Chapter 17

Chapter

Seventeen

The battle had already moved into the backyard before Arkady, Malcolm, and I made it to the hole in the wall where the patio door had once been. The wolves had gone through the patio door and a section of the deck railing to reach the open area between the deck and the trees.

Sean's rage seared me through our bond. His wolf was enormous, mostly black with streaks of silver. Matthias wasn't much smaller. His size was a testimony to his power and emerging dominance. They moved so fast that to my human eyes they were little more than a blur. Blood splattered across the grass.

Nausea surged at the sight of Sean and Matthias hurting each other. But when I started to run toward them, Malcolm flitted in front of me. "They've gotta do this, Alice. Let them fight."

"Out of my way," I said.

Arkady grabbed my arm, and not gently. "Malcolm's right. This has been building up for a long-ass time. If it's not today, it'll be tomorrow."

I shook her hand off. "They're going to rip each other apart. "

"Probably." She used her body to block me from moving forward. "You're gonna stay right here if I have to sit on you."

Matthias's wolf took a chunk out of Sean's shoulder. Sean twisted around and ripped at Matthias's side. I wanted to scream at them.

"I understand," Arkady said. "Remember, I used to sleep with the big idiot who's about to get his ass kicked because he fucking deserves it. And Sean needs to set Matthias right because your way isn't working. We've just got to let them sort it out."

"Matthias needs more time," I protested.

"We don't have it." She was unmoved. "Blame Vaughan for this too. Take solace in the fact you would have won Matthias over eventually, as long as he didn't decide to be a martyr and turn himself over to the Court with or without your permission. His life consisted of killing time until the vamps put him in the ground one way or another. Do you think that's changed just because he became a shifter? After thirteen years?"

"He's working on that. It's only been a few weeks. Nobody's expecting a miraculous overnight change."

The wolves circled each other, bleeding from a half-dozen wounds. I couldn't put myself between them, but I wanted to.

"And while we're on the topic of expectations," Arkady said, "You have to let Sean be an alpha werewolf. Stop trying to make him deal with these things like a human."

I flinched like she'd slapped me. Sean and Malcolm had said the same thing to me before, and I'd honestly thought I had stopped doing that. Even if I had the best of intentions, urging Sean to deny his alpha instincts, whether on purpose or subconsciously, undermined Sean's authority and caused friction between his human self and his wolf. In a way, my interference had led to tragedy within our pack: namely the death of a young werewolf named Caleb Jennings, who I'd been forced to kill when he attacked me, and that was a guilt I had to live with every day of my life .

"That was uncalled for," I said, my voice rough.

"Was it?" She must have decided that I wasn't going to try to get past her because she leaned against the outdoor loveseat and crossed her arms. "I'll let you mull it over and figure out if I'm really over the line or if I might see something here that you don't." She glanced over her shoulder. "Relax. It's about over."

How she knew that, I wasn't certain. Maybe a fighter's sixth sense. But sure enough, about fifteen seconds later Sean's wolf got Matthias on his back and closed his teeth on the brindle wolf's throat. Matthias went still. I sagged against the wall. At least my headache had faded.

Sean shifted back to human and crouched naked as he held Matthias's wolf on his back with his hand on the wolf's throat. Matthias whined and struggled. Golden alpha magic surged. Was Sean preventing Matthias from shifting back in addition to pinning him on the ground?

My anger caused magic to prickle and spark on my arms and hands. I wanted to protect Matthias. The man had been through enough. Maybe I identified with him more than most. I'd spent twenty years trapped in my grandfather's cabal doing his bidding and suffering every day. I'd lost everything because of him. But even in my darkest hours, I hadn't lost hope that someday I'd get away and make a new life for myself. Trapped by the Court, Matthias had no such hope. I doubted Sean or Arkady really understood what it meant to reach that level of despair.

I started toward the yard.

Arkady cleared her throat. "Alice, I was not kidding about sitting on you."

"Matthias Albrecht." Sean's growly voice resonated with alpha magic. His alpha power seared the air and made my arms prickle and sting. I smelled something odd that reminded me of the scent of hot stones. "You will tell me now what Charles Vaughan knows about Alice," he commanded.

