Competence

by Gail Carriger

  Acknowledgments

  With grateful thanks to my most wonderful Pigeons.

  You know who you are.

  Want More Gail Carriger?

  You’ve just read Book Three in the Custard Protocol series set in the Parasolverse. Characters cross over a lot! You could play a rousing game of spot that werewolf.

  STORIES SET IN GAIL’S STEAMPUNK PARASOLVERSE

  The Delightfully Deadly Novellas

  Stand-alone romance novellas

  (polite lady assassins)

  The Supernatural Society Novellas

  LBGTQ stand-alone romance novellas

  (proper subversive activities)

  The Claw & Courtship Novellas

  Stand-alone romance novellas

  (ladies of quality go to the wolves)

  The Finishing School Series

  Young adult novels, begins with Etiquette & Espionage

  (spies, girl power, flying food)

  The Parasol Protectorate Series

  Five novels, begins with Soulless

  (adventure, love, silly hats)

  The Custard Protocol Series

  Ongoing, begins with Prudence

  (world travel, romance, stolen tea)

  The Curious Case of the Werewolf That Wasn’t

  Short story set in steampunk Egypt

  (featuring one sexy and rather unpleasant Italian)

  GAIL’S OTHER WORKS

  Fairy Debt

  YA fantasy comedy short story

  (girl power, dragons, and cupcakes)

  My Sister’s Song

  High fantasy historical short story

  (warrior woman takes on a Roman legion alone)

  AS G. L. CARRIGER

  The San Andreas Shifters Series

  Blue jokes, raunchy sex, and gentle hearts

  (loving werewolf meets smart-mouthed mates)

  Marine Biology: San Andreas Shifter Prequel

  Sweet romance gay short story

  (geeky werewolf meets hot merman)

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  About the Writerbeast

  New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger writes to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small-town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in higher learning, a fondness for cephalopods, and a chronic tea habit. She then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported from London.

  gailcarriger.com

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  COMPETENCE

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  ROMANCING THE WEREWOLF

  Gail Carriger

  PROLOGUE

  A Timeless Memory

  April 1876

  Every part of him hurt. It had been a long and vicious fight, the two of them - a Beta and a newly minted werewolf pup, trying to keep an Alpha alive. Trying to keep Lady Kingair from killing them all in her wild lust for revenge. They’d managed it. They’d made it through the night with everyone still relatively intact.

  Professor Lyall shuddered over the memory. No clean hits or playfulness in that battle. Biffy had come to his rescue because he could not have taken her on alone. He was a Beta, and Lady Kingair a true Alpha. No contest - he would have died. Except for Biffy. Biffy, so young, barely a werewolf, a baby in their world and innocent of all wrongdoing. He’d come to share the burden of Lady Kingair’s righteous anger. He and Lyall had swapped taking her hits, one after another all night long, so the fight remained fair, so they could all survive.

  Lyall was bloodied and bruised. Breathing hurt, which meant a few ribs were broken. But he was a werewolf, and he would heal overnight as he slept. Physically, they would all be fine after a day of rest.

  Mentally, though?

  Lyall felt the burden of embarrassment as well as pain because Biffy knew now. Biffy knew everything. Every messy, degrading, disgusting detail of what life had been like under Alpha Lord Vulkasin Woolsey.

  Servicing Lord Vulkasin as Beta near the end had been humiliating nearly beyond bearing. Professor Lyall was hundreds of years old. He’d survived because he knew suffering was finite. But immortality also made time more mutable - it had been a very long five years indeed. He remembered too much of them. Vulkasin, mad with Alpha’s curse, turned time longer by doling out pain and humiliation. Since Lady Kingair deserved the truth, Lyall spoke of it in flat, informative tones and tried not to notice Biffy crying. No doubt he wished that he did not have to hear it.

