by Kelly Meding
"I just wish they'd man up and come at us head on," I said, referring to the Fey. "All of this puppeteer bullshit is getting old."
"Agreed," Marcus said. "The Fey are irritating and cowardly. Therians fight for what they want. We don't have the luxury of living for millennia, as the Fey do."
Milo glanced at Marcus, and the pair shared a look I couldn't decipher. They'd become good friends in the last few weeks, and they spent a lot of their free time sparring in the Watchtower gym. Physically, Marcus looked like he was in his mid-thirties, but he was only ten calendar years old—which put him at the halfway point of his life. And even though I'd seen a were-osprey grow from newborn to toddler in only a few months, a twenty-year life expectancy wasn't an easy thing to remember daily.
"The Fey are cowards," Wyatt said in a deadly voice. "We'll find a way to make Amalie accountable for the things she's done and the suffering she's caused." Including his own suffering. Putting every betrayal of the Triads aside, Amalie had protected the Lupa pups who'd infected Wyatt, which made her responsible for his change. Every time I saw Wyatt struggling to control his wolf, to maintain his humanity when the animal seemed stronger, I renewed my vow to be there the day Amalie paid her dues.
Unless we all died before that happened, which was entirely possible.
"So we got what we needed on the body," Milo said after a moment of awkward silence. "Assignment complete?"
"Assignment complete," I said. "Can we hit a drive-thru on the way back? I need a burger."
"It's one-thirty in the morning."
"So?" After inheriting a new, untrained body and then suffering three weeks of hideous torture (and a fifteen pound weight loss) less than two months after that, I was now finally (finally!) at a healthy weight and had some pretty awesome muscle tone going on. I deserved a big, greasy burger once in a while.
"I could eat," Wyatt said. "We'll swing by that place on Tenth. It's open all night, I think."
We split up for the walk back to the car, making two potential targets instead of one. Wyatt and I went west up the block, toward the hospital, while Marcus and Milo went east. We'd all turn north at the next respective street, go up a block and double back to where we'd parked.
It was a short, quiet walk. Wyatt and I had gotten to a place in our evolving relationship where we didn't need to fill silences with idle chatter. He knew that if I wanted to talk about the body we'd seen tonight, I'd bring it up in my own time. Forcing me to do anything only made me kick back in the opposite direction. It was a fatal flaw that had gotten me in trouble almost as much as it had saved my life.
We reached the car first, which set off internal alarms immediately. Marcus and Milo should have at least been visible on this side street, with its random parked cars and overflowing trash cans waiting for an early morning dump.
Somewhere down the block a large cat snarled. Wyatt and I took off running.
Chapter Two
1:55 a.m.
We were too late.
Or right on time, depending on who you asked. It must have been a brief battle, because when Wyatt and I raced around the corner and spotted our friends, the fight was over. Halfway down the block, three torn and bleeding bodies were scattered on the sidewalk, limbs askew (one of them separated from the rest of itself), and very much dead. Halfies from the look of them—and the way they were slowly starting to shrivel.
Milo was sitting against the bumper of a parked car, with a naked Marcus crouched in front of him. He slapped away Marcus's hands with a sharp, "I'm fine, okay?"
"You went headfirst into the car," Marcus replied.
"Not my first time, believe me. I'm fine." He spotted us, then rolled his eyes. At what or who, exactly, I wasn't sure.
"What happened?" I asked, even though it was pretty obvious.
"The half-Bloods were well-hidden," Marcus said. "We didn't realize we were being stalked until they attacked."
He hadn't turned to look at us, so I stared blankly at the back of his head. It wasn't like Marcus to be unaware of his surroundings, or to fall victim to a sneak attack. What the hell had them both so distracted that they hadn't seen the Halfies coming?
"One of them latched onto my back like a fucking tick," Milo said, rubbing at the side of his neck with one hand. "Tried to bite me, so I ran us both hard into the side of the car. Knocked myself silly for it, too." He sounded like he'd rather chew glass than admit such a thing.
