by Wen Spencer
She could never understand why her mother spent so much time drilling Elise on how to live among other people and never explained how to be happy by herself. Maybe her mother didn't know. It would explain the hours at Decker's messy house.
Cabot and the young prince had given her the bed and slept on the floor as wolves. While she was in the shower, they'd changed back to humans. They still ate like wild things, ignoring the silverware to use their hands. They used toast as scoops for the soft boiled eggs and tore the pancakes into quarters. After dunking the wedges into maple syrup, they licked their fingers clean. Obviously, wolves weren't taught all the basic living skills either.
"You should have some protein." Cabot held out his piece of bacon. "You didn't have any of the meat last night either."
Because she had both hands engaged in toweling dry her hair, she leaned down to eat it from his fingers. He watched her intently with his golden eyes, studying her as if she somehow confounded him. His fingers shone with bacon grease. She resisted the urge to lick them.
Remember: he was a wolf when you walked into the bathroom.
She licked the taste from her lips instead, prolonging the moment in her own mind.
He quirked up his left eyebrow even as he watched the slide of her tongue across her mouth. She blushed and turned away. The blush went hotter as she realized that the prince was watching Cabot watch her.
"I'm going to go get my donut," she said.
17: Seth
Something weird was going on between Jack and the Grigori. Seth wasn't sure he wanted to know exactly what. It made him feel guilty; if it weren't for him, Jack would be part of the New York pack like all the other Thanes. Wolves weren't meant to live in isolation.
Seth heard the hotel door close as he stepped into the shower. He realized that Jack had gone after the Grigori. He didn't want to think about why.
Refusing to think about his cousin, though, left his mind open to wallow in all his other problems. Samuels was dead. Joshua had disappeared without working knowledge on how to be a werewolf. Alexander had blown Seth's plans for returning to Boston out of the water. His territory needed him; people were dying. The king was right that just he and Jack couldn't handle the city alone. Seth had hoped Alexander would reassign some of the Thanes to Boston. Seth had already asked Samuels if he would be willing to be part of Seth's pack.
"Yes, sir," Samuels had said with his warm Southern drawl. "I'm fixin' to have your back."
Seth leaned his head against the shower wall. Grief formed a hard knot in his chest. Samuels had been a good man. He believed that the code of chivalry applied to the Thanes. Samuels had been kind to Seth not because he was a prince but because Seth had been only thirteen when he came to live at the Castle. He was the type of wolf that Boston needed.
Someone pounded on the hotel door.
Had Jack locked himself out of the room?
Seth reached out for his cousin. No. Jack was still down the street.
He turned off the water. The knocking continued. Being that the door was visibly in danger of breaking under the force of the blows, it was simple to guess that it was a werewolf on the other side. The Thanes were too afraid of Seth to beat on his bedroom door. It had to be Isaiah.
"I'm coming!" Seth dressed quickly. He hated being naked around Isaiah. The man was several inches taller than Seth. Isaiah used his height to subtly snub Seth. With no clothes to sacrifice, it was far too tempting to shift to wolf. Even Isaiah wouldn't play dominance games with him when Seth was a wolf.
Isaiah waited a minute and started to knock again.
Seth jerked the door open. "What?"
The one advantage to the bed and breakfast room was that it had a private entrance. Isaiah stood on the small wooden porch. He wore a different suit, shirt and tie than last night. The black Italian silk suit was the one Isaiah wore when nobility visited the Castle. It meant Isaiah expected to meet with someone he wanted to impress. It also meant he'd packed before chasing after Seth.
Isaiah stepped back out of striking range. "Give me the keys to the Porsche."
"No," Seth answered automatically. He paused to think up a reason. "I need a car to get home."
"Take the train." Isaiah held out his hands. "It's my car. Give me the keys."
If Seth went looking for Joshua, he'd need the mobility of a car. "It's a fleet car, just like the Bentleys. They're all registered to King Property."
"It's mine. I went to the dealership and ordered it."
