Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) (4 page)

All too soon the trailers were hitched and the trucks idling. Our pack was thirteen wargs strong and required six additional vehicles, some with flatbed trailers, to get our caravan mobile. The strangest sensation swept over me, a wave of deja vu, reminding me of the summers when my extended family traveled together in a mile-long procession that drove locals crazy but made us laugh as their cars wove in and out of lanes to pass us.

The fuzzy warmth of the nostalgic moment evaporated as I tracked a blur of midnight fur rocketing through the trees. No doubt one of Bessemer’s spies off to make their report. Dismissing the mild annoyance, I swept aside the fading tendrils of the family memory. Those misadventures rang hollow without someone who had been there to share them. Even if he were here, Theo would hardly be in a mood to reminisce while his mother and brother were missing.

Another layer of guilt drifted onto my shoulders, the panic I wasn’t doing enough, the certainty I could try harder.

“We’re going to get them back.” Graeson rubbed my shoulders. “We’ll make your family safe again.”

His vow rang eerily similar to the one I had made Dell earlier. I hoped it being a double promise meant it was twice as likely to be kept.

“I believe you.” I trusted his word. Graeson was pigheaded and stouthearted. His promises had weight. “We’ll keep your people safe too.”

He clicked his tongue. “
Our
people.”

Pocketing the phone, I headed for my truck, thoughts divided between the family I had been born into and the one I was making.

Graeson and I cleared half the distance before an explosion rocked the ground beneath our feet and billowing clouds of blackness enveloped the sky.

R
inging
in my ears deafened me to what was being shouted around me. Pulling on my magic earlier meant I had summoned my wolf’s sensitive ears in the bargain, and
ow
. How were Graeson and the others managing the pain?

Rugged hands cupped my cheeks, and I turned my head to find Graeson kneeling beside me. Kneeling. In the grass. I was sprawled on the ground. When had that happened?

His lips moved, and I read my name there.
“Ellis. Ellis. Ellis.”
Over and over, he chanted it like a prayer.

“I’m okay.” My throat vibrated, telling me I’d spoken. “I can’t hear.”

A nod tipped his head, and he set about massaging my scalp with a serious expression pinned in place. Sound drifted back to me in slow increments, aided by the stinging discomfort at my hairline.

“You got hit by shrapnel from the explosion.” His fingers brushed my forehead. “I removed the piece of metal, and the cut isn’t too deep. It’s messy, though. Head wounds are bleeders.”

He took my right hand, rolled his thumb over the nail concealing my spur and met my gaze.

I tried to sit up, got struck with vertigo and let him lay me back down. “Are you sure?”

He nodded and offered his palm.

Gritting my teeth against the nausea, I extended my spur, fingernail dropping to the ground, and pierced the meat of his hand. The bite of his blood hit my veins, and the vision of him—gold dust and sparkles—filled my head as a pack bond of two sprang between us.

Being alone in his headspace, cocooned by his affection, broke a flush along my skin.

“Give it a minute.”
His voice rang through my head. He kept a hand on my shoulder, pressing it flush with the grass.
“You’ve stopped bleeding, but there might be more damage we can’t see.”

Aided by his donation, the world rushed back in a burst of frantic sound as the pack rallied around a column of twisting smoke beyond the trees.

“Better?”
Gaze raking over me, he kept me pinned.

“I’m good.” I ground my palms over my ears to scratch the healing itch of what I suspected was a set of new eardrums. “What was that?”

Clasping hands with me, he hauled me to my feet gently, so my swimming head got time to adjust to being upright. Vertical again, I spotted dozens of wolves gazing at the black column rising up to pollute the sky. Chandler wolves.

“Graeson?”

He didn’t answer, and he didn’t let go. He started walking toward the source of the explosion and dragged me behind him. I didn’t mean to resist, but a bone-deep dread filled me the closer we got, and then my knees stopped working altogether.

My free hand flew to cover my mouth. “Oh gods, no.”

A twisted metal sculpture glinted in the heart of the flames. The paint had bubbled, and the explosion had blasted out the windows, but I’d recognize the frame of Aunt Dot’s vintage Ford F100 pickup anywhere.

Iron bands wrapped around my middle, yanking me to a gut-clenching halt as I ran straight for the inferno.

“You can’t get any closer,” Graeson yelled over the hissing and crackling. “Whoever did this used a magical accelerant. Look. Fire sprites.”

Tears blurred my eyes, from the heat and the heartache, but now that he’d pointed them out, I saw them everywhere. Red, yellow and white sprites leaped and twirled through the wreckage. They wouldn’t stop until the metal was molten and the spell released them back to the heart of the volcano that birthed them. The cycle would take hours to complete and leave nothing but ash.

The missing gas cans melting into plastic puddles several yards away were just overkill.

