Page 28 of War Games (Jacky Leon #11)

Subira walked past Gwen and the werecat, heading directly for me, her staff striking the ground every time she took a step, using it as a walking stick as she often did. Her eyes were that of a cat, with the pupils slit as she narrowed them to inspect me.

“You don’t have the injuries I saw on your body. That’s good. That little witch must be working fast to help you with my power feeding her, and that healed you here.” She touched my chest with the staff. “How do you feel here?”

“I… I don’t know how I got here or really what’s going on. I remember everything now, but…”

“Ah. You remember drinking Heath’s bourbon, at least, yes?” Subira tapped the staff against my chest again.

“Yeah. I fell. I woke up, and I was with…” Just saying his name hurt now because I could also remember the flicker of hope that he had been alive and that I had imagined his real death. “I was with Fenris. After a little while, we were chased by Rainer as a Last Change werewolf. Rainer took Fenris over a cliff, but then I went down it and was in my human parents’ house when I was in college…” I rubbed my forehead. I remembered all of it, but it didn’t make any sense. “None of what happened is real. Rainer and Fenris were the same person. I didn’t catch my dad cheating in college. The fight between you and Hasan happened in Germany, not on his island…”

“Let me give you the quick version of what you need to know. Callahan bribed a member of Everson’s pack to poison him. Heath. To poison your lover, the Alpha. You see, Callahan and Corissa have been having a hard time getting unruly packs in line to deal with the threat of the witches, whether it be to cut off their business with them or help search for missing werewolves. It doesn’t matter. They need that control. We all do.”

“And Heath is the rogue Alpha the other packs look to, to disrespect Callahan,” I said, closing my eyes as I realized how easy that would be to figure out. “If the Tribunal Alphas can’t handle a simple rogue, they can’t handle anyone.”

“Exactly. Now, Callahan and Corissa warned Hasan without names that they had to do something. This came with unspoken but very real promises that you wouldn’t be hurt.” Subira leaned on her staff. “Yet here we are. You accidentally ingested the fae poison, not Heath.”

“Oh, no,” I said, putting my hands over my face. Was this my fault, too? Part of me believed it was better I went through this than him, but it led to so many other problems that it was me. It was a mess for everyone now.

“You don’t seem angry that Callahan and Corissa would do this,” Subira pointed out.

“I hate it, but I understand it,” I said into my hands. “We’ve killed werecats who went against us. I would be a hypocrite for allowing myself to fight for the rule of this family but ask the werewolves not to do the same for theirs.”

“I’m glad you and I are on the same page.” Subira reached out and pulled one of my hands from my face. “Now, let me tell you one thing that Callahan didn’t mess up about this.”

“I would love to hear it.”

“This poison isn’t intended to be fatal,” she said with a smile.

I blinked several times, trying to understand that.

Not intended to be fatal…

Poison…

For Heath…

From Callahan…

Not intended to be fatal?

“What?” I finally said, eyes wide as my other hand dropped to my side.

“Hasan asked Alvina about some fae things that could cause this. He had a feeling Callahan wouldn’t go to the witches about a way to get rid of Everson that wouldn’t expose the werewolves to more problems from witches. We still don’t really know if those two are trustworthy, you see. He went to Alvina because he and Brion had their falling out over Brion’s recent behavior.”

“Brion is a piece of shit,” I said, nodding.

“It’s fae in origin. It’s used to test soldiers and knights and other such warriors to see if they are as strong of heart as they are of body. It makes the drinker live through their darkest thoughts, worst nightmares, and they have to get through them. They have to confront and move past them to prove themselves,” Subira said, turning away from me. “However, when the fae drink it, they know what they are getting into. They have to fight the loss of memory, keep their bearings, and so forth. It’s part of the test. If they lose themselves to the nightmares and personal demons, they will eventually fade and die. They go in knowing the risk, though.”

“And I didn’t. I couldn’t even smell anything was wrong.”

