Chapter Twenty-Eight

A woman walked through the wall of flame in front of us. The fire licked her like a corona, gave her up with reluctance as she approached.

“Drop your gun,” she said.

I swore as the metal of the gun seared my palm and I flung it to the ground where it sent wisps of smoke into the air.

“Change form and you die, Were.”

She was middle-aged, sturdy rather than svelte, with chin-length brown hair and eyes that assessed us narrowly.

“Where’s the baby? Tell me and I might let you live.”

“Are you Ma’at?” I asked.

“Yes. But all you need to know is I’m the one who can have you burned to death, right here, right now.” She gave a tight smile. “Or you can live. In exchange for the baby.”

“He’s…” God, was there any way out of this? “Are you going to kill him?”

She lifted a well-shaped brow. “You’re not in position to bargain, Julie Hall. I wonder which would be more entertaining. To see how long it takes a Were to die from fire? Play with the balance so he heals even as we burn him? Or to watch his face as the fire slowly consumes you, as you beg for us to kill your baby instead?”

I felt the rage building inside Tony, his hand gripping mine so strongly it hurt my bones. Or maybe it was me, holding him too tight. Through the purple flames now surrounding us, I glimpsed figures, other Eclipsers waiting.

“He’s not an abomination,” I said. “He’s not. He’s just an ordinary Werewolf—no threat to you. He’s just a baby.”

“He is an abomination and he must be destroyed. You had your chance, but you refused to have his powers stripped, so you left us no alternative. You shouldn’t have gambled with your son’s life.”

“How did you find us?”

I stalled and her smile said she knew it. A ball of fire appeared in her hand and she tossed it idly in the air.

“GPS on Mike Hollis’s phone. Last chance.”

“We’ll strip his powers. Give us an hour and I’ll have his powers stripped—you can keep us as hostages—I can call the Were council right now and have it done. Then you win, right?”

“No.”

Fire roared and engulfed Tony’s right hand, the one not holding mine. He wrenched away from me with an incoherent yell of pain until he clamped his jaw and stood there, just stood there while sweat ran down his face, every muscle in his body hard as stone, while his hand burned.

Tears blurred my eyes and I screamed, “Stop! Stop it! Okay!”

Just like that, the fire snuffed out.

Tony’s hand was black, charred to the bone in places, with thick red blisters up his arm. I went to touch him, but he jerked back, body rigid.

“I’ll be fine.” His voice grated harshly.

“The baby?”

“Over near the house. He’s hidden.” I nearly stuttered in my desperation. We could still get out of this. There must be a way. I shot a glance at my gun, at Tony’s stony profile, at the fire-rimmed shapes of Eclipsers.

“Take us to him,” said Ma’at. At a gesture, the ring of flames surrounding us guttered to black ash and revealed nearly a dozen Salamanders, perhaps others I couldn’t see.

I looked at Tony, who gave me a grim nod, and started back toward the house. The Eclipsers fell in around us.

After we walked for half a minute, without warning, Tony yanked me to a halt. Chaos erupted as several Salamanders yelled and flames popped up, in our midst, in the woods, seemingly everywhere. Ma’at’s hand snaked out and grabbed my arm, her grip so hot my skin blistered. The world exploded.

Tony shifted; the black wolf sprang at Ma’at on his three good legs. Water poured up from the ground under my feet, just as the air itself seemed to burn. I screamed and hit at Ma’at with my hand, kicked with my feet, trying to get free of her. We landed in the mud and my vision distorted with the impact, but I hung on to consciousness. Scrabbling for purchase on the suddenly wet earth, I wrestled with the Eclipser, while hearing Tony growl and attack. Then I was on fire and I screamed, not a sound of pain—though, God, it hurt—so much as utter, desperate anger. The flames disappeared, only to spring back, then douse again, in a flickering cycle.

A gray wolf slammed into me and knocked Ma’at away. Purple fire flashed on the wolf’s back and the smell of burning fur choked me. People screamed; knots of furious fighting crashed through the woods; I thought I saw—but it couldn’t be. Everything was so confused. Several figures darted away into the trees. I didn’t know if they were Eclipsers or friendly, and all I could think about was Carson, lying somewhere in the woods. With Salamanders running everywhere, someone was bound to find him and soon. Or he would burn to a crisp by accident in all this chaos.

I rose to my feet, stumbled as bruises and burns sang with pain. Holding my left side tightly as my ribs stabbed with agony, I crouched and managed a stumbling run toward the area where Tony hid Carson. I swerved around several burning trees, nearly crashed into a wolf who turned and snapped at me before drawing back in recognition. Above all the confusion, I heard sirens as firefighters responded to the blazing house.

