Where Wild Things Roam

Disasters

Jack    

The fold is open when I get there, the entire lower valley in flames and billowing a strange purple gray smoke. Coughing and stumbling, Anna clutches her baby bulge with one hand and the basket she’s been using to transplant Darby’s florae from her garden to the pack greenhouse in the other, struggling along the rocky trail toward the rim.

She looks up relived to see my great gray wolf plunging toward her, climbing onto my back when I slide to a halt.

“It all burst into flame at once. I could smell the vamp who started it, then they were just gone.” Anna shouts over the roar of the flames. Heat rolls past us toward the fold as if we’re standing directly in front of the fire as we sprint for the stone.

Just as we reach it, Ian tops the rise, skidding to a halt. Even the emotionless countenance of a wolf doesn’t disguise his horror seeing the valley in flames. I’d kill or die to protect Anna and our child, Lili and Thomas—Ian’s no different, and seeing what’s happening here, he hurts doubly, I know.

  I shout through the pack link over the crackling din as Anna and I stop next to Ian.

“I’ll call a storm,” Anna says, coughing to clear her lungs and sliding off my back.

“We have to do something!” she shouts.

 Ian’s voice in my head is defeated and he turns away.

Shoving past me, Anna blocks Ian’s path. “We can’t give up!”

Both Anna and I turn, staring. Along the base of the flames, purple-red dark magic twists and writhes, driving the fire strangely, unnaturally, forcing its absolute consumption of everything in its path.

**

Sean    

“What did you do to her?” I demand of the witch as Ian bounds through the broken window after Jack. Darby’s limp body dangles in my arms. Boundless rage clutches me, and it’s only my unconscious Luna keeping me from tearing the witch apart, charm or no charm.

Across from me, the witch shakes her head. Three thin slices on one cheek seep red blood where the slivers of flying glass caught her despite Jack’s effort to shield her. It’s a generosity she didn’t deserve.

“The attack on her isn’t my doing. I only provided a buffer to ease her pain and stop the cascade of untamed magic from destroying both her and us.”

 “This is the worst that’s ever happened,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “And what a coincidence it’s the day you arrive, pitching your stories of rogue witches.”

“Look deeper, Desert wolf,” Mattie tells me, staring down the devil I know is in my eyes. “You know what I tell you is true.”

It’s little comfort, even knowing she’s right. Vengeance cares nothing for righteousness or justice. It only seeks an object. And I stand without one, a demon wolf clawing away at my insides, demanding a target.

“Get your sisters here. Find me that witch.”

**

Unknown    

“Just because the wolves sought a witch’s help to identify the arrow doesn’t mean one of your undead fuckers needed to burn the valley! They haven’t returned the books to her library! I didn’t have the translations I needed and there’s no way we can get it from the wolves!”

“Your shrieking perturbs me, witch. Be quiet. Or be lunch. I don’t care either way.”

“Oh, you don’t care,” she laughs cynically. “There’s a surprise. I might pass out from that surprise.” Tromping noisily to stand in front of me, she shakes her index finger under my nose. “You listen here—.”

“Don’t threaten me, witch.” I wave her hand away as if she were an annoying gnat. Mostly, that’s what she is.

“Then respect the bargain, goddammit!” She shoves against my chest, but she may as well have pushed against a thick slab of marble. “I gave you cursed weapons. Gave you dark magic fire. I cloaked you. It was my vision that hand-delivered her damn mate and your vamps still screwed it up. For me!”

“And you’re protected here from all the consequences of your own actions by an entire undead army.” I push past the witch, smiling down at the round-faced, chubby feeder girl staring at me adoringly. “Ah. Lunch.” A volunteer of weak fae bloodlines, she mesmerizes in a snap, and stupefied, stumbles right into my arms.

“Cold,” she gasps, shivering deliciously against me.

Sinking my teeth into her warm flesh, I let the hot flood of salty blood shoot down my throat, sweetened deliciously by the feeder’s diet of a new plant-based drug. The taste is fantastic, artificially enhanced by the plant to almost the former lusciousness of my fae prisoner.

