Pack of Lies

by Edwards, Hailey

  He could have conscripted Liz, but he wanted the best for Hadley, and the pack healer, who had treated her once before, was already en route.

  Angling toward them, Midas intercepted Ares. “I need your help.”

  Dominant as Ares was, she had no trouble staring at his chin, but she was too smart to look higher than his chest when she could smell the damning evidence of what he had done.

  “Of course.” Ares kissed her mate, a quick peck on the lips. “Sorry, baby.”

  “I know who I mated.” Liz held out her hand. “Card, please.”

  “Enjoy breakfast, okay?” Ares passed her a credit card. “Tell Wren and Kyle raincheck.”

  Proving Ares had chosen well, her wife kept her gaze low and didn’t fuss over the cancelled plans. Not to say she wouldn’t under normal circumstances, or when she got Ares alone, but she had been among gwyllgi long enough to know when to push and when to take the out she was given.

  Ares escorted Liz to a couple by the door who pushed out onto the street to meld with the crowd.

  “You cost me a few hundred bucks,” Ares groused on her way to join him in the elevator. “I hope you’re happy.”

  Willing to be distracted, Midas growled, “How?”

  “Liz is on call at the hospital as much as me, so we came up with a system. The canceller foots the bill for the missed plans, and the cancellee gets to spend up to an additional one hundred dollars on an item or items of their choice on the canceller’s dime. We call them apology presents. We keep lists so we’re always prepared.”

  With Liz being a surgeon, he had no trouble imagining their struggle to carve out time for one another. It heaped on more guilt to learn he was responsible for costing Ares a date with her wife and their friends.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it, but it did little to brighten her sour mood. “I need a woman’s help, and Hadley trusts you.” He tightened his grip. “She needs to bathe and change before Abbott arrives.”

  Ares would have to cut Hadley out of her ruined clothes to spare her shoulder more damage, and her wounds must be flushed in case the creature they battled had any other nasty surprises in store for them. Venom was his chief concern, but so far, he didn’t feel any ill effects. Except over what he had done.

  “Yeah. I get that. You don’t want to start your courtship off explaining how you’ve already seen her naked, but she doesn’t remember.” She studied Hadley, her brow pinching when she got to the wound on her shoulder. “That sends the wrong message. She’ll think you’re a perv or a creeper or a pervy creeper, and your suit will be doomed from the get-go.”

  “Thank you.” He took a breath fragranced with Hadley’s blood, pushed it out. “I’ll make it up to Liz.”

  “Leave that to me.” She got a faraway look in her eyes. “The best part of fighting is making up.”

  “You didn’t fight.”

  “Once you’re mated, you’ll understand that any slight counts. The only way to maintain a happy relationship is to smooth out the bumps as you go. You can’t wait until you fall into a hole you dug for yourself to decide maybe you ought to devote more time to your relationship. Usually, by that point, you might as well stay in the hole. There won’t be anyone above you ready to give you a hand up. They’ll already be gone.”

  Fingers curling into the fabric of Hadley’s shirt, into her soft skin, he admitted, “This isn’t a relationship.”

  “You’re a beta, a future alpha.” She held the elevator door for him when it opened. “The more dominant the gwyllgi, the less choice they have over the urge to mate.” Once they were both out in the hall, she produced a master key and let them into Hadley’s apartment. “I met Liz at a club, walked right up to her, and kissed her. She slapped me, but it was worth it.” She made a happy sound. “She came home with me that night, and I moved her in two weeks later.”

  “Hadley wants out,” he found himself admitting. “I can’t let her go until I understand this…”

  “Need?” Ares stripped the futon to the mattress then covered it in a dark comforter. “That’s what it is, if you haven’t put a name to it.” She waved him into the cramped bathroom. “I’ll take over from here.”

  The urge to snarl and snap had quieted in him. Ares was a woman, and she was mated, so maybe it was that simple? Or was it knowing, however unfairly, he had secured Hadley for himself? Even if for a little while? He passed her warm weight over to Ares then searched until he located the only pair of pajamas he had ever seen Hadley wear. Star Trek. He bet she didn’t know he knew, but some jokes transcended the geek culture she lived submersed in, and red shirts dying first was one of them.

