by Wen Spencer
He cautiously moved closer to her. She steeled herself against the automatic reach for her weapons.
"It's okay," he murmured, shifting even closer. "I spent years wrestling with younglings. I know how to control my wolf."
She imagined him pinned to the floor with toddlers chewing on his ears. Not the most erotic image, but comforting. Wolf parents were famous for being protective of their younglings; if he couldn't control himself, he wouldn't have been allowed near unchanged children.
He radiated heat in the cold November air. He smelled of a forest full of autumn leaves and dappled sun. They both stared at his large hand resting on her hip. Then he leaned in to nuzzle into her hair. He had the gravity of the sun for her; she was drawn close to him without realizing it until they brushed together. He slid his hands to her back and then slowly eased her forward until she leaned full against him.
Her heart was hammering in her chest. It went against all her training to be within striking distance of such a dangerous creature, but it felt so right to rest against his strength. To be warmed by the heat of his body. To listen to his heartbeat matching hers.
He kissed her temple. He brushed his face against her cheek, his beard surprisingly soft against her skin. It reminded her that just an hour ago, he'd been a wolf, not a man. If she tilted back her head, he'd be able to kiss her freely. Deeply.
Did she want to be kissed? Stupid question. She dreamed of him kissing her, she wanted it so bad. Should she kiss him? He'd given vague promises to play nice but she would have little power to stop him if that was all lies. It was a bad idea, but being the good little soldier had only made her more and more miserably lonely.
She raised her hands to embrace him and tilted up her head for a kiss.
Her phone started to play Decker's ringtone. "I can promise you," her phone sang muffled by her pocket. "You'll stay as beautiful, with dark hair and soft skin...forever. Forever."
Elise swore and jerked away from Cabot. How was Decker calling her during the day? Wait. It must be the little mystery puppy, Joshua.
"What's wrong?" she snapped, angry because she was in the wrong place if he was in trouble. It would take hours to get back to Boston. She started for her Jeep despite the knowledge she'd never arrive in time. It was going to take her five minutes just to run back to her car.
"Is this a bad time?" Joshua didn't sound like he was in danger. He sounded like she'd just scared the shit out of him.
She reminded herself that he'd had his world turned upside down and shaken hard. She stopped walking since he didn't seem like he was in trouble. "Are you in danger?"
"No," he said. "At least I don't think I am. It's been a weird twenty-four hours. I'm a millionaire now. A millionaire werewolf. Shit. Where am I? Oh, I think I was supposed to turn at that last light. A lost millionaire werewolf living with a hoarder. A lost millionaire..."
"Why did you call?" It came out harsher than she wanted.
"Is this a bad time?"
Cabot's mouth flashed through her mind, inches from her lips. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and struggled for sounding calm. "No, it's not a bad time. What's wrong?"
"Oh!" Joshua gave a cry of dismay. "No! Not this place again! Stop it!"
"Is there someone there with you?" Elise knew it couldn't be Decker. No one else should know that the puppy was in Boston. She'd even forgotten to tell Cabot. She winced as she realized that her keeping the information from him probably wasn't going to go over well. She glanced back at the Dunkin' Donuts. Mr. Naïve translated her sudden departure as a desire for privacy. It was sweet of him to be considerate, but oh my God, the man needed hit with a clue-by-four.
And where the hell did the puppy get a million dollars?
Joshua dropped his voice to explain whom he was shouting at. "It's the wolf. It keeps looping back to this café that has amazing pies. I've already had fifty dollars' worth of pie and coffee. I need the hardware store."
Werewolves! Why was she getting so intimately involved with them? Obviously the only reason they survived as a race was because they were so indestructible!
Should she wave Cabot over and tell him about Joshua? No, one mess at a time. "Why did you call?"
"Huh? Oh! I wanted to tell you that Daphne had knives like yours."
Daphne? Elise swore as she remembered that was the name of the Wicker killed at the barn. "That's impossible!"
"They looked like yours," Joshua said. "At least, what I saw of them. A foot long and shining like---like---well, not like lightsabers---but gleaming. And the hilts were white like yours."
