Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Dead Things Series Book 1) (40 page)

“Anything else?” Isa asked, making eye contact with every person in the room. “Does anybody else have anything they wish to confess? Because after this, the next person to keep anything from me is on their own. You can only push me so far. I cannot protect my pack if I don’t know what we are fighting. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“What about you?” Tristin asked quietly, tears streaming freely.

Isa turned on her. “What?”

“What about you, Isa?” Tristin repeated. “Do you have anything you want to tell us?”

Isa stared her down, arms crossed, head tilted. “Clearly you have something to say, Tristin. Now is the time to speak.”

“I overheard you talking to Allister. You said ‘They don’t know they’re prisoners’. Who are they, Isa?”

Isa’s gold eyes bled red again, jaw tense. “There are things I can’t tell you. You need to trust that I know what’s best for you and the pack.”

“You said you worked for the Grove,” Tristin whispered the words like saying them aloud would somehow invoke the druids.

Everybody stared at the alpha now, except Wren who kept his eyes lowered. “You’re taking that out of context.”

“But you sent Kai and Rhys to deliver a message to the witch in the swamp. You must know something. Sending them went against Allister’s orders. You clearly don’t trust him. Did the Grove tell you to send a message to the witch?”

Kai was staring at Rhys who didn’t seem surprised to learn of his sister’s association with the Grove. In fact, Rhys looked guilty. Kai seemed to think so as well. Kai looked at Isa. “Is this true? Do you work for the Grove? Do you work for the people that killed my best friend? Do you?”

Isa snarled, “I don’t answer to you. I’m the alpha. I make decisions for the good of the pack.”

Ember got to her feet, tears in her eyes. “You’re all liars. Every single one of you. You said you were my family but you are all just looking out for yourself. Every one of you is just using me for your own selfish reasons. You work for Allister too? The Grove? The people who killed Quinn?” Ember shook her head, as if embarrassed to have believed they could ever really care for her. “I’m leaving tonight. I’m better off on my own.”

“I’ll go with you, Luv,” Mace told her, trying to keep his voice even. Without Ember, he was done for. He couldn’t let her leave him again. “I can help you control your magic and you need protection.”

Ember scoffed at him. “You’re a liar too. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Isa put a gentle hand on Ember’s shoulder, eyes going back to green. “I can’t let you do that, Ember. I’m sorry.”

Ember threw her shoulders back, squaring off against the older wolf, all bravado. “You can’t keep me here.”

Isa looked hard at Wren and he nodded his head, resigned.

“I can, Ember. In fact, I have to.” She turned to Tristin, “You want to know who I was referring to when I said they don’t know they’re prisoners?” She gestured at the reapers, “You. You are the prisoners I was talking about.”

“P-prisoners?” Tristin asked. “How are we prisoners?”

Isa looked away, like she was trying to figure out what she could explain. It was Rhys who spoke. “Don’t think of it as being prisoners. Think of it as you being under the Grove’s protection.”

“You knew about this?” Kai asked.

At Kai’s betrayed expression, Rhys mumbled, “It’s not as if we had a choice either.”

Kai jutted his jaw forward, looking at Rhys like he’s sprouted horns, tears in his eyes, “Like Quinn? Was he under your protection? You knew about this? We leave without permission one time and Allister has us branded prisoners? We only went to New Orleans.”

Isa sat hard in Ember’s vacated chair and scrubbed her hand across her face. “You have been prisoners of the Grove since you were five years old. The Grove needed to keep a close eye on you.”

The pack stared at her, shocked. She shrugged at them, palms up. “You have to understand, I was barely sixteen years old. Allister came to me, showed me a piece of paper signed by my parents saying they’d signed a treaty with the Grove years ago and that, as the new alpha, I was to honor the agreement or face imprisonment myself. He said they’d take Rhys from me. They said I was to keep you safe. They said keep you close but you were never to leave and you were never to know. They said you were safest here in town but they never said why.”

Kai and Tristin just stared but Isa continued. “I didn’t have a choice. By the time I was old enough to even consider why you were so valuable to the Grove, it didn’t matter. I love you guys, you are pack and you are my family. If I had refused, they would have taken you with them. What do you think they would have done to you then? What kind of upbringing would you have had with them?”

