Head Above Water (Gemini: A Black Dog #2) (6 page)

* * *

D
ell sailed
through the forest as though she were an extension of it. Limbs glided over her skin to rake mine. Leaves that held their silence in her passing crackled under my feet. Insects chirped as if saying hello, greetings cut short by my passage. The earth and its children were her domain, her presence welcome here. Me, the woods seemed eager to betray with noise and injury.

Lost to the duck low, leap high, dodge left—no right!—obstacle course that was our flight through the woods, I was paying attention to my feet and not Dell when she flung out her arm. The difference in our heights meant she nearly clotheslined me.

Panting hard, I leaned back against rough bark and gained my bearings. Something about this place set my hairs on end, the intense sensation requiring me to rub my arms to ease the prickling awareness. This spot was familiar, but not, the memory wispy like a forgotten photo glimpsed upside down that would come into focus when righted.

I smelled water before I saw it. The earthy scents of decomposition and mold, decaying fish and leaves dissolving into a new layer of silt, burned my sinuses. Above us, the towering longleaf pines leaned forward as if admiring their reflections.

Acid splashed the back of my throat, and I almost toppled sideways when the puzzle of our location solved itself in my head.

This was Pilcher’s Pond.

Marie Graeson’s body had been found here. I had first met Graeson in this spot, too, the grieving brother who searched for his sibling until locating her remains, who had joined in the hunt for Charybdis to avenge her. This was…the last place I expected to find him. Unless…

Whisper-soft, unsure why the quiet felt so absolute, I asked her, “Has his grief rebounded?”

The selfish hope that I was wrong, that he was still fit to help me work the case, warred with a tremulous fear that the desperate man I had first met would reemerge and that I would have no way to haul him back from the precipice, to teach him how to balance the same edge I walked daily.

Dell lifted a finger to her lips.

Those concerns flittered away to be replaced with new ones once the thunderous rush of blood in my ears receded.

Snapping teeth. Yelps. A short howl muffled.

Those sounds led me in a clockwise circle, until the full breadth of the lake revealed itself step by step. What I saw at the water’s edge chilled me to my marrow. The wolf I recognized as Graeson was ringed by four others whose colors and patterns were vaguely familiar. Two more lay on their sides, panting heavily, their flanks slick with what the moon revealed as blood.

Dell hooked her arm through mine at the same time I stepped forward, and she clamped her hand over my mouth. I hadn’t realized I was about to speak, but the words burned up my throat now.

Graeson needed our help. He was outnumbered. Aisha must have tricked him into coming out here and then sicced the other wolves on him. I summoned the dregs of magic still in my system, managing to sprout a layer of fine golden hair down my arms. The renewed strength allowed me to pry Dell’s hand away, but it fizzled before the pack bond rushed me.

Disappointment sifted through me. No. Not disappointment. Relief. I was grateful to be spared that intimacy twice in one night, right? That thrum of belonging, the warm feedback that hummed in the back of my mind like a lullaby sung to me as a child.

Fingers tight on Dell’s wrist, I was about to light into her when Graeson charged, his form a blur to my eyes as he attacked one of the wolves. The wrongness of it left me holding on to Dell for different reasons. This wasn’t right, wasn’t fair, wasn’t Graeson.

The four remaining wargs made no move to engage him. Unless they were blasting mental threats at him, the vicious attacks were unprovoked. A thin, brown wolf with ribs exposed hung limp from Graeson’s jaws, yet he didn’t twitch a paw in retribution. He took it, everything Graeson dished out, without a whimper to betray the gruesome damage inflicted upon him.

Fight, damn you
, I willed the wolf, but the words bounced in my skull. I wasn’t pack. The bond didn’t hum for me without a fresh drop of their kin’s blood in my system.

Tired of his prey not giving him the fight he clearly hungered for, Graeson spat out the brown wolf and turned an eye to the next warg. This time when I strained against Dell’s hold, the effort was feebler. A final shake of her head was as good as a confession. There was no panic to rush in and help, only grim acceptance and stone-cold resolve not to interfere. She had known this was happening, and she hadn’t told me. For her to be so calm, Graeson must have known what he was walking into and prepared her for what might spill over the bond. No wonder she had jumped right in and distracted me with practice.

