Leader Of The Pack

by Karen McInerney

  “Not exactly the best time, though,” I said.

  “Would another time be better?” he asked.

  “You know what I mean,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I knew what I meant. As heat rose to my face, I decided to change the subject. “I never thanked you for coming up to help me, by the way. How did you know I needed you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, golden eyes shimmering. “It was like I heard you.”

  “But you couldn’t have.”

  “I know,” he said. Then he leaned down, eyes burning with something that I dared to hope was repressed desire, and kissed me, lightly, tenderly, on the forehead, his hands hot on my shoulders. “You’re full of mysteries, Sophie Garou,” he whispered.

  I closed my eyes, savoring the slow burn of his touch. And then he released me, suddenly alert.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Something tells me we should hurry. More may come.”

  I blinked. “More what?”

  “Werewolves,” he said, and something in his voice made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

  Ten minutes later, we were fully clothed and back in Georges’s bathroom again, along with the pile of werewolves. Although the jeans fit Tom better than they did my father, I found myself missing having a half-naked werewolf around. Stop it, Sophie. I drew my blood-streaked jacket closer around me and forced myself to focus on the werewolf Tom was hauling out of the tub.

  Tom slung him over one shoulder and carried him to the bedroom, where he flung the lupine body onto a chair.

  “Wake,” he commanded, and to my surprise, the furry eyelids twitched a little bit, then shot open. I could smell the werewolf’s wariness—and fear.

  “Transform,” Tom barked, and then, right before our eyes, his limbs lengthened, the fur receded, and a naked Boris—or Dudley, I could never tell which was which—stared back at us.

  Tom tossed a towel over his nether regions, for which I was infinitely grateful, and proceeded to drill him with questions.

  “Who sent you here?”

  The werewolf just blinked at him, which was not the right answer, because Tom reached out and grabbed his arm. The werewolf yelped a little bit in pain, and when Tom drew his hand back, the skin he had touched was an angry red—almost blistered, it seemed to me.

  “Who sent you here, Boris?” Tom repeated quietly.

  Boris grabbed his arm, just below the wrist, and stared up at Tom, the whites showing around his eyes. “Elena,” he whispered.

  “Why?”

  “Because … because she didn’t want the Paris pack involved.”

  “That’s why you killed Georges. But why did you attack Sophie?”

  “She is a Garou,” he said. “She’s a threat to the Grafs.”

  “Did Wolfgang send you?”

  “I don’t know whose idea it was,” he said. “Elena sent me. We never talk with Wolfgang.”

  “Why was Elena in Charles Grenier’s hotel room?” Tom asked. The werewolf’s eyes widened even further, which I hadn’t thought possible, and the acrid scent of his fear threatened to overpower me.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know.”

  “It had something to do with Jean-Louis’s refusal to ratify the alliance, didn’t it?”

  Boris said nothing, but his eyes slid to me. He was figuring out where Tom’s information had come from, I realized.

  Tom reached out and touched Boris’s wrist again, and the werewolf winced, his eyes jerking back to Tom. Tom’s voice was slow and steady, and sent chills down my back. I was seeing a side of Tom I’d never experienced before—and to be honest, it was a bit unsettling. “Was Elena working with Charles to overthrow Wolfgang?” he asked.

  Boris said nothing, but from the startled look in his eyes, it looked like Tom had come pretty close to the truth.

  “So that was the plan, wasn’t it?” Tom asked. “Once Elena was alpha, she was going to use Louisiana’s backing to take over the Houston pack. That’s why Jean-Louis wouldn’t agree to the alliance; he knew he’d have to break his oath.”

  When Boris didn’t say anything, Tom moved to take his wrist again. The werewolf jerked his hand away, stuttering, “It wasn’t my idea. I was just taking orders.”

  “What was his reward going to be? A chunk of east Texas? Or was he going to be her co-alpha?”

  “Just the territory,” Boris whispered.

  “Beaumont?”

  Boris nodded.

  “Who was going to be her co-alpha?”

