by E. Blix
An incoherent moan was the clerk’s only answer.
Royce hummed a cheerful song under his breath as he walked toward the exit, scooping up the container of ice cream off the floor on his way. Dented and battered, maybe a bit melted, but it was whole.
He still had a date, after all.
Chapter One
A Few Months Later…
Christoph was on the verge of throttling his charge. He’d been stuck with babysitting detail, escorting a much younger werewolf across town. They were to meet the leaders of the most influential Were packs in New York City.
Analie was yapping away on her cell phone to Freddy, that nervous wreck of a friend of hers, about what a great honor this was and all of the landmarks they passed and kitschy crap vendors were hawking on the street. At least she was doing something other than reciting the Goliath pack’s Code of Conduct to herself like she’d done for the past six city blocks, desperate to remember everything so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself on her first chance to act as a representative for the pack.
Christoph thought it was nothing more than a tremendous pain in the ass. Analie had been picked because she was still young and cute, and therefore a suitably nonthreatening representative to keep the territorial Weres of New York City from ousting Christoph and Analie’s pack from moving in and carving their own province out of this fair city. Politically, it was a smart move on the part of the alpha. If the greater packs like the Moonwalkers, Ravenwoods, and the Sunstrikers detected no threat, they might be amenable to allowing some of the Goliath pack to relocate to the already crowded New York City.
The pack leaders had specifically requested to meet one of the ones too young and weak to have fully developed their abilities. They wanted to see what made the Goliaths so different from other Weres aside from their unusual size when shifted. Analie was perfect for that; aside from being young and manageable, she was small for a Goliath—and the less threatening they appeared to the New York Weres, the better.
The two were waiting on one of the subway platforms, intending to meet the pack leaders on neutral ground at Battery Park. It wouldn’t take long to get there, but Christoph wasn’t too pleased about missing most of tonight’s Lakers game.
When the train came to a grinding halt at the platform, the two shuffled on with the rest of the waiting crowd. Not too many considering the hour. None of them appeared to be Other save for a pair of magi deeply engrossed in a discussion about the benefits of using feline over reptilian familiars. It made Christoph even more irritated, since it meant he had nothing to keep himself busy with—like investigating suspicious activity or pounding someone into the pavement.
“Hey, how long do you think it’ll take to get there?” Analie asked, tucking away her cell phone as they worked their way toward a seat in the last car. There were only two other people inside: a dirt-encrusted bum and a businessman in a nice suit with his nose buried in a newspaper.
“I don’t know.” He snaked out a hand to yank her closer as the vagrant reached for her pocket when they passed. Christoph gave the ratty-looking guy a withering glare that sent the man sliding out of his seat and moving rapidly to a different car. As soon as the bum was gone, Christoph spoke again, cutting her off.
“Sit down and shut up, will you? I’ve had enough of your yammering.”
Flushing, Analie did what she was told, lowering her head and scooting as far away from him as she could in the first seat she could find that wasn’t coated with spilled soda or pre-chewed gum. Ignoring her, Christoph stood in the aisle, gripping the railing above. If not for his attitude, she might have easily developed a crush on him. Mostly, they had a drool-hate relationship right now.
As it was, she remained exasperated and embarrassed by her inability to do anything right in front of the good-looking, muscle-bound Were and his desire to whittle every last shred of her dignity away whenever she screwed up. It didn’t help matters that she was nearly sixteen and looked more like a preteen than a young lady on the verge of adulthood. She wished she knew what she could do to earn his respect so he wouldn’t be such an ass all the time.
“Not a very nice way to treat a lady,” came a low, droll voice from behind them.
Christoph turned his head, frowning. That voice was familiar somehow. It emanated from behind a newspaper hiding the face of the speaker. The man was wearing a very nice charcoal gray business suit that looked entirely out of place on this filthy train, particularly at this hour.
“What’s it to you?”
