The Twisting (28 page)

chapter THIRTY

The seconds dragged
out with Daeryn holding his breath, gaze darting from one ragged mountain man in worn trousers and shapeless felt hat to the next. Five long gray barrels swung from him to Jac, to Mar, to Jac again. Eyes darted in confusion, more than anger.

One wrong move, and it would be over.

Daeryn pushed past the wolves, snarling, “Change to human!” He stood, feet firm and hands loose at his sides. Rivley joined him, but before the females could shift, footsteps thudded and everyone turned toward an older man trotting into the clearing.

“Goddammit, Sam,” he swore. “I told yous not to give Jimmy bullets. Can’t I send youse boys out for one minute alone without youse getting into trouble?”

One younger man stepped to another and shoved his gun down. The fellow spat. “But what are them?” he asked, chin raised to the wolves.

Daeryn let Terrent talk to the Forestridge Borderlands guards, half of whom had never seen a lowlands wolf, a species extinct in the rest of Britain. The Wellspring group scrambled to dress, he and Rivley in their trousers and braces, Jac and Mar in their long shirts.

Jac met Daeryn’s gaze. “Sorry. Instinct wasn’t the right choice.”

“Well…living in the lowlands, you haven’t dealt with Borderlands issues. At least their instincts—and Protector training—were decent. We’re taught to never strike first. But I wouldn’t have guessed the Northerners use guns. No matter that they are Basin-reared like us, we couldn’t trust them not to shoot what appears to be an animal—and an unrecognizable animal to them.”

She shook her head and pressed her knuckles to his shoulder. “How you doing?”

“Better.” He took a breath. “I’ll be fine.” He had to be, or he’d never reach Annmar.

“We’ll find out how much they like their own.” She nodded to Terrent.

Across the clearing, one of the younger men the fox boy had been speaking with broke away to talk to the older man, Mr. Carter. After listening expressionlessly, he ambled over to Daeryn and the others.

“We can’t let you through,” Mr. Carter said. “One group and it becomes the leak that never stops. This side of Blighted Basin has one access.” The old man pointed at Daeryn. “Terrent says you’ve been part of the Black Mountains Borderlands Protective Chain. So yous know how important our work is." He punctuated this with a nod. “Now the lot of youse get back down the trail and take yourselves over to Breakthrough Gap the proper way and speak with Mr. Yates as youse ought.”

The Borderlands Protectors escorted them along the ridgeline, and watched while they descended. Eventually, Daeryn said, “This is far enough. They can’t see us.”

“I’m sorry,” Terrent blurted. “I never knew us mountain folk had such a strict policy that they wouldn’t let people other than kin pass through. Old Man Carter takes his job seriously, but honest, I only see him out there half the times I go through.”

“But they’ll let you go,” Jac said. “Miz Gere will be disappointed if we can’t check those caverns for the pests. And the rest of us…” She gestured to Daeryn.

“What’s the
proper
way to the Gap?” he asked Terrent.

The boy pointed and answered questions about the terrain. The rack railbed led to the Gap above, a distance of five miles.

They had no Proofs. Better to beg for one passage, especially since Rivley wouldn’t want to travel the Gateway tunnel. “I’ll go by myself,” Daeryn said. “Terrent should run the cavern inspection, and then meet up with the rest of you to return for the hunt tonight.”

Rivley’s jaw hardened. “I’m going with you.”

“Not necessary.”

Rivley pivoted and tromped off in the direction Terrent had shown them. Daeryn stared after him. Forget hawk, Rivley had the soul of an eagle.

Jac nudged Daeryn. “Order his ass back. He has your mark. He knows there’ll be hell to pay when you set it with a second and he’s bound to you.”

Right, Jac would assume Daeryn planned to follow through on the mark, same as she’d expected him to do to her a week and a half back.

Or was this a dare to see if he would?

It didn’t matter anymore. He shot her a glare and took off, keeping to a fast walk, although Rivley stormed along better than a hundred feet ahead. Daeryn needed the space to wrest his ’cambire under control.
Human… I
will
stay human.

