Meribah pointed a long, silver-tipped finger at Néne, raised her other arm, and pointed at Silène. “You have one minute to leave this place before I collar you both and take what should have been promised to me and my clan.”
Her threat was not in the negotiations brokered between her and the girls’ parents.
I waited, wanting desperately to see one more clue, one more card, one more piece of this familial puzzle in order to fathom Meribah’s endgame.
“Sil? Néne?” asked Vadim, stepping within arm’s reach of both daughters. He acted the perturbed parent, his arms crossing his chest and his body language broadcasting the end of his patience. Shaking his head, pivoting on his heels, he yelled, “Go!”
As the command left his mouth, he finished spinning, facing Meribah. A length of thick chains hung from each hand, put there by the guardswomen who had materialized at his sides.
At his signal, Hyslop and Peasgood grabbed the sisters and tore away from the portal tree. In the field, the remaining Fae guard dropped their glamour. Half of them rushed toward Vadim and Primèvere. The other half surrounded the foursome, moving as one toward the underland.
“Oh, you have done it now, Calliope. Because who else would dare insinuate themselves into my negotiations.” Meribah turned toward me, and Adelaide faced Doug. “Roger,” Meribah yelled. “Time to show me what a son of mine should be capable of.”
Roger burst into being at his brother’s side, blades extended from eight fingers and curved claws glinting from his thumbs. Sectioned armor covered his chest, shoulders, thighs, and calves. While he eyed the approaching Fae, calculating where to strike, I left him to Vadim and the rest and focused solely on Meribah.
Bear wanted Meribah. The need to crush filled the thickening muscles of my arms and legs. Loss haunted my bones. Her love and anger coursed through my blood.
I will do what you need, Bear. Guide my feet, my hands, my eyes. But I will not kill.
Chapter 24
Bear roared. We charged Meribah.
The hem of her dress dropped, sheathing her entire legs in a silver substance much like her dress. Sleeves tumbled down her arms, section by section like a carapace, even as she darted sideways, away from the woods, in the direction of the underland.
Sounds of metal against metal ricocheted across the field. I ran like my life and my sons’ lives depended on getting to her before she got to the overgrown arbor. Muscles thickened as they rippled over my shoulders and down the sides of my neck. I scented Meribah’s glee, even as Bear and I closed in.
Risking it all, we leapt, pushing Meribah off her feet. I wrapped my arms around her legs as she kicked my ribs with the flexible metal armoring her heels and smacked my head with the side of her fist.
Bear grumbled, shook off the blows, and swiped a paw down Meribah’s front.
The black claws slicing through the zipper weren’t my claws, but it was me who felt the sections of cloth give way. It was me who flipped her over, grabbed her hair, raised one arm to the sky, and chuffed out decades of pain, sorrow, and loss as I struggled not to end her life.
“Noémi,” Meribah screamed. “Stop. Please, please stop.”
I couldn’t stop.
I lowered my snout to her arm, opened my jaw wide, and clamped down below the shoulder joint. My incisors and canines punctured her protective sleeves and lodged there, tasting metal and blood and reveling in the rush of the hunt.
Bear. Bear, we have to stop.
Bear growled, shook her head, ripping flesh and pressing a massive paw to the center of Meribah’s exposed upper back.
Justice. We will get justice. For you. For Noémi. For Genevieve.
All the tears I wanted to cry dried up.
I had tasted Meribah’s blood.
“Calli.”
I released Meribah’s arm, pawed away the ruined sleeve, and licked her torn flesh. I ignored the annoying voice coming from inside my head and the raging voice behind me and sniffed at Meribah’s hair.
“You took her from me,” Bear bellowed, her breath coming out rough and ragged as her grief shredded my vocal cords.
“I didn’t know what I was doing. Noémi, you have to believe me. I did not know.” Meribah swept her uninjured arm across the grass and planted her palm under the front of her shoulder. “Get off me. Let me up. Let me explain.”
“No.” Bear backed up, sat on her haunches, swayed side to side. “No.”
Meribah’s left arm was a bloody mess. She staggered to her feet, turned, and stumbled backward. Blood scored the side of her dress, bright red against row upon row of reflective scales.
“We were still children,” she spat. “Thirteen-year-old girls who did not understand who they were or what they were doing. You had your bear and I had my masks, and we didn’t know. We did not know.”
Even with an arm out of commission, Meribah was able to get one blade then two then a third to extend from the fingers of her working hand. She swung that arm away from her side, while pressing her ravaged arm, elbow bent, against her chest. “Do you want me to end this now? Finish separating you from your damn bear so you can go in peace? Because I’ll do it. I’ll cut you and cut you until you’re just a pile of shredded memories, and then we will be done, Noémi. Done.”
Bear trembled. I felt her heart clench.
No, no, I thought. I need you. I need you, Auntie Noé.
A tangle of voices rose around me. “Calliope” from one side, “Calli” from another, and I looked past Meribah to Maritza. With both arms raised, a needle in one hand, she frantically stitched Noémi’s memories into the blanket even as they threatened to shred like the field grass underfoot.
A different wolf—silvery-white and purpose-filled—swiped my side, stopped in front of me, and bared its teeth