  Mentally, he made a note of the brand so he could upgrade her to blue shirt or gold shirt.

  Then he made another note that perhaps he had done too much research if he knew that on a whim.

  With energy to burn, he left the front door cracked and began pacing from one end of the hall to the other. The elevator’s chime pulled him up short on his fifth or sixth turn, and he rushed to meet the healer.

  “I came as soon as Hank called,” Abbott said as he stepped out with his requisite guards in tow, his abilities and lineage too valuable to allow him unescorted out of the den. “Your necromancer has a nasty habit of getting herself almost killed.”

  “She’s the future POA.” Midas fell in step with him. “Ask her, and she’ll tell you this is how she enjoys spending her Thursday nights.” He gripped the doorknob before Abbott swept in. “Let me see if she’s out of the bathroom yet. Ares was helping her get clean.”

  The way he said it sounded like Hadley was mobile, wishful thinking, but he strangled on the truth.

  One of the guards passed him a repurposed tackle box, and Abbott checked his supplies. “By all means.”

  Ducking into the room, he found Ares standing watch over an unconscious Hadley. “How is she?”

  “The same.” She backed up to give him space. “Want me to let them in?”

  Now that he was here, he couldn’t find it in himself to leave. “Yes.”

  Abbott swept into the apartment, and Ares joined the others in the hall to chat and give them privacy.

  Careful of her injuries, Abbott inspected Hadley’s raw shoulder. “Are congratulations in order?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  The healer set about sterilizing the wound and giving her a shot of local anesthesia before preparing a kit for the necessary sutures. “About which part? The congratulations or the courtship?”

  “Both.” He lingered until watching the needle pierce her skin made him taste bile. “I have to call Linus.”

  “Tell him I said hello and that she’ll make it, barring infection.” He paused at that. “New species have a tendency to bring the unexpected with them.”

  First the witchborn fae, now this. Another unknown.

  Unwilling to leave the room, he crossed to the window and dialed. “Linus.”

  “Midas, it’s good to hear from you.”

  “Yeah, about that.” He cut through the niceties. “Hadley got hurt tonight.”

  The welcome in Linus’s voice drained to cold calculation. “How bad is it?”

  “Abbott says she’ll make it, barring infection. He also says hello.” He rested his forehead on the cool glass near the latch where Hadley’s scent had begun to fade. “We fought a creature tonight. I’ve never seen or smelled anything like it, but I can’t help wondering if it’s connected to the coven.”

  What Hadley dubbed the Snowball Situation. Not that he had heard anyone else call it that.

  “The cleaners are working the scene?”

  Minus Hadley, it was a gwyllgi problem start to finish in his mind. The creature ensured that when it borrowed their form to deceive her. The line blurred from there. She was the POA’s assistant, and she had been targeted. Any new predator in the city meant the OPA had a stake in the outcome too.

  “Yes.” He wasn’t sure he would have alerted them, but Hadley had taken that choice
out of his hands. “She called them after the creature was down, but we left before they arrived.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on DORA then.”

  “Does she have anyone?” That he had to ask Linus drove home the point Midas knew next to nothing about her. “Should I call her sister? Her father?”

  “She won’t want to concern them. Let her touch base with them when she’s feeling better.”

  That sounded like she didn’t expect them to care, not that she didn’t want them to worry. But again, he knew so little about her, about her home life, he was forced to rely on Linus’s advice.

  “All right.”

  “You sound distracted,” Linus noted. “Is there more?”

  I extended an offer of courtship to your apprentice, and she accepted. Heaven help us both.

  But he didn’t say that, for both their sakes.

  A relationship with him might cost her points in the eyes of paranormal Atlantans who worried about an association with him, with the pack. She wasn’t the POA yet. He was endangering a dream she had bled and fought for, and she would be right to hate him for it.

