Dead Heat (7 page)

“Chelsea,”
Brother Wolf demanded, pulling on his pack, on his da’s power. Icy with the cold of winter, the power came to his asking and hit the woman with his call.

She stopped making noise, stopped moving except for the heaving of her ribs. Then she rolled her head until she could see him. She met his eyes, opened her mouth and shut it. She sliced open her hand, leaving the knife in the wound. “Blood makes it easier to fight. Who are you?”

“I’m Charles. A friend of Joseph’s. Can you tell me what happened?”

He edged closer, calling upon gifts given to him by both his da’s and his mother’s blood. His skin warmed and tingled uncomfortably, but he could see the spells that encompassed her. Where fresh blood flowed onto the steel of the knife, the magic was drawn more tightly, never quite touching the cold iron. It pooled uneasily around the open wound, thinning around the rest of her body.

Witchborn, he thought, for her blood to have that kind of power. But not trained, or she’d have broken the geas.

She gasped, and a tremor shook her body as though she were freezing to death. “Werewolf. Charles? You are Joseph’s werewolf?” she half asked, half demanded.

“Yes. I’m here to help you.”

She laughed breathlessly. “Too late for that. Too late for me. I sent them to a room with a door they could lock against me, but they need to get out.
You
go take my babies away somewhere safe.” There was a command in her voice that he found himself shaking off with an effort. Brother Wolf found
that
very interesting.

“They are safe,” he assured her.

Her eyes widened, fae magic flared, and he realized, too late, he’d made a mistake.

Some of the fae are quick, and whatever magic had done to her, it gave her better-than-human speed. But Charles had been edging toward her, and that gave Brother Wolf time to move even faster and catch the hand that held the knife just before she shoved it up under her jaw.

It had been a two-part geas, then, forcing her to kill her children, and when that was done—or if that wasn’t possible—to kill herself. Her death would make it more difficult to find the fae who had done this to her.

She fought him, fought to control the knife with strength that was not her own, and he finally drove the blade into the floor, through the linoleum tile and into the wooden floorboards below. He sank it deep so he didn’t have to break her arm.

Sobbing, she tried to pull the knife out, but suddenly, between one breath and the next, the scent of fae disappeared and she collapsed, her breathing thready.

“Safe?” Chelsea Sani whispered. “Tell me again.”

“They are safe,” he told her, and her body went limp, as if she’d used the last of her strength. And he knew what had broken the geas.

He took a good look at the blood on the floor, the way her last wound was not bleeding as it should. Her heartbeat was irregular. She’d lost too much blood—and was losing more through every cut she’d made in her own body in the effort to keep her kids safe from the magic driving her. It had been an incredible feat of willpower and quick thinking for a woman who was only human. But it had come at a cost.

She was dying. Even if they were at a hospital, it would be unlikely that they could save her in this condition. She was dying, and that satisfied the geas.

We could Change her,
Brother Wolf told Charles.
She knows how to fight.

It would be skirting his da’s law. He didn’t have his da’s approval, but desperate times were a gray area, judged case by case. As his da’s right-hand man, he had more leeway than other wolves. He’d had nothing to do with the incident that brought Chelsea to this end; his actions would be seen as impartial. Brother Wolf’s clear judgment would weigh in his da’s sight, if not anyone else’s. All he needed was her consent.

Charles knelt beside her. “You are dying. Do you understand? I can Change you if you wish it.”

She said something, too faint for even his ears to hear.

It must be now,
said Brother Wolf.
And we must be in wolf skin.

She couldn’t give permission, but there was someone here who could. Brother Wolf’s shape came over him—the wolf had dictated the change. It was so simple, the change from man to wolf, this close to the full moon’s call when he had not walked on four feet for days. As the wolf shape became his, Charles sent his will to his mate.

Tell him to choose for his wife. Do I let her die—or do I Change her?

The hallway behind Brother Wolf filled with people, some he knew, some he didn’t. But Anna was there; she was the one he needed.

He stared at her, and she turned to the human who was the dying woman’s mate.

