Pack Ruin (The Splintered Bond #3)

19. Ghost Stories

19

Ghost Stories

FLOR

“ F aster. We have to go faster!” I woke up shouting.

Glen’s eyes glowed faintly blue in the dark cab of the truck. For some reason, we’d stopped, and I knew we would be too late to save… who? For some reason, the word everyone echoed in my mind.

Glen’s voice was intense, but quiet. “Flor, what’s wrong? Are you awake?”

“Where are we?” I sat up and glanced around. The sky outside the slightly cracked windshield was beginning to blush pink along one edge, and trees surrounded us. It was morning, which meant we were there, or almost. But when I craned my neck to look around, I didn’t recognize this part of the forest, or the gravel path we were on. It wasn’t wide enough to qualify as a road, and the kudzu was so thick here, the whole landscape was covered with a thick blanket of camouflage. “How long have we been here?”

Glen reached into the back seat for our packs. “I just pulled over. You slept through Louisiana and Mississippi. We’re halfway across Alabama now, on the back road that you said leads to the hunting grounds. It’s time to ditch the truck and go on foot.”

“Got it,” I whispered, unbuckling my seat belt. On the seat next to my leg, the journal lay, the latch on the front closed again. “Did you read?—”

Glen shook his head. “I shut it when you fell asleep. What did you find out?”

“So much,” I said, my mouth dry. “I’ll tell you on the way. We have to hurry.”

“Is it Luke?”

I nodded. “Not just him. It’s… I think Grigor is dying, too.”

“Good riddance,” Glen muttered, opening his door, then racing around to open mine. “One less magic-wielding serial killer in the world.” When I flinched, I felt Glen’s remorse in the bond, but it was mixed with a good dose of stubborn caution.

I got out and placed a hand on his chest. If he hated magic that much, I had some bad news for him. “Glen, I need to tell you what I read.”

“We’re still thirty miles from the border of the hunting grounds.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, then handed me my pack. “We can talk while we walk.”

“While we run,” I corrected. “Or we won’t be there in time.”

For the first few miles, I panted out the story, glad Glen’s shifter hearing was keen enough that I didn’t need to shout. I could feel him taking it all in, the bond between us humming with wonder and a little fear, when he realized who I was. Who I was related to, and what that meant.

“Your mother,” Glen whispered, the words as soft as the leaves underfoot. “That has to be why your father hid her from the Council.”

That, plus he was a rat bastard. I nodded as I ran. “He’d have been thrown out of his own pack. He’d have lost his Alpha spot, right?”

“He might have, even if he set her aside.” He thought for a while. “That must be why he hired the Florida witch.”I stumbled at the last two words, and he slowed up to wait for me.

“I know these trees. We’re getting close. We need to run quiet from now on.” We weren’t all that close, but my mind was buzzing, and I needed time to think.

If anyone found out I was the child of a Western shifter, I’d be cast out as a rogue, and all my mates would be as well. I let that bother me for a moment, then shook it off like rain. Del had always reminded me to focus on the fight I was in, not on one that might never happen. I needed to get Luke out of Southern—possibly Grigor, too, if he was as weak as his voice in my dreams had sounded—and then worry about witchy mate bonds.

Anyway, Glen was already a rogue, and I supposed I was technically already in the stink for being mated to more than one Heir. So even if I hadn’t been from shifterkind’s eradicated pack, I was already a good two-thirds of the way up shit creek with no paddles in sight.

Magic. I was magic, at least partly.

I rubbed at my chest, at the scar hidden under my shirt. The journal had all sorts of confusing explanations about mystical markings, and the kinds of scars that magic made. I remembered Sergeant’s scars, all the whorls and patterns that covered him from neck to toe. I’d thought they were tattoos, possibly made with silver, but maybe they weren’t, or at least not just that. Some of the designs had been doodled in the margins of the journal. From the notes, it seemed like he’d been focusing on marks for hiding something, or finding something. If I ever saw him again, and he didn’t turn out to be some asshole traitor or dishonorable possumdick, I’d ask what his were.

