Ties That Bind: a New Adult Fantasy Novel (The Spire Chronicles Book 2) (22 page)

The cold air calmed me down a little, but all that did was let the guilt back in. I didn’t know anymore. I understood why Alex was channeling his inner butthead, but why couldn’t he at least try to be civil until we were alone? He could vent at me all he wanted, I could take it; I understood. Insulting these guys would only make things worse. They’d suffered, too.

I wandered over to the bonfire and held my hands near the flames. It was silent now, the few people we’d seen upon entering were long gone, their doors locked and their windows closed. The atmosphere would have been unnerving at another time, but now I relished the peace. If Alex didn’t want to use Tom, then we’d have to sneak into Wright’s house and hope for the best. It was another goddamn bad choice versus bad choice. I must’ve been a genocidal tyrant in a past life or something.

How would we get in, though? We needed proof to launch a formal investigation, and we needed to investigate to find proof. It was a catch-22 to the max and I hated it. Sneaking in meant dealing with private guards, which meant fighting, which meant people might call the
city
guards to investigate the noise, which brought us back to: Fuck. This.

I could sneak into Wright’s house using an invisibility spell. It’d probably give me an aneurysm with every step I took, but it was possible. There was no way I’d be able to cast the spell over more than one person; I didn’t even know if anyone could do that. Once again, I found myself wishing I was in
Harry Potter
so I could steal an invisibility cloak.

I’d need to get mana potions, they would help take the edge off. Though it might be more beneficial to do the spell without any potions to help build my strength and tolerance.

“It would probably be better to practice that in a less dangerous situation,” I muttered aloud, watching a thick cloud of fog form at the words.

“Probably,” a deep voice said from behind me. I turned around to see the giant mass of muscles that made up Alistair. He flashed me a devilishly handsome grin and said, “I have no idea what you are referring to, but probably.”

I smiled back. “And here I thought you were all business.”

“There is a time for business,” he said, “and a time for pleasure.”

Purposefully ignoring the
very
sultry undertone in his voice – and blaming the fire for the way my face heated up – I said, “We… I will be attempting to retrieve the evidence needed to convict Wright.”

“And your friend?” Alistair asked, crossing his arms.

“Alex is a good man,” I said. “He’s hurt now, but I know he’ll do the right thing when he heals.”

“And if he doesn’t heal in time?”

“That’s why I’m here. I want to make one thing clear, though.”

There was an amused glint in the alpha’s eyes. “Oh?”

I took a step closer to him, taking in the scent of pine and Alistair’s unique masculine musk.
Mm, I needed to meet more werewolves.
“Both Wright and Tom will pay for what they’ve done. Our way. No more kidnapping, no more killing, no more shifters drinking their grief away and picking fights with hunters in the city. They will be dealt with and no one else will get hurt. It ends with those two.”

Alistair looked down at me, the amusement in his eyes dancing as wildly as the flames beside us. He bared his teeth in a smile, the action making him look five times more handsome and ten times more intimidating. “We have a deal. Handle your men; Joshua and I will do the same.”

“Joshua is the leader of the Levin tribe?”

“Pride,” he said. “They are a pride. We are a pack. It is easier for the humans to use tribe, so we do not correct them, but I’m sure you won’t have a problem remembering.”

“I’ll try my best.” I held my hand out and he enveloped it in his much larger one, shaking it.

“She’s a bit young for you, Uncle,” Tamlin said, coming up to us with that mischievous smile.

Alistair’s deep, hearty laugh rang out through the empty village center. “And too wild for you, boy.”

“Yes,” he said dryly, “
that’s
the problem.”

Alistair clapped his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you to work your very limited charms on our guest here.”

“Limited?” Tamlin gasped, placing a hand on his chest while wearing a look of false outrage.

“Indeed. But use it while you can, that boyish charm of yours will stop working in a few years.” Alistair gave me one last smile. “Good night, Morgan.”

I bid him good night, wondering if my mother had actually been a Garou shaman; I certainly seemed to have a lot more in common with these two than I expected. We were silent as we watched the wide frame of the alpha’s shoulders grow smaller and smaller until they finally disappeared into the darkness. Once he was gone, Tamlin leaned forward, filling my vision with his smooth skin and bright eyes.

He waved, wiggling his fingers like a little kid. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said with silly grin.
What a cutie.
“What’s up?”

“Do you trust your boyfriend?” he asked with all the subtly of a battering ram. It seemed he took after his uncle more than his mother. “I mean, he’s your boyfriend, so duh. But do you think he might try to go behind your back, maybe even speak to his friend?”

“To ask him for information or an explanation? Maybe. To warn to him run? No. Alex wouldn’t do that. He’s hurt and betrayed, but he knows right from wrong. He’s like Robo-cop. Justice is in his blood. He’ll do the right thing.”

“Are you sure?” He asked, his expression dropping. “I just want to make sure everything goes okay. We’re a pretty close pack. Well, all packs are close, that’s why they’re–”

“Tamlin.”

“Right, sorry.” He sighed. “It’s just…those people were my friends, my family.”

I placed a hand on his shoulder. Standing there, Tamlin looked like a little boy. I’d forgotten how young he really was; eighteen may have been the age the law recognized you as an adult, but it was still too young to handle any of this. Protean and Garou had long life spans, sure, but death was always hard to deal with. I thought of Lady Cassandra, and suddenly the giant fire roaring next to me seemed to lose all its power.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I promise the people responsible will be caught.”

He looked down at me, his pale blue eyes glistening in the firelight. “Promise?”

Oh, sweetheart.
“I promise. It’ll all be over soon.”

