Crimson Dahlia (12 page)

“Morning,
sunshine,” Lila grinned as Ramsey shuffled into the kitchen.

“How
long have you been up?” he asked in a scratchy voice as he reached for the
coffee pot.

“A
while.”

Ramsey
just grunted.

She
hadn’t slept well all night actually. Not that she’d tell him that. Every sound
that came from his room had her wide awake. She’d given up around three a.m. and
had come downstairs to read a novel.

“I’ve
got the new Ultrabook Selene gave us up and running with all the extra security
stuff working. We should be good to go for our video conference this morning.”

Ramsey
buried his face in his coffee cup and just nodded.

Lila
raised an eyebrow. She was usually the grump in the morning. Ramsey was usually
his version of cheerful.

“You
okay?” she asked, but only received a shrug as a reply. She’d expected nothing
less.

Before
long it was time for their call.

“Can
you see us?” Lila asked, as she waved her hand back and forth in front of the
camera.

“Yup.
We’ve got you,” Selene’s voice came across loud and clear. On the screen, the
entire family appeared in what looked like a conference room.

Lila
spotted her sister. “How are you feelin’, Delia?”

Adelaide
smiled. “Much better now. Griffin and Ellie gave me a crash course in
controlling telepathy so that I only hear things when I want to. It still comes
and goes. Apparently Griffin had months of those voices in his head before he
figured it out.”

Griffin
shrugged sheepishly.

“So
you have a theory about why Adelaide now has telepathy?” Ellie asked, getting
straight to the point.

“Oh!
Yeah… I have a couple of things to run by you guys actually. For that one… you
remember when we all helped Selene heal that scarred part inside her and all of
our colors got tangled up?”

“Wait,
what?” Griffin asked.

Selene
took his hand. “Because of all those years of suppression under Gideon, Lila
could see what was sort of like a scar on my soul. The four of us worked
together to fix it, but when we did, all of our powers sort of… tangled up. You
know how Ellie and I see colors for people’s powers? I see it when I’m trying
to turn off their powers, and she sees it when she’s taking over their power?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,
all of our colors twisted up inside me.”

“We
got all that unraveled though,” Ellie said.

Lila
stood and paced a bit. “But what if we each ended up with a little something
from the others inside us? It would explain my sudden power over dreams like
Selene. And Adelaide’s sudden telepathy, like Ellie. Only I guess she doesn’t
have to tap into Griffin for it. Not sure how that works.”

Everyone
was quiet for a few moments, lost in thought.

“Griffin,
have you felt Adelaide drawing on your telepathy?” Hugh asked.

Griffin
shook his head.

Dexter
pushed his face in front of the camera. “What made you think of this?”

“I
think the reason Selene was able to pull me out of my stasis was because I got
her dream control. Hard to explain, but I think I was able to help out from the
inside. Sort of,” Lila explained.

Adelaide’s
bounced a little in her seat. “How great would that be if we all shared each
other’s abilities?”

“Very
cool if we can handle all that power,” Lila agreed.  “One thing still bothers
me, though. We still can’t explain that pulse of energy or whatever it was that
came out of me when Maddox attacked last year.”

“Yeah.
None of us has anything remotely like that as an ability,” Ellie said. She
frowned, thinking.

Lila
glanced at a stoic Ramsey. “It happened again the other night,” she murmured.

“What?
When? What happened?” Adelaide asked.

Lila
peeped again at Ramsey, who raised his eyebrows like ‘you brought it up’.

“Well…
it was the night we were in the woods. I was… irritated with Ramsey—”

“What
about?” Ellie asked.

Lila
just shrugged. “The usual stuff… Anyway. I meant to send a pulse of calm at
him, and instead a pulse of power sort of…” She wrinkled her nose.

“Sort
of what?” Alex asked.

“Sort
of felled a tree,” Ramsey said dryly.

The
entire room burst out laughing. “I would really love to have seen his
expression when that happened,” Adelaide giggled.

Lila
grinned.

“So
what did it feel like?” Ellie asked, once they’d all sobered.

“Like
static electricity all in and under my skin that gathered in my core and then
blasted away from me,” Lila said.

“No
idea what that’s about. For the powers mix up.” Ellie looked at Selene. “I can
only see our own individual colors inside our lights right now. What about
you?”

Selene
frowned. “You’d have to be using your powers for me to see it.” She looked at
Adelaide who obliged. Selene watched her for a moment. “Your yellow light is
shining, so I’m guessing you’re using one of your original abilities?” Adelaide
nodded. “And now there are traces of purple in there.”