  Truth had not saved them from fighting. A different kind of clean hurt, an exorcism all on its own, that Lyall might have, oddly, needed. He had learned to live with the guilt - to protect himself and his pack, he’d arranged for his own Alpha to be slaughtered. He’d destroyed the lives of others in that process, not the least being Lady Kingair and her pack. Had one night of battle purged that? A little. They were, after all, werewolves.

  Biffy had come to save him, and so, youth got caught up in the past. But they had survived Lady Kingair’s hurt and hurting, and Lyall’s own memories. Together, they had survived.

  The carriage pulled up before the pack’s townhouse. Lyall and Biffy stumbled out, leaning on each other, wrapped in blankets and nothing else. The butler, bless him, met them with coin for the driver and a large, frilly parasol. They made it inside with very little sun damage and a driver’s silence purchased outright.

  Up the stairs and on to their own separate rooms, Lyall was struck by Biffy’s unselfish support. That Biffy had come for him, to help him, only a Beta. Lyall hadn’t words to express his gratitude, but he desperately wanted to say something. To do something.

  Perhaps some of that desperation showed on his face. Or some of the need. Or some of the loneliness.

  Because Biffy said, face drawn with exhaustion, blue eyes calm and kind, “Would you like company, Professor?”

  Lyall struggled. “I wouldn’t… that is… I couldn’t… that is… I’m not all that… capable.” He gave a weak hand flap indicating his still-wounded state, his fatigue, and his disheveled appearance all in one.

  Biffy gave a little puff of a chuckle. “Only company. I should never presume, even if we were both in perfect health.” Self-consciously, he touched his hair, messy from battle and shift. Dandy to the very end.

  Lyall barely stopped himself from smiling. My, but I really am tired. He schooled his features, reaching for backbone and untapped strength. I haven’t much of that left.

  He couldn’t take advantage. “Pity, pup? Now that you know what Lord Woolsey did to me? It was a long time ago.”

  Biffy tilted his head, showing his neck submissively. “No, sir. Never that. Respect, I suppose. To survive such things and still be sane.”

  How does he always know exactly the right thing to say?

  They were interrupted, at that moment, by the butler checking in on them. It wasn’t odd, in a werewolf house, to find two bloodied men talking politely in the upstairs hallway. But it was odd to find them lingering there after sunrise. The butler was understandably confused. Lyall sent him on his way with polite excuses.

  Biffy turned to make his way to his own sleeping chamber. His shoulders were slumped even further, rejection on top of exhaustion.

  Lyall could not bear it.

  He placed a hand on Biffy’s arm. He tilted his head in silent invitation and opened the door to his own quarters. Biffy hesitated. Lyall wondered if he had misread the signs. His own shoulders curved slightly, and he moved into his room, alone, glancing back only once.

  To see Biffy give one of his glorious quiet smiles and follow.

  They climbed into Lyall’s small bed, good for nothing more than sleep. But sleeping together was more than Lyall had ever hoped for.

  They awoke after sunset, entwined and naked. By mutual assent, they touched
each other then, careful kisses and soft caresses. They were both physically recovered from their ordeal, but remembered injuries made them reverent. Lyall could not stop running his fingers through Biffy’s hair. Before, when he was human, those dark curls had been coifed, tamed, and set. Now that he was a werewolf, they were silken and wild. No doubt this distressed Biffy, but Lyall adored it.

  Biffy was tender with him and not ashamed. He took charge, building everything between them into insistence and yearning. He was young enough for Lyall to be surprised by his knowledge and his skill with tongue, and fingers, and oil. They took their time with each other, and there was no question that it was Lyall who wanted claiming. Who needed the dark spike and slide of knowing that he was desired. Biffy was intent but never forceful. Perhaps his movements were gentled by the memory of what Lyall had suffered in the past, or perhaps it was simply his way. To be in control but kind with it, to use dominance as a way of focusing on Lyall’s pleasure first.

  It was oddly sweet, and oddly glorious, and so very, very necessary.