This marking had been a mistake. They weren’t in Rockbridge. Rivley didn’t need to act as, or even be, his beta. And if Daeryn continued to force him, they’d delay fulfilling their gildan obligation. Daeryn didn’t need a pack, just a friend. A friend he could have lost if the jittery bloke with the gun had taken a dislike to Rivley darting around. The hum and tension eased from Daeryn’s muscles. He had to drop this idiotic notion of always being in charge, even if it meant fighting instinct. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—take on a pack alpha role, not if it jeopardized Rivley’s life.

Just the gildan. Working together. Talking.

Daeryn heaved a breath, close enough and loud enough that Rivley’s head jerked up, but he marched on.

“Riv? Stop already, would you?”

“Only if you’re not talking me out of going with you.”

“I’m not,” he said, and when Rivley hesitated, he rushed on with, “Sorry I got you into this. New plan: We won’t have a pack. We’ll return to the Elders and demand—”

“Forget that.” Rivley spun around, his face twisted in a scowl. “This reeks on so many levels. Not the least of which is everyone is watching us,” he hissed. “Why couldn’t we have done this just the two of us?”

“Because this side’s Gateway is a dark tunnel-like gorge.” Daeryn blew out his breath. “After that visit with Old Terry, I was trying to save you some…angst.”

Rivley’s fisted hands tightened. “And you figured that after marking me, you’d decide what’s best for me? Over the last three years, I’ve managed fine with my own decisions, thanks. Why didn’t you give me the choice?”

The accusation stung. “Why didn’t you knock some sense into me?”

Riv’s face contorted and reddened. “You didn’t give me a chance,” he snapped. “Just like you never asked if Pepper should go with us.”

Pepper?
Rivley had never mentioned his former female before. Daeryn cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”

Rivley sank onto a fallen log and dropped his head into his hands. A pause followed, long enough that Daeryn thought he wouldn’t get an answer.

“We wouldn’t have fought,” came his quiet words. “We’d have made up. Just like MC and I do. Did. Pepper and I had already fought and made up several times. You just hadn’t noticed. You announced to the pack she wasn’t going, and like today, I couldn’t counter your decision. Arguing before the pack would have been worse than going out one short.”

Damn. Daeryn tapped a palm to his forehead. “But it wasn’t. What happened was worse.”

“We know that
now
.” Rivley lifted his head. “And now, it makes no difference. I never should have brought it up. Except”—he rubbed the mark on his left shoulder—“the memory of our last time as pack is a bit sharp.”

Daeryn sat, too, elbows propped on his knees, head hanging. Back in Rockbridge that was the way he’d handled the pack, as the everything’s-on-me alpha: He judged what was right and ordered people to carry out the decision. His family expected him to take charge. His community expected it. Yet it had cost him his mate, and possibly ruined Rivley’s chances of finding one.

Daeryn squeezed his eyes shut. Something was off here, and not just his human form reacting with ’cambire instinct. He jumped up and paced the leafy ground. The last week, he, and Jac, had done so well communicating. Maybe being in charge didn’t mean being the only one with ideas, being the boss. Like Rivley said,
You never asked
.

Daeryn stopped. What a total ass he was. Since becoming his beta, his best friend had bent his life to accommodate Daeryn’s. That wasn’t right. Neither of them was being honest with the other, or themselves—this morning he’d asked Old Terry to be honest with Annmar.

He spun around to Rivley. “
Honestly
wasn’t just a word tacked on to our lesson.
Honestly
work together to restore yourselves and your pack.
We aren’t
being
honest.”

Rivley stood, his body rigid but hands open. “I’ve never lied to you.”

“Not directly. But by omission? Have there been things you wanted to say to me, but didn’t?”

“You never ask.”

Daeryn cringed. “I never ask. My fault in this is I don’t work
together
. I always assumed I should bear all the responsibility in our pack, the way we trained as alphas to do. Apparently, that didn’t work. But you should also speak up.”

