by R. J. Blain
“It wasn’t luck, my beautiful. Her witchcraft was failing, and she didn’t have any reserves to start any fires even if she wanted to. The ritual itself was smooth. Declan might have had something to do with that, but I’ll take whatever I can get. It still hurt, but Amber accepted the wolf without reservation, and the wolf didn’t spend long thinking about it. They’re a good match. Declan, what do you think about Amber’s wolf?”
“She seems curious.” I shrugged. “I didn’t get any sense of malevolence. She didn’t want to hurt Amber, and I don’t think she liked some parts of the ritual.”
“The bite’s mandatory. Hopefully, her wolf won’t object to Amber’s role in the Inquisition. It’s pretty violent,” Richard murmured, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of my bedroom. “In a way, I hope her wolf is more of the tranquil kind. She deserves a life of peace.”
Elliot waved his hand, although he did glance towards my bedroom. “I have already been making plans to transition her. Will she continue to work ops? I expect so. Operatives don’t transition well, especially not operatives with her experience. Amber isn’t quite as old as Vicky, but the world has changed a lot since they were young. In some ways, I think Amber adapts better than Vicky does, but this lets me move her into what she likes doing best, which is training. And if her wolf is peaceful? Training new Inquisitors will be perfect. And Declan? I’ve gone over his file. Training is perfect for him, as are rescue ops. Amber and Declan working together on rescue ops? They’ll be unstoppable.”
My wolf’s interest surged at the mention of rescue ops. “What sort of ops? Like that damned castle in France?”
“Things like that aren’t common, but yes, things like that. Fenerec are tougher than humans, and we can send Fenerec on rescue missions that humans would likely die doing. Sometimes, you will be rescuing people from a rogue wolf—like this potential rogue killing people here. You’d hunt the wolf and deal with him. Or her. And if someone made the wolf go wild on purpose, you’d deal with them while trying to save as many lives as possible. Sometimes, the Inquisition is asked to rescue kidnapped victims or hostages, although that’s touchier. Once again, your speed from what I was reading in your file.” Elliot scowled. “Your file pisses me off, frankly. Bluntly spoken, your handler heavily abused your abilities. We do not do that to our operatives.”
“Do what?”
“Try to kill you off repeatedly, underfeed you, and generally treat you like you’re expendable. When an operative takes on a dangerous job, they know it’s potentially a suicide mission, they are compensated accordingly, and if they do die as a result of the mission, their family is compensated. Yes, we’re sometimes executioners, but we try to be fair. We can’t afford to let rogue witches or wolves kill Normals. The Normals can’t defend themselves. And silver bullets? They’re an expensive bitch to make. Silver is not a good metal for ammunition. Silver bullets tend to, frankly, suck. Can it be done? Yes. Barely. But the cost is ridiculous. Are they effective?” Elliot turned his glare to Richard. “If I ever catch wind of you playing with silver bullets again, you will discover how nasty I can get.”
Richard huffed and refused to look the witch in his eyes. Nicolina fought to free her hands, and when she failed, she bit her husband’s shoulder and growled at him.
“I take it Richard has been shot with a silver bullet before?”
“Yes. It was an accident in that case, but he should have known better than to approach someone armed in a catatonic state.” Elliot’s glare turned on Nicolina. “Don’t even get me started about you.”
I glanced at Desmond. “Do you need me to rescue you from your family?”
“No, no. I’m fine. Elliot’s just mad because he can’t handle close calls of his favorite people well. He just got a recent reminder about that incident because someone blurted it out in a moment of anguish.”
Nicolina’s face turned red, and she hid her face against Richard’s chest.
Richard’s laughter rumbled. “You’re something else, Nicolina. It’s not like you shot me on purpose. And Elliot shouldn’t be talking about silver bullets anyway, since his mate shot herself with one on purpose.”
Elliot spat curses. “And she suggests it as a viable idea every damned time!”
