White Knight (22 page)

“Thank you for accepting my gift,” Atwood said. “
Draujana dī tuvam
.”

White hot power shot through Shay’s sternum, so stunning she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything except stare at Atwood’s smug face while the heat boiled through her entire body, scorching her from the inside out. She was being burned alive by the elemental, and no one could stop him.

It was too soon.

Knight.

And then it was over. The pain faded, leaving behind a sense of being too full. Waterlogged and unable to move.

I
can’t
move.

She couldn’t speak or blink. She couldn’t turn her head or ask Brynn for help.

I am a fool. What’s he done to me?

“I didn’t expect to get this chance so soon into my visit,” Atwood said as he stood, “but I can’t risk waiting. Another opportunity may not present itself.”

She waited for Brynn to protest or ask questions, except her sister remained silent. Shay tried to turn her head, to see what Brynn was doing, but she’d lost control over her own body. Had Brynn as well?

He moved so he was directly in her line of vision. “Shay,
ke mand
, go into the kitchen, find a knife, and kill the housekeeper.”

Her body moved, following the instructions while her heart screamed in protest. Her beast whined and jumped, enraged by what was happening and unable to stop it. Shay couldn’t even concentrate to shift. She stood up, and her feet carried her across the dining room floor.

“Brynn,
ke mand
, go upstairs and bring down Leopold. Tell no one what you are doing.”

Another chair scraped.

No! No, I won’t. I can’t.

A tear forced its way out and down Shay’s cheek as she walked into the kitchen. Mrs. Troost was at one of the long worktables, already cutting up some kind of meat for what would be tonight’s supper.

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Help yourself to seconds, dear. There’s more of those cinnamon rolls behind you.” She went back to her meat without a clue that Shay was her enemy.

Turn around. See me. Run!

Shay plucked a serrated bread knife from the wooden block and curled her palm around the handle.

Turn around, woman! I don’t want to do this!

She really didn’t. Shay raised the knife, unable to stop her arm’s descent. By another’s will, she plunged the knife into the housekeeper’s back. Mrs. Troost didn’t scream. She simply fell, taking half of a carved roast to the floor with her.

I’m so sorry! Please, Knight, forgive me!

Task complete, her body returned to the dining room where Atwood and Brynn waited with a bleary-eyed, sleep-rumpled Leopold.

His nose wrinkled at her. “Shay? What’s wrong?”

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t answer her brother.

“We’re going for a drive, young man,” Atwood said. “All four of us.”

“Where to?”

“It’s a surprise.”

The front door creaked open, carrying inside the mingling voices of A.J. and Jeremiah. Too late and headed right for them.

“Shay, Brynn,
ke mand
, prevent them from following us.”

Her body started forward without her consent, muscles coiling tight to defend or kill by any means necessary.

Please no.

A strong blast of confusion and anger curled around Knight, startling him into elbowing Devlin in the chest. Dev grunted without comment. The pair of them were in the waiting room of Dr. Mike’s, along with Rook and Jillian. Bishop had gone into the exam room with Daria, Rachel, and Dr. Mike, and no one knew what to expect. Daria’s back and arms had been torn to shreds, and she’d already lost a lot of blood by the time they’d met Benson with the truck.

Benson had stayed behind to continue patrolling and try to pick up the scent of her attackers, while the brothers brought Daria back for treatment.

Knight glanced around the room, certain the emotional outburst hadn’t come from any of them. Everyone was concerned about Daria, of course, and angry on one level. The confusion was throwing him off.

His beast snarled, unsettled by something, and Knight understood.

Shay.

He ducked to peer beneath the half-closed shade protecting the waiting room’s front window. In the street outside, Shay was behind the wheel of the truck they’d left by the curb. Squashed into the front seat with her were Leopold, Atwood, and Brynn. The complete and utter wrongness of it hit him in the chest like a hammer, and he made a noise of disbelief.

“Knight?”

He wasn’t sure who said his name. It didn’t matter. He ran for the door, ignoring the voices shouting at him, focused on the fact that his mate was driving away. Exhaust stung his eyes and throat, but he ran anyway. The truck made a terrifyingly sharp turn onto Main Street and peeled away on a roar of a gunned engine. He didn’t stop following. His lungs were screaming for air, and his thighs ached from exertion.

The truck disappeared from view, too fast for him to catch on foot, and soon the sound of the engine was lost to him. His beast yelped and snarled, furious at having lost her. Knight bent over, hands on knees, gasping for air.

Another motor caught his attention. The blue SUV squealed to a stop behind him. Knight climbed into the rear passenger side, forcing Jonas into the center and squashing Rook against the far door. He was unsurprised to see Bishop driving and Jillian up front with him. All of the windows were down, bringing in the lingering odor of the truck’s ancient exhaust system.

“I got a 911 text from A.J. right as you bolted,” Rook said. “What did you see?”

“Shay, Brynn, Atwood, and Leopold were in the truck cab.” Knight was vibrating with rage, desperate for someone to fight so he didn’t lash out at his family. “She just drove away.”

Cold fire sparked in Rook’s eyes. “Atwood has them?”

“Yeah.”

