But I wasn’t, and the mental voice that sounded so much like my mother promised I never would be.
The medics arrived and called her time of death.
Who to call? Who to notify? Who was left?
The cleaners were en route to pick up the body, they told me, but they had other calls on the board.
They left Gayle alone and growing cold on the pavement, and so I stayed with her.
I might have held vigil there all night if a familiar presence hadn’t enveloped me.
Midas held me where I stood, and his scent brought me back to myself. I’m not sure how long I was gone, but I must have spaced out if Bishop had time to call in backup before I broke out of my haze.
“Deric did this,” I told Midas. “That’s what she said.” I leaned into him. “She had a crush on him, and he killed her.”
Tension ran through Midas where his body pressed against mine, and he rested his chin on top of my head.
“Either he bought more Faete,” he murmured, “or there were delayed side effects from his first hit.”
“I can’t keep shutting down like this.” I forced myself to let him go. “I have to prove—”
“—you can do your job?”
“Yes,” I snarled. “Linus would—”
“—mourn in private. That you show your grief isn’t a weakness.”
“Are you going to let me complete a sentence?”
He waited, eyebrows raised, but I was out of steam. I hated when people turned my favorite tricks around on me.
“We need to confirm Gayle’s story first.” Bishop sat and took Gayle’s limp hand. “I’ll wait with her.”
Vision liquid, I bent and hugged him around the neck. “Thanks.”
“Midas is right.” He patted my hand. “Linus showed no emotion, and it worked for him. Your passion is what draws people to you. It’s what makes people trust you. Don’t smother that spark. It’s got to light your way for a long time to come.”
Wiping my face with my hands, I left him with Gayle and arranged for a ride to Mendelsohn territory.
Having been out there more than a few times, I knew it for a long trip. Impossibly long for someone in Gayle’s condition. Yet she had done it. Somehow, against all odds, she had reached me.
“I’m coming with you,” Midas said, and I didn’t have the heart to fight him.
Neither of us spoke the whole way. There was too much hurt for me to open my mouth without hateful words falling out when this had nothing to do with Midas. The pain had dug in so deep, I had to examine it before it got the better of me. That was another thing Linus had taught me—not to go off half-cocked.
Call me if you need me.
How often did I toss those words at people? I might as well punctuate sentences with it. Mostly people didn’t hear, or they didn’t expect me to be good for it. Gayle had called me when she was out of options, and I had gone to help her. I had done what no one else would or could do for her. It wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary. And tonight, when she had run out of choices again, she had hunted me down and honored me with her final trust.
The car rolled to a stop, and Midas and I exited the vehicle on different sides. I worried that said something about our states of mind, but I couldn’t give our courtship headspace right now.
We walked down to the wooded area where the Mendelsohn pack had made their camp, and I didn’t require Midas’s senses to tell Gayle was right.
The bodies of men and women littered the ground. No children, but the lack didn’t comfort me. The bonfire at the center of it all made shadows dance where there was no other life, the effect eerie.
The wind shifted, and I caught a whiff of burning flesh. Given my recent experience with fire, I knew it was an agonizing way to go. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Not even the alpha who sat on the woodpile, flames licking over him, as his skin bubbled and burst.
“Mendelsohn.” I kept a safe distance, but I wanted to make sure he could hear. “Deric.”
“They’re dead.”
How his voice carried, I have no idea. The fire roared around him, screaming with hunger and rage.
“Come out, and we can talk about this.”
Gayle’s final plea made a lot more sense. She had come to me, not to tell me what happened, but to beg me to save him.
“I was their alpha.” He stared at his hands. “I should have protected them. Even from myself.”
The mass murder of his pack had lent him clarity. This was the most coherent he had ever sounded. He had never struck me as a particularly good or wise or kind alpha, but his people had loved him. That counted for something.
“Midas.” I took in the scene, debated our options. “How do we get him out?”
Midas didn’t answer, and I found him staring at a female’s corpse near the edge of the ring of light. A shudder rippled through him, and magic splashed over his ankles. He traded one skin for another, and his eyes were empty when they met mine. The humor, the intelligence, the fundamental elements that made him who he was had vanished from his expression.
The beast watched the alpha burn a moment longer, but Mendelsohn couldn’t hold his gaze.
Ambrose was content to bask near the fire, happy to watch as Mendelsohn burned. There was no magic to consume worth stirring for, so he joined the other shadows in their chaotic dance. He would be no help.
That left me to figure a way to get Mendelsohn out of there without going up in flames. Again.
There was no running water, so I couldn’t douse him. The bucket or two of drinking water I spotted wouldn’t be enough to kill the fire either. He had built it up high, and the stink of accelerant told me he planned to
