Page 14 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 13

Powerless

LUKE

T he power stayed off for almost a full minute, and I stood with Brand outside my door, listening to the distant curses and screams.

“Do you think it’s Gri—” Brand’s whispered question was cut off when the lights flared, brightening the hall.

I shook my head, reaching for the door to my room, but something stopped me. A feeling that I shouldn’t go inside. Instead, I grasped Brand’s arm and pulled him down the hall, toward Finnick’s wing. Some of the red eyes of the cameras were lit on the way, but some flickered, and one was out completely.

Good.

When we reached Finnick’s room, the door wasn’t locked, which worried me slightly. The faint scent of other shifters drifted from inside as I cracked it open, and I knew either maids or guards had been here. I held a finger to my lips as Brand staggered to a halt behind me.

“Hang on,” I whispered, pulling a stone out of my pocket. I’d gathered a few from the parking lot of the gas station that had been our only stop between Southern and the Mansion, some with sharp edges. I’d remembered Flor talking about Del’s lessons, about using any weapon you could get. About anything being a weapon, if you thought about it.

This stone was heavy and round, and after I lined up my shot, I threw it along with a prayer to the moon.

Maybe the moon was listening. The camera’s eye shattered, and the red light began blinking. I wasn’t sure if someone would come to investigate, but I hoped the guards might think it was just another malfunction.

“I need water.” Brand’s voice was strained, and fear shot through me when he leaned heavily on my arm as I led him into the room. He had always been bigger than me, taller and more well-muscled. Especially now, after months of being comatose, I should be the weaker one.

Had Elina had enough time with him to do something to him? Or was he staggering for some other reason? I helped him sit on a wide bench that sat along one wall of the bathroom, and grabbed him water, leaving the tap running, then turning on the taps to the showers and tub as well. I locked the door and flipped the fan on, then sat down next to him.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Brand said after a long, uncomfortable moment, his eyes shut. He and I had never been close. The moment we’d shared at Southern when he’d stapled my gut wound closed was the most we’d spoken alone. But now….

“How is she?” I asked, rubbing my abdomen over the scar. “I can feel that she’s alive. But was she hurt?”

“She was. Glen almost died.”

“But they healed? They got away? Escaped into the woods?—”

“No. They didn’t escape.” The words were slow to come, as if he didn’t want to say them aloud. “They triumphed.”

“How?” My heart began to race.

“The rogues came in, led by Sergeant. Her mother, as well. They had weapons in the woods, and Sergeant to lead them. Oh, and all of the remaining women of your pack, armed with sticks and kitchen knives.”

Dread filled my belly. “How many of them died?” I wouldn’t have been surprised if they all had. I knew how skilled Torran’s men were, and how weak we’d made our women and girls. None of them would have been able to use a real weapon, not with the Alpha command still on them.

“Not as many as you’d think. The Southern shifters who were left rose up when she called them.” His lips twitched. “She called upon them as future Alpha Mate. Your mate. And they obeyed.” His eyes snapped open and landed on the bite mark on my neck.

“They… They won?” My mind spun. I hadn’t let myself dream of that, though some of the phone conversations I’d overheard on the ride to Eastern had led me to believe things hadn’t gone according to Elina’s plan.

I’d seen Glen peppered by bullets. Flor fallen, her back broken. I’d clung to the knowledge that they had lived, the sensation of our bond, with only the dull, numb place where Grigor’s thread had been, now lifeless.

No.Not lifeless. I took a shallow breath and realized there was a faint humming there, and a taste in the back of my mouth, like aluminum. A scent of ozone.

“Grigor’s alive, too.” I pressed a fist to my mouth, a surge of relief rushing through me.

“Not for long, if he’s a danger to my flower.” Brand’s pale eyes fixed on me. “I know you sacrificed for her, even if you let her suffer for far too long. I know your life was as much a hell as hers, Luke. I’ll learn to share her love with you as I have Glen. When I finish beating the shit out of him, I might even let Finn sit in the same room with my mate. But that psychotic killer? There’s nothing redeemable about him.”

His gaze had grown brighter as he spoke, and his face paler. A shudder ran through him, and the veins on his neck stood out for a moment. What was happening?

“What’s wrong?” I grunted as he slumped against me, trying to keep him from falling to the marble floor.

“Something… arm…” he groaned. I looked down. There were three half-moon cuts on his arm, with small traces of blood there. Blood and… I leaned down and sniffed. An aroma, incredibly faint, that I didn’t recognize, but which threw me back into my memories. When I’d fallen unconscious, after Flor left. When the woman—Elina—had come and tried to pry open my mind, tear loose information about my mate.

Her hand had been on his arm when I’d interrupted them in the parlor. Had she poisoned him? Or cursed him somehow? I had no idea how magic worked, but as Brand’s eyes rolled back in his head, I realized I needed to find someone who did, fast.

The scent of ozone grew stronger as the bathroom door handle suddenly jiggled. “Luke?” Finnick’s voice was soft, guarded. I managed to help Brand lie on the floor and opened the door.

Finnick’s eyes were bloodshot, and his face almost as pale as Brand’s, though he seemed steady on his feet. “What happened?” we both whispered at the same time.