I wanted him to be a good guy, more than I should. He was the only blood relative I had in the world, other than Callaway. Well, if he was even still alive.

I reached behind me and touched the sword that was strapped tightly to my back. Sergeant had given me that sword, the one that had belonged to his mother—my great-grandmother—before my first fight. It was perfectly sized for me, and as beautiful as it was sharp.

He’d known who I was, or suspected. There was no other explanation.

I ran without a sound, letting myself focus on the bonds. Glen’s was a bright, solid cord right now. Brand felt muted, but every bit as strong, and there was something that hummed like tiny sparkles along our connection. I had a feeling it was the Mountain pack bonds that were connecting tighter to him as the shifters there took their oaths, making him more powerful.

Glen ran noiselessly behind me for over an hour, and I was impressed at his skills. We heard others in the woods twice, and avoided them successfully—hiding behind a boulder as a group of four unfamiliar males in wolf form loped past a few hundred feet away, and climbing two tall pines as fast as we could when a couple of boys wandered straight toward us not twenty minutes later.

I recognized these two, and for a moment, I was thrown back to the night a few months before, when I’d hidden from the Hunt by the shifter dorms. They were named Bo and Leroy, and were greasy-haired, low-ranked members of Southern. But what were they doing out here on their own?

When they stopped to catch their breath at the base of the tree Glen was in, I listened to find out, the breeze carrying their pungent scents and raspy words clearly.

“Bo, I can’t run no more,” Leroy complained, his voice cracking. “Can’t keep on. We gotta… go back.”

“There’s no back to go to,” Bo hissed, pushing his hair away from his pimpled forehead. His eyes flicked to the branches above him, and I wondered if he’d spotted Glen. But he looked back at his friend without reacting. “We can’t stay at the compound, Leroy, you know that. Even if that fucker Torran don’t give a shit about us, the Flower Arranger’s still in there somewhere. There’s only us left from the Hunt. We’re the only ones still ali—” He stuffed a grimy fist in his mouth and bit down to stave off tears.

I mouthed the words, Flower Arranger , wondering what he was talking about.

“Maybe he ain’t comin’ for us,” Leroy whimpered. “We only hunted her that one time, and we didn’t even wanna catch her. Maybe he knows that, somehow. Maybe he’s gone back down to Hell, done with his killin’.”

“Might’a beens won’t help us now. We oughta just let him catch us; we’re all starvin’ to death.”

I squinted down through the pine needles. Bo wasn’t exaggerating. He didn’t have a shirt on, and his sharp bones stuck out at hard angles. His wrists and ankles were bruised for some reason, and he had belt or whip marks littering the exposed parts of his body.

“Don’t be a pussy, Bo. Anyhow, we’re just as likely to be caught by the Ghost Lady, if we don’t find a place to hole up.” Leroy slumped down to sit on the dry pine needles and dirt at the base of the trunk. “She wanders the hunting grounds every night, lookin’ for her lost mate. If you hear her howlin’, you’re dead before sunup. Two of the Council’s assholes died just like that. They heard that odd howl, then turned up dead the next mornin’.”

Bo leaned over, close to hyperventilating, and put his hands on his skinned knees. “I can’t… I don’t wanna die. I don’t want my guts to be flower petals.”

I glanced across the pine branches at Glen. I could just make out his face, and could tell he was fighting not to laugh. Did he know what these boys were talking about?

At that moment, the breeze shifted direction, and I grimaced.

Leroy sniffed. “I smell somethin’, Bo.” He sniffed again, standing up. “Cinnamon.”

Crap. Was it me? I’d rubbed my arms and legs on some vines and bushes near where we’d left the truck, but I’d been sweating a little as I ran in the heat. I froze as Leroy stood, sniffing the air.

There wasn’t a single sound, not a leaf rustling, or a branch cracking. Just a voice I hadn’t heard in four years, calling out, “Is that my baby? I smelled… I smelled my baby.” And then a long, ghostly howl.