“I
tried to add the telepathy,” Adelaide confirmed. “Though not very well.”

“I
see it too,” Ellie agreed. “I wonder if all of us will end up with something a
little more.”

“Any
tricky powers at the beginning that we should be on guard for?” Lila asked.
“Like the loud voices in our heads with the telepathy apparently? Adelaide’s
and my abilities were subtle enough that it wasn’t dangerous or scary when they
started up.”

Adelaide
nodded her agreement.

“Watch
out for my shifting. If you touch another shifter, you might morph suddenly,”
Ellie said.

“Mine
all snuck up on me pretty mildly. If you get my ability to turn off others’
powers, it doesn’t get to a hazardous point until much later,” Selene added.

“All
right, so we watch for each other’s powers. Look out for the shifting one and
the telepathy. Got it,” Lila said.

“And
let each other know if it happens,” Ellie added. The girls all nodded. “You
said you had a couple of things?” she asked Lila.

“Yeah.
So this is for Selene mainly. It’s about her brother.”

Selene
leaned forward. “About Gideon?

Lila
nodded. “While I was held, I learned some things from another prisoner who’d
been there quite some time.” She went on to detail Gideon’s initial inability
to shift and his mentor relationship with Maddox.

Selene
took a moment to digest Lila’s words, “I never knew that. Are you sure it’s
true?”

Lila
shrugged. “I was told by an anonymous prisoner on the other side of a wall. I
had no access to my powers. But it sounded true.”

Selene
nodded slowly, her eyes unfocused. “And that part about Maddox… Maybe I was so
focused on Gideon that I didn’t notice. But I never saw Maddox in that light.
He was brilliant, but always in the background.”

“That’s
not all,” Lila continued. “You know that Gideon eventually could morph to a
wolf. We all saw him. Selene, do you remember when he came into that skill?”

Selene
wrinkled her brow in thought. They waited as she sifted through memories. “I
guess it was around the same time he took over. I remember him standing in the courtyard
one day shifting back and forth and laughing like crazy. My parents were so
proud.”

Lila
nodded. “My cellmate also said that Gideon found a Svatura that could give him
the ability to morph into a wolf.”

Selene
gasped. She jumped up and started pacing the room in agitation.

“Jeez,”
Ellie muttered under her breath. “No wonder you have so many wolves.”

Selene
stopped and spun around. “I don’t believe it.”

“But
think about it, Selene. It makes sense,” Lila argued.

Selene
closed her eyes and then resumed pacing. “But no one has ever talked about
being
turned
. Wouldn’t they say something?”

“What
if they don’t remember?” Alex asked quietly.

Selene
looked up at the ceiling and then made a decision. “Well, I know something we
can do about it right now. Follow me,” she said. And walked out the door.

Everyone
else scrambled to follow her.

 “Wait,”
Lila called as everyone rushed out of sight. “What about us?”

Alex
popped his head back into view. “Call my cell.”

Ramsey
already had the phone out and was dialing. As soon as Alex picked up, he put it
on speaker.

“What’s
going on?” Lila asked.

“I’m
not sure. We’re still following Selene,” Alex replied.

Ramsey
muted the phone. “Do you think this wolf-maker thing is true?”

Lila
shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. But I think Ellie’s right.”

“About?”

Lila
leaned back in her chair. “Think about it. There’s no way there could be that
many wolf meta-morphs naturally. Have you ever seen more than a handful of any
other shifters of the same type together? Especially ones not always connected
by a blood relationship of some sort?”

Ramsey
frowned. “No.”

“Okay,
we’re going down some levels now,” Alex said. “Actually, let me switch you to
video conference. He hung up. A few moments later, Ramsey’s phone pinged with a
request. He clicked 'accept’, and Alex’s face came into view on the small
screen.

“Where
are you?” Ramsey asked.

Alex
turned the phone so they could see. They were walking in a long stretch of
hallway that had no windows… just door after door. “We’re down quite a few
levels now. I’ve never been to this part of the castle before.”

After
several more minutes of watching them walk through hallways that became more
and more devoid of other people, the group stopped walking. Lila could see
Selene talking to two men standing on either side of a door.

One
of the men turned and Lila heard the click of the lock, followed by the sound
of a heavy door creaking open.

