Leader Of The Pack

by Karen McInerney

The depressing thing was, if I was going to go back to the Howl tomorrow, I’d have to dye it black all over again.

  As I headed to the kitchen to fix myself a last-minute cup of wolfsbane tea, I glanced at the phone, willing it to ring. Tom hadn’t called me with an update yet, and I was on pins and needles.

  I still hadn’t gotten around to telling my mother what was going on, either. She’d left me five messages over the last couple of days—since she was psychic, it wasn’t a surprise that she suspected something was going on—and I hadn’t returned any of them. Because if I did, what was I going to tell her? That her ex-lover and the father of her only child was scheduled to be executed unless I called in the French werewolf army?

  The teakettle had just begun to whistle when the phone rang. I fumbled to turn off the stove and raced to the phone, heart pounding. Please God, don’t let it be my mother.

  “Sophie?”

  It wasn’t my mother. It was my ex-boyfriend. “Heath,” I croaked, my heart in my throat.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I lied. “Just fine.” And I guess that apart from the whole father-about-to-be-executed thing, everything was going okay. At least my client was happy. That could be because I was sleeping with him, but that was beside the point. “How about you?” I asked in my best light conversational tone.

  “Doing great,” he said. “Business is really going gang-busters.”

  “And I hear you and Miranda are hitting it off well,” I said, because I couldn’t help it. It’s not that I wanted to be back together with him. It’s just that his recovery time was awfully quick for a guy who’d asked me to marry him six weeks ago.

  “We’ve been seeing a bit of each other, yes,” he said coolly. “And I understand you and your client have been rather friendly, too.”

  “Um, I guess so.” If by friendly you meant making passionate love several times a week. Touché.

  “Anyway, that’s not why I called,” he said smoothly.

  “Why did you call?” I asked, glancing at my watch. The client in question was due to arrive at any minute now. “I mean, it’s lovely to hear from you and all…”

  “Lindsey gave me a ring tonight,” he said. “She told me you might need some help.”

  “What?” I barked.

  “She mentioned you had reunited with your father.”

  Dear Lord. What had Lindsey been thinking? “I’m not sure if I’d call it reunited,” I said.

  “And that he’s had some legal trouble.”

  “Some legal trouble,” I repeated, realizing that the next time I saw my so-called best friend, I might have to kill her. I took a deep breath. “It was sweet of her to think of me, but it’s nothing too major.”

  “That’s funny,” Heath said. “She told me he’s up for homicide.”

  I blinked. “She what?”

  “The thing is, though, I looked for it in the papers, and the court records—I know you told me his last name was Garou—and I didn’t find anything.”

  That’s because he was charged with homicide by a pack of supernatural creatures, I thought. Shit, shit, shit. What now?

  “Sophie?”

  “I’m thinking,” I said.

  “She told me you wouldn’t be thrilled to hear from me,” he said, and I could hear a note of disappointment in his voice.

  “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just…”

  “Sophie, what’s going on?” he asked.

  I groaned. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Try me,” he said.

  At that moment, thank God, there was a knock on the door.

  “Someone’s at the door, Heath. I have to go.”

  “I’m not going to stop calling you until you tell me what’s happening. We may not be … together, but I still care about you.”

  “Heath…”

  “Call me when you get in. I don’t care how late it is. I’m worried about you.”

  “Fine,” I said. I’d agree to just about anything to get him off the phone. Whoever was at the door knocked again. “Thanks for calling. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “You’d better,” he said, and hung up.

  I took a deep breath, rearranged the neck-line of my dress, and headed to the door. I knew before I opened it that it was Mark; his smoky smell was already curling up underneath the door.

  “Sophie,” he said, his blue eyes roaming down and then up me, coming to a rather abrupt stop on my hair. “Wow. That’s a new look for you.”

  I raised a self-conscious hand to my head. “It’s temporary. I hope.”

