CHAPTER 8

Overheard?

"What have you got there Ms. Teo?" Eliot set his hands on her shoulders and looked over to see what she had brought. He looked at the pile of stakes that looked more like heavy duty chopsticks than anything else. Each one was nearly a foot long and around an inch in diameter at one end and tapering to a sharp point at the other end.

Inhaling deeply, he remembered at the last moment to keep his eyes their natural blue, as he picked up the scent of the wood and a faint tang of incense. "White Ash, and you had them blessed, didn't you?"

"What did you think we've been doing all afternoon?" Tyrel stretched with his hands braced against the top of the door frame.

"I figured Ms. Teo probably just needed a little space since I invaded her house and brought the troops with me." Eliot smiled and went back to his pot of jambalaya.

"Tosh!" Ms. Teo flapped a hand at him. "Ya know I love havin' all you babies here."

Hardison had moved to the counter to get a closer look at the stakes. He wanted to ask Eliot how he knew what the wood was and how he'd known they were blessed. Eliot had been giving him, what Parker called, 'wolfy lessons.' Eliot would explain how he identified or did something when it was tied to being a werewolf. Eliot had been teaching him to identify all kinds of different things especially the scent of metals.

"Gemma, would you mind stirring this for me?" Eliot held out the handle of the long wooden spoon he was using.

She stepped next to him and took the spoon.

"Thanks." Eliot stood there for a moment and noticed the way a lock of her hair slipped loose to frame her face. Realizing he was staring he turned to Hardison. "I'll help you clear your gear off the table so that we can use it for dinner." Eliot looked deliberately at the stakes until Hardison picked one up.

"Right." Hardison strolled past Eliot and Quinn followed after.

"So, what's the secret meeting about?" Quinn whispered to Eliot as he grabbed a wireless keyboard and a mouse off the table.

Eliot huffed. "Come on." With a handful of cords, he joined Hardison in the living room where he was packing his gear away. He sat in the armchair near the couch and Hardison settled at the end of the couch closest to Eliot.

Quinn sat with a little frown when he saw Hardison balancing the stake on his palm.

"Quinn, what can you tell about the stake?"

"It's wood." Quinn sounded annoyed to be asked a dumb question.

"Hardison?"

Hardison inhaled through his nose and when his eyes opened, they were yellow. "The wood smells kinda sweet. It doesn't smell like pine. There's something else though. Something on the wood maybe?"

Eliot nodded. "The color and the grain of the wood along with the scent tell you it's white ash. That other scent is incense. The stakes were probably sprinkled in holy water and the damp wood picked up the scent of the incense in the church."

"Does it matter?" Quinn asked.

"Maybe and maybe not. Being able to identify things that other people might not think is important has saved my life more than once." Eliot shrugged.

"Does the kind of wood matter? For a stake, I mean." Hardison bounced the stick on his palm.

"It be more likely ta kill a vamp ifn ya have the right wood but any stick'll do in a pinch." Ms. Teo had walked up behind the couch.

Quinn startled at her sudden appearance.

"If ya using a stake that ain't been blessed and isn't one of the three woods specific to huntin' vampires you prob'ly gonna haveta kill 'em again."

"Kill them again?" Hardison turned to see her better.

"If ya usin' a blessed stake and you pierce da heart da old ones fall ta dust, and da younga ones fall dead, true dead. But if ya using a tent peg or chair leg da vamp gon be able to recova."

"Like werewolves," Eliot spoke without thinking and glanced at the kitchen to be sure Gemma hadn't heard. "vampires are hard to kill."

"There's three woods that are specific for vampire hunting?" Quinn looked at the stake in Hardison's hand with renewed interest. It was now a weapon and not just a stick.

"White Oak, White Ash, and Hawthorn." Ms. Teo recited.

Quinn felt a rumble of discontent in the bonds at the mention of Hawthorn but didn't understand how come. "Why those three and not something like rowan or holly? I heard those were supposed to be special or something."

"Rowen an' holly is protection again' witches. Vampires be a whole otha critter." Ms. Teo moved to her chair.

"Sparky?" Parker called.

Eliot hurried for the kitchen.

"If you babies is hopin' to keep Gemma in da dark you wanna get yo' eyes un'er control." Ms. Teo looked meaningfully at Hardison.

Quinn looked at Hardison too. "Follow me out to the porch."

