Not wanting to talk through the glass, I opened the door a touch to tell her I was shutting down for the night.
“I'm just locking up. Do you need something?”
She eyed me warily, as if she wasn't sure if she wanted to tell me exactly what it was that she wanted.
“Are you Ruby?” she asked; her tone indicated a certain amount of skepticism. My defenses were instantly up.
“Who wants to know?”
“I'm looking for someone named Ruby,” she replied with a touch more warmth to her voice. She seemed to realize that she wasn't winning any points with me and tried a slightly softer approach. “I was told she would be here. Jay sent me.”
“Jay?” I asked curiously, wondering exactly what my night had in store for me when the PC was directing random individuals to my doorstep. I'd had my fair share of strays show up already. I was hoping I wasn't in for another.
“Yes. He said that Ruby could help me.”
“Oh, did he?”
“He did,” she replied with a little of the earlier chill returning to her voice. “He said that she would hear me out. So will she, or am I wasting my time?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly what?”
“She may possibly hear you out, or you're possibly wasting your time. I'll let you know in about two minutes. Now, tell me, who exactly are you?”
“Lyla Green.”
I waited for more and got nothing. Getting information out of Lyla was about as easy as getting answers from Sean.
“Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about yourself, Lyla, or is that all I'm going to get?”
“Are you going to let me in?”
I don't particularly enjoy this one's mouth, Ruby.
“Nor do I,” I muttered under my breath, stepping back from the door to allow her in. I wasn't happy about her being there, but if Jay had sent her, I was certain that she wasn't going to try to kill me. At least I hoped she wouldn't.
“What did you say?” she asked, making her way into the shop.
“Oh, nothing. So, Lyla, do you want to tell me why Jay sent you here?”
“I'm going to assume that your insistence that I answer your questions makes you Ruby, so yes, I'll tell you why Jay sent me here. He said that you'd taken in some of my former packmates. I was hoping that I might find refuge with you as well.”
Apparently, I was running a supernatural halfway house.
“Well, your charming attitude is really winning me over...”
She sighed heavily.
“I'm sorry about that,” she started, sounding as if she really meant it. “I'm not especially trusting of others.”
“And yet you took Jay's advice and traveled across the pond to my house.”
She looked mildly sheepish.
“There's something about him,” she admitted unapologetically. “He's so genuine. It's as if you can feel his honesty.”
She had that right. Jay truly did inspire confidence in those around him. I would have done what she had just because he told me to as well.
“Agreed, at least on that point.”
A tight smile stretched across her face.
“You know what was being done to us, I take it?” she asked, catching me off guard. “The brain control stuff?”
“I do.”
“Then you know that things were done to us that were beyond our control.”
“I do. The boys did their best to explain what happened, though they never could adequately differentiate what was fact or fiction in some instances.”
“That is sadly true. It seems the longer you were controlled, and the closer you were to the source, the worse that outcome was.”
I eyed her tightly for a moment, wondering if I was reading her subtext as correctly as I thought I was.
“And just how close to the source were you?”
She sighed again.
“In the end, I was right next to it,” she offered, hesitating slightly. “I was Tobias' mate.”
Scarlet growled so loudly that it literally blocked out Lyla's subsequent words. She can't be trusted, Scarlet warned. The bond is too strong to so easily be overcome. Let me out...
“Tobias is an unwelcome word to my ears,” I informed her, trying my best to focus while Scarlet encouraged me to release her so she could explain to Lyla what she could do with her mate bond.
“As is it to mine,” she sneered. “I was not his mate by choice, Ruby, hence the devious nature of his mind control. It could compel you to do the most deplorable things.”
My hackles raised instantly.
“Like be mated to a maniac,” I whispered, thinking that maybe Lyla had a right to be wary and guarded. What would a life with Tobias, however short it was, have been like? I shuddered at the thought.
“Precisely.” Her eyes darted around the room in a gesture of discomfort, a break in her confident demeanor. She truly didn't like talking about him any more than I did. “Listen, I don't mean to be harsh about any of this, but was Jay right to send me here? If he wasn't, I'm sorry for wasting your time, but I need to press on and find somewhere safe for me to go.”
At her words, I remembered Ronnie talking to me about female wolves and why there were so few. “Collateral damage,” she had called them. Seeing Lyla, someone who was clearly strong-willed and street-smart, be so skittish about finding somewhere safe to go made me realize just how easy I had things with Sean and Cooper in my corner.
Maybe Lyla needed someone in hers.
With a sigh of my own, I told her to wait at the front door while I shut everything down in the workroom and prepped the store for closing. She did so without a word.
I do not like this...
“Well, your opinion has been duly noted,” I whispered.
You court danger without even knowing you're doing it.
“And you withhold information worse than Sean,” I argued. “I guess we all have our foibles.”
To that, she said nothing.
Once I had everything ready, I rejoined Lyla in the front showroom and ushered her out the shop door, locking it behind me. Walking the two steps over to the exterior entrance to the apartment, I jimmied the key into the lock and opened it up.
