Wolfsbane, page 21
***
This time the vision came when Tatiana dozed, after exertion. Perhaps that was why she felt the transition, stepping from the warm swirl of drying sweat and Allison’s body heat and the sheets beneath her, into the chill air of the common room of the Lady’s Jaw. Winter, Tatiana decided. It must be winter, in this vision.
The room was comforting in its familiarity. Technically the Teeth did not have a common room—they were a collection of individuals doing Father’s will, not a unit or an army. They lived among everyone else, whether it was everyone else at home, or everyone else in a far settlement on a mission.
But the Teeth had to teach each other, and needed a space for that. And where they trained, they need a space to wash off sweat, comb dust out of fur. And where they trained, they needed a space to eat quickly, replace energy lost to healed injuries. And so, in the end, they had a room: a rough addition to the gym, with the logs of the walls still showing, with odd furniture and a refrigerator and oven and plenty of pillows to lie on.
This time, it was filled only with the Teeth she would expect to find at home, perhaps twenty people, all at ease. Alexei bent to open the oven door, releasing a burst of delicious odors so strong Tatiana could see the crackled skin of the roast in her mind even with Alexei in the way. Mikhail rose from his lounge on a pillow on the floor, so smoothly that the surface of the wine in the two glasses he held didn’t even waver.
“Congratulations,” he said, and held one out to her. He laughed when she smelled it, swirled it, and smelled it again. “It’s just wine. You can’t have a vision in a vision.”
“If you can, I’d be the lucky one to discover it,” Tatiana said, but sipped anyway. It tasted like just wine. A good vintage, too.
Alexei made her wine slosh as he came up and enveloped her in a huge hug. “You did it. I don’t think any of us could have managed the North Americans with the finesse you did.”
“But I didn’t.” Tatiana wasn’t sure why she protested. This vision was nice, and she didn’t really want to fight it. It was heavy, almost, like the security of a thick blanket wrapped around you when you were a child in bed. Perhaps she’d been right to stop worrying the visions would kill her.
“You will,” Mikhail said, and looked knowing for some reason.
“Tatiana!” Everyone chorused it together, cheering her, and Tatiana beamed. Finesse, Alexei had said. That’s what she’d wanted to cultivate. Anyone could kill, but she had finesse.
“Tatiana.” A new voice, accompanying two pairs of urgent footsteps. Two priestesses entered the common room. The older of the pair led, distinguished not just by the beginning of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, but a braid so long that she wore it doubled up, the end tucked at the nape of her neck, and it still reached down to her thighs. Very old.
Tatiana froze, and then pushed away from Alexei. She held her wine glass in front of her with careful negligence, trying not to look like she was wishing it was a shield. “Yes?”
The old priestess closed her hands over Tatiana’s wrists and kissed her cheek. “We are delighted that you have returned safely. We have need of your skills once more, as soon as possible.”
Tatiana didn’t want to catch the priestess’s eyes, so she dropped her own to look at their hands. The priestess’s were stained oddly, all the way up to her forearms. Dark purplish, brownish green, in patches and splotches.
Like she’d been crushing vegetation, squeezing out the remains of leaves and stems until they gave up the last of their liquid.
Tatiana jerked out of her hold but the wine splashed onto the priestess’s fingers and caught there, much too thick. It caressed the stains, soaking them up, until it turned fat and purple-heavy and fell to the floor in huge drops.
The old priestess didn’t seem to even notice. She dropped her voice, as ludicrous as it was to imagine that anything they said in this pack room would be private. “Allison,” she murmured. She looked sad, which was somehow more insulting than if she’d been grinning. “She needs to be disposed of.”
She took Tatiana’s wine glass from her, handed it to the second priestess. She clasped Tatiana’s hands between her own, as if she would bless them for the coming task. The stains were redder now, smearing Tatiana’s skin with blood, coating it.