She swore. A witch that used blood magic couldn't even touch the daggers without being burned. The only way a Wicker would have angelic blades was because they'd killed someone in her family. Who did they murder?
Joshua ignored her silence. "The weird thing is: the police never asked me about the knives. I mean you've got ten dead kids..." His voice went ragged. "And---and---and the detectives never asked about the only weapons at the barn."
Her mind raced to when she last heard from various far-flung family members. The massacre was Friday night, so anyone she hadn't spoken to since Thursday could be the victim. That covered most of her family. She'd only talked with Clarice and Theodosia on Saturday while she was chasing after the huntsman. When Decker hadn't answered his phone, Elise had called Theodosia for backup. Her cousin had been in Maine, checking into a wendigo sighting.
"Are you still there?" Joshua asked after she was silent for too long.
"Yes. Someone must have taken the knives before the police secured the crime scene." An unknown number of victims. Ten dead bodies. It would have been easy for a Wicker to walk in, take what they wanted and leave. No one would have been able to stop them.
As the sole survivor, Joshua must have been whisked away before the Wickers arrived at the scene. Since he was immune to their powers, they couldn't just walk him out of the hospital. They must have decided to wait until they could take him alone at his parents' home. With the knives they could kill him or any other werewolf that crossed their path.
Oh God, the prince! They'd lose Boston to a wave of monsters if he was killed!
"The Wickers killed a Virtue!" Elise called to Cabot. "They have angelic daggers! Go check on Seth!"
Naïve, yes. Stupid, no. Cabot instantly understood the danger; he raced back toward the hotel.
"Go check on who?" Joshua asked.
"I wasn't talking to you," Elise said.
"Oh, okay. Oh, thank God, I finally stopped walking in big circles. Here's the hardware store. Hey, do you know what Decker's favorite color is?"
"What?"
"Well, I think that my favorite color is green. I'm not totally sure of that. I was wondering what Decker's favorite color was."
"I don't---" She caught herself before she snapped at him again. Lost puppy. "Why don't you ask Decker?"
"He's asleep. I'm at the hardware store now to pick up paint. I'm painting my bedroom green but I figure I should get the paint for the kitchen while I'm here."
Kitchen? Whose kitchen? Decker's house was a pigpen. His bedroom? She told Decker to take Joshua home, not keep him forever. It was doubtful the Wolf King would leave a puppy with Decker. Why would Decker be encouraging him to paint? How could he paint anything? The only space you could walk around in was the foyer.
"So do you know what Decker's favorite color is?" Joshua asked.
She would not scream at the poor lost puppy. She needed to get off the phone with him. She needed to call Clarice and find out which of her scattered family members was dead. "I don't know his favorite..." Actually she did. "Blue. His favorite color is teal blue."
"You sure?"
"Yes! Goodbye!"
19: Seth
Isaiah drove Seth across town. The Thanes apparently had bullied the staff of the historic Hotel Utica into giving them rooms reserved by other guests.
The Marquis of Albany waited in the elegant two-story marble lobby. He sat i
n a wing-backed chair, a cup of tea beside him. At first glance, Albany was a fragile old man; someone's grandfather waiting to be collected. He wore a brown tweed suit with leather patches on the elbows and penny loafers.
Arrayed behind him were a half dozen young men acting as his honor guard. As Seth scanned them, the males all dropped their gaze quickly. It was impossible to tell if any one of them was more dominant than the others. Since the marquis had lost all his sons in one disaster or another, these were most likely his grandsons and possible heirs; any one of them could become the next marquis. Albany had probably brought them so they could learn how to deal with Thanes by watching the old man do it.
The marquis stood as Seth and Isaiah walked up to him. He came to Seth's shoulder, seemed as if he'd only weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet, and smelled of pipe tobacco and age. His hair was pure silver but still thick and rough.
He was a Marquis at the heart of his territory and he radiated his displeasure. It chilled the air and deepened the shadows of the lobby. Albany loomed within his power, larger than life.