“I live up here,” I explained, gesturing to the stairwell. “Cooper lives with me in my apartment. The boys are on the third floor.”
“Cooper is your alpha?” she asked while we ascended the stairs to the second floor.
“Yes.”
“And the boys...,” she continued as we rounded the newel post, heading for the under-construction loft. “You mean Janner, Alistair, and Beckett, right?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Sorry. Another old habit. I like to know exactly who I'm surrounded by.”
“Let me guess, you always know how many exits are in a building and where they are, don't you?”
When we stopped outside the U.K. trio's door, I turned to face her. I was met by a slightly confused expression.
“Of course I do. Doesn't everyone?”
Not you, Scarlet added unhelpfully.
“It was a rhetorical question,” I lied, wanting Lyla's clear sage-green eyes to stop boring holes into mine. It was as if they were trying to say only an idiot wouldn't make a point of knowing something like that. Perhaps I should have taken it to heart. “Don't mind the mess,” I warned as I knocked on the door. “They're still working on the place.”
Without awaiting a response, I pushed the loft door open to find the three boys hard at work on their apartment, power tools and supplies sprawled across the floor. There was sawdust in the air and music blaring through the speakers. I wasn't sure that even their werewolf senses could have overcome that environment, so I shouted at them to announce our arrival.
The second their eyes landed on Lyla, all hell broke loose.
Chapter 5
“Traitor!” Alistair spat as he lunged at her with a pneumatic nail gun in hand.
I intercepted him, steppin
g in front of her at the last second, but I got tackled for my efforts and nearly had my ear pierced to boot. I was not pleased.
“What the fuck, Ali?” I yelled, trying to ascertain why he was so angry.
“I can't believe you had the balls to come here,” he snarled, helping me up from the ground, his eyes still fixed on Lyla. He didn't even bother to acknowledge my question. “You don't belong here. You belong with your mate.” His words were venom, and every ounce of his energy backed them up. It was plain that he blamed Lyla for things that had happened, regardless of whether or not that blame was accurately placed.
“Can one of you get a hold of him for a second while we sort this out?” I implored, hoping to manifest some calm amid the chaos. “Scarlet has a hair trigger today, and if I let her out, there won't be a whole lot of talking happening.”
“Of course, Ruby,” Janner conceded, restraining Alistair while Beckett took the power tool from his hand.
“Okay,” I started, surveying the group, “would someone please explain to me what just happened? I thought you guys might be happy to see your old packmate. Apparently, I was misguided in that assumption.”
“She's a whore,” Alistair growled, pulling against Janner's hold like a pit bull on the end of a chain. “The second Deacon was dead, she was in bed with that bloody madman, Tobias.”
Alistair's hatred was plain, but what I couldn't gauge well was whether or not the other two agreed. Beckett's face was neutral as always, but Janner looked uncharacteristically sad. He didn't seem to be sold on Alistair's observations.
“Do you agree, Janner? Is that what she is?”
“I am not sure,” he replied tightly. “She truly was Deacon's mate. Their bond was so strong and pure.” His brow furrowed slightly when he continued, looking as if he couldn't quite put the pieces of the puzzle together himself. “But after his passing, I never did see her mourn him. Mates don't fare well at the passing of their other half, and their connection was so strong,” he continued, working through his thoughts while he spoke. “There was something off about her behavior afterward...it never did sit well with me.”
“That's because she's a power-grubbing slut and a con,” Alistair added unhelpfully.
“Enough with the disparaging remarks, Ali!” I yelled. I may not have known her, but she hardly struck me as the type to sleep her way to the top, and I could tell she wasn't lying. Sophie was the queen of that, and there was nothing about Lyla that even alluded to that psycho.
I returned my attention to Lyla, who was weathering the wall of animosity she'd been met with like a seasoned pro. She gave nothing away—not to them, anyway. I, however, could sense the slightest sadness bleeding through. Their words hurt her, no matter how true or false they were.
“Lyla,” I said softly, my sympathy for her predicament ever-growing. “Do you want to explain to them what you told me...about the mind control and Tobias?”
“Not particularly,” she replied, staring at Alistair with an impassive expression that rivaled Sean's.
“Ugh,” I groaned, thinking I was in for an evening of refereeing. Where was Cooper when I needed him to play high and mighty alpha? “Fine. Here's the deal, guys: Tobias worked his magic on her just like he did on you three. He made her be with him―be his mate. I'm sure he saw some great advantage to it, but I have no idea what that might have been. At any rate, I think you three are hardly in positions to cast judgment on her actions, unless you want to be held accountable for your own while under his puppeteering hands. Shall I tell Cooper that you'd like to take full responsibility for nearly getting me killed?” I surveyed their startled faces, knowing full well what their answer would be. “Good. I didn't think you would. So, perhaps we can relax on the name-calling and blame-gaming a bit and try to sort this mess out?” Alistair still looked suspicious of her, but his hostile energy started to dissipate slowly. With the removal of that cloud, pity began to fill the room as the realization of what her existence with Tobias must have been like sunk in fully. “Lyla came here at Jay's suggestion. She was looking for refuge, just like you were. I think that, given the circumstances, we can offer her that―at least for now. We'll see what Cooper has to say about it when he gets back, but I would appreciate your support in this. An unmated female wandering the U.S. hardly seems safe.”
