Pack of Secrets, page 13
As if in answer, the buzzing in the back of my head kicked up a notch. Time was not on our side.
My guardian retrieved another cup from the tray behind her, pouring hot water over more leaves before handing it to me. Exhausted, frustrated, and desperate for another energy boost, I breathed into the cup, cooling the contents so I could gulp down the brew. As soon as I set down the empty teacup, I realized my mistake. A familiar, bitter flavor lingered on my tastebuds. I glared at my guardian.
“That was dirty,” I growled.
“No, that was necessary.”
The dryad had slipped me a sleeping concoction. “Dammit, Catori, I do not have time to nap.”
“You are drained and useless in this state. Directing the orb required the last of your energy, and you need your rest. I will keep an eye on the girl and take note of anything important.”
“What if she handed off the chalice?” I asked.
“Focus, child. You should be able to answer that question.”
Studying the orb, I realized my guardian was correct. I could pinpoint the exact location of the artifact, even through the orb. “In her backpack,” I grumbled.
“I will watch her and it. Now go to bed before you lose consciousness. I do not wish to carry you.”
I wanted to argue, but the damn tea was already dragging me under. “I need numbers. Details. Weaknesses. Whatever you can give me to help me penetrate their den.”
“Do not confuse me for a sapling. You are not the first troublesome child I have taken under my branches. You’ve finished your tea, now find your bed.”
Since arguing with the dryad never ended in success, I stood and stumbled out of the library toward my bedchamber wing, cursing the distance with every step. Ambling through the door of my suite, I collapsed on my bed. The last thing I saw before sleep claimed me was Chip’s smiling face as she watched the pup in her arms. Heat bloomed in my gut, but I assured myself it was a byproduct of the sleeping drought.
Catori was wrong; there was no spark. There simply could not be.
Yet Chip’s smile when she looked at that pup had transfixed me. The female was beyond beautiful. She was captivating.
Too bad I still had to kill her.
Grace
Sweat stung my eyes and blurred my vision. I used the bottom of my tank top to mop at my face, but the fabric was too damp to do much good. Resigned to suffer through the discomfort, I rolled my shoulders and struck out at the punching bag with another jab-hook-cross combo.
Smack, smack, smack.
This morning, after taking Rust breakfast, I’d stumbled home and fell into bed fully clothed. My sleep was restless, an incessant stream of bizarre nightmares about beasts, chalices, and giant, bleeding tapestries. I awoke to the premonition I’d massively screwed up, and everyone I knew and loved would die because of my transgressions. Then reality filtered through the fog of nightmares, spotlighting the fact that I was one defective wolf, safe in my den and surrounded by my pack. In the colossal scheme of life, how much damage could I really do?
I shook off the dreams, climbed out of bed, and checked my phone. There was still no response from Mackiel. I felt the weight of someone’s gaze and spun around, scanning the room for an intruder. Nobody was there. Still, my wolf’s hackles were up, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand. My nose assured me I was alone, but I searched the house anyway. I found nothing—not a single scent or footprint that didn’t belong—but it didn’t put me at ease.
Had to be the dreams. Or the uncertainty of what tonight would bring. My father’s reaction to the chalice still bugged me, and I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“You hang onto it until tomorrow night. Take it to Sereana after sunset. She’ll know what to do.”
Uneasy, concerned my instincts were going haywire, and with hours to kill before I needed to head to Aunt Sereana’s, I made my way through the tunnels to the little gym in the back of the den where Rust and I trained. I’d been pummeling a punching bag ever since, attempting to exhaust myself into some semblance of serenity. So far, all I had to show for my efforts was a good sweat and a set of rubbery arms.
Pain sprouted across my knuckles as my skin split again. Fresh dark blotches speckled the faded grey vinyl, adding to the layers of spots from years of bouts with the bag. My hands itched as flesh tugged and knitted itself back together, healing. Once upon a time, I’d mistakenly asked Rust why we didn’t use boxing gloves to train. The next day, he showed up with a pair, tossed them to me, and gave me a sound thrashing in the moments it took me to put them on.