“No.” Tatiana snapped it, fast, easy. No need to even think about that choice. She backed up, but then she abruptly couldn’t move any farther because the Teeth had tightened in a circle around her and the priestess. A low growl began, sourceless, and quickly spread, surrounding her, enveloping her. Not a choice, this mission.
“You’ve done it before,” the old priestess said, inexorably. “You’ll do it again.”
“No!” Tatiana shouted it to the sky this time, to the vision. Enough.
***
“Tatiana?” Allison knelt up on the bed to look down on Tatiana, and Tatiana flopped her head to the side and flung up her arm to block out the sight like she would have bright sunlight. She didn’t want to see Allison, link her face with her name, and drag the vision with her into reality. Allison frowned with concern. “Was that the wolfsbane again? You went all limp dead weight.”
“I—” Tatiana hesitated, telling herself that she needed a moment to transition from the Old Were in the vision to English. It was half true.
And now she really had to decide. Follow Father’s orders or not. This was her perfect moment, Tatiana could see the trail laid out in her mind. Get a choke hold on Allison . . .
But that was fooling herself. She’d known when she first kissed Allison she wouldn’t do that. Tatiana had vowed she would never kill again for her alpha, and she was going to keep that vow. Especially since she didn’t see how killing one of the Roanokes would make any situation better—the political situation, or the situation of the North Americans who loved them.
Allison let herself back down to the bed. She’d ended up on the side closest the door, whether by accident or design to be between Tatiana and escape, Tatiana didn’t know. She propped herself up on her side to face Tatiana, and Tatiana mirrored the position so she could look into her lover’s face. “It was a vision. Having them without wolfsbane is only supposed to happen when you’re over a century and have been using it all your life.” She stumbled into a few of the words, not sure why she was admitting any of this. She could have said it had to do with the wolfsbane and stopped. Deciding not to harm Allison wasn’t the same as trusting her.
And yet—“It was my friends, at home. Welcoming me.”
“I’m sorry.” Allison kissed Tatiana’s forehead. “Rest. Later we’ll figure out something to stop the visions, okay?”
“Okay.” Tatiana was too tired to put her dubiousness into her tone. The vision had dissipated the sense of well-being from playing chase, but left behind the sleepiness. She turned onto her other side and let her head sink into the pillow. She’d never been good at cuddling, but when she felt Allison pressing herself against her back, she didn’t protest.
Allison brushed some of Tatiana’s drying curls off her back and over her shoulder, so they wouldn’t get yanked if Allison suddenly moved against them, Tatiana supposed. The gentle caresses stopped suddenly. Tatiana prodded her exhausted mind into motion—and then everything snapped into clarity as her heart sped once more. Allison must have found her Mark.
Sure enough, Allison’s fingertip traced the curved shape of a stylized tooth at the top of her back, over her spine. “This—this is a silver scar. What happened?”
“I dedicated myself to the Lady.” That was true enough, but Tatiana had to pick her way carefully through the rest, separating personal from tactical. “The Lady’s Jaw. I’m one of Her Teeth. It’s about . . . working together, as a pack. One tooth is nothing much, but a whole jaw of them . . .” A whole jaw of them could help Father keep control over half a continent of Were. Informers, translators, problem solvers, assassins.
“Why would the Lady want you to burn yourself with silver?” Allison sounded quite angry on her behalf, and Tatiana had to smile. She turned over and captured Allison’s hand in both of hers.
“Things are very different at home.” That was the best Tatiana could come up with, and perhaps it was the truest thing. Neither side seemed to have a decent “why” behind anything. Things just were, accidents of history.
Allison traced the line of her side, up the curve of her hip. “You’ll get home.” She sounded so concerned that Tatiana believe that, Tatiana wanted to laugh. Lady grant she’d get home somehow. And then she’d have a whole different set of problems to deal with, finding out who had strengthened the wine and why they were working against her.
“Settle down with a nice, normal girl, and raise a family away from us crazy types.” Allison blew out a breath in amusement. “If you’re the kind who can stay normal and settled down, of course. Half the crazy comes from everyone who can’t around here.”
