White Knight (9 page)

“Mine,” he whispered.

She huffed.

“I know it’s scary. I know the world has so many sharp edges and it’s easier to fight them like this, but you can’t give in. You wouldn’t let me give in to my beast, and I won’t let you. I need you in my life, love. I need you so badly. I didn’t even understand it until you were gone.”

Her body relaxed by degrees under the gentle words and petting. He didn’t want to manipulate her with his empathy, but he opened up enough to sense her anger, confusion, and fear. And deep below all of that, her contentment. The instinct that knew she was safe with him. The instinct she needed to follow so she could come back to him.

“I have so much to tell you, Shay. A truth you deserve to know. Something I want to share with you.”

She raised her head, inquisitive eyes watching him. She blinked once.

“Brynn can’t wait to see you. She’s been so worried, and she hasn’t said anything but I know she feels guilt for you being taken.”

Shay snorted, head shaking.

“You were taken and she wasn’t. Maybe you can tell her it wasn’t her fault.” Knight sighed. “Sometimes that’s a hard thing to do with family. We care so much for each other that we blame ourselves when bad things happen.”

Something in Shay’s eyes changed. Her anger rose above the fear and he turned down his empathy before it riled him up. He’d said the wrong thing.

Or the right one. She stood up and shook herself out. A gentle flutter beneath his breastbone clued him in to the shift before she whined and it began. Silky black fur receded as her legs and arms reshaped. Her spine rippled, tail fading away. Long curly hair overtook the pointed ears. Her face twisted as muzzle became mouth and nose. Bones popped. She keened.

Knight wrapped her in the blanket the moment her shift had completed, covering her naked body before others saw. Loup garou had few issues with nudity, given the fact that it was required for shifting, but seeing Shay naked now felt wrong. It should happen at her pace, when and if she ever wanted him the way he wanted her.

Shay curled up in his lap, fitting there so perfectly, her slim arms around his neck. He held her close, covering as much of her as he could. She clung to him, and he smoothed his hand down her thick curls. So soft.

“I’ve got you, love,” he whispered.

“Knight.” She pressed her nose into his neck and inhaled deeply. “You came for me.”

“Of course I did. I always will.”

“How long?”

His heart twisted. “Over a month.”

Her entire body shuddered, and he didn’t have enough arms to hold her the way he wanted. “It felt like longer. So much longer.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“The collar kept me from shifting. I missed my quarterly.”

He tamped down his anger, not wanting it to bleed over into Shay. He wanted her calm.

“I finally convinced Desiree to remove the collar so I could shift,” she said. “I talked to her more than Allison.”

The third hybrid had a name. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. None of it. Thinking of you kept me sane, Knight. I knew I’d see you again.”

“We never stopped looking for you. Not once.”

“I know.”

“And I meant what I said before. I won’t let them hurt you again. I’ll protect you.”

She drew back to look him in the eye, her flecked gaze steady and strong. “We’ll protect each other.”

He touched her cheek, grateful when she leaned into the touch. “Yes. We will.”

Her smile didn’t quite light up her eyes, but it was enough.

“Why did they want you?” he asked. “Did they tell you?”

Shay’s smile dimmed. Her gaze went distant, then alarmed. “The baby. Leopold.”

Shock rippled down his spine. “They had a baby?”

“Yes, and Leopold.”

“Leopold isn’t the baby?”

“He’s my brother.”

“The baby?”

“No, Leopold.”

Knight was officially confused. He cupped Shay’s cheeks in his palms and held her steady, willing her to calm down. “Okay, deep breath. Who is Leopold?”

“My brother. My biological brother.” Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Oh Knight, my mother. She was pregnant when the Magi took her. Leopold is my brother. He’s blind and weak, and he’s been with the hybrids this whole time.”

Horror and surprise clashed in Knight’s gut, a toxic mix that made goose bumps raise across his shoulders. “They’ve had your brother this whole time?”

“Yes. He was raised with them, but he’s so sweet and he’s loyal to them. I promised I’d help him. I have to help him.”