I saw the edge of the woods and the lawn beyond. Noises from the fight and fire engines roaring closer all rolled past me, as my focus narrowed to any sign of my baby. Frustrated tears ran down my face, as I lurched from one bush to another, searching in piles of leaves and debris.

“Jules!”

I swung around in shock.

“Newt?”

“Are you okay?” He strode toward me, put both his hands on my shoulders, and stared down at me intently. I straightened slowly and pushed my hair out of my eyes, only then aware the ends were singed rough. My ear throbbed with pain as I touched it; that side of my face stiff with a scalding burn.

“Shit, Jules.” A look of intense dismay crossed his face, followed by cold anger utterly unlike his usual self.

“Newt! But how…”

Newt whirled and purple fire flared through a group of trees behind him. He grabbed my hand and tugged me along with him, deeper into the trees.

“Wait!”

He stopped, his fingers closing more tightly over mine, his skin warm as always. “Jules, we’ve got to get out of here. The fight’s turned in our favor, but—”

“Carson. I need to find Carson. He’s around here somewhere. He has to be.”

“What?” Newt’s eyebrows knitted in confusion.

“Tony hid him. I need to find him before someone else does.”

Newt ran his thumb across my knuckles. “Okay. Okay.” He closed his eyes for a minute. “Dammit. I can’t sense him.”

God, that didn’t mean he was dead or something, did it?

He saw the panic in my eyes. “No, no, Jules, Sheila’s charm still works, that’s all. That’s a good thing—means the Eclipsers can’t find him, either. Okay. Where did Tony leave him?”

“He knocked him unconscious and hid him in a pile of leaves and debris. That’s all he said.”

“Knocked him—are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, that’s what he said.” I’d never heard Newt swear before; it shocked me.

Newt’s hand clamped down on mine and he jerked me behind him, shielding me with his body before abruptly relaxing.

“Newt. I thought it was you.” Tony’s voice didn’t sound entirely pleased.

“Tony! Where’s Carson? Where is he?” I asked.

“This way.” Tony reached out to take my arm, but I jerked away from both him and Newt. Flakes of blackened skin covered Tony’s other hand, the one that hung at his side. I thought I saw a thin layer of pink flesh forming underneath the burned crust. None of his other injuries seemed to be healing, though they were minor in comparison. Were energy spilled off him, raising the hairs on my arms, and I wished he could somehow direct it into me—to heal the thousand aches that covered my own body.

Tony grimaced and led us to a dense cluster of pine trees. At his gesture, I fell to my knees and pushed through the branches into the dark center. Carson lay there, half-covered with pine needles and I brushed them off, murmured meaningless words, and felt him from head to toe, the warmth of his body proving he was alive. He would be okay.

I gathered him to me and held him tightly, sinking my nose into his hair. His head had a reddened bump on it, still not completely healed, and I tried not to think how hard Tony must have hit him to knock him unconscious for this long—although it had probably been less than fifteen minutes? My sense of time utterly distorted. Yes, Carson would heal, but would he be scarred in other ways? I tamped down my anger, reminded myself Tony had been out of options. Or he’d thought so. I curled around Carson. He was all right and that was almost the only thing that mattered. I brushed tears off my cheeks and looked up. Both Tony and Newt stood alert and focused on our surroundings.

“Eliza said you were hurt,” I said. “She said you were in the hospital with serious injuries, that you were in a lot of pain, you asked for me. You had surgery.”

“What?” Newt said.

“She called me from your cell phone.”

“I lost my phone during the fight yesterday. Or…I thought it was lost…that’s why I didn’t call you—I told you I would call. And I couldn’t.” Newt ran his hands through his already spiky hair. “Damn her. Damn her!”

I stared at him as the words sank in.

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I mean I understand why she couldn’t bring herself to defy the council. But I can’t believe she’d lie like that. To me. Lie, about something that serious, about you. She said they’d grant me amnesty if I wanted to visit you in the hospital, that they wouldn’t try to seize Carson if I came. She said you kept asking for me. That you needed me.”

“Good thing you didn’t trust them.” A muscle in Newt’s jaw moved, before he forced a grin. “That is, I assume you didn’t trust them and not that you didn’t want to come see me, me with mortal injuries, asking for you?”

My eyes filled, even though I knew he tried to lighten the moment, to defuse the pain of Eliza’s betrayal. I lifted my arms and he knelt down for the hug, careful not to squish Carson, but holding me close for a long minute. He felt so warm—funny, that in the early fall heat with the threat of fire all around his body warmth would somehow be so soothing. Like curling up in front of a hearth. I rested my cheek against his shoulder, so grateful he was okay.