I lock my eyes with the witch, digging my teeth deeper into the feeder, and wide-eyed, she backs away. Greedily guzzling the life-giving dark wine, I wrap the feeder tighter in my arms as she slumps, her breathing growing rapid and shallow, her heart pounding to compensate for the blood loss in the moments before she dies.

Normally, I would stop now. Give her a few weeks to recover before draining from the same feeder again. But I have a message I’m delivering to this witch, and I intend it to be clear. I slurp viciously when the heart gives out, collapsing capillaries, veins and arteries, sucking the last few drops from the pale, shriveled body before discarding it to the side and rounding on the witch.

She backs away quickly as I advance, flinching when I pin her to the rough-hewn wall, my body now as warm as hers but exponentially stronger. She shudders when I stroke her cheek, delightfully flushed and warm, and I chuckle. “Stop your sniveling. The faery is still one of the Seven. Her library may have burned, but she still knows what you need.”

“You’ve screwed me over six different ways and have the audacity to think I owe you something! What do you want from me? There’s nothing I can do now. I’m done with this bullshit, Cordelion!”

I close my hand around her slim throat, aroused by the strength of her pulse. Noticing, her eyes flick down, then squeeze closed as she blanches. “Finn is waning swiftly, witch. I barely get a boost after feeding from him. I need a new source. The faery Luna is only other we’ve found. Do you understand?” I grind my hips against her and she shudders again. “You have the book with the necessary instruction to accurately create a fold this time. Use it. Find a new way to get to her. And, no, you don’t quit. You’ll keep helping us catch her, witch. That’s the only way you get what you want. Otherwise, you’re just food.”

**

Sean    

It takes the valley four days to stop burning, and by that time, nothing there is left alive.

“Sweet Arianrhod,” I whisper, following Jack as we sort through the rubble of the cottage for anything salvageable or that Darby may want or need, but there’s nothing. The few pieces of intact stoneware we unearth from the kitchen pulverize to powder as soon as we try to move them. The stone knives splinter to razor shards. The supernatural fire was so hot even the glass is fused into brittle, glistening drips and puddles, the mortar between the cottage’s stones baked into choking dust.

A few charred tree trunks twist skyward in pained supplication like the shriveled, blackened hands of the damned, all that remains of the once achingly beautiful orchard. Of the younger, smaller trees, only piles of powdery ash persist, even those lifting away in dusty billowing streaks with the slightest gust of wind.

“We’re not going to find anything, Jack. We should just go.”

His blue eyes, a few shades brighter than Ian’s, skim my face, then the destruction around us. “I feel terrible, Sean. I considered this place little more than a nuisance. I should have done more to protect it.”

I rest a hand on his shoulder, offering comfort. “We all thought of it that way. No one knew how she was connected to it. She’s certainly not forthcoming about anything, and maybe she didn’t know. It’s not your fault. It wasn’t one of us who burned it.”

“That’s the thing. It is my fault. It’s my job to protect this pack. Especially her. And I failed.” Jack shrugs out from under my hand. Stepping away from me, he slumps, kicking at the blackened stone rubble that was once the cottage wall. “Not just as a triumvir, but as his brother. He didn’t even get a year with her. Now she’s a vegetable in the hospital.”

“Darby’s resilient, Jack. Healthy. She just needs time to heal—.”

He faces me then. “Will she? Because the best answers I get are that nobody knows for sure. And what happens if she doesn’t? Did you consider that? This fiasco,” he gestures around at the devastation with one arm like a game show hostess displaying a prize, “it may have cost me my brother too. He doesn’t even have a child with her to keep him alive if he loses his mate. I even blew that off too.”

I peer at him, trying to understand so I can do a better job comforting. “Blew what off? What are you talking about?”