Outside they both inhaled deeply. Quinn relaxed when he didn't scent any vampires and Hardison just seemed to be enjoying the evening air.

"How long have you been a wolf?"

"A little more than a year now." Hardison took a deep breath and focused on pulling the wolf back under control.

"When I was first changed, I had a hard time keeping my eyes under control too. Can I show you how I learned control?"

"Sure."

Quinn let his eyes go to the blue of his wolf and then back to their human brown. "If you make them be both at once…" His eyes changed to a warm grey color. "you'll have to concentrate to keep the wolf and the man both in the fore. Once you can keep your eyes that way all the time then your emotions and your instincts won't be able to so easily affect your eye color, especially when you are forcing the color to be one or the other."

Hardison's eyes seemed to flicker between yellow and brown, but he couldn't get the colors to blend the way that Quinn had.

"What do you picture or concentrate on when you're shifting?"

Hardison couldn't help the smile and the warm feeling that bloomed in his chest. "Parker."

Quinn smiled in return as the pack bonds gave him a sudden insight. "I didn't realize you two were mated." A frown drew his eyebrows together. "How does that work?"

Hardison frowned. "That's none of your business."

"Sorry. That's not what I meant. I mean she's still human. A wolf can be mated to a human but there isn't the returned connection. A human can't be mated to a wolf. But I can feel it…" He tapped his chest. "Parker is mated to you as strongly as you are to her.

"We became a pack years ago. Not just in name. We didn't find out that Eliot was a wolf and then decide to call ourselves a pack. The magic bonded us as a pack years before we ever found out. After we found out, we started to notice the connections." Hardison concentrated on the bonds for a moment. "You can feel Parker in the bonds, right?"

Quinn nodded.

"Eliot didn't name her as his second for no reason. She has run our crew for years and she has more control over the pack bonds than anyone."

Quinn raised an eyebrow.

Hardison nodded. "Probably more than Eliot."

"Good to know. Back to the eyes though. Focus on Parker, as though you were about to shift. Feel the wolf come forward and then focus on being in your human form." Quinn waited until he felt a shift in the pack bonds. "Okay. Look at me."

When Hardison looked at Quinn his eyes were a warm light brown.

Quinn gave him a half smile. "Yep, that's it."

Parker stepped out onto the porch with them. "Are you okay?" She asked as she slid under Hardison's arm and wrapped her arm around his waist.

"Just fine, babe." Hardison smiled at her. "Quinn was giving me the 101 on maintaining eye color."

"Pretty." She looked deeply into his golden-caramel-colored eyes. "Eliot says dinner is ready."

Hardison let his eyes go back to their human brown color, but he knew he'd be practicing what Quinn had taught him later.

~~o0o~~

Dinner had been good. He'd heard that Eliot could cook but tasting for himself was so much better than rumor. Quinn put his bowl in the sink and turned for his room. A shower wouldn't go amiss in this heat. As he got to the hall, he saw the door to the basement open, a flash of Parker's blonde hair, and the door closed quickly and quietly. Quinn did his best to walk silently toward the door. Listening carefully, he could just make out voices.

"Okay Parker, make it quick."

"Try to relax a little Sparky."

Eliot inhaled sharply. "Yes that's... That ahh." The words disappeared in a gasp.

"Better?"

There was a long pause.

"Can you feel it in there?" Parker sounded worried.

"Don't worry. You'll be able to take it out before too long."

"If it was meant ta be a public convasation dey'd be havin' it in da livin' room." Ms. Teo spoke quietly from the kitchen doorway.

Quinn spun with a snarl, but the old woman didn't so much as flinch. He wanted to ask if she knew what was going on but on second thought maybe he didn't want to know.

~~o0o~~

Around three in the morning Parker appeared at the end of the hall. Dressed in her black clothes and wearing her favorite black combat boots. She made no noise as she came down the hall and Eliot tried to memorize where she'd placed her feet. He'd never been able to make it down Ms. Teo's hallway without the floorboards creaking.

"Good morning, Sparky." She whispered. She sat next to him on the floor near Quinn's door. "I thought you could use a little more rest since you'll be going after Reese in the morning. I'll take this watch." She let her fingers trail absentmindedly through his fur.

He knew she was right. They'd planned as much as they could, but it was likely to get bloody tomorrow. For now, he inhaled the scent of pack and relaxed against Parker. In no time he drifted to sleep.