  “I brought this for you,” he said, pulling a single red rose out from behind his back.

  “Gosh. Thanks,” I said, burying my nose in the red petals. The bloom even smelled good, which was unusual for a store-bought rose. “Come on in, and I’ll find a vase.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, following me into my loft and closing the door behind him.

  “Did Frank just wave you up?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” he said. “To be honest, I’m not sure he noticed me.” Mark came up behind me as I stood at the sink, filling a vase, and nuzzled my neck in a way that sent all kinds of sensations zinging through me. “So,” he said, nibbling my ear, “what’s the scoop with your dad?”

  “Haven’t heard anything yet today,” I said, feeling myself tense up just thinking about it. I tucked the rose into the vase, admiring the bloodred petals. “But I’m planning on taking my cell phone tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “In case Tom calls,” I said.

  “You certainly are dedicated,” he said dryly. “Who were you on the phone with just now?”

  “Heath.”

  “Heath? The ex-boyfriend?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought he was history. After all, from what I’ve heard, he and Miranda have been pretty hot and heavy lately.”

  I turned to look at him. “How do you know about his love life, anyway?”

  He didn’t argue. Instead he gave me a wicked, sultry smile and slid his arms around my waist, pulling me closer.

  His lips touched mine—they were hot, as always—and an answering heat welled up inside of me. His warm hands explored my back, running over the smooth fabric of my dress, toying with the clasp of my bra. Already he was hard against me.

  I pulled away suddenly, and he opened his eyes, pupils dilated with desire. “What is it?” he asked hoarsely.

  “We haven’t even had dinner yet,” I pointed out, trying to catch my breath. “And besides, you promised you’d tell me what you are tonight.” Plus, I had vowed to do two things before I slept with him again: first, address his rather archaic attitudes toward dating; and second, make him tell me exactly what made it possible for his skin to burst into flames on command. I was planning to bring both subjects up during dinner, after a glass or two of wine.

  “I didn’t promise,” he said teasingly, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I said if you were very, very good, you might be able to persuade me.”

  “What about very, very bad?” I asked, allowing my hand to stray down his flat abdomen. What are you doing, Sophie?

  What was it about Mark that made my better judgment fly out the window?

  He sucked in his breath. “That might work better, actually. I’ve never been a big fan of Goody-Two-Shoes.”

  “Good thing,” I said, once again wondering where my willpower had gone, and kissed him again. Then, exercising incredible restraint, I pulled away. “Let me go fix my lipstick, and we’ll head downstairs. Where are we going?”

  “I thought you might be in the mood for steak,” he said.

  “Only the nonwooden kind,” I said. “And only if it’s rare.”

  “Done,” he said. “Now, go do what you need to; Ben is waiting downstairs.”

  Unfortunately, the only place Mark could get a reservation was Ruth’s Chris, which wasn’t ideal for putting my father’s rather unfortunate situation
out of my mind. I checked my phone to make sure the ringer was on and ordered a glass of cabernet, trying to push the memory of my father out of my head. When we’d met for dinner, we’d sat just two tables over. Had it really been only a few days since he showed up on my doorstep?

  As Mark drank down two martinis, I told him about my faux pas of the earlier evening.

  “So you dyed your hair black, took something that made you smell like maple syrup, pretended you were a Swedish girl from Minnesota, and then accidentally stole the big hunting prize from Wolfgang and Elena?”

  “In a nutshell, that’s it,” I said, taking a fortifying swig of wine. It hadn’t been a good couple of days.

  “Need another?” he asked when I put down an almost empty glass.

  “Evidently,” I said.

  Mark grabbed the bottle and topped it off for me. “But you talked with your father. Is he well?”

  “As well as he’ll ever be,” I said, and told him about Georges’s visit to my office this morning.

  “So what are you going to do?” he asked, running a long finger around the rim of his glass and staring at me from those deep blue eyes.