“We will, love, I promise. We’ll help your brother.” He allowed his empathy to steal away some of her distress and replace it with peace. He needed her rational and thinking so he could understand what she was talking about. “Tell me about the baby.”

“I named her Chelsea. She didn’t have a name before.” Shay’s face crumpled. “She’s only a few months old. The hybrids came to Cornerstone because they needed someone to take care of the baby. Me or Brynn, they didn’t care.”

Given their instability, the hybrids could have stolen Shay for far more destructive reasons than babysitting. “They didn’t hurt you otherwise?”

“They didn’t attack me or physically harm me, beyond what the collar did. Kidnapping aside, I’m still their sister. Desiree actually tried to make friends with me. I allowed it in so far as it helped achieve my freedom.”

Knight wasn’t certain he wanted to know the answer, but the question had to be asked. “Whose baby is it?”

Shay swallowed hard. “Fiona’s.”

The idea of Shay caring for Fiona’s offspring sent a bolt of rage through him so strong that it made his hands shake. He let them drop to Shay’s shoulders. She clasped his hands with hers, the simple gesture keeping him grounded. Keeping the swirling darkness at bay.

“She was raped, Knight, by one of her Magi guards.”

His insides went cold. “She what?”

“Desiree told me about their captivity. The Magi used magic to keep them under control. Docile and weak. One of their guards raped Fiona consistently over the course of a year, and they all kept quiet about it so he didn’t do the same to the triplets. They escaped not long after Fiona discovered she was pregnant.”

The idea of any woman being so systematically abused enraged him on a deep, instinctual level he couldn’t control. The rage clashed with his hatred of Fiona and all of the chaos, death, and destruction she had put into motion with that first attack on Stonehill. It explained a few things, but not everything. And it excused nothing.

Brynn.

His sister-in-law was Fiona’s twin. Fiona had been impregnated by and carried to term the child of a Magi. He didn’t know if it had been a difficult pregnancy, and it wasn’t as though he could ask Fiona, but the knowledge boosted his belief that Brynn would be able to successfully carry and deliver Rook’s child.

A child Shay didn’t know about yet. Her new niece or nephew.

“She’s my niece, Knight,” Shay said, and for a moment he thought she’d been mirroring his thoughts. Except she meant Fiona’s child. “I have to get her and Leopold away from Desiree and Allison. They need to know that being loup is nothing to be ashamed of, and that we aren’t the mindless animals the hybrids make us out to be. An innocent child can’t be raised like that.”

“You want to bring Fiona’s child to Cornerstone?”

“Yes.”

He shut his eyes, rebelling at the thought of anything of Fiona’s being allowed to live, never mind in his town. How could he look at that baby and see anything other than its mother? The woman who’d planned for Knight’s kidnapping and abuse—something she apparently understood on a personal level. How could she know and still inflict that kind of pain on another person?

Shay’s palm cupped his cheek. He blinked at her, nearly falling into the depths of understanding in her eyes. “I know you hate Fiona. You have every reason. But Chelsea is an innocent life. She’s my flesh and blood. Please understand that.”

“I do.”

“I’m not asking you to love her. Only to help me save her.”

“If this is what you want, I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.”

First things first. “Do you remember where you were being held?”

“I have a good idea of how to get back, yes. We can’t wait long. The hybrids come and go with no schedule. If they discover I’m gone, they might take Leopold and Chelsea somewhere else.”

And then they would have to begin their search all over again.

“I’ll call Bishop,” Knight said. “I’ll tell him what you’ve told me, and then we’ll go get your brother and your niece. We’ll bring them both home.”

Shay couldn’t bring herself to go inside of the cabin. Over a month of being locked inside of a small room with no sunshine or fresh air had given her an aversion to enclosed spaces. She held court on the cabin’s dilapidated porch, telling her story via speakerphone to Bishop, as well as her gathered audience. Knight sat beside her on the rough, rotted floor, a constant presence that eased her mind and settled her raging beast.

