John gestured generously with his bottle. “The basement here is all yours if you want it. I’m sure we can survive a few weeks.” He grinned briefly, Silver snorted, and Andrew chuckled his agreement. “Survive” was the operative word, but it was good of John to make the offer. “The thing is—speaking of Sacramento, I think maybe you should reevaluate your chances of even getting to the point of the challenge.”
He hesitated and Andrew let his questioning silence grow heavier. John needed to just spit it out.
“Sacramento’s been talking to a lot of people. I told him to go bite his own tail, but I’ve heard from Portland and Billings that he approached both of them. You can probably figure he talked to all of the Western alphas.”
Andrew clenched a fist, then forced himself to relax the muscles. “If I need to address the question of his son again, I will. The Convocation upheld my decision to execute him at the time. He was a disgusting little shit, even leaving aside the rapes. I doubt anyone besides his father has much sympathy for him.”
John shook his head. “It’s not just that. He’s aiming wider, and leaving his son out of it for the most part. He claims Rory is saying that you’re power hungry enough to want all of North America, and that was your goal when you challenged me before.”
“Do you believe that?” Silver asked. She unconsciously tipped her chin up to put her nose at a better angle to read him. John swirled his beer, probably to try to swamp his scent with that of the alcohol.
“If any Were in North America could pull it off, it would be you,” John said at length.
“But no one can.” Andrew snorted. He doubted John actually believed he could accomplish that impossible task, but it was worrisome if he thought Andrew would want to. He wasn’t power hungry. He’d explained his reasons for challenging John at the time. He’d needed the ability to chase Silver’s attacker without wasting time talking John into every single step. John should have smelled the truth of that on him. “So that’s not an answer, Seattle.”
“No. I don’t believe it.” John sighed. “However much you seem to attract trouble by nature, it’s not like you’re going out and picking fights to get it. But it sounds plenty plausible, and the kind of thing Rory would say.”
Andrew snorted. “He probably did say it. But he’s running scared. A lot of Were saw the danger he put his pack in when he let the man who hurt Silver get too close. The Roanoke sub-packs will have heard all about it, and they’ll remember all the other times he let his obsession with hanging on to power drive him to bad decisions. The Western alphas don’t know him like we do.”
John spread his hands, one open, one tilting the beer bottle. “I’m just saying, you might want to watch out.”
Silver cocked her head like Death was saying something. Her frown afterward didn’t reassure Andrew. Was Sacramento really going to be such a problem? “Well, there’s an easy way to find out what the Roanoke packs’ reactions to Sacramento’s shit are. I’ll call Boston, see what he thinks,” Andrew said. He pulled out his phone and rubbed a hand down Silver’s back as he nodded questioningly to the front door. He’d go outside to avoid anyone listening in, and she might want to join him.
“I’ll stay here. If Seattle doesn’t get to feed me something soon, I think he’ll explode from worry,” Silver said. She brushed imaginary John-bits off her shirt. “Not worth the mess.”
Under the humor, Andrew caught an edged note to her voice. It could be her usual frustration with being patronized by anyone, but he made a mental note to follow up later to make sure. He gave her a quick peck on the lips.
John stiffened with frustrated protectiveness, then wrestled it back under control. Andrew gritted his teeth. John’s mistaken concern about Silver being in a relationship given her mental state apparently wasn’t going to die either. After Andrew and Silver first made love, John had accused Andrew of taking advantage of someone who couldn’t give consent, until Silver verbally kicked his ass. Given his previous reaction, maybe silence was progress. Fine. Let John stew, Andrew wasn’t going to dignify his issues by defending himself.
Outside, Andrew eyed the suburban street and the neighbors’ manicured front yards and crossed instead to the side gate to let himself into the backyard. It matched the sprawling house in size, conspicuous consumption for most humans, but necessary for a pack living together. The pack had landscaped it with dense bushes and trees along the fence to prevent anyone peering through or over the wooden slats. They’d left most of the rest of the space wild and grassy.
Boston answered after two rings, and Andrew’s tone warmed automatically for his greeting. “Benjamin. How is everyone?”
“Dare.” Benjamin’s voice, in contrast, held a lurking frustration. Andrew thought at first it might be directed at him, but then Boston blew out a sigh. “All of us in the Roanoke pack need you more than ever, but I fear you may have missed your window.”
Andrew slipped a hand under the hem of his shirt, feeling the ugly ridges of scar tissue along the small of his back. He hadn’t wanted to wait this long. There were a lot of good people in the Roanoke pack who needed his protection. “John tried to tell me something similar, but I hadn’t realized it was so bad. Sacramento’s been winning people over?”
“With Rory’s help. You’ll remember I said Rory sounded too polished. Well, recently Sacramento has started talking to people directly. It’s rather well planned. Must have been Sacramento’s idea.” Benjamin’s tone was as withering as only the experience of over a century could make it. “Rory doesn’t campaign too obviously against you, but the same things get said.”
“Empire building?” Andrew rubbed his temple again. Who in their right mind would want such power? Especially since the Europeans might stop squabbling among themselves long enough to sit up and feel threatened. In Andrew’s experience, the Europeans could manage to feel threatened by the most innocent of events, never mind a continent uniting behind one leader.
