by Anne Bishop
As soon as Elliot went down the stairs, Meg closed the door and hurried to the phone.
“Tess?” she said as soon as the other woman answered the phone.
“Meg? Is something wrong?”
“Elliot Wolfgard was just here. He took Sam back to Simon’s place. Was it all right to let Sam go with him?”
A pause. “In human terms, Elliot is Sam’s grandfather, so there’s no reason why the pup can’t go with him.”
Then why didn’t Simon ask Elliot to watch Sam? “All right. Thanks. Have to go. Someone is at the door.”
“Call me when your visitor leaves.”
She hung up without promising to call and hurried back to the door.
Elliot stepped inside, leaving her to shiver because, once again, he wasn’t far enough inside for her to close the door.
“The enforcer may be willing to protect you, but the rest of the Wolves will never forgive what you’ve done,” he snarled. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re barely useful meat, and I am going to do everything I can to have you running before the pack as prey for what you did to Sam.”
“I haven’t done anything to Sam!”
He slapped her face.
“Enjoy your evening, meat. You won’t live to see many more of them.”
He went down the stairs, leaving her shaking. A few moments later, she heard Simon’s front door slam.
She was going to die in the Courtyard. She’d known that since the first time she’d set eyes on Simon Wolfgard.
She swallowed convulsively, but her mouth kept filling with saliva. She barely made it to the toilet before she threw up.
* * *
Vlad flowed over the snow toward the Green Complex, ready to spend a quiet evening at home. Blair was on his way to pick up Simon and the two guards who had gone with him, Nathan Wolfgard and Marie Hawkgard. If the weather forecast was right about Lakeside getting another foot of snow this evening, the drive home would be slow going.
After hearing that report, he had sent Heather home, closed Howling Good Reads, and locked up the social center. Tess had already closed A Little Bite, and Run & Thump, along with the rest of the Courtyard businesses, had closed an hour after that. But a bar across the street from the Courtyard was still doing a brisk business. He had fed sufficiently on two delightful girls who claimed they had missed their bus and were in the bar drinking while they waited for the next one. He was suspicious about their reason for being in the bar, but he had no doubt they’d been drinking, because he was a little drunk from the alcohol in their blood.
If the weather had been milder, he would have let the girls find their own way to the bus stop, since it was within sight of the bar. By itself, the amount of blood he’d taken from each of them wouldn’t do more than make them tired. But the police officer, Lieutenant Montgomery, paid attention to the Courtyard now, and Vlad didn’t think Simon would appreciate questions about two girls falling into a drunken sleep and dying in a snowdrift so close to where the Sanguinati lived—especially when there was no reason for the girls to die. So he flagged down a cab and paid the driver to take the girls back to their residence at the nearby tech college.
He wasn’t sure he liked thinking of humans as something other than useful prey or concerning himself with their welfare once he was done with them, but with humans stirred up about whatever had happened in the western part of Thaisia, being considerate of the prey here was just healthy self-interest.
As he flowed into the Green Complex and headed for his apartment, he became aware of sounds coming from Simon’s apartment. Sam was howling, an unhappy sound. Probably meant that Meg wanted some time to herself or wasn’t interested in taking any kind of walk with the temperature dropping and the snow falling so heavily.
Passing his own door, Vlad shifted into human form and walked over to the stairs leading to Meg’s apartment. Since the cold and snow didn’t bother him, he would offer to take the pup for a walk. That would at least give them all a bit of quiet.
Her front door stood open.
Shifting back to smoke, he flowed up the stairs and into her apartment. No sign of intruders. No sign of struggle. He flowed into the kitchen and found nothing. Nothing in her bedroom.
Shifting back to human form, he hesitated outside the bathroom door.
“Meg?” he called softly. “Meg? Are you in there?”
“I— Yes, I’m here.”
Ignoring how many ways he might upset a human female by entering a bathroom uninvited, he pushed open the door, then rushed over to her. The room smelled of vomit, which he found repulsive, but not of blood. No injuries then, just illness.
“You’re sick?” Should he call Heather to find out what medicine humans used for stomach sickness? Or maybe Elizabeth Bennefeld. Wouldn’t she need to know about the human body for her massage work?
“No,” Meg replied. “I’m . . .” Tears spilled down her face. She shook her head.
“Sam?”
“Home.”
He knew that much. “You done here?”
She nodded. She flushed the toilet once more and closed the lid. When he helped her up, he saw the other side of her face.
“What’s that?”
She shook her head. When he continued to block her way out of the bathroom, she whispered, “Please. Don’t make this harder.”
Make what harder? Vlad thought.
“I’d really like to be alone now,” Meg said.
Not knowing what else to do, he left her apartment, closing the front door behind him. He hesitated at the top of the stairs, then went down and knocked on Simon’s door.
He heard a crash, followed by Elliot’s angry shout. He knocked again, harder. Elliot finally opened the door enough to look out, his body blocking the space.