Shifting back to skin had taken every ounce of trust she possessed—not only in Knight, but in the other loup around her. She knew them. Once she had trusted all of them. It wasn’t their fault she’d been kidnapped by her half-sisters, but she had been. On their watch. She would not allow such a thing to happen to her again. Her town had been destroyed, her sanity broken.

She was done being anyone’s victim. Never again.

The reactions to her information about Fiona, the Magi who kept them, and their ultimate purpose was met with varying degrees of hostility and shock. Knight and Rook had shared some kind of look when she talked about Chelsea—a look she planned to ask about later. Everyone listened without asking too many questions, until Shay described the way she’d manipulated Leopold into opening her door. She picked at the bandages on her arms and legs, the wounds beneath courtesy of the glass window she’d climbed through in order to escape.

“I don’t remember much about the vampires finding me,” she said. “I was exhausted, hungry, bordering on delirious from that awful collar. Their smell terrified me, but one of them said Jonas’s name. It’s the only reason I didn’t fight harder, I think. They took me back to their nest, and once the collar was off I shifted. The rest you know.”

“That was incredibly brave and clever, Shay,” Bishop said, his voice booming over Rook’s cell phone. “Your escape.”

“I left them behind. I was so scared I’d die in that room. All I could think about was freedom.”

“You did the right thing. You couldn’t have escaped with an infant, and Leopold might not have gone with you.”

He was right on that count. She’d told herself the same thing to stave off shame at having gone without them. “I promised I’d go back, Alpha. We have to go back for them.”

“Do you think you can retrace your steps?”

“I believe so. I have to try.”

“All right. Rook, you organize it. One group goes in, the other remains in the background as backup in case the hybrids are there, show up, or make a move.”

“On it,” Rook said, his expression fierce and fixed on Knight. More than her story, he’d paid close attention to Knight’s reactions to it.

Knight had remained oddly calm, probably because he knew the most important details already. He could support her and his friends, rather than work through his own emotions. She’d help him do that later. No more bottling things up inside. Not after she’d lost him once to his beast.

“Keep me informed,” Bishop said.

“We will,” Jillian replied.

“And be safe.”

“Always.”

After they hung up, Shay studied the faces of her companions as they broke away to discuss the upcoming mission. She’d spent the entire time recounting her month spent with the hybrids, and she’d been told little about the state of things in Cornerstone. “The fire,” she said. “What happened at the auction house?”

Knight flinched. “The hybrids torched it. It burned to the ground.”

“Oh no.” She squeezed his hand, knowing how much the auction house had meant to his family, and to the town’s survival. “I’m so sorry.”

“No one was killed in the fire, that’s what’s important. A building can be replaced.”

Something in his voice hinted that someone had died elsewhere. “What happened when the hybrids attacked the house? I was upstairs, and I only remember someone yelling before I was bitten and drained.”

“They killed Colin Corman.”

The man who’d come to Cornerstone to challenge Bishop for Alpha. “Were Brynn or Mrs. Troost hurt?”

“No, Mrs. Troost locked herself and Brynn in the quarterly cage. They were safe.”

“That was clever.”

“Yes.” His eyes flashed with grief.

Her heart skipped. “What else?” She remembered. “Winston was in the house.”

He nodded. “He was killed, too.”

“Oh Knight, I’m sorry.”

In their many quiet conversations together, he’d often spoken of growing up with Devlin, Winston, and Rook. The four had been so close, getting into the kind of trouble young boys often did, and always having each other’s back. She hated seeing him grieving his friend.

“We’ve had some moments of joy, as well,” he said. “Rook and Brynn married. So did Devlin and Rachel. Jillian and Bishop.”

“That’s wonderful. Your brothers deserve their happiness.”

“They’ve fought hard for their mates.”

She glanced at Rook and Jillian, who were several yards away discussing some aspect of their upcoming plan. “You’ve fought hard, too, Knight. Don’t ever think you haven’t, or that you don’t deserve the same happiness.”

