by L. C. Davis
Victor's forced smile wore dangerously thin. “Of course. Well, you should get some rest then. Goodnight to you both,” he said, nodding before making a hasty exit.
I waited for the sound of his footsteps to fade before I approached Ulric's desk. “You wanted to see me?” I asked, trying to hide the bitterness in my tone. The attempt was not an entirely successful one.
He sighed and motioned for me to take a seat. “You've got questions and I'll answer them to the best of my ability, but first you need to answer one of mine.”
“Alright,” I said, having a pretty good idea of what it was.
“What you said to Clara in the lobby. What was that all about?”
“Like I said, I was just saying stupid things.”
He frowned, folding his hands on the table with a golden pen nested between his knuckles. “I like to think I've gotten to know you pretty well over this past year and if there's one thing you don't do it's utter a word without meaning to. What happened between you and your cousin?”
“It's not what happened between us, it's what happened between Clara and Victor,” I murmured. It hadn't dawned on me until I spoke the words, but maybe that was the reason why I was so quick to read malicious intent into everything he did all of a sudden. Through the irrational lens of betrayal, every action seemed sinister.
He blinked in confusion, but realization soon chased it away. “Sebastian told you about their fling as kids, I see.”
“He just assumed I knew,” I said casually. “Like everyone else in the Lodge.”
He sighed. “I can understand why you'd be upset. He should have told you sooner. Hell, I assumed he already had so I'm shocked it hasn't come out before. You have to understand, Remus, they were young. I'm sorry to tell you, but if the idea of your mate having a long romantic history bothers you, then Victor isn't the one.”
“It's not that,” I muttered. “The flings don't bother me. I don't even know why any of it bothers me, I mean it's not like we're in a committed relationship yet.”
He shifted in his chair and nodded to let me know he was listening.
“It's just that I don't think it's really over,” I continued. “At least not on Clara's end. She said something a long time ago and now I'm kicking myself for not reading into it.”
“Romance is the one area in life where reading between the lines is the most foolish thing you can do,” he said, jabbing his pen at the air for emphasis. “If you think Clara still has feelings for Victor, then best thing—the only thing you can do—is to ask her about it yourself. I know I'm not the one to be lecturing you on this, but that's what we do for family.”
“What, trust them no matter what?” I murmured.
He scoffed. “You think I trust your mother? Like it or not, I'm connected to her through you, and that means that I owe her the benefit of the doubt. Doesn't mean I won't lock her up in the basement the second she thinks of pulling another trick, but she's family.”
I sighed. “Alright. I'll talk to Clara if it'll make you happy. I need to apologize to her anyway.”
“I'm relieved you came to that on your own,” he said. “That girl loves you, and I know you love her. Nothing should come between that, mark or no mark.”
“You're right,” I conceded, feeling even guiltier when he put it like that. Of all the people in the Lodge, I owed Clara better than the way I had treated her. For the moment, I had other concerns. “Now it's your turn to give me some answers I don't have to read between the lines to find.”
He rolled his eyes. “Already turning my words against me. You'd make a fine lawyer.”
“I'm serious. Something is going on that involves me, Victor and Sebastian,” I said confidently. “Clarence is being cryptic, Victor is downright manic and even Sebastian is making weird comments. I'm starting to feel like there's a big joke going on and I'm the only one who's not in on it. What's going on?”
He sighed. “That's a lot of questions wrapped up in one, my boy.”
“You owe me the truth,” I said. “What happened to family loyalty?”
“I owe you honesty, which means not to lie or betray your trust,” he clarified. “It doesn't mean I owe you the truth. Admitting that I can't give you the full explanation right now will have to be enough.”
“But it's not enough,” I said, leaning forward. “Something is wrong with Victor. First he wants me to explore my options, and now he's punishing Sebastian with grunt work because I listened?”
“I've rectified that problem,” he said casually. “Sebastian and Victor are on equal terms again in the Lodge. It's only fair considering they're both in the running for alpha again and Victor obviously can't handle the pressure on his own at the moment.”
“Why?” I pressed. “What's wrong with him? At least tell me if he's going to be okay.”
“He's not in any form of danger,” said Ulric. “At least not physically.”
“He said to the psychic,” I said dryly. “If you're trying to comfort me, you're doing a bad job.”
He chuckled. “I'm not. I'm just trying to give you as much of the truth as I can. You asked me if Victor is okay and I told you he is. You're either going to have to trust me or drive yourself insane worrying about it.”
I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms like a spoiled child, too worried to care how I looked. “Nothing is ever simple in this world, is it?”
“Not that I'm aware of,” he said. “My turn to ask another question. Satisfy an old man's curiosity.”
“Stop it with the old man schtick. You don't look a day over forty and you know it. If you made half an effort to leave the Lodge, I'd have a stepdad by now.”
He coughed, obviously caught off guard by my comment. “That's not going to happen, now stop deflecting.”
“Okay,” I said sweetly. “What's the question?”
“In the most G-rated manner, can you tell me whether your date with Sebastian changed anything?”