Rivley shrugged a shoulder.

“Damn it all,” Daeryn said, “if you’re
still
refusing to offer any help, then having a pack isn’t the solution.”

“You just won’t accept the pack issue, will you?” Rivley’s face reddened in anger. “Fine, you want honest? I’m tired of you arguing this point. Same as you’re saying honesty is named, then if pack is identified in the lesson, we have to do it. If we want any hope of completing the lesson, you have to drop the row about pack.” He waved toward the others. “It’s Basin tradition to have these alliances with others to support and ease our livelihoods. Out of all the ways we associate with others—kin, team, enclave, Collective—pack is the strongest connection any Basin dwellers form because of the blood bond. Doesn’t it make sense to use a blood bond to resolve another blood bond?”

It did. Daeryn raked a hand through his hair. He couldn’t imagine not being in
some
group, so why was he hesitating to be pack? He wanted to say yes, yet when he looked at Rivley, his gaze slid to the purpling tooth indentations.

“What you’re asking me to do—resume my alpha ways—counters everything I’ve learned this last week working with Jac. There has to be more opportunity for others to have a say, to show their talents, to share their strengths within a group, not always bend to what one leader determines. Hell, if Terrent hadn’t jumped in on that ridge, or Jac, or you, or Mar, where would any of us be now? Dead? I forgot those lessons when I marked you, but I’ll be forever grateful no one else did.”

Rivley crossed his arms. “You do realize you’ve just made a case for not leaving me behind.”

He had. “You won’t let me, no more than you’ve let me order you around. Good you didn’t, or we might have lost our progress on the first lesson. From now on, you and I co-lead, but I’m also allowing any friends or team or group I’m a part of to have a say in what we all do. I think… No, I
know
I misunderstood what the Rockbridge Elders taught us about leadership. It’s not bossing people, but coordinating with them. Finding the best way that works for your group to get the job done.”

“I see what you’re getting at, but we could also do that as packmates.” Rivley turned to wave Jac, Maraquin and Terrent over.

Daeryn studied their friends. “We’ve got a good group at Wellspring. Telling Miz Gere that Jac and I had to co-lead improved things, same as when I asked you to be my beta. If I try again with Annmar, maybe I’ll find the right way for it to work.”

“We also have to try pack again. Move beyond that one failure, remember our other successes and try to restore what we had, or improve it with your new ideas.”

Daeryn wiped a hand across his mouth. “Right. I’ve relived that failure too many times—oh.” He slapped his forehead. “
Learn and let live
.”

The light dawned in Rivley’s eyes. “Brilliant. The gildan lesson mimics the Creator’s Path teachings. Both of us missed it.”

“And I would have continued to miss it if I hadn’t explained that teaching to Annmar. Damned if we didn’t need to examine
each
part of the lesson. Restoring means moving beyond the failure.” He grinned. “Given my record lately, I’m sure to fail again. There’s still that problem of how to establish a pack if both of us claim alpha status. I’m game to approach the Elders, if you’re still in.”

Giving a return grin, Rivley extended his hand. “Just try to stop me.”

Daeryn clasped his hand, and the moment they touched, burning seared over Daeryn’s navel. He fell back. Rivley did, too, both of them bending and clutching their middles.

Wobbling on knees gone to jelly, Daeryn struggled to fill his lungs and straightened, his watering eyes blurring the figures darting to them. Terrent pulled him upright, and Mar did the same for Rivley.

“What the heck are you two playing at?” Jac snapped.

He swallowed and pulled his trousers waistband below his gildan spiral. A fresh red burn lay under the silver metal where his skin had been pierced. Now, only one piercing held the glinting bloodstone at the core of the gildan talisman.

“Just,” he gasped through the pain, “a little honesty between friends.”

Chapter THIRTY-ONE

Derby

Annmar wound her
shaking hands into her skirt when the train slowed among Derby’s familiar streets.