“I’ll talk to Bessemer and bargain for more time.” Graeson loosened his grip a fraction as he backed me away. “We’ll wait it out.”

“No.” My voice cracked. “This kind of trouble is why he wants us gone. He’s not going to cooperate and risk endangering his people. Not when he’s so close to dusting us off his hands.” Turning my back on the raging inferno felt like surrender, like accepting defeat, but there were more lives at stake than just those of my family. The pack was in more danger every minute we lingered, the tentative peace with Bessemer easily broken when he realized fae troubles had marked his land, his people, once again. “We should go.”

The destructive spell had been cast. There was no extinguishing it without witchy intervention I couldn’t afford and wouldn’t ask anyone else to pay. The flame-mouthed sprites were ravenous.

“Are you sure?” A growl laced his words as he glanced around the clearing where the Chandler wargs had gathered. “Once we leave, there’s no coming back.”

“She wasn’t in there.” The steadiness of my voice surprised me. “She and Isaac are together.”

Safe
, I almost added, but I was afraid I had already lied to myself and didn’t want to compound it.

“Come on.” He tucked a strong arm around my waist and led me to my truck. “Hop up.” He patted the seat, and I climbed in, let him click the strap in place over my lap and shut the door. “He needs her alive. He needs both of them alive.” He circled around and slid into the driver’s spot. “The girls the kelpie took were kept for a period of time before he killed them and left them out in the open for us to find. It’s how Charybdis’s magic works, how his mind works. This…” his fingers clenched on the wheel, “…is foreplay.”

And Charybdis meant to wring every ounce of pleasure from my pain.

A
night breeze
swirled around my ankles, kicking up the scent of fried foods and all but vibrating with the gentle hum of cicada song. The air was cooler here in Chattanooga, closer to the mountains, but I’d been jogging hard for hours. Perspiration rolled into my eyes, camouflaging wayward tears. Sweat dripped from my clothes, and my throat was drier than the Sahara, but the spiking pain in my side distracted me from the ache in my heart.

Feet made of lead, I lapped around the track circling the RV park rather than face those empty trailers and the expectant faces.

Heavy footsteps synced up with mine, and I glanced over my shoulder to find Graeson pounding the asphalt behind me, hair slicked back and droplets falling onto his damp shirt.

I might have laughed if I’d had oxygen to spare. “How long?”

Twice I had caught a whiff of almost but not quite recognizable fur, there and gone before I could identify the babysitter Graeson had sicced on me. However, his much more familiar scent had eluded me until he chose to reveal himself.

“The whole time.” Winded but steady, he put on a burst of speed to even us. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“Afraid Charybdis will jump out of a bush and grab me?” I threw back my head and let the moon beat down on my face. “There was a time when that’s exactly what you wanted to happen.”

A noncommittal grunt escaped him before he caught my elbow. “Enough exercise for today. Let’s go. It’s time.”

“Time?” Legs running on autopilot, I dragged him several yards before stopping. “For what?”

“To own our titles, mate.” Chest heaving, he searched my face. “We have no pack bond. Our members need that connection to keep their wolves level. It will bind us together, cement our bonds of fellowship, give them a sense of belonging to their people if not to a place. Plus, it’s a more efficient means of communication.” He spun me back the way we had come. “I asked them to have everything in place by the time the moon reached its apex.”

Scowling up at the treacherous orb, I let him march me back to our section of the RV park. Except he kept going, past the walking trails and bathrooms, beyond the laundry hut and the main road, and into the shadowy embrace of the poplars leading into a dense forest large enough a dozen wolves might stretch their legs unnoticed by their human neighbors.

Flickering dots illuminated the ground ahead in a winding circular path, candles as bright as stars fallen to Earth. Graeson escorted me, my arm now tucked in his elbow, and stopped when we reached the dried lip of an evaporated creek bed that crumbled under my sneakers.

A sense of wonder captivated me, rooting my feet to the spot. I was about to take part in activating a pack bond, in cementing the bedrock of this group, and it was a ceremony no fae I’d ever heard of had been privy to, let alone acted as a cornerstone.

Everyone with the exception of Graeson and me had changed from their trip outfits and now wore white. The men dressed in loose-fitting linen pants with flowing tops, and the women wore fluttering dresses so sheer the tips of their breasts were visible through the fabric. Flower chains adorned their heads, and even a few of the males wore single wildflowers pinned over their hearts.

I smoothed a hand down my drenched tank and scrunched my toes up in my shoes. “I’m not dressed for this.”

“That’s where I come in.” Dell stepped from behind me carrying a plastic sack, the kind from a grocery store, and a jug of water. Arm looping through mine, she tugged me away from Graeson. “You’re with us.”

“You know what that means.” Jensen approached Graeson with a second bag and jug. “Step this way.”