"Your Highness." Albany's voice held no weakness of age. It rumbled deep and rich with anger. "There are protocols for entering another alpha's territory. You don't sneak in behind their back and hunker down with Grigori unannounced."
Seth locked down on anger. He was only here because Isaiah---who could come and go as he pleased as a Wolf King's Thane---had done nothing to save Jack. It might be unfair for Albany to berate him, but whining about it would solve nothing. With the trail gone cold on Samuels' body, Isaiah was correct in calling in the alpha. Diplomacy demanded that Seth swallow his pride, apologize and then ask Albany's help.
"I'm sorry," Seth said. "My cousin had silver poisoning. I didn't know he was in your territory until I found him. Originally I thought he was in Ithaca, which is neutral ground."
"And the Virtue?"
Seth felt a blush start at the edge of his collar as he remembered Isaiah suggested that he and Jack should have had sex with the beautiful but dangerous woman. The Virtues were magical creatures, divine in nature. Albany could track Elise as easily as a strange werewolf in his territory. The old wolf knew that they'd spent the night together. Had he kept watch long enough to know that they only slept?
"She is hunting Wickers," Seth said. "She found my cousin and took him to an Earthblood spring. She saved his life but he was still weak."
"And now?" Albany asked.
Out of pure habit, Seth checked on Jack. His cousin held the Grigori in a careful embrace, seemingly about to kiss. The burn crept higher, knowing that Albany was fully aware what Jack and the Grigori were doing. "He's fully recovered."
"I see," Albany said dryly.
Seth felt Isaiah snort in irritation beside him. The honor guard all grinned with amusement. They were all in their twenties and early thirties; the youngest looked at least five years older than Seth. They thought it was funny that Jack was courting the Grigori. How could any of them know how hard it was for the man? To lose everything---family and pack---in a single day and left to be an anchor for a boy struggling with one of the most powerful territories on the planet? To be isolated for years, constantly badgered by Isaiah and his allies?
Seth growled as his control slipped. The flare of his alpha made everyone back away a step or two.
"Now, now." Albany pulled in his own power. "No need for a pissing contest."
"Wickers killed Thane Samuels and nearly killed Thane Cabot." Seth struggled to control his anger. "They've armed the police with silver and they've butchered humans in your territory to make snitches and God knows what else. They're standing and fighting and we don't know why."
"Wickers," Albany spat. "I hate the cowardly filth. They're harder to find than ghosts. You can't feel them moving through your territory. Not them. Not their puppets. They blend in with the masses. You can see their constructs only after the blood sacrifice has been made. The witches---the smart ones---slip away once their creations are fully active."
Isaiah had enough of being ignored. "Why didn't you come to Utica when Samuels was killed? Cabot was lying wounded in your territory for nearly a day and yet you did nothing."
"Thane Cabot is not my wolf. As was their right, the Thanes did not ask permission to enter my territory. I missed their arrival; something else had my attention. Nor did anyone call me; I learned of a wolf mauling in my territory via someone texting the news to one of my grandsons. By the news reports, all the children were accounted for and the wolf was dead---whoever he was. I had better things to focus on."
"What better things?" Isaiah sneered the question, his voice clearly implying that he doubted the reasons were justifiable.
Albany gave Isaiah a long stare filled with his power. After a minute, Isaiah dropped his gaze. Albany continued to stare as he took out a pipe and leather tobacco pouch. His hands danced through the familiar patterns of filling the pipe with tobacco and tamping it down.
Isaiah glanced back up, met Albany's eyes and looked down again.
Seth watched, amazed and a little confused. He'd never seen anyone whip Isaiah into place with such an outright display of dominance. There had been other meetings with other marquises; they'd always treated Isaiah with the respect due to a prince.
Isaiah browbeaten, Albany lit his pipe with a match. Rich-scented smoke wreathed Albany as he turned his gray eyes on Seth. "I had a small breach in Cohoes. We were up and down and in and out of the Sprouts all around Van Schaick Island, killing melusine, until Sunday morning."
