by Mark Henwick
“No one pressured me at all.” She managed a smile. “The idea freaked me out at first, and you can tell, can’t you, I’m still scared?”
I nodded. I could hear her heart, taste the adrenaline in her breath.
“It’s just the biting that’s scary, not, y’know, the binding,” she said. “You being in LA this last month gave me time to think, and I’ve talked to Pia a lot. And her kin. I want to be part of the House. Really, really want it. You know my family always sucked, except for Rom. This is my family now—you and Tullah, Jen and Alex, Pia and David, and the others. I want to stay, and I want to keep working as a PI in your company. To learn from you. I couldn’t stand to lose all that, and I know I’d have to if I wasn’t bound.”
She was being completely truthful as well as earnest, and my Athanate was loving this.
I’d bitten Jen and Alex—that was different, they were kin. I’d bitten Dante and Dominé on Skylur’s orders. However much I liked it at the time, I wouldn’t have thought of doing it if I hadn’t been told to. But now that I’d started binding my House, I’d turned a corner. I wanted to bite Jofranka and bind her. I was trembling with eagerness. Worries that my eukori wouldn’t function were pushed aside.
“Okay.” My voice was croaky. I couldn’t stop the fangs from manifesting, and I barely suppressed a groan of anticipation when they did.
Embarrassing. I cleared my throat.
“Come sit here.” I indicated for her to turn around and lean back against me.
She did. Her body was tense, and she was struggling to breathe normally.
“Relax,” I said, though I wasn’t.
I’d done this for Dante and Dominé. Nothing different in the physical act. I needed to remember the advice for biting someone the first time. It was a trade-off between freaking them out by holding them too tightly, or holding them too loosely and allowing them to hurt themselves if they struggled when they felt the fangs in their neck.
Her heart was racing.
“Think of it as a training exercise,” I said. “Breathe deeply and evenly.”
I put my left arm around her, holding her against me, and stroked her head with my free hand until some of that tension left her body.
She jumped, just like Dante had, when I licked her neck, then giggled.
The bio-agents went to work, helping her muscles relax and doing their voodoo on her nerve endings.
Yelena had helped me with the binding before. Was my eukori working well enough?
I tried reaching, and my eukori seemed to splutter a little. It was too late anyway; I couldn’t hold back. I needed to bite. My fangs pierced her throat.
She twitched, but other than trembling, she was still.
I could feel her Blood against my fangs. Reflexively I pulled and her Blood coursed into me. The sensation had lost none of its intensity. The room faded around me; my world narrowed till there was nothing but the taste of her and the sweet fire in my throat.
For a few seconds, my eukori returned and flared through her. She gasped as we shared every feeling. Her body molded itself to me and her hand reached up to stroke my face shyly.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
Our eukori tangled and twisted together.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
It started to hammer in my head, like a pulse gone crazy. I stopped then, while I still wanted more. More Blood, more binding, more sensation.
This was about taking her into my House, and my eukori told me that she was already there. I’d done no more than make it formal and give her a hint of the marque. Enough to satisfy Skylur’s demands.
My Athanate seemed satisfied and my body obeyed. Fangs disappeared. I tasted the bitter aniatropics in my mouth and licked Jofranka’s neck until the blood stopped and the wounds closed.
Mine.
A sense of peace snuck up on me, a real contentment. A pride.
This was good. My House was clicking together, brick by brick, every part connected to every other part, a solid structure.
“Thank you,” I murmured in her ear. “Welcome to House Farrell.”
The door opened.
“Your brunch will get cold,” Yelena called. “I tried over easy, but I think you’ll call it an omelet. There’s bacon and coffee ready right now.”
Chapter 39
“I love you.”
It wasn’t like hearing him whisper it straight into my ear, preferably while we were in bed, but even over the phone, Alex’s words gave me goosebumps.
“I love you, too. I wish you were here.”
Yelena smirked, but kept her concentration on driving. More or less.