Vlad smelled blood. “Problem?”
“A family matter,” Elliot replied darkly.
He leaned closer to Elliot. “If Meg ends up with another unexplained bruise or is frightened into sickness again, that, too, will be a family matter. But the family involved won’t be the Wolfgard’s.”
Threat delivered, Vlad went to his own apartment. He would inform Grandfather Erebus tomorrow. That would give Simon time to settle things in his own way.
* * *
Flanked by Nathan and Marie, Simon stepped off the train, walked through the station, and out the door that opened onto the parking lot. There had been bands of snow all along the way, but once the train reached Lake Etu, the snow had turned into serious weather. By the time they reached the train station at Lakeside, Simon figured the snow was going to make all but the main roads impassable.
He breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw Blair brushing off the van’s windows—and he felt his muscles tense when he spotted the police car idling in the parking lot.
After handing his carryall to Nathan, who climbed into the back with Marie, Simon took the passenger’s seat in the front of the van. Blair got in on the driver’s side a moment later, turned on the wipers, and put the van in gear.
Simon tipped his head toward the police car. “Is there some trouble I should know about?”
Blair shook his head. “I think that lieutenant who comes sniffing around wanted to know when you returned.”
The tire tracks from the cars that had arrived to pick up passengers were already filling in with fresh snow. Blair pulled out of the parking space and slowly drove toward the lot’s exit.
“You think we’ll get home tonight?” Nathan asked, leaning forward.
For a moment, Blair didn’t answer. Looking at the other Wolf’s face, Simon had the strong impression the Courtyard’s enforcer wasn’t easy about something. Maybe more than one something.
“Tess called while I was waiting for the train to get in,” Blair said. “Apparently, the Liaison expr
essed the same concern about you being able to get home. The girl at the lake assured her that you would get home tonight.” He paused, then added, “Vlad called too, but not about the weather.”
A plow had come by recently, filling the entrance to the parking lot with a wall of snow. Blair revved the van’s engine and rammed through the snow. The van lost traction for a moment, its tires spinning. Then it muscled through the rest of the white barricade and reached the road.
“Of course,” Blair said dryly, “the girl at the lake didn’t say getting home would be easy.”
No, it wasn’t easy, but most of the streets they needed were plowed to some extent, and the ones that weren’t plowed had snow drifted in unnatural patterns that gave them one passable, if serpentine, lane.
Simon stayed quiet until they reached the Courtyard, letting Blair focus on driving. When they pulled in at the Utilities entrance, the gates were open enough for the van to squeeze through.
“That’s not good security, leaving the gates open,” Nathan growled.
“We’re not going to get them closed until we shift some of that snow,” Blair replied. He wasn’t pleased about that.
“I don’t think a potential intruder will get far,” Simon said. It looked like someone had cleared the part of the Courtyard’s main road that headed for the Green Complex. In the other direction, the road was completely hidden under fresh snow.
He twisted in his seat to look at Nathan and Marie. “Doesn’t look like you’ll get back to your own homes tonight.”
“Julia’s apartment is in the Green Complex. I can stay with her tonight,” Marie said.
“Nathan?”
Before answering, Nathan glanced at Blair. “I guess I’ll bed down in one of the apartments above the Liaison’s Office?”
Blair nodded. “And I’ll come back to the Utilities Complex and bed down there to keep an eye on things. The Crows will take care of the Corvine gate.”
A chill went through Simon as Blair slowly drove toward the Green Complex.
Blair’s lips twitched.
He hesitated.
What did that mean? He was tired and frustrated and as worried as the rest of the terra indigene leaders over the unexplained aggression that had ended with so many dead in that western village. They had no answers, didn’t even know where to begin looking for the enemy hiding somewhere in the human villages and cities scattered throughout Thaisia.
He knew the solution most of the Others would take if humans became too much of a threat. He’d make the same choice. But he wanted extermination to be the last choice, not the first.
He hadn’t wanted to come home to trouble. He had hoped Meg and Sam . . .
But Blair said Sam was fine. So why wasn’t Meg fine?
When the van pulled up at the entrance to the Green Complex, Blair reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a set of keys tied to a leather loop that would slip over a human head—or a Wolf’s.
“Take the BOW as far as you can,” he said, handing the keys to Nathan after pointing to the vehicle parked in the visitor’s space. “You might make it all the way. Call Henry when you get to the apartment.”
“Should I be on the lookout for anything in particular?” Nathan asked as he opened the van’s side door.
“Same thing we always look for,” Blair replied. “Intruders.”
“I’ll do a sweep from the Liaison’s Office to the Corvine gate in the morning,” Marie said, hefting her carryall. She followed Nathan out of the van.
Simon watched them trudge through several inches of snow. He wanted to shift, wanted to lash out at his enforcer, wanted to purge the uneasiness growing inside him. “We’re alone. Now tell me.”
