Lunatic Fringe (38 page)

Archer snarled as the women talked
about Lexie as if she wasn’t there.

“
Well, Archer, it appears
our sassy little Summer Pace had a daughter, and she never bothered
to tell anyone.”

Archer’s face dropped. She looked agog
to Lexie, who herself stood dumbfounded, feeling more naked now
than any of the evenings she had slept in Archer’s arms.

“
No,” Archer shook her
head.

Blythe nodded, lips twitching with glee
at Archer’s denial.

“
No, no,” Archer shook her
head, and Lexie recognized that look. Not betrayal. Horror.
“Lexie.”

“
You sired a peacespeaker,
Archer.”

“
I didn’t. I--I’m sorry.
Lexie, I didn’t know. I would have told you, but I didn’t
know.”

Lexie’s heart felt as though it had
ceased beating, and it sat like a rock in her throat. She wanted to
sob or console Archer, but she was frozen, watching her lover’s
world shatter and not understanding why.

“
I want you gone,” Blythe
said.

“
I’m here to stay,” Archer
spat.

“
You think the other packs
will abide that? You think they’ll let you stay and resume your
alpha status having committed the gravest taboo of our kind? Your
naivet√© would be endearing if it wasn’t so pathetic.”

“
This is my
home.”

“
I intend to change that,”
Blythe said. The secret behind her smile was revealed as the breeze
shifted. Smoke. It came from the east and grew thicker by the
moment.

Archer drew machine-gun inhalations as
Lexie rushed to the east edge of the platform. Above the trees rose
a thin plume of smoke.

“
Goddammit, Blythe!” Archer
shouted.

“
Lexie, this is the choice
you have,” Blythe said. “Follow a failed leader or become a part of
a family that will give you purpose and community.”

Not waiting to hear Lexie’s decision,
Archer leapt out of the tree and bolted for her cabin.

Blythe’s turned to Lexie with a smug
smile. “Well, I guess we know where her priorities are.”

“
You know what, Blythe?
Fuck off.” Lexie turned and leapt out of the tree.

As her feet hit the earth, the howling
began.

Chapter 25

The flames had risen above the tree
line when Archer and Lexie dove across the river. The sky glowed
purple along its edges; the full moon would rise soon. Their
footfalls carried them to the final trees before the clearing and
Archer’s cabin. The women of the Pack stood back from the house,
watching the fire crawl over the walls. The timber, with the
addition of kerosene, had ignited like kindling. Smoke poured from
the cracks between the logs. The women were silhouetted by the
flames, watching as their handiwork took hold. A haze of smoke
swirled in the space between the burning house and the forest’s
edge.

Renee was closest to the cabin, holding
Archer’s ax in one hand, watching rapt as the fire licked at the
stone chimney. Corwin and Sharmalee stood off to the side, Sharm’s
arms crossed against her chest, her face to the ground. It appeared
as though she were crying, though it may have been the smoke.
Perhaps she was just holding her breath, waiting for the moon.
Mitch held the can of kerosene by the handle, looking shell shocked
in the firelight. Hazel and Jenna stood farthest away, nearly in
full shadow. In Lexie’s eyes, all of the women’s faces shifted
between wolf and human.

Hazel gasped and shouted, “They’re
here!”

The women shifted their stances.
Renee’s eyes caught Lexie’s before moving away. In the fire’s
light, Renee’s bloodshot eyes held a mixture of doubt and
rage.

Archer and Lexie took a tentative step
into the meadow, and no one seemed to know what to do.

Blythe bounded from the woods and leapt
onto the cab of Lexie’s truck as if she owned it. Towering over the
women, Lexie watched her pale skin glint with firelit white
fur.

“
You’ve been siring,”
Blythe said to Archer, theatrically, as though they hadn’t already
spoken in the treehouse. This confrontation was for the benefit of
the Pack.

“
You were exiled. Now
you’ve sired a peacespeaker. You’ve broken the rules.”

“
What rules?” Archer asked
impertinently.

“
The rules of our
kind.”

“
I TAUGHT you those
rules!”

