Page 24 of Wretched Thorns

The runes dimmed. Glenn’s body went slack, wrung out, emptied of everything the compulsion could extract.

Jasper stared at Glenn’s twisted face. The cold settled into his bones. Not anger this time. Something worse.

“Silver restraints,” Eli said, rising to his feet. “In the truck. We tie him up and take him. He might be worth something to the Thornwood pack.”

“No,” Jasper said. He met his brother’s eyes. “You used forbidden magics on him. If he ever told anyone —”

“Fuck,” Eli muttered.

“Yeah,” Jasper said. “We have to clean house.”

Jasper had known since they had pulled up to this property that nothing here could be left standing. No evidence. No trail. No breadcrumbs for anyone to follow back to Magnolia Creek.

He sent Eli to the truck.

Eli did not argue. The brothers had done their division of labor on the drive in without saying a word about it, and they did the rest of it now the same way.

Jasper went back inside.

He started with the men he had handled on the way in. The two on the porch. The one he had pinned to the wall. He carried them into the main room of the house one by one, the firefighter way, and laid them out on the floor.

Glenn watched from the kitchen where they had dumped him, silver-bound and wrung out. His corrupted eyes tracked Jasper’s movements with an understanding that turned his gray skin grayer.

“What are you doing?” Glenn said, writhing against his restraints. “Voss. What are you doing?”

Jasper did not answer.

He went to the kitchen drawer. The matches were where matches lived in old country houses, in the drawer by the stove, the strike-anywhere kind. He took the box.

Then he crouched beside Glenn.

“You will heal, maybe,” Jasper said. His voice was conversational. Pleasant. The voice of a man discussing weather. “Corrupted wolf. Occult modifications. Whatever you have pumped into yourself might keep you alive through what is coming. Maybe. Probably.”

He decided to not tell him about the runes Eli had carved on the house on the way out. It was kinder to let him believe he might survive, or perhaps it was more wicked. Jasper wasn’t sure, but it suited him.

He paused. “The men in the next room are less lucky. They knew the risks when they took the contract. Or maybe they did not. Maybe you forgot to mention that part.”

Glenn’s eyes went wide. “You can not — the men —”

“Are dead,” Jasper said. “Easy death. Lucky bastards never saw it coming.” Jasper stood. “You, on the other hand, are going to have a harder time of it. Silver rope and fire do not mix, even for an abomination.”

***

He walked outside. The night air hit him. Heavy with humidity and the iron-salt smell of the barn.

He struck the match against the side of the house.

He did not look back.

Eli was at the truck. The driver’s door was open. Jasper got in. He started the truck. He took the road back the way they had come. Behind them, the property went up.

Jasper pressed at his bonds as he drove.

Callum was at the grove. Somehow, someway he hadn’t been delivered into Beaumont hands. Who was that wolf? It would seem their mother had allies she had never mentioned. What other secrets does she have? The brindle thread of his bond with Callum was loosening by some increment Jasper could not measure but was grateful for none-the-less. The muffled sensation was lifting by degrees.

The other thread. The one made of sunshine and shadow.

Serena’s. Faint. The smallest hum had started. His heart leapt, but he dared not hope. Still, it hummed in his chest the way his own heartbeat hummed. Present. Continuous. Alive.