When I saw her, it felt like someone had punched me right in the gut. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even think clearly. At the bottom of the tree stood a ghost. One that looked up and directly at me, her head tilted to one side, her long hair a tangled mess, and her clothing an odd assortment of patched-together hides.

I knew every angle of her face, every line. The hair was different, silver-gray instead of dark curls, but the scars that Callaway had put all over her were the same, crisscrossed silvered marks where her skin had never healed from the endless torture. And the madness in those eyes was exactly like I’d seen the last day I’d seen her, when she’d saved me from Trevor Blackside and warned me to run.

Trevor the toadfucker, who’d taunted me for years with stories of her death. She’d been thrown to the rogues, begging and pleading, he’d said. They’d ripped into her… He’d described it in detail, over and over, just to see me flinch.

He hadn’t been lying, or… Maybe he hadn’t thought he was. She’d been attacked, been dragged off into the woods, but somehow, she’d survived.

Magic, a little voice reminded me. It was in our blood.

I could feel turbulence in my mate bonds, but I pushed it all aside, focusing on the bedraggled form that floated across the forest floor. Mama? I mouthed the word, but no sound came out. Not that anyone could have heard me.

At the base of the pine, Bo was hyperventilating, managing to squeak out, “G-G-Ghost Lady,” before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground.

His friend, to his credit, didn’t run away. Leroy grabbed hold of one of Bo’s limp arms and started dragging him off, begging, “P-please just let us leave. We ain’t babies; we won’t taste good, I swear it. We’re stringy and smelly, and?—”

She cackled, the sound straight out of an old cartoon, then started mumbling something that sounded like “stupid little fucks” before she whistled three notes—the “hey sweetie” call of a black-capped chickadee.

A barred owl answered back, and not five seconds later, an entire group of young male shifters poured into the area under the trees. They wore a combination of deer hides and sweatpants, no shoes at all, and every one of them had a beard as ragged as Mama’s hair.

Where the hell had they come from?

Leroy froze, staring at the group of rogues like he expected them to fall on him and Bo and chop them into stew meat. Instead, one of the males reached into a pocket, pulling out a handful of what looked like jerky. I thought he was going to hand it to Leroy, but he stuck it in his own mouth, gnawing at it, until a voice snapped out from a few yards away, “Duane, drop it.”

“Yes, Alpha,” the young guy barked out, letting the jerky fall to the ground. Leroy’s eyes followed it all the way down, and I thought he might have darted over to pick it up, but I had my eyes on the familiar man who had joined my mother and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Sergeant lifted his head, his eyes meeting my own wide ones. “Why don’t you come on down, Flor? Your mother would like to see you.” I glanced at Glen, who was shaking his head when Sergeant let out a dark chuckle. “You, too, Alpha Heir.”

Glen dropped down before I could, and jogged over to the base of my tree. My legs were weak as a baby lamb’s when I finally stood, facing the group. Glen was wary, his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

The sword Sergeant had given me was strapped to my back and my steak knife sat at my waist, but they might as well have been left in the truck. I was so shocked at the scene in front of me, I couldn’t think.

“Mama?”

She looked up, sniffing, but there was no recognition in her dark eyes. “You’re not my baby.” She pulled away from Sergeant, moving around the area, dropping to sniff at the ground every so often, then moving on.

Two of the males I didn’t know followed behind her, and I took a breath to ask what was going on, but Sergeant shook his head. “They’ve doubled the patrols on this side of the hunting grounds over the past few days. We’ll talk in the cavern.”

“The what now?” I sputtered, but the group was already moving on.

Glen stood firm. “How can we trust you? You deserted your post. You were a part of the corruption at my pa—at Northern.”

Sergeant’s jaw ticked, but he dipped his chin once. “I did desert my post. But I was bound to a vow I made long before the promise I gave your father, Alpha Heir.”

“I’m not the Heir anymore,” Glen murmured. “I’m a rogue.”

