The temperature around me changed abruptly as we suddenly moved inside. The chill of winter had given way to a very cosy interior. No expense spared on central heating here, I thought sourly. Not like the Brethren’s minions freezing their arses off out in the depths of rural England. There was the murmur of voices ahead of us that suddenly hushed as they no doubt caught glimpse of my fabulously rounded bottom on display to the world. I hear a whisper to the left of me and, although I couldn’t make out what was said, I managed to swing my hanging arms up for just a second to give the owner of the voice the finger. There, that’d teach them. Things might be looking incredibly bad right now but I was damned if I was going to let them think that they’d cowed me into submission.
Before too long, the were-tiger was changing his gait again as we started travelling downstairs. Excellent. I was being taken to the actual dungeon. Images flooded my head of a dark slimy place filled with rusty manacles and nibbling rats. At this point in time it wouldn’t surprise me. I bet myself that the dungeon didn’t have central heating.
We turned round, moving down some kind of spiral staircase. From behind a closed door I heard the murmur of voices and I strained to listen. I might not be able to use the Voice on either Tom or Betsy but I could use my normal voice if I could get hold of them. We were past the sound too quickly however for me to make any kind of distinction. My hands and feet were both starting to feel numb. I began to worry that I’d suddenly be plonked upright on the floor and would just slide humiliatingly down, unable even to make myself stand up. I needed to show the Brethren that I had strength and power. If I could garner their respect, then maybe they’d feel some qualms about killing me. And if they couldn’t bring themselves to kill me, then they could hardly hurt the Cornish pack either. I’d lived with shifters for most of my life; I knew that vulnerability was considered a weakness and was looked down upon. Hell, half the reason that I’d been tolerated by the human haters in Cornwall had been because they knew that I could take any one of them in a fight. They might not have liked me but, because of what I could do, they respected me.
From my ungainly position, I tried to wiggle my fingers and toes and will some life back into them. There was a brief tingling sensation but little else. I considered trying to spark back some of my green fire again, but then decided against it. Even if I could muster a few flames up, the odds of being able to get myself out of the Pack’s headquarters alive were pretty much zilch. Besides which, the big secret that I’d been trying to hide from the shifters had already been revealed to the world; I’d have to find some way to get on their good side if I had any hope of everyone I knew not being ripped apart. Setting my captors on fire would not help.
My head was banging painfully against the shifter’s back, despite my best efforts to keep it up, and I was starting to feel a little dizzy at being upside down for so long. Every step down that the tiger took seemed to send a new shot of pain to some previously undiscovered part of my body. My breath hissed out through my teeth when the edge of my hip caught what I assumed was the edge of a banister. At least that meant that were back on flat ground. A strong woody, almost floral, scent reached my nostrils that belied my expectations of a slimy dank dungeon. That alone would have made me certain that we still had a ways to go before we reached our destination, but I heard the distinct rattle of a doorknob being turned in front of me and the were-tiger began to slow slightly, before stopping altogether. I tensed up, trying to tighten my calf muscles to avoid collapsing to the ground as soon as I was let down, and clenched my teeth in preparation for the inevitable burst of pain as I hit the ground. The tiger’s muscles equally shifted and I felt an arm moving round my waist and pulling me off his shoulder and onto the floor.
My knees buckled slightly and I felt myself swaying towards the ground, teetering on the brink between managing to stay upright and ending up sprawled on the ground. A hissed sigh of exasperation came from somewhere to my right and a steely hand gripped my forearm and jerked me upwards. I scowled in annoyance.
“I don’t need your fucking help,” I spat, and then instantly regretted the outburst as clearly I was going to need some help to get myself out of this situation.
Naturally, however, silence rebounded back at me. I sensed the were-tiger leaving, without saying a single word. That meant that I was alone with Corrigan. Okay, I could work with that. I’d remind him of how I helped defeat Iabartu and bring peace back to shifter world, without mentioning of course that it had been me she’d been after in the first place. I briefly thought of the knee weakening closeness we’d shared in his bedroom and wondered if I could also use that to my advantage.
A pair of hands reached around the back of my head and tugged at my blindfold, eventually yanking it painfully off from around my head. The sudden blast of unnatural light hurt my eyes and blinked hard a few times, beginning to speak.
“Corrigan, look, I….”
