Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (42 page)

Anderson was perfect for the job.

“Samantha’s death was a mistake.”

Anderson’s words hit hard.

Samantha’s death had been a mistake? Her life was gone, extinguished forever, and it had been a
mistake?
My pack of two had dwindled to one for nothing? Maybe if I didn’t believe Anderson’s words, she would somehow return to me. I stared at the floor.

Anderson sighed. “I hadn’t realized she wasn’t just a rogue witch.”

“You had her killed. By Mark.”

“He begged me not to. I didn’t listen. I couldn’t allow a witch so close to the board of Marrodin.”

“Mark knew?”

Anderson shrugged. “All he said was that I was making a mistake.”

My rage surged, and my hands stilled. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t rip your heart out and feed it to you.”

“It’d be within your rights, I suppose,” Anderson replied, leaning against the door frame, he crossed his arms over his chest. “But you don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?” I contemplated whether or not I could stand to make good on my threat.

“You could save the werewolves here. You could make them remember how to be human again. You could give them their sanity back.” Anderson made a face like he had swallowed something sour. “I could put Devonshire down, once and for all.”

“You could’ve done that long ago,” I accused.

“I could have,” he agreed with a nasty smile. “But then I wouldn’t have been able to capture you, Ms. Hanover. To think, the most prized of all werewolves, leading Marrodin. And to add to the sweet irony of it, you were never really human at all, were you?”

With far more grace than I remembered him having, Anderson closed the distance between us. There was nothing kind or happy about his grin. His fingers were cold on my skin as he lifted my chin so our eyes could meet.

I couldn’t deny it. Werewolves lost a little of their humanity with each and every transformation, until at last the wolf ran wild. For some, it took hundreds of years if the plague didn’t kill them first. Samantha had saved me from running wild. The next time I lost control—if there was a next time—I doubted there would be anyone to save me. I said nothing, averting my eyes.

“That’s why you needed Samantha. She kept you clinging to that human shell. She kept your true self from escaping. Even now, your lust for revenge keeps you from becoming the true wolf you really are.” Anderson pressed his thumb to my lips.

I kept silent. There was too much truth to his words for me to deny, but I couldn’t accept it, either.

I wasn’t a true wolf, nor would I ever be one. True wolves didn’t fight for their control. They were born in true harmony with their wolves, as natural as the shifting of the seasons.

There was nothing natural about me.

“You aren’t even allergic to dogs at all, are you? You’re so repulsed by the idea you aren’t really a human at all that your fake, unnatural body tries to reject the very presence of your own kind.”

I closed my eyes, jerking my chin out of Anderson’s hold. “You’re insane.”

“I asked Harold to test you for allergies. You’re negative. It’s all in your head, Ms. Hanover.”

“Bullshit.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you. How long have we known each other?” Anderson’s voice took on a cajoling tone. “I’m truly sorry about Samantha. I will find you another witch—”

“Stop.” My voice sounded as tired as I felt. “You may as well shoot me with your last silver bullet, Anderson. I won’t help you and your Inquisition.”

“You will,” he replied before pausing. “You must.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re the Caretaker of the Seasons, aren’t you? This storm is your doing. You
must
help. You can’t kill your own kind, and this storm will. You must use your power to calm the storms. Your pack will die.”

“I have no pack.”

“Marrodin is your pack,” Anderson cooed. “All of them. That’s why you founded it, wasn’t it? You wanted something to fill the emptiness within. A wolf can’t exist long without pack. These storms will hurt them. That’s why you’re so generous with vacation days, and why people can take off time once a month. You were letting the werewolves survive, unnoticed, among the humans.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m simply telling the truth. I know what you are.”

I opened my eyes and stared at Anderson. “What do you think I am, you insufferable know-it-all?”

He flinched at the force of my stare before regathering his composure. “You were a human child born to a pack of wolves. You had to be taught to be a human, didn’t you? You had to be kept hidden, a secret shame. You were supposed to be born a wolf to a werewolf mother, who had stayed as a wolf to ensure her offspring lived.”

I stiffened.

True wolves were animals born to human parents. Was it even possible for a wolf to bear a human child? Old memories stirred, but I shook my head in my effort to drive them away.

I was a wolf, woman, and witch.

I had been born a human.

I hoped.

~*~

Gunfire jerked me from my thoughts. My heart skipped several beats, as I frantically tried to figure out where I
’d gotten shot—again.

The pain had I expected didn’t come. A heavy weight slumped on me, knocking me to the floor.

“That’ll teach you, you arrogant son of a whore.”

Shock froze me in place.

Amelia—prim, proper, dressed-in-a-business suit Amelia—stood in the door, a pistol held in her hand. The warmth of blood spread over my shoulder to drip down my chest and back.

“That won’t keep him down long,” the former judge announced in her no-nonsense courtroom voice. “Get up.”

It wasn’t until Amelia rolled Anderson’s groaning form off of me that I managed to crawl to my knees. Blood poured from a dime-sized hole in Anderson’s shoulder. I reached out with a trembling hand and touched the cold skin next to his wound.

“Amelia?”

“Later,” she replied, taking hold of my upper arm and pulling me to my feet. “No time to talk. Time to go.”

I stumbled, and without the old woman’s grip on my arm, I would’ve fallen. Had Amelia always been so strong? I stared down at the growing puddle of blood surrounding Anderson. “Did you kill him?”

“He won’t die from that. Someone’ll help him soon enough. Come on, we have to get out of here before someone finds us.” Amelia paused, making a disgusted sound, her expression darkening. “Look, it’s already healing.”