But Alexander had paid for it, which was why it was registered to the motor pool.
"I'm not going to let you strand me here," Seth said.
"You can have the Bentley we drove up." Isaiah tossed keys to him.
Seth caught the keys. Last night, he'd been thinking of the amount of Jack's blood in the Grigori's Jeep, not safety protocols. He'd parked the Porsche in the end space; in plain view of the street. One of Alexander's big black Bentley luxury sedans sat beside the Grigori's Jeep. Isaiah must have driven around town until he spotted the Porsche.
None of the Thanes were in sight. The Bentley sat five comfortably. The Porsche carried only two. Isaiah made it sound as if they'd only brought one car.
"What else do you have here? One of the other Bentleys? Or one of the Escalades for off-road?"
"What does it matter to you?" Isaiah snapped.
In other words, they'd only brought the Bentley. Isaiah didn't care that three of the Thanes who came with him would be stranded wherever he'd left them. It meant that Seth should make sure that they weren't miles from nowhere.
"Where are the others?"
"Waiting at the hotel." Isaiah didn't even gesture to indicate where that might may be.
The Grigori stated that she hadn't been able to get two rooms in Utica since the area's hotels were overrun by people attending the funerals and big game hunters and the media. It was sad that Seth trusted the Grigori's word over his foster brother.
"How did you get a room?"
Isaiah snorted. "You call yourself a prince, but all you ever do is pretend you're a man. If you just let people know what you are, then you wouldn't be camping with your cousin and a Grigori." He made a show of leaning forward to sniff the air coming from the hotel room. "You didn't even get a taste of divine flesh? I would have thought with Cabot's family history, a ménage à trois would have been on last night's menu."
Did Isaiah want to be smacked into the next county?
"I'm married," Seth said coldly.
"Oh yes, what's her name?"
Fine. If Isaiah wanted to play petty games, Seth could play petty games. Let Isaiah keep the Bentley and all the responsibilities that came with it.
"I want the Porsche." Seth tossed the Bentley's keys back to Isaiah. "Did you find Samuels' body?"
Isaiah glanced away, refusing to admit failure. "We called the Marquis of Albany. He can find the damn needle in a haystack."
"Half the humans in the county should know what happened to it. The police. The reporters."
"The New Hartford police are under Wicker control. We had a long talk with the police chief. The Wickers kept him so focused on the hunt for Cabot that he hasn't a clue what's going on under his nose. He didn't know where Samuels had been taken. He said that normally any dog that bit a human would be taken to the Oneida County Department of Health for rabies testing."
Seth wondered if the man was still alive after Isaiah "talked" to him. "Rabies?"
"They're worried that the brat that Samuels changed might have rabies. Apparently, no one thought to start the kid on shots before he disappeared. If the boy had gone feral, rabies would have been the least of their concerns. It took us a while to find someone connected to the Department of Health. The damn thing keeps bankers' hours."
The offices would have been closed last night. Had Isaiah gone to bed instead of storming the county building? Seth glanced at his phone. The government offices would have opened an hour ago.
"What did you find?" Di
d Isaiah leave the place in one piece? How far behind the Thanes were the local police? Was that why Isaiah wanted to change cars? Had he run someone over with his?
Isaiah jangled the Bentley keys in his hand, glaring at the Porsche because he couldn't meet Seth's gaze. "I want my car."
"The marquis isn't going to take your shit either. I can hear this when you tell him, or you can tell me now, and I'll talk to him." Because Albany was old-fashioned and would ignore the less dominant wolf for the prince that outranked him.
Isaiah shot him an annoyed look and growled a curse.
"In your dreams." Seth shifted to force Isaiah to look him in the eye. "What did they tell you at the Department of Health?"
Isaiah growled. "The people there claimed that they don't have an in-house lab to do rabies testing, so their vet took emergency delivery of the body on Friday and should have prepped it for the New York State Diagnostic Lab at Cornell. The test needs to be done within twenty-four hours of the animal's death."