Everybody was silent for a long while before Ember said, “This is insane. You can’t keep me here against my will.”

Isa made a frustrated noise, gaze hardened when she looked up again. “I can and I will. I am doing what I think is right.” He had to admire the way the tiny alpha commanded the room even dwarfed in the oversize chair like some child queen.

“Now we can do this two ways. One, everybody continues to get along with a few added security measures and nobody has to be…uncomfortable. Two, we do this the hard way where I show you what it really means to be prisoners. So, show of hands, who’s up for option one?”

All hands shot up, Mace’s included. He had to hand it to the alpha; she knew how to get what she wanted. However, by the look on her face, she was realizing being a good leader sometimes meant being unpopular.

“Anybody else have something to say? No, Good,” she said without waiting for an answer. “Now this is what happens next. Everybody is on lockdown. Curfew is at sundown. If you aren’t home, you are at work or at school. Nobody goes anywhere alone, especially Ember.”

“What about Quinn’s f-funeral?” Tristin asked stumbling over the word.

“That’s still on…for now. You,” she pointed at Mace. “What did you do with that blade?”

Mace shook his head, “I’m not telling you that. It’s safer for everyone if I’m the only one who knows.

“That’s not an option.” She was still partially shifted, flexing her claws. “Tell me or leave.”

Even though Mace had made it through this fiasco without revealing his predicament, leaving would indeed be a fate worse than death. He couldn’t think of anything worse except maybe the way Ember was looking at him right now.

Finally, he pretended to cave, trying to look like it physically pained him to do so, “Behind the property in the old pet cemetery, in the mutt’s grave.”

Isa’s eyes widened, shocked, he was sure, that he gave in without a fight. He knew Isa would keep it safe. Allister would never expect him to give it to the wolf so he wouldn’t think to go looking there.

“Let’s take a walk.” She hauled him up by one arm. “Let’s all take a walk.”

They trekked the property in a line, Isa and himself leading the group. Wren followed along the back like an infantry soldier guarding prisoners of war or a preschool teacher chaperoning errant toddlers. It took Donovan and Rhys shoveling furiously for fifteen minutes before they reached the package. Isa moved forward looking into the box.

She pulled a piece of paper from the box, reading it before turning on him, already partially shifted, “Is this some kind of game to you?”

She thrust the piece of paper at him and he unfolded it, dread making him sluggish.

“You lose.” He read aloud. He crumpled the paper and tossed it into the darkness.

The wolves shifted, alert, scanning the perimeter for danger. Tristin and Kai flanked Ember.

Rage coursed through him. He growled, bringing his foot down on the empty container, gaining no satisfaction as the wood splintered beneath his heel. He would rend Allister’s limbs from his body. He would make him sorry he ever uttered Ember’s name.

He continued his destruction until nothing but splinters remained. He stood, examining his handiwork, panting. Ember didn’t even look fearful. She looked numb. Maybe it was a trick of the light but he could swear there was the slightest hint of a smile playing at her lips. What was happening to her?

Allister had the blade. Allister was mocking him. Allister was coming for Ember.

Was there enough of the real Ember left in there to care?

70

KAI

K
ai found Ember in the courtyard, sitting alone with Romero at her feet. She didn’t look up when he approached. He was grateful as he didn’t know yet what he would say. How could he explain his actions? If it had just been him, maybe she’d get past it but they’d all lied to her from the beginning.

“Can I sit down?”

She shrugged. He figured it was as good as he was going to get.

He took the seat to her left, trying to give her a little space, fighting his instinct to touch. He’d been pack for too long. Except he hadn’t, not really. He wasn’t pack at all. They’d lied to him too. It made what he did to Ember worse somehow. “Please don’t hate me. I know you won’t believe me but I was trying to protect you.”

Her lip curled at that, disbelief etched across her face.

“I know you think I’m a dick. But I swear, I thought if I could watch him, keep a close eye…he could help you and you’d still be safe because you were surrounded by the pack.”