As the outsider, viewing the spectacle without being able to sift through Graeson’s head to find a reason for this calculated brutality, I tired of the scene quickly. The precise cruelty of his attacks disabled his opponents—or was that victims?—and watching him embrace his role as beta soured my stomach. I had seen enough.

Turning on my heel, I picked my way back home, not caring if Dell followed.

Isaac leaned against my trailer, sharpening a pocketknife against a whetstone, and glanced behind me with a frown pinching his brow when I returned alone. “Well?”

“I’m turning in early.” I breezed past him before he got a chance to respond. “Night.”

Slumping against the door, I locked myself inside, just like Graeson had wanted.

A
short buzz
caused my phone to vibrate across the table, and the incoming notification made me hesitate with my spoon halfway to my mouth. I hadn’t seen Graeson all morning, and I hadn’t gone to the door when Dell knocked thirty minutes ago. Not to be deterred, she’d plopped on the steps to wait me out or play sentry. I didn’t care either way. But seeing as how wargs aren’t keen on technology, I caved to impulse and unlocked my cell.

A text from an unfamiliar number lit up the screen, a quick promise to discuss the surveillance footage after the unknown sender slept off the nightshift.

Thierry. It had to be.

The promise of an eight-hour delay made me twitchy. The footage was the only promising angle I had uncovered. The marshal onscreen had answers. She must. The other feelers I had sent out had been met with dead air, and a creeping suspicion made me question if Vause was directly involved in the radio silence. It wouldn’t surprise me. Being the pet project of a powerful magistrate came with strings attached. One wrong move and those slender filaments became the garrote that strangled you.

Setting the phone on the table, I resumed the eating of my breakfast, half wishing Aunt Dot would misplace her reading glasses or her paperback, anything to warrant a quick visit. But she rose with the sun each day. No exceptions. By the time I had climbed out of bed, she and Isaac had already eaten and returned to their respective trailers. Her to watch soaps. Him to resume tapping away at his keyboard.

Tempted as I was to seek out their company, I didn’t want to explain my bleak mood last night to Isaac, and I didn’t want to go another round with him either. Not when it meant borrowing from Dell and giving her—and Graeson—access to my headspace.

Writing off my soggy flakes as a lost cause, I dumped them in the trash then washed and dried my bowl before trudging back to bed. I sat on the edge of the mattress, arm extended, about to watch the Charybdis video for the one hundred and second time, when a knock on the door saved my eyeballs from the repetitive strain.

Still dressed in my sleep shorts and tank top, I opened the door without checking to see who had arrived, figuring if it was anyone or anything dangerous, Dell would have taken care of them. Except there was no Dell. The steps had been vacated, and the yard stood quiet and empty. Drawn by a flash of color, my gaze dipped. A scrunchie sat in the dead center of the top step, its edges fluffed and then smoothed. Rose fabric with lemon dots and gold threads that caught the sun. Had someone pulled down a ponytail, the tie would be bunched up with a few strands of hair stuck in for good measure. This wasn’t that random. It had been neatly arranged, almost like a presentation. Almost like a gift.

That or Dell suffered from scrunchie OCD.

The low rustle of voices had me searching for the source. “Dell?”

A reddish-blond head poked around the corner. She spotted me standing in the doorway and called to the person behind her. She walked out carrying a bucket of sudsy water, and Aunt Dot followed holding a dripping squeegee. Aunt Dot must have spotted Dell moping around and put her to work. That was how it worked when we were kids too. Tell her you were bored, and she found ten ways for you not to be. We learned quick to never use the B word around her.

Setting the bucket on the ground, Dell wiped her hands on her pants. “What’s up?” she asked at the same time as Aunt Dot said, “Is something the matter, pumpkin?”

“It’s probably nothing, Aunt Dot.” Eyeing Dell, I pointed down. “Is that yours?”

“Nope.” She ruffled her wild tumble of curls. “Nothing helps with this, so I let it hang loose.”