  “The plan hasn’t changed. I’m going to try and prove him innocent. If I can’t manage it, I’ll consider other options.”

  “You know my offer stands.”

  “I know,” I said, wondering why I didn’t just take him up on it. “And thank you.”

  He nodded. “What does your mother think?”

  “I’ve never gotten around to telling her,” I confessed.

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “You didn’t tell her about your father?”

  “She knows he’s here, but…”

  “She doesn’t know he’s been charged with murder.”

  As if on cue, my phone rang. I grabbed my purse and yanked the phone out, hoping it wasn’t my psychic mother again.

  “Sophie Garou,” I barked into the mouthpiece.

  “Sophie, It’s Tom.”

  Thank God. “What’s going on?”

  “I think you’re safe to come back tomorrow,” he said. “Like I said, I explained that you come from a rather … provincial background.”

  “Provincial?” It wasn’t exactly the most flattering explanation, but at this point, I’d probably be okay if he told everyone I was a nymphomaniac who had recently escaped an X-rated circus act. I sighed. “Did you find out anything else about Charles?”

  “I did, and it may be helpful… but there’s something else you need to know.”

  “What?”

  “Elena moved the trial up.”

  “To when?”

  “The day after tomorrow.”

  “The day after tomorrow? That gives me no time at all.” I gripped the phone.

  “I think we should meet tonight,” he said.

  I glanced up at Mark, whose dark blue eyes were intense. He wouldn’t be thrilled if I cut our date short, but surely he’d understand. “When?”

  “How about an hour? It will take me that long to get back into town.”

  “My place?”

  “I’ll see you there.”

  “What’s going on?” Mark asked as I flipped the phone shut and dropped it into my purse.

  “Tom needs to meet with me. They’ve moved the trial up to the day after tomorrow.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I told him I’d meet him at my place in an hour.”

  “What about our date?”

  “My dad is going to be perforated with a stake in two days if I can’t find a way to prove him innocent. I think that qualifies as extenuating circumstances.”

  He sighed. “I guess we’d better eat fast, then.”

  We arrived back at my loft almost an hour later, after speed-eating our way through two strip steaks and an order of sautéed mushrooms. Conversation, unfortunately, had not been particularly stimulating. In part because most of the time we’d been stuffing steak into our mouths, but largely because Mark was obviously less than thrilled that I’d be meeting Tom in about an hour.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked as I let us into my loft.

  “Fine,” he said shortly. “I’m hoping you will at least let me stay until your friend arrives.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “What are my options?”

  I gave him the rundown—beer, lots of wine, vodka, and a bottle of scotch that I used to keep for Heath. A moment later, I poured him some of Heath’s leftover Macallan 12 and myself a small glass of Conundrum, and the two of us sat on the loveseat together.

  And waited.

  Although conversation between us was usually fluid—not to mention filled with sexual innuendo—things were a bit tense, and we didn’t talk too much. I made a few halfhearted attempts to pry into his true identity, but he didn’t rise to the bait, and with Tom due to stop by at any moment, sex wasn’t a good option. So we sat there watching a rerun of What Not to Wear while Mark worked his way through his Macallan. The man must have a cast-iron stomach, I thought as he poured himself a third. He’d had two martinis at Ruth’s Chris, too, but he didn’t seem even tipsy.

  At seven thirty, I couldn’t stand waiting anymore, and pulled my phone out and dialed Tom’s number. He didn’t pick up.

  “That’s weird,” I said.

  “Not answering?” Mark asked.

  As I shook my head, the phone in my hand rang. I answered it without looking at the number. “Tom!”

  “Sophie?”

  It was my mother.

  “Hey, Mom.” I hit the mute button just as Stacy sent a snakeskin bra swan-diving into the trash.

  “I didn’t know you and Tom were talking. Has anything changed?”

  “No,” I said. Meaning that Lindsey and Tom were still together, and I was still not interested in dating werewolves.