The edge of the paper folded down, revealing the features of Alec Royce. Christoph hadn’t seen the vampire since their fight in the convenience store, back when the Were was busy scoping out the new territory, getting a feel for the place to report back to his alpha’s deputy. Christoph had been cocky and overconfident. Royce had mercifully not killed him, only sticking him with the bill and leaving him to explain to the cops why they decimated the store over something as ridiculous as some ice cream.
Christoph hadn’t told anyone in his pack that the vamp survived the fight. In fact, he’d made it sound like he’d been the victor when he had to explain his injuries and time in jail to his alpha’s deputy. There was no way for this meeting to end well.
His face flamed as he rapidly backed up, putting distance between them.
Analie’s voice wavered when she spoke, startling him; he’d forgotten about her. “Christoph, is that what I think it is?”
He didn’t answer her, halting his retreat. The vamp casually set the paper aside and rose with easy grace to lean against the back of Analie’s seat. She cringed, mouth dropping open as she stared up at the vampire’s face, eyes searching. Christoph knew what she was seeing—or, rather, not seeing—but he had no pretty words to soothe her fears, considering he was on the verge of panic himself.
“You’re not keeping very good company, little one.” Royce’s gentle, winning smile abruptly turned feral as his attention shifted off the cringing girl to Christoph. “Not very good at all.”
“Get the hell away from her,” Christoph demanded. He flexed his fingers, fingernails rapidly shifting to sharp talons, and the light stubble marring his chiseled jaw grew thicker as he prepared to change. Much as he was afraid of Royce, he had a job to do—protect Analie.
Royce stayed where he was, his gaze following the girl as she bolted to hide behind Christoph, coming to a sliding halt near the end of the car. “Th-th-tha-at’s a va-a-a-ampire!” she cried. “Oh, g-g-god, Christoph, we have to get out of here!”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” he snarled, shoving her toward the exit and shifting his stance to place himself between his charge and the vampire.
Royce stepped into the middle of the aisle, squaring off against the Were. “What silly stories about me did you fill that poor child’s head with?”
Christoph looked down at Analie, who was peering anxiously around him. His thick, dark brown brows arched on high as an idea struck him. When they fought before, the vampire had never made an attempt at a killing blow. Maybe that was in his favor. A low, rumbling chuckle soon had him grinning as he whirled, grabbing Analie by her backpack and the back of her pants, hefting her up despite her squeals of terror.
“Only the ones about how to kill your kind, leech. Here, meet Analie.”
With that, he bodily hurled the squirming younger Were at the vampire, enjoying Royce’s look of shock as he stumbled back. She plowed into him with a highly undignified yelp of pain and surprise, and the two went ass over teakettle until they collided with the back door, leaving a good-sized dent in the thick metal.
Analie panicked. Every horror story of her youth, every warning ever given by the pack high-ranks, every prior brush with the Unseen, had her positively terrified of Royce. While he struggled to grab her arms or shoulders to push her aside and get her off his stomach, she instantly jumped to
the conclusion that he was trying to hold her down to get at something vital. Naturally, she reacted violently, scratching and clawing and biting at him. High-pitched screams that were almost words were directed at no one in particular, especially since it seemed Christoph had turned against her.
“OH-MY-GOD-GET-IT-OFF-GET-IT-OFF-GET-IT-OFF!!”
Grimacing as her piercing screeches deafened sensitive eardrums, Royce growled and finally managed to snag her flailing wrists, though she kept making frenzied lunges to bite him with partially grown-in fangs. She put him in mind of a rabid puppy. A frightened rabid puppy who was ruining his hand-tailored Caraceni suit.
With a slight heave, he used his superior weight and strength to force them into a roll until he was straddling the girl. If anything, her screaming became even higher-pitched and more frantic. He would’ve taken both of her slender wrists in one hand and tangled his fingers in her shoulder-length, mousy brown hair to keep her from biting him if Christoph hadn’t been waiting for him to be distracted and shift on top just like that. The big Were took the opportunity to crack the vamp over the back of the head with one of the slender metal poles he’d torn out of the floor.
