Lunar Marked (Sky Brooks Series Book 4) (26 page)

“Of course it is. You don’t discover this by accident. It’s a perfect place,” he said, getting out. Josh and I followed him as he walked around the periphery to find a small pathway, barely noticeable. The farther we walked the thicker the forest became and the more difficult the circuitous trail was to negotiate. But we were close: if I’d failed to smell the noxious odor of Ethos’s magic that wafted through the air, the fingerprint of its existence and use tainted the air too much to be missed. We no longer needed to follow the trail because the strong presence of magic led us to a small wood survivalist home that blended well with the massive amount of bark that surrounded it.

Ethan took off his clothes and changed into his wolf before we advanced through the door. From a few feet away, Josh punched the door in, blasting it with a wave of magic before we stepped in. His magic clung to the air along with Ethos’s and another familiar magic. Its fingerprint lingered and before I could place it, I spotted the familiar grungy blond male sprawled out on the floor facedown. Specks of blood surrounded him along with shattered plaster from the wall. He was barely breathing. Samuel.

Running to him, I turned him over and checked his pulse. It was weak but there. Josh walked past me and started to search the house with Ethan at his side. I tried to wake Samuel but he was out, his breathing becoming increasingly irregular. Magical fights were worse than cage brawls—you might not be able to physically slam a man into wall, but with magic you could crush him into one with the flick of a finger. Samuel looked like he had been pummeled against every wall in the small house. I could only imagine it was because he wouldn’t give up the third Clostra.

When Ethan returned from searching the other rooms with Josh he was in human form and had been clothed by Josh. “The Clostra isn’t here,” he said in a level tone.

Although he would never show it, Josh’s biting on his nail bed was the telltale sign, his nervous tick that things were bad.
Really bad.
Ethos had all three books.

Ethan asked for Josh’s phone and called the East’s Alpha. After telling him everything, he asked him to put extra eyes on Senna, my cousin and the only other person we knew who could read them.

Both Ethan and Josh headed for the door.

“Ethan, will you help me with him?”

He stopped midstride and turned. “Help you do what?”

“Get him to the car. He’s just dead weight and you’re stronger than I am.”

Ethan stood in silence, the indeterminable look on his face quickly turning to stone, and cool indifference displayed on his face. “No, we’re leaving him.”

He spun on his heels and continued out the door. I gathered Samuel and started carrying him. I had the benefit of being stronger than a woman my size, but carrying someone who had me by at least thirty pounds of mostly dense muscle was still difficult. I hauled him along the uneven terrain far behind Ethan and Josh because I needed to stop frequently to reposition him. Unsure of how much damage there was, I tried to handle him gently. A quarter of the way to the car, Ethan stopped.

“Are you serious with this?” he snapped.

“I’m not leaving him unconscious in the middle of nowhere so he can die.”

When he approached, his jaw was clenched painfully tight, his eyes blazed with irritation and anger, and his emotions were so turbulent I felt like I had just been hit by a windstorm.

“If he had all three books, you know exactly what he would do to us. Or have you forgotten his goals? He doesn’t want magic to exist. He doesn’t want us to exist.”

Samuel had an agenda and was rigid about his beliefs. Magic shouldn’t exist and he was ready to sacrifice everything to make sure that it didn’t. He was misguided, but I couldn’t leave him here. “Sebastian once choked me; Winter was president, vice president, and co-founder of the “let’s kill Sky club”; and you’ve told me you didn’t like me and have threatened me on multiple occasions—people change, things change. You don’t dislike me now—”

“Don’t be so sure about that part,” he grumbled as he took Samuel from me and slung him over a shoulder and started toward the car at such speed I started jogging to keep up.

“You’re jostling him too much. Be care—”

He spun around and looked at me. I hadn’t seen the snarl in so long I forgot how freaking scary Ethan could be, and the growl just cemented it. “That’s enough, Skylar.”

Biting back my words took a lot of effort and I bit down on my tongue hard suppressing them. My glare matched his but I was fighting with too many people—I just couldn’t add Ethan to the list.