  When Biffy lay, flush against him, Lyall nuzzled into his neck. They fit well together, neither of them very big for werewolves.

  Biffy said, tones smooth, “You truly intend to leave and become Kingair’s Beta, even after all you sacrificed for this pack?”

  “I must make amends.” Lyall did not stop his nuzzling.

  “So far away from London?”

  That brought a new pain. Lyall had known some of what was coming. This was his real pack. London was his home. He would be leaving both, and now he would be leaving Biffy, too. But he would make right what he had done to Lady Kingair, and that meant submitting himself to her will and her stewardship. “It won’t be forever.”

  They spoke of other things then - pack politics, government position, other kinds of necessity. Lyall could only hope that Biffy understood. He wasn’t really leaving them so much as going to something vital, for a time.

  Eventually, Biffy worked up the courage to ask, “Will you come back here after?”

  “I will try.” I will arrange everything. I will plan it out, and I will fix it all, and this time around, no one will have to die.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Problem with Purple

  December 1895

  “But Alpha, purple is simply not appropriate.” Quinn’s growly voice somehow edged into whining.

  The rest of the werewolf pack tried to shush him, but the damage was done.

  “I beg your pardon!” Sandalio de Rabiffano, newly minted Lord Falmouth, better known to the rarified fuzz and fang of the supernatural set as Biffy, Alpha of the London Pack, nearly leapt to his feet… at the dinner table. He was that offended. Of course, he remembered himself long before he could commit such a profound breach of etiquette. He was, after all, still Biffy.

  He narrowed his eyes instead. “I assure you, purple is a perfectly delightful colour. and is more than appropriate to all venues, ages, genders, and species!”

  “It doesn’t hearken to nature,” Phelan came to his pack mate’s defence with an intellectual argument. He cocked his head socratically, his studied air rather defeated by the fact that he had to stop stuffing his face with steak and kidney pie in order to talk. Biffy swung his discerning glare onto him, judging his manner, his decision to speak against his Alpha, his choice of argument, and his ill-judged belief that Quinn had opened the floodgates of objection.

  This anti-purple rhetoric would be nipped, most sharply, in the bud. “Plenty of lovely natural things are purple: sunsets, sunrises for that matter, iris, aubergines, oysters.” Nip nip nip! “Although” - he frowned, and then remembered he didn’t like the way this wrinkled his forehead, so stopped - “these are all different shades of purple. Is that the true objection? Should I choose a different shade?”

  A chorus of groans met that. They’d already been at this for an hour, Biffy finally settling on this particular deep, rich, dark plum velvet. Ordinarily, the pack didn’t care about interior decorations and would rather he choose without involving them. Ordinarily, he would have. But this was a communal curtain situation and they were his pack. Curtains should matter to his pack. And now, it seemed, of a sudden they did matter.

  Biffy pursed his lips. He knew this was the correct colour. Knew it in his very bones. Bones that moved and shifted and broke every full moon, so possibly not as reliable as they might once have been, but still… “Why are you arguing with me on this particular detail? Purple would suit the room best. You never usually care two tail shakes for this sort of thing.” Why object now about something I know is right?

  Adelphus, who was at that moment wearing a purple evening jacket (not plum, more violet, but still), looked monumentally uncomfortable. He fiddled with one of the fabric samples set out before them. Biffy suppressed the instinct to slap the man’s hand away - Adelphus might leave a grease stain. But no, it was fine, Adelphus was mostly tame. “I simply feel the green…”

  “In that room? Are you mad?” Biffy tried not to let the frustration colour his voice. He knew what he was talking about. This was what he did. He made rooms beautiful. He made people beautiful. Or he used to, before he lost most of his soul and creativity.

  Doubt, his old friend, shook him then. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the purple is unpleasant. Maybe I’ve lost my eye for colour as well as everything else. No. Stop second-guessing. It’s the purple or nothing. And nothing was not an option in a house full of werewolves. Sunlight being rather more of an issue when one was allergic to it.

