by Natalie Grey
Dedov leaned forward eagerly.
“I’m going to be leaving the newspaper,” Arisha said. She reached out and put her hand over Stoyan’s looking at him with a smile. “I really liked the job. I got paid to travel around and stay in hotels. I got paid to go out to nightclubs and see how the drinks were! You have to write that it’s all terrible, but it really isn’t. I got vacations every couple of months. So when my job opens up, you should definitely apply for it.”
Dedov stared at her, confused.
“In fact, I could tell Viktor I think you’d be good for it...” Arisha said persuasively.
Just then the man at the other table barged in on the conversation. He pointed at Stoyan, hand shaking.
“You’re Stoyan,” he said, through gritted teeth. “What happened to Filip? Tell me!”
Stoyan tensed, but to his credit, he responded admirably. Arisha watched as he frowned.
“Has something happened to Filip?” he asked carefully.
“He’s missing,” the man said. “And you know about it. And you’re one of those shifters, aren’t you?”
“Again with the—” Arisha looked between the two men and held her hands out. “I’m sorry if my research caused any confusion. I never meant you to be frightened by the old ghost stories.” She shook her head at Dedov. “My grandmother gave me nightmares,” she confided.
It was even true. Her grandmother’s stories had been terrifying.
“I’m afraid I don’t know about it,” Stoyan said. He shook his head. “I was in Spain, with Arisha.”
“Another benefit of traveling for work,” Arisha murmured to Dedov in Russian, as if making an aside that neither of the other two at the table could understand. “Companionship.” She gave him a suggestive smile and looked back at Stoyan.
Stoyan was clearly trying not to laugh—even through his anger at the memory of Filip’s betrayal. He lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug.
“I didn’t realize that Filip was missing,” he said again. “I saw him a couple of weeks ago, and he seemed fine. Said he had a job, but he didn’t need me for it.”
“What about the American?”
“That was a bust.” Stoyan shook his head. “Just a guy pretending to be an American businessman to get women.”
“Oh.” The other man sat down heavily. He seemed confused. “I was…I guess I was wrong.”
“Filip will turn up,” Stoyan said. “He always does, you know. Or maybe he’s found a new gig out in the east somewhere. He did mention Tajikistan...”
Arisha stood, smiling brightly at Dedov. “I’m sorry I confused you so much,” she said sweetly. “I’ll let Viktor know I’m safe and I’m resigning. And you should definitely get that job.” She showed him her dimples. “Enjoy your drink.”
She and Stoyan walked back through the streets in silence, trying to hold in their laughter, but as soon as they were in the Pod, they broke down. Arisha held her hand up for a high five.
“Did you see their faces?”
Stoyan wiped at his eyes, chest shaking. “They’re going to be searching Tajikistan for months. Do you know how many black-market guys there are there? They’ll give up and go home without even thinking that Filip might not be there.”
Arisha sat back with a grin. “Oh, that was perfect. Why can’t all jobs be that much fun?”
QBS ArchAngel
Stephen, resting with one arm around Jennifer’s shoulders and enjoying her small snores more than he would ever admit—was roused by ADAM at four.
“Emeric has just arrived in Madrid and has gotten a hotel room near the broadcasting station. There is one other figure in his hotel room. I believe it is Sidonie.”
“I’ll get everyone ready. Let me know as soon as they start moving in the morning.”
“I will.”
Stephen eased his arm out from under Jennifer’s shoulders and tucked the blanket around her, then began to pace.
Storming the facilities had been difficult, the stuff of nightmares, but this job would be worse in a way. There was no way to guarantee that he could talk Emeric down, and if he could not talk him down...
He would need to kill him.
Stephen could not view that as anything but a failure. He had been sent here to fix this, and instead, he might end up killing one of the victims.
Where had he gone wrong?
Jennifer murmured and shifted in her sleep, and Stephen looked at her with a smile.
His smile faded as he considered something new. This whole time, he had tried to solve this the way he solved problems as Michael’s liaison: by enforcing immutable rules and being the sole dispenser of justice.
But that wasn’t what he needed to be any longer. When Bethany Anne left to go through the gate, there would no longer be the traditional hierarchy in the Unknown World.
What Stephen needed to do was help build a world that could stand on its own, without him.
Madrid, Spain
Emeric Carre did not sleep. He let Sidonie sleep in the big bed while he sat in a high-backed chair and watched the sky lighten.
He felt no anticipation, he realized. He did not even feel satisfaction.
He felt nothing.
It had been less than a week since he had freed himself from the hellhole of that laboratory; since he had torn the guards and scientists to shreds. All he felt was regret that his revenge had not taken more time.
Regret…and the growing fear that nothing would take away the void.
It was always with him, a pit of dark emptiness where he should have a soul. It stalked him, it rippled beneath his feet, it beckoned him down into it. When he remembered the months of pain, the forced transformations, all the things he had done at their command. It reached out to him with whispers, and he felt himself tilt downward toward it.
Rage was the only thing that drowned the whispers out. When he raged at all of them—the smug politicians and the lucky humans, the people who never once had to worry about being deconstructed in a laboratory—then, he was free of the void.
