I prayed it would be ours.
Chapter Three
All eyes were on my father when he strolled into the foyer behind me. Conversations stopped. Mouths gaped. Growls echoed.
The pack wasn’t too thrilled with his presence, especially after what had gone down the last time he’d been in the mansion. He’d been beaten within an inch of his life, or at least that was how it had looked when he’d come to our aid with the fey. I hoped they weren’t planning to try and finish the job.
“Easy, boys,” I said, putting my hands up. “No killing the warlock today.”
“Today?” Reinhardt said with a hint of amusement—the same amusement I used to hear in his voice when he’d train me—when I’d thought he was just my uncle.
I shrugged. “Jury’s still out on your fate.” He stiffened until a slight smile tugged at my lips. “Anyway...” I said, addressing the others. Foust, Jagger, and Brunton had made their way to the front of the crew and looked at me expectantly. They knew me well enough to know I rarely came bearing good news. “Where’s Knox?”
“Upstairs,” Foust answered. “Why? What’s going on?”
“She’s hearing voices,” Reinhardt said on my behalf.
“Pretty sure nobody asked you.” Brunton took a step closer to my father, anger brimming in his harsh stare.
“Are you feeling okay?” Jagger asked. Before I could answer, he said he was going to get Knox and disappeared up the stairs.
“I’m not hearing voices like that,” I said, shooting my father a nasty glare. “I’m hearing voices these two can’t hear.” I indicated Reinhardt and Grizz. Foust and Brunton shared a look of concern, then turned back to me. “No! Not like that! Like, I think they just literally can’t hear them.”
“I’m not sure you’re pleading your case that well,” Foust said. He had the decency to look apologetic for politely calling me nuts.
“Why are you pleading your case at all?” Kat asked as she sashayed into the crowd. She took one look at Reinhardt and her eyes narrowed. “Last time I checked, you’re a grown-ass woman who can bring the world to its knees, Piper, and bitches like that don’t plead their case to anyone. Ever. Is that understood?”
“Who wants to tell me why Jagger just came running into my room rambling about Piper hearing voices?” Knox hurried down the stairs with the ginger wolf and Liam tight on his heels.
His angry glare fell on my father, and his pace increased. I stepped in front of Reinhardt to defuse the situation before it could pick up where it had left off the last time he’d been there. Neither Merc nor Knox had taken the news of who Reinhardt really was very well. Their anger at my perceived mistreatment was still raw and thick and very much a tinderbox ready to ignite.
And we had other fish to fry.
“I’m not hearing voices, exactly. I heard whispers in the woods, but since these two unhelpful shits,” I explained, pointing to the bear and my father, “didn’t hear them, they think something bad is happening...or maybe I’m officially losing my marbles.”
Knox looked at Grizz and Reinhardt, then back at me. “What did the voices say?” I told him what I’d recognized, and he swore under his breath. “Well, there’s only one way to find out what’s going on.” He headed for the front door, a line of wolves trailing behind him. Kat grabbed my hand and pulled me along until we were outside, assembled in the front yard.
“Where were you?” Knox asked.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Merc?”
Knox shook his head. “He’s gone, and I don’t want to wait. If we hear the voices too, then we’ll call him back to the mansion. If none of us can…” The way he trailed off made me nervous.
“We’ll chalk it up to Piper being Piper...or we’ll lock you in a padded room,” Kat said with a wink. “But don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get conjugal visits.”
Before I could slap her arm, Knox, Foust, Liam, and Brunton all snapped their attention to the woods, ears perked as though they’d heard something. Then their collective gaze slowly turned to me, eyes wide.
“You can hear it, can’t you?”
They nodded.
“Hear what?” Kat asked, frustration in her tone.
“Yeah, I don’t hear anything, either,” Jagger added. One by one, the wolves who’d filed out of the house said the same thing: they couldn’t hear the whispers. Only the Originals could—and me.
My hair bristled at the thought.
The four of them took off at a sprint, tracking the sound deep into the woods. I struggled to keep up until Grizz knocked into me from behind. I fell back onto him and gripped his fur, riding him face down and backward.
“This is not comfortable!” I yelled at him.
He let out an amused snort and carried on until he ground to a halt next to Kat and Jagger. Without the sound of his thundering gait ringing in my ears, I could hear the voices again—and they were much, much louder. I clambered off and wobbled on my feet until I got my bearings.
The rickety bridge of death I had a love/hate relationship with extended before me. The four Original wolves stood in the middle of it and stared down into the gorge. With careful steps, I made my way over.
Piper…it’s time…come with me…
The eerie call was undeniable, and I shuddered with the memory of the last time I’d stood on that bridge, the darkness calling to me, beckoning me to lean forward and plummet into the shallow waters below.
I’d thought it had been my sadness driving my actions that night. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
“What does it mean, Knox?” My words were barely audible over the wind and the river and the voice calling for me to join it, wherever it was.
“I don’t know,” he said, wrapping his arms around me, “but it can’t be good.”
***
Merc and his brothers were waiting by the front door when we returned, eyes narrowed with concern. That didn’t improve once we relayed what they’d missed while they were out trying to amass an army to face the fey.
“And you heard this, too?” he asked Knox.
The alpha nodded. Merc swore under his breath.
“I don’t think it’s the king’s doing,” Knox said. “It didn’t feel like his call, false or otherwise.”
“I don’t think so, either,” I added. “I have a sense of his vibe at this point, and that wasn’t it.”
“I spelled the air this time to see if I could trace an essence of magic back to Larken, but I couldn’t,” Reinhardt said, emerging from the woods behind the rest of us. “I don’t think it is her, though it feels like one of her tricks.”
Merc’s gaze turned murderous. “Perhaps that is just another of your lies.” The ice in his tone made me shiver. “Perhaps that is what you want us to believe.”
“I know her better than any of you,” he argued, coming to stop at my side nearly face-to-face with the vampire king that would have gladly killed him less than 24 hours earlier, “and if this is a ruse, there is nothing I can find that ties it back to her. She is too sophisticated a manipulator to use something so rudimentary and unreliable.” He hesitated for just a second. “I would know a thing or two about how cunning she can be…”