A
bout a half an hour
from the retreat house where Dr. Jeremy was going to examine Samuel, he woke up. His deep amber eyes were clouded with confusion. He looked at Josh, then Ethan, but his attention stayed fixed on me. “I don’t have the book anymore.”

“We know,” I said. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Three of your kind”—disdain hit almost every word—“and a witch ambushed me.”

“That wasn’t a witch. It was Ethos.”

“That’s not possible,” he said, shaking his head. “Not at all. I watched him die.”

“Let me guess, someone stabbed him in the neck or something equally as fatal,” I offered.

“I shot him. I shot him after he killed my best friend.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Five years ago.”

I didn’t need any more proof than that. The only documented supernatural that was that hard to kill was the Faerie. This was the second time someone thought Ethos was dead and was wrong. Then I considered the strange language he spoke to me when he was trying to awaken Maya.

“What do you know about Faeries?” I asked Samuel.

He still didn’t look as I remembered. His hair was dirty blond and long, in need of a haircut and something to tame waves to soften the casual mercenary look. He didn’t have on fatigues, but his khaki military cargo pants came pretty close and the bloodstained t-shirt completed the uniform. Just like the first time I met him, he had a faint smell of cigarette smoke.

His eyes were slowly regaining their vibrancy and intensity. The slight shift in his nose and the dried blood over his top lip made me think it was broken, but he didn’t behave like it bothered him. Either he had a high tolerance for pain or his nose had been broken so many times he’d learned to deal with it. The gashes on his arm would need stitches.

“They are extinct. There are rumors that a few remain as spirit shades, but I believe those are just tales that keep people wishful of the opportunity to be a host and have omnipotent power.”

“Then why did you try to kill Ethos?”

“He killed my friend. Like most foolish level fives he wanted more power, more strength, and the name Ethos was passed around like an urban legend. He would let you borrow his magic. Magic so strong you would be close to a level one. But Ethos’s magic is different. The rumors of him being a demon-witch hybrid must be true. My friend called me, and when he changed his mind after making a blood contract with him, Ethos killed him. I was too late.”

I looked over at Josh, wanting to correct Samuel’s misinformation. I had a feeling that Josh did, too, but we needed to keep the information secret, especially since we didn’t know what side Samuel was on. I didn’t want to leave Samuel and possibly have him die, but I still didn’t trust him to do what was in our best interest.

T
rue to his nature
, as soon as he was in a position to get away from us, he did. Once we were close to the city, he asked to be let out of the car. I tried to convince him to let Dr. Jeremy look at him. I was sure he had a concussion, and as he hobbled out of the car, I figured there was something wrong with his leg. But he and Ethan had spent most of the ride establishing that they didn’t like each other. Whether I helped him or not, until I was on Team Samuel I was just as much the enemy as anyone.

It was Josh who took the diplomatic position and said, “We want the Clostra back just as much as you do. Our agendas may be different but we have a common goal, to possess the Clostra. I am a lot more comfortable with you having it than Ethos.”

Standing away from the car, as though he feared we would force him back in or something. He looked at Josh with casual regard, and then his gaze moved over to Ethan, but it was me to whom he seemed to devote a great deal of his attention. “You could have stopped this,” he said softly. “When magic is involved people will always fight for more of it, to subjugate and control. It was in your control to stop this, so whatever happens, know that you could have stopped it.”

I wished I could dispute what he said. What would the world be without magic? What if we hadn’t just stopped at removing my curse, but removed magic? Logan wouldn’t have the power to perform magical bonds, and the witches would be neutered and divested of magic but so would Josh. We would no longer be able to change into our animal form. I still didn’t think that was a bad thing, but what if Ethan and Sebastian were telling the truth? What if “laying the beast to rest” actually killed us? There wasn’t a do-over in that situation. And I would have had to sacrifice Quell to do it. I couldn’t do it to him or my pack. Being a were-animal and the life that came with it I accepted, but begrudgingly at best. I couldn’t fool myself enough to believe that if I could do a spell to remove the were-animal, Maya, and magic, I would.