"Sean, the geas! " I called. "He can't tell us! It could kill him! "

"If he could say part of it, he can say the rest." Sean glowered down at Matthias's wolf. "Shift back to human and tell me what you know."

Though I knew Sean could enforce his will on the wolves in our pack and submissive wolves from outside our pack, I had never seen him do this to anyone. He never liked to force a wolf to do anything. It just wasn't in his nature. But he'd chosen to do so anyway, to protect me. My stomach lurched.

Matthias hadn't had any free will for the past thirteen years. It didn't sound like he'd had much before that either. And now Sean was stealing it again, after I'd promised no one in this pack would hurt him.

You have to let Sean be an alpha werewolf , Arkady had said.

How badly did I want to find out what Charles knew about me? Enough to let Sean extract the information with brute force and risk hurting Matthias badly? Was that any better than what vamps did with their prisoners? Would Matthias ever trust any of us again after this? I felt like throwing up.

Golden magic swirled around Matthias as he shifted. Sean kept his hand on the larger man's throat as he stared, golden-eyed, down at our newest pack member. The hot stone smell and stinging on my arms intensified. Matthias let out a very wolf-like whine that cut through me like a blade.

"Vaughan knows…Alice can ease…a shifter's transition," he ground out through what sounded like a clenched jaw. His arms and legs twisted violently. The pain must have been excruciating.

I lost my breath as if someone had punched me in the stomach. Malcolm flitted and swore.

"How did he find out?" Sean demanded.

Matthias's limbs twisted again, much more powerfully, and I heard bones breaking. That sound, combined with his agonized snarl and whine and guttural groan, made me double over and gag. He looked like a huge broken doll.

"A Court spy was present…when Alice helped Casey shift…for the firs t time," Matthias said, his voice edged with both a growl and a whine as Sean's alpha authority pulled each word out by force. "They overheard…Alice explain to you…what she did and…how it was done."

Sean's snarl raised the hair on the back of my neck. I put my elbows on my knees and covered my face with my hands.

Somehow the Court had managed to not only sneak someone into our pack land, but get them close enough to us to overhear our quiet conversation after I accidentally discovered I had the ability to help during a first shift. Certainly none of us had sensed or smelled anyone. The spy must have had some kind of masking and other spells supplied by witches to hide them from all the werewolves' sharp senses. I had never set wards around the pack land because we didn't think there was a need. The acreage was wild and undeveloped and our pack hunted there in wolf form.

But why would Matthias have hinted that Charles knew one of my most closely guarded secrets? He'd also deliberately steered us to the realization that Charles might still have his sights set on me. He had to have known these provocations would lead to a fight with Sean that could have ended in his death. But why?

I could think of only one reason: Matthias had wanted to end up with Sean's hand—and teeth—on his throat. He'd wanted these answers dragged from him by force. He'd willingly suffered to give us this information, though it cost him broken bones and enormous agony.

Sean leaned close to stare into Matthias's amber eyes. "Who was the spy?"

Maybe he'd seen something in Matthias's expression, or sensed some emotion through their pack bond, that led him to want to know. But the moment he asked, I had a terrible sinking feeling what the answer would be.

One moment. One heartbeat. Three words. That was all that stood between Matthias and his death.

"It was me," Matthias said .

In the long silence that followed, I didn't know what Sean's reaction to this revelation would be. He'd killed before, for a variety of reasons—all justified in my eyes and legal by shifter law and custom. His wolf surely wanted Matthias dead for spying on us and giving Charles information that endangered me, and that was on top of the wolf's simmering rage for the attack on New Year's Eve.

Would his wolf's rage overwhelm Sean's ability to draw the same conclusions I had about Matthias's motivations for provoking a fight and getting Sean to force him to give us key information? My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

Instead, Sean proved yet again that he was both a good man and the best alpha any shifter could want. He released Matthias's throat. "Thank you for telling us this."

I sagged against the railing in relief. Of course he'd understood why Matthias had done this.

Then Sean stunned me by demonstrating that he understood Matthias even better than I did.

"Did you think I would kill you for this, Matthias?" Sean's voice was a blend of his wolf's growl and his own, but the words were clear enough to understand. "You put such little value on your life. If you want to throw it away, I can't stop you, but I won't have a part in it."