When his father asked him why he did not take a mate and have children, Emeric wanted to snarl that he would never do such a thing to anyone else. Why would he bear children who would be invisible and hunted their whole lives? He could not bear that. It would kill him, slowly but surely.
At least if he died tomorrow, it would be showing who he truly was.
And he would be free of the void, and the fear.
A knock sounded at the door, and he turned his head sharply. Sidonie had woken up, and she pushed herself up to answer the knock.
“Non.” Emeric motioned her back, to hide in the closet. “I will get it.”
It could only be one thing, after all—danger.
When he peered through the peephole, it was to see only one figure, a man alone. He waited quietly.
Emeric opened the door, half expecting the vampire’s claws to shoot out and pierce his throat.
But Stephen only inclined his head.
“May I speak with you?” he asked.
It was an honest question. Emeric narrowed his eyes, wondering what game this man could be playing. Driven by some urge he could not understand, he stood back to let the man enter.
Stephen was very aware of the Wechselbalg at his back as he walked into the room.
This was foolish. Going unarmed, alone, to meet with his enemy…was not wise.
The thought of the lecture he was going to get from Bethany Anne was almost enough to make him smile, though.
He turned to watch Emeric follow him into the room. The man’s tall frame was held with the wary attention of someone completely exhausted. After what he had been through, Stephen could not blame him.
He knew better than to mention it.
“Why are you here?” Emeric asked, without preamble.
“Because in some ways, you were right.” Stephen lifted his shoulders. “I enforced justice on your behalf without asking what justice you wanted.”
“Do
esn’t that make me right in all ways?” Despite his combative words, Emeric did not look pleased.
“No.” Stephen shook his head. “To know what I knew and do nothing would have been something I could never live with. We knew that the facilities had been going for some time and that no one had stopped them. We knew that various governments were turning a blind eye to what Hugo did. We couldn’t rely on anyone else to stop him.”
Emeric looked away.
“The politician you want to kill,” Stephen said quietly. He marked how Emeric’s head jerked around, and the hunted look in his eyes. “He’s crooked as hell, isn’t he? He knew what he was sheltering?”
“No.” Emeric shook his head. “That’s why it’s worse, in a way. He didn’t even care. A man said to him, ‘I want you to look the other way from these facilities, I want you to tell the police not to investigate if they hear something,’ and he just agreed without asking for any more details. We know it happened, we have the transcripts; his secretary ratted him out a few months ago to the Bureau of Internal Affairs.” His face twisted. “But he’s popular, so they didn’t do anything, either.
“He just wanted the money so he could have fancy dinners, and in exchange, he told people not to help us! People who might have found us, saved us...” His voice broke, and he dropped his face into his hands.
It was jarring to see so big a man cry. Stephen swallowed, but he could not look away.
“They might have saved us,” Emeric whispered again. “Children died in there. It should never have happened. There were investigations, and people like that man—like Fraga—they shut them down.”
Stephen knew he could not speak too quickly, could not hammer a rhetorical point home, but he was compelled to speak. “Those were humans, weren’t they, Emeric? The ones who tried to investigate?”
Emeric looked at him, his red-rimmed eyes haunted.
“How many others did this man kill by looking the other way?” Stephen continued. “How many human lives did he sacrifice? He didn’t let you die because of what you were. He let you die along with everyone else because he doesn’t care about anyone.”
“They came for us because of what we were, though.” Emeric shook his head. “I can’t live in a world where my pack is hunted! I may not be an alpha, but I can’t stand aside and let them be hurt, killed like animals! You have to understand that!”
“I do,” Stephen said quietly.
That stopped Emeric in his tracks. “What?”
“I understand.” Stephen lifted his shoulders. “Why do you think I liberated those facilities? I couldn’t stand by and wait, knowing that I had the capabilities to storm them without a single person dying—a single innocent person, anyway. I understand what it is to not be able to sit by idly while innocent people suffer.”
Emeric looked away.
“But I also know,” Stephen said quietly. “What it is to act too rashly, to blame people who were not responsible for what they did. I am not saying that Julio Fraga is one of those,” he clarified when Emeric’s face darkened. “But I have learned over the years that justice is best dispensed coldly and quickly, with a clear mind. Vigilante justice…leads to the heart ruling the head. And when that happens, justice turns into a bloodbath, and the innocent are caught in the middle.”
Emeric was silent. Behind him, Sidonie appeared. Her face was drawn and tired, and she was frowning. Stephen could see his words sinking into her heart as well.
Stephen continued. “If you want to be an alpha, you will have to learn what is truly in the best interests of a pack, and act according to that—not according to what would sate your thirst for revenge. That is the alpha’s struggle.
“You might be an alpha one day, Emeric. You want to protect people. You want to let them live good, free lives. But not every urge we have in this world is good and just. Not every whim can be indulged without trampling on others—and the humans, the ones you resent so much, they are also a part of this world. They are clever and courageous…sometimes. They have every good and bad quality we have, save for the skills we have in battle.
