Page 85 of Winter Lost

He uncrossed his ankles and moved a little, letting his body inhabit the seat rather than simply sit in it. His change in posture seemed to alter the nature of his chair. It became a throne, not the kind used in modern royal ceremonies, but the high seat earned by a chieftain.

I couldn’t help thinking of a painting of a barbarian king, like something on the cover of a Conan the Barbarian novel. An incongruous thought, given Liam’s outward tidiness, but it felt true. In some other time and place, one that was bloody and messy, this man had been a ruler of a fae court.

I could almost see…

Liam’s eyes widened. He leaned forward, saying something to Adam when my mate blocked his way. But I couldn’t understand his words. All of my attention was focused on the vision I was experiencing of a different time and place.

—blood on a wooden floor. So much blood. A man screaming.

Liam’s fingers brushed my forehead and the visions scrolling in my head drifted away, leaving me sweaty and shivering. Hot and cold at the same time. Adam’s arm around my shoulder let me center myself.

“You need to find someone who can fix that,” Liam told me.

“I intend to,” I told him. The consequences of not fixing it were growing more obviously grave on a near-hourly basis.

Liam sat back again, once more a well-groomed, graceful man in a wingback chair.

I cleared my throat and tried to remember what we’d been talking about.

“Why do you think the storm has trapped us here?” I asked.

“To prevent a wedding,” Liam said.

Interlude

New Mexico

Don Orson

They found Don a vantage place in the hills that gave him a clear view of the compound below, well within his field of accuracy. He didn’t have to worry about taking out civilians; there were none of them anywhere around here. He set up his tripod and gave a little groan—mostly theatric—as he lay down and got ready for his shot. If he was needed.

It had taken Adam’s people less than a day to find the culprits. They’d checked out the place where their man had been killed, then wandered around the various buildings until Auriele Zao said, “I smell henbane.”

Don had had no idea that one of their projects was entirely peopled by witches doing magic instead of chemists doing…what chemists did.

The pair of werewolves had called a meeting with the entire group of white witches to find out who had been stalking them. Darryl Zao was a scary SOB, but in that meeting…Well, Adam said that being Alpha was as much about being a protector as being able to kill things. Don had been privileged to see that at work. Darryl had taken a room filled with terrorized, traumatized people and made them feel safe.

As they’d left the tearful, grateful bunch of witch nerds—Vincent’s term, and it was sticking—Darryl had muttered, “Like putting a barbecue in the jungle and wondering why the predators keep coming around.”

“Poor things,” agreed his wife. “I’ll have some suggestions for Adam about extra protections.” She glanced at Don. “And you should have a word with someone. White witches are prey. You should have been told they were here, and accommodations should have been made for their safety.”

Darryl made a few phone calls—apparently there wasn’t a pack in Los Alamos, but there was a big one in Santa Fe.

“I thought Adam’s pack didn’t get to call for support from other packs,” Don had observed to Auriele while her husband gave orders to the Alpha of the Santa Fe pack.

She’d grinned at him. “Don’t remind them, and we won’t, either.”

Darryl hung up the phone and shook his head at her. “The pack Alpha is a good friend of mine. He doesn’t like witches—and he tells me there’s a compound about ten miles up into the hills outside of town. Auriele and I will do a quick recon to make sure these are our culprits, and we’ll take them out.”

Don didn’t ask him about the legalities of the operation. Black witches were, all of them, killers of the innocent—and the human justice system was not built to handle them. If there were bodies, the wolf pack would handle it.

—

Beside him, the werewolf left to guard him whined softly.

“I know,” Don told her. “Don’t shoot wolves or people with armbands.”

Auriele’s voice whispered in Don’s earpiece. “Go.”