“Play nice, Mr. McCallum,” Viola said with mock sternness.
“No, I think it’s a terrific idea,” Rowan said. “And we’ll have a lot of, what…? Honey pots and picnic baskets for the bears.”
They were stoic for a moment, but then smiles broke on both of the men’s faces and they laughed.
“We’ll reach out to a few teams of designers, then,” Graham said.
“Agreed. Take some meetings, see what people come up with.”
“Try to find a good plot.”
“And go from there.”
***
Viola was out walking one morning, taking in the sight of the den mothers with their Urslings, her arms crossed tightly in front of her against a slight chill, the origins of which were unknown to her, when she spied Elizabeth Weaver on the other side of the esplanade.
Elizabeth had her hair done up neatly on the top of her head, her mouth a pursed line of displeasure as she approached Viola.
“Ms. St. James,” Elizabeth said, smoothing her hands over her black pinstriped pencil skirt.
“Mrs. Weaver,” Viola said, becoming suddenly anxious.
“I want you to know a few things,” she said, her eyes the same uncanny peridot as her son’s. Viola arched her brows in question, waiting for her to go on. “I want you to know that I never fully supported my husband’s plans, nor certainly the means through which he achieved is considerable success. But he was still my husband, and you are still his murderer.” Viola said nothing, but she did stand a little straighter, and she did lower her hands so that they were at her side, steady, calm. “And as such, you and I shall not be allies.”
“I am your son’s mate, Mrs. Weaver,” she said, canting her head to the side. “I shall be the bearer of your grandchildren.”
“Yes, but the unfortunate byproduct of yours and Mr. McCallum’s decisions is that you will have made a series of very powerful enemies, myself included.”
“I have no quarrel with you.”
“That may very well be, but you have uprooted our entire system, in one fell swoop. You’ll see no harm from me in this place, but I do intend to take back what’s mine.” Elizabeth Weaver was slim and slight, but Viola could see the determination in her eyes.
“What is it that you think I have taken from you?”
“My son, and my rightful place at the head of the most powerful clan of shifters on the continent.” She gave a sharp nod of her head and brushed past Viola, heading toward the elevator that would take her up and away from the Ursus dwelling. “Don’t be foolish enough to think that I’m the only council member who feels this way. You’ll have your Ursine elders, and other members of leadership throughout the shifter community, vying for your head.”
“But I just want peace,” she protested. “That’s all any of us wanted, Rowan, Graham, and me.”
“Yes, well,” Elizabeth said, pressing the button to summon the elevator, “everything comes at a price.” When the doors dinged open, she stepped inside. “Good day to you,” she said and disappeared.
***
Viola did her best to put the encounter out of her mind, but when she couldn’t sleep, she whispered the truth of it to Rowan in the night. He simply shrugged it off. “I love my mother, I do,” he said, “but she’s insane if she thinks she will be able to garner more support in Felidae than I will.”
Still, it ate at her, plaguing the darkest corners of her mind until she started to get restless, antsy. She needed time away from complicated clan politics.
So it was that she got her hands on Graham’s car keys, and a day to herself, away from the prying eyes of two over-concerned lovers, each vying to be the center of her limited attention. It was well past time that she endeavor to find her sister, so one sunny afternoon, she climbed into Graham’s Ford F150 and headed down the empty mountain roads back toward the city.
It was pleasant to spend several hours in solitude, the windows down, the wind mussing her hair. And it was even something of a relief to be back at her old building, climb the familiar stairs, breathe the familiar smell of the place, as rundown as it was.
When she let herself into her apartment, something like nostalgia washed over her, and she thought back rather fondly on the life she’d known before the events of the last few weeks had begun to transpire. It looked the same: shoddy furniture, largely secondhand, a mess of bottles and cans all over the kitchen counter, Rowan’s ashtray overrun with cigarette butts, clothes slung over every available surface. She smiled: how had she lived in such squalor?
“Verity?” she called out, opening the bathroom door to peer inside: empty. “You here?” But there was no reply. Brow furrowed, she made a search through the entire space, from top to bottom, but there was no sign that Verity had ever even been there at all, let alone was living there presently. What was it that Winnie had told her she’d said? Something about going to… what was it? Viola wracked her brain and couldn’t recall.
Since she was without a cell phone, she decided to make a call from the Internet and made her way over to the cluttered kitchen table that also served as her work space whenever she needed to use the computer. She plucked her laptop up off the couch and opened it, typing in the password one-handed as she sat in a chair at the kitchen table.
As soon as the screen came to life, she saw a still image of her sister’s face, frozen at the end of a recently recorded video. Viola’s heart was thrumming in her chest as she reached out to press play.
And Verity came to life there on her screen, smiling, lovely. “Is this recording…?” she said, her eyes darting around as she attempted to determine whether or not everything was functioning properly. “Okay.”
Quickly, Viola was able to tell that she wasn’t making this video out of coercion. Also, that she had recorded it here, in the loft. So she had been here. “So, Vi,” Verity said, looking healthy, animated, not like someone who had spent nearly a month in a hospital bed. “I’ve tried calling you like a dozen times, but you’re off on your little… adventure, we’ll call it. And I do hope it’s going well and that everything’s turned out precisely as you want it to, but in the meantime, I have my own adventures to go on. And I can’t sit around and wait for you anymore.” She was beaming, strong, proud. “I’m not the sickly, invalid sister anymore, at least… not right now. Right now, I’m healthy, and if history is any indication, I have a few solid good weeks ahead of me. So now is the time to follow this lead, wherever it takes me. When you see this, I hope you’ll call. I’ll send you a postcard from my first location, and I’ll let you know what I find out because… Vi? I think I found our mom.”
Viola blinked rapidly, stunned. She’d been told their mother was dead. In fact, Rowan had seemed certain of it. So what sort of windmills was Verity tilting at? She closed the laptop and tucked it under her arm, leaving the apartment as quickly as she’d arrived and heading down a flight of stairs to the row of mailboxes near the front entrance. She opened her box, which was overrun with bills and junk mail, and found the postcard, as promised. It was dated three days ago, sent from a place called Ventura, and it had a black-and-white photo of a bear on the front. “Vi, I’ll be here for one night, at the Motel Lyon, room 23.”
Viola looked at the date in the corner again, and heaved a sigh. Verity had already gone. But maybe she was right, what she’d said in the video. Maybe she was no longer the invalid sister; maybe she was capable of taking care of herself. She was, ostensibly, an adult. Viola swallowed hard and headed back to the truck, tossing her laptop onto the passenger seat before throwing it into drive and pulling back out onto the main road. Getting out of the city, Viola found the streets clogged with rush-hour commuters, but she didn’t mind: she was enjoying her time away, even if she was worried about her sister.
Their mother… she supposed it was possible that Lily Murphy was alive. Possible, but unlikely. And if she was, Viola hoped she would be proud to see how she’d worked to unite the clans that had ripped her family apart.
Viola got out onto the highway and rolled the windows down, breathing in the sweet pine air as she drove, back to the Dwelling, back to Graham, back to Rowan, and back to the leadership role she now understood was her birthright, her destiny. She could only pray that she would live up to the challenge.
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Table of Contents
Part 1: Shades of a Shifter
Part 2: Finding Her Beasts
Part 3: Marked by the Clan
Part 4: Torn Between Alphas
Part 5: Union of Alphas
Alpha Assassins Guild: (Complete Series: Books 1-5) Page 23