"And?" Seth trusted that Isaiah would have followed the lead, leaving a trail of destruction behind him.
"The vet's place was a madhouse. Samuels' body is missing, as well as the doctor and the technician working with him on Friday. The vet called his staff, told them to cancel all the Saturday appointments, but he never said anything about today."
The Wickers had obviously made it so that no one would miss the vet for days. How long before his staff decided to file a missing person report? Still, it didn't make sense.
"Why would the Wickers take Samuels' body? Their spells need material harvested from living bodies."
"You're the one that's been taught that drivel. You tell me."
It was one of the many sources of contention for Isaiah. Alexander felt that Seth needed to learn arcane matters but not Isaiah. When Isaiah riled against it, his father simply stated, "Seth is a prince; you are not one yet."
Yet. A word fraught with promises but no clear answers.
Isaiah's phone rang. He growled in annoyance. "What?"
"The Marquis of Albany is here." Seth's sharp hearing picked up Thane Silva on the other end. "He wants to talk to Seth."
"Seth?" Isaiah said.
"The Prince of Boston," Silva pointed out the obvious reasons. "The marquis can tell that he's here. Albany said, 'When Boston gets out of the shower, his highness needs to come see me.' He added in a 'please' as an afterthought."
Nothing of Isaiah.
Isaiah turned to glare at Seth. "We're on our way."
18: Elise
Dunkin' Donuts was a few hundred feet down the quiet, tree-lined street. A hard frost still had a grip on the morning, limning the yards with crystalline beauty. Autumn was rushing toward winter solstice. The world was dying yet again.
It meant that the Wickers' blood magic would only be stronger.
Elise had to get her head back in the right place. Normally she didn't hunt sentient monsters. Humans usually cleared the area before the bullets started to fly. Sometimes it was via common sense---monsters liked dark, creepy places. Sometimes it was because the people were sensitive enough to pick up the evil radiating outward.
The Thanes could clear the deck of almost anything that the Wickers could throw at them, even puppets armed with silver bullets. The problem was that it would mean a high body count on the side of the human innocent bystanders. She had the advantage that, unless the puppet was tightly scripted, her own angelic glamour would make them hesitate long enough for Elise to counter in a hopefully non-lethal way. It hadn't worked on the police chief but it would probably work on anyone under his command.
With Wickers, it worked best to charge in and hit before the witch knew that she was in the area. She'd blown the element of surprise yesterday by rescuing Cabot instead of going for the kill on the driver of the red Bentley. If the puppets reported a beautiful woman flashing an Interpol badge, she was totally screwed. Worse, people had seen her Jeep.
Clarice guessed from the media feeds that there were multiple witches involved. So far, Elise had only spotted one. She didn't like the odds of this blind man's bluff, mostly because the Wickers had their blindfolds off.
* * *
Cabot was waiting for her when she stepped out of the Dunkin' Donuts with her coffee, bagel sandwich, and box of fifty Munchkins. When the bitter cold wind blasted over her, she felt a little guilty that she'd bought him only a light jacket. He was wearing it unzipped, though, as if he didn't even notice the cold.
"Wow," he leapt to help her juggle the door and the food. "When you go for a donut, you go for a donut!"
"I got these to share." She passed him the box of Munchkins.
"You are a wonderful person," he said with great sincerity and opened the box. "I love these."
"The glazed ones are mine."
"Yes, ma'am." He popped three powdered ones into his mouth, rapid fire.
She reached for one before he could inhale the contents. Their hands caressed inside the narrow space; his skin surprisingly warm. She jerked her hand back, blushing.
"Where's the prince?" she asked to cover her reaction.
"Taking a shower." He popped two more before closing up the box. "I wanted to thank you for rescuing me."
"You did that already."
He nodded, plowing on. "For the record, I normally wear boxers. They're more forgiving when you need to instantly transform."
She fully hoped that he wouldn't shred all three pairs of the underwear she bought.