Parker continued to run her fingers through his fur and scritched between his ears. "I know it's important to get Reese out so that all the wolves here don't end up in the vampire's control, but I don't like sending you in there. I see the value in the plan, and I understand what we talked about but…" She sighed and leaned back against the door frame. "You aren't disposable you know."

The silence stretched and she could feel him start to dream. She tried to push a little bit of happiness his way in hopes of keeping his dreams from becoming nightmares. "You always throw yourself into the fight like it doesn't matter if you come back. But it does matter."

"Don't worry." Quinn's voice was just as quiet as Parker's. "He'll fight hard to come back to you guys. He might not care about himself, but you and Hardison, Nate and Sophie, he doesn't trust anyone else to watch out for you." A subtle creaking of the floorboards gave him away as he crossed the room to sit at the other side of the doorway.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't." Quinn looked at Eliot who was fast asleep. "My wolf must have felt him fall asleep. I woke up feeling like something was wrong."

"I wouldn't think…" Parker trailed off. She didn't know Quinn well and wasn't sure she could be herself around him yet.

"You wouldn't think a guy like me would need someone to protect him from the boogieman?" Quinn smirked. "It's been a hell of a week and sometimes this wolf thing isn't all it's cracked up to be."

Parker raised an eyebrow but remained quiet.

"Before I was a wolf there wasn't a thing in this world that scared me. Except maybe old age."

"Not death?"

"Nah. Death is easy, maybe too easy."

"And now?"

"I'm sharing headspace with something that isn't me. The wolf is all instinct. I think sometimes it trusts too easily. Trusts everyone except me."

Parker cocked her head. "Did your wolf trust the vampires?"

"Trusted Will. And Will made us obedient to the vampires."

Parker stayed silent.

"I don't know how long we'd been there. Long enough that I didn't think we'd get out."

She ran her fingers into the fur of Eliot's neck and gripped hard. She already had a chokehold on the bonds so she was sure that Quinn wouldn't feel Eliot wake up. Eliot, cunning predator that he was, didn't move.

"They'd played with us. Sometimes it was straight forward torture, but mostly it was mind games. They'd use their venom to mess with your head. Making things hurt that shouldn't and not letting anything hurt until later so that it hit you all at once. The Mistress would ask Reese where his pack was and…" Quinn's breath started to come in short shallow gasps. "The vampires would make Will bite me or cut me or one of them would do it and I couldn't do anything to stop it. Anytime I'd start to resist they'd torture Will until we were both mostly crazy with it and then his wolf would order mine to be obedient to the vampires. And my wolf would relax under the order because it trusted Will." Quinn's voice was choked as he relived the horror of it. "The Mistress gave me to Jussilla. Ssshe liked pain, my pain. She liked it during… She ra…" Quinn seemed to choke on the words and turned his face away for a moment.

Parker knew that Eliot wanted her to comfort Quinn. She could feel it in the bonds, but she maintained her grip on the bonds and Eliot's scruff. "Then the vampires let you go?" Her question was almost too quiet to hear. It was just something to prod Quinn the way she wanted him to go.

"They'd been forcing the three of us to fight but they couldn't completely control all three of us at the same time. They'd forced me into my wolf because the dammed wolf was easier to control. Will and Reese were both in their human forms. They used silver hooks on chains." Quinn's voice and breath had evened out, and he'd slipped into a trance like state as he remembered what had happened. He reached over his shoulder feeling for the wounds. "The silver burns, but it also makes it hard to think, hard to move."

"How did Will die?"

"Reese had a knife. Anytime I'd try to get the knife from him someone would yank me to the side with one of the chains." He gripped his own shoulder. "Reese was fighting Will, but even with a knife he wasn't better than Will. It's all just blood and claws and knives and suddenly Will has the knife and he's stabbing me and something broke and and… and I tore into his belly before they could drag me back. But Will wasn't dead. He got to his feet and started toward me with the knife again. I tried to back off." Quinn curled forward with his arms wrapped around his knees. "Alpha is angry, and I need to leave but no… The chains are tight almost as tight as the bonds and Will won't let me leave. Will is going to kill me. Reese spins Will sideways and tares his throat out. I feel Alpha die. With no Alpha there's no control. I lunged forward but Reese has the knife now. They pull too hard and the hook tares through. The Mistress orders me to stop but she's not Alpha and Alpha is dead. They come closer but it means the door isn't guarded. I leap over the closest ones and run for the door. Paws are slick on pavement, and I slide. Human is hurt, human is scared. Thinks we will die. Smell air. Not vampire air, outside air. Run, run until I can't smell vampire. Human remembers Alpha Eliot's pack is here. Alpha owes us. His pack will help." Quinn's eyes flickered between his wolf blue and his human brown as he stared into the distance.