Stunned, Royce collapsed over Analie, his grip on her wrists loosening as he slumped on top of her. Screaming and clawing frantically at him, she struggled to push him off, her great strength heaving him across the aisle to crush the chairs into a crumpled plastic heap a few feet away. When Christoph held out a hand to help her up, she ignored the offer and surged to her feet so she could slap him with all her might.
“You—you asshole!” she screamed, tears trickling down her cheeks as the bigger Were staggered back from the blow. “You unbelievable, cock-sucking, unmitigated asshole!”
Clutching at his nearly broken jaw, Christoph spit out a little bit of blood and snarled. “Analie, for fuck’s sake, I was using you to distract him. It stopped him, didn’t it?”
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her stomach and hunching over, haunted hazel eyes locking on the vamp lying motionless a few feet away. “I don’t care. That was a shitty thing to do.”
“Yeah, well, it worked. Stop crying and butch up.”
The girl hissed a few hateful curses under her breath, one shaking hand rubbing the tears from her eyes. She was surprised she hadn’t peed herself, she was so scared. You don’t mess with vamps. Period. That Christoph had thrown her at him like a chunk of meat was going to burn in her for a long, long time. When the bigger Were put a hand on her shoulder to urge her toward the next cab, she slapped it away and moved on her own. As soon as she saw the vamp was slowly pulling himself to his feet, her hurried footsteps broke into a run.
Christoph glanced at the pole he was still clutching—now bent at a ninety degree angle—and threw the useless weapon aside. He waited until the vamp had gotten to his knees and looked in the Were’s direction with eyes turned a hateful, dark red.
As soon as he turned, Christoph kicked him in the face, snapping the vamp’s head back as the heavy work boot smashed into his jaw. The force behind the blow would have snapped the neck and crushed the skull of a human, but Royce only lost his balance and fell back, dizzy and disoriented as he sprawled against the broken seats.
“How do you like that trick, you little prick?” Christoph said, grinning to himself as he turned and dashed off to catch up with Analie. She was waiting anxiously in the next car, wringing her hands as she waited for him to join her.
That had been very satisfying.
“Is it coming after us?”
“No, not yet. Come on, let’s walk from here,” he said, taking her arm and hustling her off the train as they reached the Canal Street stop. He’d studied maps of the area extensively before this meeting. The walk was a little over two miles, but he didn’t care. The vampire would regain consciousness soon. When he found them gone, he wouldn’t be happy, but he wouldn’t be able to follow to exact any retribution either. Christoph was pleased he’d gotten the last word in this time.
Analie was too afraid to argue with him. It didn’t stop her from being curious, though. “Christoph, why did he act like he knew you? I mean, I know the Rattlesnake Talk and all, but vampires aren’t usually that nasty without being provoked, are they?”
The bigger Were tightened his grip on her arm until it hurt, ignoring her protests as he rushed her up the concrete steps that led to street level. Jaw clenched, he looked around, getting his bearings before pulling Analie with him. He moved south toward Battery Park; they’d get there in thirty minutes if they paced themselves. A little late, but not enough to cause comment.
After getting a glimpse of his expression, Analie decided not to push Christoph. He was too hyped up to risk upsetting him further. No matter how tolerant New Yorkers were supposed to be, it didn’t seem like a good idea to push their limits by having a fully shifted Were throwing a very public tantrum on the city streets. She wasn’t interested in finding out what the inside of a jail cell looked like.
Oddly, it seemed he was more scared than angry, which she didn’t understand. The only time she’d heard of him tangling with a vampire had been recent, back when he’d first scoped out the city and made contact with the packs here. Luckily, the guy who vouched for him and got him out of jail was the leader of the Moonwalker pack, Rohrik Donovan. The same Were who had unveiled the existence of werewolves, vampires, magi, and a host of other mythic creatures that turned out not to be so mythic after all, to the human populous. Rohrik was far more tolerant than any Goliath Were considering Christoph was still alive, Analie thought.