  As for himself, Linus kept nothing from Grier, and once Lethe caught a whiff of a secret, she ran her prey to ground. Grier wouldn’t stand a chance. And once Lethe knew, her mate would know. After that, it was only a matter of time before his mother found out, and he felt her teeth at his throat.

  “Just thinking about the creature,” he lied. “Hadley took photos and some video we can examine later.”

  “Can you spare someone to sit with her? I would circle back, but I’m pulling into the driveway at Woolworth House. Let her know I’ll come tomorrow if she needs me.”

  “I’ll stay.” He couldn’t leave her alone. “I’ll make sure she updates you at dusk.”

  “Are you sure it’s not an imposition? I could call Mary Alice and have her send someone over.”

  Mary Alice owned the Mad Tatter tattoo parlor where Linus moonlighted when the mood struck him. That’s also where he took Hadley when she wanted fresh ink. Except Linus had paid a house call in more ways than one, hadn’t he? What about this tattoo had they wanted kept secret? Its location on her body, or its purpose? Given the temper she would wake in, he wouldn’t push his luck in asking.

  “I don’t mind.” Midas turned from the window, unable to resist checking on her again. “I should go. Abbott is almost done with Hadley, and then it’s my turn.”

  Ford required medical attention too, but he hadn’t bothered to show up yet, not that Midas could blame him.

  “I’ll keep my phone on me if you need anything.”

  “Thanks.” Midas ended the call then sat in one of the small chairs at the compact table. “Well?”

  “No pus, weeping, or foreign objects.” Abbott hummed while he worked. “She won’t be using this arm for a few days. Good thing she’s ambidextrous. The injury won’t slow her down much.”

  Tapping his cell against his leg, Midas pondered the limits of necromantic magic. “Can Linus mend her faster?”

  “I don’t know about Linus, but Grier?” Abbott whistled. “She could do with her magic in minutes what it takes me days to accomplish.” He repeated the cleansing of Hadley’s wounds. “Ask Hadley first, though. I might be misremembering, but I think her paperwork stated no magic was to be used in the treating of her wounds without her consent.”

  Each resident at the Faraday filed paperwork as part of their application listing known allergies, medical conditions, and enemies. With so many factions under one roof, blood was bound to be spilled now and again, and it was critical to get residents medical help as fast as possible. That explained why Abbott would know, but it struck Midas as odd for a necromancer to be intolerant of her own species’ magic.

  “She had an episode,” he found himself saying. “She woke up in an alley with no memory of how she got there.”

  “Sleepwalking?”

  “No prior history.”

  Linus told him that much in a bid for the enforcers to keep an eye on her during the day while she slept.

  “That doesn’t mean it couldn’t develop.” He strode to the sink to wash his hands. “She’s under a lot of stress. The apprenticeship was one thing, but she’s running the show now. Linus isn’t here to kiss her boo-boos and tuck her in at night.”

  A harsh laugh burst out of Midas. “Have you actually met Linus?”

  “I consult with Grier often…” He dried his hands on a ratty towel. “I don’t know that I’ve ever met the man in person.”

  Healers tended to be nomads at heart. Most wandered from pack to pack, learning from one another, mentoring and being mentored, but others remained cloistered until only their alpha remembered them.

  Abbott was new to Atlanta. He moved down six months or so ago from Alpharetta, one of the satellite packs where Atlanta sent their overflow in order to circulate everyone through the city once every five years to feed the gwyllgi need for pack and closeness with their alpha.

  “You’re friends, right?” Abbott hung the rag over the faucet to dry. “He can’t be all bad.”

  “He’s the most loyal friend you could ask for,” Midas assured him, “but he embraces the tough love philosophy.”

  “He’s going to tough love you in the face when I tell him what you did,” Hadley murmured. “Jerk.”

  Abbott dried his hands then rushed to her side. “I didn’t expect you to be up yet.”

  “Small apartment.” She cracked her eyes open and unerringly found Midas. “Big mouths.”

  Abbott, used to verbal abuse that came with the job, ignored the acid in her tone and settled in to explain her injuries and limitations to her. She listened, but she kept her gaze locked with Midas’s.