Parker waited but it felt like Quinn had come to the end. "You are safe here. We will all keep you safe."

With a deep breath Quinn shook as though to throw off the memory of what had happened. "I'm sorry. I hadn't meant to go there." He didn't look up.

Hardison padded down the hall barefoot and stopped at Quinn's door. "You okay?"

Quinn nodded.

Hardison frowned at Quinn's reticence and looked to Parker for clarification.

"The memories of what happened with the vampires kind of ambushed him." Parker held a hand out.

Hardison took her hand and joined her. He sat with his back against the hall wall and pulled Parker around so that she was nestled against him. She leaned back against his chest with a sigh. "Are you sure you want to go with Eliot tomorrow?" She asked Quinn.

"It doesn't matter what I want." Quinn still hadn't looked up from his knees.

"It does matter."

"That's the first thing I learned as a werewolf. It doesn't matter what I want or what I think. The only thing that matters is the Alpha's will." He finally turned blue eyes on Parker.

"That's not how it is with us." Hardison gave him a half smile.

"Eliot won't make you go back there if you don't want to." Parker pulled Hardison's arms more tightly around her.

"I'll go." Quinn smiled a little. "Someone told me once that 'in this life you have to fight all you can,' and I'm no quitter. So, I'll do my damnedest."

"In that case get some rest." Parker wriggled into a more comfortable spot. "I'll keep watch."

Quinn tapped his chest. "I'm not sure I need you to. The wolf feels more settled."

"I'll keep watch anyway." Parker smiled.

Parker listened to the steady rhythm of Hardison's heart and Eliot's even breathing. She let those sounds anchor her as she thought through what Quinn had told them earlier. The bonds provided control over all the wolves in a pack and an Alpha controls the bonds. She imagined it like the pins in a lock. Each pin was a member of the pack and the Alpha was the key that turned the lock.

She checked the time on her phone. She felt like she was onto something, but she needed another perspective. If she'd figured the time difference correctly it had to be mid-morning in Ireland.

"Parker, deirfiúr bheag, is everything okay?"

"Can everyone in a wolf pack access the pack bonds equally?"

"And yes, it's a lovely mornin' here too." Ewen chuckled. "What do ya mean by equal access? If ur askin' if everyone is bonded to the pack with the same bond, then yes. It doesn't matter whether they were turned or bonded into the pack."

"No. Well, I guess that's good to know too. But what I meant was, is it only Nati that controls the bonds or can other wolves in the pack control the bonds too?"

"Now there ye've gone an' got complicated." He paused for a moment. "If Nati gives me orders I haveta obey them and if I give orders to the next one down the line, he has to obey them. But it doesn't work the other direction. The third in our pack can't be giving me orders. I'm more dominant so I don't have to obey him."

"Okay." Parker thought about it. "But outside of orders, could someone farther down the pack have control over the bonds. Could they push emotions or stop the emotions of the pack from influencing them?"

"What are ya after doin' here love?"

"Vampires are trying to control an Alpha so that they can control his whole pack. And there's something about the way the bonds work that makes me think there's something missing there."

"Oh aye. I've heard of such a thing." He sighed. "If they break the Alpha and he orders his second who orders the third and so on then yes they can control the whole pack that way."

"But Eliot thinks that more wolves in the pack makes a difference?"

"Well, if the whole pack were to resist the Alpha at the same time, then maybe that would work. But I don't know. Packs are used to being completely obedient to the Alpha and it would take a lot to try to resist that instinct."

"But Eliot hardly ever gives anyone orders."

"And that is something I don't really understand. Giving orders feels as natural as breathing and obeying orders is like a heartbeat, you might influence it a little, but you can't stop it entirely."

Hardison shifted a little behind Parker and she turned her head enough to look up at his yellow eyes. "Thanks Ewen. You've been very helpful."

He snorted. "Sure, and the rain will fall upwards tomorrow. Good luck with whatever it is you're about."