  Boris closed his eyes. “Once Wolfgang was … taken care of, Grenier was supposed to rule with Elena.”

  “So who killed Charles Grenier?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I was told to arrest Luc Garou.”

  “Why were you told to kill Sophie? It wasn’t just because of her connection with Paris, was it?”

  “Elena said she was a threat,” Boris said. “Our job is to eliminate threats.”

  “Did one of you kill Grenier? And pin it on Garou?”

  “No,” he said. “Like I told you—I don’t know. They said it was Garou, so we arrested Garou.”

  Tom glanced at me. “I’m about out of questions. You have anything you want to ask?”

  I swallowed hard. “Why … why does Elena think I’m a threat?”

  “Because of your lineage,” Boris said. Now that he’d spilled the beans about the alliance, he was becoming positively chatty. “And that thing that you did to Anita. And because Wolfgang …” he trailed off.

  “What about Wolfgang?”

  “I think Miss Elena was afraid Wolfgang would choose you instead of her,” Boris said.

  “What? But he hates my family!”

  “I don’t know about that,” Boris said. “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard.”

  He looked back at Tom. “I’m sorry I tried to kill your girlfriend—it was business. You know?”

  I waited for Tom to tell him I wasn’t his girlfriend, but he said nothing.

  “I’ve told you everything I know,” Boris continued. “But now that I’ve told you, could you keep it, you know, just between us? Because if Elena finds out I told you …”

  “Actually, I’ll need you to testify tomorrow,” Tom said.

  Boris’s eyes bulged. “Testify? What are you talking about?”

  “At Luc Garou’s trial,” Tom said calmly. I wanted to tell Tom that there wouldn’t be a trial tomorrow, that unless I could find a way to bring in the French reinforcements, I was going to ask Mark to go in and rescue my father. Because as far as I could tell, that was my only hope of seeing Luc Garou survive the week. But since I couldn’t explain how Mark was going to get into the compound and manage to set my father free, I didn’t bother. Tom would figure it out tomorrow, when the prisoner didn’t show up. I had to find a way to lose Tom and get in touch with Mark, I thought. Because if he was going to break my father free, tonight might be the last opportunity.

  Boris was protesting Tom’s idea. “I can’t testify. If I do, they’ll kill me!”

  “But if you don’t…” Tom didn’t finish his sentence, but the ramifications were crystal clear. Boris’s eyes widened, and the stench of fear grew even stronger. “Besides,” Tom added, almost as an afterthought, “Wolfgang might reward you for protecting his interests.”

  “But what about the leader of the New Orleans pack?”

  “I’m going to have to tell Wolfgang what you told me anyway,” Tom said. “Wouldn’t Wolfgang be more likely to extend his protection if you—out of loyalty—told him what Elena was up to?”

  Boris swallowed hard.

  “If you like, I can end it now,” Tom said, “and then you won’t have to worry about Jean-Louis.”

  “No, no,” Boris gasped. “I’ll do it. Please …”

  “Do we have a deal, then?”

  “Yes.”

  Tom grabbed his jaw, and the meaty werewolf flinched. The Nordic werewolf’s voi
ce was glacial. “If you do not keep your promise, I will hunt you down.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I understand.”

  “Do you give your oath?” Tom asked, his fingers still clamped on Boris’s jaw.

  “I swear it by the Codex,” he said, his voice tinged with desperation. “I will testify tomorrow. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

  “Good,” Tom said, releasing him. “We’ll be leaving shortly. When we do, please deal with the mess you created. We moved Georges into the bathroom, along with your compatriot.”

  “Of course, Mr. Fenris. Thank you for sparing me.”

  Tom nodded. Then he stood up, smoothed my father’s shirt, and turned to me. “Ready to get out of here?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I need to see if there’s a way to contact Armand.”

