Ties That Bind: a New Adult Fantasy Novel (The Spire Chronicles Book 2) (10 page)

When I was a child, I used to run back to my room and cry when my father started to avoid having breakfast with me. Eventually, I got used to it, but there was always a part of me that hoped he would show up. That part died its final death today when I, through the haze of sleep, saw him sitting at the head of the table.

I wasn’t sure if it was because Alex had dragged me out of bed at the ass crack of dawn – my skills at being a morning person were right up there with my capacity to tolerate a banshee screaming right against my ear – or because of the man himself. All I knew was that I was going to kill Alex for making me come down here. A vow that would probably mean more if I wasn’t currently leaning all my weight against him and using his shoulder as a pillow.

At least breakfast looked good; French toast, eggs, and bacon – along with a bunch of other stuff that didn’t matter. In fact, if people weren’t staring at me, I would have grabbed the plate of bacon and snuck back to my room. Maybe I’d eat it in the tub just like back home. Except this time, I wouldn’t have an ornery cat perched on the edge of the tub, peering down at me in disapproval until I gave her a piece.

“Looks like the king actually deigned to grace us with his presence,” I muttered, my voice gravelly with sleep.

Alex glanced at me and sat me upright. All that accomplished was me slumping over, burying my face in my arms on the table.

“Morgan,” he said with a polite smile, “get up.”

“No,” I groaned. “I fell for that ten minutes ago and look what happened.”

“She’s never been a morning person,” said Sullivan. He took a prim sip of his coffee. “What are your plans for today?”

I rolled my head to regard him drowsily. The older woman who refilled his cup looked familiar, the lines etched in her face aging but not dispelling the features I’d seen in my youth. I couldn’t remember her name, but I think she was pregnant the last time I saw her. The smile she gave me as she walked away looked exactly like the one she wore when I cooed over the way her baby kicked me through her rounded stomach. She’d been expecting a daughter, if I remembered correctly. She should be eighteen now, shouldn’t she? I wonder if she’s still in town.

“We’ll be tracking down an old friend of mine,” said Alex, pouring syrup onto his pancakes. “Then, we’ll see if we can’t get an audience with the Garou or Protean tribes.”

“Going into their territory might be considered a hostile action,” said Sullivan.

“You were a hunter,” I said, my voice clearing up amazingly well for someone still half-asleep. “You should know how dangerous these things can get. It’s the risk of the job.”

“I’m still a hunter,” he said sharply. “Mister Campbell, who is your friend?”

“Tom, sir. He was one of the people who went missing in the forest.”

A contemplative frown fell on Sullivan’s face. “Those men are presumed dead.”

Wow. Seriously, they should force people to take
Manners 101
before they were allowed to oversee a family.

“My spell–” I cut off with a loud yawn. “Excuse me. My spell can track him regardless of whether he’s alive. Barring any magical intervention, of course.”

The conversation died down as my appetite kicked in, and I was able to dig into the bacon I’d been hoarding like a semi-ambitious dragon. I still swear I could live off bacon for the rest of my life, but every time I tried to prove it, Rowan would tempt me by ordering pizza or Chinese takeout.

I looked back on the memories with a wry smile. She’s been as much of a mother to me as Lady Cassandra had been. I missed her. Maybe that was another special gift I had: losing mothers.

If that was the price I had to pay for super healing, then I’d rather suffer a slow death after having my heart perforated by a nail-embedded baseball bat.

Five pieces of heavenly bacon later, I noticed Sullivan was still staring at me. The man had a face carved from stone, so I couldn’t read him very well, but it was probably a safe bet to assume he was either unimpressed or disapproving. Or both.

I looked up at him. “What?”

Sullivan shook his head, his eyes downcast. “This isn’t the life you should be living.”

Yep, disapproving. I forced the last bits of bacon down my throat, my appetite vanishing as quickly as it had arrived. “What exactly should I be doing, then? Sitting at home and popping out babies?”

“That isn’t what I said. The life of a hunter is dangerous–”

“Yeah, I know it is,” I said, my voice rising with each word. “I’ve been living it for almost ten years. And somehow, I’ve managed to be good enough to be considered the successor to the head of one of the families. So, I guess this
is
the life I should be living. If you had any better ideas, then maybe you shouldn’t have kicked me out!”

“Morgan, calm down,” Alex hissed.

I could barely hear him with the blood rushing through my veins. The lights flickered, and my heart beat faster and faster as my fingertips whitened under the strain of clenching the table’s edge.

Was he serious? The old man was insulting my abilities and capacity to handle this kind of life and–

There was a quick knock on the door and Jonathan came in. “Sorry to disturb your breakfast. I thought you might like to know a shifter attacked the city guards an hour ago.”

The prison was damp and cold, made even worse by the encroaching winter. Our footsteps echoed through the narrow hallways, the dim lighting stretching our shadows against the grey stone – it was the only time I’d ever pass five-foot-two without neck-breakingly high heels. I crossed my arms, my fingertips no longer white, but a deep purple-red from the cold. I’d grabbed a thicker coat on our way out of the house, but decided to forgo the gloves. I wasn’t a fan; it was too hard to move my fingers with them on. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to use my fingers at all if they fell off from the cold, so I’ll jot this down under “Shit I’ll never learn.”

We followed the guard to the cells as he filled us in. “One of our men found him passed out on the streets last night, stinkin’ of hooch. There were reports of drunken brawls around the area, and based on the state of some of the men we picked up, I’m guessing something a little more than human took a swing at them,” he said, yawning loudly and rubbing his eyes. “Anyway, the guy didn’t look hurt so we brought him here to sleep it off and planned to question him later. Right after we changed shifts this morning, he just went wild: turned into a giant-ass lion and pounced. Luckily, there were some hunters sleeping it off here, too.” He stopped in front of the cell furthest away from the entrance and turned to us. “They managed to subdue him before he did much harm.”

