I was tentative at first, not wanting to anger or surprise Anton so much that he’d push my Voice straight out and erect mental barriers that would stop me form communicating with him.
Uh, Anton?
Okay, that was too quiet. I tried again, a bit louder this time.
Anton?
Fuck it.
ANTON!
The answering silence was devastating.
I could feel my heart thudding hard against my ribcage. There had to be something I could do. I thought of Tom and Betsy. Okay, that might work. I wasn’t Lord Alpha, there was nor reason why I’d be able to communicate over long distances. In fact, as far as I knew, Corrigan was the only Lord Alpha who’d ever been able to manage that feat. But Tom and Betsy were in London. And whatever vehicle I was in right at the moment was probably taking me closer to them, rather than further away. I acknowledged to myself that Tom had given up my presence in London to Corrigan, but you wouldn’t be able to fake the shock that had registered on the Lord Alpha’s face when he worked out that I was human. Tom hadn’t completely deserted me. It might have been the geas but I would choose for now to believe otherwise. He was no doubt aware that Corrigan had been coming to capture me; perhaps he’d thought I’d be able to get away before that happened. There was no way that he’d have been able to contact me to warn me of course. But if I could contact him then he could telephone the Cornish pack and…I straightened my shoulders. I could do this.
I focused on Tom’s face, imagining it in my mind. In my head, he winked warmly at me. Then I threw out my Voice.
Corrigan caught me, Tom.
There was a big fat nothing.
Tom? Tom? Tom? TOM!
Why the fuck wasn’t it working? I tried Betsy but got exactly the same response. Nadda. Nyet. Zip. I was getting more and more worked up.
There was only one other person I could think of, and that hadn’t exactly worked for me back at the park.
“Solus? I really need you. Please?”
My voice echoed against the metal walls of the vehicle.
“Solus?”
Something thumped against the wall next to me and a muffled voice shouted out. It wasn’t Corrigan. “Shut up back there!”
Damnit. I was completely out of options. Perhaps the shifters had gotten hold of some kind of nullifying spell from the mages? The numbing around my hands would certainly suggest that. To be sure, I gingerly tried Corrigan.
Hello?
For a moment there was silence and I thought my suspicions had been confirmed about the spell. But then he answered, flatly.
You’re awake.
I cursed. Why could I use the Voice on him but not on the people I actually wanted to talk to?
We have a lot to discuss, kitten.
I didn’t bother answering. He sighed in my head and I felt the mild pressure of his Voice vanish. I realised that my fingers were still digging into my hands. I uncurled them slowly, stretching them out as I did so. Think, Mack, I thought. There had to be something I could do that would keep the Cornish pack safe. Corrigan just had to ask any of them directly whether they’d known I wasn’t a shifter and they’d be compelled to answer in the affirmative. Hell, he didn’t even have to use his Voice or travel to Cornwall to do so. He’d just have to walk to the next room and speak to Tom and Betsy. No, pretending that they didn’t know wasn’t an option.
I thought hard. I could go down the geas route. And that was actually true – the entire Cornish pack had been physically forbidden from revealing my true nature. If I could appeal to Corrigan’s better side then he might just be lenient. It wasn’t their fault that they hadn’t informed the Brethren of my presence. Leniency was not something that I’d ever heard of the shifter overlords practising, however. I tried to formulate arguments in my head. It occurred to me briefly that I wouldn’t have much time to persuade Corrigan and the whole of the Brethren not to maim or kill the Cornish pack and to release me. I was pretty sure that because we were still travelling that I’d not been knocked out for long, but I still didn’t have much time before I was bound to return to the mages. I had absolutely no doubt that they’d leave Mrs Alcoon to rot without a second thought if I didn’t get back to them before the twenty four hour period was up.
The vehicle lurched over a bump in the road and I went flying onto my face, scraping the very same cheek that the stupid mage guard had earlier attempted to torture. I yelled involuntarily out in pain. I rolled onto my back and struggled to lift myself back up. I was damned if I was going to let them open the door and find me flailing around on the floor like a bloody fish out of water. The uneven floor gave me an idea, however, and I tried to scrape my face against it to pull the blindfold off of my eyes. If I could see at the very least, then I’d have something to start with. It was unfortunate that opening up the wound on my cheek and allowing it to bleed would have no effect on my prisoner status this time, however. All my experience thus far had proven that whatever strange powers my blood had, they had little effect on the real world. The shifters rarely had to use magic to get their point across – they had sharp teeth and claws to manage that.