I gaped at Matthias. Arkady sucked in a breath. Malcolm flitted uneasily.

It hadn't occurred to me that Matthias might have had more than one motivation, but his expression made it clear Sean had guessed right: Matthias had given up information he thought would both help us and cause Sean to kill him, and he'd done it on purpose.

Sean rose. "Shift and heal."

Matthias's slow shift to his wolf and back took more than two minutes. I needed that time to gather my thoughts and deal with a host of conflicting emotions. Meanwhile, Sean guarded Matthias, protectiveness rolling off him in waves. No threats lurked at the moment, but even a dominant wolf benefited from the reassuring presence of their alpha, especially during shifting, when they were at their most vulnerable.

When Matthias had shifted back to human, Sean offered his hand. To my surprise, Matthias accepted it and allowed Sean to haul him to his feet.

Malcolm and Arkady followed me to the yard. I walked around the blood to reach Sean while Arkady stayed near the deck, her arms crossed as she stared at Matthias. I wondered what she was thinking. Was she surprised? Frustrated? Sympathetic? Thinking about serving him a knuckle sandwich? Sometimes she was impossible to read, even for me.

I still couldn't get past the fact Matthias had tried to goad Sean into killing him. He'd told me to hand him over to the Court earlier today, but the simple explanation of him having a death wish didn't sit right.

Maybe something else was going on here. Why try to get Sean to kill him after we'd told him several times, explicitly, that Sean would never do such a thing? It made no sense.

On the other hand, it was something someone might do if they'd spent the last thirteen years—and maybe all the years before that too—never being able to trust what the people around them said.

"I think you had a question for us," I said to Matthias. "Did we finally answer it in a way you could believe?"

He gave me a nod. "I'm getting there."

"Wait—I'm confused," Malcolm said, floating to my side. "What question?"

When Matthias said nothing, I answered instead. "Whether he can really trust us."

Malcolm gaped. "This was a test? To see if Sean would kill him?"

"Yes," Matthias said. "If he did, I would no longer be a danger to your pack. If he didn't?—"

"—Then you'd know all the stuff Alice has been telling you about how they run things around here is true and you could really believe we'll defend and protect you." Malcolm flitted. "That was a hell of a gamble to take."

Matthias clasped his hands behind his back. If he cared that he was nude in front of us, I saw no sign of it. "Maybe so, but I learned a long time ago that words mean little. Actions reveal a lot, especially in the heat of the moment."

Arkady's poker face morphed into a ferocious scowl. "Un-be- lievable ," she said, in a deadly tone I never wanted to hear directed at me. "Matthias, you are a grade-A premium certified asshole."

Sean gave Matthias his alpha stare. A dark shadow moved in his golden eyes: his wolf, pacing in fury. "Do you know how close you came to dying just now?"

"Yes." Matthias met Sean's gaze, then lowered his eyes. "But I did think I would live, for whatever that's worth."

"Given what you just put Alice through, it's not worth much." Sean studied him, then added, "But I suppose it's something."

"Seriously, though, dude," Malcolm said, flitting in place. "Next time Alice tells you something, just believe her, okay? The only things she fibs about are how much coffee she drinks and how little real food she eats."

"Thanks," I said wryly.

Sean took my hand and squeezed. His anger still buzzed on my skin, but something felt different between him and Matthias now. Some kind of mistrust or coldness I'd sensed from the moment they'd crossed paths after Matthias's first shift had lessened considerably.

Arkady caught my eye and raised her eyebrows.

"Shut up." I waggled my sparking fingers at her. "Just…shut up. If you say it, I will zap you into next week."

Sean's brow furrowed. "If she says what?"

"I told you so," Malcolm said, and then zipped out of reach before I could get him.

I went to the steps and sat. Now that the shock of Matthias's revelation had worn off, I didn't feel angry or even afraid. I just wanted more than ever to take this fight to the person who'd started it: Charles Vaughan, who sat on his throne at Northbourne behind walls, highly trained enforcers, and—if our intel was right—a growing cadre of dhampirs.

Where do we go from here? I wondered.

Arkady turned to the house and put her hands on her hips. "Y'all got a broom and dustpan somewhere? Your deck is a fucking mess."