“
Just like a pureblood, to
fight against the very rules you espouse when it suits
you.”

Archer snarled, her diplomacy tapped
out in the face of her burning house.

“
Nobody ‘sired’ me,” Lexie
interrupted, feeling silly even as she opened her mouth to defend
Archer. “I drank from a footprint.”

“
I’m not here to quibble
over details,” Blythe snapped at Lexie before turning again on
Archer. “Your crimes are plenty. Even if you didn’t sire this
peacespeaker, you did kill one.”

“
What?” Lexie said, the
word catching in her throat. She swayed, the growing heat from her
mind or the flames, she didn’t know. She thought about swallowing
and how she might accomplish that, to settle the roil that shook at
her stomach. Despite countless, careless moments in the treehouse,
she felt that here on the ground was the first time falling was a
real possibility.

She inhaled, forcing air into her
diaphragm to silence her nausea. She couldn’t . . . it was too much
. . .

A tear cut a path down Archer’s cheek
and evaporated. “Lexie, listen to me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know
any of it.”

“
She’s dead?”

Lexie’s heart felt as though it had
ceased beating, and it sat like a rock in her throat, making it
difficult to breathe. “Because of you?”

Lexie looked to Archer, whose stunning
and pained face glowed like it did the night around the fire when
Lexie sang and fell in love.

Lexie was suddenly ashamed to be
exposed like this, unsure of the truth that unfolded around her.
Her neck began to sweat and her earlobes burned.

Archer lowered her head. Her shoulders
slumped.

“
Archer?” Lexie tried to
catch Archer’s eyes. The girls shifted on their feet.

Blythe spoke to Lexie, “I’m sorry you
had to learn the truth this way. It certainly wasn’t my intention
to hurt or humiliate you. I want you to know that we’re here for
you.”

Sharmalee nodded emphatically, her
hands held as in prayer over her sternum. Jenna and Hazel nodded
too. Renee stood motionless, save for her jaw, which clenched and
unclenched repeatedly.

“
You’re lying,” Archer
spat, squeezing her fists tight to stave off the wolf. “You only
want her because she’s valuable to you.”

“
Are you implying that
she’s valueless to you?” Blythe smiled.

“
She’s not a commodity,
Blythe.” The steeliness of Archer’s voice sent chills creeping down
Lexie’s spine.

“
Then why did you turn her
life into one?”

“
I DIDN’T SIRE HER!” Archer
boomed, her throat forcing out sounds made of both human and wolf
at once.

“
You beasts are all the
same. You fight over human lives as if they were carcasses, willing
to draw blood from each other for gristle,” Blythe said.

“
That isn’t what this is
about. You’re terrified of me because you know you’re a lousy
leader and that given the chance, I’d run this Pack better than you
ever could,” Archer said. “You’re only an alpha because there was
no one left alive to do the job.”

“
No one until now,
apparently,” Blythe said. “Allow me to finish that.”

Archer walked forward and Blythe leapt
from the truck. They met in the smoky meadow that had once been
Archer’s backyard.

“
My girls will eviscerate
you,” Blythe snarled.

“
They may know how to kill
werewolves, but could they kill a woman?” Archer asked.

Blythe scowled. “Let’s find
out.”

With a hurtling fist, Archer struck
Blythe’s face, sending her flying onto her back. Blood streamed
from Blythe’s nose, a bright red shock against her milk-white skin.
Blythe staggered to her feet and leapt back at Archer. The moon was
not yet above the tree line, but Blythe had no problem shifting in
midair, from woman to wolf. A great, white creature, she landed on
Archer’s human body, slamming her to the ground and knocking her
breathless. Archer groaned with pain before kicking back and
flipping Blythe off of her.

Blythe whipped to her four feet and ran
at Archer, who met her snapping jaws with her hands, gripping
Blythe’s snout and leaping onto her back.

Renee watched the fight, and Lexie
watched Renee. She knew that Renee didn’t understand the truth, was
merely acting under Blythe’s orders. Renee grappled with the
half-truths Blythe fed her, like the women now grappled on the
grass, none of it adding up.