“Zara,”
Alex muttered into the phone just before Maddox’s
te’sorthene
came into their
view. The previous year, when they’d captured Zara, they’d turned her over to
the Vyusher Council. Oren had imprisoned the white-wolf metamorph and she was
still in the castle. Lila was surprised that Maddox hadn’t come for her yet,
especially that he hadn’t tried to rescue Zara during his attack on the castle.

Lila
moved to sit beside Ramsey at the kitchen table so they could watch the little
screen together more easily. They could see Zara sitting on the bed. The girl
regarded them all with hate in her eyes and a scowl curling her lips.

“To
what do I owe the honor?” Zara asked.

Selene
calmly folded her hands in front of her. “I have a few questions for you.”

“You
won’t get any answers,” Zara sneered.

“I
don’t need your cooperation for this, Zara,” Selene said. Lila shivered at her
cold smile.

Selene
turned to Alex. “Is that Lila watching?”

“Yes.”

Selene
looked into the phone. “Tell me if anything said in here is a lie,” she said.

Lila
frowned. “I’ve never done it over video before, but I’ll try.”

Ellie
took Griffin’s hand and stepped forward.  Lila realized Griffin’s telepathy
would eventually allow him to control others’ thoughts. But he couldn’t do that
yet. Ellie’s gift to access the full potential of anyone’s powers through touch
meant she could. They’d tried doing this on Zara before to figure out Maddox’s
next move. But apparently Maddox had kept a lot of secrets from the woman he
supposedly loved.

Zara
watched the twins warily.

“Is
there a wolf-morph maker?” Selene asked.

Zara
just glared. “Like I’d answ—” Her sentence was cut off, and her face assumed a
trancelike blankness. “Yes. He’s made many of the wolves in this pack,” she
replied in a monotone.

Lila
saw a golden aura of light surrounding Zara as she spoke – an indication of the
truth. When Lila was a little girl and had first started seeing this effect,
she’d thought she was seeing angels. She hadn’t known that glow was one of her
powers.

“It’s
the truth,” she confirmed.

“Did
the wolf-maker give my brother his ability to morph?” Selene continued.

“Yes.”

“Where
is the wolf-maker now?”

Zara
blinked in slow motion. “I don’t know. Karin is a prisoner. I don’t know where
Maddox keeps her.”

Lila
stiffened. She’d suspected that her informative friend in the prison might have
been a woman.

“Did
Maddox mentor my brother?” Selene asked.

“Mentor.
Manipulate. Maneuver.”

“What
do you mean?”

“Maddox
led Gideon by the nose. He told him whom to hate, whom to kill, whom to fight,
and where, and when. He took out
their
family,” Zara nodded at Ellie and
Griffin. “Some kind of vendetta, though he never talked about it. And I think
Gideon was happy to fulfill that particular plan.”

“Why?”

“Their
family – William Aubrey – he’s the one who told the King and Queen that their
precious son would never morph. Apparently Selene inherited all the gifts.”

“Not
all of them,” Selene murmured.

“The
only one that counts to the Vyusher,” Zara replied.

“Why
would that make a difference?” Lila asked.

“We
don’t follow non-wolves,” Zara said. Lila had a feeling that if the other girl
hadn’t been in a trance, she would’ve rolled her eyes at the obvious answer.

Selene
glanced around the room. “I’ll explain later,” she murmured. “Was Maddox
controlling my brother?”

Zara
smirked “Not in the way you think. Maddox doesn’t have any kind of special
power like that. He’s just very, very good at getting his way.”

“If
that’s the case, why would he bother with Gideon? Why not take the crown
himself?”

“You’ll
have to ask Maddox.”

“Anything
else I should know about Maddox and Gideon?”

“They
both believed that only wolf metamorphs were fit to live. They wanted to
exterminate all other Svatura. Although some were given the option to be made
into wolves.”

Selene
paled, her eyes wide with horror.

“And
how are they given the option?” Ellie asked when it appeared Selene was too
shocked to speak.

“Only
those who had another power worthy to be added to the Vyusher pack were asked.
They had to volunteer,” Zara replied.

A
memory struck Lila… one of Maddox offering her a place in his ranks if she volunteered
for the transformation. He must have been talking about changing her into a
wolf.

“Why?”
Lila asked.

“The
change alters a person’s genetic code. Even when they’re willing, it still can
kill them. But if it’s done against their will, for whatever reason, it
definitely
kills them,” Zara explained.

“That’s
enough,” Selene whispered.