With widening eyes, I stared as the hole through Anderson’s shoulder writhed and began to close. My mouth fell open. Amelia jerked me towards the door.

“Change,” she ordered.

I stiffened, my throat tightening as emotion—mainly fear—choked off my breath. Had Anderson been right?

Had I ever truly been human at all?

Amelia pulled me towards the door. “Get a hold of yourself,” she hissed in my ear. “I’m a witch, Ms. Hanover. I can help you if you need. I’m fine in the cold. You won’t be. Now hurry.”

Anderson groaned. With a lurch, he sat upright. Amelia pulled me out of the room. Cold air washed over me, chilling my sweat on my skin.

“
Hurry!”

I couldn’t remember deciding to obey, but one moment, I was still human, and the next I wasn’t. The wolf part of me that I wanted to reject rejoiced. Scents flooded my nose. The sweetness of fresh blood set me to drooling. I licked at my muzzle.

“Come on. He won’t be down for much longer,” Amelia hissed at me, holding the outside door open.

I growled, but pushed by her. The snow came up to my neck. I lunged through the first few feet before scrambling on top of ice hidden beneath the surface. I watched the woman out of the corner of my eye. Amelia turned and slammed the door behind her. Pulling out a key from her pocket, she tossed it into the snow.

“That should slow them down a bit at least. Head towards the woods. I’ve a snowmobile in there.”

I twisted around, snarling my irritation at Amelia’s demanding tone. When had Amelia acquired the key? Anderson had said he was going to keep it. I didn’t remember her taking anything from him.

Amelia hadn’t touched Anderson at all.

“Do you
want
the Inquisition to catch you?”

Growling my anger and frustration, I waded through the snow, leaving Amelia to follow in my wake. When given the option between someone who had shot me versus someone who had shot my shooter, I took the sane route. I didn’t know if Anderson had any more silver bullets, and I didn’t want to find out, either.

Running wasn’t possible for either one of us. With bounding leaps, I crashed through the ice and snow, leaving enough of a trail for Amelia to follow. Once in the shelter of the trees, it was easier to find a path. The underbrush offered shelter from the worst of the snowfall.

“That way,” Amelia panted, pointing deeper into the forest.

I eyed the witch warily. I’d never been all that good on identifying witches on my own. How long had Amelia been one? The possibility that the woman was an Inquisitor existed, but with no other choice, I had to stay with her—at least until I thought of a better plan.

Then again, maybe succumbing to the wild was better for all of us. Maybe Anderson had been right.

Maybe I’d been nothing more than a wolf trapped in a human’s body all along.

“There!” Amelia pointed again. I put my ears back, but couldn’t see what she had spotted.

There was a loud pop and something impacted my flank. My muscles locked, numbness spreading from a dart protruding from my fur. I snapped my teeth at the projectile, but I couldn’t reach, not with the muscle-relaxing numbness spreading through me.

My legs buckled beneath me. Collapsing in the snow, I fought the lethargy of the drug.

I clung to consciousness but could do nothing to defend myself. When several figures emerged from the trees, all I could do was helplessly watch as they approached me, silver chains dangling from their hands.

I was more than a little sick and tired of taking unexpected naps. I was doubly tired of ending up in places I’d rather not be. Trussed up like a Christmas goose dressed with silver chains definitely counted as one of the last places I wanted to be. The metal was hot through my fur. While it didn’t burn me, I feared I’d start baking at any second.

It didn
’t help that Amelia was sprawled over me. Whoever had captured us had opted for black iron, steel, silver, and some other shiny metals to keep the former judge contained.

I didn’t blame them. Witches were tricky. With a little luck, I would show them just how tricky we could be. If, of course, I didn’t kill myself in the process.

Silver alone wasn’t going to hold me down. At least I hoped it wouldn’t.

Playing dead, I considered the situation. All in all, I felt like I had been put through a high spin cycle in a washing machine before being left out to dry. It could’ve been worse.

I could’ve been dead. Death wasn’t something I had an aversion to. I marveled at how I had managed to escape its permanent grip for so long. I was cursed with an attraction for trouble, but I somehow survived.

Being dead wouldn’t do me a whole lot of good, not that I’d been able to eliminate the Inquisition. I had lost my chance to do something about the Shadow Pope. Then again, considering Amelia’s bullet hadn’t done much, I doubt I could’ve done anything to him in my weakened condition.

I curled my upper lip in a snarl, glaring at the cloth-draped cage. As a wolf, I had no chance of breaking free. While chained, I doubted I could transform back to a human. Freeing Amelia was my only chance of escape. But how? Without fingers, manipulating the locks wasn’t possible. Even if I could think of some way to use the weather to break us free, I wasn’t certain I could.

My dubious abilities as a weather witch would protect me from turning into a smoking ruin of fur and wolf jerky during a lightning strike, but it wasn’t really useful for escaping silver bars and chains. Even if I managed to call lightning to me, I couldn’t without reducing Amelia to a smoking corpse.

And with Amelia unconscious and bound, she wasn’t going to be of much use breaking us out of our prison.

I closed my eyes. In the most likely case, the Inquisition had captured both of us but didn’t want to take any more chances. Even with Anderson’s regenerative abilities, I doubted he had been the one to take us both out.

So who had done it and how?

“You didn’t kill them, did you, Ajahine?” The speaker had a thick, drawn-out accent, and it came from somewhere nearby. It wasn’t British or Australian. Canadian?

I could see some northern-bred Canadian being capable of handling a blizzard. A Russian could as well, but I didn’t think the accent was European. It was too easy for me to understand.

“I’m certain. You wished for one alive. I have provided two,” a woman replied. Her English was distinctively Middle Eastern.