“She knows it drives you to the brink of madness. That’s why she does it. You should be happy she no longer freaks out when anyone reminds her that she’s mated to you.” Snickering, Richard shook his head. “That it took her until six months into her first pregnancy to finally get around to admitting she was, in actuality, mated will never fail to make me laugh. At least she figured out to just blame you for the second one.”
“The second one was a legitimate unexpected bonus.” Elliot shrugged. “I’m just a man, and if my wife wants attention before work in the morning, I’m going to pay attention to her. It just happens she wanted more attention than I anticipated. And once people started calling because we were late, I decided I would rather stay home with the wife and give her more attention. And the kids that weren’t in school were with you. I’m going to try to prevent number three from showing up unexpectedly. However much I love the unexpected additions, Vicky would appreciate a season or two without aching ankles. I’ve been put on notice; I need to keep my prowess to myself this winter. I’m going to give her roses and a card, and the card will tell her I’ll keep my prowess to myself if she keeps her teeth to herself, and if she bites, she only has herself to blame at that point.”
“Is this something I should be concerned about?”
Nicolina shook her head. “Mated couples nip each other. Fenerec men are infertile unless us women instigate with our teeth. So, if you don’t want any kids, just dodge your woman’s bites and don’t stay in bed with her for eight or so hours. You’ll figure it out once you mate. But your fertility is essentially her decision. If she doesn’t give you at least one nip, you’re not going to be having children. So, for us, kids are usually easily avoided, unless you’re His Eminence over there. His common sense dribbles out of his ears whenever Vicky walks into the room. They’re going to end up holding the record for most kids. We’ll have to see how nippy Amber’s wolf is, but I expect Amber will do a good job of making certain her partner consents to being nipped. I recommend you flat-out tell her to nip you if you’re interested, as otherwise, she’ll respect your space.”
“That’s good to know.” I filed that away for the future, assuming I could convince Amber to go on a date sometime in the future. I had zero idea how to go about that, but I would start with making a batch of brownies and go from there. “Where is everyone going to sleep, anyway? I don’t have nearly enough blankets. Or pillows.”
“We have our clothes. They make decent pillows,” Nicolina replied. “And some of us can shift if we decide we’re not comfortable. Don’t worry, Declan. Amber won’t even mind if you crawl into bed with her. She’s used to it. We’re needy, and we often wander to visit our favorite people and sleep in piles. The only time Richard minds this is when I’m dense and he had other things in mind, but he usually manages to reel me in if he has ideas that don’t involve anyone else.”
Richard bowed his head. “I hate how true this is.”
Nicolina laughed. “Sorry, Richard.”
What strange people. Despite her assurances, I did what I could to make everyone comfortable, and then I shifted and joined those taking turns watching over Amber through the night.
Chapter Nine
I marveled that anyone managed to get any sleep, as every hour or so, Amber woke gagging and hacking. After the first time, I shifted back to human so I could hold her hair out of the way as needed. I took on the brunt of the other duties, too, as everyone else had passed out from exhaustion. I berated myself for assuming they’d be in any shape to handle much of anything after such a long trip to get to me.
Sometime during the night, the illusion of Amber’s youth broke, and it amazed me that her magic could trick me into believing nothing was amiss with the w
oman.
I’d seen corpses in better health.
Had I seen the truth earlier, I would have counted her life in hours or days rather than months.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
I smiled, and because I’d seen everyone else do similar, I brushed my lips to her temple, ignoring the white of her hair and the way her skin hung off her bones with little else holding her together. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. You need to focus on healing and getting that crap out of you. Being sick doesn’t degrade you in any fashion. It’ll be a while before you’re healthy again, but that’s fine. You’ll get there.”
“Cancer sucks. I haven’t been this bad for long. A few weeks. It happened fast. Almost overnight.”
I nodded. “Are you going to be able to trick Nicolina? Because if Nicolina sees you like this, she’s going to panic, and I don’t think telling her you’re getting better is going to help.”