“No, you didn’t, and you were at a party where you wouldn’t have thought to pay attention to your nose well enough. No one is going to fault you for letting your guard down at Dirk and Landon’s wedding reception.” She patted my cheek. “We’ve all done it. There’s not a single person in the family who can fault you…and if they try, I’ll get some of it and make them live through this nightmare of their own making.”

There was a light pettiness to her words that should have made them funny, but I wasn’t laughing because I knew her threat was a real one.

“Okay, so how are you here? And where do I go to get the fuck out of this?”

“I decided to join you by entering your mind with mine. I am sleeping beside you right now in the waking world. I had to find you in here, but I have now, right on time, it seems.” Subira sighed, looking at the two watching us. Gwen was furious at what was unfolding, but the werecat was very slowly slinking away. “I can’t dispel the entire poison. I have tried several times. I also don’t have enough control to get you to the places you need to be. We have to explore your mind together to find out. I can tell you a couple of helpful hints.”

“I’m more than ready to have some of those.” I would take anything.

“She is not real. She’s a manifestation of your negative thoughts.” Subira pointed her staff at Gwen first. “A mean one at that. You and I should talk about the things she was telling you because you must have told them all to yourself at some point. Second…” Subira changed the angle of her staff to the werecat, who growled at her.

“That’s me?—”

“No, that’s the curse, and if you let it win, the people in the waking world will have to run for their lives if they aren’t strong enough to kill you,” Subira said, power thundering in her words. Not a loud crack as it had been before, but the low rumble of a coming storm, still miles off but visible in the sky. “It looks like you because we’re in your mind, but it is not you. It’s not helping you; it’s not ever going to save you from anything happening here. It doesn’t want the fae magic to kill you. It wants to control you by letting you give up here and needs you too much.”

“Oh…”

“We all have one,” Subira said, lowering her staff. “But it can’t take you by force. You have to either want its power in a moment of the fiercest rage or give in to its call out of hopelessness, but it will always be your choice.”

“You got here right before I…”

“Yes, so it seems,” Subira said, her words so flat, but even so, I could smell her sadness in the air.

“I’m sorry.” The words weren’t good enough, but they were all I had.

“Apologize to yourself, Jacky. You were the one driving yourself to it.” She turned her back on the two manifestations of my mind, the twin and the curse, looking at me eye to eye. “Do you really think that you destroy families?”

“I…” I couldn’t say yes. I couldn’t say no. “Sometimes, I think about it. Not often. I try not to dwell on it. My human parents hate me. My twin doesn’t care about me, and I… can’t bring myself to care about her anymore, can’t bring myself to try bridging that gap anymore. Something is broken with me for that to happen. Hasan… Mischa…” I wrung my hands together. “I am in love with a man, and I killed his son. He knows it.”

“And you’re still not mates,’” Gwen said cruelly, snide about how I couldn’t even have that with Heath. “Because who would ever be mates with the killer of their child?”

Subira’s eyes flash in rage, hearing Gwen’s voice, knowing it was just my thought coming from the other mouth.

“You know that’s unfair to do to yourself,” Subira snarled, glaring at me , not Gwen.

“I do. I do know. It’ll happen when it happens. I’m holding back on my side, too. There are things I’m… dealing with. I love that man more than anything. All I’ve wanted since this started was just to go home, go back to him, when I could remember home and him. Everything kept stopping me. When I thought I had found home, it ended up being the wrong one. Then I was attacked by a werewolf, and it really did damage to me. Then I woke up on the island, and Hasan made me sit there and heal and wouldn’t let me go home, either…” I shook my head in dismay, tears threatening. “That's all I want, to see him again. He’s home. Him, Carey, Landon, Dirk… My home.”

“Then we know the exit,” Subira said gently, reaching up to wipe the tear that escaped my eye, her thumb brushing my cheek. “We’ll find out how to get you home.”

I could only nod.

“But first, we need to confront how you feel, the real memories. We need to find these things that haunt you, and you need to move through them. At the end of that, we’ll get you home.”

