“Roanoke?” Tom leaned through the doorway. He smelled of frustration again. Perhaps with Felicia. “Do you need me for anything?”
Silver tipped her head to invite him over to sit. “I can use your help for talking at a distance, yes. But first, are you all right? You and Felicia…”
Tom pulled out a chair but leaned with his hands on the back rather than sitting. He rolled his shoulders in a gesture more awkward than a shrug. “We’re not great.” Amusement sparked up suddenly. “She needs to get over herself, you know?”
Silver laughed, as much in relief at Tom having found the humor in the situation as anything else. “You mean the Lady didn’t build the world as a foundation for a young Were’s feet?”
Tom ducked his head, pressing his grin down to a smile. “It’s not that she’s selfish. I mean, I like her. Really like her. She’s gorgeous. And wicked smart. But I think coming here at the age she did, and with what everyone says about Europeans, she wants way too much for everyone to like her. And then if someone—like that roamer—pays her a lot of attention…”
Silver raised her eyebrows. “That’s extremely perceptive.”
Tom dropped his head even more, embarrassed. “Not really. It’s amazing what you can figure out if you shut up and actually listen.”
Silver nodded. Tom could take care of himself, clearly. She let silence settle for a beat to mark the change of topic. “As for what I need your help with, I’m sure the sub-alphas will all be asking to speak with me soon. I’d like you to answer, to emphasize how I don’t need to defend my decision.” She held up a finger. “Except for the troublemakers. Sacramento’s here, at least, but I want to talk to Billings or Charleston if either calls.” She reviewed their sub-alphas in her mind and added a few more names after consideration.
Tom flopped into the chair. “Are you sure you want to talk to them at all? I know you don’t like it when people aren’t here in person.”
“This isn’t about what I like.” Silver flattened her palm on the table.
Death flicked another ear. “So you say now. Let’s see if your resolve survives all of the sub-alphas.” Silver ignored him and went to draw herself a drink.
The first sub-alphas wanted to speak to her before she finished the last of that drink. Tom spoke to them. Silver sat and listened with thinned lips and tried not to doubt herself. She’d decided not to speak to all of them, and that was the end of it.
Susan joined them after the first few conversations. Silver looked up as the woman arrived, but she shook her head. She hadn’t found out anything more about the roamer. Silver hadn’t really thought she would, but it had been worth trying. Susan was closer to Felicia’s age than Silver was, but she was mated and a mother, which Silver suspected would put her in an entirely different category in Felicia’s mind.
“Let me,” Susan offered, when it came time to answer a call from the next faraway worried sub-alpha. She held out her hand to Tom, but it was Silver’s turn to shake her head.
Susan frowned, but Silver waved her away more emphatically. “If they can’t take the hint when the alpha refuses to listen to their whining, it won’t help to speak to the beta.” She tossed Susan a wan smile. “With two strikes against her. A woman—”
“And human.” Susan smoothed her hair, though it wasn’t out of place, and brushed an errant wolf hair from her thigh. “All right. I’ll see you tonight.” She squeezed Silver’s shoulder and slipped out of the room.
“Billings,” Tom said a moment later, wincing, and held something out to her. Silver didn’t take it yet. She’d told Tom to do this, but Lady, she didn’t want to talk to the man. Nothing for it, however.
She accepted whatever it was and held it close so the conversation wouldn’t carry to others in the house. She closed her eyes to make talking over such a great distance a little easier. The lack of smell was still disturbing, but at least she could ignore the fact she couldn’t see him. “You have some issue to bring to your alpha’s attention?”
A pause, then: “Roanoke Silver. Yes. I’ve heard about your recent decision about the petition concerning Portland, and I think perhaps you haven’t considered all the implications.”