Carson moved a hand and I jolted back to awareness. Newt let go of me slowly. Tony stared at us, but I couldn’t read the look on his face. Carson’s eyes fluttered open, his gaze fixed on my face, and he opened his mouth and gave one of his most ear-piercing shrieks.

“Shh! Carson, sweetie, you’re okay. I’m here.” I babbled, trying to soothe him. My hands started to prickle where they touched him, and I adopted a sterner tone. “Carson Roger Hall, do not change. Don’t you dare. You’re okay. We’re all okay. Mama’s right here. Shhh…”

Carson subsided into quieter whining noises and I sighed in relief.

“Julie.”

I turned around, adrenaline kicked into high gear by the warning in Tony’s voice.

James Robinson approached us, flanked by Eliza and two of the Weres we met at the hotel yesterday. Three other people—presumably friendly Salamanders or other Weres, my human senses couldn’t tell the difference—accompanied the group.

I tried to mask the effort I spent to stand up, though from the look on Tony’s face, I wasn’t sure I succeeded. Holding Carson tightly to me, I braced myself on the tree. My shoulder brushed Newt, who had immediately jumped to his feet, and I felt tension thrum through him. I couldn’t even look at Eliza—just seeing her made me so furious I had a hard time focusing on anything else.

“What’s the status of the fight?” asked Tony. He moved to stand on my other side, so he and Newt flanked me.

James raised his brows. “You’re welcome,” he said. “I believe we arrived just in time to save your lives.”

He looked pointedly at one of the other Weres and her name popped into my head as she spoke: Yuko.

She reported in a crisp voice. “The woman calling herself Ma’at is dead and so are eight other Eclipsers. Two captured, four escaped into the woods, but our people are in pursuit. One Were dead. Three Weres severely injured but healing, albeit slower than I’d like. Luckily, the moon is nearly full and we outnumbered them nearly two to one. Oh.” She glanced at Newt, then at a young woman slightly to her rear. “Four Salamanders killed, several more injured, right?”

As if non-Weres were an afterthought. I reeled at the tally, clamped my hands more tightly around Carson to stop them from shaking.

“All because you wouldn’t listen to us yesterday,” said James.

I asked, “What about the hotel? Did anyone die?”

A look of surprise crossed James’s otherwise impassive face and then vanished.

He said, “We left when Eliza got your call. Carson’s our priority, not tourists.”

“What?”

Tony stiffened next to me.

“Was the hotel on fire?”

“Yes, Julie, the hotel was on fire, but we were needed here. Did you want us to wait?”

Eliza stepped in hurriedly. “The hotel is right downtown. Human firefighters would arrive there any minute.”

“Don’t talk to me, you—you—” I looked her straight in the eyes for the first time and the emotion burst out of me. “How could you? Did you think it wasn’t a big deal? Lying to me? Using Newt as a lure? How could you?” My voice shook with anger.

Eliza looked shocked at the level of my ferocity. “Julie, I had no choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

“Orders are orders, Julie. Your friend recognizes that,” said James, his eyebrows quirked slightly as if amused by my upset.

“Dammit, Eliza! I thought you were my friend.”

“Julie.” She took a step closer to me and I shook my head in warning. Her voice shadowed with a note of uncertainty for the first time. “I am your friend. That’s why I want what’s best for you and Carson.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s best for us. None of you do. Not you, not the Greybull pack, not the council.”

“You’re not making any sense, Julie. We never wanted to hurt Carson. The council wanted to protect him. And it’s a good thing we were here to help; otherwise, you’d both be dead in the woods.”

“Right. So you left a bunch of humans to burn to death in the hotel and came here to rescue your pet super-Were.”

Eliza looked at me as if I spoke a foreign language.

“You just left. Left that hotel on fire.” I spat the words.

“To rescue you, yes,” Eliza said.

“What about those people? Do humans matter at all to you?”

“Julie? What are you talking about? You’re human and I care about you. That’s the whole reason I’m here.”

“You lied to me. Eliza, you lied to me. About Newt. How could you?”

Someone cleared a throat.

“Actually, about the hotel, a team of ’Manders stayed behind to help. Against the wishes of some.” The young blonde woman spoke, the one Yuko had glanced at, presumably the Salamander leader.

Newt said, quietly, “Jules, we took care of it. We wouldn’t leave the hotel to burn.”

I continued to stare at Eliza, wishing she would say something—anything—that could actually justify her betrayal. To make it all right again. As if anything could.

James gave a theatrical sigh and attracted my attention. He gestured through the trees toward the house where firefighters emerged from their trucks. “Most of the fires in the woods are out, but we may have humans scouting the area soon. Perhaps we can take this pointless discussion somewhere else?”

