Reflected

by Rhiannon Held

  Enrique hooked a thumb into the top of the hip pocket that showed the shape of his phone, as if she needed the reminder of what he was blackmailing her with. He switched to Spanish, perhaps for the privacy. “We’re going to get Silver arrested and committed.”

  Felicia stumbled a step over a tree-root crack in the sidewalk as the implications spread across her mind. She could see that working, all too well. Silver was crazy enough in Were terms; to a human she’d seem absolutely off the deep end. “And then my father would be so tied up with wresting her out of the clutches of the human psychiatric and justice systems…” Enrique had said his plan wouldn’t hurt anyone. Felicia supposed this wouldn’t, in the narrowest sense, but she could also imagine the emotional toll on everyone. And what if her father couldn’t get Silver out of the system?

  Enrique must have seen some of that on her face, if not in her scent, because he exhaled slowly and smelled almost like sympathy. “Madrid wishes her no particular harm. She’s just the best way to get a mass murderer out of power.”

  “Don’t,” Felicia said, sharp. She didn’t want to hear his justifications. She was sure Madrid had killed plenty of people in his time, and he didn’t regret the deaths the way her father did. “What’s your cunning plan to get her arrested, then?”

  “Madrid left that to my discretion. We”—Enrique smiled over the word, emphasizing it as a correction—“are going to figure that out now.” He stole a fingerful of frosting from her cupcake and licked it off with a smack.

  Felicia imagined smashing the thing into his face, but instead she handed it over. She wasn’t that hungry, so he could have it if he wanted. He shrugged and demolished the rest in a couple bites. “If we could kill a human, they’d arrest her in a snap,” he said, tone low as he thought out loud.

  Felicia couldn’t stop a rolling growl from escaping. The little pussy claimed to be taking a murderer out of power but would casually discuss murdering humans to accomplish it. Like humans were worth nothing, like they weren’t also thinking beings. Maybe before she knew Susan, Felicia would have dismissed humans as being bland and uninteresting, but she’d never have considered them so inconsequential that she’d kill one because it was convenient.

  Enrique laughed at her growl, and Felicia wrestled it under control. There were humans around. At least she had an obvious counter for this plan. “They’d be able to tell she didn’t do it. Don’t you watch TV? They have computers to sniff for them. No matter how careful you were, you’d leave behind a hair, or a fingerprint, or something, and they’d find you instead.”

  Enrique’s laughter faded. “A kidnapping, then. The humans constantly seem to be all bristled up over some stolen child or other. We could steal one and hand it to her.”

  “And how do we get her arrested before she retraces the trail and hands it back? Silver’s not stupid, Enrique. I can’t think of any reason for me to have a human child that she’d believe. Besides, if it’s too old, it’ll tell the cops about the first person who took it.” Felicia started to get into the rhythm of it. Enrique proposed an idea, and she found something wrong with it. She could continue this indefinitely.

  Enrique’s expression darkened, and he took out his phone and tossed it idly from hand to hand. Felicia pressed her lips shut. Fine. No more tearing down his ideas, then. But there was no way he could coerce her into giving him better ones. Even a purse dog should realize that.

  “Territory trespass,” Enrique said at length, after sliding the phone away. It sounded like he was going down a list of Were crimes in his mind, trying to match them to the human equivalents. “The humans have that, and if she has trouble seeing new places, she wouldn’t see the markings.”

  Silence fell, and Felicia managed to enjoy the scent of Enrique’s mounting frustration. Finally he looked over at her, and she raised her eyebrows. Oh, did he want her opinion now? “Sure, she’ll be in their territory, but she’ll be looking confused and fragile, not threatening. She doesn’t pitch a fit when she’s upset about being dragged somewhere new she doesn’t understand, she goes quiet. The whole pack went to a Sounders game once, and she sort of hid against Papa and didn’t say anything.”