“We don’t train for a boxin’ ring; we train for survival,” he said. “Gotta learn to embrace pain, so it’s not a distraction in a real fight.”
Now, the sting in my hands served a different purpose, distracting me from the unease I couldn’t seem to shake. The tingling between my shoulder blades intensified, and I spun around, expecting to catch someone watching me from the door. Nobody was there. Wondering if I was on the verge of a mental breakdown, I swore, my chest a tight ball of anxiety wrapped in self-doubt as I turned back to the bag. Uppercut, cross, jab.
Smack, smack, smack.
Biceps trembling in fatigue, common sense moved over and let frustration into the driver’s seat, and that bitch was determined to ride me into the ground. Sweat soaked through my clothes, adding to the stench of the training room. With no ventilation to speak of, I kept both doors open, trying to get air to flow, but the stink of sweat had seeped into the walls, permeating down to the studs. This was one of those times when having an enhanced sense of smell wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I rubbed a damp hand across my wet brow and laid into the bag with another combo.
“Daaaamn,” a familiar male voice said from the doorway, interrupting me mid-cross.
Barely tapping the bag with the last hit, I whipped around and froze in shock.
It was like seeing a ghost. But unlike the dead, Mackiel Denael had aged in the four years since I’d last seen him. Hints of the beautiful child I’d grown up with remained, but the silky chestnut curls were longer now, just this side of shaggy. Once pale chubby cheeks were now lean and sun-kissed. Heavy stubble covered his jaw and upper lip, giving him a rugged, unrefined vibe. Big brown eyes framed by an enviable curtain of long, dark lashes once made the boy look innocent. Now, he looked like trouble as he stepped toward me, muscle rippling beneath his fitted T-shirt.
My adorable childhood friend had been converted into a devastatingly handsome man.
He gave me a lopsided smirk, and the years of separation melted away. He was still the boy who’d once held me down and farted on me for taking one of his toys. The jerk who’d stopped talking to me for a week because I wouldn’t write his tenth-grade report on agriculture for him. The protective fool who’d knocked out two of Thomas Henderson’s teeth for telling the entire third-grade class I’d cast a spell on him and made him kiss Regina Meyers.
My partner-in-crime, my headache, my best bud.
“Hey, Chipmunk,” he said. His smirk stretched into a grin that put the dimple in his left cheek on full display. “You miss me?”
I couldn’t believe he was actually here, asking the stupidest question in the history of questions. I would have told him as much if I could get any words past the giant lump in my throat.
Concern flickered in his eyes as he stalked forward. “You okay?”
I still couldn’t talk, so I did the only thing I could; I tackled him. Well, that was the goal, but in reality, I launched myself at him like a spider monkey. He caught me, and I wrapped both arms and legs around him like a human backpack attached to his front. Laughing, he staggered back against the wall and steadied us. I unwrapped my legs and dropped, settling my head against his shoulder to breathe in his familiar woodsy scent. A tear or two even leaked from my eyes as I squeezed him for all I was worth. I didn’t even care that I was getting him all sweaty and gross. I was too preoccupied with making sure he didn’t disappear, turning this moment into one massive heartbreaking dream.
His firm, warm palm landed between my shoulder blades and stroked up and down my back, soothing me. The familiar gesture obliterated the last of my composure. His presence had always anchored me with comfort and safety, and I’d felt so isolated and adrift without it. Without him.
Then, I composed myself, wiped my eyes on his shirt, and punched him in the gut.
He caved in on himself, laughing. “Ouch! Damn, what was that for?”
I pushed away from him. “Not returning my texts and making me worry. That was a dick move, Mack.”
Throwing up his hands in defense, “I wanted to surprise you.” He flashed me a crooked smile that would probably melt the common sense out of most females. Luckily, I was immune.
“My last text literally asked if you were alive. That one you have to answer, otherwise, I will believe you’re dead, and that’s not cool.”