Mary Clare leaned her nose to the window. “We’re going right through. Do we need to tell them we want off?”

“No.” She took a steadying breath. “We haven’t reached the station yet.”

Mary Clare gasped. “This city is enormous. How will I ever find you again?”

Annmar patted her hand. “The carriage driver knows where he’s going. If we tip him well, he’ll be willing to call again in the morning.”

The train pulled into the station. After the conductor assisted them down the steps, Mary Clare clung to her. “It’s so loud,” she whispered.

“We’ll be out of it soon.” Annmar led the way to a line of carriages for hire. “Shearing Enterprises on Full Street,” she told the driver. “Will you wait? My business will take but a few minutes before I continue my errands.”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

Ma’am, not miss. It’d been the same on every train, the conductors assuming Mary Clare was her maid. She leaned back in the carriage while Mary Clare continued to crane her neck and hiss comments about the city sights, fascinated by even the dull factory smokestacks.

Yet her friend’s bewilderment calmed Annmar. Miss Lacey must be right, something in her had changed. Two weeks ago, she could barely even consider saying no to Mr. Shearing, and now she was determined to best him using one of his own elusive offers.

The carriage stopped. Before Annmar could rise, Mary Clare fussed with Annmar’s neckline, twitching the lace lower. “Perfect,” she murmured. “If he hesitates to give you the money, you dip forward with your chin lifted.” Then she refastened the jacket and grinned. “Good luck.”

The driver handed Annmar down. At Shearing Enterprises’ door, she raised her hand to knock, then paused. Thrusting out her seemingly larger bosom, she turned the knob and walked in.

The secretary lifted his gaze, then rose. “How may I help you, ma’am?”

“Please inform Mr. Shearing that Miss Masterson is waiting to see him.”

“Miss Mas—oh.” He looked over the satin finery and nodded. “Yes’m. Right away.”

The man disappeared into the closed office. Not thirty seconds passed before he reappeared and held open the door.

Annmar gave him her jacket, took a breath and swept into the office.

Mr. Shearing hadn’t bothered to rise, or even look up from his papers. She’d turned him down twice. Would he really give her a third chance? At the click of the closing door, he said, “So you’ve changed your mind.”

“You have offered me one thousand pounds to spend the night with you.”

His head turned slightly, a dismissive glance Annmar had witnessed countless times. But Mr. Shearing’s eyes widened, and he rocked back. After a second’s pause, he rose and donned his coat. He came forward to grasp her hand in a lingering clasp. When she withdrew it, he cleared his throat and waved to a chair. “Take a seat, my dear Miss Masterson.”

It was such a simple request, one she’d demurred from on every other visit because she had been there to work. But this time she smiled and perched on the chair edge, her corset keeping her back straight.

Mr. Shearing propped himself on the desk and smiled down at her—or, more correctly, at her bosom. His small talk flowed, and she found she didn’t really need to answer, just murmur her agreement. Finally, he managed to find her face and invite her to dinner.

“No, thank you, Mr. Shearing. You—”

“Please. Call me George… Ann, isn’t it?”

Her stomach turned yet again. “Yes…George. I cannot join you for dinner. Your letter extended an offer, and as you can see, I took you at your word. I have purchased a new gown and traveled to Derby.” She flicked imaginary dust from the side of her curvy top and another from her narrow waist. When she lifted her gaze, his eyes were riveted to her bodice.

An exact fit to her plan. She heaved out her chest with an exasperated breath. “Which I must say is a fatiguing journey. I’d like to rest before we discuss our business, and I’d do so more comfortably with a thousand gold-backed banknotes to cover my expenses. You may pay me half now and half when you meet me at your suite. What name shall I give?”

“Ah…” He ripped his gaze upward, and this time the ever-proper Mr. Shearing could not force his face to blank. Instead, he went to the wall safe and spun the dial.

“Ms. Peach will be fine,” he said without looking at her. “Room six hundred.”