Bishop let off a string of colorful cursing. “This is what happens when we put our trust in a Magus.”

“You took a calculated risk,” Jillian said.

“I allowed him into Cornerstone, and now he’s taken our people.”

“Who cares, okay?” Knight snapped. “We need to find them. We can only follow the scent of exhaust for so long.”

Bishop hit the gas. Jillian and Rook both stuck their heads out of the windows, scenting the air. The truck had gone left at the state road intersection, taking them away from the general direction of the old Jones property.

“Where would he take them?” Jonas asked. “And why?”

“The son of a bitch is probably going to trade them to Allison and Desiree,” Bishop replied. “Shay betrayed them by taking Leopold and the baby, and they’ll want revenge. Atwood will use his own daughter to buy protection for the Magi.”

Rook growled. “They’re getting farther away. The scent is weaker.” His phone rang. “Yeah, Dev?”

Knight could barely smell the exhaust anymore. Soon his mate and her siblings would be lost to him, and that was unacceptable.

“All right, I want updates when you get them,” Rook said. “And get a small team on stand-by in case we need backup . . . no I don’t know yet . . . yeah.” He glanced first toward Bishop, then over to Knight, a new pain in his eyes that made Knight’s insides squirrely. “Someone stabbed Mrs. Troost in the back.”

“What?” Everything in Knight’s world grayed out for a moment. “Who? Is she okay?”

“Devlin doesn’t know who, and she’s unconscious. Rachel’s with her while Dr. Mike tends to Jeremiah and A.J.”

Jillian turned sharply in her seat. Jeremiah was one of her enforcers from Springwell, and her sudden anxiety trickled over Knight like cold water.

“They’re both alive,” Rook said before anyone could ask. “But they’re critical. A.J. was barely conscious when Devlin and Tanner got to the house, but he said that Brynn and Shay attacked them.”

“What?” Knight and Jillian said in stereo.

“Why would they do that?” Jonas asked.

Rook shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe Atwood found a way to control them.”

“Like magical mind control?”

“Maybe. I don’t know how Magi magic works, okay?” Rook was one snide comment away from losing it completely.

Knight reached out with his empathy, doing his best to knock some of the anxiety and rage off of his brother so he could concentrate. He couldn’t do anything about his own emotions, though, and the darkness he’d started to exorcise rose a little higher. Reminding him of the bad places that too much rage could take him. Knight wanted to scream, to hit, to fight something so badly, but all he could do was sit there and hope.

“They had to have worked out a meeting place in advance,” Bishop said. “And it won’t be the Jones property, because Atwood knows we’re watching it.”

“The bodies in the woods,” Jillian said. “Last month, the clearing in the woods where we found the chess piece and the mangled bodies.”

“I thought the bodies were buried.”

“They were, but then the ground where the blood had soaked through was carefully burned to destroy the smell and prevent hunters from stumbling over it.”

“Scorched earth,” Knight said.

“And we aren’t far.”

Please let this be where they are.

“But Atwood knows about Brynn’s vision,” Jillian said. “Would he still take them there?”

“Possibly.” Bishop negotiated a left onto a roughly paved mountain road. “The man is arrogant to the extreme. He also knows we’re watching the Jones property, and if we’re lucky, he’ll underestimate our ability to think outside the obvious and just assume we’ll go there.”

“Shit,” Rook said.

Every head in the car except Bishop’s turned in his direction. Rook was staring down at his shirt, an odd expression on his face.

He looked up, at the rearview mirror. “Brynn’s first vision of me standing over her father’s body. We guessed by October, and I’m wearing a light-colored t-shirt.”

Small details that came together to form a grisly picture. Rook’s shirt was gray, rather than his preferred black. All around them autumn hung in shades of yellow, gold, and red, their colors scattering to the ground in all directions.

“Atwood kidnapped my wife,” Rook said. “He poisoned his own grandchild. If he’s capable of that, he’s capable of anything. What if I really am the one who kills him?”

Knight reached past Jonas to squeeze his brother’s forearm. “If you do, it will be because he gave you no other choice.”

***

Each new command from Atwood took Shay and her siblings farther from Cornerstone, deeper into the mountains that protected the town from the outside world. Her mind screamed to stop, to turn around, to do anything she could to protest. Her body wouldn’t listen. Whatever magic was imbued into the medallion she’d been tricked into wearing, it gave Atwood complete control over her every move and muscle. She couldn’t even speak.

I stabbed Mrs. Troost in the back.

“Shay,
ke mand
,” Atwood said, “turn left at the next road.”

She saw the break in the thick tree line and slowed, hating herself for not being able to smash her foot down on the brake pedal.

I broke a vase on the mantel and stabbed Jeremiah in the throat.

Both could be dead at her hand.

Let me go!

She made the turn onto an unpaved road that led deeper into the wilderness. The road was dirt, pocked, and unfamiliar. She navigated it on instinct, avoiding the deepest ruts and staying near the center. The colors of autumn rose up around them and littered the dirt track in front of her.

Minutes passed, each one an eternity of uncertainty.

“Shay,
ke mand
, pull over onto the grass there and turn off the engine.”