“What makes you think the Lord Alpha wants to waste his time being here in person?”
I jerked, my eyes eventually adjusting to make out the features of the figure in front of me. Fucking hell, it was Staines. A wave of hurt anger swept through me. After all that, the big man himself couldn’t be arsed to come and interrogate me? That prick. And he’d left me with Staines who’d never liked me.
I eyed him warily, managing to respond with a calm voice. “I apologise for the confusion. Given that the Lord Alpha,” the title stuck in my craw but I swallowed it down and continued on, “came to bring me in himself, I had expected that he would be the one here to question me. But of course I am delighted to see you again.” I managed a half smile in the direction of burly were-bear.
He growled at me and leaned forward. “Let’s cut to the chase. Did you murder the alpha of the Cornwall pack?”
I blinked in shock. Err… what? “What are you on? That was Iabartu. You were there, remember? At least for part of it, anyway, I’m sure you heard about the rest. She was this demi-goddess? Floated above the ground? I tried to kill her and would have if your Lord Alpha hadn’t gotten involved.”
“It appears that the official version of events may not be as straight forward as we had once believed. After all, you’re not even a shifter.” His voice remained even and steady but there was a definite underlying tone that promised menace and pain. “Were you in cahoots with the demi-god?”
Cahoots? Dear god, what century was this guy from? “No.”
“Then why does it appear that there was some sort of link between the two of you?”
I swallowed. Link? I’d thought all tracks leading in that direction had been covered. “Look, you’ve got Tom and Betsy from the Cornish pack here. They were there, they know what happened. Just ask them. You’ll know when they are telling the truth.”
“Oh don’t worry, Miss Smith, we are talking to them.”
The glint in his eyes sent an involuntary tremor of fear for them through my body. The tone if his voice didn’t make it sound as if they’d be sitting for a little old chinwag over afternoon tea. Fuck it, I’d been an idiot to bring them up.
I sighed heavily and looked him in the eye. “They don’t have anything to do with this. They were just there by dint of fate. If there is any fault to be had, any blame to be placed, then it needs to go on my shoulders.”
Staines stayed silent and just stared at me.
“I was not working with Iabartu. I did not murder John. Yes, I’m not a shifter, I’m sorry, but that’s no-one else’s fault but mine. The others, the Cornish pack, they didn’t have a choice. It was a geas and they couldn’t say anything if they wanted to. And I left them anyway. They made me leave. Anton made me leave because I’m not a shifter. So they did the right thing – it’s just me who messed up.”
I was aware that I starting to babble.
Staines opened his mouth. “Why was a mage trying to pass herself off as a shifter? What did you hope to gain?”
Disbelievingly, I shook my head at him. “I’m not a mage! The mages don’t even fucking like me. I have to go back there in less than twenty four hours and become their effective prisoner because they don’t like what I did to them.” The familiar swirl of heat was starting to rise up. At least that meant my body was starting to recover somewhat.
“You can shoot fire from your fingertips and you expect me to believe that you’re not a mage?”
“I don’t know why that happens!” I touched the necklace at my throat. “This weird Scottish lady put this on me and then all of a sudden the green fire happened. It doesn’t mean I’m a mage!”
“You can transport yourself at will into highly guarded buildings.”
“That was a – friend of mine who was messing around!” I was going to fucking kill Solus if I ever saw him again.
“You can go into a fight against otherworlders, including at one point, I might add, the future alpha of a local pack, and win.”
“I work out! I’ve trained for years! That doesn’t make me a fucking mage!”
A deep voice suddenly smoothly spoke from behind me. “So, kitten, if you’re not a mage, then what are you?”
My stomach dropped with a horrifying lurch and I turned to face Corrigan. It irked me that I was very much aware that I was covered in dried blood, wearing smelly old clothes, and looking like I’d been squatting in an abandoned house and then unsuccessfully trying to attack the might of the magic otherworld before being set upon by a group of shifters in broad daylight. But, oh wait, that’s what I had been doing. I peered at Corrigan and noted heavy dark shadows under his eyes and a pallor to his normally tanned skin. At least I wasn’t the only one who was looking a bit worse for wear then at least. I forced myself to stay calm and keep my recovering bloodfire to a minimum. I needed him on my side.
“I’m nothing, my Lord. Just…nothing,” I answered, hoping that the tremor stayed out of my voice.