Meanwhile, the same alpha who’d asked for popcorn was taking wagers. The odds, as best I could tell, weren’t in my favor.
Plus, sand and light continued to swirl around me, Prince, and Hailey. There were rainbows in the luminous particles now, as if water that didn’t exist here was refracting sunlight. Or as if magical power was building, building…
Why hadn’t Hailey finished channeling that magic into her matebrand and from there into Orion?
It wasn’t my sister’s heels dragging, I realized when I craned around further to look behind me. The reluctance belonged to Prince, whose shadow still covered me but who hadn’t spoken the way he’d have to to complete their mate bond.
After all, a partnership was a two-way street. The tattoos wouldn’t settle into Hailey’s skin and allow her to save Orion until Prince accepted her offer.
“I understand your reluctance,” I said, speaking into my lap now. Because it was impossible to fully remove my attention from Orion, my fingers massaging his limbs as if that could somehow prevent the bodily breakdown that was imminent. My words were aimed at Prince, though, when I continued. “I was scared of the matebrand too at first. It feels so alien. But…”
“Hush.” Prince’s hand was gentle as it swiped across my lips, his fingers already threaded with the first faint swirls of matebrand ink. He didn’t need my pep talk. Not when I’d seen how he and Hailey looked at each other back when he saved us from Bellwether the first time. So why was he hesitating now?
He answered my question with his own question. “We’ll use the matebrand to heal Orion, correct?” he asked Hailey, as if that eventuality was in question.
“Of course,” she answered.
Around us, the entire maelstrom of spinning sand became bitter with her lie.
I squinched my eyes shut, trying to understand. Trying to make my usually quick brain slog through the mud that filled it.
Why would Hailey lie about such a thing? What intention could she possibly have other than saving Orion’s life?
Then the aerial sand that had formerly given me a wide berth swept in closer. It slapped my cheek in what seemed to be a carefully calibrated rebuke, steering clear of my eyes so it wouldn’t blind me yet somehow making it extremely clear that I needed to wake up.
I was awake. I was just having a really hard time focusing on anything other than the fact Orion wasn’t breathing.
But the sand’s slap worked. My brain jolted into gear at long last.
And I realized what must have been obvious to Prince from the moment Gabi interjected herself into the proceedings.
We knew Finnegan had been a spy for the Council, so it wasn’t entirely surprising he’d used the half-glyph to break my matebrand. He’d been working with Gabi, who now held a gun to keep all of Orion’s allies and my own away from the tornado of sand and magic. The two of them apparently wanted Hailey to form a matebrand…but why?
Because Hailey was my sister, but that’s not all she was. She was also a Council plant.
I’d considered that scenario previously and dismissed it. Five or six years had seemed like an excessively long time for a teenager to act as a sleeper agent within a werewolf pack. But at the same age Hailey had sworn herself to Vega, I’d been thoroughly under the Council’s thumb. Why should my sister’s resolve be any less?
Which meant today’s entire drama had been carefully orchestrated. No wonder Gabi had demanded a meeting involving me and Orion, Celeste and Finnegan. She must have told Hailey to make sure Prince was there also. Because all six of us were necessary for the prophecy to become a reality.
Lines the desert had spoken using Vega’s tongue reverberated in my head now.
“Where the glyphs lie halved, null shall overlay,
That was Celeste and Finnegan using their half-moon tattoos to break my matebrand and pave the way for the creation of another.
“Sister matebrand formed on the fifty-second day.
That was Hailey and Prince preparing to bind magic into their own bodies. But the date was wrong…or was it?
I’d thought I was finally understanding what it meant to be a werewolf when I paid attention to moon charts in the process of planning nighttime adventures. But had I ever, until this moment, considered the fact that the moon rising later every day meant lunar days didn’t quite match up with solar days? A round of mental calculations resulted in a disheartening conclusion—the fifty-four twenty-four hour periods since I’d first formed a matebrand with Orion matched up with two fewer moonrises.
It had been precisely fifty-two moons since we mated, in fact.
Which meant today was the prophesied deadline I’d thought already uneventfully past us. And, jumping ahead in the poem, perhaps Hailey’s compulsion wasn’t what I’d thought it was either. The Council might not be forcing her hand after all. Instead, her actions today might be compelled by greed. Or the hunger for power. Or maybe just by blind devotion to a Council I’d once been loyal to as well.
Whatever my blood sister’s motivation, the end of that truncated line of prophecy didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that the Council wanted Hailey’s matebrand to congeal for the exact same reason they’d kidnapped and caged my parents. Because outpack magic was immense and could be used in ways I likely hadn’t ever imagined.
No, Hailey hadn’t rushed to form a matebrand to save Orion. To her, Orion was irrelevant. I was irrelevant.
She was acting like a good little Council agent. And the outpack magic was poised to do as she bid.
Chapter 25
Time must have slowed down while my new understanding of the prophecy sank in. Or maybe outpack magic had finally forced my neurons to fire faster than usual. Whatever the reason, rainbow-sharded sand was still swirling when Celeste flicked her index fingers against her thumbs the way we used to while sneaking through Julius’s mansion after bedtime. It meant: Are you paying attention?
I instantly mirrored the subtle fingernail flicking, noticing for the first time how much it made my human digits feel like lupine claws. Past-me hadn’t really understood past-Celeste, I now realized. Hadn’t understood that even though she couldn’t shift, she still had a wolf inside her. But, when my sister pointed first at me then at Gabi before raising her eyebrows in question, present-me understood enough of what present-Celeste was saying now.
So I nodded, trusting this woman who had always been my sister even though she shared none of my fur or DNA. Our eyes met again. Then, in perfect synchrony, we made our move.
She and Finnegan rose as a unit while I slid Orion off my lap and flung myself at Gabi’s weapon. The gun would be the clincher. With it, Prince could be forced into a mating my gut said he wanted even though honor prevented him from accepting Hailey’s offer. It would be so easy to push him over the edge…
Not so easy now. Not when I spun using moves I’d learned from the guys in Vega’s pack rather than from Gabi. Not when I stretched my entire body so my upraised foot connected with the pistol’s metal barrel.
Gabi tried to counter my blow, but it wasn’t one she expected. The weapon turned slippery, evading her grip and flying away to land who knew where.
She’d lost the upper hand. Not that she was ready to surrender.
“Didn’t think you’d leave Orion to die alone,” she countered, her words even better placed than the blow she aimed at my solar plexus. I was still off balance from my own offensive, so both of her strikes landed hard.
