I expected an argument and didn’t want to miss anything. The door squeaked open, footsteps pounded, and Caleb marched into the parlor, stopping in the doorway to glare at us.
Ben and I both stood, an instinctive response to the anger Caleb radiated. His expression held challenge; we didn’t know if it was meant for us.
“You okay?” I said, testing.
Caleb looked away, and I relaxed. So did Ben.
“We need to talk,” Britain’s alpha said to Ned.
“Yes,” the vampire answered. “Sit down. Have some tea.”
I preemptively poured another cup from the still-warm pot. Sighing, Caleb found a chair that seemed strategically located in the middle of the room. He had a good look at us all from there.
As I brought him his tea, he pulled a flask from an inner coat pocket. Before taking the cup, he poured a measure of what smelled like whiskey into the tea, put the flask away, took the cup from me.
What an amazing idea. Why hadn’t anyone told me about that?
“I want to try that,” I said, returning to my seat next to Ben, who shushed me.
The china teacup looked fragile in the werewolf’s hands.
“It was awfully convenient,” Caleb said. “Them knowing exactly where we were meeting and likely what we were meeting about.”
Ned shrugged his coat back on, making him appear more whole and in charge. “You’re implying something.”
“They knew,” he said. “Somebody told them.”
The anxiety that we’d struggled to hold at bay returned. We glanced around the room, studying each other—did we have a spy?
“Do you have an idea who?” I said to Caleb.
“I’ve got a few,” he answered.
My own thoughts tumbled over possibilities, mostly asking myself the question, how well did I trust these people, really?
I trusted Ben. He’d sat back to listen, an intent focus in his gaze that had more to do with his lawyer side than his werewolf side.
“Not many of us even knew about the meeting,” Ned said.
I shook my head. “That’s not true. A lot of us did. There’s you, Marid, Antony, me, Ben, Caleb, Caleb’s wolves—”
“And your girl, Emma,” Antony said, looking at the young woman still standing in the doorway after letting the alpha in.
A number of accusing gazes turned to her, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop with the chill of it. Even Ned’s gaze narrowed, studious. She straightened, her brow furrowing, eyes shining.
“Now hold on a minute,” I said, as if I could do anything to deflect their attention. “Why her?”
“She said they approached her,” Antony said. “This evening, at the conference.”
“Would she have told you about it if she was actually working for them?”
Detached, objective Ben said, “She’d have had to say something because you saw her. If she didn’t you would have.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Ben, you were there, you saw her—did she look like she was being subverted?”
“No, she didn’t. I’m just being the lawyer.”
I turned to Ned. “I don’t think it was her. You’re looking at the outsider for a suspect. It’s what everyone does.”
“It wasn’t me, I swear to you, Ned.” Emma was shaking her head.
“It could have been me,” I said. There, that distracted them. They all turned their gazes on me, and the attention felt like a physical blow. “I wouldn’t have had to tell them—they’d have just needed to follow me. I go everywhere, talk to everyone. Geez, I’ve been tracked, stalked, and pestered this whole conference. They could have had someone standing next to me and I wouldn’t have known.”
“Well,” Caleb said. He drained the last of his tea and set it aside. “I’ve got one of their injured wolves trussed up in the van outside if you’d like to have a go at him. He’s probably not awake yet, but it shouldn’t be too much longer. He ought to be able to tell you.”
Ned raised a brow. “And why didn’t you say this earlier?”
Caleb’s smile showed teeth. “Wanted to see you lot squirm.”
Marid laughed.
Caleb stood and moved to the door. “Ben, Kitty. Care to help?”
Not really, but wolves were the muscle. Even he had that habit. I glanced at Ben, who raised an eyebrow—an uncommitted look. He was leaving the decision to me.
“Let’s go,” I muttered, leveraging myself from the chair yet again.
“I’ll get the door,” Emma said and started to leave with us.
“Maybe you’d better stay here with your Master, love,” Caleb said. His tone was flat, his gaze a wall revealing nothing. No sympathy, no accusation, nothing for her to react against. Frowning, she stepped back.
She hadn’t told anyone, she wasn’t a spy, I was sure of it. But the way they all looked at her, pinning her to the wall with their glares—they all thought it possible. Was I just being naïve?
The trio of us went outside, where one of Caleb’s wolves opened the back door of a dark SUV.
A naked man, a white guy in his twenties, lay on the bare, carpetless floor of the vehicle. He was one of the werewolves Ned had disabled with a snap of his neck. Now, he seemed to be sleeping. Healing, I gathered, though I didn’t want to know how long it took—or how much pain it involved—to heal from a broken spine. I’d cracked my pelvis in a fall a little while back and that was bad enough. It had taken a full night to heal. The man’s hands and feet were tied with plastic zip ties, as if they expected him to wake up and fight.
