Lost (27 page)

"Because
it meant that Bennet was even more compromised than I'd thought.
Bennet was already taking chances that he shouldn't have been taking,
and now there was one more piece of information that I had to worry
about him letting slip if Onyx strapped him to a table and started
torturing him."

I didn't want
to believe it, didn't want to think that Celeste was capable of doing
what I thought she'd done, but all of the signs were pointing to one
conclusion.

"You
killed him, didn't you?"

"I…I
injected him with a tranquilizer and left him at the edge of the
lamias' hunting ground. It was just a matter of time before he got
himself into trouble and I kept thinking that my plan was all well
and good if the lamia queen sent us back with an army, but everything
would fall apart if she sent us back empty-handed. I couldn't risk
it, not when Ash's life was on the line."

Celeste looked
away from me. "If Onyx had known that Ash was alive he would
have never stopped looking for him. I had to control the situation,
had to tie up the loose ends before Onyx used them to strangle me."

Part of me knew
that I wasn't holding Celeste to the same standard I was using for
myself, but I couldn't help the wave of horror that crashed through
me. I'd killed, but only people who'd been able to defend themselves.

"Why,
Celeste? You could have sent him away. Your family had surely been in
situations that were just as dangerous over the years. Why didn't you
regroup and give yourself time to think?"

"Because
the money was starting to run out! We were starting to run out of
money and I'm the only thing that stands between Onyx and a dozen
good men and women whose only crime is that they aren't strong enough
to stand up for themselves. They're only wolves, just like Ash. Among
humans they're practically demigods, but inside of a pack run by
someone like Onyx they're just bargaining chips."

Celeste had
started out yelling, but by the end she was whispering.

"We
weren't out of money yet, but I could see the day coming. Before Onyx
arrived the bribes my family paid out mostly just came out of the
interest payments from our investments. Onyx has changed all of that.
At the time that Ash disappeared I figured that we had another twenty
years before Onyx bled us dry."

"I thought
Kristin said that Ash made off with a huge chunk of your working
capital."

"He did.
Half of the money that I had under management disappeared overnight."

"Didn't
that cut into how long you were able to make it before you ran out of
cash?"

"Yeah. It
turns out that necessity really is the mother of invention. Over the
last few years I've come up with some creative ways to keep Onyx's
take from growing as fast as it otherwise would have, but I'm still
essentially out. If you scraped together everything left in all of
the numbered accounts you might have enough left to buy a summer
house in a nice part of Arizona, but there wouldn't be enough left
over to furnish it.

"I'm at
the end of my rope. Onyx is convinced that I'm holding out on him
because, up until a short time ago, he didn't know that Ash was still
alive. I couldn't exactly tell him that my brother, who was supposed
to be dead, had taken half of everything. The only thing that has
kept me alive this long is that Onyx thought that I still had money
he could squeeze out of me, and I was the last living Hunt, so if he
pushed me too far he'd be out of options for getting at the money."

"Now that
he knows Ash is still alive you're worried that he'll kill you and
just torture Ash for the money."

"Maybe. I
think he'll try to keep both of us alive, but once he's got a backup
there isn't as much need to be careful about what he does to us.
Actual physical torture wasn't much of an option before, Onyx had to
rely on threatening people I cared about instead, but it would
definitely be on the table if he had both Ash and me."

I could tell
that there was a lot that she wasn't telling me, but I didn't press
for more details. I didn't want to subject Celeste to any more than
she'd already been through.

"Why did
you tell me all of this, Celeste?"

"Because
I'm tired of lying to everyone. I'm good enough at lying that I can
get away with almost any lie imaginable, but I want a different life
than that. The only way for that to happen is to come clean. You're
the first person I've ever told about Bennet. Everyone back in New
Orleans thinks that he just vanished into the swamp one day while
trying to find me."

"But why
me? Why not Ash or someone else?"