Each glossy twist was perfect, as though fairies had spent the night curling her hair on rollers forged by moonlight, and here she was complaining about them. Some things transcended species, I suppose. All women wanted the hair they didn’t have. Mine was wheat-blonde and just wavy enough I had to straighten it to wear it down but not so wavy that I could scrunch it and have soft curls.

Scooping up the hair tie, I held it up so they could both get a look. “Did either of you see anyone else out here?”

“No, and I didn’t pass anyone on the way.” Dell tilted her head back and inhaled. “I smell pack and your family. That’s it.”

“There’s something familiar about it.” Aunt Dot dunked the squeegee in the bucket, crossed to me and took the hair tie from my hand. “I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.” She got the oddest expression and lifted the fabric to her nose. “This smells like…” She shook her head. “No, that’s not possible.”

“What is it?” I joined her in the grass. “What’s not possible?”

“For a minute there, I thought…” She shook her head and passed it back to me. “You might have been too young, but your mom loved this herbal shampoo made by a pixie in South Carolina. It turned even the coarsest hair into silk. I’ve never smelled anything like it, and it might be all the pollen clogging my sinuses right now, but this reminds me of it.” A small laugh shook her shoulders. “The crazy thing is, when I saw it in your hand, I thought immediately of Diane. It’s exactly like those hairbands she used to wear all the time. Your momma had the craziest obsession with matching them to her socks. Do you remember that?”

“I remember,” I murmured. “She did the same thing with me and Lori.” I almost smiled. “We hated it.” Unable to resist, I brought the material to my nose and breathed in a peppery-mint fragrance that sparked instant recognition. “Mom never let us use that shampoo except on special occasions.” Those were few, far between and usually involved family portraits. “One night Lori used it as bubble bath. Dad laughed. Mom didn’t think it was funny. She bought a lock for her bathroom door the next day.”

Aunt Dot chuckled. “That sounds about right.”

“Where did it come from?” Who could it belong to? Not Mom, surely. I hadn’t seen her in years. “Could it have—I don’t know—fallen out of something in your trailer and gotten tracked over here?”

I was grasping at straws, and I knew it, but it was the only logical scenario.

“Anything is possible.” A frown touched her mouth. “I was doing some spring cleaning, as you can see. I might have dropped it outside and—” her shrug encompassed the area, “—someone might have picked it up and put it there.”

“Who?” I stretched the elastic. “If not us, then maybe Isaac?” My gaze went to the trees. “Unless someone from the pack came for a visit.”

The look I shared with Dell told her what I thought of that possibility.

“I’m going to grab a water.” Aunt Dot wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. “Can I get you girls anything?”

“No,” Dell and I said in concert.

With a chortle at us like she found us precious, Aunt Dot retreated to her trailer.

Beside me, Dell resumed excavating dirt with her toes. “Do you want me to tell—?”

“No.” I crushed the fabric in my hand. “He’s the last person I want to see right now.”

“What you saw last night…” She dragged her fingers through her hair, leaving it artfully tousled. “You don’t get it. We aren’t like you.” She slapped her chest. “There’s an animal inside us, right under the skin, and if we aren’t careful, it can do horrible things. There’s a reason why packs are ruled by alphas. We need that guiding hand to keep us in line.”

“What I saw last night was a powerful warg tearing into lesser wolves.” After replaying the scene over and over in my head, I remembered why some of them looked familiar. “Those were the wolves Graeson brought with him to Mississippi. They were the ones he said were his best.” I cringed as she wilted before me, but I kept going. “Is that why they’re loyal to him? He’s beaten it into them?”

Dell’s shoulders ratcheted up to her ears. “You don’t understand.”

“No.” I shoved the scrunchie into my pocket to investigate later. “And guess what? That’s because neither you nor Graeson have made any attempt to educate me. He’s doing what he does. He’s blocking me out because he thinks he’s always right.”

“He didn’t want to do it,” she said, lips barely moving.

“Then he shouldn’t have done it.” Problem solved.

Her body shook, close to tears. “You don’t—”

“Don’t tell me that again.” I sighed, exhausted by her defense of him. “It’s a weak excuse, and I’m tired of hearing it.”

I was wrong.

Dell hadn’t been about to cry.

She exploded.