Propping his hands on his hips, Jack stares at the ruined ground and exhales a long breath. “You know they’re having problems conceiving. The night of my mates’ induction ceremony, when he took off and she asked me to find him. He was alone and drinking. He asked me—asked me to be his surrogate. f**k, Sean. I told him no. What kind of an asshole brother does that?” 

“It’s a hard call, Jack,” I admit. “With you especially, it gets—complicated.”

“Would you have done it?”

I shrug but know the answer without hesitation. Not that I could admit I’d die to have one night with her to Ian’s brother. I consider my answer carefully. “He’s not my brother, Jack. He’s my alpha and I’m unmated. That doesn’t mean it would make it the right thing to do. What if it’s not him? Then you’ve slept with his Luna, his destined mate. His heart. And for nothing.”

Nodding towards the trailhead to the rim, I start back, Jack following. “Besides, you were there when we read what the book said about fae and shifter pairings. You have to bind the fae half with iron, or they don’t conceive.”

Behind me, Jack stops abruptly and I look over my shoulder at him.

“You’re right.”

“Of course I am,” I chuckle. “I’m the older brother too.”

His face splits in a grin. “f**k off, Sean. Race you to the top.”

**

Sean    

I don’t know what time it is when I hear the clink of glass on glass in the packhouse dining room, but it’s well after dark. Though he’s seldom left Darby’s side in the hospital, Ian does come home to shower each day.

A sudden horrifying thought hits me. Darby! What if he’s home because she’s—. I leap out of the bed, hurry into the dining area.

Ian’s standing, drinking whiskey from an ice-filled tumbler. Grabbing a second glass, he lurches forward. “Come here,” he growls, passing me on his way to a seat in the family room. Pouring a generous shot into the second tumbler, he slides it over the table to me as I take a seat opposite him. “Drink it.”

“Ian? Darby? Is she—?”

“Just drink it. Then we’ll talk.”

I toss the whiskey back. It bites at the back of my throat for a second then the smooth heat spreads through me. “Okay. Is Darby alright?”

“Still unconscious.”

Pouring us both another shot, Ian drains his glass again. When he looks up, his dark blue eyes are streaked with the yellow and green of his wolf half. There’s a war happening there—I can see it—but I can’t imagine what it is, even with a wolf that’s as big of a jerk as mine is.

“I need you to do something for me, and you’re going to balk when I tell you.”

“I’ve done a lot of shady s**t, Ian. Try me.”

“She’s going to come to. I can feel it.”

I can’t stop my sigh of relief, the wide grin that splits my face. “That’s great news!”

“Once she’s well, I need you to sleep with Darby.”

Stunned, my mouth falls open and wide-eyed, I glance into my glass, as if I might see something there that explains my audio hallucinations. “Okay, there’s no way I just heard what I thought I heard. I’m sorry. Uh. What about Darby?”

“Drink that,” he orders, and struggling to cope with this roller coaster conversation, I do as I’m told.

“I said I want you to sleep with her. I want you to get her pregnant.”

To say that I have a new appreciation for what Jack went through having this conversation with Ian is a substantial understatement. Everything in my head grinds to a halt except my wolf growling in satisfaction.

“Why would you even ask me something like this?”

“We need—I need children. By Darby.”

His words make no sense and I stare blankly, finally managing to speak. “No, Ian this isn’t—this isn’t—it’s not a good idea.” I set my glass down, rising to go back to bed. “You should get some sleep.”

“Sit down.” The words issue from him with a menacing snarl. “I said sit down!”

He pours us both another drink. This time I drink it without prompting.

“Why are you refusing? I know you want her. From the minute you saw her, you wanted her.”

“She’s your mate, Ian. I can’t do this. I just can’t.”

“You can. You’re an alpha. Strong. Healthy. Driven. And unless you give me a better reason than “I can’t”, you will do it.”

The alpha pressure stuns me, almost as much as the reason it’s being applied. Ian prefers logic to force. This is unlike him. “Don’t do that, Ian. Please. Don’t make it a command. That’s not—it’s not fair and you know it.”

“Tell me why you’re refusing.”