  “That’s a shame. But that’s not why I called. Why haven’t you been returning my calls?” she asked sharply. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s been a little … busy,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about tonight. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “You worry too much.”

  “Well, stay fine. And don’t go anywhere if you can help it. There’s something in the air tonight…”

  I shifted a little on my love seat, but said nothing.

  “What about your father?” my mother asked. I knew she’d ask about him. Having a psychic parent can be a real pain sometimes.

  “What about him?” I asked lightly.

  “What do you think? Are you two speaking? Is he getting on with the Texas packs? Has he been able to fill you in on all the things you missed? I’m surprised I haven’t heard from him. Although maybe I shouldn’t be,” she said, and I caught a hint of bitterness I hadn’t heard before. I guess if you spent almost thirty years building up someone’s memory in your mind and they show up and turn out to be a schmuck after all, it can be a bit of a letdown.

  “He’s gotten himself into a little bit of a political trouble,” I said vaguely, watching as Stacy held up a hot pink tube top, “but I’m sure he’ll come out unstaked. I mean unscathed.”

  Mark snorted beside me, and I elbowed him hard.

  “Sophie. What’s happening? What’s going on?”

  “Apparently there’s some history between Luc and the leaders of the Houston pack,” I said. “They’re working out a few issues.”

  I could hear her sigh of relief. “Thank the goddess he’s okay. And you. But I’m just sure something awful is going to happen. I did a reading, and the Devil and the Death cards were extremely prominent. I even did a second spread, for clarification, and the same two cards kept turning up.”

  “Didn’t you once tell me that the Death card meant change?” I suggested.

  “Not in a spread like this,” she said ominously.

  “I’ll be very, very careful,” I promised, wondering if the cards in the reading were somehow rela
ted to my father. Should I call in the French werewolf brigade?

  “You’d better be careful,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you. And you never did stop by to pick up your wolfsbane,” she reminded me.

  “I know,” I said. “Sorry. I’ll swing by as soon as I can.”

  “Don’t do anything rash, sweetheart. If I lost you …” Her voice swelled with love.

  “You won’t,” I assured her.

  “I wish I could be sure of that.”

  Just then, there was a knock at the door.

  “Mom, there’s someone here to see me. Can I call you later?”

  “Don’t go out if you can help it!” she said.

  “I won’t,” I said, and after telling her I loved her, I flipped the phone shut, turned off the TV, and headed for the door.

  It was Tom.

  “What took you so long?” I asked, breathing in that wildly erotic scent of his. Only there was something different about it tonight. Something coppery, like blood …

  He gave me a lopsided grin, then turned to the side so I could see what was left of his jeans on the right side of his leg. “The motorcycle hit an oil slick,” he said. “So I was a bit delayed.”

  I stared at the hamburger-like consistency of his leg and the hole in the elbow of his gorgeous leather jacket. “That must have been some fall. I’m glad you didn’t get yourself killed.”

  “So am I,” he said, gold eyes glinting.

  “Shouldn’t we be taking you to the hospital?” I asked, staring at what was left of his leg. Strips of bloody denim hung around it, and the muscle was exposed in several places. “God, that looks awful.”

  “It will heal quickly,” he said. “If you’ll let me use your bathroom to clean up …” He broke off what he was saying and raised his head sharply. A moment later, Mark stepped up behind me, and the smile faded from Tom’s tanned face. “Oh,” he said, and I could sense him bristling. “I didn’t realize you had company.”

  “It’s okay. Come on in,” I told Tom. “Mark won’t bite.” I glanced at Mark, who had a strange smile on his face. “Will you?” I asked.

  “Not unless provoked,” Mark said lightly.

  Despite the fact that his right leg looked like it had fought—and lost—a battle with a meat grinder, Tom gave Mark a long, measured look before limping to my bathroom. He refused my offer to help him pick out the gravel. “Just show me where the alcohol and the gauze are, and I’ll be fine,” he said.