Anger coursed up my spine at his tone, but I recognized he was right; we needed to move before we were discovered.

Tony reached out an unobtrusive hand to my back, supporting me as we followed the group deeper into the woods. Newt walked right by my side. For once, I didn’t mind the help. Eliza hovered slightly behind me, her face still a mass of hurt and confusion. I didn’t care.

James Robinson surveyed the group and said, “The council organized a raid on Eclipser headquarters late yesterday, so the threat to your son should be over. Whatever ragtag remainder we might have missed won’t be enough to mount another attack. We’ll round up your belongings and head to Greybull tomorrow—or maybe the next day,” he adjusted, with a quick look at my injuries. “Carson will be much safer with the pack.”

Eliza gave me a tentative smile, her dark eyes earnest.

“The council’s very pleased they didn’t need to contain Carson’s powers after all. I suppose in some ways your recklessness paid off,” concluded James.

So the council had considered stripping his powers. Not that the details mattered at this point. The chasm between what I wanted and what the council stood for seemed to widen by the second. I knew I was supposed to feel relieved on some level. We’d been saved from the Eclipsers after looking death straight in the face. Instead, I felt more and more trapped, my resentment of the high-handed Were leaders rising by the second.

“Um. I should call Lily Rose, so she can arrange housing for you and Carson,” said Eliza.

“I’m not moving to Greybull.”

James swiveled to face me. “Yes, you are.”

“No. I’m not. Are you going to kidnap us? Abduct us and keep us prisoners in Wyoming? Because I’m not going voluntarily.” I showed my teeth in a smile. “Fuck you, James. Fuck you and fuck your Special Ops and fuck the council, too.”

“If you don’t come with us, your son will be a rogue wolf. Do you know what the council will do to him? A Were as powerful as Carson, uncontrolled, untaught, unsupervised?”

Beside me, I felt Tony’s Were energy rise in response to James’s threat. Newt moved a fraction closer to me.

“Julie, be reasonable. Come to Greybull. We’ll sit down together and discuss everything with Lily Rose. You can even meet with the inner council and they will reassure you. They can explain,” Eliza said. She reached out to touch my shoulder, but dropped her hand before making contact as I roughly jerked away from her.

My mouth twisted. I couldn’t even look her in the face.

“Um. Julie? I picked this up for you. This is yours, right?” Eliza held out my gun, as if a token of truce. I took it automatically, repositioning Carson up on my left hip, well out of reach of the gun. I moved my shoulders in a shrug, not even sure what I meant by the gesture.

“Julie,” Eliza said, “I didn’t have a choice. Why don’t you understand?”

“Eliza—”

She took a step toward me, her hands open, body slim and graceful, her eyes fixed on me as if she could somehow will me into agreeing with her.

I closed my eyes for a moment. When I spoke, I knew my voice sounded flat with utter weariness.

“Eliza. You always have a choice. Always. You may not like the choices you have, but you can always choose. That’s—” I paused and shook my head, my mouth twisting around the words. “That’s what makes us human.”

She stood mute.

The moment broke when Carson gave an impatient grunt and reached for the gun held loosely in my other hand. I moved him farther up on my hip. He thrashed, bending at the waist and trying to get at the shiny new thing. When I held him tighter to prevent him from grabbing at the gun, his frustration from the crazy events of the last few days finally peaked. He screamed in anger and flailed at me with his hands, kicked me in the side, right where my ribs shot pain into my every breath. Then he lunged. Fresh pain shot through my shoulder and I nearly flung him away, but at the last minute caught myself and merely set him roughly on the ground so he couldn’t hurt me with his tantrum.

“No! No biting,” I yelled, then immediately felt bad for raising my voice. But dammit, that hurt and biting wasn’t…biting…

Sucking in a breath, I yanked down the collar of my shirt and saw two red tooth marks on the meat of my shoulder. One deep indentation slowly welled with blood.

Blood.

The world tilted around me and my heart thumped frantically. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Eliza’s head jerked up and she stared at me, then was suddenly by my side. James Robinson appeared next to her, scooped up Carson, and held him possessively. Tony yelled something. Newt’s warm arms were around me.

I couldn’t breathe.

The world went white.

I was going to pass out.

Or change?

Or die.

****

Lights. Voices. Something pulled me into a roaring vortex of noise, a whirlwind of pressure and pain and swirling colors that lasted forever. I screamed and fought for the surface, over and over again. The world drowned in gray, stinging agony until nothing else existed. I couldn’t think. My body was a mass of stabbing pain. My throat felt torn and bloody from screaming. My head would explode. I begged for it to stop. I begged and begged and begged.

Finally, quiet.

I sank down.