Wolf at the Door

by Christine Warren

  “He’ll never be the one to admit it, but he’s an overprotective worrywart,” Tess broke in, smiling at Cassidy. “He insisted we follow you up here and figure out what was going on.”

  “I insisted that I follow them,” Rafe growled, scowling down at his wife. “As you might recall, I wanted you nowhere near us when this all happened. You put yourself in danger, mate, and you may rest assured we will discuss that at length when we return to the city.”

  Tess just rolled her eyes. “Sure we will. Are you forgetting there was a demon here to deal with, buddy? Just what would you have done without me to handle him?”

  Rafe laughed ruefully and turned to look at Quinn. “Well, Quinn. Is it your turn to join the brotherhood?” he asked, grinning. “We’ve had jackets made, if you’ll tell me your size.”

  Cassidy, Adele, and Tess all rolled their eyes. Did men really think women couldn’t decipher that testosterone-laden code of theirs?

  Adele cleared her throat with excessive volume. “Before you boys proceed with your male bonding rituals, I believe there are one or two loose ends we need to discuss.”

  Quinn flicked a glance in the direction of the Terrible Trio and sneered. “I say we put them out with the trash.”

  “No,” Rafe said. “As appealing as that idea might be, the Council will deal with them better. They have a lot to answer for, including that demon my wife so ably took care of.”

  Tess gave a regal nod at his acknowledgment of her assistance.

  “You’re right. There hasn’t been a confirmed demon sighting in centuries. Rumors here and there, but nothing concrete. And summoning was outlawed in the treaties at the end of the Fae-Demon War.” Quinn frowned. “They have a lot to answer to the Council for. And when you’re done, I believe the European High Council might like a crack at whatever is left over.”

  The Felix nodded. “Done.”

  “Gentlemen,” Adele interrupted. “I said one or two matters to deal with.”

  “She’s right. She did.”

  Cassidy nodded, following Tess’s train of thought. “Handling these idiots is the least of our worries. There’s still the matter of the Light of Truth to deal with. Even if they weren’t the ones who kidnapped Nana, they still killed Ysabel Mirenow, and might have killed Alexandra Thurgood. Who at the very least is still missing and in imminent danger of being exposed.”

  “Well, you’re almost right,” Tess said. “We found her. That’s why we were a little late getting here. Once we checked for you at the hospital and found out what had happened to you, Rafe beat the information on where they were hiding Alexandra out of that slimy little orderly. She’s safe with a doctor we can trust, and her father’s plane landed an hour ago. In fact, he’s probably with her by now. But there is still the matter of her hospital admission records.”

  Quinn nodded. “And we do know the Light of Truth was behind that and that they’re already active here in America. That problem hasn’t gone away.”

  “Nor will it.”

  Cassidy turned and saw her grandmother watching her with an odd expression on her face.

  “We can’t go back,” Adele continued. “A brilliant scholar who specializes in this sort of thing has recently shown me that we can’t ever go back. As much as we might like to continue hiding in the shadows and preserving the status quo, it is much too late for that. I think the Europeans are right. The truth is going to come out, and it is up to us whether we control it, or let it control us.”

  Cassidy felt her heart expand at her grandmother’s words. She had never doubted that Adele loved her, but there had been times in her life when she had doubted that her nana had truly respected her. In an instant, all those doubts were erased.

  With her arms wrapped around Quinn’s waist, Cassidy snuggled close to his side and drew comfort in his strength as she echoed her grandmother’s sentiments to the head of the Council.

  “This is the beginning of a new era,” she said quietly. “Humans and Others are going to have to learn to live together if we’re all going to make it through. And I don’t want my children to grow up thinking they have to live their lives in secrecy until the end of time. That’s not a status quo I want to preserve. That’s just another kind of prison.”

  Rafe nodded, his mouth curving up at the corners in the hint of a smile. “I agree. Well said, Cassidy. Now, let’s leave the garbage here for my men to clean up and get back to the city so you can make your final report to the Council.”

  The group made its way slowly out of the ballroom and into the early sunshine that had just broken over the treetops to illuminate the crisp Connecticut morning. The Others took a moment to stretch and enjoy the fresh air before beginning their journey back to the real world.

  Cassidy had her head tilted back, her face raised to the gentle rays of sun, when a shadow fell across her. She opened her eyes to see Quinn staring down at her with the oddest look on his face.