Silver gritted her teeth against the condescension in Billings’s voice. He was one of the traditional sub-alphas. He’d held his position for half a century, if she remembered correctly. He liked to cloak his outdated attitudes in politeness, as if any other participants in the argument would realize their childishness and be shamed into accepting his adult wisdom. “On the contrary. I considered them for much longer than I normally would have on a less contentious issue.”
Billings didn’t interrupt, but he picked up again a beat too quickly, as if he hadn’t really listened, just allowed a pause to provide that illusion. “We are not humans, electing leaders. Holding an alphaship is a matter of strength, pure and simple. I would never argue that female Were aren’t strong, but their strength is not an alpha’s strength. It’s the strength to refrain from shifting and carry children to term, and protect them from harm as they grow. I would never challenge a mother for her child, but she’s not suited to being an alpha. Especially not at the same time.”
The calm of incredulity led the storm of Silver’s anger. To hear it said so baldly, so unapologetically—she could hardly process it for a moment. How dared Billings? How dared he? Knowing Were thought that was one thing, hearing it said to her face was quite another.
Silver twitched her bad fingers once and the effort needed for even that small movement focused her mind. In some ways, Billings’s sheer effrontery also helped her set her emotions to one side. He made no points in gray areas that she might have to allow him, as she had allowed Craig his about Portland’s previous child. She could tear the throat out of Billings’s argument.
But how? With one of the men who shouted and blustered, as she suspected Charleston would, she would refuse to argue. Instead, she’d reassert her position on the basis of her authority, making it her authority as a whole that he had to accept or reject. Other sub-alphas, she would try to persuade, but she wasn’t sure about Billings. Ironic that he would be the one she had to speak to first. It would be foolish to meet his illusion of logic with the unyielding wall of her authority, and she doubted he’d actually listen to any arguments she made to persuade him.
“Why do you insist on framing your thoughts in their terms?” Death asked, exasperation only thinly veiled. “Must a blind Were argue colors?”
Silver froze and opened her eyes to stare at Death. He stared right back. Of course. She should have thought of it herself earlier. “Who is alpha to the Lady, Billings?”
Silence, which Silver let stretch long enough she was sure Billings could have searched his memory for her words even if he hadn’t listened to them at first. “What?” he said finally.
“Who is alpha to the Lady? The Lady is a woman, after all. She had the strength to create all Her children—all of us—and to lead them too. Death was Her partner once upon a time, Her equal, as much as the one who came before all else can have an equal.” Silver paused to give her next words the true bite of teeth to the jugular. “Are you calling Her weak, Billings? Or are you implying that She loved some of Her children less, that She would deny them part of Her strength? That is not the Lady I know. Perhaps you know another.”
Death bared his teeth, sharply pleased, and Silver smiled back as Billings’s silence once again stretched. “You should still reconsider. A leader needs to do what’s best for her people, or she won’t be leader long,” he said shortly, and then Silver had the sense that he was no longer within range to hear her in his distant place. His last threat about not following her as alpha had been less veiled than she’d expected. Under the politeness did lie bluster in the end, then. Interesting.
Tom released a huff of breath, some of his habitual bounce returning to his manner. “That’ll show him.” He grinned at her.
Silver threw him a wan smile in return, even as she shook her h
ead. “It won’t be so easy. When he has time to twist it around, he will be back, howling the same song, working himself up to declaring independence. But hopefully he will stop and think for at least a little while.”
An unexpected scent assaulted her nose and Silver turned in confusion. It smelled like flowers, but flowers that had died in sweating misery, squeezed to their last drop so humans could smell it over the miasma of unpleasant odors that so often accompanied them.
Felicia tried to slip past the room, shoulders already braced, probably from stares others in the den had given her. She was wearing the scent of agonized flowers. Silver couldn’t help staring herself. What in the Lady’s name did Felicia think she was playing at? Covering over her scent that way might as well have been a snarl in everyone’s face. Unconscionably rude. Silver pushed to her feet. Was this in response to her questions last night? If so, it was even more important she continue asking them.
