Tarnished (12 page)

“So John suddenly asked you to take care of Sacramento instead of him?” Susan pushed to her feet, careful to avoid tripping over Edmond’s scattered toys, plush and plastic alike. “Why?”

“With him. Because it’s my responsibility.” Andrew lifted his shirt and held it for a while. “He sees that now he’s thinking clearly.” John’s last comment kept intruding on his thoughts. Leave him out of it in the future. Was that a withdrawal of his support in Andrew’s bid to challenge for Roanoke? Worse, a withdrawal of his invitation to stay on Seattle territory until then?

He looked over at Silver. Maybe he’d interpreted John’s last comment wrong. But he saw the same sinking feeling in her face that lurked in his stomach. Leaving him out of it was a clear enough request.

If John wanted to disinvite them and the trouble they attracted from his territory, they had nowhere to go. They’d have to stay on the move, maybe go out to Arizona ahead of the Convocation and find a hotel in the somewhat neutral territory. But even that would be politically difficult, because it would smack of trying to mark the territory as theirs before anyone else arrived.

But at the end of the hunt, John didn’t owe him anything. Anything he’d done had been out of kindness and deference to Silver’s former place in his pack. That didn’t make the possibility of being forced to leave any easier, though. Dammit.

One problem at a time, he reminded himself. First, tracking Sacramento. “I’ll most likely have to track in wolf,” he told Silver. Her expression tightened with frustration, but she didn’t disagree. “My car’s back at the pack house, so if Susan would drop us off, you can stay with them.”

“Of course,” Susan said. “I’ll stay at the house too.” She picked up her son’s coat and hesitated with a quick glance at Andrew’s back. “Good luck.”

11

Silver held off her own reaction to her cousin’s change of voice until they were traveling again. Back to Seattle’s home so Dare could track and deal with his enemy, and then Seattle might ask them to leave his territory. Had Silver given Susan enough knowledge to work with once they were gone?

Death stretched himself deliciously, black fur ruffling up and falling flat again. “Forget her, what about you? Where will you go?” He used the voice of the monster that had chased Silver for so long, the monster she and Dare had finally killed together. She heard herself make a small hurt noise, the fear rising easily to the surface, even now. Dare squeezed her knee and she summoned a smile to reassure him. They wouldn’t run forever. Soon, things would be resolved, one way or the other.

“And yet both of you give up so easily in this battle.” Death snapped his teeth at a fly, returning to his more habitual voice. “You have another option, one you’ve already thought of.”

“If it comes to it, why not hold Susan with us?” Silver asked out loud. She had thought of it almost immediately. She didn’t like it—Susan was a friend, and that kind of thing worked only if you didn’t consider the feelings of the person being used for leverage. But better she voice it than leave it hanging over them both.

Dare growled. “No.” His wild self bristled.

Susan looked away from her concentration on their path ahead. “What?” Clearly she couldn’t guess, as Dare had, the next step Silver had left unspoken.

“I spent so long on the move before, and now we’ll have nowhere to stay if Seattle asks us to leave.” Silver frowned at her knees, smoothing her palms over them. “Why not stand and fight this time?” Yes, she’d wanted to leave the pack’s pity behind. But remembering her time spent always on the run after the monster took her pack, the choice seemed less clear.

The fur on Dare’s wild self’s ruff smoothed out, and his expression tightened with concern. “Ah, love. I’m sorry. But we were lucky Seattle helped us as much as he did.”

“Where do I come into this?” Susan glanced back for a longer moment this time, scent gaining a layer of frustration.

“Silver was pointing out that we could force John’s hand if we kept you with us. But forced support is hardly support at all. It’s not worth it.”

“As a hostage, you mean. Your reasons against it are so logical,” Susan said, annoyance sliding into her voice, twisted around fear.

Dare smacked his palm against his thigh to emphasize his point. “And I don’t do that to a member of an ally’s pack. Or another man’s mate, all right?”

Silver nodded. Yes. That was the right answer, but she felt less burdened by the weight of the choice now the reasons against it had been said out loud.