She did as told, muscles flexing, limbs moving. The truck trundled onto the shoulder of the narrow road, barely inches from the start of thick undergrowth. She killed the engine and left the keys in the ignition, because he hadn’t told her to remove them.

Leopold, who’d been a silent, shivering presence for the entire ride, grabbed her thigh. “What’s going on? Where are we?”

“Girls,
ke mand
, out of the truck. Shay, help Leopold.”

She did, assisting her blind brother out of the truck’s cab. He sniffed the air, letting his nose tell them how very much in the middle of nowhere they were. Beyond the lingering odor of the truck’s exhaust, she smelled pine and damp earth and wet leaves. She held his hand, and he clung tightly to her.

Brynn exited the truck on the other side, along with Atwood. She moved woodenly, silently. The bastard had bespelled her, too, probably through the identical necklace she wore. Something he’d sent to her months ago. How long had Atwood been planning this entire production?

I’ll be sure to ask him right before I beat him to death.

“Where are we going?” Leopold asked. An angry snarl crept into his voice, fueled by fear and confusion. He tugged on her arm. “Shay, please?”

She longed to answer him and could only scream inside of her own head.

“We’re going to see your sisters,” Atwood said. “Desiree and Allison.”

Genuine fear wrapped itself around Shay’s heart and squeezed. Atwood was taking them to the hybrids, in the middle of the woods, far away from help or rescue. And with no way to break the spell over them, she and Brynn were helpless. Shay couldn’t even warn Leopold to run.

“Des and Ally are here?” Leopold actually sounded happy. “Will they be angry with me for leaving?”

“Perhaps a little,” Atwood replied. “But you were taken against your will, were you not? Dragged away by Shay there?”

“She didn’t drag me. Chelsea was sick. She needed help.”

“And those loup garou mongrels didn’t help her, did they?”

Because you poisoned her!

Leopold shook his head. “No. She was too sick.”

“How do you know for sure, boy? How do you know the loup garou doctor didn’t look at that hybrid baby, the child of their sworn enemy, and decide to end her life?”

Shay screamed in her mind, her heart racing with a kind of hatred she’d never felt before and was helpless to unleash upon the man and his lies. He would turn Leopold against them when Atwood was their true enemy.

Leopold seemed to be buying it. He looked back and forth from Shay to Brynn, who was facing the woods, probably listening and unable to engage.

“Come with us, Leopold,” Atwood said. “I’m sure your other sisters will forgive you. They’ll be happy to see you, I promise.”

“Okay.”

“Excellent. Girls,
ke mand
, follow me into the woods. Leopold, you as well.”

Shay’s legs moved her in a forward direction, rounding the fender of the truck to fall into line behind Atwood and Brynn. Leopold kept up, his footing firm despite the thick underbrush. Vines and twigs scratched her cheeks and bare arms. Branches caught in her hair. Mosquitoes bit and fed and she couldn’t even swat at them.

Atwood followed no hunter’s path or walking trail. He simply took them deeper into the forest, until nothing existed except them and the distant tweets of birds and the occasional buzz of insects. After long minutes of hiking, the air changed. Beneath the fragrant pine were layers of something else. Something dark and awful. Death. Decay. And with it the scent of something scorched.

Brynn’s vision. It isn’t the Jones property.

Had the hybrids chosen some campsite for this meeting? A place in the woods where no one would think to look for them?

The trees thinned, and soon they were in a clearing. Sunlight beamed down in thick slants, illuminating a circle of blackened earth too large to be from a campfire. It was somewhat recent, within a few months, because the smell remained, however faintly. Time and rain had yet to wash away the damaged ground or allow new grass to grow.

No one was stupid enough to have a bonfire in the woods. What had created the circle?

Atwood checked his watch. “We’re a bit early. The girls had to get here from Cornerstone as well, but from a different direction.”

From Cornerstone. Had the emergency the brothers were tending to have something to do with them being so close?

Yes. It must. This isn’t a coincidence.

Atwood turned his attention on his daughter, a genuine misery in his hateful face. “I have truly enjoyed our brief time together, Brynn. I do love you.”

You have a funny way of showing it, dipshit.

She imagined Brynn was having similar thoughts.

Shay smelled them before they slunk from the shadows between two close-growing trees. Desiree and Allison, perfect carbon copies of each other, approached from the far side of the scorched circle. Shay’s skin rippled with disgust. Somewhere deep down, subjugated by the Magus’s spell, her beast snarled. The girls looked so incredibly innocent on the outside—sixteen, porcelain skin, straight black hair—and yet they had the darkest, cruelest spirits of anyone Shay had ever known.

“They’re here,” Leopold said. His entire body perked up but he stayed close, still clutching Shay’s hand.

“Of course we are, brother,” Allison said. Her voice was sharper than Desiree’s, cold enough to freeze water. “We’ll always come for you.”

“May I go to them?”

“Not yet,” Atwood said. “We have things to discuss first.”

“And what is there to discuss, Magus?” Allison asked. “Our agreement was these three in exchange for not going after the other Magi. Period.”

Typical. He’s been looking out for himself the entire time.