“Any casualties?” Alex asked.

“No, sir. Three guards are in the hospital and one of the hunters has a broken arm, but otherwise we were pretty lucky.” The guard passed the keys over to me and added, “Take your time. Policy says we have to keep any tribe members in custody until their leader or a representative comes to get them. It usually takes a day or two. Personally, I think it’s just to teach their wayward members a lesson…”

I nodded along as he continued his speech, fumbling with the keys in my hand to keep some circulation flowing through my fingers. It took a minute for another guard to pop his head in and call Chatterbox over to help him with something. Both Alex and I let out relieved sighs before stepping into the shifter’s cell.

He was unconscious, head bowed down against his chest, revealing a mess of curly black hair. All he had on were a pair of loose pants, likely provided by the guards after he reverted back to human form and flashed them the goods. His arms were bound behind him with chains and his ankles were tied to the legs of the chair. I noted the chains were made of orichalcum, so at least we wouldn’t have to worry about him breaking free.

Alex was smart enough to keep his distance from me, whether through common sense or the way my eyes narrowed whenever he got too close. I still wasn’t over his little thing at breakfast, and I didn’t miss the fact that this was the second time we’ve had a disagreement in two days. We never butted heads before this, so I didn’t know what to make of it. What I did know was that I could add it to the list of reasons why I hated being in this city.

“Can you wake him up?” Alex asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

All right, as a general rule, I don’t touch people who’ve had to be subdued for assault, especially when they could turn into vicious animals that ate little women like myself as an appetizer, but I forced myself to make an exception this time.

His skin was clammy, his pulse strong under my fingertips. Shifters and werewolves tended to have faster heartbeats and higher temperatures in general, so I didn’t think this was anything bad. I let my touch linger a moment; I always found it fascinating to feel someone’s pulse. It was life, pure life, racing under his skin, pressing up to beat against mine. I closed my eyes and took a minute to enjoy the sensation before getting down to business.

I let out a jolt of electricity into his system, then another, stronger surge when he didn’t stir. His eyelids fluttered and I stepped back, well out of arm’s reach. A pair of deep brown eyes peered out between matted strands of hair. The clanging of chains rang out through the space as the shifter tested his bonds. When he lifted his head, I saw there was a chain wrapped around his neck, too. If he transformed, the orichalcum wouldn’t shatter, but his neck would. Smart. And grisly.

“You must have a hell of a hangover.” I scrunched my nose at how my voice bounced against the stone walls.

“You only get a hangover if you stop drinking.” His voice was deep and scratchy, like vintage whiskey and regret.

“Not a lot of alcohol in prison,” said Alex.

The shifter sniffed the air, looking us up and down. “You’re not from around here.”

“Neither are you,” said Alex.

“Closer than you are, kid.”

I looked him over while they laid them out and measured them. He looked tired, more tired than just one night of binge drinking and a beat down would cause. Based on the amount of stubble on his face, he hadn’t shaved in two, maybe three, days, and the bags under his eyes said he’d been awake twice that. There was a hollow quality to his eyes – haunted, like he had nothing left to lose.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Bite me.”

“Cute,” I said. “Is that foreign, or were your parents just quirky?”

“Half and half.”

“Why are you here?” Alex asked.

The man sneered and shook his head. “Because you people chained me up.”

Sullivan and Wright appeared in the doorway and walked over to us. Wright looked anxious, apparently he wasn’t fond of being near the disheveled shifter. Sullivan’s face was its same gargoyle stoniness.

“You’re chained up because you tried to kill the guards,” said Sullivan.

“Fuck the guards,” he spat, turning to glare at me. “And fuck you. All you hunters need to pay.”

Wright turned to Sullivan. “See? I told you, sir. He’s just another feral–”

“Feral?” The rattling chains became deafening in this acoustic dreamland as the shifter struggled in his bonds. His features were twisted in an, ironically, feral visage as he snarled at Wright. “Who are you calling feral, you junkless prick? Say it to my face instead of hiding behind your boss.”

Junkless prick. Apparently, we read from the same book of insults. Cool. I stepped forward to kneel near him again. “I’m here to catch whoever is murdering your people. That’s all. I just want to talk.”

He held my gaze, but it looked like he was a hundred miles away. When he spoke again, his voice was little more than a choked whisper. “Nice eyes. Honest.”

Of all the things I expected to hear, that wasn’t one of them. “Um, thank you. I got them from my mom.”

“Yeah? My son has my wife’s eyes. They’re the same color as yours, too,” he said, his face twisted up as if the very thought of his family pained him.

“Please, Morgan,” said Wright, “you’re wasting your time with this beast.”

“One more insult, you fat fuck, and I’ll rip your throat out,” the shifter snarled.

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Wright asked with a shit-eating grin. “Those chains are orichalcum. If you shift, your neck will snap like a twig.” He stepped forward and bent over, pressing his face in front of the shifter’s. From here, I could see the mask of hate he was wearing, his features twisted in a demonic sneer. It was such a difference from his usual polite and unassuming demeanor that I reeled back, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by our currently not-so-furry friend.

Wright’s words were quiet, but with the acoustics and my proximity, I was able to catch most of it. “Honestly, I hope you do snap, you stupid mongrel, just so I can watch you die.”

The shifter went wild after that, his eyes glowing red as his features pulled back into an animalistic mask. I had to exit the cell before the clanging deafened me. Damn it, Wright, I get you hate their kind, but give me a goddamn break. There’s some call for decorum. Sullivan ordered Wright out, and with great reticence, the right-hand man obeyed.

“My apologies, sir,” he said. “I just think–”