  He took a breath. I’m the Alpha, for goodness’ sake. Aren’t they supposed to listen to me? Instinctively obey me?

  “God’s teeth, it’s only curtains!” Even Rafe, the most easygoing of the pack, was getting annoyed.

  Biffy huffed. “Curtains,” he explained slowly as though to a very thick child (which, to be fair, rather defined Rafe’s character), “are a serious business.”

  “Don’t you think they’ll be too dark for the room?” Hemming was clearly not at all sure of himself. It sounded as if he were trying to come up with an excuse. As if he really had some other reason for objecting. As if they all did.

  What is going on here?

  Biffy swept a critical gaze over his nervous pack. “All right, chaps, what’s the truth here? What’s actually wrong with purple?”

  His pack all looked collectively guilty. They exchanged glances. Finally, they all turned to Adelphus as if he were the one best at calming their new, young, purple-minded Alpha.

  Poor Adelphus. He isn’t my Beta, but he keeps getting cast in that role. Biffy winced away from that thought, like touching a sore tooth. He didn’t want to think about his Beta. He didn’t want to miss him.

  He’d agree with me about the purple.

  A nice dark plum, ideal to show off the daring ash furniture and sumptuous cream brocades he’d chosen for the rest of the drawing room. With some luscious ferns scattered about, and a few other plants, shelves of books, and other knickknacks. It would look rich and striking yet bright and welcoming and…

  Adelphus looked uncomfortable. But at least he’s stylish. Perhaps I should listen to him. We have something in common.

  Biffy paused to think a little on that. It took a great deal of effort for a werewolf to have style. Getting naked once a month, ripping clothes constantly, and turning into a slavering beast was only the start of the afterlife’s many dandy challenges.

  Something for me to be proud of. Biffy had come a long way from the lonely, scruffy want-to-be vampire of his first few years as a werewolf pup. My hair alone was a complete shambles. Certainly, he still wasn’t a very good Alpha. He’d no idea how to run a pack. He’d never successfully metamorphosed a claviger, and he was still looked down upon by other Alphas. In fact, the litany of his failings over the past twenty years since his metamorphosis filled his brain, but… At least I am a werewolf with style. And I can bloody well pick out curtains!

  He fully glared a
t Adelphus, putting Alpha will behind the look.

  Adelphus crumpled. “See here, Alpha. I mean no disrespect and no insult to your former life.” His eyes were wary.

  “Go on,” said Biffy, trying not to let his voice sink into a growl.

  “But, sir…”

  Now that felt weird. Adelphus was at least a hundred years his senior, possibly twice that, and sir was an honourific Biffy did not feel he deserved.

  “Yes?”

  “Purple is a vampire colour.”

  Biffy let out a long sighing kind of snort. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! We have colours now?”

  Quinn tried to help. “It’s accepted all ‘round as standard practice for spaces and coaches and cushions and that sort of thing.” He failed the dismount.

  “That sort of thing?” Biffy let his outrage show.

  “It’s only, Alpha, this is a big step, us moving away from Himself next door. We don’t want any reminders of previous intimacies.” Hemming was trying to be kind.

  What he was saying was actually: We don’t want you to have any reminders.

  Biffy suddenly understood. They were worried he was pining for lost futures. How sweet of them.

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not upset about being a werewolf instead of a vampire?”

  Incredulous looks all ‘round.

  “Fine, I’m not upset anymore. Honestly.”

  All the werewolves were displaying varying degrees of disbelief. Biffy had made no secret, at first, that werewolf was not what he wanted for an afterlife. Back then, it had been hard to hide, he was so wounded, knowing he could have made it. To have enough excess soul to become a werewolf meant he might have become a vampire instead. Vampire would have suited him so much better - his personality, his plans, his future, his soul (or what was left of it). But that wasn’t what happened, and he’d had twenty years to come to terms with that. Purple curtains were not going to sway him into flights of his former melancholy.