Her hands trembled with rage as she fisted my shirt, lifted me and pinned me to the wall of my trailer. “You said it yourself. Those were Cord’s best wolves. His. Not Bessemer’s.
His
.” She thumped my head on the metal. “When Cord needed them, they left the pack. They
left.
He didn’t ask them to. He would never endanger them like that. They lied to him, told him Bessemer gave permission for them to go, and he believed them because he’s still so twisted up on the inside he can’t see straight. By the time they reached Abbeville and he could read the truth for himself, it was too late. The damage had been done.”

An unsettling calm stole over me. “The wolves in the clearing were being punished.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

“It was Bessemer’s idea, wasn’t it?” My throat tightened. “He made Graeson punish those who trusted him.”

“No.” A watery smile. “The wounds he inflicted were healed by sunup.” She dropped me and swiped her fingers under her eyes. “They weren’t ever the targets. Not really.”

Graeson. Bessemer had been gunning for him when he orchestrated the beating of those loyal deserters.

A fragment of doubt lodged itself in my breast. One thing I knew well was how to snuggle up with blame every night like a warm blanket that would tangle around your throat and choke you in your sleep. Graeson blamed himself for his sister’s death. He was so like me in that respect—and yet so unlike me. He was confident, a leader. He never doubted, didn’t hesitate. He acted, not reacted. Even when his first impulse wasn’t the best solution, he still rolled with his gut. And I, being the worst fake girlfriend ever, had leapt to conclusions based on my own sense of morality, without giving him or Dell a chance to explain. I hadn’t spared a single thought for how he was coping after last night, because I hadn’t understood that living with his actions was the true punishment.

Suddenly, the surveillance marathon could wait. “Take me to him.”

* * *

D
eep into Chandler pack land
, skin crawling under the watchful eyes of unseen wargs, I came to a standstill beneath a massive oak tree that dominated this section of forest.

“This is as far as I should go.” Dell rested a hand on a wooden slat nailed to the tree trunk. “Are you good with heights?”

Squinting into the sun, I tilted my head back. Way back. Far above us, I glimpsed the base of a platform built around the thick cedar’s upper branches. “I’m not not-good with heights.” Though this climb might test those limits. “Is this safe?”

She patted the bark covering his hideaway. “If it held Cord, it’ll hold you.”

With those words to recommend it, I gripped my first handhold, tested my first toehold and hauled myself up three feet off the ground.

Only twenty or thirty left to go.

“You can do it.” Dell popped my bottom and winked at me. “I’ll be right here to catch you if you fall.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” She might be supernaturally strong and fast, but I would be a hundred and thirty-eight pounds of dead weight if I lost my grip. Huffing out a breath, I found my next grip. “Here we go.”

I made the rest of the climb in silence. Each step was as sturdy as any ladder, and though the tree had begun claiming the slats, growing over the edges anchored against its trunk, each remained clean and treated. The platform above me, when I reached it, also appeared to be solid and free of mold or warping.

This, I knew before reaching the top, was Graeson’s sanctuary. Too much care had been taken for it to be labeled as anything else.

A generous square had been cut where tree met platform, but I hesitated, unsure how to climb through the gap without losing my grip. The concern was wrested from me when a corded forearm, wrapped with cypress ink, extended toward me. I clasped his warm, strong hand and risked gripping a handle near Graeson’s foot. Somewhat certain I wasn’t about to plummet to my grisly end, I half-climbed, was half-hauled up, onto the platform.

“Give me a minute,” I panted. The exertion wasn’t as bad as my nerves. “This is my first time pretending I’m a squirrel.”

He squatted before me, hazel eyes heavy with shadows, and brushed a few stray hairs from my eyes that had been annoying me but not enough to chance sweeping them away while on the move.

“You didn’t have to come all the way up here.” His legs folded under him, and he sat beside me. “Dell could have asked me to climb down to you.” He tapped the side of his head. “Pack bond, remember?”

No. Actually I had forgotten their two-way head radio in my haste to ensure he was all right. Dell would have remembered, though, and we were going to have a chat about manipulating me into Graeson’s path very soon.

“Well, I’m here now.” And finding him whole left me full of adrenaline with nowhere to go. “The question is—why are you?”