Graeson crossed to me, lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles in a dramatic farewell that made Dell snort beside me.

“Okay, girls.” Dell whistled through her teeth. “Let’s get our alpha ready for the ceremony.”

As we peeled aside to go our own way, I saw the males rallying around Graeson and urging him in the opposite direction.

Bianca’s touch whispered over my elbow, and a comforting brush of her magic followed. The last of the four females in our pack, one of the six who had accompanied Graeson to Abbeville, gripped the other. She walked so close her thigh brushed mine, and a hard lump jostled me. Glancing down through the gauzy material of her dress, I saw a bulky dagger that desperately wanted to be a sword secured in a leather holster to her upper leg.

“I’m Nathalie Wilson.” She put distance between us so the handle no longer created friction. “No one’s bothered to introduce us, but since I’m about to see you naked, I figured we should be on a first-name basis.”

“Um, what?” I dug my heels into the decaying leaves. “Why would you see me naked?”

“The purification ceremony.” Bianca squinted up at me. “Cord didn’t mention it? I thought he must have since you two performed the first half together.”

Casting my thoughts back over the past few hours, I struggled to pinpoint any rites I might have undergone.

“Sweating out your impurities?” Nathalie scrunched up her face. “He really didn’t explain this to you?”

“Nope,” Dell chimed in from up ahead. “He wanted it to be a surprise.”

A groan of utter mortification escaped me. A surprise meant they had put their heads together, decided I would freak out over whatever was about to happen, and decided to ensure my cooperation via ignorance and peer pressure.

Same old Graeson.

I was so going to yank Dell’s perfect hair for this later.

“Here we are.” Dell arranged her supplies on the ground and tugged her dress over her head. “Get naked.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Let’s get it on.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, because she must be talking to someone else. Right?

Bianca carefully stepped from her gown, and Nathalie shucked hers in one smooth motion, then hung them both on a low limb to keep them wrinkle free.

I stood there in my three-quarter yoga pants, a sports bra and stained racerback tank top. Suddenly I was the overdressed one.

“Don’t be such a prude.” Dell linked her fingers around my wrist and hauled me into the creek bed. “Boobs are boobs are boobs.”

I gripped a sapling on the way past and hung on for dear life. “Yes, but these are
my
boobs.”

“We’ve already seen them through Cord’s memory,” Nathalie contributed. “His wolf saw you shower and broadcasted the images through the pack bond.” She belly-laughed at my dawning horror. “It was better than pay-per-view.”

I died on the spot. The elbow Dell was yanking must have belonged to my ghost, because no way had I survived the detonation of that bombshell.

Sniffing my shoulder, Nathalie pursed her lips. “I never noticed before, but you don’t smell much like him.”

“It’s probably a fae thing or a Cam thing. Trust me.” Dell dug her fingernails into my wrist. “They’re sleeping together.”

Atomic heat blasted my cheeks, but the fierce glint in Dell’s eyes kept me from denying Graeson hadn’t done more than spoon me and only then while he was in wolf form.

“We don’t need details.” Bianca showed mercy. Or so I thought before she winked at me. “Once the pack bond activates, we’ll get our PPV channels back.”

“You’re looking at this all wrong.” Dell pried my hand loose and dragged me stumbling forward. “The pack bond goes both ways, and you’re alpha. Think of Cord as a set of rabbit-ear antennas for your television. You’ll get the best reception of all, and Nathalie here has loose morals.”

“There’s nothing
loose
about my…morals.” She circled her hips like a pro hula hooper. “I just like sex.”

The other women groaned, but I couldn’t stop my smile from spreading. As embarrassing as it was to get naked in the woods with these women, a small part of me thrilled to be included in the initiation ritual. Until Harlow and Dell barged into my life, I had no clue how much I’d missed out by not having close girlfriends to share gossip, greasy fried food, guy drama and apparently boobs.

Isaac had gone from favorite cousin to surrogate brother when I lost Lori, but it wasn’t the same. We had to love each other, even when we drove one another crazy, or else Aunt Dot stood us in a corner until impending death by boredom made us repent.

This newfound ability to make friends, the rewards I reaped from putting myself out there and embracing them when they did the same, was liberating. This was what Aunt Dot had always wanted for me, to open my heart a fraction wider, though starting to care for people I might lose in a blink terrified me.

The fleeting thought of Aunt Dot and Isaac made my throat close, but I rebuilt the crumbling mental wall I used for keeping Lori’s memory at bay and sealed off that throbbing hurt for a while longer.

Tonight was for Graeson. There would be time enough to wallow in guilt once Theo arrived.