  “The best thing for you now is sleep.” He checked his watch. “Dawn is an hour or so away, but the painkillers will put you under in thirty minutes.”

  “No.” She jackknifed on the mattress, forcing herself upright. “No painkillers.”

  The color drained out of her face, but Midas couldn’t tell if the injury was to blame or her sudden panic.

  “You need to rest,” Abbott said more firmly. “If you won’t take painkillers at least take ibuprofen.”

  “I have some in the medicine cabinet,” she blurted in a frantic rush. “I’m good.”

  Worried she might hurt herself worse to prove she was good with OTC meds, Midas ducked in the bathroom for her. There was barely room for him to turn around, so locating the pills was easy. On his way back to the futon, he grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and presented both offerings to her.

  Abbott watched her choke down the correct dosage then rose and gathered his things. “The pack knows how to get in touch with me if you start feeling worse.”

  Rolling the bottle between her palms, she picked at the label. “Thanks for patching me up, Doc.”

  “You can repay me by requiring my services less.”

  “Be sure to BCC all the bad guys in the city on that memo.”

  “I’ll do that.” Abbott raised his brow at Midas. “Am I examining you here or in the infirmary?”

  Hadley stopped fidgeting long enough to take another drink. “We have one of those?”

  “Pristine as the day construction finished.” Abbott shook his head. “No one ever seems to use it.”

  “Gwyllgi do have a tendency to require house calls to avoid bleeding to death.”

  “Potentates,” Abbott said dryly, “suffer the same predilections in my limited experience.”

  “Midas is a drama king,” she huffed. “He’s always making it out to be worse than it is.”

  “Hadley has seen Monty Python too many times,” Midas countered. “She thinks everything short of losing a limb is a scratch and even amputation is only a flesh wound.”

  “You’ve watched Monty Python?”

  The curiosity she sparked in him was to blame for the fact he had watched more movies in the last year than in the previous decade. He still didn’t understand what s
he saw in them, but he figured it was the equivalent to reading an instruction manual.

  “Yes.”

  Brow furrowed, she clarified, “Of your own free will?”

  The nature of obsession was it stole your free will where the subject of your fascination was involved. “Yes.”

  Funny, he wouldn’t have termed it obsession yesterday. Right up until the moment he asked her, when the words refused to be held back a heartbeat longer, he thought he had this…need…under control.

  “You know the drill.” Abbott stepped over to Midas. “Show me where it hurts.”

  A mischievous light entered Hadley’s eyes when Midas’s fingertips brushed the hem of his shirt.

  “Oh yeah. Take it off.” She stuck a hand in the crack of the futon. “I’ve got a dollar here somewhere.”

  “Let’s take this into the hall.” Abbott coughed up a laugh. “Too much excitement is bad for the patient.”

  “You’re no fun.” Hadley slumped against the futon after locating her remote. “He got to see me naked.”

  “You can thank Ares for tending you.” Midas bristled at the ding to his pride. “I waited in the hall.”

  “Scared you might glimpse more bra?” She wrapped herself in her comforter. “Goddess forbid you see me in athletic wear.”

  Abbott cleared his throat, and Midas followed him into the hall to avoid riling up Hadley even more.

  “I’ll go sit with her.” Ares shoved off the wall. “Does she know?”

  That they were courting. That she was his. That…he was hers. On a trial basis. “Yes.”

  Whistling through her teeth, Ares braved Hadley’s apartment, and Midas was glad to hear the door shut behind her.

  “You have an appointment in thirty minutes,” Bing reminded Abbott. “Do you want me to reschedule?”

  “Don’t cancel on my account.” Midas pulled his shirt over his head, ignoring the stares his scars always earned him from those who hadn’t seen them. “This won’t take long.”

  Six

  Warm fingers brushed my knuckles where my palm cupped my opposite shoulder, and I jerked awake on a short cry I couldn’t swallow quick enough. Midas loomed over me, his expression tight, and I yawned in his face. He had the grace not to flinch at my morning breath, but I smacked the sour taste of blood and goddess only knows what still in my mouth, the one place Ares hadn’t cleaned for me.