“Yeah, but how cool would it be if dead people texted?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t make me punch you again.”
“Fine. I’m sorry I didn’t text you.”
“Forgiven. But only because I’m happy to see you. Do not let it happen again.” I brushed invisible lint from my clothing because I needed something physical to focus on. “I can’t believe you’re finally home.”
“Yeah. It’s wild.”
Our gazes met.
“For good?” I asked, afraid to hope.
“I think so. He told me to bring my shit.”
“Why now?” I asked. His smile fell, making me realize how that came out, so I shook my head and tried again. “I mean, I’m super glad you’re home, obviously, but why now? I thought you said the alpha was keeping you at the farm indefinitely.”
Mackiel shrugged. “I thought he was, then last night, out of the blue, Luc showed up with instructions for me to bring him up to speed on my duties and head home first thing this morning. I arrived about an hour ago and checked in with the alpha. He said something big is happening tonight, and he wanted me to be here for you.”
My world flipped on its head. I gaped at my best friend, certain I must have misunderstood him. “Come again?”
“Uh…” His eyebrows shot up in confusion. “I know you heard me. What’s going on tonight?”
“Nothing he’d bring you home for.”
“Except he did,” Mackiel said, sounding exasperated. “So, spill. What have you been keeping from me, Chip?”
“Nothing. I planned to tell you all about it, but you didn’t answer your texts.”
He spread out his hands in acknowledgment. “Point. But I’m here now, so start talking.”
There was only one task on my agenda for the evening, and I couldn’t imagine Dad bringing Mackiel back for it. “I… I stole an artifact, a chalice, and the alpha is having me take it to Aunt Sereana after nightfall. She’s going to use it to try to release my wolf.”
Mackiel’s eyes narrowed. “Like the other times?”
Okay, so I’d drunk potions, had spells cast on me, and uh… come dangerously close to death all at the hands of my aunt. Mackiel didn’t know the half of it because I’d stopped telling him about my aunt’s experiments long ago. He didn’t trust the witch and couldn’t seem to understand that she was trying to help me.
I shrugged off his concern. “I don’t know what to expect, but the bigger question here is why did the alpha really call you home?”
Even in my own ears, it sounded like a deflection, but I desperately needed the answer. Dad couldn’t have brought Mackiel home to support me. The alpha never did anything for me. Every command he made and word he uttered was for the pack. He didn’t play favorites, and he certainly didn’t rearrange plans and move his pack around because of me. There had to be another reason.
“He sounded worried about you.”
“My father?”
“Yes.” Mackiel nodded solemnly. “He loves you, Chip. I know you never thought so when we were kids, but he does.”
What in the upside-down world was happening? “I never thought…? You were there and saw what he was like. What he’s still like. You didn’t think he loved me either.”
“Yeah, but that was before the Bloodrite.”
Understanding dawned on me. “Right. The packmind.”
He sighed. “Can you not make the connection sound so… cultish?”
“You all chat inside each other’s heads. It is cultish. And creepy.” And even though I’d learned how to block out the hateful voices in my head, I was jealous of the connection the pack shared. They bit and clawed their way through the ranks, but at the end of the day, they knew and related to each other on a level I could never hope to reach.
No matter how many spirits I soothed on the sly.
“If you would have given it a little more time, you would have seen how useful the connection is. I know how deeply the alpha cares about you because I feel it when he mentions you. You are important to him, Chip.”
I desperately wanted to believe my father loved me, so I clung to that hope. “Mack, if the alpha called you home to be there for me tonight, he must actually believe the chalice will work.”
Or, whispered my cynical internal voice, the alpha knows the chalice will turn you into a broken beast and plans to use your best friend to rein you in.
No. That was crazy. I banished the thought to the furthest reaches of my subconscious, along with any and all thoughts of a certain psychotic guardian who’d spewed nonsense about me unraveling threads. I didn’t unravel threads, I soothed them. Remembering who I was and what I was about, I opened my other sight and studied my friend’s tapestry.
