Lunar Marked (Sky Brooks Series Book 4) (17 page)

Damn.
It had been him in the cloak, hidden as he helped Marcia place a death curse on me. I should have known she would gladly accept his help. Drawn to power, she would ally herself with anyone who possessed magic that she could use. It all made sense now. Her ability to hide the Aufero with dark magic, her ability to perform dark curses that most witches couldn’t. How long had she been aligned with him? How long had he been the puppet master pulling the strings behind everything? Had he given her the Aufero in return for her alliance?

“So Marcia has been your little business partner all this time. Then you aren’t as wise as I thought, because I assure you the moment she sees a weakness that she can exploit, she will.”

“You mean like stabbing me in the neck? Well, I’ve survived that. I am sure I can survive anything she doles out,” he said, dismissing me. “Ethan, your lover, is the next in line as Alpha. As his partner, you will be able to influence him more than Sebastian. Hopefully Sebastian will not survive, and you and Ethan will understand the gift I have presented to you.”

He was like a cat presenting a dead mouse to me. In the cat’s mind, he had given the ultimate gift, a grand sacrifice, but in my eyes, it was just that—a dead gross rodent in front of me that I didn’t want or ask for.

“You do realize there are other places to get your information than Wikipedia, right?”

The bark of a tree bit into my skin and I groaned as my head smashed against the trunk. Ethos had me by the throat, my knife now in his hand. Warm blood trickled from the cut the knife left. I slowed my breath, closing my eyes, warding off the sudden influx of dark magic that had swept over the area. Ethos’s magic always felt wrong. It was a dark eruption of energy that overtook and destroyed everything in its path— a subversive wave that could never be controlled. I’d been foolish enough to try, and it never behaved as it should.

“We will have no more of that. Do you understand me?” he whispered.

Silence, extended and cold.

I studied him. The ability to assess a heartrate, changing breathing patterns, and eye blinks was a skill I hadn’t mastered and probably wouldn’t, but the nuances of expressions was something I was good at. There was a desperate resolve to him, urgency and even panic behind all of his blustering. As angry as he was, he would be just that—pissed off. But he wouldn’t act on it. I’m not sure why, and at the moment I didn’t care.

Gingerly taking hold of his hand, I moved the knife away from my throat and pushed him back. For whatever reason, he needed me alive or he would have killed me and used Derrick, someone who would have been more acquiescing.

I slowly backed away, watching his reaction as his eyes narrowed into small slits, the coolness of his ire drifting over them as the grip on the knife tightened.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

When I turned a diaphanous wall closed around us. “Why don’t you stay.”

I pressed with force against the wall, but it gave and rebounded with equal force. It wouldn’t give. Concentrating, I allowed the magic of my wolf to flow, accepting the pain as my joints slacked, preparing to contort and accommodate my new form. My skin tingled and pricked, the familiar tightness crawled over my body, tugging at my skin as I prepared to transform. It hurt like hell as tension against my bones increased, preparing to break some and stretch others as I transformed. The fur punched through my skin, making me grind my teeth to keep from yelling out. And then my heart lurched in my chest, as it stopped for that fraction of a second as the transition started. That small moment when the breath and heart stopped had always before convinced me it was the wolf trying to kill me. Sometimes I still felt like it. The symbiotic relationship I was supposed to have with my animal half, at times like this, seemed to be missing.

In wolf form I lunged at Ethos, he vanished, the wall disappeared, and I darted through the thick forest taking a circuitous route, only cogently aware of the magic in the air that breezed over me ineffectively while in I was wolf form. But a well-placed ward would stop me, or another magical wall.
Please have the ward down
, I thought as my paws pounded against the ground and I started for the pack’s retreat. Would Ethos follow me there and risk having to go up against Josh and several angry were-animals? My howl held the necessary urgency and distress I felt, hoping someone heard it and could disarm the ward, because if not Ethos would catch me. He didn’t want me dead but he definitely didn’t want me near the pack.

I nearly skidded into the house, slipping on the pool of blood at the entrance and tumbling over Josh’s foot. He closed the door. After giving me a quick once-over for injuries, he moved away, trying to get out of the way as people moved quickly throughout the room. Urgent voices went back and forth. I needed to concentrate to make them out.

“Get Ethan in here,” Dr. Jeremy’s voice rang over the chaos.

“How is he?” Winter asked, her words choppy and barely discernable through the sobs.

“Get Gavin, too,” Dr. Jeremy ordered.