“Nice, normal boy,” Tatiana corrected. As long as they were imagining a ludicrously idealized picture, it might as well have a mate in it, rather than a series of lovers. Not that she saw herself as a mate kind of person, but as a Tooth, it wasn’t like she could ever settle down properly either.
Allison’s scent drifted slightly chagrined for a second, only detectable because of their closeness. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume.” Resignation slipped up to take chagrin’s place. “I’m someone who wants to mate same, so. I know there are fewer of us around.”
“Mate same?” Tatiana frowned over the phrase. Mate the same as what? Or as whom?
“That you want to find a mate of your same gender. Not just play chase with them. I mean, I can get any number of girls into bed, but it gets frustrating after a while, since I know that most of them aren’t looking for anything more than a chase.” Allison’s eyes suddenly widened. “That wasn’t just a phrasing question, was it? Russians don’t acknowledge that?”
“Mating’s for cubs.” Tatiana let the easy answer take over her lips while her mind tried to grapple with the whole idea. Mate? With a woman? Sure, everyone played chase with everyone else, but settling down was different.
“Your father is really invested in the idea of grandchildren, then?” Allison’s scent was strained; clearly she was making an effort not to roundly denounce Tatiana’s entire pack for foolishness.
And maybe she would be right to. About parentage, at least. “The alpha isn’t my biological father. That’s just a social fiction. All of the pack’s cubs are ‘his.’ ” Tatiana was surprised at the relief she felt at admitting that.
Allison jerked sitting, anger sharpening her scent. “Lady’s kind light, Russians really do a number on their kids, don’t they? Even Europeans aren’t that fucked up. How does that even make sense? If everyone’s cubs belong to the alpha, what does it matter who mates with whom? People want to settle down with—” Allison’s words seemed to escape her from sheer frustration for a moment, and she gestured jerkily instead. “The kind of person they want to settle down with. If you mate same and want cubs, one of you finds someone willing to provide a couple chases to help out.”
Tatiana pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I don’t—I don’t know!” Too much, on top of everything else. She didn’t want to think about cultural differences, or the possibility of death from a vision, or a pack war, or anything. She just wanted to fall asleep beside a lover. She turned over so her back was to Allison again, and hugged herself.
Allison hesitated, then slipped to snuggle along her back, bare skin to bare skin. “I’m sorry,” she murmured into the back of Tatiana’s neck. Tatiana tried to relax for her, but sleep wouldn’t come when her mind was too crowded with questions.
Did she want to mate same? And now she’d tossed aside Father’s orders, what came next?
Chapter 20
Selene woke stretched out unnaturally flat on a bed that smelled like her brother and his family, light diffuse on her face as if filtered by curtains. She groaned and turned onto her side in the rumpled blankets, more comfortable, and tried to piece things together. She’d lost to Isabel. Someone must have laid her here to get her out of the way. She felt at the back of her head, but healing had taken care of any tenderness or residual concussion while she was out.
Footsteps entered the room, and Selene opened her eyes to watch without moving further. Lilianne. Her expression was tight, and she ignored Selene to stride over to the closet and start jerking down clothes on their hangers, piling them higher and higher over her arm. She smelled of anger and worry, all congealed together.
“What’s going on?” Selene sat up and stepped over to Lilianne. When she would have reached out to smooth her hair, Lilianne pulled away.
“I’m sorry, this has to get done quickly. That woman offered to help, but I don’t want her touching—” Lilianne stopped and pressed her lips together until they were white, reassembling her control.
“Isabel?” Selene couldn’t think who else would provoke that kind of emotion at the moment, but why—things abruptly snapped together in her mind. Lilianne was moving her and her husband’s things out of the alpha’s room. That was tradition, after the alpha lost his or her position, so the new alpha could take possession immediately.
“Ares—” Selene swallowed.
“Lady, you missed it, didn’t you?” Lilianne flicked a glance to the bed. “He and Dare fought after you were out. He lost.” Tears wavered near the surface of her voice and she shoved them ruthlessly back down.