  As Tom watched Boris, I rifled through Georges’s drawers, looking for something that would help put me in touch with the Paris pack. I don’t know what I was looking for—an address book, maybe, or a Day-Timer—but outside of an antique-looking grooming kit with nail scissors the size of hedge clippers, a slicker brush, a bottle of something called Brush and Shine Grooming Spray, and a pair of tickets to Charles de Gaulle airport, there was nothing to connect either Luc or Georges to the werewolf world. Or Paris.

  After closing Luc Garou’s dresser drawer in defeat, I returned to Tom, who was sitting on the edge of Georges’s bed, facing Boris, who was eyeing him with fear. “Did you locate anything?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. As I looked at Tom, I realized how little I knew about him—and how many sides he seemed to have. He’d been so cold just a moment before, when he was interrogating Elena’s pleather boy; his calm demeanor had almost been scary. On the other hand, Boris had tried to kill me—and Tom. And Tom’s motivation was to help me free my father. Even so, the whole episode had been disturbing.

  Tom smiled at me then, and all the ice melted. He was the Tom I knew again. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “The sooner the better,” I said. I glanced at the bed, feeling a pang once again for the werewolf who had faithfully served my father for so long. But I was glad to close the door behind me; the smell of pleather and dead werewolf was about to make me puke.

  The cleaning staff was scrubbing at the bloodstains on the wall, and I pulled my jacket tighter around me, trying to hide the splashes of blood on my top. The elevator came quickly, thank God. And even though Tom’s clothes appeared to be long gone, at least we didn’t have company.

  “How did you do that?” I asked Tom as the doors slid shut behind us.

  “Do what?”

  “Wake him up? Make him talk? Give him those little … blister things on his wrist?”

  “My aunt taught me,” he said, and before I could grill him further, the elevator dinged and the doors opened onto the first floor. We stepped out of the elevator, and Tom whisked me through the lobby and into the throngs on Sixth Street

  . As I climbed onto the back of his motorcycle, I glanced back up at the hotel’s beautiful Victorian facade, suddenly remembering its history as one of Austin’s most haunted buildings.

  Would Georges’s shade be joining them? I wondered.

  As we left the crowds on Sixth Street

  . behind us, I leaned forward into Tom’s broad back, wrapping my arms tighter around him. It was disturbing having my father’s scent layered on Tom’s musky, primeval male aroma. And despite the feeling of relative safety I had being with Tom, the reminder of my father made it hard to relax. Whether I wanted to or not, I’d have to break free from Tom tonight, at least for a while. Because I still had business to attend to, and I needed to do it alone.

  I expected Tom to drive me to my loft, which was only a few blocks from the Driskill. But instead of turning onto Fourth Street

  , he crossed the river and headed into south Austin.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked as we stopped at the light on Barton Springs Road

  . I stared at Threadgill’s, envying the happy, normal, non-werewolf people chowing down on cheese grits and pot roast behind the big plate-glass windows. Why couldn’t I be one of them?

  “Your mom’s shop,” he said. “Your loft isn’t safe.”

  “But Boris and Dudley are, well, out of commission,” I said.

  “They’re not Elena’s only lackeys,” Tom responded. I was about to suggest he take me to Lindsey’s instead—I’d been less than forthcoming with my mother over the last week, and Sit A Spell was not the place I wanted to be right now—but before I could say anything, the light turned green and Tom gunned the engine.

  All too soon, we were pulling up outside of the 1910 bungalow that housed Sit A Spell.

  “Do we have to go here?” I asked. My mother still didn’t know my father was on werewolf death row, and I didn’t want to be in the same room with her when she figured it out. Which would be any minute now, unfortunately, because just being in the room with her would be enough for my mother’s annoyingly precise psychic gifts to read me like an open book.

  “Where else would we go?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Just about anywhere, really. What about Lindsey’s place?” Although I really didn’t want to go to Lindsey’s place. Not with Tom. With everything we’d been through tonight, there was a connection between us right now that I didn’t want to risk ruining. I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of him against my body, inhaling the musky scent of him through my father’s shirt. I could get lost in him so easily …

  “Do you really want to go there?” he asked quietly, as if reading my thoughts.