Mackiel was the happiest person I knew, all crooked smiles and snappy jokes.
At least, it appeared that way on the outside.
On the inside, however, he had this bone-deep melancholy that manifested in a tangled, dark mess of threads. Growing up, I’d worked on it almost every day, soothing the threads and unraveling them one by one. My efforts reduced the density of his depression, but no matter how long I’d worked at it, I could never take it away completely.
Now, his mass of sadness was all-consuming. Dark knots rubbed against the threads of his tapestry, irritating the entire design, and even rubbing it bare in places. I’d never seen anything like it.
Trying to keep my expression neutral, I grabbed his hand and sat cross-legged, pulling him down beside me.
“What are you doing?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Telling you about my adventure since you didn’t bother to respond to my text. Now hush and listen.”
As I soothed threads and gently tugged on knots, I recounted the events of last night, detailing all the gilded wonders of the treasure room and my ridiculous acrobatics. I glossed over the part about the box taking a blood sample and the missing glove. As much as I hated to admit it, Mackiel was my father’s creature now. I had to be careful what I told him because, like the others who’d participated in the Bloodrite, he could no longer lie to my father. If Dad asked him what I’d said, my friend would have no choice but to tell him everything.
I, on the other hand, was an enigma. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my mother’s witch blood, a perk of being an omega, a side effect of not being able to shift, or a combination of all three, but the Bloodrite didn’t make me subservient to my father. I could still lie to him. Hell, I occasionally disobeyed his orders just to prove I could. Nothing major, of course. I only committed small, meaningless acts of rebellion that would hopefully never be discovered.
Like deleting the footage of the guardian.
I was careful to leave out any mention of that guy—or dragon or whatever—as I continued to work Mackiel’s knots of sadness free.
“But Rust made it out,” he said when I finally finished my tale.
“Yeah. He’s fine.” Realizing Mackiel hadn’t phrased it as a question, I asked, “How’d you know?”
“We felt it in the pack connection while I was with the alpha. Rust and Janey welcomed another baby boy. Named him Rhett.”
Okay, the packmind clearly had its benefits. “Janey’s okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. She and the baby are both doing well.”
“Thank God,” I said, relaxing.
He eyed me curiously. “Back to this thing you’re doing tonight. You think it’ll work, Grace?”
He hadn’t called me by my real name in… well, forever. He’d given me the nickname Chipmunk before I could walk and had somehow convinced almost everyone in the pack to use it.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I released another knot of Mackiel’s sadness.
He watched me with a level of scrutiny that made my skin itch. I’d left out a lot of details, and he knew me well. He’d always been the one person in the pack I could confide in without fear of judgment or condemnation. Now, I could only share the tip of the iceberg with him, and I could sink several ships with the information hiding beneath the surface.
There could be an honest-to-God dragon after me, and I couldn’t tell my best friend about it for fear that his thoughts would be overheard or he’d have to tell my father.
He sat close to me, but my heart hurt at the distance forced between us by the stupid Bloodrite. The one person I’d always depended on to be my rock was now just another of my father’s soldiers. He couldn’t be my sounding board anymore. Rather than come clean about all the details I couldn’t safely tell him, I opened up to him about how I felt.
“The alpha and Aunt Sereana worked hard to find this artifact, and Janey went into labor while Rust and I were retrieving it. Now the alpha’s brought you home. Everyone’s sacrificed to get me to this point, and I’m terrified it’ll all be for nothing. What if Sereana does her magical mojo thing tonight, and nothing happens?” Worse, what if I freed my wolf only to unravel some mystical thread that kept the planets from spinning out of control? As much as I wanted to disregard the guardian’s crazy ramblings, they might as well have had a catchy tune for the earworm they’d become, repeatedly playing in my mind. “I’ve already disappointed the alpha so much. I don’t want this to fail. I’m so damn sick of being the weak link in this pack.”