He seemed on the verge of protesting. The words fled at the last moment. She had an idea of what he might have wanted to say, but it wasn’t the time or place. She desperately wanted privacy, so they could speak freely about the things they often tiptoed around in their conversations.

They couldn’t have the conversion here, so Shay let it drop. “Earlier when I was talking about Chelsea, you and Rook looked at each other strangely. Why?”

Knight shifted his position. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“I did.”

“It isn’t really my news to tell, but Brynn is your half-sister.”

Shay’s pulse jumped. “Is she ill?”

“No, nothing like that.” Knight glanced in Rook’s direction, then grinned. “Brynn’s pregnant. She and Rook are having a baby.”

“They are?” Shay’s heart thrilled at the idea of an Atwood-McQueen child. “That’s fantastic news, isn’t it?”

“Yes and no. They only found out three days ago, and until you told us about Fiona, we had no idea if she’d be able to carry a child to term. Knowing Fiona did is good news.”

Her excitement dimmed. “Fiona didn’t have an easy delivery. According to Desiree it nearly killed her, and afterward she was unable to bear any more children.”

Knight’s brow lifted. Again he glanced at his brother, uncertainty in his eyes. “Should we tell him that?”

“It isn’t something he needs to know right now. I won’t hide it from Brynn, and Dr. Mike needs to know if he’s going to help Brynn through this.”

“Of course.”

“Brynn is strong, Knight. And she has a husband who loves her, and a child that an entire town will dote on. They’ll get through this.”

“You’re right. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She used the broken porch railing to stand, her cut legs protesting the added weight. She adjusted the t-shirt she’d been given to wear over a pair of sweatpants. In their haste to get her back and find the vampires’ nest, no one had thought to bring Shay’s own clothes along. She didn’t care. She was simply glad to be wearing something other than those awful, baggy dresses. Glad to be wearing shoes again.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked, her voice carrying with the strength of her Black Wolf. No more being left out.

Rook and Jillian approached while the others hung back.

“We go in,” Rook said. “The four of us, plus Tanner and Mason. Everyone else hangs back and will form a perimeter once we find the building that Leopold and Chelsea are in.”

“All right.” Shay pointed at the Black beast lingering in the tall grass near their vehicles. “Who is that?”

“Tanner,” Knight replied. “He was one of Colin Corman’s bodyguards from Rockpoint.”

“Why is he still here? You said Colin was killed a month ago.”

“Tanner and his brother Luke stayed behind,” Jillian said. “They were very close to Colin, and they wanted to remain here and help avenge his death. We’ve put them to good use bodyguarding Knight.”

She blinked hard at Knight. “And you allowed that?”

He shrugged. “They keep their distance. They’re good men.”

“And Knight wasn’t given a choice by his Alpha,” Jillian added.

That didn’t surprise Shay in the least. She strode across the weedy yard toward the beast, mindful of the various sets of eyes watching. Her courage grew with each step. She stopped in front of Tanner, who gazed up at her with curiosity. She squatted so they were eye level. “Thank you for protecting him for me.”

Tanner’s large head bobbed in a nod.

“I’m so sorry about Colin. He was a brave warrior.”

Another bob, followed by a soft whine.

“We’ll avenge your friend’s death, I promise. The hybrids may be my blood, but they are not my family.”

That earned her a supportive growl. She touched his muzzle briefly, aware of a familiar scent around her. A scent that sent her right back into that small, dark room. A room she couldn’t escape, full of odd smells and a terrible sense of loneliness. This scent was different. She’d smelled it on Desiree. She’d smelled it in the hall during her escape.

“Shay?” Knight was behind her, touching her shoulders.

She reared back from Tanner, straight into Knight’s arms. She fell against his chest, grateful for the support, snorting hard to clear the odor of sage from her nostrils.

“What’s wrong?”

“His scent.”

Tanner tilted his head.

“What about his scent?” Knight’s hands lightly stroked her forearms, his hold tight without being intrusive.

She didn’t care how intimate it was, or that others could see. “I smelled something like it where I was being kept.”

Knight made a startled noise. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was similar. It was there, and sometimes the hybrids carried it on them. Like they’d been around the one who owns the scent.”