Sergeant’s eyes shone. “Then we have that in common. I’m the Alpha of a whole pack of rogues, and I promise you’ll be safe when you’re with us. If you choose to come with us.” His gaze fell on me. “I vow to the moon that I will not harm you, or see you come to harm while you’re in my company.” His words rang with truth.

I could feel Glen’s hesitance, but I squeezed his arm. “Let’s go with him. We need to know what’s up before we head into the compound. Plus, he’s right. You’re both rogues. What’s he gonna do, turn you in?”

Sergeant swallowed, almost nervously. “We have something in common, too, Flor.”

“I know, Uncle,” I said calmly, loving the way his jaw dropped. “Or should I say, great-uncle?” Reaching into my pack, I pulled out the journal. “I’ve read your book.”

Clearly shocked, he took it and turned it over in his hands for a moment, then handed it back. “I’m glad. I’m sure you have questions.”

“You’ve got no idea.” I felt more than one pair of curious eyes on me as Glen and I followed him around a clump of limestone boulders, and through a close-set grove of elms and hackberry bushes. No one spoke, though, and I heard more of the chickadee calls, along with some ravens, owls, and a red-tailed hawk, though that one could have been a real bird.

We walked in silence for fifteen minutes at least, Leroy and a now-conscious Bo both staring at me like I was going to snap and chop off their heads if they so much as blinked. We were in a part of the forest I hadn’t spent much time in when my mother, who’d been at the front of the group, suddenly vanished.

“What the…” Glen breathed.

Sergeant shot him a quelling look, motioning for us to follow.Between a wide pine and a boulder, there was a gap that led to a sharply angled tunnel, leading down into the ground. A sinkhole?

From where we’d stood, you couldn’t even see it, and something about it made it hard to look at. Hard to approach, even, like it didn’t want to be noticed.

Someone cleared his throat softly, and I startled. “Flor?” Glen murmured. “What is it?”

“Magic, I think,” I replied in a whisper. Moving forward, I nodded at the male who stood by with a screen of leaves and branches, obviously planning to obscure the entrance after we’d gone inside.

I was the only one who didn’t have to duck my head to walk inside the long, narrow tunnel. There was no light to see where we were going, only the sounds of feet scraping on rock, and breathing. The walls grew cooler as we descended, and I even felt my ears pop at some point, but it wasn’t until we’d been walking slowly for at least five minutes, that I realized I could see.

The shifters who’d come in with us whisked Bo and Leroy off to one side, going in the direction of what smelled like smoked meat. I ignored them for now, taking in my surroundings.

I’d never imagined this was here. Del had never found it, as far as I knew. No one in Southern knew anything about this place.

The cavern we’d reached was at least two hundred feet across, and a hundred feet deep, the ceiling covered with glittering stalactites that sparkled and shone in the reflected light of a small campfire. There were about thirty shifters here, none of them in wolf form, but the scent of wolf urine and scat was strong, especially to my left, where a long tunnel disappeared into darkness. A latrine, possibly.

Del had taught me to assess every new place I found myself in for ways to escape, weapons to use. Other than the way we’d come in, I had no idea how to get out of here. The ceiling of the cave was at least fifty feet overhead, and the tunnels my eyes made out could lead anywhere, or nowhere.

But weapons weren’t going to be a problem. The walls were lined with them: swords, daggers, pikes, spears, and knives. Some of the weapons were homemade, mop handles with crude steel blades duct taped on, or screwed in. Some of them were antiques, it looked like.

I blinked at a stack of swords, then sniffed. “Those are actual silver blades,” I muttered. “Real ones.”

“Holy shit,” Glen whispered. “What is this?”

Sergeant walked toward the fire, offering us seats on the wide flat stones around it. “This is your mother’s pack, Flor,” he said, pouring water from a wine bottle and handing me and Glen each a cup. The rest of the males in the cavern moved closer, surrounding us. Glen’s warm leg against my own cold one was all that kept me from wanting to bolt. “Welcome home.”

“Home?” I choked, setting down the cup.

Sergeant shrugged and waved at the room. “You’re the Heir. This will be your inheritance.”