Silver planted herself in the doorway and coughed. Felicia lifted her head, caught Silver’s look, and flushed. “I”—she cleared her throat, uncomfortably—“was just going out.”
“Smelling like that?” Silver crossed her good arm over her chest. “What are you thinking?” Her voice grew sharper than she’d intended, the edge she would have loved to turn on Billings twisting free.
Tom interrupted her with a diffident touch to her arm. “I’ll go take her to wash it off,” he offered, head very low. He’d take her aside and explain how lucky she was to escape the alpha’s wrath, Silver was sure he meant.
She drew a deep breath to try to read Felicia’s emotions underneath, but she only made herself sneeze. Lady-damned flowers. She waved Tom to go ahead. Let him deal with it for now. Clearly, she needed to let her mood calm after dealing with Billings. Tom grabbed Felicia’s wrist and towed her away.
Death sneezed too. “I was wrong the other night. The most subtle one around here is clearly her, not you.”
Silver rubbed her face. Just what she needed to be doing. Handling a tricky political crisis and a young hormonal mystery while being choked by flowers.
11
Felicia gritted her teeth as Tom pulled her through the living room and into the backyard. Clearly her plan had backfired. It had seemed like a good idea at the time to give herself a little cover for any further worry about the situation with Enrique that might leak into her scent.
Tom rounded on her. “Perfume? Seriously? Where did you even get that? What are you trying to hide? If you’re trying to tweak Roanoke Silver’s tail, I’d think again. She’s got a lot to worry about right now, so she’s not going to be as sympathetic to you as usual.”
Felicia scrubbed at her cheeks. They felt so hot, they were probably betraying her emotions as much as her scent might have. “I’m not … look, there was this winter gift exchange last year at school, I got the stuff and I never remembered to throw it out. I just want people to stay out of my business for a while. I didn’t know Silver had something going on, but I don’t care what she does, as long as she doesn’t poke her nose in my business.”
Felicia brought up her wrist and sniffed where she’d splashed it. She sneezed violently twice. She hadn’t realized this damn stuff was so strong. Obviously, unscrewing the misting top had been a mistake. It seemed such a pain in the tail, though, pressing and pressing for almost no liquid at all. She’d assumed it would diffuse the longer she wore it. No such luck so far.
“Well, stop fucking around and no one will be worried about you enough to be in your business,” Tom snapped. He seemed to surprise even himself with his tone’s harshness. He looked at his feet, returning to the puppyish droop he usually got when upset.
Felicia scrubbed her wrist on the hip of her jeans. She’d have to shower a second time and start again with the stuff. Maybe like two molecules of it this time. Calculating perfume amounts kept her metaphorical voice from tightening up at Tom’s worry, and her from blurting out everything about Enrique. She really did have a reason for all of this; she just couldn’t tell him.
Lady damn it.
The sound of a car came from close enough someone must have turned into their driveway. It made a convenient reason to cut short the conversation, so Felicia raised her eyebrows at Tom to show her curiosity, then headed into the house. Tom followed her toward the front door. A knock sounded before they reached it.
Silver had already opened the door on Portland’s beta when they arrived. “Will you let Portland know we should get going?” he said, a sense of betrayal in his tone and body. Felicia couldn’t smell anything over her own perfume, but he hadn’t shaved this morning, and the stubble on top of his already square, rugged jaw make him look exhausted and hard. He turned and started for the end of the driveway without waiting for an answer. There was no sign of an extra car, so Felicia assumed he’d taken a cab and now planned to wait at the curb.
“Portland’s not here,” Silver called after him. “Why would she be?”
The beta jerked to a stop and looked back slowly. “She didn’t come back to the room last night, and her phone’s off. I assumed she was speaking to you privately and stayed over, but it’s past when we planned to leave for the airport. If she’s not here—” He cut off and looked in the direction of the main road, like something about one car among the many had caught his attention. Maybe his senses were keener when picking up a vehicle familiar to him, because a moment later a sleek BMW did turn into the side street.
