Tarnished

by Rhiannon Held

  Sacramento drew in a quick breath. “That’s neither prey nor hunter. I may think you did us all a service in turning your human on Nate, but you did kill him, and you’ll answer before Convocation. I’ve entered the matter myself.” She hesitated a beat. “I wish I hadn’t had to.”

  Nate’s daughter gave a growl of disgust and jerked out of Sacramento’s grasp. She stilled just out of reach, drawing into herself. “Some justice you’re offering him.” A breeze twisted around them and brought her scent more clearly—grief more than anger.

  Silver reacted to the grief by extending her hand in an unconscious impulse to comfort. “His case will be heard, not forgotten, as the Lady will not let his voice disappear into emptiness. We’re offering him the Lady’s justice.” Silver stopped well short of anything so foolish as touching the woman, but offered her a thin smile of sympathy.

  Nate’s daughter’s stillness transformed into unexpected movement as she shoved Silver aside, hand on her bad arm. Silver whimpered and tears welled up. Andrew’s throat squeezed. Silver was perfectly capable of playing up her reactions when she needed to, but this didn’t seem like that. It seemed more like she’d stopped hiding the reaction this time. Dammit. Andrew strode to her and hovered his hand over the sling, trying to see if he could readjust it to help. Silver pushed him away.

  “Stop,” Sacramento snapped. She took her beta’s chin in a tight grip. “Something tells me that’s your proof of what Nate did.” She nodded to Silver’s arm. “If you’re so determined to argue your father’s case, don’t harm it this way.”

  Silver drew in a ragged breath and then addressed Nate’s daughter in an even tone. “He fought for revenge in the name of one—your brother—at the expense of every other Were. Real alphas try to protect anyone lower-ranked.” She made a fist and held it to her core. “Real alphas, all their instincts, in here,” she thumped her fist, “won’t let them do otherwise. A real alpha isn’t the wish for power, it’s the wish to protect.”

  “Spare me.” Nate’s daughter kept most of the edge from her tone while held so tightly by her alpha. When no more argument seemed forthcoming, Sacramento let her go and she strode away.

  Sacramento watched her go, then turned back to Andrew. “I do say so myself, but I think the Sacramento pack gained by the change of alpha,” she told him. “I won’t argue loudly.”

  Andrew dipped his head deeply in acknowledgement. That was better than he could have hoped for, even if it wasn’t much. He should at least have gained Michelle’s support with the change in Sacramento leadership. Even if Sacramento didn’t support him, he wasn’t going to turn away her gift of not fighting too hard.

  “And my voice will be twice as loud,” Nate’s daughter threw back over her shoulder.

  Andrew watched, Silver beside him, until the women were out of sight inside another cabin. “Death says ‘and your real opponent isn’t even here yet,’” Silver murmured. Andrew snorted. As if he could forget Rory.

  19

  When Silver and Andrew returned from whatever business they had with the female Were at the door, Susan checked if Edmond was still sleeping and pulled Silver into the other bedroom to go over her lines again. Not that Susan had real lines, but she found thinking of this trip that way helped her stay calm. Like if she memorized Silver’s directions and said the right thing at the right time, it would make everything magically turn out all right.

  Silver came complete with ham sandwich, as Tom was making a huge pile of them in the kitchen. Susan sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the coverlet, a Southwest Native-inspired design of black diamonds over deep reds and oranges. Silver joined her and offered the sandwich. “Want half?”

  Since Silver couldn’t do it one-handed, Susan tore the sandwich for her, taking only about a quarter. She wasn’t that hungry. “I know we talked about how to act if I get called in front of the Convocation, but what about situations like just now? If someone comes to the door socially? I’ll go crazy if I have to hide in the bedroom this whole trip.” Not that anyone had made her hide just now. It had just seemed easier than dealing with the pitfalls of social etiquette so soon after arrival.

  “That wasn’t social,” Silver said with a thin smile to soften the correction. Her sandwich didn’t look like it had a life expectancy of more than another half minute or so. Werewolves always ate so much. “That was the new Sacramento and the daughter of the old. One with no particular love of her old alpha, the other with too much of the blind variety.”