“I don’t know what type of world you will rule. The truth of the Unknown World may not stay hidden forever, and if it comes out, pack leaders will have to lead differently than they have before.”
Emeric was silent for a long time. He walked past Stephen to the window and looked down on the streets. The first people were emerging from their apartments, mainly bankers hoping to get to the office before anyone else and capitalize on early information from the Asian markets. There were street sweepers and bus drivers carrying bagged lunches, and women opening up flower stands.
It was a world he had never been a part of…because he had never let himself be a part of it.
“What do you want from me?” he asked Stephen finally.
“I want you to be an alpha,” Stephen said seriously. “I want you to think what would be best for the people you rescued—not what would slake their bloodlust, but what would be best for them. I want you to forge alliances with the other packs you helped make whole, the packs that were fractured by these facilities. And I want you to consider the fact that my brother, Michael, acted in concert with many governments, aiding them in work no one else could do. There is no reason you cannot be a part of this world, Emeric. But do so as the man you were meant to be, not a child.”
When Emeric said nothing, Stephen smiled.
“And, if it helps…there might just be investigators waiting at that television station this morning to arrest Mr. Fraga. The world is going to find out just what he did.”
Emeric looked at Sidonie. He saw the same twist of uncertainty and fear in her eyes that he recognized from his own.
He thought of home, with the sun rising over the fields in the summer. He could smell the wood smoke at the hearth in the winter and the smell of beef stew and fresh-baked bread. He could remember the youngest children laughing as they learned to transform into wolf cubs—and not wanting to turn back when they found out how much more agile they were as wolves.
The thought of home, of building a pack, seemed to make the void inside him fade.
He looked up at Stephen.
“What are you going to do?” Stephen asked.
“I’m going home,” Emeric said. “I’m going home, and we’re going to rebuild.”
Stephen smiled.
Epilogue
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Bethany Anne smiled at Jennifer.
Jennifer smiled. “I am.”
“Because you still have a year left on your contract.”
“I’m sure,” Jennifer said, laughing.
“And you’ve talked to your parents about this?” Bethany Anne asked. Her eyes widened when she saw the shifty look in Jennifer’s eyes. “You haven’t!”
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission,” Jennifer said, with great dignity. She pointed to the paper. “Now, come on. I want to sign.”
Bethany Anne stepped back, sweeping her hand out at the paper.
Jennifer signed with a flourish, no hesitation in her as she wrote her name.
This was it. No more uncertainty. No more, “when my contract is up,” no more wondering. Her place was here, with TQB. In the past years, she had seen more of the world, and done more to be proud of, than she had in her whole life before that. Now she would be a protector for those she loved most.
She stared down at the paper for a moment and then stepped back. “Done.”
“Welcome aboard.” Bethany Anne grinned.
Pete clapped her on the shoulder and Nathan gave her a nod from the other side of the room. Ashur even came to stick his cold nose into her hand, making her jump. Full-time members of TQB have to pet me, his manner said clearly.
Jennifer laughed and obeyed, crouching and scratching her nails over the fur around his neck. Ashur let his eyes drift closed and wagged his tail.
Stephen slipped into the room and looked around at everyone’s faces. His eyes flicked to Beth
any Anne’s. “What did I miss? Why am I here?”
“Oh, it’s no big deal.” Bethany Anne smiled and jerked her head at Pete and Nathan. “Just some news from Jennifer. Come on, Ashur. Let’s go.”
Ashur grumbled but plodded after the group.
Jennifer stood. She was so nervous her palms were clammy. She hadn’t told Stephen she was doing this. What if he thought she was clingy? What if he thought it was a terrible idea, and this had all just been a fling for him?
“I, uh...” Suddenly she could not remember a single word of English.
Stephen strolled closer. He could see a blush rising in Jennifer’s cheeks, fear and hope all tumbled together in her eyes.
Then he saw the piece of paper.
His heart stopped, and in a single, dizzying moment, he admitted to himself that he had been afraid.
Afraid she would leave.
“You’re staying?” He could not keep the hope out his voice.
“Yeah.” Jennifer’s voice came out high, and she twisted her hands. “Yes. I…hope that’s—”
Stephen swept her into his arms with a grin and stared down at her.
“It is exactly what I want,” he told her.
“Hey!” Pete barged his way into the room and groaned when he saw Jennifer and Stephen. He covered his eyes with one hand and turned his head away purposefully. “Ahem. There’s something you two should see.”
“We’re…kind of having a moment.” Jennifer tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice.
“No, really. You’re gonna want to see this.” Pete nodded seriously. “Bobcat. Just gave up testing a beer. To go out with a girl.”
Jennifer and Stephen both darted out of the room in time to see Bobcat leaving with a dark-haired woman, while a giant dog trailed at their heels. Beer lay abandoned on a table nearby.
Stephen gave a low whistle.
“So…when’s the wedding?”
“We’re taking bets now,” Bethany Anne informed him. She leaned over to look at Jennifer. “And now that you’re part of the permanent crew, you get to bet too!”
FINIS