He extracted a stack of notes. Sitting across from her, he counted out two piles, each containing ten fifty-pound notes. One stack he folded, clipped and slipped into his waistcoat pocket as he rose. He walked around the desk and handed the second to her.

Annmar put the money in her reticule.

“What time will you expect me?” he asked.

Her stomach twisted, but she forced a steady answer. “You may arrive at sunset. I will leave at dawn. This agreement is for a single night in your company.”

He grinned and raked his gaze over her once more. “Excellent. The night gives us plenty of time to discuss how we might combine our
talents
.”

Annmar smiled back, though she didn’t want to. Before he could say more that might make this an arrangement she couldn’t agree to, she left.

Once more in the rolling carriage, she whispered what happened to Mary Clare. “Your script worked, up to his mention of combining talents. The way he said it teemed with indecency, though it echoed his suggestion at Wellspring that we combine our Knacks. The thought of him doing either makes me faint.” She removed her gloves and wiped her brow.

“You poor dear.” Mary Clare fanned her. “Remember, you’re the only one who has a chance of finding out how he’s swaying people. You have something he wants worse.”

Annmar peered at her with narrowed eyes.

“I mean your Knack, of course. We can’t go back to the Basin without knowing how to protect our farmers and beat the louse at his own game.”

To the determined Mr. Shearing, it might be a game. A twisted game he’d drafted her into. “Well, I’ll turn the tables on him. Only, adjust my neckline, please? Upwards.” Then they laughed about Mr. Shearing’s choice of a name while Annmar fastened the jacket clasps.

“It’s fate,” Mary Clare said. “He wants peaches and peaches he’ll have—with threads on the side.”

At their next stop, Mr. Manning was pleased to have the two Harvesters off his land and earn a fair wage for hauling them to the train station that evening.

“Tonight?” Mary Clare asked while they headed back to town. “Do you think that was wise? My pa has to set up his wool shipments days ahead with the Basin train.”

Annmar frowned at her. “Payment in advance should get a flatbed added. Wellspring can’t wait another day.”

Yet the display of notes at the freight office window didn’t persuade the stationmaster.

“The train is carrying a full load, already booked and paid for, ma’am. We can’t bump our best customer.”

“As much as we’d like to,” muttered a second man at the desk behind him.

Annmar glanced at the clock. The hands were moving toward five o’clock and quitting time on The Strand. She wanted to see Polly before…sunset. “May I ask, what if your best customer’s shipment doesn’t arrive?”

“The morning shift will be singing at the tops of their lungs,” said the other man.

The stationmaster cleared his throat and spoke louder. “
If
it doesn’t, though it’s never even late, then the next paying customer gets his freight loaded.”

Annmar slapped her notes on the counter. “Here’s full payment to haul my machines to Gapton.”

* * *

Gapton

Tree shadows crossed
the tracks by the time Daeryn and Rivley climbed onto the platform at Breakthrough Gap. The walls of the gorge rose on either side of the shabby blue station, as narrow and dark as Terrent had described.

An older man emerged from a nearby cottage, spotted them and came forward, tipping back his railroad cap. “Missed the train, boys.”

The confirmation sent a wash of weariness over Daeryn. “And the next?”

“Isn’t until morning. Trip is downhill to Rowsley. Easy stroll for two strong youths to catch a connection. Show me your Proofs, and you can move through.” His intense stare equaled any raptor’s.

They looked at each other, and Daeryn said, “We don’t have Proofs.”

“Didn’t think so.” The stationmaster turned and walked toward the station. The gorge seemed to darken around him, and a wind swept from it. Rivley shifted, and his scalp feathers rose.

Daeryn didn’t dare delay this. “Sir?” He trotted forward, scaring up an orange cat that leaped nimbly and sniffed his leg. “Did two girls catch the train?”

The man turned. He stared at the cat a moment before picking it up. “Seeing as I’m the stationmaster and sell the tickets, I could give the right people information. If I thought it warranted.”