  Enrique waved a dismissive hand. “Not a sports game. Somewhere private. A human’s home. They would call the police if they found a stranger there, no matter how the stranger was acting.” A grin grew as he warmed to the idea. “If you lay a scent trail for her to follow inside, the humans won’t even know it’s there. They’ll call the police and she’ll be too crazy to explain herself.”

  Felicia kept up her casual ambling steps down the sidewalk, though something inside of her stilled like at a flashed glimpse of some prey. As far as Enrique knew, Silver would be too crazy to explain herself. But Felicia knew better. She knew Silver could be perfectly sane when she needed to be, and she hadn’t let that slip to Enrique yet. Sane explanations wouldn’t get her out of an accusation of murder or kidnapping, but they might get her out of having wandered into someone’s home.

  But Felicia didn’t want Enrique to see her jump at the idea. “Lady, Enrique. You should leave Silver alone. All of this—it’s so prey-stupid.” Hopefully that sounded too heated, like she was retreating in the face of an idea that sounded to her like it would work.

  Enrique smiled like he’d taken it that way. He stopped them on the path, under the drooping branches of one of the sidewalk-buckling trees. He turned Felicia to face him, hands on her shoulders. “She won’t get hurt,” he said again, trying to be gentle. “Look, I hate that I had to force you into this. I really do just want you come home, when our mission for Madrid is done, so things can be how they were.” He smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear and Felicia had a split second of intuition that froze her. Surely he wasn’t going to—

  He kissed her. Her body tried to react once more, but the rest of her emotions washed right over that. She wrenched away. “Damn you,” she said, panting, because rage made her want to snarl. “Don’t be like Madrid, who tells himself he cares for people even as he manipulates them, hurts them, to accomplish his goals. Threaten me, threaten my relationship with my pack, but don’t try to tell yourself or me that you care for me while you’re doing it.”

  Enrique’s face had gone a little blank in shock, and Felicia stared at him as she fell silent. He didn’t try to touch her again, and gradually her rage ebbed. Did he really care for her, or was all this just another way to control her? She’d decided Madrid had cared for her, despite what he’d done, but that was after three years to think. She didn’t know what to think about Enrique now, and the Lady as her witness, she didn’t care why he was doing it, just that he was.

  “Fine.” Enrique shrugged. He sidestepped downwind, so she couldn’t read his scent. Felicia’s stomach wavered with nausea. Had she gone too far? Would he go and show everyone the forged e-mails now? She mentally cursed herself. Speaking her mind for a few moments wasn’t worth getting kicked out of the pack forever.

  “I’ll get a rental car and scout for the right place, then call you to lay the trail,” Enrique said and turned back toward the shop and whatever bus stop he’d presumably arrived at. “You’re in this deep, Felicia. Remember that.”

  “I know.” Felicia watched him walk away. A surge of relief that he wasn’t going to use the e-mails lasted maybe a second before she remembered that she’d still have to make sure that things went according to her plan, and Silver didn’t get arrested. Worry settled heavily around her voice.

  But deep was where you had to be to do any sabotage.

  * * *

  Silver heard running, bouncing footsteps from halfway across the den. Tom, with good news, she presumed from the gait. The rest of the afternoon had been quiet, all the guests chased out of the den for the moment. Even Felicia had disappeared off somewhere, smelling of flowers that had been lightly abused rather than tortured. Silver supposed she should have demanded the young woman show progress finding work before she let her go, but having her out of the way was eas
ier at the moment. Death looked bored, as much as he allowed himself to appear anything so undignified. He lay across her feet, muzzle down on his paws, only his eyes moving to follow any action.

  Tom bounded into the room. “It’s Dare!”

  Death laughed and rose smoothly to avoid being jostled off when Silver shoved to her feet. She smiled even though her mate couldn’t see it. “Dare?”

  “Silver?” Dare’s voice came indistinctly, clearly from very far away indeed. Silver frowned to cut through the intervening fuzz of noise. She wished his voice was rich, rich enough she could close her eyes and wrap it around her.