"Because
you deserve to know that I'm using you too. You and Ash are here
trying to help Kristin, but that isn't why I'm here. I came here to
convince the lamia queen to kill Onyx for me. If I only get one
question then that's the question that I'm going to ask her. I keep
telling myself that I'm doing it for the submissives back in New
Orleans, but that is just another lie. I'm doing it to rid myself of
Onyx so that my life doesn't get even worse. Now you know. Not
everything, but the worst parts, the things that I'm most ashamed
of."

She met my eyes
with defiance, daring me to turn my back on her, and for a second I
wanted to do exactly that. She'd never explicitly said that she was
here to help Kristin, but it had been implied in dozens of
interactions since even before we'd arrived in the enclave.

I'd already
been uncomfortable enough killing the lamias in order to save Kristin
and bring down the Coun'hij. The idea of killing people on behalf of
a small pack that I'd never even met was even more disturbing.

By almost any
measure I could think of Celeste was bad news, but I couldn't dispute
one thing. She was a leader. I might not agree with her methods, but
it was obvious that she was at least partially motivated by concern
for the wolves in her pack and she was willing to stand up and deal
with the consequences of her actions in a way that very few people
ever did.

"Go on.
Turn around and walk away from me. I can see it in your eyes; I know
it's what you want to do. I'm damaged goods, you can't trust me."

"You're
scary as hell, Celeste. I'm not going to lie about that, but I'm no
more perfect than anyone else. How much do you know about Agony's
visit to Sanctuary last year?"

"Not as
much as I should. I've had to cut back on payments to informants or
I'd know more. He came through and made a lot of noise, but in the
end he failed. He killed a few submissives and Oblivion sucked
someone's memories dry, but the core of the pack, the dominants who
were the real threat, walked away from the confrontation. Most people
viewed it as a win for Alec because it meant that the threat of his
power was enough to stop Agony from just executing you all out of
hand."

Nothing she'd
just said was wrong, but hearing those events rattled off like they
were dry facts out of some dusty textbook woke a torrent of rage from
my beast that only barely exceeded the anger I was feeling on my own.

Mastering that
fury was almost more than I could manage, but it helped that there
wasn't a valid target for it. Oblivion wasn't here where I could get
my claws on him, and Agony and Vincent were both dead already. I
forced the anger down to a slow simmer in the back of my mind and
looked up to find that Celeste had taken several steps backwards to
buy herself time and space if I lost control.

"Whatever
I just said, I'm sorry. I thought James was the hothead from your
pack. If you're the controlled one then I seriously need to remember
to stay away from Utah."

"Your
information is a few months old. I used to be the controlled one, but
Agony's visit changed all of that. The wolf Oblivion wiped was my
girlfriend. He grabbed her at the same time that Agony killed Vincent
and the rest of his guys took down the three wolves we'd absorbed
from what was left of Brandon's pack."

"I'm
sorry, Isaac. I didn't know."

"I
wouldn't have expected for you to know, to everyone else she was just
another submissive, but to me she was everything. The week before she
had finally agreed to marry me. We hadn't told anyone else yet, not
even her father. One moment she was the girl I was going to spend the
rest of my life with and then in the next she became a stranger who
just happened to walk around wearing my girlfriend's body."

Celeste was
obviously struggling to find something to say but I couldn't blame
her for coming up blank. I wouldn't have known what to tell me
either.

"You don't
have to say anything, Celeste. The real kick in the teeth is that I
stood by and didn't do anything."

"That's
not what I heard."

"Yeah,
Alec knocked me down, but he couldn't have stopped me if I'd really
been committed to going after Oblivion. Even now, after months spent
hating Alec, I still don't think that he would have killed me to stop
me from attacking Oblivion.

"To be
honest, I think that if I'd gone after Oblivion, Alec might have
joined in the fight. We probably would have all died, but if it had
come down to a choice between watching me die along with the three
wolves or fighting, I don't think Alec would have been able to just
sit there.