Archer straddled Blythe’s back, her arm
barred across Blythe’s throat, cutting through the soft tissue
below her jaw, making Blythe stagger and buck. Though Blythe waved
her large, heavy head, Archer held fast. The girls shouted for
Blythe to destroy Archer. Unable to dislodge her, Blythe threw
herself onto her side and rolled her heavy frame onto Archer,
knocking her loose.

“
No!” Lexie screamed. The
Pack cheered as blood seeped from Archer’s scalp. Blythe ran at her
and seized her shoulder in her jaws, lifting Archer from the ground
and shaking her like a rag doll before tossing her in the direction
of the burning cabin. Archer fell to the ground mere feet from the
flames, her shirt soaking red with blood. Archer gasped and
coughed.

“
I don’t want to kill you,
Blythe.”

Blythe grinned with a mouthful of
bloodied teeth, saying, We never did agree on anything.

Archer staggered to standing, the heat
of her burning home drying her blood. The girls beyond flinched at
the crackle of weakening logs.

Blythe lowered her head and swayed her
heavy, white tail. She ran at Archer, ready to ram her into the
flames. As she closed in, Archer stepped forward and, like slipping
off a robe, she sloughed off her human disguise. Blythe’s pure
white beast met Archer’s gray one with a great crash and snarl.
Archer caught Blythe’s shoulders with her paws and used her
momentum to hurl the white wolf through the wall of flame. Logs
caved and snapped, crashing with Blythe into the fire. Without a
moment’s hesitation, Archer leapt in after her.

Desperate, Lexie moved toward the
cabin. Renee grabbed Lexie’s hand and jerked her back, intertwining
her fingers with Lexie’s. It felt comforting, before Renee began to
squeeze. Lexie’s muscles tensed with the urgency to act, and Renee
responded by bearing down. Lexie nearly tore her own arm off as she
tried to wrench herself free from Renee’s grasp, but unlike before,
Renee wouldn’t underestimate her strength. She dug her nails into
Lexie’s hands, squeezing off the circulation. Lexie twisted and
fought like a rabid dog on a leash.

“
Let me go!” Lexie
shouted.

“
Like hell,” Renee said.
Spotting Lexie’s knife she tore the holster from her belt. Lexie
swatted and scratched at Renee, but the tall girl evaded her
attacks. Renee grabbed the knife by the handle, dropping it with a
shout. Lexie stared wide-eyed as Renee shook her hand as though she
had been bitten.

Lexie reached down and picked up the
knife, unsheathing it and brandishing it in front of Renee’s face.
She staggered back, releasing Lexie’s wrist. Lexie smiled with her
newfound power, leaning into Renee’s face.

“
Blythe made you a
murderer. If I’m this ‘peacespeaker’, you just killed three
innocent boys so she wouldn’t have to.”

“
They weren’t innocents,”
Renee snarled.

“
Brian was an asshole. He
was a pig, and he was a rapist. But he wasn’t a werewolf. So tell
me one more time, who are you really fighting?”

Renee’s face burned red with the
reflected flames. Her lips curled from her teeth. Her eyes flicked
over Lexie’s shoulder to the two wolves grappling in the cabin and
she doubled over, releasing a scream from the lowest parts of her.
Not yet a wolf, her howl was purely human, driven by grief and
horror. When her lungs were spent she did it again. Lexie watched,
her own insides hurting for the pain she had to inflict, but also
from jealousy for Renee’s grief. Lexie should be able to make those
same sounds in honor of her mother, but there was no anguish to be
found there.

Renee sank to the ground, her face
buried in her knees. Lexie abandoned her, shoving her knife through
her belt as she ran to the cabin. The heat made Lexie dizzy as soon
as she burst in. She coughed as though her whole throat wanted to
evacuate her body. The smoke was thick, and white spots appeared
like flashbulbs in her field of vision. Lexie called Archer’s name
over the cacophony of cracking timber and growling flames. Through
the smoke, she saw Blythe and Archer crash into the kitchen table,
sending it flying.