Daeryn put out his hand. He introduced himself and Rivley, and the older man did the same. The cat leaned toward him, still sniffing, so Daeryn gave it a scratch behind the ears. The cat began to purr.

Mr. Yates looked from the cat to Daeryn. “Are these girls in some kind of trouble?”

“Er, yes,” Daeryn said. “Headed into trouble. Not running from it.” That wasn’t a lie. Outside meant trouble. It would sound daft to admit they didn’t know why the girls had left.

Rivley took a few steps away, ironically toward the rock walls that seemed to narrow around a piece of equipment on the rails.

Mr. Yates let the cat down, watching it rub Daeryn’s leg before shooing it off. “I got the feeling the artist girl weren’t too keen on going, but maybe just as determined as you two. If’n I can help her in any way, I will.”

“We could really use your help, sir.”

Rivley walked back. “Would we be able to borrow your steam loader?”

Mr. Yates dismissed the request with a jerk of his head. “Too slow. Them’s built for hauling weight.”

“A handcar, then?” asked Rivley. “I know most stations keep them around for repairs.”

The stationmaster gave a snort. “Too old-fashioned.” He eyed them up and down again and then gestured for them to follow him.

Yes
. Rivley’s knowledge of the machinery had caught the old man’s interest—and it took Riv’s mind off his fears. Daeryn knocked him on the shoulder as they walked toward the equipment sheds. Mr. Yates threw open a door. The low rays of sun glinted off the engine of a spindly cart made of metal rods mounted on three flanged wheels.

The man scraped at his white whiskers. “Might make the trip quicker on our speeder.”

Rivley walked into the dim space and crouched next to the self-propelled railway vehicle. “It’s beautiful.”

The lines were spare, hardly like Master Brightwell’s work, but Rivley was nodding.

“Yes, sir,” Daeryn said. “I’d appreciate it more than I can say if you’d lend it to us.”

“Can’t promise much,” Mr. Yates said. “The engine isn’t running the best these days. Need to have that Basin fellow who built her out for a look.”

Rivley straightened. “I can take a look at it, sir. I have mechanical experience.”

“I thought you might.” Mr. Yates lifted a hand and rubbed a thumb across fingernails edged with black, duplicates of Rivley’s oil-stained hands. They laughed.

They rolled the three-wheeled cart onto the tracks and lit coal in the small firebox. By the arrangement of it and the engine, Daeryn realized the machine was one of Master Brightwell’s inventions. However, unlike his spiders, when the gears slowly turned, they ground. Rivley shut it off, poked around the gears a bit and made a few adjustments with Mr. Yates’ tools. He started it again.

It sounded just as bad.

“Sir?” Rivley asked. “By chance did you use Outside oil?”

“I did.” Mr. Yates pulled his wispy beard. “Last time I changed it, we were short, so I had ’em send up a can from Rowsley.”

A smile spread over Rivley’s face. “This machine is Basin-built. It’ll operate best on Basin-made oil. Do you have any?”

While Mr. Yates pulled cans from his shed, Rivley detached the oil case and emptied it into a bucket. The doodem plunked to the bottom, and he fished out a brownish figurine.

“It’s not white like the Harvester’s, so maybe it’s still alive,” he whispered to Daeryn. “I wish I could see that blue light Annmar talks about.”

Mr. Yates returned with a can of Basin oil.

Rivley swished the doodem in a pan of yellow Basin oil, then replaced the now purplish figure and refilled the oil case. Again, the gears started slow, worked up speed and, after a minute, meshed together with a mechanical purr.

“You did it!” Daeryn pounded Rivley’s back.

A beaming Mr. Yates instructed them in the controls for speed and braking. “Can’t go Outside bareheaded.” He strode to the shed and returned with two brown tweed caps. “Keep a few handy.”

Daeryn and Rivley donned them and settled one behind the other, with Rivley driving, on the narrow seat over a box containing a supply of Basin coal. The stationmaster started the engine again, smiling when it hummed to life, the valves clicking regular beats.