Massaging the back of my neck uncomfortably, my normally quick mind scrambles for an answer that will put an end to this conversation without me revealing anything else, but there isn’t one. “Because I can’t.”

Unrelenting, Ian demands again, the alpha compulsion stronger in his low, whiskey-roughened voice. “Why?”

Alpha blood or no, subordinate to him, I cave, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Because I wouldn’t—.” I clench my fists in frustration, knowing the trouble the words are going to cause. “I wouldn’t be able to stop. I smell her, Ian. Not just her heat.” 

There’s a long quiet as Ian studies me, his eyes and expression unreadable. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“I wish you hadn’t demanded that answer.” I run my hand over my face in frustration. “I’m sorry, Ian. You know I didn’t choose it. And the gods know I don’t understand why you haven’t marked her.”

He laughs, a bitter ugly sound, leaning forward to snatch the Oban by the bottle’s neck, almost as a subconscious wish. “I can’t. I do it every time I’m with her and it’s healed by morning. You wouldn’t be able to either, even as her mate.”

“What? How is that possible? Ian, no. No more shots, please. I need my wits right now.”

He finishes pouring the drink anyway, then removes a small book from the inside pocket of his jacket. I recognize it as one of the ones from Darby’s library and wonder when he was in there doing this research. “This.” Laying it open, he slides it across the table to me.

“The Horned God? I don’t understand.”

“He’s Darby’s father.”

I swear I’m not stupid, but I’m not following—this whole conversation has me loopy and the Oban hasn’t helped. “Well, yeah. She’s fae—they’re all the descendants of the Horned God and the Triple Goddess, right?”

“Not Darby. She’s not just fae. She’s his direct descendant. His daughter.”

“That’s impossible.”

An ironic smile tugs one side of his mouth. “You look like I felt when she told me. She was conceived forty-four hundred years and some change ago, Sean. At Beltane rites. By a human high priestess robed as the Triple Goddess who lay with the Horned God.”

“You’re serious.”

Ian nods, and, with a whispered curse, I tank my drink. “She’s a goddess.”

“Demi-goddess. I think it’s why her magic is so powerful. Maybe why she’s lived so long.” Leaning forward, Ian sets his glass on the table and rests his head in his hands, eyes closed. “That’s why I need your help. Maybe since you’re her mate too, it’s even more important—both of us. Both aspects of the Horned God.”

“Ian, do you have any idea what this means for the Candlewood pack?”

Opening one eye, he peers at me. “I believe I opened this conversation by saying I needed you to do this. I don’t know if any of us could know what it means, but it’s huge. Just like children would be.” He rubs his brow. “Maybe Darby would know the meaning. The Horned God isn’t particularly forthcoming.”

Pouring myself a drink, I refill Ian’s glass from the nearly empty bottle, then tip mine down my throat. “You invoked him?”

“I invoked them both.”

Fuck. The man has balls of solid granite. “What happened?”

“Arianrhod is as silent as she always is. He pretty much told me to f**k off. It was like talking to my wolf.”

“Ungh. Mine’s like that too. Right now he’s telling me I’m a dumbass for even arguing with you about this. But really, regardless of what you want, Ian—what it might mean for this pack, even weres as a species— Darby would never have it. Not with me. She doesn’t trust me, Ian.”

“She’ll do it if I tell her to, and she doesn’t have to know who you are at first. We’ll address the issue after she’s carrying a child.”

“Are you kidding?” I snort. “What are you going to do? Blindfold her? Alpha command your Luna? Knock her unconscious? No. If we’re going to do this, I want her on board at the outset. I already can’t believe you’re even considering this, Ian. I can’t believe I’m considering it.”

Sitting upright, Ian looks me dead in the eye. “You may be doing a Second triumvir’s job, Sean, but you’re an alpha by blood. And this is your pack now too. What would you do in my position?”

I pour another drink, emptying the bottle. I really hate how even with the ferocious buzz we’ve both got now, Ian can still out-logic me. “Oh f**k. Probably the same thing you are.”