  “What you said a few minutes ago,” he rumbled, placing his warm hands on her hips to hold her in place. “The part about your children. Would you be interested in a further exploration of that topic? With me? Perhaps later today? And quite possibly for the rest of your natural-born life?”

  Cassidy just stood there in the sunshine feeling as if the entire world were glowing with her happiness. “That depends. I couldn’t possibly have that sort of discussion with a man who didn’t love me.”

  Quinn wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tucked her tightly against her side. “Then have it with me, darling, because I love you madly, Cassidy Poe. Always will. Lupines mate for life, you know.”

  “I know this one had better,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Because if he tries to mate with anyone else, I’ll kill him till he wishes he were dead.”

  Her mate threw back his head and laughed. “What do you say, Cassie love? Are you going to make me a happy man, or doom me to a lifetime of torment?”

  She looked up at him with sly challenge. “What makes you think I plan to only do one?”

  Quinn laughed again, loudly and heartily, before he seized a grinning Cassidy around the waist and lifted her into the air.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, spinning her around until she laughed along with him. “Now give us a kiss, love of my life. I haven’t had a taste of honey in much, much too long.”

  Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next thrilling

  novel in the Others series

  She’s No Faerie Princess

  Now available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  “You’re three hundred and thirty-seven years old. That’s a bit late to be running away from home.”

  “I’m not running away from home. I’m taking a vacation.”

  “It looks a lot like running.”

  “So help me, Babbage, if you don’t shut up in the next five seconds, I swear to the stars I will take you with me.”

  Fiona listened to the resulting silence with grim satisfaction. The pixie continued to flutter beside her head and cast disapproving glares in her direction, but disapproval didn’t bother her. If it did, she’d never manage to wake up in the mornings. Babbage, on the other hand, lived in mortal fear of the Queen’s disapproval, which was why the threat of bringing him with her to the human world had shut him up in such a hurry. Ever since an incident a few years ago when her nephew had been spotted by several humans as he gallivanted around New York, Queen Mab had gotten a lot tougher about enforcing the ban on travel between Faerie and the human world. Most people tried to stay away from upsetting Mab.

  There hadn’t been much chance that anything would come of the sightings, considering most humans had stopped believing in the existence of her kind many human centuries ago, but Mab did not like to be thwarted.

  Fiona didn’t see how anyone could consider her quick little vacation to the human world as “thwarting,” though. After all, it wasn’t like any of the people there would be expecting to see a Fae walking among them, and with a little glamour—the smal
lest form of Fae magic—she could make sure all they saw when they looked at her would be a perfectly normal human woman. Humans, in her experience, were not that tough to fool. And while they went about their business in blissful ignorance, she’d be able to do some shopping and take in a few concerts. She’d done it before with no problems. She didn’t foresee any this time either.

  “I’m telling you, I have a bad feeling about this,” Babbage grumbled, apparently unable to keep silent a moment longer. He’d lasted longer than Fiona had expected. Pixies were not well known for their taciturn natures. “If you step through that gate, you’ll be sorry.”

  “The only reason why I would be sorry would be if the Queen found out. And the only way my aunt could possibly find out something like that would be if you told her. Which you’re not going to do, are you, Babbage?”

  The pixie remained stubbornly silent. For once in his life.

  Fiona’s hand darted out, pinching his gossamer tunic between her thumb and forefinger and hauling him right up to her face. “Are you, Babbage?”

  He glanced from her to the gate on the other side of the clearing where she stood, and back again. His wings drooped at the edges. “No, Princess Fiona. I will not tell the Queen of your rash and ill-advised excursion into forbidden territory.”

  “I’ve asked you not to call me ‘princess’,” she said and released him with a flick of her fingers.

  He flew back a couple of feet and gave a wounded sniff. “You are a princess.”

  “Sure, along with ten of my female cousins, and that’s not counting the other cousins who happen to be princes.”

  She peered around the trunk of an old oak tree and scanned the clearing for any signs of movement. Just because she wouldn’t let the fear of getting caught stop her from going through the gate didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try to avoid it.

  “None of them are in line to inherit both the Summer and Winter thrones.”

  “Babbage, do you want me to take you with me?”

  The renewed threat shut the pixie up, but the damage had already been done. He’d reminded her of something she spent a great deal of her time trying to forget, and now she’d spend at least the rest of the day with it hanging over her head. Pesky pixie pest.