  “No,” I admitted. “No, I don’t. Not tonight.” I stared at the purple front door, which was flanked with two huge rosemary bushes—“for protection,” my mother always said—with resignation. I needed to tell my mom eventually. She’d never forgive me if I kept Luc’s arrest from her. I might as well get it over with. “I guess we should go in,” I said finally.

  We didn’t even get a chance to knock on the door before my mother flung it open, wrapping her star-patterned chenille robe around her. “Sophie, darling! What’s wrong?” Her dark eyes flicked from me to Tom, and then back to me. “Your hair …” she said, touching a blotchy strand. Then her eyes found the bloodstains on my shirt. “Oh, my, sweetheart. What happened to you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “But that blood … Come in, both of you. I think it’s time you told me what’s going on.”

  She led us through the shop, past tables dressed with lacy tablecloths and laden with love charms and candles and talismans, to the kitchen in the back. As my mother fussed over me—“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” she asked me at least three times—I pulled up a chair at the same table I’d done my homework on all those nights growing up, fantasizing about my absent father and wishing Nair didn’t smell so awful as I worked my way through long division and precalculus. The familiar smell of herbs, candles, and old house was comforting. As my mother poured hot water into a pot of wolfsbane for us, the green scent of the tea floated over to me, flashing me back fifteen years in a second.

  Only Tom hadn’t been sitting in the kitchen with me back then—and his wild animal scent, the raw maleness of it, created a constant buzzing throughout my body that I didn’t quite know what to do with.

  “What trouble has your father gotten himself into now?” my mother asked as she slid mugs of tea to both of us, then poured the remaining hot water over a chamomile tea bag for herself. Her armful of bangles jingled as she put the teakettle back on the stove, then pulled up a chair and joined us at the table.

  “How do you know he’s in trouble?” I asked.

  “He’s your father, isn’t he?”

  She did have a point. I wrapped my hands around my mug and looked into my mother’s warm, dark eyes. It was now or never.

  “He’s gotten himself arrested,” I said quietly.

  I steeled myself for an outburst, but none came.

&nb
sp; “By the police?” my mother asked, looking completely unfazed. Whether that was because of her psychic abilities or her personal history with Luc Garou, I wasn’t sure.

  “No. By the werewolves.”

  “Luc, Luc, Luc,” she said, shaking her head. “He always was in trouble. What did they take him in for?”

  I let out a long breath. “They accused him of killing an old rival, here in Austin, during the Howl.”

  Her face paled. “The cards are always right, aren’t they? Sometimes you wish they weren’t, but the goddess knows …” She reached over and took my hands, clasping them tightly together. “Tell me the worst of it, Sophie. No matter how bad it is, I need to know. If he’s convicted, what will they …” Her voice faltered, and my heart contracted in my chest. God, this was miserable. “What will they do to him?” she finished finally.

  I knew she’d ask that. I took a breath to answer, but before I could form the words, Tom answered for me. “If he is convicted, the punishment is death,” he said solemnly.

  My mother sat motionless for a moment, digesting what he’d told her. I looked at her, the mother who had raised me alone for so many years. Her long, thick, dark hair was frosted lightly with white, and creases had begun to line the smooth skin of her oval face over the last few years. Why did she still care so much for the man—correction, werewolf—who had abandoned her and her child almost thirty years ago?

  And why, for that matter, did I?

  “I knew something was wrong,” she murmured, staring off into the distance. Her eyes were shiny with tears. “The cards told me … I just couldn’t see clearly.” She withdrew her hands from mine, wiping at her eyes, and looked at Tom. “Has he been tried yet?”

  “Not till tomorrow.”

  Then she turned to me. “Is he guilty?” she asked softly.

  “No,” I said quickly, and realized as I said it that I believed it. I was sure my father was innocent.

  “Good,” she said, leaning back. “Good.” She was quiet for a moment, as if coming to some internal decision; then she leaned forward and clapped her hands together. “Well, then. What are we going to do to set him free?”