He could see the tears in her eyes. He risked moving closer, sitting on the table in front of her and forcing her to meet his gaze, “Ember, please. You are my family. I would never intentionally hurt you. I was freaked out over Quinn’s being…you know and I thought if you lost Mace you might self-destruct for real this time. I couldn’t lose you too. We just got you back.”

She was crying now.

“Please don’t cry. I know this sounds insane but I don’t think Mace wants to hurt you. I think he might even love you a little.”

“That’s impossible. He has no soul,” she muttered.

He smiled a little, “Well, since you’ve arrived, we’ve all had to reevaluate our idea of impossible. If there is any way he could love you, he does. Ember, I know you think we are all selfish jerks out for ourselves and maybe Tristin was being selfish but it was for the best possible reason. She’s grieving. She’s heartbroken. We all are. I’m not asking you to excuse our behavior but please don’t think we don’t care about you.”

She nodded once but didn’t verbalize her acceptance. Kai threw his arms around her. “I love you, Cuz.”

She nodded, face smooshed against his shoulder as she said. “I’m not ready to forgive your sister.”

He nodded. “I don’t speak for her. She’ll have to make her own apologies. I’ll leave you alone.”

He trudged upstairs, feeling a bit better but not really. He wasn’t ready to deal with Rhys. He had no idea what he would say. He felt like somebody had drilled a hole in his stomach.

When he pushed open his door, Rhys was sitting on his bed. Kai scoffed, pulling off his plaid shirt and yanking open his dresser drawer, it was really too early for bed but he didn’t know what else to do. He rifled around looking for sweatpants and a t-shirt. He watched Rhys watch him in the glass of the mirror. “I don’t know what you think is happening here, buddy, but whatever it is, you’re so wrong,” Kai told him.

“Are you even going to try to let me explain?” Rhys asked, dropping his gaze and staring at his hands as if they were to blame for this mess.

“Explain what? How you and your sister have lied to me pretty much my whole life? How you’ve been kissing me and making out with me.” He dropped his voice, “And doing what you did in the truck with me…” His face burned as images flashed in his mind. “And this whole time I was a prisoner? This whole time you worked for the Grove. Even after what they did to Quinn, you still said nothing. You stood there and watched and said nothing.”

Rhys’ reflection swallowed hard, his jaw popping. “It’s not that easy.”

Kai snorted, “It’s not that difficult. Not if you trusted me. Not if you really cared about me.”

“You’ve never lied to protect somebody you cared for?” he asked, arching a brow. Kai knew he was talking about Ember but it wasn’t the same thing. He’d lied to Ember for a couple of days to keep her magic from boiling over and killing them all. Rhys had lied to him for years. What if Tristin had never overheard Isa and told them?

“Would you have just lied forever? Was there an end to this prison sentence or was I doing life? Would I still be oblivious if Ember never arrived?”

Rhys growled, standing. “You’re being crazy. It wasn’t like that at all. You weren’t prisoners to us. We never treated you like prisoners. I have never done anything with you that I wouldn’t have done either way. Have you ever even asked to go anywhere outside this town?”

“That’s beside the point. What if I had? Would Isa have found an excuse for you to follow me like usual?”

Rhys stepped closer; Kai still couldn’t look at him. Strong arms wrapped around his waist, pressing his face against his throat. “Isa made excuses for me to follow you because she knows how I feel about you. How I’ve always felt about you.”

Kai stiffened in his embrace. No, he didn’t get to get out of this with cuddling and a convenient declaration of affection. He wiggled out of his arms. Rhys let him go. Kai turned away, not able to look at him when he said, “No. I’m not doing this. Not now…maybe not ever. I should be able to trust my pack. I should be able to trust you. I don’t know who you are. I’ll play my part for the visiting packs but after that we’re done.”

Rhys met his gaze in the mirror, gutted. “What?”

Kai blinked rapidly, eyes burning. “You heard me. I don’t want to be with somebody I can’t trust and I can’t trust you. I don’t know why I ever thought I could.”

Rhys stood statue still for a long minute, a myriad of expressions passing over his face too quickly to catalog. He gave one stilted nod, turning on his heel and leaving. Kai waited until he was sure he was gone before he changed his clothes and curled up on the mattress, burying his face in his pillow.

He missed his friend.