Portland pulled into the driveway and swung out gracefully to her feet. On the passenger side, Sacramento stayed seated. Portland gave her beta an apologetic grimace. “Hey, Craig. Sorry I was late this morning. I promised Allison we’d give her a ride to the airport. Had to pick her up. Got your text, but not in time to save you the trip out here.” She said it matter-of-factly and settled the black waves of her hair back over her shoulder. That hair always filled Felicia with envy, since it curled so attractively even after air drying as it undoubtedly had that morning. Portland might have been nonchalant about her excuse, but Felicia didn’t need to smell the woman to guess that Sacramento would be freshly out of the shower too, and both of them would have little hints of the other woman’s scent all over them.
Craig clenched his hands to what must have been the point of pain and looked from one woman to the other. The way his expression softened from anger when he looked at Sacramento to hurt when he looked at Portland screamed jealousy to Felicia.
Susan’s questions abruptly made much more sense. Felicia suspected what Susan had really meant was, “Is Portland really interested in the chase itself, or just in having one right under her beta’s nose?” Portland seemed uncomfortable and a little apologetic, but watching Craig, Felicia had a pretty good guess as to which he thought it was.
Just like when you danced with Enrique. Seems even stupider from the outside, doesn’t it? a little voice in Felicia’s head commented. She swallowed to try to loosen the tightness closing around her voice. And that had been something she’d done on her own, not something he’d blackmailed or manipulated her into. She was never doing it again, the Lady as her witness.
Craig stomped over to the passenger side and yanked open the door on Sacramento. “You have no business poking your muzzle into any of this.”
Sacramento put out her feet and kicked at Craig when he didn’t move back to give her room to stand. He retreated enough for that, no farther. She stood up so she was toe to toe with him and jabbed a finger into his chest. “You misunderstand, beta, who’s chaser and chased.”
“Not beta anymore.” Portland’s voice was arctic. She held up her thumb and forefinger close together. “Just another Were who’s this close to walking the two hundred miles back home.”
Craig looked over Sacramento’s shoulder, expression crumpling at the demotion. “Michelle—” he begged, but she shook her head. Craig growled, a rumble beginning deep in his chest and bursting up. “What are you planning to do, join territories with this cat? She can’t even manage to keep a compe
tent beta.”
“Another thing we have in common, then,” Portland threw back, but Sacramento had already seized a handful of Craig’s shirt and tilted her head to catch his eyes for a challenge.
“Inside. In wolf. You’ll answer for this,” she ground out.
“Gladly.” Craig stepped aside to allow Sacramento to lead the way, ignoring Portland’s order to wait as she strode around the car.
Silver stopped Portland with a hand on her arm before she caught up with the other two. “You can’t stop them from following their dominance fight through, now they’ve made the challenge,” she said thinly. “If you didn’t want this, you should have thought about it earlier, Portland. For the love of the Lady, how old are all of you?”
Portland looked at the ground. “I just wanted to relax with a friend. It wasn’t supposed to be related to any of this—that was the whole point.”
Felicia had been so caught up watching—what did the humans call it so aptly?—the train wreck, she had to move aside quickly to avoid getting run into by the challengers. They headed for the living room, which was the obvious choice. It had heavy bookshelves around the edges, but otherwise all the furniture was movable, leaving a large space without anything to crash into. Felicia had always suspected the blood-camouflaging dark brown carpet hadn’t come with the house but had been added later. It had certainly cleaned up well after the few minor dominance fights among the lower ranks she’d witnessed since she’d been here.
Felicia grabbed one side of a couch and Tom lifted the other when the drag marks she was making in the carpet became obvious. Sacramento and Craig began to strip, leaving all the furniture moving to Felicia and Tom and then other pack members as people snuck in to see what the excitement was about. Pierce stepped in to direct the helpers and then push people back from a large enough space.
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