“Yeah, I get that. I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t claim to know what is best for other people. You are welcome to your belief that
all
magic in
all
people is bad, but you don’t have the right to take it from others. And as altruistic as you believe your motives are, they aren’t. You want to kill a group of people for your belief. How are you any better than the people and the magic you claim to hate?”

He listened, and the fatigue of the day, or perhaps the pain he had to be having with a broken nose and possibly a sprained or broken ankle, softened his hard, stringent features.

“Your blissful naiveté may be appealing to others, but I find it very dangerous. I find
you
very dangerous. The vampire is nothing more than an abomination, and you and your kind are a vile mockery of magic. Animals that present themselves as human are just as abhorrent as the dead presenting themselves to the world as men.”

I see the gloves are off. Fine.

I got out of the car despite Ethan’s objection. Just a few inches from Samuel, I held his amber eyes. My voice was harder than I wanted but I was struggling with anger that was ready to explode. “I could have left you back there and you could have died. I didn’t. Yet as we stand here trying to help, your response is to tell me I am abhorrent and vile—can you remind me, who’s the real monster between the two of us? This fantasy world of lollipops, rainbows, and all babies dressed up like an Anne Geddes photo is just that—a fantasy. I get it, you want to believe that the people that live in this world are assholes because of the magic. Maybe that’s the reason you are using to justify you being one, too. ‘Like alcohol, the magic made me do it.’ You forget that there are vampires who have friends and loved ones who aren’t vampires. You kill them and you kill someone those people loved. How are you better?”

I sighed, but I could tell I wasn’t getting through to him. “The people who are evil with magic will be evil without it. They will just find other ways to achieve their goals. I’m not as naïve as you choose to believe I am. I know I’m not going to change your mind, but you are strong and we may need you. However you feel about magic, if Ethos and Marcia get their way, you will be a servant to one of them, and I don’t think you will like that.”

His hand raked through his wavy mass of hair and he looked away and focused on something to the right of me. “I shouldn’t have insulted you,” he said coolly. It wasn’t much of an apology but it was the closest thing I was going to get from him.

“I can’t go back to my place. When I’ve found a place, I will contact Sebastian. I will help you with this, but Skylar, my views still stand.”

“We can find a place for you to stay for a while, if you need it.” I didn’t have to look back, I could feel Ethan’s eyes narrowed on me, the achingly tightly clenched jaw, and the ire.

“No. I’m fine.” He limped away; his tenacity and dislike of us overrode any pain or adversity he was facing. He would sleep on the side of the road or walk a mile on a broken ankle rather than take succor from us.

I could give him a bulleted presentation noting the flaws in his beliefs and logic and he would look at them, thank me for the donuts, and go on his merry way ready to create his magicless world of nice people who weren’t afflicted by the terrible magic that made them evil once.
Nonsense.

I wasn’t back to the car a good minute before Ethan turned to me and said, through clenched teeth, “We aren’t going to keep taking in your strays. Stop trying to save the world. It’s not your job.…” And he went on and on.

I was kind of listening. Who am I kidding, I wasn’t listening.
The scary wolf is yelling at me again. Yada, yada, yadda, growl, more caustic words and ranting. Look at me, I’m Ethan.… I’m scary, growl.
And he really was. But after being in a state of extreme panic and fear for so long, those had become my norm. He couldn’t get to me and as he went on and on about me getting out of the car possibly putting myself in danger and not leaving Samuel where we found him, I considered tweaking his nose and saying “boop” while I did it. But I was only 30 percent confident that he wouldn’t bite the finger and maybe take the tip off.

His rant lasted only for a few minutes, but it felt like it was hours. I never possessed the cutesy charm that allowed some people to get away with so much, but I tried it with Ethan. I gave him a cute simper and said in a gentle cloying tone, “Okay.”

Neither worked—he didn’t believe me any more than I believed I could change Samuel.