“Sam is fine.” Blair looked straight ahead. The only other sound was the rhythmic swish of the wipers. “I’m not easy about how she did it, but I’m sure she meant no harm, and I do like the results.” He turned his head to look at Simon. “She got him out of the cage, and not just a few steps outside the apartment door to pee and poop. They’ve walked around the complex. He’s gone to the office with her. He was with her this afternoon when she made some deliveries before the weather started to turn. Maybe he was ready to wake up, and she did things that were just strange enough to slip past his fear.”
Simon looked away, confused by what he was feeling. Jealousy? Hurt? He’d spent two years trying to find a way to help Sam come back to them, and Meg had found the answer in a few days? He felt like a pair of jaws had closed over his throat, making it hard to breathe.
“How?” he finally asked.
“Something none of us would have considered,” Blair said. “A harness and leash.”
Shock. Fear. Fury. How dare any human try to restrain a Wolf?
“You let her do this?”
“First I knew of it, they were walking around the complex, and I wasn’t going to take on Henry and Vlad in order to discipline her. And after seeing how the pup was playing, I thought it best not to interfere.” Blair paused. “He’s playing again, Simon. He’s eating meat again. He’s acting like a young Wolf again. For the most part. He still hasn’t talked to any of us, but I think that will come if he’s not scared back into that cage.”
“Why would he be?” The pup was playing again? He wouldn’t allow anything to interfere with that.
Blair went back to staring out the window. “Like I said, I’m not easy with how Meg got Sam out of the cage, but Henry and Vlad have been keeping an eye on them and have voiced no objections. Elliot, however, is a problem.”
“Did he hurt Meg?” Simon asked, his voice stripped of emotion. Elliot didn’t know about Meg. If he bit her, cut her . . .
“She’s puking scared. I had the feeling there was something else, but Vlad wasn’t interested in telling me. He did want me to remind you that while the Sanguinati don’t usually hunt other terra indigene, we are not exempt from being prey.”
Simon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The Sanguinati are going after Elliot?”
A long pause. Then Blair said quietly, “I guess that depends on whether you can talk Meg into staying.”
“Well, she’s not going anywhere tonight.” Of course, someone who was puking scared might not consider the danger of trying to run when the roads were bad and the air too cold. Especially when that person had already run away once in exactly that kind of weather.
He unbuckled the seat belt. “Anything else that can’t wait until morning?”
Another pause. “Nothing that can’t wait. But if any monkeys dressed all in black try to enter the complex tonight, just kill them.” A longer pause. “It’s something Meg saw. Henry can tell you about it.”
Simon shivered, and it wasn’t because of the cold. Meg had cut herself while he was gone? How many times? What other scraps of information were going to be tossed at him?
“We’re all going to meet tomorrow morning,” he growled. “You, me, Tess, Henry, Vlad, Jester, and anyone else you think needs to be there.”
“I’ll call you in the morning to find out if we’re meeting at the Business Association or the social room here at the complex,” Blair said.
He nodded. Except for Blair, the rest of them lived in the Green Complex. They could meet early and then see about getting the stores and roads open.
Grabbing his carryall, Simon got out of the van and broke a trail to his apartment’s front door. He reached for the door, then stepped back and looked around. Lights shining from the windows of every apartment except Meg’s.
It wasn’t that late, so it shouldn�
�t have been strange to see all the residences lit up. But it seemed like there were too many lights, too much brightness, making that dark space too noticeable, almost ominous.
Why was Meg sitting in the dark?
His uneasiness became an itch under his human skin, making him anxious to shift to a more natural shape. As Wolf, he had the fangs and strength to deal with itchy problems.
He heard Sam howl—and Elliot’s growl of reply. Opening his front door, he stepped into a tension that had him fighting not to shift and force both Wolves into submission.
Tossing the carryall toward the stairs, he stepped into the living room’s archway, treading snow on the wood floor. Elliot whipped around to face him, teeth bared, the canines too long to pass as human. Sam gave Simon one accusing look, then sat in a corner of his cage, his back to both adults.
No answer. Not even a grumble.
Looking oddly uneasy, Elliot turned his head and snapped at the pup, “Stop this foolishness, and come out of that damn cage! You don’t need to be in there!”
“At least take off those snowy boots,” Elliot said snippily. “You’re tracking the wet all over the—”
Simon grabbed Elliot and pushed him against the hallway wall. “I’m not some human you can intimidate. And I’m not a pup anymore. You don’t tell me what to do. No one tells me what to do.”
He lengthened his fangs and waited.
Elliot stared at him for a moment. Then he closed his eyes and raised his head, exposing his throat to his leader.
Simon stepped back, not feeling sufficiently human or Wolf to decide how he should respond. Releasing Elliot, he walked into the kitchen, unlaced his boots, and put them on the mat by the back door.
Elliot fetched a couple of old towels and wiped up the floors. When he returned to the kitchen, Simon studied his sire.
“You stirred things up here,” he finally said. “Why?”