  But even indistinct it was much better than nothing. “Lady, it’s good to talk to you,” she said, laughing awkwardly. She became aware of Tom hovering, unsure whether to go. She gestured him to stay and removed herself instead, striding toward their bedroom.

  “And you. I’ve missed you, Silver. How are things there? Is Felicia behaving herself?” Dare’s tone turned wry at the end.

  “A better question would be, can you control her all by yourself?” Death said, matching and effortlessly exceeding her pace.

  Silver gritted her teeth as she mentally chewed over her answer. She’d told Dare she could handle Felicia, and now he asked to speak to his daughter at the worst possible moment, when all Silver had was questions: about the roamer, about the abused flowers.

  And she didn’t want to ask for his help, she realized. She wanted to deal with this herself. Even if she told him about the problem, what could he do? He couldn’t smell Felicia and answer the mysteries from so far away. Better to avoid the question and talk about one of their other problems. “That’s not what’s worrying me at the moment. Tom said he could leave messages that you’d hear. Did you get any of those?”

  On reaching their bedroom, Silver burrowed into their shared bed, though Dare’s scent had faded over her nights there alone. She pulled the bedding over her and curled around Dare’s voice from far away, to help hold back the growl when she thought of Craig.

  “No, I—” Dare said several things that Silver didn’t follow, but she waited, and he trailed off and started again automatically. “I had to borrow … a place to call from. That’s why it’s taken so long, to find somewhere that won’t have three-quarters of the humans in the town hanging around to listen. And why I didn’t get the messages.”

  “Well.” Silver exhaled a laugh as considering Dare’s situation in light of her own sparked a flash of humor. Not only did everyone have an opinion, they were always desperate to listen in to discover what they should offer an opinion about. She told Dare about the events, beginning with Craig’s petition, though she stepped carefully around the parts where Felicia intruded. She couldn’t see how to include those without the thread leading to the whole tangled mass.

  “Lady above,” Dare said as she wound to a close. “If I thought anyone would pay any attention, I’d make a rule about playing chase with betas.” He fell silent, and Silver imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose as he did when organizing his thoughts, like the pressure would help push things into line.

  Dare blew out a frustrated breath. “And it doesn’t look like I’ll be home soon. The human woman, she’s very young, and she can’t afford to raise the baby on her own. I told her I was the child’s uncle, and I got her to agree to adopt it in the family. She wants to maintain contact, though, so that means keeping it in Alaska. What’s taking so long is knocking heads together until a mated pair agrees to move into a town and stay in human most of the time. I think I’ll succeed in the end, but it takes time.”

  “I’ll manage here,” Silver said, making her tone slightly more firm that she actually felt. But laying it all out had made her realize that while she didn’t have things under control yet, she at least had a direction for her efforts. The Were baby in Alaska was just as important as Portland’s, anyway. She’d deal with this to leave Dare free for that. “If you have any tricks for stopping people from questioning your decisions, I’d love to hear them, though.”

  “All my voice is with your decision, incidentally,” Dare said, the rumble of warmth returning to his tone. “I don’t want to let that go unsaid. As for dealing with the questions, I think I can actually help with that. The secret is to listen—attentively, seriously—while they whine, for however long they need to whine. Agree whole voiced with every point they make that doesn’t directly contradict one of yours, and then remind them reluctantly that however good their points, the other side unfortunately outweighed them. It’s exhausting and you’ll wonder how people can be so stupid, but they want to be listened to, and they want to be understood, even if you don’t rule their way in the end. Let people wear themselves out whining, and then most will go home happy.”

  Dare sighed. “Only most, however. I’d watch Charleston on something like this, for instance. And Billings.”

  Silver smiled. “I think I took care of him, at least for the moment. I asked him who was alpha to the Lady.”

  Dare laughed richly enough to fill the small space she’d cupped around their voices. “Well done. You might remind some others of that as well. I’ll yell at Charleston and whoever else I can get hold of before I have to leave here. First, though, is Felicia there?”