  Susan pulled a section of bread from her uneaten sandwich quarter and rolled it into a little ball. “Can’t see why anyone wouldn’t love him,” she said weakly. Silver’s laugh helped her relax a little.

  “Dare does have a friend who will be visiting soon. I haven’t met him, but with any of these alphas, it’s best to act like you’re high-ranked without challenging them. Stand straight, don’t drop your head, but don’t meet their eyes.” Silver finished off her sandwich and licked her fingers. “Most Were don’t bother to learn to appear other than they are. I had to be—what does Dare call it—” Silver looked down at the floor like someone had said something to her. “A switch.”

  Susan laughed awkwardly. Was that supposed to be dirty, or not? She wondered that about a lot of Were stuff, with all the domination talk. Now was definitely not the time to ask, though.

  “Speaking of,” Silver said, her head coming up. She must have heard footsteps Susan had missed, because a knock sounded on the door moments later. She pushed to her feet and Susan followed her out to the living room. Susan finished off her sandwich as Andrew opened the door.

  The man there was tall and handsomely black. He had a sheer presence that made Susan think of Morgan Freeman, though this man was much younger. Andrew started forward, a grin beginning, but the other man folded his arms and looked gently disappointed.

  “Benjamin?” Andrew asked, rocking back a step. He pulled up a sober and neutral expression. “Boston?”

  “I thought you were smarter than that, Dare,” Benjamin said, accepting Andrew’s invitation to step inside. He turned as Andrew shut the door. “And then I hear you’ve gone and killed Sacramento—”

  “It wasn’t me.” Andrew preceded Benjamin into the kitchen area, and offered him the now nearly empty plate of sandwiches. Benjamin lifted a hand in polite refusal.

  Susan stayed in the living room and gritted her teeth. It was insane, to want the credit, she reminded herself. But she still somehow felt that if she’d done something like that, it should mean something, not just become one more notch on Andrew’s weapon. She tilted her chin even higher. Avoid eye contact. Stand straight.

  “I know that. It doesn’t matter if you pulled the trigger or influenced someone else to do it for you. It amounts to the same thing.” Benjamin gestured in frustration, while Andrew locked his body language down. He leaned slightly over a chair, hands tight on the back.

  Silver, in contrast, grew animated. She strode to stand in front of Benjamin and gestured to Susan. “Is it that she’s a woman, or a human, that makes you think she’s incapable of thinking for herself?”

  Susan swallowed as Benjamin’s gaze flicked to her, bracing herself. He looked at her—and then away again a split second later, dismissing her. Susan gritted her teeth harder. She hadn’t felt that invisible since the time she’d had to duck into one of the high-level bank executives’ meetings to hand some hard copy to the manager of her branch.

  “You must be Silver.” Benjamin’s expression softened into interest.

  Silver dismissed the pleasantry with a chop of her hand. “Dare was hardly in a position to do any influencing. Susan killed Sacramento because it was necessary. Don’t take that from her.”

  Benjamin’s eyes lingered on Susan for longer this time, but she still didn’t feel he really saw her. He drew in a deep breath, smelling. “Nursing.” He gave Andrew a dry smile. “Not yours.” His gaze found John next, where he leaned uncomfortably against the kitchen counter. “Yours, I
presume. Mothers will go to unexpected lengths to protect their young, I suppose.”

  “I’m not stupid.” Susan found herself speaking. Having started, she couldn’t stop. All the frustration of dealing with what she’d done and then having that dismissed boiled up. “I could tell they wouldn’t touch me when it might hurt the baby. I could have hidden behind him in the corner, and not only would he have been okay, so would I, but then Silver would be dead, or maybe Andrew trying to save her, and they’ve been so kind to me…” She stumbled to a halt in silence that had gotten somehow even quieter.

  “Your pardon, ma’am,” Benjamin said, and bowed to her. “I see I was mistaken.”

