Page 47 of Wolf Bane (Marked #3)

Chapter Twenty

I slept in fits and starts after Ethan got me home.

Everything ached, and the idea of eating or drinking anything made my mouth water with sour nausea.

At some point, I snarled at Ethan to fuck off, and with a tired chuckle, he let me be.

I thought maybe I should feel bad about it, but I was too tired, too pained, to dwell on it for long.

After a while, the bouts of sleep got shorter and bleary-eyed wakefulness longer.

Ethan got me to eat a soft-boiled egg (not the best idea) and some ginger ale (a better idea) that stayed down.

That seemed to be the catalyst for me to start dragging myself back to the land of the living.

After a second round of ginger ale with toast on the side (much better idea than the egg), I was about as lively as I could get, all things considered.

“What day is it?” I asked around a painful yawn. Bruises might heal faster on me but that didn’t mean they didn’t hurt. “Wednesday?”

“Thursday,” Ethan said quietly. “Here. Just over the counter stuff.”

I took the pills reluctantly. “Where did you get them?”

“Walgreens. Half an hour ago. They haven’t left my pocket since the checkout counter.”

I nodded, dry swallowing two of them before taking the proffered glass of water. “Where’s?—”

“Just and Tyler are at his place. Gina Perrin went over this morning.”

Another nod. “Gonna lay down again.”

Ethan said something I couldn’t quite understand, but I burrowed my head against his thigh where he sat on the bed and let myself drift.

Some time later, the rumble of low voices dragged me out of my doze.

Ethan was gone, the bed cold on his side, and the familiar smell of expensive cologne and earthy were had mingled with Ethan’s.

Cullen was in the house.

And, I realized, straining my senses, Mal.

Waltrip. And another were, one I didn’t know.

Sluggishly, I got to my feet and trudged towards the living room where everyone had gathered.

The new were was a tall, raw-boned woman with a severe bob and tastefully expensive makeup.

Everyone fell quiet when I appeared, except her.

“Doctor Babin. Suzanne Murphy.” She stood, offering me her hand. A knuckle-knocker of an emerald sat on her left ring finger, an ornate, old-fashioned setting with an opal on her index finger.

She smiled at my notice. “Old money, old weres, old headaches,” she said, motioning for me to sit in my own house.

I shrugged, wedging myself between Mal and Ethan. “So, are you Cullen’s handler?”

Cullen sniffed. “She’s my colleague.”

“Handler has a nice ring to it, though,” she teased, her smile surprisingly pleasant in such a severe face. “I’m head of a new division within the council.”

“Is it the we fucked up and now we have to figure out how to fix it division?” I asked tartly. “Because that seems like a thing y’all need.”

Waltrip’s grunt of amusement was dry and loud. “Been saying that for years.”

“And we’ve been saying you should come back, work with us again, and maybe help wrangle some of this into submission for years,” Cullen noted. “But here we are.”

Mal’s eyes widened. “Wait, you worked with the council?”

“Briefly,” Waltrip bit out. “And that’s not what we’re here for. Garrow’s in the wind. Again.”

“What about the others?” I asked, shaking off more of my blurry exhaustion. “He’s not working alone here. We’ve known there are others who want to continue his work for a while now, but this is bigger than just some fanboys hoping to copycat.”

“That’s where I come in,” Suzanne said. “The council has decided it is best if we create a specific task force within our organization that is focused on people like Garrow.”

“There’s more of them?” Mal muttered. “Fucking awesome.”

She smiled tightly. “He’s not in a vacuum. And Ethan has refused to return to Chicago until he can be certain of your safety.”

“Which,” Cullen put in sharply, “I find perfectly acceptable and encourage.”

Suzanne’s smile fell just a fraction. “So. I’ve come here to discuss things with him as he refuses to return.”

Ethan grasped my hand tightly in his, setting our joined fingers on my leg where it was obvious to all in the room where things stood. “I wish to continue my work with the council, but not at the risk of my partner’s life.”

“Ethan,” I started, but he shook his head.

“There’s a lot I’m willing to change and give up to help the council’s mission come to fruition, but Landry isn’t one of them.”

Cullen hid one of his rare smiles in a cough. “Which is why I’m here. The council is appreciative of your work so far, in such a short time, with us and would like to offer you a slightly different path within our mission, Ethan.”

Suzanne nodded once, firmly. “At this time, we’re asking you to consider assisting me, directly, in the creation of the criminal apprehension division.”

“Look at you, becoming a were-fed,” Mal hooted, slapping Ethan’s shoulder around mine. “That’s awesome!”