“You never know,” he teased. “A couple more days and maybe...”
“What? Skylur will never let you go while there’s so many Athanate in LA.”
“I may not be needed.”
I laughed. No way.
“No, straight up,” he said. “The alpha from the Heights is driving the other three in the negotiations. You saw his eyes light up when you mentioned getting Were representation in the new Assembly. He wants it so bad he drools on the table.”
“So Tarez is happy.”
“Yeah. And the Belles are in. They’re already helping out with patrols, so I even got to sleep last night while you were doing the ritual.”
“Ah. You’ve spoken to Felix then.” And no doubt there were other things said.
“Yeah.” I could hear him shift gears. “Is everything okay? Felix said he couldn’t get through.”
I laughed again. “Bullshit. Felix gave you hell because Yelena told him to fuck off.”
“Something like that.”
Yelena smirked even more.
“I’ll call him and apologize the next opportunity I get,” I said.
“Okay. What’re you doing?”
“We’ve been looking for Fay. Tracked her parents down, but they’ve got no information. Or none they want to share.”
I’d pretended I was organizing a class reunion, and bounced up to their door trying to look like one of Fay’s old cheerleader friends. They hadn’t been rude exactly, but it wasn’t a productive conversation. She’d graduated from South High and walked out of their life. She wasn’t listed as a missing person, so I suspected they’d heard something from her, but they wouldn’t say, and I didn’t want to press them on something that was clearly painful.
“Matt?” Alex asked.
Tullah’s boyfriend was our go-to guy on the internet. Few people could completely hide their existence once he started looking. But Matt wasn’t available; he was hiding out with Tullah.
“I have to go,” I said. I was juggling two cells. I’d left a message on Mom’s cell earlier and she was calling me back.
“One last thing,” Alex said.
I passed the other cell to Yelena to get Mom on the line and hold her.
“What was the job you gave Dante?” Alex asked.
“Huh? What?”
“Dante didn’t go to the club with Dominé today. She took off, saying something about a job she was doing for you.”
A sliver of unease started to coil in my belly.
“I don’t know what that’d be. Nothing specific I said to her.”
Another cell started bleeping, while Yelena was trying to soothe Mom. There was too much going on. She pulled over.
“Is this an Athanate issue?” Alex said. “Should I tell Altau?”
What he was asking was whether she posed a security problem. If we thought she did, then we were obliged to tell Altau, and matters might be taken out of our hands.
No. Mine.
Biting someone once didn’t make it impossible for them to betray you. The binding grew over time.
Dante was independently-minded. She might want to prove to herself that she wasn’t under my sinister control. She was also young. She might just have gone shopping and made up a story about doing something for me.
“No. Alex, keep me posted, but this stays in-House. Sorry, I have to go.�
�
I ended the call and grabbed the next cell.
“Hi, Mom.”
The conversation didn’t go well. What could I say? I wasn’t able to explain the injury or the treatment or even where it happened, and Mom was seriously pissed off at hearing ‘I can’t discuss that’ again.
Both Jen and Alex had called her over the last month. Even Ingram had called her. She’d been trying to call him this morning and he wasn’t answering.
Not surprised. I can’t discuss that either.
“I’ll come over later,” I said. “You’ll be able to see I’m okay. Perfectly fine.”
Yelena was making urgent cutting signs with her hand, waving another cell at me. Someone had gotten through her defenses, then.
“Gotta go,” I said to my mother. “I’ll come over soon. I’ll call when I’m on my way.”
I hope.
I felt lousy and angry. Lousy that I hadn’t been able to talk to Mom about what had gone on, and angry at Diana that she’d woven that subtle compulsion into my head so I’d never questioned how long it had been since I’d spoken to Mom. Surely there was a time in my treatment I’d have been able to talk to Mom?
Yelena pressed my cell into my hand. It had the mute on.
“This I think you have to take,” Yelena said. “This is the alpha from Albuquerque, and he’s saying the Santa Fe alpha has come for a visit. This is a problem?”