“If only John felt the same way,” Susan said. Dare started to speak, but Susan hurried on before he could. “No, I know. It’s not the same situation. One is against your social rules, one isn’t. John’s supposed to put his pack first and all that, but you’ve been doing more than that, haven’t you?”

Silver and Dare exchanged a glance. He looked surprised, but Silver smiled. It was a rare Were that truly understood you couldn’t just look to your own pack. Maybe it was different for humans, with their mishmash of loyalties to many different groups. They’d have more practice stretching their minds around such complexity.

“Out of the mouths of humans…” Death said in an echo of her thoughts, his tongue hanging out in a pleased canine grin.

“It depends on your definition of your pack,” Silver told Susan. “Some might say that the trouble you abandon your neighbor to will arrive for your pack next. Others might say you should think bigger. We’re all Were. Or people, if you like.”

“Idealism,” Dare muttered on a note of amusement, but Silver could smell agreement buried somewhere, even if he didn’t realize it himself. Susan was more doubtful, but Silver didn’t blame her, given their current situation.

They didn’t say much when they arrived at the den. Verbalizing her worry once more wouldn’t help him with Sacramento, so Silver only embraced Dare and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Lady’s luck,” she murmured, and he snorted. She knew he didn’t believe, but that wouldn’t bother the Lady. She watched until he had disappeared down the path.

Susan headed for the den with the baby and Silver followed. A scent made her stop. It was hard to pinpoint, but one breath held a faint taint of fear, gone again as she inhaled deeply. She glanced at Death, but he looked merely intent. That could be for many reasons, not just his love of trouble.

Silver ran to catch up to Susan. “Something’s wrong. It could be nothing serious, but you should still take the cub and go back to your home.” She stroked the soft hair on the sleeping cub’s head, then pushed Susan’s shoulder to turn her back.

“I can’t just leave you alone,” Susan said, sounding unsure as she cradled the child closer to her chest. She swallowed. “Not after what happened last time.”

The wind shifted. “Lady!” Silver spat, and caught Susan’s arm again. The underling that had herded them into Sacramento’s arms before was herding them now, circling around from their back trail. He’d clearly waited to reveal himself until Dare was too far gone to be called back. How was he here, when Seattle had said Sacramento’s trail was far off? Had her cousin lied?

Susan resisted Silver’s pull, trying to find the threat for herself. Silver felt the moment when her human eyes caught up with Silver’s nose in the tightening of her muscles. She clutched the baby against her chest. “Shit.”

“Look weak with me for now,” Silver said, huddling with her bad side against the woman to leave her working hand free. It frustrated her to allow herself to be herded, but she needed to know the situation inside. It was safer for Susan and the cub to be with her than it was for them to face the underling alone.

Inside, Sacramento waited with Seattle and another man. This new underling was darker in his skin, the fur of his wild self shading from light brown to reddish on its underbelly. Sacramento patted Seattle’s shoulder and smirked like someone watching a doe bound into the ambush set by his pack. The expression pulled at the angry red line of his scar, but he showed no sign of pain. “Welcome, Silver.”

Seattle jerked away from Sacramento’s hold, or tried to. Sacramento held something to his head, something Silver couldn’t quite understand, though her heart sped and her throat closed. Something in her remembered what it was and knew to fear it.

Seattle rocked back to his heels and gritted his teeth. “I did what you asked, Sacramento. Leave.”

Sacramento laughed. “Why would I leave when such lovely company just arrived? Take her silver,” he directed his sandy-haired underling. The underling nodded, blocked the den’s entrance with a slam, and pulled on a glove. His face showed only willingness to follow the order, but his scent soured with an undercurrent of fear.

He held out his hand nonetheless and Silver hesitated. She wished she remembered more about the weapon that kept Seattle still. Without him, she and Susan had little chance of taking on the underlings with their physical strength. She had only one working arm and Susan was burdened by the baby. That was also the way of fools, to rush forward into danger when the way out lay in sneaking around.

The underling made her decision for her by catching her good wrist and squeezing until the pain was so great she had to whimper. He pulled the chain from her pocket with his gloved hand and held it at the length of his arm, fear smell fading when it didn’t burn him.