“Winter, you have to move aside,” Josh said softly. I didn’t see him until he stepped closer, gently guiding her out of the way. His hand glided around her wrist. Eventually she pulled away and walked past me, her features distorted by her frown, stains from tears marked her skin. The weight of today hung heavy on her usual smooth, graceful movements now lumbered and fatigued. I whined a mournful sound.
Is he dead?

There was too much commotion, Jeremy was still barking out orders, people were moving about, speaking with urgency, and I hadn’t heard anyone say he was dead. Surely there would be more mourning if he was.

Josh said something but I couldn’t make it out. I needed to change—deciphering conversations were harder in animal form. I followed Winter and Josh up the stairs and went into a room and changed. I found a t-shirt that was too big and a pair of sweatpants that fit okay.

The room that Josh and Winter went into was slightly ajar. I peeked in and found Josh with Winter’s face buried into his neck. He was hugging her with one hand and gently stroking her hair with the other.

“Leave,” he mouthed. My heart started to beat too fast, surely they could hear it. The hope I held on to that Sebastian was going to survive vanished. Winter must have felt the hopelessness, too. “Now,” he mouthed again. I stepped back and the door closed in front of me. Leaning back against the wall I closed my eyes.

I
convinced
myself not to go down to the infirmary because I would have just been in the way. I was scared. It was so easy to think that were-animals were indestructible and easier to view Sebastian that way. Each time I tried to force myself to go downstairs, I came up with a million reasons not to. Instead, I laid on the floor in the room I thought was closest to the infirmary and listened to the noise. Lots of it, and I appreciated every minute of it. It meant things were happening. Sebastian was still alive, and Dr. Jeremy was fighting to keep it that way. It was silence that I dreaded: it meant the fighting had stopped, the battle had been lost.

The gruff sound of Dr. Jeremy barking orders, the machines that were just murmurs and swooshes from so far away, the urgent padding of the feet below were all welcome sounds.

Ethos’s magic still lingered around me, dark, ominous, and powerful. Like the smell after a smoke-filled run, it fused to my hair and clothes, a constant reminder of his presence in my life.
He’s alive. Dammit.
The most powerful purveyor of dark magic, who wanted to use me to control the otherworld, was alive.

The door opened and a blanket of different magic spread over the room, familiar but just as powerful. Despite being a little off, I welcomed the cool ocean breeze that defined Josh’s magic. It was what I needed and the closer it came, the more comfort I felt. I opened my eyes to meet his, and at first curiosity blanched his appearance as he looked at me on the floor and then over to the empty bed next to me. He simply shrugged and lowered himself down and laid next to me. His hand covered mine, and I wasn’t sure who was comforting who at this point, as he fiddled with a loose strand of my hair, his fingers coiling and uncoiling around it.

A sharp, ragged breath accompanied my words. “Ethos was behind the attack.”

Josh noticeably tensed next to me, I’m sure remembering his last encounter with him. “That explains a lot. They took it all, the Clostra and
finis
book.”
Finis
was the book that held the Gem of Levage after Josh used magic to contain it.

The tension on my hair was getting harder. It wasn’t a nervous tug, I felt like he was ripping the strands out of my scalp. “Ouch.”

Threads of my hair slipped out of his hand as he unraveled it from around his fingers and released it. “I’m sorry. I knew someone powerful had to be behind this, the magic was too strong. I have blood wards around the retreat and they shattered them as though they were nothing more than a simple ward made by an amateur.” He came to his feet and started pacing. “I hope Samuel still has the third one.”

Me, too, or we’re done.
Ethos had his eyes set on controlling the otherworld and I doubt he had any restrictions limiting what he was willing to do to get it, including threatening to divest us of our ability to shift.

“If he can’t read them, they are useless,” I said. “But the were-animals, how in the hell did he convince them to get involved?”

“The Ares have been staying low for a while, but Sebastian suspected they would eventually be trouble. Anderson, their Alpha, gave us the impression he wanted to head more than a small pack. The thirst for more was there. He was just waiting for the opportunity. What’s better than aligning yourself with magic and power like Ethos’s? Ethos probably promised him this pack or something just as enticing,” Josh offered with a frown.

“It seems like Ethos is creating alliances with everyone.” I told him everything that happened in the woods, including his attempt to get rid of Sebastian as a gift to me in order to allow my “lover” Ethan to take the position.

“Lover? Ethan?” His brow furrowed.