  Fiona knew that ignoring the truth wasn’t going to make it go away, but it didn’t keep her from trying. On a daily basis. She despised court life, whether it was her aunt’s Seelie Court or her Uncle Dionnu’s Unseelie Court, and the idea of taking the throne of either made her break out in hives, which was exactly the reason that she needed to take a vacation. She didn’t have the patience or the deviousness required to be a successful leader of the Fae, and she had no intention of developing either. Her parents might both have been sidhe—the noble race of Faerie—but she swore that sometimes she wished they’d been goblins or trolls or pixies or sprites or even a dryad and a satyr. Any type of Fae under the sun or moon would have been fine with her so long as it wasn’t a member of either high court. Sometimes, she reflected, life as a Faerie Princess pretty much sucked.

  Thinking about it only steeled Fiona’s resolve to screw the rules and seize the opportunity for her much-needed vacation. She took one last careful look around, shouldered her small travel bag, and flicked Babbage a jaunty wave.

  “Take care, little friend,” she called, hurrying toward the shimmering Faerie gate and into the simple, predictable world of the humans.

  Tobias Walker hadn’t gotten laid in at least three months. He knew very well that this hardly qualified as an emergency, but he did consider it symptomatic of a larger issue. Not only had he not had sex in all that time—which was not inconsequential for a bachelor werewolf in his prime—but he also hadn’t gone on a date, gotten an uninterrupted night of sleep, watched an entire ball game, or taken a day off. Considering all that, was it any wonder that his mood edged toward cranky as he stalked through his three A.M. park patrol?

  Technically, this wasn’t even his patrol, a fact that only contributed to his case of the grumps. Tonight should have been his night to get a decadent five hours of sleep after a double shift on his regular beat down through Central Park, but the packmate who had been assigned up here in Inwood had come down with a raging case of pregnancy and her mate had refused to let her out of the house. Tobias could sympathize with the sentiment; his own Lupine instincts would have driven him to react the same way if he’d had a mate, but he didn’t. What he did have was an entire city to patrol and a force that was already stretched thin to cover it.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets as he stalked through the park, his sharp gaze constantly sweeping the surroundings for anything unusual. You’d think by now he’d be used to the whole thing. It had been like this for nearly six months, ever since the Council of Others and its equivalents from around the world had entered into secret negotiations with the humans. The delicate nature of the talks necessitated an atmosphere of peace, no matter how tense, if the two sides were going to reach an agreement that didn’t lead to bloodshed on either side. And when you were negotiating with vampires, shape shifters, Others, and human politicians, Tobias reflected, bloodshed was always a possibility, no matter how hard he and his pack worked to prevent it.

  These negotiations would alter the course of the future, for both the Others, who had finally taken their first step out of hiding, and for the humans, who now needed to acknowledge that so many of the things they believed to be safely fictional actually did walk among them. It meant asking the humans to discard centuries of fear and superstition to allow what many of them considered to be monsters to enjoy the same rights and legal protections as anyone else. So in contrast, beefing up Other security to be sure no one got out of line and did anything to frighten the humans into another Inquisition seemed like a wise course of action. As beta of the Silverback Clan and head of security at the largest private club for Others in this half of the world, it fell to Tobias to coordinate that security force. Which was why he was currently on his third patrol in twenty-four hours instead of face-down in his mattress.

  Heading north at the fork in his path, Tobias considered all the changes he and his kind had faced over the past months. No one had really been prepared. Sure, Others had been debating about the Unveiling on and off for most of the last century, but that had been a theoretical sort of thing, an “imagine if” approach to the future. It hadn’t prevented the shock of learning a few months ago that a radical sect called the Light of Truth had gathered enough evidence to take the decision out of their hands and reveal their existence to the humans whether they were ready or not. That news had convinced the Council of Others that the time had come to take the first steps in claiming an open place in the world around them, hence the secret negotiations. Even the most optimistic members of the Council knew better than to break the news to the human public without first gaining some assurances from their governments that the rights of the non-humans would be preserved. Optimistic did not equal foolish. For their part, the Others were prepared to do their best to keep from doing anything to frighten the humans into abandoning the bargaining table. Tobias figured he was currently doing his best, and the best of at least three other people to boot.

  Thankfully, things were staying pretty quiet—quiet enough that twenty-four-hour patrols probably weren’t strictly necessary, but you just never knew when that one problem you wanted to avoid would rear its ugly head.

  Or scream bloody murder.

  Before a sharp, feminine cry had even faded to an echo, Tobias had whipped around, pinpointed the source of the sound, and launched himself toward it, sprinting through the trees in a blur of speed and swear words.

 

 

 
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