"I shifted and took care of the problem," Marcus added. He finally turned his head and angled to look up at us, and I saw the blood streaking his chin and neck like grotesque war paint. "Will you tell him—"
"Oh, for Christ's sake." Milo pushed sideways and stood up with perfect ease. Not a single wobble. He stepped around Marcus and presented himself to me and Wyatt. "I'm fine, see?"
He looked fine. Pupils normal size for the darkness of the alley, no blood in his hair or on his face. Except for an expression stuck somewhere between anger and mortification, he seemed normal enough. "You got a knot?" I asked.
Milo touched the side of his head. "No, it's barely sore. I did not lose consciousness, either."
I pulled his other hand away from the side of his neck, where he'd been rubbing. The skin was red, but not broken. "What's that?"
"It's where the fucker tried to bite me."
As he said the words, I finally saw how hard Milo was working to keep it together. He'd been one good lunge away from getting infected and ending up a half-Blood—all because the pair of them hadn't been paying attention. Almost two months ago, he'd seen his best friend Felix bitten and infected, and two weeks later had witnessed Felix's final death. And even though he'd never revealed his feelings to Felix, Milo had been in love with him. The loss had been devastating and had placed a near-permanent coldness in Milo's eyes.
I gave his hand a squeeze before letting go. "He didn't bite you."
"No." He squared his shoulders, then glanced at Marcus. "Thanks for the save."
"It was my error as well," Marcus replied. He walked a few feet away and grabbed his discarded jeans.
The more I worked with Therians, the less their frequent nudity bothered me. Not that most of them (especially the men) had anything to be modest about, but us humans still had some hang-ups about wandering around in our birthday suits. Not so much with shape-shifters.
"Did they say anything at all?" Wyatt asked, waving his hand to indicate the bodies.
"One of them had a few choice words when I ripped his arm off," Marcus said. "Other than that, no. Nothing of consequence."
"They were probably hungry and looking for dinner," Milo said.
I crouched next to one—a teenager, with a buzz cut and lots of silver rings in his left ear. Pulled back his upper lip to take a look at his teeth. "Young, too, or they would have smelled that Marcus wasn't human," I said. It took several weeks for a half-Blood's fangs to develop to full length, which made it easy to pick out the fresh ones. And this kid's teeth were barely pointed.
"Let's clean this up so we can get out of here," Milo said.
"Good idea." I stood up, then noticed Wyatt staring intently at the roof of a building down the block. "Wyatt?"
He didn't reply. I took a step closer and tracked his gaze, but didn't see anything amiss. Not that I had his werewolf vision, but still.
"Wyatt?"
"What?" He blinked hard, then looked at me.
"Did you see something?"
"I thought I did."
His confusion made me uneasy, and even more eager to get this scene clean and get back to the Watchtower. I didn't like the idea of being watched. None of us did.
It never led anywhere pleasant.
* * *
The burger joint, it turned out, closed at two, so we settled on invading the cafeteria as soon as we got back to the Watchtower. Wyatt made our report over the phone during the drive back, including the little Halfie skirmish. He rode shotgun, while Marcus drove. That left me and Milo in the backseat, him slumped
against the passenger side door and me biting my tongue to keep from bugging him with questions. Milo had become my best friend in the last month or so, and the only thing that kept me quiet was knowing he wouldn't tell me anything with Wyatt and Marcus in the car.
So I kept my questions and my glances to myself until we were alone, glad to have something other than our most recent goblin victim to think about.
The Watchtower was a somewhat deceptive name, since our headquarters was built inside the skeleton of the old Capital City Mall. Shaped like a long, wide U with department stores on both ends and a magic glamour that kept straying eyes from noticing our activity there, the mall was the perfect place to house a hundred humans and Therians. Living quarters and bathrooms had been built inside old storefronts, as well as a gymnasium, a weapons locker, a refurbished jail (our first jail got blown up), and the sprawling Operations center.
Marcus drove into the canyon of the U and right through what looked like an old restaurant patio. The glamour tickled my skin, as it always did when we passed, and we drove into a wide parking area. The sense of awe I'd once felt at what they'd created here, out of the bones of an old structure, didn't come as often. But the whole thing was still damned impressive.