“As if he even wants this room,” Selene said savagely, looking around at the small, dingy space. Andrew only wanted the power the room symbolized, and this dream seemed determined he should have it. Lady. She’d fought Isabel for nothing. Nothing she did worked. “I’ll help,” she told Lilianne, and reached for the mound of clothes in the woman’s arms.
Lilianne pulled away a second time as Andrew appeared in the doorway. She shoved past him, leaving Selene to frown at him in uncomfortable silence. Surprisingly, Andrew had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “I take it you’ve heard.”
Selene lifted her lip in the beginnings of a snarl, but didn’t voice it. She dipped her head. “Vancouver Island.”
“Or perhaps Seattle. I haven’t decided yet.” Andrew shrugged. “We can all move back to Washington now, if you like, so I thought the transition of power might be smoother if it came as part of that move.”
Selene smoothed the blankets she’d disturbed on the bed, but looked up before long. She wanted to watch his face as she laid out her realizations, see if she was correct. “So this was never about a deal. You only presented it to devalue what you really wanted: the right—that you claimed we didn’t have—to the territory. You wanted to challenge, to take over this pack, take over that legitimacy. One stroke, and you’re alpha of the remains of an entire continent. So much easier and cleaner than taking over gradually through a bad deal.”
“Would have been even cleaner, politically, if he’d challenged me, but . . .” Andrew shrugged. “Needs must.” He wandered closer and searched Selene’s face, letting some of his surprise show. “Well read, by the way. You’re an extraordinary woman.”
Selene snarled right in his face. “You’re married.” It was unfair—she smelled nothing more from him than the normal attraction of any adult standing next to someone who fitted his or her sexual preferences, but the urge to lash out and wound somehow was overwhelming.
Andrew rocked back a step, and his expression hardened. “It’s not just for the power. Your brother was the leader they needed, when they needed to run from the Tainted One, but now that’s over. He could never hold so many packs together for very long, especially in so small a territory.”
Selene clenched her hands. Oh, she would love to hit him. Hit and kick and gouge. “But you’ve decided you can. The D—” She wanted to say, “the Dare I know,” but she stopped herself in time. “The real kind of leader would do it because it needed to be done, and no one else could. Not because he was sure of himself and wanted to show that off.”
“A real leader will punish you for that kind of insubordination, if it happens again.” Andrew turned his back on her and strode out of the room. “Go outside, cool off. Come back when you can give your alpha the respect he’s due.” He stopped in the hallway and looked back over his shoulder at her. “And while you’re fuming, remember this: you didn’t do any good, trying to stop this. Annoyed my wife, hurt yourself. I wouldn’t go making any more grand political plans.”
Selene waited until he was out of sight before she kicked one of the bed’s legs viciously. Damn that cat’s bastard. She’d remember that, certainly. Remember it to keep herself motivated until it was time to act again. Because she would take him down, if she had to challenge him herself.
She slammed out of the front door and strode for the woods, but slowed when the shadows cast by the edge of the trees caressed her skin with chill. Andrew couldn’t stop her from helping Ginnie. Perhaps this was the dream’s way of telling her that the girl was the important thing, not political position or personal pride.
Well, then, Selene would help the girl.
She walked as silently as possible this time, tracking. She doubted the girl would particularly want to be found, not after what happened with Arturo this morning, so Selene would need to stalk her. More than anything else, that process calmed her, focused her mind. This was her goal, and it was a goal she was suited to, more than she was suited to straightforward challenge fights. Another lesson to remember. She lost track of time, following the layered trails where Ginnie had crisscrossed the woods for weeks.
She found Ginnie damming a small creek. The bed was larger than the current summer trickle, and the girl was lugging smooth rocks to divert water into a pool she’d dug out for it. Selene hoped she wasn’t doing it because she was thirsty, but she thought not. The task had the same slightly misdirected sense of effort as all of the things Selene had seen Ginnie doing. Time-consuming to no real purpose.