“That didn’t take long for you to figure out. I’ll be able to restore the illusion in a while. I just need a breather.” Amber groaned and shuddered. “I’ve seen people go through ritual sickness more times than I can count, but nobody warned me how bad it tastes.”
“There’s soup for you on the stove, and there are no rules in my cabin about not eating while soaking in the tub. The hot water heater should be good for another round.”
“I became a fish, not a wolf. A dog fish? A wolf fish?” Amber sighed, mustered enough energy to crawl in the general direction of the tub, and eyed it. “My pride demands I do this without help, but I don’t think I can.”
My wolf whined his concern in my head, and I lifted her up and eased her into the tub. Without the illusion fooling me, she weighed even less than I thought she should, which alarmed me worse than her gaunt appearance. I stoppered the tub and started the water, making sure to keep it warm without being too hot.
She needed warmth, but her body couldn’t handle trying to cool her off if she overheated.
“I’ll bring some soup and rabbit. You need the meat to heal. Do you want something to drink?”
“Just water, please.”
I expected the solyanka wouldn’t last long considering how much she’d packed away the other times she’d eaten. Between trips taking servings of soup and rabbit to her, which disappeared with equal enthusiasm, I inventoried my supplies and started a new batch of soup with a mixture of what I had in the refrigerator, my freezer, and the leftover rabbit. It wouldn’t be as good as the first soup, but it would have what she needed the most: protein and calories.
After she finished off the entire pot and all of the rabbits I’d reserved for her, she passed out in the tub, her head resting on her arms. The food had revived her enough she’d restored her illusion.
My wolf, however, had seen the truth, and he admired her even more for the reality of who she was when layered with the beauty she’d become in time. If anything, her slip reinforced what I’d already guessed.
Few women could match Amber.
I drained the tub, dried her off, and returned her to bed, tiptoeing around the wolves and humans sprawled every which way on my floor. The humans used the wolves as pillows, the wolves didn’t care if they had pillows, and clothing served as padding to mitigate the worst of the aches and pains in the morning. Once I made her as comfortable as I could, I resumed cooking, aware I’d have a cabin full of hungry Fenerec when dawn came.
“You’re going to be passed out at the negotiation table if you keep trying to do everything,” Richard informed me from his spot near the fireplace, and he used his wife as a pillow. “I meant to help, but Nicolina shifted, and it seems I can’t resist when she’s wearing a fur coat. I really only meant to close my eyes for a minute.”
“You also had one hell of a flight getting here. Don’t worry about it. And if I pass out at the negotiation table, I’m sure you’ll use that as ammunition during the discussions.”
“I really will. How is Amber?”
“It took emptying my entire supplies, but I’ve kept her fed all night, and I think I have enough left for breakfast. The rabbit is gone, and I made a second batch of solyanka, but it’s all gone, too.”
“Good. She needs to eat. Ritual sickness is her body healing and changing, and she has a lot of healing to do. How much do you think she ate?”
I pointed at my largest stock pot, which contained enough rice to feed everybody. “The solyanka filled that entire thing, Richard. Up to the rim. She devoured it all. I hope you like curry, because that’s what I could make with what I had left.”
Richard whistled. “Damn. That’s more than normal. I’ll call the Chinese as soon as we’re in reception, and I’ll get someone in Beijing to supply us. I’m worried they’ll try some underhanded tactics here. Or, more accurately, Moscow warned us it’s probable they’ll try underhanded tactics here.”
“Moscow warned you? When? Why?”
“When we called getting authorization to come into the country. This area imports a lot of wolfsbane. That stuff will remove a wolf’s will. I’m particularly prone to it. The Inquisition has started trying to develop a counter for it, which is good. I have some with me, we’ll all be taking it before we eat anything we didn’t buy or prepare ourselves. The Chinese are the main researchers on it, so I’m hoping I can get more of it from them. I’m also concerned they might target Amber with rue, but there’s nothing we can do about that. As for why? Moscow doesn’t want to piss Desmond off. If they piss Desmond off, they piss me off. If they piss me off, they piss the Chinese off. If the Chinese get pissed off, things will go to hell in a hurry. By warning us, they mitigate their liability, especially since I notified the Chinese that Moscow cooperated with our visit to retrieve you. When I talk to the Chinese about Amber, you’re going to be a person-of-interest to them because Amber’s a person-of-interest to me.”