He parked, and we all tumbled out as a group. Like the city we tried to protect, the Watchtower never really slept. Even at almost three in the morning, the hum of activity buzzed in the corridors. Most of it seemed centered around Operations, which was the norm, as well as down the east branch of the corridor—the way to the cafeteria and living quarters.
We were halfway to the cafeteria when Marcus's cell phone rang. He pulled it out without breaking stride, glanced at the display, then replied with a quick, "Yep?" A few seconds passed before he stopped walking.
The rest of us paused, too.
"On my way." Marcus closed his phone. He didn't seem upset, only curious. "Astrid needs to see me. I'll catch up with you in a bit."
He pivoted neatly and marched back in the direction we'd come. We continued on. Only a handful of people were in the cafeteria, sitting in small clusters. The available food at this hour was mostly wrapped sandwiches or hot dogs off a little roller cooker that looked like it was stolen from a convenience store, so I grabbed two hot dogs and a bag of potato chips.
Wyatt took four hot dogs, plus a tuna fish sandwich, and two bags of chips. I smiled at the laden tray, still amused at how his appetite had increased since becoming half-Lupa. Contrasting both of us, Milo grabbed a soda and nothing else. Our trio invaded a table where Tybalt Monahan and Kyle Jane were seated and finishing their own snacks.
Both seemed agitated and not because of our arrival. "What's up?" I asked as I sat down across from Tybalt. Wyatt took the seat on my right, while Milo sat next to Tybalt.
Tybalt and Kyle shared a look. They worked together on Quad Four, and if their night had been anything like ours….
"Rough night," Tybalt said.
"Bullshit," Milo replied. He popped the soda tab, then glared at Tybalt. "Try again, pal." The pair had been friends for more than a year and a half, and had worked together in the defunct Triads. They knew each other well enough to spot the half-truths.
Tybalt frowned. He reached out with his prosthetic hand and turned Milo's head to the side, exposing the red mark on his neck. "What's that? Love bite?"
"Close encounter." Milo pulled away and gave Tybalt a hard look. "Don't change the subject."
"It's not our place to share this kind of news."
"It'll become common knowledge soon, anyway," Kyle said. "And Marcus is their quad-mate."
Milo's stare became more intense, and my own interest piqued exponentially. "What about Marcus?" he asked.
"Elder Dane is stepping down from the Assembly," Tybalt said. "He has the Shadow."
The Shadow is what Therians called the cancer that only affects their people. It kills quickly and is incurable. About five months ago, the same illness had killed Seamus Dane, the former Pride Alpha, and his son Keenan (Marcus and Astrid's cousin) had taken over the role of Alpha. Elder Marcellus Dane had been Seamus's uncle, and also Marcus and Astrid's grandfather. From what I understood of most Clan politics, the role of Elder was passed from parent to child, in order to avoid a lengthy voting processes—and any sort of lengthy process was avoided by Therians, considering their average life spans.
"He's dying," Milo said.
"Yeah." Tybalt picked up his fork and poked at the remnants of something on his plate. He'd been raised by the Felia Pride, within the Dane family specifically (something I'd only learned from him recently), and then kicked out when he was sixteen. He found the Triads soon after and was taken in by another kind of family. The loss of another father figure had to hurt, after losing Seamus earlier in the year.
"Who's in line to take over as Elder?" Wyatt asked.
"That's the problem," Tybalt replied. "Elder Dane has no surviving children."
"So wouldn't the title of Elder pass to Marcus or Astrid?" I asked. "They're his grandchildren."
"It's supposed to."
"But?"
Tybalt pressed his lips together, and I saw a spark of anger in his eyes. "But Elder Dane wants to ensure the Elder title remains within the family line. Since Astrid and Marcus are both unmarried and childless, as well as at the half-point of their lives, Dane has named a younger cousin in their place. Keenan's brother, Riley."
"Hell," Milo said.