The fair underling turned to Susan next. “And your—” The word twisted away from Silver, but Susan clearly understood it. She reached around the baby to hand something over. He strode away to dispose of that and the chain.

“Now.” Sacramento relaxed fractionally. “Let’s go join the others, hm?” He prodded Seattle forward. The darker underling gripped Silver’s bad arm and jerked her along. Susan followed without having to be touched, her whole body hunched protectively around the child.

“At what point do you stop pretending to be weak and actually do something?” Death asked, waiting for them at the bottom.

Silver couldn’t answer him out loud, so she tried to frown him into silence. Not yet. Soon. She’d know when. She hoped.

*   *   *

Susan couldn’t take her eyes away from the silenced gun in Sacramento’s hands. She’d thought the couple of sessions she’d had with her brother at the range had made guns more familiar, but she found now that they’d just made the fear that much more visceral. She’d seen what a gun could do. Maybe all these werewolves could absorb bullets without a second thought, but she couldn’t, and what about Edmond? What could he heal?

John looked as scared as her, though. What had Dare said about head shots? Susan tried to swallow, though her throat was almost too constricted to allow it. Silver had used her chain to hold them back last time, but judging from the grinding racket that had come from the kitchen, the blond thug had fed that down the garbage disposal. Edmond whined and tried to twist around in his sling. She readjusted him on autopilot.

They filed into the basement while Sacramento kept the gun trained on John’s head. The new Hispanic man shut the door with a firm click. The battered couch and floor pillows usually kept down here in a pile had joined the folded air mattress against the wall. The pack huddled in the clear space.

A muscle jumped in John’s jaw as he came to a stop beside the couch. “So now what? I got Dare to go where you said, aren’t you going after him?”

“I told you, I have what I want right here.” Sacramento gestured Silver forward with his free hand. Silver planted her feet and didn’t move.

“Dare only needed to be sent far enough away to give me some quality time with his mate before he comes running back.” Sacramento smirked. “It’s important he see the end of it, of course, but things end too soon if he gets to try to foolishly rush me from the start.”

“You cat’s bastard.” John’s face twisted, rage trumping the earlier fear. Susan didn’t understand werewolf rules about fights, but even she could tell John had just realized how far Sacramento planned to step over the line, even if he hadn’t used the word “torture.” “
Dishonorable
—”

John went for the gun, faster than Susan could quite process. One minute he was standing one place, the next he was in another, wrestling for the gun.

Susan dropped to her knees instantly, concrete beneath the carpet jarring them painfully. She leaned down, keeping Edmond shielded under her body, so she didn’t see what happened.

But she heard the shot just fine.

Every muscle in her body clenched at once, keeping air from her lungs. John! She looked up, even as part of her screamed that she shouldn’t, that it might be bad. She had to know. Either way.

John fell to his knees, bringing the hole in his chest to her eye level. It seemed so small and neat, even as the blood spread and spread. His eyes were glassy, and his chest didn’t move. He toppled forward, revealing the matching hole on the other side.

Had the hole been on the left? Susan couldn’t remember, couldn’t figure it out from the hole in his back, seen from her angle. Her right, his—what? Did a shot through the heart kill a werewolf? Dare had only talked about head shots. Let John not be dead. Please.

Susan crawled toward him, but Sacramento reached him first and leaned down. “Lady damn it, look what you made me do.” He jammed the gun into his waistband at his back, turned John over, and felt his throat for a pulse. John jerked, shuddered, and drew in a ragged breath.

Sacramento straightened with a snarl. “No more of that, right? You all follow my orders now.” He crossed back to the center of the room and stared down anyone who would meet his eyes.

Susan ignored him once he got far enough from John. She crawled the rest of the way and knelt over him. He looked so pale. Did werewolves suffer from shock? Should she be putting pressure on his wound? The uncertainty and worry made her stomach clench. Edmond started crying with a long-term, grating note. She pulled up John’s shirt until it bunched under his armpits and wiped away the worst of the blood with her fingertips. Already, the bullet hole looked shallow. As she watched, flesh knitted all the way to the surface, leaving clean skin under the blood smears.