“Your wife is dying,” she said. “Charles says she is strong-willed and courageous. He is willing to Change her—but she is not in any condition to make that choice.”

“No,” snarled Hosteen suddenly. “Not her. It’s not supposed to be her. If Charles won’t Change my son, he doesn’t get to decide to Change
her
instead. Not her.”

Quiet filled the hallway as Brother Wolf met Hosteen’s eyes and drove the Alpha to his knees. It was not for that one to tell him what he could or could not do.

“Grandfather?” asked Kage from behind Brother Wolf. That one had bolted for his mate as soon as he’d seen her, ignoring Brother Wolf’s presence.

“He’s fine,” said Anna grimly. “He just forgot who is in charge here, and Brother Wolf—Charles reminded him. You have a decision to make, Kage, or it will soon be made for you. Would your wife accept life as one of us? You know how we are regarded by the rest of the human race.”

Charles had some other things for Anna to tell Kage.

She listened and then said, “Charles wants me to point out that if she dies, we are unlikely to find out why a fae bewitched her into attacking her children. It will be difficult to find that fae and bring them to justice, leaving Chelsea’s attacker free to continue killing. Your wife fought the magic, saved the children at great expense. Is that enough for her? Or would she want to stop her attacker?”

The woman was fading, and Brother Wolf shot an impatient look at Anna.

“No,” said Hosteen, without getting up or raising his eyes. “Not Chelsea.”

“Why not?” asked Kage. “Because she isn’t the wife you wanted for me? Because she doesn’t like you? That is your fault, old man.”

“She is witchborn,” hissed Hosteen. “Witches are evil.”

I am witchborn,
Brother Wolf told Anna.

She nodded at him but didn’t interrupt. She was better with people than he or Charles. If she thought that fact would not be useful now, she was probably right.

“Her grandmother was a witch,” Joseph’s son said in a reasonably snarly voice for a human. “
Chelsea
has no power at all.”

That was not true. Without power she would never have defeated the geas laid upon her. In fact, the closer to death she drew, the more easily Brother Wolf could smell witch. That probably meant she had some way to hide it, and now that she lay dying her magic was dying with her.

He glanced at the children, at the small girl who looked at him with a steady gaze though her hand was grasping the bottom of the shirt of the young man standing next to her. That one smelled like something more. Witch.

Hosteen hissed between his teeth, unsatisfied. “Witchborn should not be werewolf.”

“Mama?” said a small voice. Brother Wolf saw the youngest child grab hold of the teenage boy’s hand. “Mama?”

“It’ll be okay, Michael,” said Kage, his face ravaged as he knelt beside his wife. “Yes, Charles, yes. Change her. Grandfather, take the children away, please.”

“I’m not leaving,” said Hosteen.

“Stay,” said Anna decisively. “I’ll take the children. Hosteen should stay.”

He’ll make her angry,
Anna’s voice rang in his head.
Make her fight to live.
“I have to leave because I’m not useful at this stage.”

She gathered the children despite the young man’s protests and left the room. That was right, Brother Wolf thought. The Omega soothed. Surviving the change was a battlefield, and this woman who lay at his feet needed to remember how to fight.

He waited until Anna left the room.

“What do—” began the woman’s mate. He might have been talking to Hosteen or to Charles. It didn’t matter to Brother Wolf.

He sank his teeth into her thigh, tasting old blood and, faintly, detergent from her clothes. He shook his head to tear flesh and let his saliva flow into the damaged tissue. He had not Changed many people—his job was to kill. More often than he’d like, it was to kill in the most gruesome manner possible to discourage others from following the choices that had led to his victims’ deaths. This was better.

Inexperienced or not, he knew how it worked, had stood witness to hundreds of Changes and nearly that many deaths in the days that followed. He knew what not to do. He didn’t bite her near her head or heart. She needed both to function for the Change to take place. The thigh was meaty with lots of little blood vessels to take his magic and spread it through her body.

Her mate cried out and would have tried to interfere, but Hosteen, who had Changed a lot more people than Charles had, stopped him with an arm around his shoulders. He dragged his grandson away from Brother Wolf and his charge, out of the bathroom and into the laundry room where they could watch from a distance.

