AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It makes sense why Mark and Henry dragged Nora into this.” Cade grimaced as Derrick passed a linen cloth over his wound. “They must have known you were setting something up and grabbed the first person they knew couldn’t be connected with the CEB.”
My gut lurched at the mention of Mark and Henry. I didn’t want to think of Mark’s helpless yip when I released my spell and for all I knew, Henry was dead back in that factory. It occurred to me that Derrick and Cade had probably checked all factories and mills in the vicinity, but wherever I had been, it was deep in the forest.
Maybe there was a forgotten town hidden back there, lost to history, and the traffickers had seized on its proximity to the Leslie manor. When I voiced this, both men glanced at me, looking a little startled by the change in topic, but Cade at least sent me a rueful smile and dipped his chin.
“We’ll make a Constable of you yet,” he said.
Derrick poured a flask of something over Cade’s wounds and the man tensed, hissing out a breath of pain. Without looking up, Derrick said, “We have been hiking through the woods hunting for just that, Nora. The problem is there’s only the two of us and several hundred miles of land.”
“It would help if you could remember anything of the landscape,” Cade said through clenched teeth.
I frowned and tried to dredge up memories, but everything was still a haze. A memory rune might help, but with the runestone in place there was no means for me to try drawing one and even if I did, the drugs that had been in my system were likely to cause interference. “I was unconscious for most of it, and what I do remember is centered on Malcolm.”
“It was worth a shot,” Cade said.
“What I don’t get is why Maureen wouldn’t confront Derrick about it when we got here. Assuming she knew this whole time that he was investigating her, why remain pleasant?”
Derrick glanced at me with a smirk. “You think she’s been pleasant?”
“Thread the needle next,” Cade instructed, and Derrick dried his hands on a clean bit of linen. The pile of soiled linens by the cot was ever-growing. Then, Cade glanced at me. “My guess is, she wants something from us. Or at least from the CEB.”
I frowned, dubious, and he seemed to read my skepticism because he went on; “Werewolf politics are extremely family oriented. They aren’t allowed to turn against one of their own, no matter what that wolf might be doing. Maureen has to handle everything in house, out of the public’s eye, or nobody would follow her.”
Derrick slid a fine bit of thread through the eye of his needle after the third or fourth try, but he stopped at this to look at Cade. “You think she knows who the warlock traffickers are.”
Cade nodded once. “She knows and she can’t do anything about it, not without looking weak to the Leslie clan.”
“Assuming Delilah is one of them, then she is working to take down her own daughter,” I said, trying to replay the last few days in my mind. “I suppose that fits. Everything I’ve seen between the two of them speaks of rivalry and discontent.”
Cade took the needle and thread from Derrick and frowned. “Unless I am wrong, and the rivalry is a front. Then they’re in it together.”
“Either one is possible,” Derrick admitted with a frown. “Let’s not rule out the idea that they could have been partners and now one of them is trying to overthrow the other.”
Sitting back in the chair, I turned the idea over in my mind. Brock was innocent, I would stake my life on it. His surprise was real when I fell over in the study, which meant Delilah hadn’t told him what was going on. And Maureen had been startled when Derrick asked her about the runestone. I supposed it was possible that Delilah was trying to cut her mother out of the Alpha seat and take over the trafficking ring in one fell swoop. Nobody would believe Maureen had no idea what was going on a few miles from her own home, after all.
“Maybe Delilah always meant for me to be rescued. Maybe she drugged me and had me taken to that awful place with the intention of luring one of you into finding the factory, but she got Malcolm instead,” I suggested, but it was a flimsy thought at best, and I acknowledged this. I also had to admit that every part of me wanted Delilah to be guilty as sin. At best, she played fast and loose with my life, and at worst, she meant to sell my parts on the black market. Either way, I sincerely wanted to break her nose. “How did I get out of the manor, anyway? Someone had to notice.”
Derrick wiped a line of blood away from Cade’s wound. “We suspect that there’s a hidden passage somewhere in the manor. We just can’t find it.”
I thought of the immense manor with all its rooms and corridors. “I was in the library when I was drugged. I don’t suppose it could have been in there?”
“No, I checked the library. Twice.” Derrick said. “Once before you got here, and once right after you were discovered missing.”
“Perhaps it’s glamored?” I suggested.
“Constable tattoos have a means of negating glamor,” Derrick said.
“Oh,” I said, feeling foolish. “How handy.”
Avoiding the sight of Cade’s blood, I stared at the rough floorboards and took a steadying breath. “Then maybe Lord Malcolm spotted someone using the tunnel and followed.”
Derrick nodded, though most of his focus was on Cade’s wounds. “That’s possible.”
“Once we’re done here, I can try to backtrack from where I found them,” Cade said. “But I doubt I’ll find much. The pack tore through the forest last night and it’ll be difficult pinpointing which trail is Malcolm’s.”
Images of Malcolm’s body bubbled to the surface before I could stop them. It was eerie to think how close he’d been when he died. When I woke with Cade beside me, we were clearly on Witches Walk, near where those horrible lights had been, and Malcolm’s body was scant feet away. That meant I either hadn’t run as far as I thought, or the creature that had been hunting us carried Malcolm’s body in the pursuit.
Pressing a palm to my gut, I tried to shove those images from my mind. I didn’t want to think of him dead. I didn’t want to think of him fighting to save me, or the way he called Derrick charming, or the way he gloated over Derrick’s mother beside the lake. The man was so full of contradictions it was hard to grapple with them all, but he deserved better than to have his corpse dragged through the forest like an afterthought.