W
hen someone knocked
at my door close to midnight, I expected it to be Quell. Vampires were often out now in the daytime, but Quell preferred the darkness. It was where he felt he belonged. I looked at the peephole expecting to see his vacant marble eyes but instead was staring at the back of Michaela’s long anthracite hair that almost blended in with the darkness. After the day I had, I wasn’t considering letting her in.

Just as I turned, ready to go back to bed, she said, “I have something for you.”

“Mail it to me,” I said through the door.

Her knocking was more persistent this time. When I looked out the peephole, she was facing the door with a lifeless body draped over her arms—Fiona. But I couldn’t tell if she was dead or just unconscious.

I jerked the door open and Michaela took a step forward and winced, Josh’s ward stopping her from entering.

“She is prettier than I expected,” she said, her tone low as she took a long lingering look at the body draped over her arms. “We need to talk.”

I looked down at Fiona; her head lolled to the side, her face pale, dried blood crusted around the puncture wounds on her neck. I hesitated but had to ask. “Did Quell do that?”

“Of course not, she’s your gift to him. I did it.”

I looked away. I just couldn’t tonight. There wasn’t any way I could control my temper. It was doubtful that if I let her in she would be walking out. I would try to kill her, and we didn’t need to have a war with the vampires on our hands. “We have nothing to say.”

“Of course we do, and if you don’t let me in, your little friend from across the way will be the next body I bring by.”

I grabbed a stake out of the drawer on the table against the wall and stuck it in the back of my leggings. I disarmed the ward and stepped aside to let her in.

Even carrying a body, her movements were svelte and graceful. Once in the middle of the room, she let Fiona drop to the ground as though she were refuse and not a person. I tried to look at the lifeless figure lying in the middle of the floor. My fingers clenched at my side and fixed at my hip. I counted backward hoping that would help. It didn’t.

When she took a seat in the oversized chair across from me the only thing I could think of was the knife tucked under it. Her long legs casually crossed, her opal eyes focused on me with disdainful interest. Long languid fingers twisted around one another as she clung to the uncomfortable silence between us. I tried hard not to focus on the dead body in the middle of my living room, but with each passing moment it became more difficult.

“Skylar, please have a seat,” she invited, waving her hand toward the chair in front of her.”

I stood taller, keeping my position near the door.

“He’s trying to replace us,” she said. I dismissed the hint of sorrow that hinged on her words. She didn’t deserve my sympathy and I refused to give it. But the solemn look continued. “I made him.”

“And you’ve been making him pay ever since,” I growled through clenched teeth, making a poor attempt to subdue my anger.

Her eyes narrowed, but she forced the demure smile that had become her mask and weapon. It belied her misdeeds and made her seem sweet, vulnerable, and dare I say—kind. But she was a monster in designer clothing.

“I am getting tired of people taking things that belong to me.” Her gaze slipped in Fiona’s direction. “First Quell took you from me, and now you are trying to take him from me. I guess in a warped way, it is fitting,” she said lazily, sinking back into the sofa, closing her eyes for a second, pulled into her thoughts which I was sure were all types of crazy and dysfunction. With a heavy sigh she continued. “I take those that I consider mine serious.”

“You considered me yours?”

“Of course.”

“Then come and claim me.” I really wanted her to try. No one was present to stop me. It would be just the two of us, and I wanted Michaela dead so much that it made the bones in my face hurt from clenching my teeth. Since our first meeting, Michaela had so-called claimed me. Like many of her created, she gathered an odd pleasure from feeding from were-animals, although, except for me, we weren’t able to sustain them. I believed it had everything to do with dominance and the sick pleasure she gathered from subjugating someone perceived as powerful.

The smiled wavered for just a moment and then faded; seconds later she was just inches from my face. “Your little show the other day has given you confidence that you don’t really deserve.” Her movements where smooth and dramatic as she made her way back to the chair. A delightfully menacing look fell over her appearance and she smiled, baring fangs. “Please sit, we need to talk.”