Taking
their cue, Ellie and Griffin released Zara from her trance. They all filed out
of her room, locking it behind them.

“We’ll
call you on the laptop when we get back up there,” Alex said.

Ramsey
clicked the button to end the call, and they waited in silence until the
computer pinged them. Once the video conferencing was set back up, no one said
anything for a minute.

“You’ll
have to tell the High Council,” Alex advised Selene.

Selene
nodded and gazed out the window. “I know.” She closed her eyes and moaned. “Oh
my God. How could I have been so blind? No wonder he’s been able to build his
new army so fast. He didn’t have that many wolves to begin with.”

“It’s
a safe bet that most of Marcus’s tribe are either dead or wolves by now,” Lila
said.

“Not
necessarily,” Griffin said. He glanced at Selene as if gauging her reaction. “I
caught a memory of Zara’s. It seems that Maddox and Gideon kept people who
rejected their offer in that stasis indefinitely instead of killing them. They
wanted that person’s power under their control and were willing to wait to get
it.”

“Will
someone please go get Marcus?” Lila said. “He needs to hear this too.”

After
they all filed back up to the conference room, they found Marcus and brought
him up to speed.

Marcus
slammed a fist down onto the table. “Damn!”

“What
are you going to do?” Lila asked him.

“I’m
going to find my tribesmen, and then we’re going to rip that bastard’s heart
out,” he gritted through his teeth.

“Okay.
I’m coming with you,” Lila said.

That
got his attention – and everyone else’s. He looked directly at the monitor.
“No, you’re not.”

“Yes,
I am.”

“No.
You’re not,” Ramsey’s voice sounded behind her.

Lila
glared over her shoulder at him. “You stay out of this.”

She
turned back to the computer. Marcus’s face softened just a little. “I know why
you want to help, Lila. But you might put me in more danger if you’re with me.”

Lila
bit her lip. “It’s my fault they were captured.”

“It’s
no one’s fault but Maddox’s,” Marcus insisted. “I’ll keep you in the loop,
peanut. But you need to stay hidden. Stay safe.”

Lila
plopped down into the seat, completely deflated. “You’ll ask if you need help?”

“Yeah.”
He gave her what passed for a reassuring smile from him.

Marcus
exited the room, and Lila’s gut tightened. She had the strangest feeling that
something horrible was going to happen to her friend. But, of course that was
silly. She didn’t have her mother’s premonition ability.

But
still…

They
ended the call pretty quickly after that. There wasn’t much else to say,
really. Ramsey watched as Lila turned the computer off and swiveled in the
chair, her mind miles away.

Glancing
up, she caught Ramsey’s speculative look. “What?”

He
shook his head and wandered into the kitchen. “Nothing.”

“That
wasn’t a ‘nothing’ look,” Lila said as she followed him.

“Don’t
worry about it, Lily.”

Ramsey
busied himself by opening some cabinets while he ignored the hole she was
trying to burn in his back with her stare. He’d been wondering about her
relationship with the leader of the Louisiana tribe. They seemed pretty close.
But she didn’t need to know that’s what he’d been thinking. “Pretty bare pantry
– just the basics. Looks like we need to go shopping for some food. Fancy a
trip into town?”

A
lengthy paused followed his question.

“Yeah,”
Lila finally replied.  “I’ll go get some money. Mom sent a wad of British
pounds with me.”

Ramsey
grinned to himself. He’d always been able wait her out. He had yet to respond
to a question of Lila’s that he didn’t want to answer. The smile fell from his
mouth. If last night was anything to go by, they were going to need some
activities to occupy their time. He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. He
hadn’t slept a wink but instead had wrestled with the desire… the
need
…
to go to Lila, all night long.

Before,
when he’d thought he would endanger her life, he’d had the willpower to resist
acting on his feelings, to protect her. But now… now he had control. And when
he didn’t, she did with her emotional healing ability. That reason to stay away
no longer applied. Except now Lila had changed. She held him at a distance that
she hadn’t before. Maybe she’d even fallen in love with that Marcus guy. But
Ramsey wasn’t giving up. All those days in the woods searching for her when
she’d been missing, he’d learned that he needed Lila in his life. She was the
most important thing in the world to him, and he’d fight for them, even if
she’d given up.

“All
right. I’m ready,” Lila said as descended the narrow staircase. “Is there a
car?”

Ramsey
grabbed a set of keys hanging on a hook on the wall and shook them. “Let’s go
find out.”