leap through the other end. Another sorry to add to the list. Another thing to thank Merry for.

“Don’t listen to him,” Lexi said in a soft hiss.

“Just for once, shut up,” I said.

“You don’t forget what it felt like,” said Trowbridge. “And you don’t look forward to doing it again. Your brother had already traveled through once. He knew what to expect. Add that to the fact he’s half juiced on sun potion ninety-nine percent of the day … the trip here was hard.” He lifted his gaze to mine and held it so I could read the truth. “Your brother was sent on a mission. I could only think of two things that the Mage would consider valuable. One of them was the Royal Amulet.”

“What was the other one?” asked Biggs.

“Hedi.” A muscle moved in Trowbridge’s cheek. “That was one thing your brother didn’t lie about—there aren’t a lot of mystwalkers in Merenwyn. They’re right up there with the Sasquatch. I didn’t know if he knew that Hedi was a mystwalker right up to ten minutes ago.”

Just what every girl wants to hear—being compared to Bigfoot. I drew a moat around my small salt mountain. “Why’s Ralph so important?”

He walked over to the fridge and leaned against it. “It has another name—the Opener of Doors. Doesn’t mean shit to me. All I know is that the Black Mage wants it, and as long as I’m Alpha in this world, he’s not going to get it.”

Lexi saw the last boat sailing away without him. “He’s trying to poison your mind, and you’re letting him. Don’t you see? He hates me because back in Merenwyn, I’m a somebody, and he’s worth less than a farm animal!” Lexi groped for my hand, and when I pulled it away and tucked it in my lap, he exploded into full rage. “He didn’t even want to come back to you! Remember, I had to ‘sweeten the pot’ before he’d agree to a deal!”

Trowbridge pushed away from the refrigerator. Standing alone and tall again. “I am—was—the leader of the Raha’ells. I owe them. If there was any way I could get them through the Safe Passage, I had to try.”

“I can’t deal with this,” I said numbly, covering my face. “I can’t think anymore.”

“Hell, don’t let them do this to me,” my twin threatened. “I’ve got to go back. You don’t understand—I’ll die without the juice.”

My twin, the drug addict.

“Here’s the sum of what I understand,” I said, my voice cracked and low. “You’re wearing your lying face.”

“You whoring bitch,” my twin hissed.

“That’s it.” Two red spots on Trowbridge’s cheeks. “Lock him in the room downstairs. We’ll figure out what to do with him tomorrow.”

Suddenly, Lexi sprang up—like hell he had a broken leg—and overturned the table in my direction. I dove for the floor and cried out when I landed on my burned hand. Trowbridge let out an ungodly roar and threw a roundhouse punch into my brother’s face. Lexi went stumbling backward, tripped over my overturned chair, and fell on his hip. The Alpha of Creemore was on top of him before he’d even had a chance to roll. Trowbridge caught Lexi’s collar in his bad hand, and he went to town on Lexi’s face with his right.

Blood flew, and the scent of pink sweet peas blossomed again.

When a splatter of the red stuff hit the cabinet, something broke inside me. I screamed. Sharp and shrill. I kept it up until Cordelia had pulled my face into her lumpy breast. “Hush, hush,” she murmured, rocking me.

“Don’t let them do this,” I heard my brother call to me. “You don’t know—” Another smack of fist on flesh made me tremble and cringe. I turned my head to watch as they carried Lexi past me—the Alpha of Creemore and his trusted second, Harry. And it was hard not to remember another kitchen—this one in flames—and another time when my twin was carried away from me. But this time, in this homey kitchen, when everything had given over to ruin—through the destructive flames of home truths and broken loyalties—our gazes held.

Betrayer, his said.

A little part of me turned to stone. I crawled away from Cordelia’s embrace and kept going until I hit the corner. There I crouched, a hand pressed against Merry. She wrapped a tendril of ivy around my thumb as doors were shut, locks were turned, and my brother’s cries were finally silenced.

By the time Alpha and crew came upstairs, I felt leaden. I rocked on my heels, staring at the blister, now fat and yellow, on the web between my finger and my thumb.

Ugly.

Trowbridge came to me directly. No detours, no pausing to judge the relative dangers of the kill zone. The Alpha of Creemore sank onto his heels, his knees bracketing mine. We were so close I could have counted the lines radiating from his solemn eyes, if I’d had the time or a piece of paper to tally up the numbers.

He’d buried the loneliness. There wasn’t any whiff of it in his gaze.

But he hadn’t figured out how to hide his bone-deep fatigue.

It aged him.

I’ll never catch up to him. I don’t even want to anymore.

“Are you all right?” His scent spoke to my Were. Told her that his protective urges were hanging on to control by a very thin thread.

A regretful thump of a tail, low by my spine.

“I hate this kitchen,” I muttered. “It smells of death like the rest of the house.”

“This is your home.” His voice was a low rumble. Lids lowered, gaze fixed on my twisting hands. “I’ll have them scour it from top to bottom and put flowers in every room. It will be cleaned before the sun goes down.”

“I don’t think Lexi knows where the Safe Passage is.” Trowbridge visibly tensed as I tested the edges of my blister with my nail. “If that’s why you didn’t shoot him.”

So fragile, I felt. Poised on the edge of either violence or another meltdown.

Let it be violence. Don’t let me cry in front of them again.

“Can I see your hand?” he asked, choosing to ignore the Lexi reference.

“No,” I said flatly. He had a little piece of something green caught in his beard. Was it a bit of Merenwynian fern? I focused on it—not on the slope of his hard shoulder peeking through the dreads or the way the denim stretched over his thighs or the fact that a tiny smear of my brother’s blood was glistening on top of his arm hairs, right by his elbow.

Cordelia cleared her throat in a meaningful way. Then I heard Harry say, “We’ve got some cleanup to organize. Biggs, bring the girl.”

“Are you serious?” he whined.

“I could neuter you with one twist of my wrist, you featherbrained Chihuahua,” said Cordelia.

I heard Biggs sigh and then we were alone.

Trowbridge hadn’t moved a muscle during all this and I found myself thinking that he must be a good hunter. Able to pick his prey and wait for the right moment to pounce.

Don’t pounce. I’m not prey.