She waited patiently; the silence didn’t affect her, but it made me nervous. Taking a seat made me feel like she had won something. I didn’t want her to win, but if I didn’t sit we would spend the rest of the night in silence glaring at each other from across the room. After a few more moments of quiet defiance, I took a seat in the chair across from her. After more silence I met her gaze. It wasn’t cold at all; in fact, she looked dejected. “I saved him, he is mine,” she whispered. “He was a broken man when I met him. Haunted by his past, unable to forgive himself for it. A beautiful broken man with endless potential. He asked me to change him but I declined. He wasn’t ready.” She smiled at the memory of Quell that predated my birth. “He hanged himself, and if it weren’t for me, he would have died.”

“He was trying to escape from the demons you want to unleash.” I wasn’t sure why she was here trying to have a civil conversation with me since there wasn’t any civility between us. I am sure she wanted me dead as much as I wanted her to revert. “What do you want from me?”

Giving me just a hint of a glance, she returned to preoccupying herself with looking around the room. “His demons haunt him because he allowed them to. He held his humanity to a standard that no one else did. No one cared about the torture or the murders he committed. It was war and was accepted—to some, expected. The rules were different. I’ve done worse and will never allow the triviality of so-called human morality to stop me. And even once I changed him and he became one of us, where things are different, he clings to the memories and guilt of betraying humanity. How can he be so foolish? We are exempt from it, yet he holds to it.” Her chest heaved in a long sigh allowing her disappointment with him to drape over her.

I really hated her. “No. The rules aren’t different or the expectation for all of you to adhere to them. There is still a modicum of humanity expected from the vampires, but you just chose to ignore them. The loss of your human life doesn’t exempt you from humane behavior, that is a belief about yourself that only you and your Seethe hold. You want Quell to become as morally bankrupt as you? I can’t help you with that because I refuse to let him become what you are.”

In a flash of movement, she was lying across the chair, her legs dangling over the arm, her head resting on the other, her silky hair splayed over the side. “I’ve created hundreds, but only loved a select few. I love Quell and at one time he loved me, too. I was his savior and he adored me. I don’t have that anymore because of you. The relationship between Quell and me isn’t the same.”

“Well that’s a shame. Now you will be forced to just sleep with Demetrius. Can you imagine that? Forced to only be with you mate. What will people think?” I said, rolling my eyes at her. The polyamorous relationship that she and Demetrius had was beyond my understanding.

“Skylar, I miss the way Quell and I were before.” Her gentle voice was mesmeric, entreating sympathy that wasn’t warranted or deserved. “I’m unhappy.”

Michaela had taken narcissism, egomania, and self-importance and melded it together to create something that was uniquely hers. How big was her ego and thoughts of herself that she felt that everyone should be concerned about her happiness?

“Are you? Again, that’s a shame. Sadly, I can’t tell you how little I care about you being happy. In fact, I might be happiest knowing you are miserable. Was daddy mean to you? Still don’t care. Did mommy not love you enough and now you crave it like a drug? Guess what? I still don’t care. If Quell doesn’t love you anymore or adore you the same, good. You never deserved it anyway. Are we done now?”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” She was upon me so fast I didn’t have time to act. Fiery dark eyes were full of hate. “I don’t know what he sees in you. We were all intrigued by the Midwest Pack’s new little pup, but like all toy bitches the yappy little barks just get fucking annoying. You will not take him from me, do you understand? You fix this! I don’t care how you do it—but you will do this for me. I will not be replaced!”

She headed for the door but stopped, her voice a cool drift as she turned to face me “We both care about him, but if he isn’t mine, he will not be yours, either, and I will see to that. His death will be your burden to bear.”

The words had barely left her lips before my hands closed around her throat and I slammed her into the wall. In one swift move, I plunged the stake into her heart. Her eyes widened, her mouth lax as I let her fall to the floor. Since she had just recently fed from Fiona her reversion happened slowly.