“Shit! Yes!”
Cameron in Denver? Without warning? Felix would go ape. Or wolf. Whatever.
I flicked off the mute.
“Zane?” I said. “What crap is this?”
“No crap, Amber. We’re in Denver.”
“We?” I snapped at him.
“Me and Rita are accompanying Cameron. No one else. We’re just here to talk.”
“Frigging hell, Zane!” I shouted. “Two alphas and a senior lieutenant turn up without warning in Denver and I’m supposed to welcome you? What the hell were you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that, in this case, I’m Cameron’s lieutenant. That’s acceptable, given that Albuquerque is a sub-pack of Santa Fe. So, it’s the New Mexico alpha and two lieutenants, come to pay their respects to their neighbors. We’re associated with you; we’re allowed to visit.”
I couldn’t argue. I hadn’t had time to discuss this with Felix—the fact that as a full alpha of Pack Deauville, I had authority to make associations and receive visits for us, and yet as a sub-Pack of the Denver pack, I couldn’t for him. This was exactly the sort of reason that two or more packs didn’t share territory.
Zane didn’t let me brood on it.
“Don’t call Felix yet. Cameron needs to see you first. Alone.”
“What?”
“It’s urgent.”
“Damn right it’s urgent. The three of you here without Felix’s invitation or so much as a text message to me.”
It was bad enough Zane being here. I’d made the case that his deliberately cultivated reputation of violent craziness was a mask to hide a clever and thoughtful alpha. Felix might have accepted it. But the same story on Zane’s boss? Half-head the neighboring packs called Cameron, though none of them had any idea where the nickname had come from. It conjured up visions of a demented werewolf on the brink of going rogue. I’d only ‘met’ Cameron through the wooden panel of a confessional in the Misión El Sagrado Corazón in Santa Fe. Volatile and freaky? Without doubt. Crazy? I didn’t think so, but that message hadn’t gotten through to anyone else.
“So, you’ll come right away,” Zane said. It wasn’t a question.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
I had to. If someone else from the pack stumbled across them, who knew how it would end? If Felix took offense and declared war on the New Mexico packs, I wouldn’t be able to make any deal between Bian and Cameron—in fact, I’d expose her to attack, since Felix and Altau were associated.
What a frigging mess.
I had to fix this. Somehow.
“Yes.” I didn’t bother to hide what I thought of being railroaded like this.
“You know Sedalia out on 85?”
Sedalia was one of those places that form out of nothing when one road crosses another, but at least it wasn’t downtown Denver, where a member of the Denver pack might pick up a scent at any moment.
“Yeah.”
“There’s a roadhouse bar, just off the highway. Maisey’s Pit Stop. We’re there.”
The line went dead.
“Shit!” I yelled and punched my thigh. “Turn around. South. We’ll pick up the 85 at Alameda. Quick.”
Heaven help me if this went bad. Heaven help us all.
As Zane had said, Maisey’s was easy to spot from the highway. The name was painted in tall block capitals of faded red paint, and partly obscured by the ‘For Sale’ sign.
We pulled off into an empty truck-stop lot and parked beside a familiar midnight-blue Dodge. It had belonged to Evans, the Denver werewolf that Felix had thrown out of the pack. Tullah had killed him, the night of the ritual on that cold hillside in the Carson Park. Seems that the Albuquerque pack had inherited his truck.
Zane and Rita were leaning against the Dodge. There was no one else in sight.
Rita was all still and watchful. Zane was tense too, despite the casual lean against the truck’s hood. His eyes, mismatched green and brown, took me in, lingered on Yelena.
He was dressed in sharp tan cargo pants, with a buttoned turquoise shirt under a three-quarter-length flecked coat. A black scarf was looped around his neck.
His dominance was reeled in tightly.
Trying to be nice to me?
I didn’t have time for it.
“You don’t call, you don’t write—” he started.
“Cut the bullshit,” I said. “Where’s Cameron?”