Yeah, focus on that part, not all the other horrific things I just told you
. “I wonder if Anderson knows. Maybe he does and feels that being the Beta of everyone is still better,” I offered.

He nodded absently. His thoughts were probably where mine were, on Ethos. He would be coming for me even more aggressively. I was his endgame, the key to his success, and he had an army of were-animals and a group of powerful witches as allies. The more I thought about it the sicker I got.

Josh’s features were tight and withdrawn, desolation weighing down his movements, and he simply rested against the wall. Ethos wasn’t the only thing on his mind. “How is she?” I finally asked.

Something changed—a torrent of magic was expelled, like a vacuum, suctioning out the oxygen in the room and replacing it with powerful layers of magic. I suspect this is what it felt like standing just inches from a tornado, bracing yourself to be yanked into the massive wind and hurled with force throughout the world without direction. Josh was magic. His emotions so entwined with it that he wasn't able to separate the two. I liked that he was stronger, but sometimes I wanted Josh, old Josh. The Josh I knew before secrets were revealed and he treated magic like a hobby and being near him and his magic was always comforting. His magic might not be dark but there was something different with it. I didn’t feel the need to possess it because I felt I would never be ever to completely control it, and like Ethos’s magic I felt like it was easier to lose control of it and become subservient and be used as a vessel to do its bidding.

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I’m sorry I made you leave, but I couldn’t let you see her like that,” he said softly. “I couldn’t do that to her.”

Winter might have a lot of emotions but she seemed to be okay with expressing anger and disdain more than anything else. Affection and concern were something she displayed sparingly. It was shocking to see her respond like that. Was it just the loyalty that she had for the pack?

Josh turned and studied me for a moment, in that way that made me question whether or not he could read thoughts. I was convinced that he and Ethan could communicate with each other in nonverbal ways. But Josh was always more perceptive than most people and tuned to the subtle nuances of emotions. Talking to him never felt invasive; even strangers seemed to consider him a friend.

“I’m worried about her,” he admitted. “If he doesn’t recover …” His voice trailed off and sat next to me. When I sat up, he slipped his hand under mine and linked our fingers. “He means a lot to her. She will never admit it, but he does. If it weren’t for Sebastian, Winter would have been killed as a child.” The placid blue eyes displayed the same worry that I felt. It wasn’t just Winter who was taking it hard. “I’m assuming she never told you the story of how she came to live here in the states?”

I shook my head.

He released my hand, came to his feet and started to move slowly throughout the room. “I only know the story passed down from member to member. Ethan wasn’t the Beta then and Sebastian had only been the Alpha for just a year or two, I think.” He stopped pacing, considering his words very carefully. “There aren’t a lot were-snakes. Some like to guesstimate that there are about fifty. Winter is the only one I know personally. An anomaly that some people consider a curse.” He frowned, running nervous fingers through his hair.

I waited patiently for him to continue, but whatever he was thinking about seemed to irritate him. The frown became a fixture on his face, deepening with each passing moment. A hard, coarse wave of magic shot through the room. It scraped across my skin; the smell of his old magic was still there, and little remnants of “old Josh” magic still lingered long after the assault of its stronger companion. Josh—our Josh—my Josh—was still there.

“When she changed into a snake at four, her parents freaked out, especially since neither one was a were-animal.” He made a face and stopped moving. “I will keep my speculations to myself because they don’t put Winter’s mom in a favorable light. But I find it odd that Winter doesn’t have any of her dad’s features. Needless to say they tried to find an answer to why their child was turning into a snake. A shaman directed them to their city’s pack.” Josh inhaled and took a moment to exhale before he continued. “They accepted Winter into their pack, or so Winter’s mom thought. But they didn’t: their intentions were to “fix her” because turning into a snake was an abomination or the result of a curse. After a long pause, “They considered Winter someone they had to save the city from. You turn into a wolf every full moon, no one has problem with that. Change into an oversized house cat when Mercury rises, and it’s no big deal; but I guess turning into a snake during a lunar eclipse is the line in the sand. That’s the thing that is just too weird to exist,” he said with annoyed sarcasm. “The pack used all their resources to try to get rid of her curse and to rid the city of the dreaded ‘snake-girl.’ From my understanding, she had been to every witch, shaman, and magical being they could find to try to rid her of her curse. The Alpha decided if they couldn’t ‘fix’ her then they would have to get rid of her.” His face was red, jaw set as he clenched his teeth so hard that there was no way that it wasn’t painful.