The Thing About Weres

Forever, this time.

Payback pain was beginning to make itself known. Which fell into the good-news category, right? Throbbing mitts meant the essence of my Fae wasn’t floating in Threall looking for a new home—she’d come back to Creemore with me. Where was my Were? I probed and found her back in her usual spot, giving me the stink eye.

So the troops were all together again.

One problem down. Ninety-nine to go.

I’d have to lie to him.

Concentrate on the other stuff.

How was I going to detach the people I cared about from whatever finger-pointing would inevitably follow? Think. I’d have to trick Harry into giving me the key to the room in which my brother was caged. I’d have to send Cordelia off on some trumped-up mission so that no one could later turn the blame on her. I’d have to send Biggs on a ferret hunt, just so that he looked innocent.

Nausea climbed up my throat.

“You went to Threall, didn’t you?” Trowbridge asked.

I ached to tell him the truth. All about it. The fire, the tree, the Old Mage—even the bit where I fucked up with the Black Mage.

“You made a decision without me again,” he said. “You have to stop doing that.”

Well, that would be one way to go.

“I need to know what happened up there,” he asked.

What happened is that Karma wants a do-over, I thought, staring at the trees. She was forcing me to reenact the same scene—the portal, the lie, the push across the threshold. Why? Had I missed some important lesson the first time around?

I’m no hero. Neither is Lexi.

“She used magic,” said Cordelia. “Her hand’s a mess.”

Trowbridge pressed a hard kiss on my temple.

I don’t want to lose kisses.

It’s not like I hadn’t learned things in the last six months. I’d figured out that there were times to run and times to stand. Very recently—okay, yesterday—I’d come to appreciate the fact that being an ostrich was only good when the tide was out, the weather was balmy, and the sand had not a single flea. Burying your head in the golden sand? It’s just not practical.

Sooner or later, the tide of life would find you.

Fact is, no matter how hard you try to avoid making decisions (even if guilt and self-doubt are truly messing with your head), the sad reality is no one can get away in life without choosing between one thing and another. Even opting to ignore the existence of the choice was a choice. Living (and almost dying) among the pack had taught me that.

Threall had shown me the reverse side of the coin. Forget free will. Nobody really has it. Some things are just dumped on you by other people, courtesy of your connection to them, and you don’t have the luxury of mulling over your choices. You end up opting for the best compromise and hoping it will be good enough.

The trick is learning to live with the result.

“Christ,” hissed Trowbridge. “What bit you?”

I looked down at my arm. The devil’s spawn’s teeth marks were an oval of bruised purple on my pale skin. Blood welled from the imprint of each tooth, tiny beads, like black rubies on a pretender’s crown. You’re going to leave a scar, aren’t you, kid? You didn’t have to. I’ll remember you always.

“Man, that looks bad,” said Biggs.

It did. The teeth marks were actually kind of hideous on my pale white skin. Trowbridge cradled my arm and turned it toward the setting sun. “Who did this?” he growled.

“A kid in Threall.” I stared at the devil’s spawn’s bite. What would have happened if the kid had come to me?

My mate’s scent heated and clouded around us. Protective. Angry. Threatened. “Why did you go there?”

“To kill the Black Mage.”

“Do tell us that you succeeded,” drawled Cordelia.

Silently, I shook my head. Trowbridge’s skin warmed my cheek.

His throat moved then he said, “I don’t want you ever going there again.”

But I will.

Merry rappelled up her chain to the open neck of my T-shirt. Trowbridge lifted his arm so that she could slide under the jersey and scoot down to position herself over my heart. Heat warmed my chest as she began the healing process.

My throat was so tight it hurt.

And there it was again. The road map of my life and choices open flat on a table again. Three entwined lifelines on it. Mine, Lexi’s, and Trowbridge’s. But now I saw other lines—fainter but no less important—woven loosely around my own.

They deserve more from me.

“I messed up, Trowbridge,” I whispered.

“How?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

“Oh, it’s huge.” The trees outside were so beautiful. Just a few hardwoods and a swath of evergreens. “You’ll want to tell the pack to leave the house and grounds. This is family business.”

“Biggs,” said the Alpha of Creemore, accepting the clean towel that Cordelia offered. “Do it.”

No one talked while the grounds were cleared. Trowbridge wrapped the hand towel around my wrist and applied pressure. Cordelia busied herself sighing heavily and taking care of my mate’s discarded dreads. Harry stood in the hall, hands in his back pockets, looking a little out of place.

The house turned funeral quiet. Was Lexi okay?

When Biggs returned, I told them everything. Every single terrible detail of what happened in Threall; all about Mad-one, the devil’s cub, the Black and Old Mages, the pledges, the two trees with one trunk. I didn’t gloss it over; I laid every one of my transgressions bare. My voice was flat—well, mostly; it did get kind of watery after telling about the kid. I finished by explaining that in sewing Trowbridge’s life to mine, I’d tied him forever to the one man he hated among all others. After that, I’m not sure what I said. All I know is that I talked until I couldn’t anymore. And then I sat there feeling empty and waiting for the moment Trowbridge dumped me on the broken seat of the easy chair.

Instead, he wrapped the end of my limp hair around his damaged finger, trying to set a curl in hair that resists suggestion. He slipped his digit free from the coil he’d made, and then gave a half-smile as the strand twisted free.

A small head shake. “You are a lot of work, Hedi Peacock.”

“Yeah, I am,” I said evenly, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

Please don’t dump me.

Trowbridge’s arm tightened around me as he blew some air through his nose in one long stream of man- disbelief. “Just to recap: unless your brother is sent through the portal, you and I will die. Merenwyn will enter a dark age. Horror will seep—”

“Drip.”

He nodded. “Drip into this world.”

“It’s a gift,” said Cordelia wearily. “She’s the only person I know who can tip our world toward disaster with one trip to the loo.”

Harry cleared his throat. “Sounds to me like the disaster was already in the making. It’s not all Little Miss’s fault.”

But some of it was. I had to own that.

My One True Love’s chin ruffled the top of my head as he grimly shook his head. “I don’t want you in Merenwyn.”