I crouched over her. “Good. Now I have your attention. Let’s discuss my terms. You will allow him to have the Hidacus, he needs it. No more playing with him, he doesn’t deserve it. Any issues you have with me, you address with me. He’s not yours, he’s not mine. This ownership crap is ridiculous. Do we have a deal?”

Her eyes were screwed closed, and the necrosis that crept up her leg made it hard for her to concentrate on my words. I inched closer. “I need an answer. You really don’t understand the week I’m having so you don’t realize you are just a blip in the crap salad that is now my life.” Giving her body a sweeping glance, I leaned into her. “From the looks of it, you only have a few minutes to make this decision.” I sat back on my heels and waited for a response as she struggled on the floor. The vampires were a lot of things, but they were bound by their word. It wasn’t anything magical from my understanding but another part of vampire code. That and the narcissism that led them to always tell the truth were in a distorted way attributes.

“Yes.”

“I need to hear it.” And through clenched teeth she agreed to it.

I grabbed the knife off the sink and held it to my wrist, preparing to open it up to feed her, but stopped. I wanted her dead. Every part of me wanted to say to hell with it and just let the reversion happen and do the otherworld a huge favor. But most of all, I wished I could blame my actions on Maya. I wanted to say that a dark force was guiding my actions, but they weren’t. My tolerance had been tried to the very end. My well of forgiveness was bone dry, and the ability to deal with the cruelty of others without retaliating had withered to within a fraction of nonexistence. Michaela of all people didn’t deserve anything from me. The seconds became minutes and I sat against the kitchen counter, knife in hand, with the ability to save her and unable to do so.

Thoughts of Quell kept coming to mind. Although she didn’t deserve it, he had a pervasive dedication to her that I would never understand. He wouldn’t care that she threatened his life because she had saved him, and he believed his life was as much hers as it was his and she had the right to do with it as she pleased.

I moved closer to the body with a vile delight, which should have brought me shame, as I watched reversion slowly take over the greater part of it. In that moment I tried to find the very humanity she considered herself excluded from in me, to force me into saving her. But there wasn’t anything there. I was going to let her die. Each time I thought about Quell, I tossed the thought away. When he inevitably started to look for her, would I let him and not say anything? Would I tell him the truth and hope he would forgive me?

This secret would go with me to my grave. Everyone was better off with her gone. And no matter how reprehensible this was—I just didn’t give a damn. I was going to let her die.

“Please don’t let me die,” she finally said. It shouldn’t have gripped me the way it did, but it did. But not enough to help. Several more minutes passed, and I waited for her to die. She would be dead soon.

Dammit!

I couldn’t!

Slicing the knife across my wrist, I held it to her lips. Her hands had started to go through reversion and she couldn’t use them and I fed her until she was whole but weak.

But the worst thing about the situation was that I was saving her life because her death would hurt Quell. He was the only one keeping her alive. Whether she accepted it or not, she was alive because of him. He saved her.

I opened the door for her. The lissome way she moved was gone, her movements disjointed and laborious. I’d like to think the final look she gave me before she walked out the door was gratitude, but I knew it wasn’t. We were firmly seated in a place of mutual disdain and hate, and I was cool being in that place with her.

A
s soon as she left
, I called Josh. “I have a dead body in my house.”

“I’ll be there in a few.” The pack and their allies had a lot of flaws—a lot—but crisis of conscience wasn’t one of them. I call and tell them I have a dead body, they send someone to clean it up, not a lot of questions asked. Preferably our witch, who cleans it up without evidence that a body existed. I tell them a skeleton is peaking out of the closet, heaven and earth get moved to stuff the bones back in there. A secret needs to be hidden, believe me they will collude with whomever to keep it just that. A few years ago this would have made me sick; now I understood some of it was necessary to remain safe in this world. It was a necessary evil.

It wasn’t surprising that Josh showed up with Ethan, who greeted me with a half-smile that didn’t make its way to any part of his face. Taking a whiff of the air he then focused on the pool of blood near the door. “Michaela was here.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I looked at the blood, too. There was more than I thought. I nodded. “I staked her.”