“Here’s how it works.” Dell retrieved her jug. “This is water from Pilcher’s Pond. It represents our old pack, old homes, old lives. For you it represents where your life intersected with Cord’s and ours.” She wiped a finger across my damp shoulders. “You’ve sweated out your impurities. Pouring the water over you absolves you of past sins. It symbolizes a clean start.”

A clean start. What I wouldn’t give if that was true. “Then what?”

“We air dry, because Dell forgot the towels.” Nathalie didn’t seem bothered by the idea. “After that, we dress you and take turns braiding your hair. No, really. I’m serious. It’s puberty all over again.”

“You don’t have to go through this just for me.” Their hanging dresses fluttered, ghosts of a past I wish this ritual would absolve. “You were already prepped. I’m the one holding up everything.”

Stubborn doubts bred from a lifetime of being an outcast drifted to the surface of my thoughts. The females had begun their portion of the ceremony without me. Had they excluded me on purpose, or had I missed out by virtue of being absent? Would I be standing here now if Graeson hadn’t fetched me, forcing the invite? These women had probably known one another all their lives. I didn’t have history with them. I was new, unknown, untrusted and unwarg to boot.

“You’re one of us, Cam.” Dell saw right through my insecurities. “Don’t make me embarrass you with naked cuddles to prove my point. You know I’m good for it.”

“That’s really not necessary.” I eased back when she started bouncing on the balls of her feet, lest she poked out my eyes with her uninhibited jiggling. “I believe you.”

“We purged ourselves earlier. How could we cleanse you if we ourselves were tainted?” Bianca rested a hand on Dell’s shoulder to anchor her. “Now we’ll purify you with our hands, symbolizing the absolution of all ties to our previous alpha.”

Voice flat, I cringed inwardly. “Dell, you forgot to mention the part where you all take turns bathing me.”

“Did I?” Dell pursed her lips. “It must have slipped my mind.”

Nathalie pinched my cheeks—not the ones on my face—and cooed, “Prudes are so cute.”

Tucking my thumbs in the hem of my shirt, I tugged it over my head to the raucous noise of catcalls and wolf-whistles. Flames erupted in my cheeks as Dell used my left side as a pole for dancing. Nathalie joined her while Bianca clutched her stomach as she chortled. Swaying between them, I kicked off my shoes and socks. Too winded from laughing to torment me, Dell and Nathalie strutted around Bianca until she had to cross her legs to keep from peeing.

Gulping a deep breath while they were distracted, I yanked down my panties and tossed my bra aside. Standing there with nothing but the humid breeze on my skin, I flashed back to the night in my trailer when Graeson, as a wolf, had watched me shower through half-closed lids.

Wait a minute. That happened
after
the pack bond snapped. Eyes narrowed on the gaggle of giggling females, I snorted a laugh. They were teasing me. Tendrils of belonging spread through my chest, anchoring me to these women.

Except now the seed had been planted. How many of our pack mates would tune in for a free show the night we consummated our bond? I really, really hoped Nathalie was teasing me about that part too.

“Don’t look now,” Dell crowed, “but the alpha is
naked
.”

I dropped my head into my hands and waited for the earth to swallow me whole.

No such luck.

Dell tugged on one of my hands, Nathalie pried away the other, and they led me into the dusty creek basin. Much to my relief, they sobered once Dell fetched the water. Smiles still wreathed their faces, but reverence was there too, for me or the ceremony I wasn’t sure.

With gentle and respectful touches on the non-intimate parts of my body, the women washed me and dampened my hair. When the water ran out, they spread a blanket and pushed my shoulders down until I sat. Shuffling to get into position, the three of them managed to all kneel behind me and began the task of detangling my post-workout hair and taming it into one of the intricate braids they wore. Flower petals rained down into my lap, and I picked them up and blew them off my palm.

I spaced out, lulled by the soft brush of fingers, until a delicate grunt rose behind me as Dell and Nathalie helped Bianca to her feet. The trio circled around in front of me to inspect their handiwork.

Hands clasped in front of her, Bianca’s eyes went liquid. Probably hormones. “You look beautiful, Camille.”

“You clean up nice,” Nathalie agreed, offering me a hand up. “Let’s get dressed and get this done so we can eat.”

Let’s eat
, the official warg motto.

“Hands up.” Dell approached with her arms laced through the bodice of a flowing white garment she slipped over my head. “There we go.”

Unlike the others, my dress wasn’t linen but super-fine silk so thin the smattering of freckles on my chest were visible through the material. That wasn’t the only difference. The hem brushed my toes, and a short train pooled behind me. When Dell thrust a wildflower bouquet into my hands, the similarities between this pack binding and a human wedding gave me butterflies.

The others redressed and fussed with their hair one last time before linking arms with me. The four of us walked back to the clearing barefoot and glowing from the cold bath and the laughter. Our chortling lured the men from their carousing, and they fanned out in a loose semicircle wearing grins of their own.