  Susan found she was shaking. John crossed over to her in a couple strides and drew her into his arms. She felt the tension of doing it in front of a new Were in his muscles, but she didn’t point it out. At least he was trying.

  “Others will assume the same thing,” Benjamin continued when she’d had time to take a calming breath. His tone held gentle warning, rather than justification of himself. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t defend yourself, but you might want to accustom yourself to the idea so it’s not such a heated defense.”

  Susan squirmed away from John so she could press her hands along the sides of her face. “I know.” That didn’t make it any easier to meet it squarely, though. “I need time to wrap my head around it.” She paused in the bedroom doorway on her way to the front door. Edmond was still sleeping. Good. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Not alone,” Andrew said. “We don’t know how someone like Nate’s daughter might react if she finds the human who pulled the trigger wandering around alone.” He turned to the kitchen, where Tom was making the most conspicuous effort to be inconspicuous Susan had seen in a long time. “Go on, eavesdropper. Show Susan the sights.” He ruffled Tom’s hair as the young man crossed to the door, and pushed him forward off-balance. The teasing quality of the roughhousing seemed a little forced on Andrew’s side, but not on Tom’s. He escaped and opened the door for Susan with a gallant gesture.

  Susan crunched along a gravel path into the trees, leaving the cabins behind as soon as possible. Tom bounded along behind, beside, ahead, and generally around. All the boyish energy was misleading, though. When he matched her pace for a while and scraped his shaggy hair out of his eyes to look at her better, his question surprised her. “You weren’t just taking credit to help Dare, were you?”

  Susan took a while to straighten out her answer in her own mind. The heat of the sunlight felt almost like pressure against her skin, concentrating her thoughts. “It’s a hard thing to do—to have done. Having done it for the right reasons only helps a little, but it still helps. I’d rather people knew that.”

  “You looked like an alpha dominant to me,” Tom said. Some small animal rustled at the base of the nearest pine. Tom strode to look and the moment was broken. Just a bouncy young man again.

  “Is that different from an alpha?” It was still a strange feeling, encountering something she didn’t understand and just asking about it, rather than trying to ignore it and stay in her human sphere.

  Tom snapped off a twig and stripped the needles as he returned to the path. He didn’t seem to mind being questioned. “Alpha’s the job. If you’re an alpha dominant, you have the right personality, whether you currently have the job or not. Silver and Dare are the kind who have ‘alpha dominant’ going on so bad they get itchy when they can’t lead things.” He grinned. “I’m surprised he doesn’t go to the mall to herd people or something, sometimes.”

  Susan squinted up ahead at where the trees were cleared around a building. She’d never considered herself the leading personality type. Tom’s opinion was flattering, though. As they approached, the building resolved into stables with faux-distressed wood siding and corrugated metal roofing that looked shiny and unweathered, a match to the main hall. Where the bones of the hall had looked like a legitimately old barn, the stables’ frame looked as new as its covering. It was built low with two walls partially open. It was clearly empty, but the smell lingered faintly. Susan didn’t know if it was specifically horse-related, but it spoke to her strongly of the animal barns at county fairs when she was a small child.

  The lack of horses also reminded Susan she hadn’t seen any employees around the place. She jogged a few steps to catch up with Tom, who was peering into corners inside the stalls. “So does one of the packs own this place? Andrew said it wasn’t on anyone’s territory.”

  “Yeah, it’s not Were-owned. We rent. In the off-season, you throw enough money at a resort ranch owner, they can be talked into letting you have it without staff for a super-isolated business-jargon retreat thing. If we come late enough in the spring, it usually doesn’t snow. I think they board the horses elsewhere for the winter whether we’re here or not.” Tom patted one of the stall’s posts. “All the packs chip in for the cost.” He pulled a face of dramatic woe. “And if you want to come along as a single teen, you have to help with all the cooking and cleaning and running the nursery for the alphas’ kids stuff that there’s no staff around to do.”

  Susan frowned further into the stables, but the stark contrast between sunlight and shadow made it hard to see anything. “So you can be yourselves without any humans to walk in at the wrong moment.” The thought gave her a certain perverse impulse to catalog every single detail she could about the proceedings.