“And the events in Spain grow no less lurid for repetition, especially since you haven’t told the story yourself to squash the exaggerations.”
Andrew waited for the familiar rush of anger, the impulse to beat whoever asked a question about his history until they withdrew it. It didn’t come. He’d told Silver the story, and she was still with him. She’d helped to center him more than he realized. “Wouldn’t admitting what I did cement it in everyone’s minds? I killed seven of the Barcelona pack. That’s not an exaggeration. But if you think that’s what we need to do, the Convocation’s good for that, I suppose. A platform for telling stories.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think strategically. “Maybe Silver could back me up. When I told her about how I’d ripped out their throats to keep their voices from the Lady in the depths of the rage, she said that Death said I was a fool to think their voices rested only in a chunk of muscle.”
Silence greeted that, and Andrew silently swore at himself. He needed to be careful about making Silver seem crazy before people got a chance to meet her for themselves. “She’s completely lucid, Benjamin, even if she still sees some of her own world. She sees plenty of this one too. She just has a different perspective.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking.” Benjamin’s voice held a gentle note of correction. “I was thinking that I’m very much looking forward to meeting this mate of yours. I assume from your twitterpated tone that those rumors are correct, at least?”
Andrew had to laugh. “I’m sure the rumors are wrong somehow, but we’re together now.”
“Is she dominant?”
To avoid teasing, Andrew tried to keep the desire out of his voice, but found it impossible. “Yes.”
Benjamin laughed, the sound suffused with the warmth that had been missing at the beginning of the conversation. “My advice is to use that, then. I can’t think of the last time a North American pack had a mated pair of true alphas, and I’ve been keeping track longer than most.”
Andrew stared below one of the
bushes where a starling was poking around. Brave bird, by a house of predators. He hadn’t thought of using Silver’s dominance as an argument for his challenge. “Silver can take some getting used to.” He laughed. “Then again, I know she’d kick the ass of anyone who underestimated her.”
“I definitely need to meet her.” Benjamin’s laughter trailed back into seriousness. “I don’t know what contacts you have out there, Dare, but it wouldn’t hurt to start courting the Western alphas. Talk to them, remind them that you’re not a slavering monster. I’ll do what I can over here in Roanoke until you can pick it up yourself when everyone’s gathered at the Convocation.”
“Thanks,” Andrew said. He ended the call with a quick good-bye. Hopefully he’d have some luck with Portland when she arrived tonight. She’d been helpful when he’d visited while searching for Silver’s attacker. He also suspected she’d understand about having to sell herself, since she was the only female North American alpha at the moment.
Andrew headed in through the back door. Time he learned a bit about selling himself too, it seemed. If he could learn it fast enough.
4
When Susan got Edmond settled, she came downstairs to find Silver busy talking with her boyfriend and John over drinks. Rather than hover too obviously, Susan snagged her laptop and joined some of the pack’s youngsters in the living room. They’d commandeered the couch to watch one of their modeling reality shows, but Susan managed to claim a chair that allowed her a sideways view of the kitchen doorway as well as the TV.
Her personal e-mail offered nothing in particular to hold her attention, mostly forwards from her brother and mother. She read the former, dumb jokes and PhotoShopped pictures, good for a groan, and deleted the latter. She appreciated the importance of keeping a professional-looking home that the articles trumpeted, but imaginative window treatments were the least of her worries when she spent most of her time in a house full of werewolves.
Tracy, fourteen but already sporting bleached hair and plenty of eye shadow, shrieked. “Susan, look at what she’s wearing!” The girl pointed melodramatically at the screen, where the model looked as if she’d been swathed in taffeta and then attacked by a rabid badger. “She could hunt just by scaring the prey to death.”
“The length is terrible, too. Makes her legs look stumpy.” The length was the least of the dress’s worries, but Tracy burst into giggles as Susan had intended. She got the sense she was the only one in the house who knew enough about fashion to converse with Tracy about it beyond “that looks stupid.” Susan had developed most of her knowledge out of necessity when accumulating her professional wardrobe, rather than true interest, but she was happy enough to put it to use talking to the girl.
The kids flipped to another show during the commercials and Susan returned her attention to her computer screen, looking up every so often to watch for Silver. Such a strange name. There must be some kind of obscure werewolf irony she was missing. Another thing to ask her when she got the chance.
Dare left the kitchen first. For several months, Susan had actually thought that was his first name, since John rarely used anything else. She wondered if he had some kind of status, since she hadn’t heard John call any of the others by their last names. Susan kept her head down and watched from the corner of her eye as John and Silver followed.
Susan waited for John to go into his office or upstairs, but he came over to her instead. She set her laptop on the chair as she rose, and John gave her a quick peck on the lips. She wished he’d have let her deepen it, but she knew better than that.
“You’d better get going,” he said, head hanging.
Susan craned to see over his shoulder. Silver disappeared up the stairs. “I know. Soon. I just want to talk to Silver first…” She detoured around John but he stopped her with a firm grip on her upper arm.