“It did,” I admitted, thinking about it for a moment. “I'm not even sure when it happened, but last night it was like I was seeing Sebastian for the first time. I think I needed to be angry at him to convince myself that he was wrong for me, but now for the life of me I can't understand why.”
He nodded slowly as he listened with an unreadable look in his eyes. “I see. Well, that's all I needed to know. You can go.”
I stood and made my way over towards the door, entertaining the idea of making a “miraculous recovery” and finding Victor.
“Wait,” called Ulric.
I looked back. “Yes?”
“If I can make a suggestion as to how you spend your evening, go talk to Victor,” he said, echoing my own thoughts. “Sometimes people push you away when they need you the most.”
“That's ridiculous,” I muttered.
He gave me a look. “You just admitted that you did the same thing with Sebastian.”
“Yeah, but that's diff --”
Another look silenced me and a blush crept across my face. I nodded, willing to concede my own defeat. “Okay, you win. It's not different. I'll talk to him.”
“I'll win when you're happily mated, the hunters are no longer a threat, and I can go retire somewhere far away from this crazy house,” he grumbled, already focused on the endless stream of papers that passed through his desk. He looked up at me and winked. “Night, kiddo.”
“Yeah, you might want to choose a different nickname for me.”
He cringed. “Sebastian?”
“Yep.”
He sighed. “Back to the drawing board.”
I smiled. “Night, dad,” I said, closing the door. It took only a moment's hesitation to determine my next stop. Clarence's warning was still fresh in my mind and I was as wary of Victor now as ever, but if Ulric was urging me to spend time with him there was a reason. He wouldn't lead me astray.
The “old man” was right, after all. If there was anyone you could trust more than the person who always told you the truth, it was
the person who was willing to admit when he couldn't.
26
Still not convinced, I knocked on Victor's door. I was ashamed to admit it, even to myself, but I was relieved when there was no answer. Another knock for good measure acquitted my guilty conscience and I returned to my room for the evening. It was only when Victor was nowhere to be found the next day that my relief turned to worry.
No one had seen him, not even Ulric. By the next evening, it was obvious that something was wrong. Sebastian and the others had remarked from time to time on Victor's old habit of disappearing for days or even weeks on end, but I had never given it much thought. The Victor I knew was reliable to a fault and precise like clockwork. Just like Sebastian, I had come to take for granted that he would always be there and now he was gone.
None of the others seemed too concerned. There had been no reports of hunters anywhere near the States, and Arthur's phone still registered as being present in Bulgaria—not exactly within striking distance of the Lodge. Still, I couldn't escape the feeling that there was more behind the canned answers and assurances I was getting than met the eye. When I corned Clarence, he acknowledged that Victor's disappearance was strange but had returned to his usual tight-lipped state and would say nothing more.
With no other choice, I sought out the person I had been so childishly avoiding. The infirmary door was cracked so I peeked through hesitantly. “Clara?” I asked, noticing her at her desk. She was peering over her glasses at what I assumed were her patient notes and making changes with a fountain pen identical to Ulric's.
“Oh, Remus,” she said, looking up at me in surprise. “I wasn't expecting you, is everything alright?”
“Everything is fine,” I said quickly. “I'm sorry to bother you. It's not medical or anything, I just wanted to talk. If you're busy I can come back another time.”
“No,” she said, closing the file. “Just some busy work. Please, sit down,” she said, motioning to the chair in front of her desk.
I shut the door and took a seat as I scrambled for what I was going to say. Before I asked about Victor, there was something I had to take care of. Unfortunately, I had never been good at apologies.
Silence hung in the air for an uncomfortable amount of time. I ventured a glance up at her only to find that she was avoiding eye contact as purposely as I was.
“I'm sorry,” we said in unison.
I stared at her for a moment in shock. “What do you have to be sorry for?” I finally asked.
“Well, I was just about to ask the same of you.” She sighed heavily. “I told Victor he needed to tell you, that it was only a matter of time before you found out from someone else, but I should have just done it myself.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said earnestly. “I mean yes, I was upset at first, but Ulric made me see how childish I was being. Whatever happened between the two of you in the past is none of my business and there was no excuse to take it out on you. Especially not in front of everyone.”
She gave me a small but genuine smile. “Well, thank you,” she said, her voice quivering. “I certainly accept your apology, but I need you to accept mine. Regardless of what Victor wanted, I should have come to you. We're family after all, that comes first.”
“Thank you,” I said reluctantly, knowing that arguing would only make her feel worse. “But Victor is the one I hold responsible for not telling me. It isn't just this, though. Lately I've had this feeling that he's been keeping things from me. That revelation was just the icing on the cake.”
“What kind of things?”
“I wish I could tell you, but honestly it's just a feeling,” I admitted. “It's probably just paranoia.”
“Don't think like that,” she said, leaning in. “That feeling is your intuition. It's a gift, quite literally for some supernaturals.”
“You think it's mine?” I asked dubiously. “A lifetime of questionable decisions suggests otherwise.”
She shrugged. “It's hard to say for sure until you go through your first transformation. Intuition only means you'll pick up the signals that others miss, but whether you follow it is up to you.”
“I'll keep that in mind, thanks,” I said. “What's your gift?”