Ethan blinked, obviously taken aback. “Ah…”

“Think on it,” Suzanne said briskly, getting to her feet. “I have some appointments in Dallas and Houston this week. I don’t expect a response until… let’s say a week from Monday. Cullen.” She turned as Cullen rose. “See me to the car?”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

Mal, Ethan, Waltrip, and I sat quietly as they let themselves out. Finally, I turned to Ethan. “What the fuck?”

“I’d been avoiding their calls since Wednesday morning,” he admitted. “When you disappeared…”

“I couldn’t get hold of him when you had the accident,” Mal said. “So I called Waltrip.”

“Then Tyler and Justin were taken,” Ethan put in quietly. “That’s how we were able to track you down. Tyler’s a paranoid cuss. He had a tracker on the car Justin had been using. We were able to follow it, find the scene, then go from there.”

“They were taken just an hour or two after you,” Waltrip supplied.

“Bitter Root isn’t too far away. It’s an old sanitarium, from the end of the nineteenth century.

” He and Ethan exchanged a very speaking look.

“A lot of the early residents were weres and shifters suffering from what they used to call moon sickness.”

“Their changes weren’t well controlled,” Ethan picked up. “Usually because they weren’t expecting them. They were part human, for the most part. Their were parents had hidden what they were…”

“So, when it happened, when they told people what they experienced, they were deemed insane,” I whispered more to myself than the others. “Fuck.”

“Well. Looks like it’s not abandoned anymore.” Waltrip sighed. “Eliza and her group have been repurposing it to be the new Bluebonnet.”

“Monk and Hood… that’s her?”

Ethan made a see sawing motion with his hand. “Garrow’s money, her idea to go out into the communities like this. She’s been desperate for a long time…”

Cullen reappeared, shutting my front door with a determined thump just short of a slam.

“Good lord, she’s annoying,” he muttered unironically.

“Things that could’ve been an email.” He eyed the lot of us, lips pursed.

“Currently, Daniel and Eliza are in Chicago in the luxurious prison of a penthouse suite overlooking Lake Michigan.”

“Maybe I should become a criminal,” I suggested. “Sounds nice.”

“They have roommates. Six were guards with submachine guns,” Cullen added. “Just in case they, as you put it, feel froggy.”

“And Garrow?”

No one said anything.

I got to my feet, shuffling to the kitchen. “I need coffee if I’m going to deal with this again,” I announced. “Anyone else?”

It was Waltrip who joined me a few minutes later. “Black, two sugars.”

“Going soft in your middle years? I remember you taking it black.” I glanced up at his near silent huff of amusement. “You look like shit.”

“It’s something new I’m trying.” He watched me measuring out the grounds, obviously on the edge of something. “Garrow’s escape wasn’t so much an escape as a release.”

I paused, mid-scoop. Then the council let him out knowingly? They just didn’t care? No one reported him missing from jail?

“The council wasn’t informed, nearest I can determine. When I went to Fort Worth to start checking in to things after Mal thought he was being watched, I started with the facility we’d tracked Garrow’s adherents to after Colorado.”

“Okay.”

The click and hiss of the coffee machine coming to life was gunshot-loud, making us both still and stare for a moment before Waltrip pressed on. “I used to work with the council. Briefly. About ten years ago.”

He was watching me, expecting a reaction.

So I forced a nod and a bemused oh really sort of expression that made him roll his eyes.

“Sorry. Daniel let that one slip the other day. Honestly, you talk about your personal life so little I wouldn’t be that shocked if one day we all found out you were royalty or something.

Had three kids and a wife tucked away in Tulsa. ”

Waltrip hesitated, then blew out a breath. “Divorced. No kids. And the ex is in Little Rock with his new husband. Well. They’ve been married six years, so not that new.”

That time I know my face did something complicated because he snorted, almost a laugh, and shook his head.

“Mal’s been on my ass to be more open with y’all. He said…” Waltrip’s lips pursed, then twisted as he thought. “He said that maybe I should stop thinking I was the only one capable of keeping people safe and maybe trust y’all a bit more.”

“I said that you needed to feel safe too,” Mal corrected from the kitchen doorway.

He shrugged an apology when we looked his way.

“Y’all were taking forever with the coffee and, really Waltrip, your voice carries even when you’re not trying so…

” He padded closer, stopping near Waltrip but not quite touching.

Waltrip didn’t quite melt, but he did go a little soft around the edges, cheeks tinting pink above his beard. “Mal’s been real… chatty.”