“I’m not sure. Your mother cut him with her nails, I think.”

“Fuck. Blood magic. It’s just like he said.” He rushed into the room and placed his hands on the sides of Brand’s face, staring into his bleary, silver eyes. We both peered down at his arm, where the blood that kept welling in the cuts vanished before it trickled down his arm, evaporating almost. “Brand, I think my mother is siphoning energy from you somehow.”

Brand mumbled an affirmative sound.

I cursed softly. “What can we do?”

“We?” Finnick cursed softly. “Nothing, most likely. But Grigor would know exactly what to do.”

“Is he alive?” The thread he’d added to mine to save my life still felt… off, somehow. Like he was keeping it closed off.

When I mentioned it, Finnick almost smiled. “Yeah. He’s protective of us, it turns out. He’s trying not to drain us all.” There was an odd note in his voice, something like wonder. He respected the wizard.

I focused on what he’d said. “Drain us. That’s what your mother’s doing to Brand, with his blood somehow, isn’t it?”

“Grigor told me about this. He can do the same thing. He told me…” His eyes slid to mine. “He told me I should be able to do magic someday. That my mother must have been draining me from the time I was a baby, to keep me from having power. Me and Tana, too.”

“Grigor gave you power?”

“A little. As much as he could, for now.” There was something else he wasn’t saying, something significant. Just then, his phone went off.“Yes, Mother?” Finnick snapped out the words, his whole demeanor growing icy in an instant. “Yes, he’s secure. I came up to see what was going on with the electricity. The cameras… None of them are working? Ah, I see.” He muttered a few more things, then hung up, agitated.“She’s leaving the Mansion, going into the city. Supposedly, Tana’s been spotted.” I laid my hand on his back, and he let out a shuddering breath, then focused on Brand again, whispering to himself, “She’ll be fine. She has to be. If they couldn’t get her away, no one could.”

I didn’t ask who he meant. “Do you have any ideas for how to help Brand? After your mother leaves, can we get Grigor to help us? Or go to him?”

“No. I had to leave him down there, in the damned body bag. The cameras are out, so Mother’s assigned triple guards for the entire lower levels.”

“He’s trapped?”

Finnick shrugged. “For now, maybe. He’s gathering strength; you must have noticed. I’m supposed to come up with a plan. But I need Brand for any plan that might work.”

Brand let out a low, pained groan. Finnick grabbed a towel and folded it, placing it like a cushion under his head.

“We have to stop the drain she’s put on him.”

“Slow it,” he suggested. “If it stops, she’ll know something’s happened. If it slows, maybe she’ll think he’s just weakened.”

“How—” I began, then thought. “Grigor bound us together, me and Glen and himself. He gave us access to his power, or some of it. Then Brand funneled power to Flor in the fight, and to Glen. It’s what saved us all. We need someone who can do magic.”

For some reason, Finnick dropped his gaze. “Maybe Brand can do something. He could have some kind of magic. His eyes…”

“Not magic. Moonblessed,” Brand managed to grumble.

I bit back a curse. Brand would need to get over his aversion to magic. He was going to be co-mates with Finnick and Grigor, for fuck’s sake. I sighed, trying for patience. “With the moon’s blessing, then. Can you interrupt Elina’s access to your power, or slow it down?”

“She did something. I can’t—she’s pulling as fast as I can draw from my pack.” Each word was drawn forth slowly, painfully. “Don’t want… Flor to be affected.”

The thought of Finnick’s mother growing as strong as Brand had been, of her somehow tainting Flor in the process, filled me with dread. I’d sworn to protect her, and I would. I just needed to see the way through this mess.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the bonds inside me. The triple-braided one that I could almost feel. The bright, bold connection to Flor that hummed with purpose. I could even sense the places where she was connected to the others, through the mating bites they shared.

Mating bites were blessings from the moon. I remembered the sharp taste of her blood, the salty-sweet flavor of her racing along my tongue as her soul and mine slid closer together. My wolf raced in my mind, as if guiding my human mind on a hunt for the answer.

Our blood had been mingled. Mingled for years. From the moment I threw my body over hers when she was a toddler, and I was the only one in my pack who wasn’t frozen, watching our Head Enforcer try to beat her to death.

Blood, mingled blood. Maybe Elina had cut Brand, and left some of her own… I leaned down and sniffed at the cut again. It smelled of magic.

“Blood is the answer,” I said, suddenly understanding. Magic. Moonblessed. They weren’t the same thing, but… maybe close enough? My wolf howled his assent. “Brand. Can I try something?”Brand didn’t speak, though Finnick’s focus sharpened on me. “I’m not certain this will work, but…” I explained what I suspected, told them both what I’d smelled.

Finnick leaned close and sniffed as well, his eyes going wide in shock.

“I think, if I connect with you, it will help.” I swallowed, hard. “If I, uh, bite you.”

“Bite me?” Brand’s eyes snapped open and bored into mine. It felt like I was being judged by some wolf god. I hid my trembling hands, but returned his stare until he narrowed his gaze.

Then he shook his head as he struggled to answer. “Never.”