“Susan. It’s getting late.” He used what Susan thought of as his werewolf voice, since he used it giving orders to the others, but not to her. Usually. She glared at him. The voice belonged to a stressed-out, cold person, not the person she’d fallen in love with. She’d been willing to compromise about these nights off, and accept the free babysitting and time to herself, but what did a few minutes matter? Someone had finally offered her some information and John was trying to prevent her getting it.
“So? I won’t be long.” Susan jerked her arm out of his grasp. “Silver already knows about me, and I want a chance to ask someone questions for once.” She jogged up the stairs before he had a chance to plan his next objection. He looked surprised at her resistance, which made Susan even more determined to see this through. She’d accepted the status quo, because he was worth it when they were alone, but if his werewolf persona was going to start bleeding over, she was going to reevaluate.
The only open door on the second floor was the nursery. Susan headed to it, but stopped at John’s room on the way to grab her peacoat from where she’d dumped it over a chair. Another petty, pricking annoyance of not living here: having no space of her own to keep her things.
Silver stood just inside the nursery doorway. She didn’t look up when Susan came in. She had the air most of the werewolves did of having known you were there all along. She tipped her chin to Edmond’s crib. “He’s gotten so big since I saw him last. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Edmond. Nine months old now. He’s a healthy boy.” Susan leaned over the crib rail and ran a fingertip over her son’s soft hair. “I think. Hell if I know how werewolves calculate milestones. He only has one word, and it’s not mama or dada, but then he rolled over—and sat up, all those things—a month or two early.”
“Were,” Silver corrected absently, “is the people. Werewolf is the species. What’s the word? Wolf?”
Susan blinked at her. “Well. More like ‘woof.’ But I think so. So that’s normal?”
The other woman came to stand by the crib. Only one of her hands went to the rail, the other stayed tucked into the hip pocket of her jeans. The angle hid the scars a little, but Susan still could see the branching white lines along her upper arm. At this moment, Silver, more than any of the other werewolves, seemed somehow Other to Susan. Maybe it was something about the way she stood, or maybe it was her hair. The pure white on a woman in her twenties demanded your attention no matter how many times you’d seen it before.
“If knowing all about us would put you in danger, what would you choose? Information or safer ignorance?”
Susan froze. “What danger?” John had never said anything about her being in danger. No one could know about her, sure, but she’d assumed that was because John would get in trouble and they’d demand she and John split up. Where did the danger come in?
Silver blew out a breath. She leaned back, holding herself in balance with the hand on the crib. “By Were custom, you should have been killed for knowing as much as you’ve already been told. The more I tell you, the worse it would look if someone found out. And the more you know, the likelier you are to let something small slip around another Were.”
Susan rocked back a step from Silver, then another, heart fluttering. That explained what John had been trying to keep her away from. But shouldn’t she have expected something like this? After all, they were half wolves. Predators. Did they even think the same way about killing someone as a human would? Even taking into account only their human sides, they were organized in tight-knit family packs like the mob. And here Susan was, breaking a mob’s laws.
She’d seen John as a wolf only once. She’d been so overwhelmed she hadn’t taken in the sight properly. He’d been so damn big. So much power in those muscles. Wolves weren’t like that in pictures or on the other side of a fence a long way away at the zoo. But even then, she hadn’t thought to make the jump to considering whether he could kill in that form. But he must kill all the time. The pack was forever going off to hunt.
Silver held out her one hand, palm up and nonthreatening. “I’m not going to hurt you. Neither is Dare. But that’s
what Seattle’s been trying to protect you from. I think there are better ways to protect you than what he’s chosen, but you deserve to make your own decision in this.”
She tipped her fingers to indicate Edmond behind her. “You could still walk away. My father was the wandering type, and my mother died just after my Lady ceremony. My brother and I were raised by the pack. It’s a loving way to grow up.”
Susan swallowed convulsively. However strong her burst of fear had been, her anger now was stronger. No way in hell would she ever abandon Edmond, no matter what happened, no matter the part of her that whispered that he’d grow up to be one of the killers himself. All the more reason why he needed his mother to steer him away from that. “You think I’d up and leave my son? Are you insane?”
The corner of Silver’s lips twitched up. “Yes. But not in this case. I just wanted you to know your options. It wouldn’t scar him, if that’s what you need to do.” She stepped away from the crib, and Susan darted in to pick up her son, asleep or not. She cradled him against her and he murmured sleepily.
“Relax. I’m not saying you should, just that you can. In your place, I wouldn’t leave.” Silver looked at the back of Edmond’s head, and Susan recognized the expression. It was the ticking biological clock look. She’d seen it on plenty of her coworkers. But this was the most naked, longing form she’d ever seen.
Susan heard footsteps in the hall. The lingering wash of adrenaline from what Silver had said made her wonder whether John was walking heavily on purpose, to make her feel better, to make him seem less of a predator. He looked in the door. “Susan?”
“I’m going,” Susan snapped, and tried to put Edmond back down. Now fully awake, he clung on and started to cry. Susan took a deep breath, trying to draw in patience, and handed him to his father. Holding her coat to her like a shield, she pushed by John before he could say anything else. Maybe it was good that she’d have some time to think.
Tarnished Page 3
