Page 29 of War Games (Jacky Leon #11)

“ Good job,” Subira said, touching my back.

“It still hurts,” I admitted.

“It’s not about completely healing right now, Jacky. It’s about facing these moments that have threatened to destroy you with honesty and bravery. Alvina was very clear about that. This isn’t therapy. It’s a test. Things that haunt a person will always haunt you. You have to have the power to face them because only then can you overcome them.”

“Why did anyone think this was a good idea to do to someone?”

“They call it Oberon’s Test. Only having passed it can one serve as one of the most elite of their warriors, taking orders from their highest rulers to protect the fae, both the people and the land.”

“Tell Alvina this sucks,” I muttered, wiping my face off.

“I’m certain Hasan found a way to say that to her while she explained it to him,” Subira said, pursing her lips tightly, either fighting a smile or matching my annoyance. Both of those were possible from what I could smell in her scent.

“Which do you want to see first? Fenris or Hasan?” she asked, leaning on her staff.

“Fenris,” I answered immediately, and we were dropped into the Black Forest. I saw Landon and me fighting for our lives. Fenris, or Rainer, was in his Last Change, not entirely finished, but so close.

I started walking close, wanting to hear some very specific words.

“Jacky.” Subira didn’t sound pleased.

“Yeah?”

“What is wrong with you in this memory?” she asked, her words telling me she thought something was very wrong.

That was when I remembered. Landon had seen it this day, what I had learned to do. I looked at myself, the fighting frozen for me to inspect the memory, like I had wanted it to freeze, so it did.

I was a bit terrifying to look at. My incisors were grown out like they were a werecat’s fangs, going nearly to my jawline. My facial structure was slightly changed to account for the difference. My fingernails had become cat claws but weren’t retractable yet, it seemed.

“The witches in Dallas tried to force me to Change, to force me to fight for them. A werecat being a good addition to the werewolves they were planning on having from the Dallas pack. I fought it, and this happened. Since then…”

“You can just do that?” Subira growled.

“I saw another moon cursed do it before. In fact…” I turned to look at Fenris. “It was him.”

“The one you called the mad wolf?” She was snappy now, my mother. “Jacky, that is dangerous.”

“I know. That’s why I don’t want to tell Heath about it,” I said softly.

“And why, even though I can tell you both love each other enough, that you don’t have a mate bond. You are scared of telling Heath Everson about this.”

I nodded.

“Fair.” Subira shook her head as she closely inspected my frozen fighting form as well. “I certainly won’t be telling Hasan or your siblings about this. Who knows?”

“Landon,” I answered, swallowing as I pointed to the witness of this fight. “Only Landon, who is afraid of telling his father because Heath has had to put down Last Change werewolves before, and… he doesn’t want his father to think he needs to kill me, the woman he loves.”

“Oh, dear,” Subira said, leaning on her staff like she suddenly needed support. “Daughter, your life is more complicated than I had known.”

“Yeah.” I turned back to Fenris, then stepped back. “Let’s have this play out then. So long as you think I’m safe enough to be around.”

“Clearly, you are strong enough to hold control of your curse in a way I haven’t seen in some time. The fight with the witches you mentioned might have helped you unlock this dangerous trick, but you have worked and used it to master it. That is a testament to your own control. Just be careful, Jacky.” She nodded to something, and I knew it was the damn werecat following us. “It is always waiting for you to make the choice. Maybe that’s why it’s stalking you in that form and not the one we know more readily.”

“I fear it,” I admitted. “Becoming like Fenris, losing my mind and control. Every time I use it, I know I’m playing with fire. He didn’t know better in some ways. He had another issue, which was being the false identity created by fae magic to cover up for a murderous piece of shit, Rainer, who is actually the one fighting Landon and me here.”

“You related to him in some odd ways, didn’t you?”