“I would be fine,” she muttered beside me. Somehow, I thought she would be, though I didn't want to be the one to test that theory. I had enough blood on my hands. I didn't want to stain them any further, especially when the odds were not in my favor.
“See what Cooper has to say about what?” his voice called from the stairwell. “What in God's name have you done now, Ruby?”
“It seems we have another stray,” I shouted back, turning to Lyla afterward. “No offense.”
“None taken.” There was a slight sparkle in her eye when she responded. The same little glint that Sean got on occasion when the circumstances didn't warrant humor, but he found something amusing nonetheless.
“Christ, Rubes. We're not the Humane Society, you know?”
I watched the empty doorway, expecting Cooper's irritated expression to soon fill it. I knew my deep-rooted attraction to drama was all he could likely think about while he dragged out his last few steps intentionally. He clearly wasn't interested in whatever fiasco I'd brought home with me.
“Do you think that you could just walk away from a charity case for once? It would be so nice not to have to deal with—”
His words clipped off the moment he saw her.
“Cooper,” she whispered beside me. “Oh my God...”
“Lyla? Is that really you?”
“I didn't know,” she said softly, staring at him like she was seeing a ghost. “I didn't know it would be you.”
Feeling truly out of the loop, I looked to her face for some explanation, but only found a softness it had not possessed before. She looked younger, prettier—happier. However they knew each other, it clearly brought her back to a better time.
After staring at each other awkwardly for what seemed like forever, Cooper finally dove at her, scooping her up in his arms and swinging her around like a child—as he always had with Peyta. Their connection was obvious, but it was still unclear how they knew each other or why they appeared to be so fundamentally connected. And I wanted those answers.
“I don't even know where to start,” he said softly, smoothing a flyaway hair back into her meticulously constructed ‘?40s-style up-do.
“Well, you could start with why you never said goodbye,” she retorted. There was a playfulness to her tone, but a sadness to her energy. Whatever had happened, his actions had hurt her, regardless of whether or not she had planned on letting him see it.
“And you could start with how you came to be a werewolf.”
“No,” she said firmly but sadly. “You first. I want to know why you just split and never came back. Was it because—” She cut herself off, realizing that the answer to her question was probably yes. His grim expression only confirmed her suspicion. “You could have at least called, Cooper. Let us know that you were okay. Billy was never quite the same after you left. We all noticed it, but didn't know what to do.”
“How is he?”
Her face hardened back to the mask of toughness that I had seen her wear only moments before.
“He's dead.”
“Dead? What do you mean? Why? How?” Cooper's brain could clearly not keep pace. His questions came fast and furious, not allowing Lyla a chance to answer any of them. “What happened to him? I need to know what happened.”
“He got into some shady business after you left. You know you helped keep him on the straight and narrow. Without you,” she said with a shrug, “he deviated.”
“And where did that deviation take him exactly?” Cooper asked with sadness in his eyes.
“To some lowlife bookies. He started working for them; the rest just kind of fell into place after that.”
“Jesus,” he whispere
d, disbelief dominating his expression.
“One night, while we were out in Vegas, he ran into some guys he'd had trouble with. Guys he'd tried unsuccessfully to collect from. He thought he'd go all gangster and pulled a gun on them behind one of the casinos that was off the strip. I guess the joke was on him,” she said wistfully. “He didn't know he'd need silver bullets to do the job.”
“Bloody hell,” Beckett muttered from just beyond us. I'd been so enveloped in the dynamics between Lyla and Cooper that I'd altogether forgotten that the boys were still present. “Is that how you were Changed?”
“Yes.” Her answer was curt and precise, not letting on any of the sadness she likely felt admitting it. My guess was that after her brother tried to kill them they weren't especially gentle about infecting her. Perhaps they had intended to kill her too.
“Fuck,” Cooper lamented as he wrapped his arms around her. “I should have been there. I'm so sorry, Lyla.”
“It's okay,” she replied, her voice muffled by his embrace. “It seems likely that you had your hands full yourself at the time.”
“How long ago was this?”
“A couple of years back now. I've been on the run ever since. Until London, of course.”
Cooper pulled away from her to search her expression.
“They left you for dead? They didn't take you?”
“I don't know what they intended to do, but I woke up in a hospital days later and Changed the full moon after that.”
“You were alone when you Changed?” he asked, unable to keep the shock and awe from his voice.
“Yes.”
He paused momentarily, trying to find the best way to word his next question.
“Did you—was anyone...?”
“Yes, I killed people afterward. That's why I've been on the run. I had no idea how to control what I was. I assumed that would happen every time the full moon came. I felt I needed to distance myself from anyone I loved and find somewhere remote to live. I succeeded at the former, but failed at the latter. It didn't take long for others to find me. It's really quite surprising how many werewolves there are out there.”
STRAYED Page 4
