The table fell quiet.
I looked at Hugh. He looked back at me. There was a sharp pain in his eyes. My father had done his damage, tossed him away like garbage, yet here he was, trying to right lifetimes of wrong, and somehow I was the key to it. I felt it. It was like a live wire connecting us.
“I’m sorry about Mishmar,” he said. “I’m sorry about the knights, the castle, all of it.”
Sitting here was excruciating. I wanted to fall through the floor.
Silence stretched.
If I slammed the door in his face now, I would be just like my father. Hugh was the closest thing to a brother I had. We were both raised by Voron under Roland’s shadow. We were both trained to kill and expected to obey without question. We both would’ve done anything for our “father’s” approval. We were both found wanting by Roland, each of us a disappointment. He had no use for us unless we served him.
If it weren’t for my mother’s sacrifice, I would be Hugh now, sitting here, waiting for a crumb of kindness from someone I’d hurt.
The silence was unbearable now.
“I have a comatose dragon in my basement,” I said. “He fought Neig and he might know something that can help us. We’ve been trying to bring him back to life, but nothing has worked. Could you please take a look?”
Hugh nodded. “I can.”
“Thank you.” I got up. “I’ll show you where he is.”
* * *
• • •
HUGH PONDERED YU Fong. Adora watched him from her chair as if he were a rabid dog.
“I’ll have to cut him open,” Hugh said. “There is something lodged inside him.”
“Can you keep him alive?” I asked.
“Yes,” Hugh said.
“You said the other doctor said it couldn’t be done,” Adora said.
“The other doctor isn’t Hugh,” Elara told her. “If my husband says he can heal him, he means it.”
Hugh turned to me.
He could be working with Neig against me. He could be working for my father. He could kill Yu Fong and then laugh at me.
Behind Hugh, Curran leaned against the wall, his gray eyes clear and calm. He didn’t seem to be worried.
Either I trusted Hugh, or I didn’t.
“Go ahead,” I said.
He took a knife from his belt. A dense blue light flared around Hugh and spilled onto Yu Fong, binding them together. Hugh leaned forward and split Yu Fong’s stomach from chest to groin. A sour stench filled the room. Hugh thrust his hand into the wound and drew something bloody out. He dropped it and I caught it before it hit the floor. My fingers closed around blood-slicked bone. An ivory fragment about the length of my forearm, two inches at its widest point.
“What is that?” Adora leaned forward.
“A tooth,” Curran said. “A piece of one anyway.”
“Neig’s tooth?” I thought out loud.
“It would have to be.”
A tremor shook Yu Fong’s body. A bead of sweat broke out on Hugh’s forehead. The glow around him brightened.
“I think we should go,” I murmured.
“I’m staying,” Adora declared.
“Don’t disturb him,” I told her.
We went upstairs single file, first Curran, then Elara, then me. In the kitchen, Elara turned to me. “Thank you for giving him a way to help.”
“Oh, he’ll do a lot more than that,” Curran said. “You’re right. We’re desperate. We will take him and the Iron Dogs.”
“You do know he is a bastard?” I asked Elara.
She tilted her chin up slightly. “I’ve walked through his mind. He is my bastard.”
“Have the witches spoken to you?” I asked.
“Yes. You want to use me as the focus to place your father into eternal sleep. What happens if we fail?”
“We’ll go to Plan B,” I told her.
“And that would be?”
“I’ll kill my father or die trying, which will amount to the same thing.”
Elara studied me. “Do you have the resolve?”
“Trust me,” Curran said, his eyes dark. “Resolve isn’t a problem.”
“We have a more pressing issue. Eventually the Pack will track Hugh down to our house, and Raphael will show up howling for blood. Raphael is a bouda. Hugh’s centurion killed his mother. I killed the centurion, but Raphael isn’t exactly going to bother with the details. He’ll see Hugh and then it will be a bloodbath.”
“We already settled that,” Elara said.
“You did?” Curran asked.
“Yes. Raphael is the dark-haired one in leather?”
“Looks like sex on a stick,” I told her.
“Yes. With the eyes.” She waved her fingers to imitate fluttering eyelashes.
“That’s him.”
Curran looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon.
“He came to see us last fall,” Elara said. “He has a short blond wife.”
What? “Did you talk to her?”
“I did.”
“Excuse me.” I got up, walked to the phone, and dialed the Bouda House. A chirpy bouda answered. “Clan Bouda’s residence.”
“Please tell the alpha that her former best friend is calling.”
“She warned us you would call.”
There was a click and then Andrea’s voice came on the line. “Hey.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Nope, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you were pregnant at the time and had enough shit to deal with.”
I forced the words out. “Why didn’t you tell me after?”
“Because I watched Hugh let Raphael cut him to ribbons. If I’d told you, you’d have dropped everything and went there too, and then Hugh would’ve let you kill him, and then you’d be filled with self-loathing and I’d have to take care of your mopey ass. I have a clan to run, a husband to satisfy, and a daughter to take care of. Call me when you cool off.”
She hung up.
Society frowned on killing your best friend. In this case, it would just have to make an exception.
* * *
• • •
HALF AN HOUR later Hugh staggered out of the basement, his face haggard. He looked like he was about to fall over, but he made it to his chair in the kitchen and drank his cold coffee like it was water. I let him finish.
“He’ll live,” Hugh said. “He’ll sleep for a couple more hours, then he should be fine.”
“Do you want to lie down?” Elara asked him.
He shook his head. “I could use more meat.”
I brought the whole platter and set it in front of him. He took a pancake, stuffed meat into it, and rolled it up.
Curran got up and moved to the front door. I followed.
“What is it?”
“A Pack vehicle.”
Just as predicted. “I’m going to get my sword. If it’s Raphael looking for seconds, please don’t let him in the house.”
“It’s not Raphael,” Curran said.
The horrible racket of an enchanted water engine cut the silence, growing louder and louder, until the familiar Pack van shot down the street past us. The van screeched to a stop, reversed, and expertly pulled into our driveway. The doors swung open. Dali jumped out, took out a wheelchair, and lowered Doolittle into it. Her glasses sat slightly askew on her nose, and she moved with jerky urgency. She grabbed a wooden box, placed it on Doolittle’s lap, and wheeled him to our doors as if she were about to storm a castle.
What the heck was that? Some cure for Yu Fong?
“Where is he?”
“Yu Fong is in the basement. He—”
“Not him.” Dali pushed past me, her gaze locked on Hugh’s broad back. “Him.”
I glanced at Curran. She was always impulsive, but this was taking it to a new level. He shook his head and we followed them into the kitchen.
“Do people just walk into your house like they own the place?” Hugh asked Curran.
“You have no idea,” Curran told him.
Dali set the box on the table in front of Hugh. “I need to know what this is.”