Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(53)
Author: Patricia Briggs

Brutal but effective. The black magic dissipated – but the salt burned in her open wounds. She cried, but seemed to be too deeply under the influence of whatever her kidnappers had fed her to make too much noise. Charles smelled ketamine and something else.

"We could have thrown her in the ocean and fished her back out," Hally told them. "But the cold wouldn’t have done her any good. Better leave the salt on. A half hour should be long enough, but longer won’t hurt. It’ll also stave off infection."

They bundled Lizzie back up and Charles picked her up, to her evident distress, even with whatever drugs they’d given her in her system. She hadn’t been in their hands long – a little more than a full day – but she’d been tortured and who knew what else. Males were not anything she wanted to deal with.

But Anna couldn’t change back, and Leslie, though in good shape, was human, and not capable of carrying Lizzie all the way back to the boat.

Charles tried singing to her, the same song her father had been singing. Beauclaire – and Malcolm – joined in, and the music seemed to help.

Goldstein had used a stick and a strip off the bottom of his cotton dress shirt to splint Beauclaire’s wrist. And when they started up the stairs, he wedged a shoulder under the fae’s arm and helped steady him, having evidently decided Beauclaire would be his personal responsibility. Beauclaire shot Charles the ghost of an amused look, and let himself be helped – possibly a little more than he really needed.

Isaac was obviously in pain, panting with stress, but he got to his feet and followed, Malcolm walking steadily beside him. Charles kept a close eye on them for a while – wolves could be a little unpredictable when a more dominant wolf was injured. It was a good time to eliminate the dominant and take his place. It didn’t usually happen when an even more dominant wolf like Charles was around to keep the peace and protect the pack, but better to be safe. Happily, Malcolm seemed honestly concerned about his Alpha.

Anna ranged, sometimes walking beside Charles, but mostly trotting in a wide circle around them, looking for danger. Leslie took rear guard, her gun out and ready to shoot. Hally walked in front of them, leading the way as she mostly ignored them all.

They staggered and stumbled, wounded but triumphant, singing the old Welsh folk song "Ar Lan y Mor." And if there was something odd about returning from battle singing about lilies, rosemary, rocks, and – for some reason he’d never fathomed – eggs, of all things, by the sea, well, then the three of them made it sound pretty good and only he and Beauclaire knew Welsh.

Chapter 10

On the boat, Charles stretched out his legs and tried to ignore the lingering ache of that last change. Anna had tried sitting several different places, but the human seats were too narrow and the wrong shape. The ledges she’d used on the way over were slick, and instead of using her claws to dig into the fiberglass, she slid around with the motion of the sea. Finally she’d heaved a huge sigh and curled up by his feet on the deck.

Beauclaire had forbidden any questioning of his daughter until she’d seen a doctor. Goldstein and Isaac had elected to stay behind until the various agencies summoned arrived on the island. Malcolm told them that he’d decided Beauclaire and the wolves might need rescuing when he heard a boat leaving the island. Charles felt safe enough making the assumption that the horned lord they’d fought had left in that boat. Which would mean that very little danger remained – but it was good that Isaac had stayed anyway, just to make sure everything was okay.

Charles rather suspected that Isaac had decided to put off the boat trip until he felt better, though he’d felt good enough to change back to human. Hally was staying with Isaac to make sure that the residual magic didn’t get a grip on any of the forensic people who were going to go over the island with a fine-tooth comb.

So the boat was a lot emptier on the way back than it had been on the way over.

Leslie left Beauclaire in the back half of the boat to sit beside Charles.

"She’s in pretty rough shape," she said, sitting precisely on the edge of the seat. "There will be an ambulance waiting for us at the Daciana’s regular berth."

The FBI agent looked a little less than professional, wrapped in a blanket from the boat, her hair windblown. Like Charles and Anna, she’d been up for a little more than twenty-four hours. Lack of sleep and lack of the subtle makeup that had worn off sometime while running around the island added years to her face.

It intrigued Charles that she chose to sit next to him with so many seats available.

"You aren’t afraid of me?" he asked.

Leslie closed her eyes. "Too tired to be afraid of anything. Besides, if you could see my husband, you’d understand that it takes a lot to scare me."

That sparked his curiosity. "How is that?"

"Linebacker for the LSU Tigers for three years in college," she said without opening her eyes. "Hurt his shoulder his senior year or he’d have gone pro. He’s six-five and two hundred forty-two pounds. None of it is fat, not even now. He teaches second grade." She looked at him. "What are you smiling about?"

Charles opened his eyes wide. "Nothing, ma’am."

She smiled a little. "Jude says he loves the kids better than he ever did football. But he coaches the local high school team anyway."

"You didn’t come over here to tell me about your husband," he said.

"No." Leslie looked at him and then away. "How old are you?"

"Older than I look," Charles said. "A lot older."

She nodded. "I’ve asked around about you. We have some werewolves who talk to the FBI. They tell me that you’re a detective for all the wolves. You come in and solve crimes."

He wondered if that was all they’d told her – and thought it probably was. He didn’t respond because he didn’t know if agreeing with her was more of a lie than disagreeing with her would be.

"And you know a lot about this world that we’re just learning about. We got Lizzie out of their hands because you knew to bring in witches – and because that witch was scared enough of you to behave herself."

That was fair enough. He waited for her to get to the point.

"Lizzie says that there were three of them," Leslie told him. "Two young men and an old man. One of the young men called the old guy ‘uncle’ before he was shut up. The old man made the cuts on her skin. Both of the young men raped her first, ‘while she was still pretty.’ They told her the old man preferred women after they were broken."

He’d hoped that they had gotten to her soon enough to spare her that, but he’d been pretty sure they hadn’t.

"I thought Beauclaire had refused to have her questioned," Charles said. He’d heard Lizzie talking, but Leslie didn’t need to know just how good his hearing was.