I kept trying to snag the blindfold on something and get it off. My cheek scraped painfully against something sharp and I winced in pain as I felt the warm trickle of blood against my face. I did my best to ignore it, however, and tried again. Eventually I managed to pull it halfway up my forehead, revealing one eye.
“Probably look like fucking Captain Hook,” I muttered to myself.
At least I could see now though. I took in my surroundings, realising that I was in the back of what was some kind of small van. In the corner were some pots of paint and boxes but other than that it was empty. I wondered if I should take some small hope from the fact that the Brethren didn’t seem to have a regular prisoner transport vehicle.
Kicking out with my legs, I managed to manoeuvre myself back to a sitting position. I could feel the van braking slightly and slowing, and then the crunch of gravel under the wheels. We came to a complete stop. My stomach flip-flopped but I kept the flames away. It was showtime.
Chapter Twenty One
The back doors to the van were flung open, banging against the metal sides. I had half hoped – and half dreaded – that it would be Corrigan, but it was the were-tiger instead, newly returned to human and wearing a fresh set of clothes. Did the Brethren keep spare wardrobes with them everywhere they travelled, I wondered? It hadn’t really been much of a problem in Cornwall; generally if someone was going to shift then they knew in advance and came prepared. It wouldn’t do if some local yokel came across a bunch of naked people in the middle of the woods. Soberly, it occurred to me that it had probably been the same today with these guys though. They’d been expecting to shift because they’d been expecting to capture me. Unfortunately it had worked.
As he was climbing into the van, with one of the shifters who’d remained human, I called out. “I want to talk to Corrigan.”
They both completely ignored me.
“Hey! Where’s the boss? I need to speak to him.”
I didn’t even get a flicker of a response. Damn, he’d trained them fucking well.
“If you’re going to get me out of this van, you’re going to have to untie my legs at the very least.”
The weretiger simply moved towards me and began pulling at the hem of my jeans, dragging me until I was almost at the exit f the van. A stray lock of hair was irritatingly falling across my one uncovered eye and I blew at it to try to move it out of the way so that what little vision I had was unimpeded. The tiger grinned at me, displaying a set of very white even teeth, and then yanked the blindfold back down again so that I was plunged back into darkness.
“What?” I sputtered, injecting as much disbelief into my voice as I could. “You think I don’t know where we are? How stupid do you think I am?”
The only place that I could possibly be being transported to was the Brethren’s headquarters, the keep. I’d seen it in pictures – and of course – been in Corrigan’s bedroom – and knew something of the layout from growing up with the Cornish pack. We may not have had much to do with the Brethren directly, but we still knew where to go when there was a problem so of course I was perfectly aware of where the keep was.
I felt my torso being yanked forward, and the waft of cold air against my face as I was pulled outside. Then I was unceremoniously dumped over a shoulder – the were-tiger’s I presumed, and carried in perhaps the most undignified fashion that I could possibly imagine. My trussed up hands dangled down towards the ground banging against the back of my captor’s legs, whilst one of his arms was tightly gripping round my thighs. Jeez, it was not as if I was going to be able to run away.
“Kind of overkill, don’t you think?”
The only answer I got was the sound of gravel as several people moved in the same direction. At one point, a loose stone ricocheted up and smacked me against the wound in my cheek. I swore, loudly, but again elicited absolutely no reaction from anyone.
“Corrigan? Are you there? Look, you just need to let me explain…”
Finally, there was an answering voice that growled at me. “You will address him as the Lord Alpha.”
Oh for fuck’s sake. These bloody megalomaniacs and their sodding titles. I wasn’t exactly in much of a position to argue however.
“Okay,” I said soothingly, “I’m sorry. Lord Alpha, please give me five minutes and you’ll understand. This was all my doing. Nobody else had anything to do with it. Nobody else had a choice – they were under a geas not to reveal that I wasn’t a shifter.” I aimed for logic. “And as I’m not a shifter you really have no right to take me prisoner.”
I waited for a moment for a response. The shifters had clearly reverted back to ignoring me. The were-tiger walked up some steps, causing my head now to thump repeatedly against the back of his legs. I tried to twist it to the side to avoid causing any more friction or damage to my cheek but I didn’t have a lot of wiggle room with which to move myself. I probably should have taken up yoga or something, I thought miserably. Maybe if I was just a little bit more flexible then I’d be able to do some amazing twisting trick that would free myself from this ignominious situation. Some big scary badass dragon I was turning out to be.