“How’s that possible?” Rook asked.

He, Jillian, and Jonas had joined them near the car, everyone wearing the same variation of surprise and confusion.

“Are you suggesting someone from Rockpoint is helping the hybrids?” Jillian asked.

Tanner growled.

“I’m suggesting nothing,” Shay replied. “Only stating fact.”

“Humans use sage for all kinds of reasons, and I’m sure Magi do as well. It doesn’t implicate another loup.”

“No, it doesn’t, but Alpha Geary worked with Fiona. It’s not impossible. Alpha Corman wanted to control Cornerstone, right? It isn’t completely far-fetched.” Shay didn’t want to consider another run Alpha in league with the most dangerous enemy the loup garou had ever faced, but she knew what she’d smelled. She couldn’t discount the idea out of hand. None of them could.

“Geary made a deal with Fiona to protect Jonas,” Rook said. “Corman sent Colin here, right into the middle of the war, to serve a personal vendetta against our family. It’s highly unlikely, Shay.”

“I know what I smelled.”

“Tanner is coming in with us. Maybe he can identify the scent.”

Tanner huffed his agreement.

“All right,” Shay said. “When do we leave?”

***

Knight couldn’t get over the strength and resilience Shay was showing. Physically she had to be exhausted—for sure she was dehydrated and underfed, never mind her wounds. After their group piled back into the SUV, they’d gone out of their way to find a fast-food joint and provide her with two extra value meals, which she’d eaten without seeming to take a breath. The food had lifted her spirits immediately and put even more keen awareness back into her eyes.

She sat next to him in the backseat, shoulders straight, attention on the road around them. They drove back to the road near where the vampire had found her in the woods, then idled on the shoulder so she could get her bearings. With a lot of patience, they were soon driving down the cracked road of a small, forgotten town tucked deep into the forest of western Maryland.

The northern half of the town boasted old homes, weedy yards, and a few folks still clinging to their land. The rest of it was a mostly abandoned main street with empty storefronts and broken windows. Beyond it was a large cement building, five stories, with part of a sign out front that said “—er Sanatorium.”

Shay pointed. “There.”

“Figures, an old crazy house,” Rook said.

All of the SUV’s windows were down, and the air carried the faintest hint of the hybrids’ scent. They’d been here, but not recently.

Rook drove past and parked in an alley a few dozen yards away, angled toward the road in case they needed to make a hasty retreat. Tanner was still in beast form. They waited a full minute for Jillian to shift.

Next to him, Shay’s shoulders trembled faintly. Knight opened to her emotions and skimmed the top layer off of her anxiety. His hatred for the two women who’d kept his mate prisoner held his own fear at bay. He clasped his hatred tight, allowing it to feed from the darkness that was always with him.

Tanner and Jillian disappeared into the shadows to scout. Rook texted Bishop of their progress.

The pair of beasts returned after an interminable ten minutes of silence. Two firm head shakes confirmed the hybrids were not outside the building, nor their scents strong. Shay led the way across cracked sidewalks strewn with weeds, to a pair of front doors chained on the outside. To the right of the doors was a broken panel of glass. Shards lay on the ground outside, some of them dotted with blood.

His mate’s blood.

Knight’s beast roared its anger, and he held tightly to his control. Jillian leapt cleanly through, stirring the air. The putrid scent of the triplets tingled his nose—something he’d not scented so strongly since his own captivity. His gut roiled with old memories, old hurts, and he let the darkness take them away. It left more anger and determination in their place.

Jillian returned and softly wuffed—the coast was clear. Rook knocked a few shards of glass out of the window for safety before climbing inside. Shay went next, with Knight close behind. Mason and Tanner stayed outside to keep watch.

Shay shivered. Knight slipped his hand into hers and squeezed. Her grip bordered on painful, and he didn’t care. He’d been held captive for a few hours. She’d spent over a month in this hell hole, locked away from the people who loved her. Tortured, no matter what the hybrids thought they were doing.