  Susan turned and strode away from the stables, back along the path. She had a lot of restlessness to walk out yet.

  20

  In the wake of Susan’s departure from the den, Silver scrambled to think of something to say. She found herself wanting to like Boston. His wild self had red tints to its brown fur she hadn’t seen before, making him attractive in that form as well. He apologized with a grace that made it to his scent, completely honest. That was rare.

  “Yes, I’m Silver,” she said, inclining her head. “I’m sorry for that, but I know a little about people assuming I must have been influenced.”

  “Show him your wounded prey face,” Death said, tone mocking. “Then maybe he’ll understand how easy that is to manipulate.” He came to stand beside Silver’s legs the way Boston’s wild self stood by his. It made her feel like she had support for her alpha status as she faced Boston, both wild selves equal.

  Death had a point. Silver did want to shake Boston’s certainty about what he saw. He had the manner of someone with enough years of experience processed by a keen mind to make his judgment usually very wise, but he’d never encountered someone like her before. Silver supposed there had never been someone like her before. She reached down into herself for the feeling she’d clutched to her when she’d run after first losing her wild self. Don’t look at me, don’t see me, don’t stop me, don’t remember me. I’m weak, too weak to bother with. She felt it slide into her muscles, making them tight as she tried to look smaller, but all the body language came from the first fear. Don’t hurt me.

  Boston drew in a sharp breath. “That’s impressive.” He took a step forward and tried to catch her eyes.

  Silver made her next breath deeper, using Dare’s scent to calm the fear. It helped that here the drier, sharper scents of pines filled her nose, rather than the lush evergreens of home and where she’d been attacked. She met Boston’s gaze squarely. She felt his wisdom even more deeply now. Maybe he’d never met one such as her before, but the weight of his knowledge was clear. She wondered what wounds might lie deep in his past, worn away by the years like the wind and water over stone, until it smoothed to a strong and dependable foundation like the mountains that surrounded them.

  She broke the gaze first, ducking her head. Wisdom like that was truly worthy of the Lady.

  Boston pulled her into an embrace, laughing a laugh so warm and rich it almost made her forget what she’d seen of his foundation. He sounded like a favorite uncle. “You’re a lucky man, Dare.”

  Silver wiggled away, laughing herself. They were equally lucky, pe
rhaps, to have found each other, but she’d hardly have rated herself so highly. She stuck out her tongue at Dare when it looked like he was going to agree with Boston, and he stuck his out in return rather than answer.

  * * *

  When Silver stood back, Andrew embraced Benjamin himself. He almost didn’t want to admit to himself how steadying it was to see Benjamin. He looked the same as when Dare saw him last, misleadingly changeless in the way of many werewolves over a century. Seeing the frustration on his face when he first arrived had been a sock to the gut. Benjamin must have smelled something of that on him, because he clasped the back of Dare’s neck, comforting, as he grimaced in apology.

  A cry from Edmond interrupted them all. John ducked into the bedroom and returned with his son and the baby’s bag over his shoulder. “I’ll go drop him off at the nursery. They should have it set up by now.”

  “Hurry back for the strategy session, Seattle,” Benjamin said after clapping Dare’s back and turning away.

  Andrew couldn’t contain a shaky laugh. He’d forgotten that the rumor mill hadn’t gotten hold of that piece of information yet. He hesitated before explaining. It would sound better coming from John, and if the man’s pride was smarting, better he practice here before saying it in front of the assembled alphas.

  “I abdicated.” John took a better grip on the squirming baby to stand tall, chin high. “Dare can use the status, and I can use someone with more skill, defending my…” He hesitated and licked his lips.

  “Mate,” Silver finished for him, not unkindly.

  John jerked a nod of agreement and took his son outside.

  “I see I missed a lot.” Benjamin drifted back to the kitchen area and selected a sandwich.

  Andrew sat on the step in front of the fireplace while Benjamin took the couch. Andrew and Silver summarized the events with Nate as Benjamin ate.