"I really appreciate you taking care of me." He faltered. "But---but I'm a little confused by the box of Trojans."
Beware Greeks bearing gifts.
He had followed her to Dunkin' Donuts so he could have this conversation without Seth overhearing it. She wasn't sure, though, how he could be confused. It was pretty straightforward: a man, a woman, and a box of condoms.
"We don't do official knights and squires and things." He started to explain something but she wasn't sure exactly how it related to the box of condoms. "Samuels was my mentor, at least until Seth became prince. Samuels was higher rank; he was more dominant when I first became a Thane. I outranked him when my Uncle Gerald died and Alexander shifted me to Boston to be Seth's heir. Anyhow..." Apparently even he lost the thread of what he was trying to tell her. "Um." He tilted his head and gave her a puzzled look. "You fight with daggers, so you're a Virtue. Samuels always made it sound like Virtues were vestal virgins."
Samuels apparently never met her grandfather. To be fair, Saul had been a child of the sixties; he believed in free love. (Luckily for him, her grandmother had only been interested in having heirs to the bloodline.)
She kept it simple. "No. We're not."
"So---were the condoms---for me?" He spread his hands in confusion.
They stood in the silence for a minute.
"Yes." She was sure the embarrassed burn was hot enough to set her clothes on fire.
"Aaaaaand you?" He tilted his right hand into a point. At her.
The silence was longer.
She suspected that he'd stand there until she answered.
"We were going to be sharing a bed," she said in defense. Because that seemed too easily misunderstood, "I was entertaining---thoughts---" She wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. It was a shipwreck. No amount of bailing would help. "Yes."
"Us?" He spread his hands wide apart and brought them together, fingers entwined. He cocked his eyebrow again.
Amazingly, her blush could get hotter. Was he being purposely dense?
"Yes! I know your people must have sex!" Then it occurred to her that they might not be human when they did so. Had all the paintings in the hotel room been some kind of warning? "That---that---I mean---there's the younglings."
She'd confused him. He tilted his head, squinting as he tried to understand what she meant.
"I'm attracted to you!" she cried. "I wanted to have protection in case that attraction led to something."
"Protection as in 'condoms.' Not yo
ur knives or silver bullets?"
"Good God! Yes! I wanted to have sex with you!"
The result was much like she had hit him with a bullet. He stood, surprised into stillness, staring at her.
"Ah," he murmured. "Oh. Oh!"
"What?"
"I think a girl in high school tried to seduce me. I didn't get why she gave me one of those Trojan three-packs. She wanted to have sex."
Elise covered her eyes with her hand. No one ever warned her that werewolves were totally clueless.
"You and me?" He sounded like he was still having trouble wrapping his brain around it.
He shifted closer. Out of habit, she lowered her hand so she could track his movements. He read her body language.
"You're not going to stab me if I try and kiss you?"
"If I want to be kissed."
She'd confused him again.
He cocked his head to the side, squinting at her as if she was the most complex thing he'd ever seen. "You want sex but no kissing?"
She reminded herself that while he was extraordinarily good looking, he was a Thane. Alexander kept his Thanes on a short leash; it was possible that they were forbidden to sleep with humans and there were no female werewolves in their ranks. Asking him how many times he'd been with a female would probably derail the conversation.
"My family are born inhumanly strong and fast," she said. "I have the physical strength to stop normal men if I don't like what they're doing."
"Not a werewolf." He got that much. "So you reserve the right to get stabby."
"Yes."
"Fair enough. You've saved my life. Bandaged my wounds. Fed me. Gave me a safe place to sleep. Guarded me while I slept. Because of that, my wolf sees you as pack and is more than happy with the idea of skin time."
Skin time. The phrase jolted through her, reminding her of swimming at Ambelas Beach on Paros with her cousins. How free they'd been with each other in their swimming suits, and naked in the privacy of the family's villa. It had been the only time in her life that she didn't need to worry about someone taking casual touch as an invitation for sex. Suddenly she was hungry for that intimacy.