“Truthfully? Only that one. He was… always strange. He hated werecats. He attacked me the first time we met. He was the strangest friend I ever had… and I think I put too much on him. I thought if I could get him to live with me, to be my friend, there was no reason other werewolves or werecats couldn’t also heal and move on. Putting that on him was my fault.”

I kicked the ground as the fight continued. It had been bloody and brutal.

“I hadn’t known I had brought a ticking time bomb into my home, and I feel guilty for that. Rainer almost killed all four of us. Me and Landon stayed back for the last fight, knowing we could very well die. We had one sword and me, struggling to match the power of him. I didn’t have many options except to play with fire.”

“Do you miss him?”

“I do… but he was never real.”

The scene continued until we saw him die, and the wild hunt rode in and took him away.

“Hasan told me about them once,” Subira said, watching the hunt. “He’d stumbled on them a long time ago.”

“Huh. They recognized my gold eyes.”

“This was the same place he found Niko. Not this specific spot, but this forest. Whether they were actually riding that night Hasan saw them… I don’t know. I bet he doesn’t, either. But he saw them. He never thought they would play such a role in Niko’s life, though. Niko was from this area, so we never thought much of him wanting to come back to it. I had never been here, never noticed just how much magic there was or understood how it was an overlap with the fae realms.”

“Damn. Niko really kept secrets, huh?”

“He’s not the only one,” she said, turning to me with a flat look.

I smiled weakly before looking at the hunt as it left.

“Goodbye,” I whispered.

But we weren’t leaving yet. The werecat was lurking very close to us. It growled when I looked at it, daring me as it approached. I growled back, but it continued its approach.

“Stop,” I hissed at it. “I’m not afraid of losing myself to you. I can control myself, and you won’t catch me hopeless again.”

“You can’t banish it. It will always be there, Jacky. You can potentially create some distance from it, but with what you can do, I’m not sure that’s feasible for you. It’ll always be a close and lurking fear. It’s not part of the rest of this. That’s why it can follow us the way it is. It’s the real horror of the curse, always there, always inside us, always waiting for us to fall.”

“It can keep waiting, then.” I tried to think of what was keeping us in this memory if it wasn’t the werecat. “What is it? Why haven’t we left?” I asked myself and Subira, hoping the conversation could help uncover what I was missing.

“I don’t know. You’re the only one who can figure out this answer. It could be something new you might have stumbled on but didn’t give enough thought. It could be old that you have thought you were away from but never properly addressed. This is your test, Jacky.”

“This is frustrating. Of all the things Callahan and Corissa could think of, it was this stupid Oberon’s Test. And, of course, they’re a piece of this memory, too, you know? This was their long plan about getting Niko killed if a war between the werecats and werewolves ever started again.” I growled in frustration. “They plot like Hasan or the fae. There’s always something that these people have in the works, always waiting to plot against an enemy that might be real or might not.”

“There is,” Subira agreed.

“Like thinking they had to kill Heath to secure their power! How did Heath and I never really think about that? And we sent him to deal with stuff for our family. That was absolutely going to be noticed. Like this. I heard some weird things from Fenris. Callahan really wanted him back, and none of us thought there was something insane about that situation. Every day as a supernatural is insane, it feels like, so we didn’t look deep enough.”

The memory faded.

“Ha.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, the guilt at missing something so fucking obvious when I look back.”

“It’s a hard lesson,” Subira said, shrugging. “Because so many people miss it.”

“That’s not funny.”

“None of this is funny, but I like to think that was a very well-done play on words,” she said, a small smile forming. “I’m really proud of you for facing this as well as you have so far. Tell me if your mind ever gets… fuzzy so I can stop it from messing with your memory.”

“Will do,” I said, nodding. So far, I felt good. Everything made sense in its way.

“Onto the next memory, then,” Subira said gently. “I imagine getting through these is harder when someone doesn’t have a witch keeping them clear of the poison’s effects that muddle your mind and cloud your thoughts.”

“Thank the gods for that.”

I thought of Germany again, and we went to Niko’s home.

I was dreading this.