Keenan was the current Pride Alpha and Elder Dane's grand-nephew. Giving the title to Riley instead of one of Dane's own grandchildren was pretty harsh.
"Would either of them have even wanted the position?" I asked, pretty certain the answer was no.
"That's not the point," Tybalt said.
"No, I see the point, and I understand why you're upset. But my question still stands."
"I don't think either would have wanted to be Elder, no. But this is also a public announcement, and it's a public embarrassment. Astrid's choice to protect the Clan, rather than be a mother, was never a popular one. Female Felia who don't have children are considered second-class."
I bit back hard on a scorching comment on the status of feminism within the Clans. My opinion on women, Felia or not, as nothing more than baby incubators had no place in the current conversation. I'd vent it out in the gym later.
Kyle flinched. His girlfriend, Lynn Neil, was Felia as well, and the simple fact that she was dating a Cania (a were-dog, instead of a fellow were-cat) meant she had eschewed tradition and forgone having children—as long as she was with Kyle, anyway. The Therian Clans simply could not inter-breed; it wasn't genetically possible.
My respect for Lynn went way up.
"And Astrid doesn't want to be a mother," I said.
Tybalt made a scrunched face I couldn't readily decipher. "Astrid's past is complicated. At one time she was promised to Keenan, but she never wanted to be the Alpha's mate."
"Keenan is the current Alpha of the Felia."
"Yes."
"And her grandfather is Keenan's uncle?"
"Yes."
"So Keenan is her cousin."
Tybalt seemed to see where I was going with that, and he deferred the topic to Kyle. Kyle shrugged both shoulders, unconcerned. "Clans are small, enclosed societies compared to humans. And before you judge, don't forget that it was once acceptable for humans to marry one's first cousin."
Yeah, like two hundred years ago, and maybe still in other countries. But I got his point, too, and who the hell was I to judge who other Felia married? "So she ditched her cousin for the single life," I said. "What about Marcus? He's handsome enough that I bet he could find a wife with no trouble and pop out a litter of kittens."
"That's not what Marcus wants," Milo said, surprising me by being the one to answer. Even Tybalt gave him an assessing look.
"How do you know?" I asked.
Milo held my gaze steadily and opened his mouth.
"Because I told him so," came the reply from the topic of
conversation himself. And he wasn't alone.
Marcus and another man stopped behind Tybalt's chair. The stranger had the same black hair and strong, square face as Marcus, but he carried himself differently. Higher, more proudly. I'll swallow my tongue if they aren't related.
"This is Keenan Dane," Marcus said. "Our Pride Alpha." He introduced me, Wyatt, and Milo. I guessed Tybalt and Kyle knew him already.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Alpha Dane?" Kyle asked with a heavy amount of respect in his voice.
"Family business," Keenan said. "Business of which you were just now discussing?"
No one denied it. Keenan took a seat on Kyle's left. Marcus circled around the table and plunked heavily into the empty chair next to Milo, weariness weighing him down. Tension from Keenan's unexpected arrival wafted over the table like a fog.
I picked up my hot dog and took a big bite. Wyatt had already polished off two hot dogs and one bag of chips, and he was starting in on the tuna fish sandwich. Even though he seemed to be concentrating on his food, I knew he was paying attention to everything said at the table.
"I'm sorry about your grandfather," Milo said in a gentle voice that made me look up from my food. To Keenan, he added, "And your great uncle."
"Thank you," Keenan said.
Marcus tilted his head in Milo's direction in an acknowledging nod. "It's his time. The Shadow seems to run particularly strong in our family, and Marcellus is twenty-one." Same age as Milo. And that was a truly bizarre observation. "Riley will make a strong Elder, if he manages to not get killed."
"Killed?" I said it at the same time as Milo and Tybalt, our three voices a squawk of protest that might have been funny if the word wasn't so serious.
"The Bengals," Tybalt said. "Have they challenged Riley?"
"Not formally, not yet," Keenan said. "That's why I'm here. I wanted to discuss the possibility with Astrid and Marcus. They were once elite guards in the Pride, and I value their tactical input."