She smiled. “Isn't it obvious? Patience.”
I laughed knowingly. “Of course.”
“Brendan pushes me to the limit at times,” she admitted. “It comes in handy in my line of work, though. Now,” she said, folding her hands on her desk. “There's something else you wanted to ask me, isn't there?”
There was. Two things, in fact. I had come in with every intent to ask her if she still had feelings with Victor, but after our conversation, it just didn't seem right. Even the question itself felt like an invasion of privacy. There were more pressing issues to discuss, anyway.
“I was hoping you'd have some idea of where Victor is,” I said. “He's been acting so strangely and now he's just gone. Everyone keeps giving me the runaround and I know they're hiding something. I understand if you can't tell me either, but --”
“I know where he is,” she interrupted. “At least, I have an idea. Everyone is being cryptic because they're all embarrassed for him, but I have no such qualms. I think he's being a pathetic child and, quite frankly, I'm disgusted with his behavior ever since this courtship nonsense began. Not only towards you but towards his brother and the rest of the pack as well.”
Her words were refreshingly sharp, cutting through the tangle of half-truths and lies I had been writhing in for the past week. I leaned in eagerly, hoping she would continue.
She sighed. “I shouldn't be telling you this. I suppose it's because Victor has always kept my transition confidential that I feel obligated to protect all his dirty little secrets, but this has gone too far. Now his problems are affecting other people.”
“Problems? What's wrong with him?” I asked, frowning. My pulse quickened with fear on Victor's behalf. Was he sick?
“There's the question of the year,” she muttered. “There's no way to sugarcoat this, so I'm just going to say it. Victor is a drug addict, always had been. He tries to convince everyone that he's been clean for years, but every time he runs off on one of his little excursions, we all know better. Poor Sebastian used to wear himself out tracking him down and sobering him up. When you came to the Lodge, he changed dramatically. Even I thought he'd really gotten clean, but if he's gone there's little room for guessing why.”
She took off her glasses and cleaned them, a trait that clearly demonstrated her relation to Ulric. “I'm afraid you've finally been introduced to the Victor the rest of the pack knows very well. He's erratic, manic and nothing if not unreliable. It was only a matter of time before he showed up for a visit.”
I listened, struggling to process her words. I was strangely relieved in one sense. If what Clara was saying was true, and I knew it was, at least the hunters had nothing to do with his absence. On the other hand, I had even less of an idea of how to deal with a threat that came from within. Despite what Sebastian thought, I was no winner in that department.
Not that I hadn't dealt with my fair share of addicts. In fact, I had been raised by several of them. The fact that I was this close to being permanently linked to another one was hard to swallow. If there was one promise I had kept to myself, it was that I'd never be with an addict. Even Jeff, for all his vices, had at least been sober when he committed them.
“An addict?” My voice was hoarse, so I tried again. “What kind of drugs?” I prepared myself for the worst. Heroin would explain the erratic behavior but not the mania. Cocaine didn't seem to fit either.
“Aconitum, or wolfsbane, as you're probably used to hearing it called,” she replied. “It's typically laced with silver, but he'll take it any way he can get it.”
“Wolfsbane?” I echoed in disbelief. Maybe I had misheard her. “Isn't that, like, a plant?”
“Most drugs start out that way,” she said dryly. “We experimented with it together as kids
, but Victor is nothing if not obsessive. He first became interested during his coming of age ritual, as most werewolf addicts do. Getting a taste for the astral plane is addictive, especially to a psychic.”
“Astral plane?” I asked, confused.
A strange look passed over her face. “Yeah, it's just part of the ritual,” she said hastily. For the first time since I had started talking to her, I felt like she was hiding something. “Anyway, wolfsbane is poisonous to us, but not in the way most people think. It's fatal in very high doses, but the most significant effect is that it magnifies psychic activity tenfold, and that's at a mild dose. When it's cut with silver flecks you start having hallucinations, but it also causes a shift in mood.”
“Is he dangerous?” I whispered.
“To himself, perhaps, but not to anyone else,” she said. “A positive side effect is that wolfsbane makes us far more docile. For some, it makes them overtly pleasant.”
“That explains the creepy Stepford vibe he was giving off the other night,” I muttered. “Why would he want to do this?”
She shrugged. “Victor has never held up well under stress and he has a short fuse. He claims that at first he was just using the drug to help him overcome his shifting issues and his anger, and I'm inclined to believe him. My guess is he realized he'd dug his own grave by insisting that Sebastian start courting you and he turned to his old reliable coping mechanism. Or maybe he was afraid his temper would get the best of him if you chose Sebastian. Who knows? There's always some logic to addiction but it's very rarely sound.”
“Where does he get this stuff?” I asked, hoping that would give me a lead as to where to find him.
“Garden variety wolfsbane isn't concentrated enough for someone like him,” she said darkly. “He probably went to a lunar temple. It's kept there for rituals, and he can sweet talk his way into anything. That and he's a powerful psychic for a wolf. Most of the priests consider him some kind of wunderkind and give him whatever he wants.”
“Do you know where the closest temple is?” I asked hopefully.