After some harsh words to the erring Goliath, Rohrik had used his not inconsiderable political clout to get the police to release Christoph to the custody of the Moonwalker pack to be handled as an “Other-to-Other” matter. Aside from having him sign a statement promising to reimburse the store for the damages, the police were all too happy to let him go. Most stations hadn’t yet been equipped to hold a Were during the full moon, and Christoph would have shifted in one of their cells in a matter of days.
Analie had never bothered to find out anything about the vampire he had fought. Like the rest of her pack, she’d assumed, based on the way Christoph told the tale, that he’d killed the vamp in the process of trashing the store. Now that she thought on it, he’d never outright stated that he’d killed it, only gave knowing looks or grinned slyly when somebody asked. It had made the others in the pack respect him more. Even the alpha’s deputy paid him more deference for thinking he was a vampire slayer.
Anger abruptly surfaced as she realized what that encounter must have meant.
“You are unbelievable! That was the same vampire from the store, wasn’t it?”
He paused when she grabbed at the lapel of his brown canvas trench coat, snarling and ripping it out of her fingers. At the sound of tearing fabric, he closed his eyes and counted to ten silently before answering her.
“Yes, it was the same one. Keep moving.”
“You are just… God!” she spat, throwing her hands up in the air and marching after him as he sped up into an easy jog. Soon she was forced to run to keep up with his ground-eating strides. Hefting her backpack, she continued cursing him softly under her breath, realizing at this pace she’d have to start shouting at him for him to hear, and thus draw attention to herself. He’d done it to shut her up. Again.
When forced to wait for traffic lights, she took every opportunity to call him every nasty name she could think of, unable to believe he would break the Goliath Code by showing such cowardice. Nobody would have thought less of him for losing a fight to a vampire if he’d been honest about what happened. Those monsters were nasty; even the young ones were capable of doing unbelievable amounts of damage in a fight. To pretend like he’d come away the victor was beyond detestable.
Some curious guy smoking outside the store on the corner stared when she uttere
d something particularly creative about Christoph’s hide, fleas, and camel corpses.
“Will you shut up already?” Christoph hissed.
“Fear is no fault, but cowardice is,” she growled. He couldn’t meet her challenging stare when she recited that line of the Code. He knew he was going to have to pay for this eventually—he’d just hoped it wouldn’t come so soon.
“Look, the park’s right over there,” he said, pointing. “We’ll discuss it after the meeting.”
“Oh, you bet we will,” she promised.
Unnerved, he led the way into the park, lifting his head to take in the place’s scent. Aside from the overpowering smell of saltwater, the heady rush of thousands of humans’ scents swirled together, mixed with car exhaust, dead fish, tree sap, decaying leaves, and a whole host of city-related smells. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the fresher ones, seeking the sweet musk of Were.
The wind was blowing the wrong way, but the trace of two Weres who had passed where he was standing gave him a point of scent-reference to follow. He glanced around, searching.
There. Against the rail overlooking the water and, distantly, Ellis Island. Four distinctive figures waited, three in the light cast by a streetlamp and one in shadow. The four figures turned to look as he and Analie made their way across the grass, one raising a hand in a friendly wave. Rohrik Donovan.
When they got closer, Rohrik stepped forward to take Christoph’s hand in a firm shake, inclining his head in greeting. He was nearly as muscular as Christoph, just as tall, and carried himself with the cool assurance of a born leader. Older than the other pack leaders, his black hair was sprinkled with streaks of white. There was no doubting the strength behind his grip or the power of presence he commanded.
“Christoph of Clan Goliath, thank you for coming. May I introduce Chaz Hallbrook, leader of the Sunstriker pack, and Nathan Hutchinson of the Ravenwood pack. They’ll be participating in the decision-making process regarding this proposal to foster some of your cubs.” The other two men offered their hands, shaking Christoph’s own before turning to face the girl.