He nodded and brought an arm up to rub his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me like this.”

“Sure.” I giggled. Crap, I shouldn’t have done that – teenage boys didn’t like being laughed at. “Y’know, ladies love a man who knows how to cry.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, shooting me a petulant look. It was too cute for me to worry about having annoyed a werewolf; I half expected his wolf form to be a teeny tiny puppy. He shuffled his feet side to side, avoiding eye contact. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you hate your father?”

Nope. Nuh-uh. Red alert, red alert, we have a hell no situation over here. “I… Huh?”
Nice. Smooth as gravel, Morgan.

“He’s a cool guy,” said Tamlin. “He’s nice, funny, smart, and he really cares about you–”

“It sounds like you’re trying to set us up on a date, which is wrong on every level possible.”

“The distance between the two of you hurts him,” he continued. “He blames himself–”

“Well, he fucking should!” I reeled away from him, my magic frizzing the ends of my hair. “Why does everyone think they have the right to tell me how to handle my father? You, Rowan, Alex… It’s none of your damn business what goes on with him. What the hell makes everyone else such a fucking expert?!”

“I just wanted to see if you guys could patch things up.” He looked like I just kicked his puppy, but I was too pissed to feel bad.

“
But why?
Why are you so interested in what happens with my father?”

He hesitated a moment, eyes shifting around like a cat burglar. “Because he’s my father, too.”

14

It didn’t escape me that this was the third time I’d stormed away from a conversation in the past twenty-four hours, but I didn’t care. I mean, I had no idea how other people would handle being told the cute little kiddie werewolf they just met was their half-brother, but until someone handed me the manual, I was going to make it up as I went along.

As usual.
For some reason, that thought bothered me more than it should have. Maybe it was because I was twenty-six years old and my entire life was a giant mess of unanswered questions and put off decisions.

Or maybe it was because I charged off into the forest in the middle of the night.
Or maybe
it was because I just tripped over another pebble; the damn things were sprouting up from the ground as I walked by, I swear. Wrapping my arms around myself, I sent heat from my fingertips into the rest of my body. The heat seared through me at first, like the jolt you got when you accidentally touched something hot, before it evened out into a pleasant warmth. I really needed to get better at controlling the amount of magic I put out. The last thing I wanted to be known for was always blowing my load too quickly.

One of the primary challenges I had was either summoning forth too much or too little power. Too much and I burned myself out, or in this case, literally burned myself. If my output was too low, then I’d have to amp it up, which usually ended with me taking forever to bring it up or me jacking it up too high, which took me back to problem number one. At this particular moment, however, I was glad for the burst of scalding heat. It told me I wasn’t dreaming all of this up, though I wasn’t sure how good that really was.

“Morgan!”

I stopped dead and waited for Alex to catch up. Small puffs of white fog escaped his mouth and surrounded his face as he stopped in front of me. It made me wonder how far away I’d gotten for him to look so winded. He held out his hands, revealing my gun and holster.

“They took it off you when you were captured earlier,” he said. I reattached the holster to my leg as Alex continued to speak. “Are you okay? Tamlin came back and told Catherine you ran off after he told you about his father.”

“His father?
My
father.” I grimaced. “Never mind. If he wants Sullivan, he can have him.”

Alex grabbed my arm as I started to walk away. “Sullivan is Tamlin’s father? He– What– How–”

I pulled away and took his arm instead, leading him onwards. “I assume you’ll tell me if we’re about to walk off a cliff?”

“This is the right direction, if that’s what you mean. Are we going to talk about this?”

“The finer points of making babies? We’ve done the act enough times for you to know about that. If you want info on crossbreeding, you’ll have to ask Sullivan – he’s apparently an expert. Okay, so witches aren’t really a different species, but I’m still counting it. It makes sense, though; with a new baby around, it’s no wonder he seemed to forget I existed back then.”

I paused, the blood draining from my face as it hit me. “He’s fucking eighteen, Alex. That’s eight fucking years younger than me. Eight, as in the age I was when Sullivan sent me away. I’d say it was a coincidence – y’know, if I was a goddamn moron. Maybe that’s why my mother left, because he cheated on her.”

“Morgan, I doubt your father would–”

“Stop fucking taking his side. Not all parents are good.” I tripped over another rock and hit the ground chin first, my teeth cutting across both my tongue and lips. I swore, flinching at how loudly the sound echoed around us.

Swallowing rivulets of blood, I pushed myself back up. Fuck nature. Fuck everything. I was going after Wright immediately and finding out where he hid his shit. Maybe I’d skin him, see how he liked it. Pretty sure there was a spell for that somewhere. I could even improvise it. It’d be messier, but I’d feel better. At least for a while.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked.

I tried, but couldn’t stop from glaring at him. With the fall, the wall, and the red haired demon – who I hated the most because I couldn’t think of a way to make her rhyme – the entire left side of my face was varying shades of purple. “I’ll live, though with the mood I’m in, Wright might not, but fuck him.”

“Let’s wait until tomorrow. When you’re in a better mood, we can–”

“Because a new day will make all of this shit better? Because if I go to bed, Wright will be arrested? The murder victims will come back to life, and all this shit with Sullivan will just disappear?”

Alex stopped walking. “You know what, Morgan? Not all of us are lucky enough to still have living parents. It might be worth–”

“Oh my God.” I groaned. “Sweetie, I am so sorry about your parents. Really, I am. But Sullivan is not your father; he didn’t put you through any of this crap. So, stop putting your family issues on me!”

This time, I wasn’t the one who walked away.