“If you want this,” Hosteen said heavily, “and if you don’t want to join her in death or Change, then leave the wolf to his work. He won’t allow your interference, not now. She won’t hurt long, one way or another.”

Brother Wolf did not like Hosteen—though he knew that Charles did. They did not always share the same opinions, even though they shared their existence. Though what Hosteen told the woman’s mate was not meant to be comforting, it was truthful.

Brother Wolf released her leg and considered. She needed to be dying from a werewolf bite—not blood loss. His next bite was to her soft belly. He let himself taste the sweetness of her flesh, let the flavor of it stimulate his saliva glands—and then he did something he’d seen his father do once.

He slashed his own leg and bled into the wound, letting the pack magic seep in, binding them together: temporary pack. It was an awkward feeling; he wanted to make her his. His to protect, to lead, to live with: to make her family. But Charles did not want to lead a pack. Brother Wolf rejoiced in the understanding that they belonged to the Marrok and felt no need to rule his own pack. It was not his place to bring a wolf into the Marrok’s pack. So he let this magic lie uneasily and temporarily between them.

Then he reached with the extra senses that were his because he was the Marrok’s son, and therefore witchborn as his father was witchborn, and found the connection created by his blood and hers. He asked the dying woman,
What do you live for?

Kage was fighting his grandfather now, fighting to stop what he’d begun without really understanding what it meant to be Changed. Had he thought it would be without pain or cost?

Mine,
the dying woman said.

His ears flattened in pleasure because he heard more than words. She meant those she considered hers. Her children, her mate—
hers
. Here was a woman who would be dominant. Maybe more dominant than Hosteen. And wouldn’t that get in the old wolf’s craw?

Will you fight for them?
he asked her, inviting her to hear her husband’s angry voice.

Yes.
Not a simple answer but a warrior’s battle cry.

While her response was still vibrating through him, he bit the calf of the leg he had not already bitten, letting his teeth slice through flesh and scrape bone.

Then fight!
he roared at her with so much more power than sound could have conveyed—sending energy down the temporary bond he’d made between them, energy that grabbed her and held her to her dying flesh and
made
her live.

Only once had he seen his father force the Change on someone this way. Charles had been, perhaps, the only one who could fully appreciate what the Marrok had done. He’d waited until later, until they were alone in his father’s library, to ask why that one and not others.

“He is needed,” his father said. “He was willing and he will make a fine wolf. But mostly he is needed—we have so few submissive wolves. He will stabilize his brother’s pack, stabilize his brother, too, and that will save dozens of wolves.” He’d frowned at the book he had been reading, then set it aside. “It is not such a gift to be a werewolf. I had it forced upon me, and I was angry about that for a long time. I would not do that to another person. If they don’t want life badly enough to fight for it, who am I to argue? Life is hard; dying is easier and kinder. But Neal is willing, and he was very near to making it on his own. I just gave him a boost.” He sighed. “It was probably still the wrong thing to do.”

So every October, when people who wanted to be wolves died under the Marrok’s fangs when they failed to survive the Change, only Charles and Brother Wolf knew how deeply and why his father grieved.

When they had to carry out the more horrible task of killing those who Changed but could not control their wolf, Charles understood that his father was wise. If a person could not fight through the Change on their own, what chance did they have to control their wolf nature? Neal had managed, but it had not been easy for him.

This woman was hampered, not by her nature but by the blood she had shed to protect her children. Brother Wolf knew that she would be a fine werewolf, so Charles used what his father had showed him and pushed her through the Change.

He bit her again—an arm this time, while her mate clung to his grandfather and wept. Hosteen watched Brother Wolf over Kage’s shoulder with rage hidden in his eyes. He dropped his gaze after a moment because Brother Wolf was the dominant wolf in this room.

“What happened?” asked Max, still angry that he’d been ordered away.

Anna had hauled the kids all the way out of the house and up the street toward where Max told her there was a park. Changing someone wasn’t painless and generally involved screaming and other scary noises that no kid needed to hear their mother make. Max had been especially angry when she’d made him leave the house.