Seth nodded his understanding. Albany protected Boston's western boundary, so Seth had learned it in detail. The Sprouts were a multitude of water channels at the confluence of the Mohawk and the Hudson Rivers. Something about how the two rivers came together made the area extremely unstable. Over the last two decades, the Albany pack had lost a dozen of their wolves to the breach-spawned, including all four of the marquis's sons. A breach, no matter how minor, in that location would have had Albany's complete attention.
"We think the Wickers stole Samuels' body." Seth explained about the missing vet. "You should be able to spot a dead werewolf in your territory. At least, that's what I've been told."
"Yes." Albany sighed. "I've had to dredge up too many bodies out of those damn rivers."
"There's also a newborn loose someplace," Isaiah added.
"Hm?" Albany's eyes went distant as he considered his territory. He puffed absently on his pipe. "No. I would have noticed someone new added to my pack; I've spent the whole weekend doing head checks. There are only those of you here." He took the pipe out of his mouth and used it to indicate Seth and the Thanes. "And Cabot." This was a wave back toward Seth's hotel. "There was a puppy at the Amtrak station in Albany on Saturday but he was just passing through."
"Which way did he go?" Seth asked. He'd checked the train schedule yesterday. There had been six trains through Utica; the Empire Service, the Lake Shore Limited and the Maple Leaf had passed eastbound and westbound. Each train stopped at a dozen stations or more. Several of the stops gave Joshua access to other trains heading north and south. "Less than a hundred dollars" made most of the Northeast accessible to Joshua. But if Joshua had gone east to Albany, the choices started to narrow down. "South? North? East?"
Albany shrugged. "I gave him no mind. He wasn't mine and he seemed to be just passing through. I figured he was on his way to New York City. There is no reason he'd be heading to Boston."
The Lake Shore Limited was a straight shot to Boston. If Joshua was simply running blind, there was a one-third chance he went there. Seth glanced eastward. He desperately wanted Joshua in Boston where he'd be easy to find. He'd be the only werewolf in Seth's territory. Seth had been so focused on finding Jack that he'd ignored his link with Boston for days.
Seth closed his eyes and reached for Boston.
At one time his alpha had been huge and unknowable. Using it had been like peering through a straw to study his foot. Time and practice had expanded his a
bility until his territory felt like a second skin.
A hard frost had settled on Boston during the night but the morning sun was slowly warming the city. Millions of souls scurried through the streets and the buildings like ants, inscrutable in their coming and going. The pure humans remained unknown, simply warm bodies without gender or age. Darkness gathered around them. It pooled in the places of stillness. The faint weave of reality strained where it collected.
Seth could immediately tell something drastic had changed about Cambridge. The strain had lessened. The pools no longer ran as deep as the rest of the city. A single bright star moved among the human masses.
Seth focused tighter on Cambridge. A small male werewolf bounced through the aisles of a hardware store like an excited Jack Russell. He seemed to be loading painting supplies into a cart. Paint pans. Painter's tape. Drop cloths.
Was this Joshua? It seemed the right size, judging by the photos at Joshua's home: five foot two of solid werewolf muscle. Why would Joshua be painting? What would he be painting? Where did he get money to buy painting supplies? Who was this pint-size puppy?
Albany grunted. "How odd."
Seth opened his eyes, breaking his link with Boston. If it was Joshua, he was safe enough for now. "What is it?"
"I think it's your dead Thane." Albany pointed westward without explaining what was odd. "He's not far."
20: Elise
"Nononononono!" Clarice answered the phone instead of her normal greeting. There was some shrill alarm going off.
"Clarice?" Elise paced in front of the Dunkin' Donuts. She didn't want to lose her connection if something was wrong at Central.
"Hold on!" There the unmistakable low roar of a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher.
"What's on fire?"
"It's my coffee maker." Roar. "This is not my fault!" Roar. "I wasn't even touching it!" Roar. "Are you out? Please stay out. Oh, this sucks! Grandmother is going to take it away and not let me have another. I can't live without coffee!"