  Death snorted, the sound muffled by the bedding between them, and Silver winced. She couldn’t tell properly without scent, but Dare did not sound entirely convinced that Felicia hadn’t been causing trouble. “She’s not home,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Dare made an acknowledging noise, then fell silent. As if summoned by her earlier thoughts, an errant air current brought a hint of Felicia’s flowers. The young woman had killed so many of them, their stench lingered in the den even without her, apparently.

  The silence stretched until Silver started to worry. Was he annoyed, did he sense she was hiding something? Or with Dare so far away, had something had come between them, so he could no longer hear her voice? “Dare?”

  “I’m here.” Dare’s voice rumbled a little lower with distraction. “John was asking about talking to his wife, when we’re done here.” His tone sharpened. “You know, since we’re both trapped here with no one much else in human to talk to, John mentioned something. He said it wasn’t ‘Dare’ you asked for after Tom was hurt.”

  “No, I suppose it wasn’t.” Silver waited for the worry about being found out to catch at her voice, but with more important things to hide now, trying to save Dare from worry about her overextending herself seemed foolish. “Tom was hurt. Death helped me remember so I could do what I had to.”

  Silver heard in the tone of Dare’s breath that he wanted to apologize for what she’d had to do, but she was glad he refrained. It was in the past, Tom was all right, and she was all right. “I didn’t know you could call your old name and your memories back completely again,” he said instead.

  “Neither did I.” Silver trod too close to the memories, even just remembering having them, and her chest constricted. She had to cough to get her next breath in. “I can’t—just because I did it a second time doesn’t mean I’ll be able to get her back for good or even do it ever again. What if the next time I lose myself completely? Don’t ask me to push for it, please.” Her voice whined at the end.

  “Shhhh, no, love, no. Never.” Dare kept murmuring nothing in particular until Silver could breathe properly again, and the memories no longer hovered, waiting to stoop and rend her with their talons. “I’ll do anything to make sure you don’t have to.”

  Silver scrubbed at the side of her face not resting against the bed. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “So what’s it like up there? Are you ready to move out and spend your life in wolf?”

  Dare growled, low and amused. “I have never been so Lady-darkened bored in my entire life. You can’t talk to anyone properly. If you say screw it and go back to human for a while, you’re still outside, so it’s too damned cold, even for the short time to get dressed. I hate to think what it’s like in winter
.”

  “I’m glad you only miss my conversation,” Silver said, the innuendo coming out even more outrageously with her relief that he was running with the change of subject.

  “Oh, I’ve had plenty of time to make plans for when I get back.” Dare told her about them, in detail. Silver laughed and burrowed deeper, as if she could save up his voice for later.

  13

  Felicia arrived back at the house after the meeting with Enrique to the news that her father had called, and Silver was still on the phone with him. She jogged halfway up the stairs before she thought it through. Did she actually even want to talk to her father? She missed him with a strength that annoyed her to realize, but what about everything she couldn’t talk about? Wouldn’t it be better to avoid talking to him?

  By that time, Felicia’s slower steps had carried her to the open master bedroom door. Silver didn’t always remember to shut doors. Silver and her father’s voices carried, a little muffled like she was under the covers, but Felicia tried not to let the words resolve into meaning. She wasn’t here to eavesdrop.

  Of course, that was before she heard her own name. After that, she couldn’t help but hear the actual words. She just couldn’t. And when Silver said she wasn’t home, Felicia stopped her hand just before knocking against the doorframe. That was a perfect excuse not to speak to her father, and she really shouldn’t ruin it. If she didn’t want to talk to her father, which she still wasn’t sure about.

  And then they started talking about what Silver had done at the vet’s office. Felicia froze as all thoughts of interrupting disappeared. Silver couldn’t do that again…?

  And then before she’d gathered her wits, the conversation turned to things she was desperate not to hear. Felicia put her fingers in her ears and fled. Any longer and she’d have to smash her forehead against the wall until the parts of her brain with the mental images were destroyed.