Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,14

hanging over us. At least until Brunton dared to break it.

“How’s your leg?” he asked as Kat strode to the door in front of the group, a slight limp in her gait still notable. She stopped and turned to face him, mischief in her eyes, but something else swimming in their depths. Something I couldn’t quite place. Something I feared wasn’t good.

“How’s your swimming?” she replied. Brunton looked at her curiously until he realized what she was referencing—the time she had tried to drown him in the former vampire king’s pool. Apparently, she wasn’t ready to forgive him for what had gone down just yet. “I hope it’s improved since last time…”

He gritted his teeth, or bit his tongue, or did something that allowed him to keep whatever comment was itching to escape inside where it couldn’t do any further damage.

“It wasn’t his fault,” I said in his defense. Those sharp blue eyes of hers cut to me.

“Maybe,” she said, her tone a bit too brusque for my liking. “Or maybe not.” A sly smile crept across her face. “Either way, it would probably be best to avoid water while I’m around for the foreseeable future, Brunton.”

She opened the security door to the breezeway, then the entrance to the mansion, heading straight up the stairs, her limp barely noticeable. Merc passed her on his way down, and his eyes narrowed as he took in her disheveled state. Then he searched for me in the midst of the bodies crowding the foyer.

“Am I to take it that your meeting did not go as planned?” he asked as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

“You could say that,” I replied, casting a wary glance at Knox. “It seems Mack was expecting us.”

“The fey king armed him with his ability to control wolves,” Knox added.

The muscles in Merc’s jaw feathered. “Tell me everything.”

So we did. The good, the bad, and the ugly. As we neared the end, it looked as though he were ready to storm out into the sun, bring Mack back from the dead, then kill him all over again.

“How did you get away?” he asked, his voice too calm to go unnoticed.

“I figured out a way to tether Brunton and Knox to me so Mack couldn’t control them—”

“And then I killed him.”

Knox’s wolves went rigid at the news. None of them, aside from Brunton, had known that until that moment. Their expressions were a mixture of confusion and suspicion except for three: Jagger, Brunton, and Foust all shared the same look of concern. The one I wanted to ignore but couldn’t. We knew all too well how hard Knox had tried to avoid this fate—the one he’d escaped to start a new life in Alaska. The life I had totally upended. And though I hadn’t been the one to kill Mack and put Knox in his current position, I felt partially responsible. I was the reason he had returned to New York, after all.

Merc took a moment before speaking, choosing his words carefully. “The pack is now yours, I assume?”

“Basically.”

“Then we can consider the matter resolved.”

“Yeah. We can.”

It was Merc’s turn to nod in understanding.

Knox turned to leave. “If we’re all done here, I need to go wash Mack off me.”

I caught his arm and studied his tired eyes, the black circles beneath them, and the tension in his mouth. Knox was exhausted and stressed, and not letting on to either issue. Not wanting to call him out in front of Merc or his boys, I pulled him down and kissed him, then let him go.

“I’ll come find you in a bit.”

He forced a smile before he walked out, leaving a million and one questions in his wake.

“Jase,” Merc called to his brother, “please show Foust and Brunton to the meeting room.” Jase and Dean led the wolves in question down the hall. “Piper, if you’d be so kind.” Merc gestured for me to follow, then waited for me to move. The vampire king followed me until we reached the room with the massive table that was empty except for us.

Then he shut the door.

“What’s this about?” I asked, my frayed nerves unraveling even further.

“I have concerns,” he replied enigmatically. I stared at him, a silent request to continue, but his gaze shifted to the two werewolves already there. They stared back with wary expressions, as though they knew what was coming.

I wished I could have said the same.

“Concerns about what?” Foust asked, his diplomatic side showing through. I was