I couldn’t smell a touch of blood, either on the man or in the back of the car. They really had known how to clean up. I couldn’t help but be impressed. Back in Colorado, in the years when the pack had a lot of infighting—before I took over—there’d been bodies. Usually, they got dumped down one of the countless caves and abandoned mine shafts scattered in the foothills outside of Denver. Occasionally, there’d be a body in the city needing to disappear. I didn’t know if my pack could clean up a fight of this scale. We hadn’t had any fatal fights for a long time. I worked hard to keep it that way.
“Right, let’s get him inside,” Caleb said.
“What are you going to do with him?” I asked.
“Crack him like a nut,” Caleb said.
I looked at Ben again. Like I kept waiting for a different response from him.
The henchwolf cut the zip tie at the prisoner’s hands, and Caleb grabbed one of the arms. He called to Ben, who took hold of the other. They each hauled an arm over their shoulders, lifting him off the ground. I didn’t have much to do but watch. Maybe call a warning if the guy started waking up.
We returned to the parlor, where Caleb and Ben dumped their burden in the middle of the floor. The man groaned. Alive and awake. My hackles rose, a tightening down my back.
Emma had retreated to another chair near the fireplace, between Ned and Marid. She looked small and young, slouching in on herself. I wondered what they’d been saying to her, if they’d been conducting their own early interrogation. Antony stood farther off; he looked like he’d been pacing.
Caleb gripped the man’s hair and yanked back, showing his face to the room. “Wake up, you.”
I couldn’t decide if I wanted this to be successful or not. If this guy did know what had set our enemies on us, was I ready to hear the answer? It didn’t matter if I was ready or not.
Ben moved close to me, our arms brushing. “Torturing him isn’t going to work. He’ll know we have to kill him one way or the other.”
Justice, Wolf growled. This man would have killed us—me, Ben, whoever else he could have, all on the orders of some vampire like Mercedes Cook. This was justice.
Didn’t mean it was going to be pretty.
“I don’t know if I can watch this,” I said to Ben.
“Will you lose face with these guys if you don’t?”
“Yeah, probably.” And I wanted to be here when he talked. I’d stay. I though
t of saying something about how this was going to mess up Ned’s very nice, very expensive carpet. Likely, Ned didn’t much care.
Still propping his head up, Caleb slapped his captive across his face a couple of times. Not hard, just noisy and startling.
He flinched suddenly, batting at Caleb with his freed hands, but when he tried to scramble back, to put himself in a position to fight, his still-bound feet tripped him and he crashed to the floor, flopping.
Caleb let him struggle a moment before grabbing an arm and twisting it back. The werewolf cried out in frustration and bared his teeth.
“Settle down, there,” Caleb hissed in his ear. “There’s nothing you can do, so you might as well let it all go.”
The man gave a wordless moan and kept thrashing, or trying to, anyway.
“Ned,” Caleb said. “It’s your turn, I think.”
Oh—on the other hand, this wasn’t going to be messy after all.
Ned rose from his chair, adjusted his coat, brushed imaginary dust off its hem, and arranged himself as if about to step on stage. He commanded attention; no one would ever guess that he’d been injured. I expected him to launch into a soliloquy.
Instead, he knelt before the captive, seeming to regard him with scientific curiosity as the man flailed in a panic. Finally, Ned took hold of the man’s chin. Making a deep-throated noise of denial, the werewolf squeezed his eyes shut, straining to turn away. Ned merely closed his hands around either side of the man’s face, put thumbs over his eyelids, and pried them open.
“Hush,” Ned breathed. “There, now. Don’t fret. It’ll all be over soon.”
The werewolf froze. Slowly, his muscles relaxed—tension actually seemed to seep out of his body. His jaw hung open and his eyelids drooped as he met Ned’s gaze, and fell into it.
“That was a splendid little offensive you and your friends mounted in the park just now.”
“No,” the man said, chuckling sadly. His accented voice—he might have been German—was haunted, dreamy. “It was a mess. Rushed.”
“Oh?” Ned feigned curiosity.
“We were just supposed to be watching … sur-surveillance.” He sighed, tried to shake his head, but Ned wouldn’t let him break his gaze.
“Watching who?”
“The American bitch.”
I never knew whether to take that term figuratively or literally.
“I think I need to get that on a T-shirt,” I whispered to Ben, who quirked a smile.
“Who else were you tracking?” Ned asked.
“Mexican delegation. The Indonesian doctor. The wolf soldier.” I tensed, my instinctive, protective reaction at the mention of Tyler. The prisoner continued. “It’s no secret where they’re staying. But when the bitch went out with you all … we called it in.”
“Called it in to whom?” Ned asked.
“Jan.”
“He’s holding your leash?” The werewolf nodded, and Ned went on. “You were ordered to watch Kitty Norville, then. You didn’t get your information from anywhere.”
“Her. Her mate. We tracked them.”
“Why target them?”
“Not them. They’re in the middle of it … but not important. Follow them, secure the target.”
Ned raised a brow and seemed genuinely intrigued. “Oh? Who, then?”
The werewolf smiled, a conspiratorial edge showing even through the trance. “Edward Alleyn, Master of London.”
“Am I to take it, then, that Jan saw the opportunity to remove a foe from the field and sent everyone he could muster to attack?”