“Inside.” He nodded at Maisey’s. “Alone. This is a private meeting with you.” He looked at Yelena.
Yelena frowned.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“No. Is not.” Like a magician, her left hand twisted to reveal a compact grenade. Where the hell? She calmly pulled the pin, keeping her grip on the safety lever. “The rest of us, we sit inside car. This grenade’s delay has been reset to zero. Anything happens, I let go, boom. Very messy.”
Rita’s eyes shaded to cougar. Other than that, she didn’t visibly react.
Zane licked his lips. I couldn’t read that. Nerves or lust? Maybe he couldn’t help his reaction to dominant, aggressive women. I almost smiled.
I could see there wasn’t going to be any chance of changing Yelena’s mind, and it would focus their minds.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Zane,” I said as I turned to go inside. “Wouldn’t want any accidents.”
Rita snorted as I walked to the bar, pausing in front.
I recognized Cameron’s dominance leaking from the building.
Prickly, but not as angry as last time we’d met. Tense, maybe.
His scent marque tickled my nose. It’d been half hidden when we’d met in the church—an aromatic candle had been burning at the time. Without that masking it, his marque made me think of rain on creosote bushes: clean and sharp.
A wind came snaking in off the wide prairie, cold and dry, with that electric feel like a storm was building. It carried fine sand that scoured the double doors in front of me. They had been painted red to match the Maisey’s sign. And like the sign, the red had faded; the hard edges were eroded. I pushed and the doors screeched open on dry hinges.
It wasn’t completely dark inside but I stood for a second anyway, to let my eyes adjust.
What light there was came in through slits in the boarded windows, etching bright lines across the abandoned bar. The wind outside pushed sand in through the same gaps and it whispered down the walls.
The center of the bar was empty except for one old table and a couple of chairs dragged out into the middle of the rough wooden floor.
Alone, Zane had said, but I guessed there was one more gua
rd for me to make my way past or kick out, before I sat down with Cameron.
She—I was pretty sure it was she—sat hunched inside her coat, one of those bulky wool coats I couldn’t tell whether it was a jacket or a sweater, with bright and dark Navajo patterns. The colors made me think of mountains in the desert, caught in the evening light. She wore matte black skinny pants tucked into lace-up buckskin boots.
Her hair gleamed in the dark, an outrageous style—a huge spray of glossy black ringlets rising tall from her head and then falling like a spray of flowers down to her right shoulder.
There was a scratch of a lighter as she lit an old brass miner’s lamp on the table. The smell of the lamp oil mingled with the scent of the Santa Fe pack.
The light revealed a proud African face, turned side-on to me, frowning as she adjusted the lamp’s wick feed with long fingers. Her nails were painted gold. There were gold rings on her second fingers, and fine gold chains looped from the rings to wind around her wrists. Gold body paint wove intricate patterns on the backs of her hands and traced a thin Celtic pattern like deer horns along the line of her jaw, rising up the sides of her cheeks to border her eyes with wild rose thorns.
All wonderfully decorative, but I was here to talk to Cameron, not his mate.
“Excuse me,” I said.
She turned and looked at me. On the left side of her head, up to a couple of inches or so above the ear, the hair had been trimmed down to a buzz cut.
Shit. Half-head.
A joke about her freaking hairstyle. And the joke’s on me.
“Hello, Amber,” she said, her voice barely louder than the hiss of sand against the window slats.
Chapter 40
“Cameron.” I sat opposite her. “I’m disappointed. No dark confessionals in old churches. No buzzy voices and burning incense. No drama.”
I was lying about the last part.
“They all served a purpose.” Her real voice was all late-night radio, warm and smooth as chocolate.
“And that purpose is finished?”
She nodded, a tiny movement.
Her face wasn’t the usual western African structure of strong, broad planes. She was angles and edges, Eastern African, maybe Somali or Ethiopian heritage. The eyes were dark-rimmed, quick and bright, the nose sharp, the mouth full, but hinting at impatience.