"I'm the
biggest fraud ever. All I needed was an excuse not to try to save
Jess, and by knocking me down, Alec provided me with it. I failed
Jess, and then I spent the next few months following the person who
replaced her around in an attempt to recreate the thing that I let
slip through my fingers. Maybe you are a terrible person, but at
least you know what you want and you're willing to pay the price for
it. I have no right to judge you, Celeste."

I turned to
walk away, but she reached out and grabbed my arm. "I'm sorry
for your loss, Isaac, truly I am."

I expected her
to let go of me, but she didn't. Instead her grip got even tighter.
"I don't expect you to care about my opinion, but I think you
were in an impossible situation and you did the only thing you could.
Oblivion could have wiped out half your pack all by himself. When you
throw in Agony and the rest, your side had zero chance of coming out
on top."

"That
doesn't change the fact that Jess is gone."

"No, it
doesn't, but it also doesn't make you worthless for not throwing your
life away. You need to let go of Jess and move on with your life."

I pulled my arm
free of her hand and turned to go, but she stopped me with one last
parting shot.

"I lied
earlier. I said that every pack had an extensive file on you and
Alec, but the truth is that for most of them you're a footnote. I
studied you every chance I could. I've hated everything that Alec
Graves has stood for since before he was even born, but despite how I
felt about him, he continued to survive against hopeless odds."

"What does
that have to do with me?"

"Everything!
I analyzed every scrap of information looking for the secret that has
let the Graves family succeed where we Hunts have failed and it
always comes back to the fact that they command a loyalty beyond what
anyone could reasonably expect from a bunch of moonborn.

"Alec's
family has survived this long because they always have one or more
Isaac Nazirs standing behind them. Other packs, when put in similar
kinds of circumstances always splinter, but yours doesn't.
You
are the secret to Alec's power, Isaac. I don't know what could have
caused someone who could have led his own pack to decide he wanted to back Alec's
play like that, but it's a special kind of miracle and I would have
given anything during the last decade and a half to have had you at
my side instead of his."

Something in
her voice brought me back around despite myself. There was a naked
need in her expression that I'd never seen anywhere else before.
She'd said she was a good liar, but I couldn't believe she was that
good. In that instant I knew that she didn't just want an ally, she
wanted a confidant, someone who would back her play no matter what
simply because they believed in her.

Part of me
wanted to respond in kind, wanted to open up to her and reward the
guts she'd shown by coming clean, but I couldn't bring myself to do
that.

"You want
to know Alec's secret? It's that he's better than all of the rest of
us. There's only been one time when he was ever tempted to put
himself ahead of his friends and family, and even then in the end he
did the right thing. Alec wins people's loyalty because he's worthy
of it. That's the only way you can really win loyalty. Anything else
is just an illusion."

Isaac Nazir
The Lamia Enclave

Celeste and I
avoided each other for the rest of the day. I would have said such a
thing wasn't possible in such a tiny space, but we were each careful
to make plenty of noise anytime we left our rooms. The
sound-deadening nature of the curtains hanging in our doorways was
impressive, but even they couldn't stop shape shifter ears from being
able to tell when the other person was outside of their room.

We took turns
taking care of Ash and Kristin, and ate in shifts, all without
discussing the arrangements with each other. I half expected Set to
come back by so he could continue my training, but I never saw him.
At one point I went out into the main room and found that there was a
new pile of clothes waiting for me on the couch.

I mostly passed
the time working on my tablet with the keyboard plugged into it. I
had a difficult decision coming up and I couldn't make an informed
choice without finishing up the plan for using Ash's money to hire
hackers in an attempt to find Dream Stealer.

It felt good to
be working on something again. The time in the enclave had been nice,
and being forced to be alone with my thoughts so much had been good
for me, but long moments of boredom interspersed with terrifying
fights for your life is a hard way to live. I liked the feeling of
being able to work towards something again.