“I don’t remember one of them.” I knew which one would stop me. Fenris, I could find. I would never forget that. I could remember the fights with Hasan, thinking I had broken my second family. I could find the boy and werewolves in Alaska. “I don’t remember causing the rift between me and my human parents.”

“Since it’s the one the farthest back, we have time to address that. We’ll start with the most recent. Take us back to the forest, Jacky. Let’s go find the boy you couldn’t save.”

I nodded, not knowing what to do, but I could remember those watercolor images of my memories that had shown up and gone black and white, fading entirely now. I thought of Alaska, thought of the house with the witches, the werewolves we had killed in the forest.

The image of my memory formed. Subira walked to it, nodding appreciatively, seeming satisfied. Then she held out a hand to me, and I took it, allowing her to walk us into it. We left behind Gwen but not the werecat. It didn’t go through the watercolor portal-type thing like us, but instead just walked into the memory on its own.

“Is it going to do that the entire time?” I asked, nodding toward it.

“Oh, yes. Just ignore it. That’s all you can do. Yours is far tamer than Hasan’s, thankfully. His takes a very particular shape that isn’t his own and represents far more than just the curse.”

“Can you tell me about that? Have you been in Hasan’s head like this?”

“You are the third member of the family I have ever done this to. Hasan… I have been allowed to rummage about in his head for thousands of years. Our mate bond makes it easy. I don’t even need to be on the same continent as him.”

That makes a lot of sense about why they are so willing to live apart. She and I can touch, so I can only imagine… And I think I’ll avoid that mental image.

Subira looked somewhat amused as I visibly had to shake myself to rid myself of understanding what her time in Hasan’s head meant.

“The other was Jabari,” she continued once I was done banishing other thoughts. “Where I found the spot in his head and soul that the mate bond drifted off him to nothing. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to make it physical in this space. I then hopped to Aisha. For a split second, their minds brushed against each other. I also used his magic to make sure it was possible since it was harder than what I have to do here in a magical sense. This is harder in other ways.”

“Oh. Did Jabari even realize you can do this?”

“If he did, he wouldn’t be the one who is curious. He’s reasonably wary of his own magic. He’ll train it because I ask him, but he knows what the wrong witches can do and therefore has some hate for it all, like Hasan.” Subira shrugged. “Part of that is my fault. Part of it is Hasan’s. Part of it is his own experience.”

“Hasan, who was nearly made a slave like…”

Remembering the boy, why we were in this moment, it all happened quickly. The actual fight played out before me, the giant Last Change werecat attempting to kill us.

“Tell me, Jacky… does that seem like a boy to you right now?”

“No,” I answered honestly.

“Does that seem like someone you could have reasoned with?”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“Then why are you blaming yourself for not knowing those things?”

“Because I could have…”

Stop. Everyone has tried to tell me the same thing over and over again.

I watched it play out. It was literally an out-of-body experience in my own head. I had a new angle on a fight I had been right in the middle of.

I watched the struggle. Me biting and clawing. Niko with his silver claws. Dirk trying to get a good shot, trying to provide that fatal blow, just like me, just like Niko.

They weren’t haunted like me. They weren’t beating themselves up the same way.

“I hold myself to a high standard,” I explained, maybe for just myself to hear, maybe for Subira. “Impossibly high. I don’t know why. I logically know that it wasn’t my fault, but my heart doesn’t want to accept that yet. I grieve for him, for whoever his parents may have been. I’ll never stop grieving for that loss and knowing my part in it.”

“Was it your fault?”

“No,” I said, blinking back tears. “I did everything I could. I couldn’t save him, though.” I didn’t need Subira to say anything. I knew the truth. “I did save a lot of people who could have been hurt by him, whether it was by their control or if he got away from them. I do know I saved them. I…” I took a deep breath. “I saved him from their clutches. I hope he’s at peace now.”

The memory washed away, leaving Subira and me to find a new place to go.