“That leaves us with checking Amber’s food as much as possible and not letting her eat anything we didn’t make.”
“Thus the call to the Chinese. I trust the Inquisition there to play it straight, and they know Amber is my wife’s witch. Once I let them know Amber underwent the ritual, they’ll be able to help. The Chinese have a pretty good system for the new wolves. I’ve borrowed some of their methodology with my pack, and it’s worked well. Each new wolf is given a job and a role, which appeals to our nature. Aptitude matters to them, and within their pack structure, the lowest submissive is a place of honor, and they’re pretty pampered because they’re prized. Americans don’t treat submissives as well as the Chinese do, but I’m working to change that.”
“My Chinese is worse than my Russian,” I warned.
“Are you some god of language? Your Russian is not that bad. It might grate on a native speaker’s nerves, but you can make yourself understood.”
“My Chinese is much worse. I just learn the languages I need to, and I’ve had to travel the world to stay under the radar.”
“I speak Mandarin and Cantonese, although I’m barely competent. I mostly know enough to not completely offend the officials and get through the greetings before they take pity on me and use English,” Richard admitted. “But my pride demands I do a little better every time I go to China.” With a gentle smile, he took hold of Nicolina’s scruff and gave her enough of a shake to wake her up. “No biting because you’re cranky I woke you, my beautiful. Declan stayed up all night, so it’s our turn to handle the work. He even started breakfast, but we’ve cleaned him out, so I get to talk to Beijing when we are close enough to the city to get reception.”
Nicolina got up, shook herself off, and nipped at Richard’s hand, but his hold on her scruff kept her from landing her bite. After a few moments and several growls, he released her, and she grabbed her clothes in her teeth and retreated to my bedroom.
“I usually just kick the other wolves, and if they don’t get up, that’s exactly what I’ll do,” Richard announced, and his deep voice rumbled.
To my amusement, the rest of the wolves ro
used themselves without anybody getting a single nudge with the Alpha’s foot. The Anderson twins, who’d used Sanders and Desmond as pillows, grumbled curses and rubbed their eyes.
The translator bounced to his feet, way too awake for my comfort. “I know how to make Turkish coffee if you want me to give everyone a caffeine hit, but everybody is getting it without sugar because there are way too many of us to get fancy. And I’m going to brew it strong.”
I dug out all of my copper pots and pointed at the cabinet with the mugs. “We’re going to risk caffeine poisoning if we do that.”
“There’s no better way to start the morning. Take a shower or a bath. You’re still wearing blood from yesterday.”
“Right.” I sighed. “I’m making a bad impression, aren’t I?”
“With how you cook? You could cook in the nude, and frankly, I wouldn’t care as long as I got to have some.”
“Do you know what happens when you cook naked, Grieg?”
“Grease burns?”
“Grease burns,” I confirmed. “Is my bedroom safe? I need to get clothes.”
“You’ve already seen me naked, so what are you worried about?” Amber replied.
“Richard gouging my eyes out if I see his wife naked,” I replied.
Richard chuckled. “Don’t worry about that. The only rule we have is to keep any lust private, so if you can’t handle looking at a naked woman without getting turned on, leave the room. And if a woman happens to leave the room with you, well, nobody cares. The last time Nicolina pranced around after a shift, I ran away because she’s that beautiful.”
Amber, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else, strode out of my bedroom and headed for the stove, staring at the rice. “Can I eat this?”
“Save a few bites for the others, but yes. There’s curry in the pot next to it, and same deal. Save just enough for the others to not starve,” I replied. “Personally, I don’t really care if they starve if you’re hungry, but they’ll probably whine they didn’t get any of my curry, and do we want that?”
