Page 97 of Contested Crown
The troll that had attacked us lumbered toward a makeshift bridge, pieces of discarded concrete he’d shaped into an odd archway. I doubted it would support human weight, but maybe a few billy goats could cross it.
Tabitha had set up a camp with a real tent, one of the expensive ones that the military used. Thick canvas walls, windows, enough room for a bunk, and maybe even a few chairs. A generator sat to the side, and she turned it on before pulling open the flap and gesturing us inside.
“You two want anything to drink?” She looked at Cade. An electric light illuminated the tent, growing brighter as the generator fully woke.
In the light, Cade looked worse. The food from earlier hadn’t been anything more than a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. He sat down on one of the low, cushioned seats, the sweat on his face turning tacky, his hands trembling. He gripped them tight together, looking at both of us angrily, as though we were the ones doing this to him.
Tabitha crossed the room to a cooler and pulled out two bottles of Gatorade, tossing them at us. “Okay. Declan. What do you want to know? It seems like you would know more than me since you worked for him.”
I cracked open the bottle, then passed it to Cade and took his. His trembling hands couldn’t quite grip the lid hard enough to open it, and he accepted my help without complaint.
By my measure, he needed a good day of sleep, enough food and liquid to get him back on his feet. Once his magic returned to full power, he would be so angry about how I was babying him now.
I forced my attention back to Tabitha, trying to remember what she had asked me.
“Declan is doing something. I thought you were just helping get wolves off Reaper, but you know what else he’s doing.” I raised an eyebrow, staring, one alpha to another.
She met my gaze, her respect clear. She had been able to tell it was me by scent alone, even when I was shifted. She wasn’t someone to be messed with.
“Yeah. A year or so ago, I was contacted by an organization—one of the international werewolf protection organizations? They knew about my work with transient werewolves and wanted to know if I could help with a small-scale Reaper project.” Tabitha picked a beer bottle out of the cooler, twisting off the cap. She rolled it between her fingers before taking a long swig of the drink. “They provide it to unaffiliated alphas the whole country over, figuring that unaffiliated alphas will want to do the right thing. So I got two cases full of a Reaper antidote.”
“And you became Declan’s problem,” I said.
“And I became Declan’s problem.” She nodded. “Trust me, if I had known that trying to get our people off a drug that destroys the functionality of packs, that ruins lives, would blow up my entire life… Well…”
I waited, but she chuckled. “Okay, I probably still would have done it. Anyway. I moved here after the whole calling a hit out on me business. I figured once things cooled down, Declan would forget about me. I was almost out of the pills anyway. Then I started hearing about a new drug on the street.”
“Thorn?” I said, putting the pieces together.
“Thorn,” she agreed. “But what I was hearing was that no one is even selling Reaper anymore. The only thing anyone has is Thorn. And then I hear the people I helped, the ones who took the antidote to Reaper? They don’t get touched by Thorn. They’re completely immune.”
“So Thorn is Reaper?” I said slowly. “Just a different version?”
“Have you seen it yet? You had to if you were working for Declan.” Her eyebrows went up. “Thorn isnotReaper. It makes you more aggressive. I’ve seen wolves kill their partners when high on Thorn. I’ve seen them tear out their Alpha’s throats.”
I whistled. “And it’s all coming from Declan? He wasn’t doing anything with this when I was working for him.”
“Clearly, he was. He just didn’t tell you about it.” Tabitha began pacing back and forth. “Now I only have a handful of antidote left, and I’m not sure what to do. The organization I was working for disappeared overnight.”
I looked at her, both eyebrows going up. “That’s… suspicious.”
“You’re telling me. A forty-year-old organization rolls up its carpets and disappears into the night? Worse, I think it has something to do with the dead gargoyles and other paranormal creatures.”
“Wait, what?” I blinked, thrown off by the change in topic.
“Creatures all over the city are dying. It used to be, at night, most of these creatures would leave the Zoo. Go hunting for food and trash, find some rats to eat. Whatever they do in the city.” She opened up the tent flap so I could see the creatures still prowling nearby. “Now they all stay here because too many of them die when they leave.”
“Werewolves on Thorn are killing them?” My brows drew together.
“No. Something else. But their council won’t talk to me. They let me live here, but I’m just a guest.” She sat down on the cot, tipping back her beer and closing her eyes, rubbing the fingers of her free hand into her eye sockets.
“Why didn’t you leave when I let you go?” I asked. “Go to LA, San Francisco. Start over.”
“Why didn’tyouleave? Declan is powerful, but even he has his limits.” She sighed, rolling her head to the side to look at me. There was a hint of wolf gold in them. “This is my home. I might not have a pack here, but I’m not going to let Declan run me off my own territory.”
I could respect that and felt some of it echo in my own chest. Was that why I had stayed? Was that the secret reason that all the time I was running from Declan, I still hadn’t gotten any further than two cities away?
“Where is this council?” Cade broke in. “If they have more information, we need to talk to them. We have reason to believe that one of the mage houses might be working with Declan.”