“Too good a chance to miss,” he said. “You’re the obstacle. Without you, the rest would fall.”
“Well.” Still holding his gaze, the vampire absently stroked the man’s face. “How do you feel about that now?”
The werewolf’s body tensed, straining against the grip that held him. Anguished lips pulled back from teeth, and he snarled. But the gaze held, and the werewolf didn’t struggle. The vampire shifted his grip, twisted, and snapped. Neck broken twice in a night. Had to suck.
But I had a feeling he wasn’t going to wake up from this one.
Caleb dropped the limp form to the carpet and brushed his hands. “First London, then the world, is that it?”
“And it wasn’t Emma who told, right?” I said.
“No,” Ned said, looking at the young woman. “But you understand, we had to ask.”
She’d collected herself, sitting straight and calm, not letting the least emotion flit across her face. She tipped her chin up in acknowledgment, that was all. A gesture she’d learned from Alette. Ned must have recognized it, too; he turned to hide a smile.
“I didn’t think you’d really done it,” Antony said, spreading his arms. “It was just a possibility.”
“This cannot stand,” Ned said. “Any neutrality they’ve enjoyed, they’ve lost.”
“So the war begins,” Marid said. “At last.”
Ned shook his head. “They’ll go to ground when their minions don’t return. Move to new lairs. It’ll take time to find them, and it’s getting too close to dawn to search.”
“Dawn’s a perfect time to go after vampires,” Ben said. “Get ’em when they’re woozy.”
All the vampires gave him a look, even Emma.
“It’s a perfect time for you to go after vampires,” Ned said. “But I intend to twist Jan’s head off myself.”
“I can track them,” Caleb said.
“How?” Ned said roughly, skeptical.
Caleb curled a smile for him. “They’ve got their wolves standing guard. Like they always do. I may not know where the vampires are, but I can find their wolves.”
Antony stepped forward. “Then we’ll attack—”
“No,” I said. I started pacing, trying to catch a thought before it fled. “If we know which of the werewolf guards have moved, we’ll know who was in on the attack—which of the Masters are allied with Jan and by extension Mercedes—”
“And therefore Roman,” Ben said.
“So we can attack,” Antony reiterated, frowning.
“That’s not the point,” I said. “An attack is going to end up like the one we just had, lots of fighting with no real result. We can’t take the vampires on their home ground so there’s no point fighting their wolves. We don’t want them fighting us, we just want—”
“We want them to leave,” Caleb said. “Kitty’s right. My folk and I killed eight werewolves tonight. You lot can have your war, but it’s us that keep dying, and I’m sick of it. Go after your vampires, but I won’t let you go through more wolves to do it.”
“That’s just it—we can talk to the wolves. Oh, we can do this,” I said. My thoughts had caught up with my subconscious. Wolf and I both knew what to do here. We just had to prove to them that we were the stronger alpha, smarter even than their Masters. And they’d listen to us, right?
Ha.
“Caleb,” I said. “We have to find them. I need to talk with them—all of them.”
“You think they’ll just stand still to listen to you? Are you daft?” Ned glared, but I stood my ground. I was right. I was sure I was right.
“Don’t underestimate her ability to talk,” Ben said, his expression wry. He was enjoying this, the bastard. “It’s her superpower.”
“I don’t believe you,” Ned said. “I don’t believe you can manage this.”
“Caleb,” I said. “Will you help?”
His smile turned toothy. “I’m in. I want to see this. How about it, Ned? Give us your blessing, won’t you?”
“Do I have a choice? As soon as the sun rises you’ll do what you want, am I right?”
“You’ll just have to trust us,” the werewolf said. “Isn’t that what this is all about? Look at us—working together.”
“We should get going,” I said, my eyes bright, my nerves jumpy. Cormac—we had to call Cormac and let him know what was happening. Maybe he’d have some advice, however unlikely that seemed. He was
used to shooting, not talking.
Caleb nodded, and we headed for the door.
“Before you go,” Ned said. “You mind if we take care of this one for you?” He pointed at their prisoner.
Caleb scowled at the inert body. “Be my guest.”
Apparently, advocating for the benefit of werewolves in general was one thing. But this one had attacked him and his people. Sympathy was forfeit. I couldn’t say that was the wrong attitude.
“Marid, have you eaten tonight? Would you like a bit?” Ned said, nudging the unconscious werewolf with a booted toe. “Antony?”
“I think you’re still in need of a boost, wouldn’t you say?” Antony answered.
“I daresay there’s enough for all of us to share.”
Antony actually rubbed his hands together.
“That’s it,” I muttered. “I’m out of here.”
“I’m sure we could all share,” Ned said. “The four of us will only take his blood, after all.”
He was only being polite. I glanced at Ben, whose face had gone scrunched up, bemused. It was what happened when your stomach turned and your mouth watered at the same time.
“I don’t … eat people,” I said.
“Not at all?” Antony said. “Ever?”
I paused, wincing. Bringing up the issue ignited the memory of a taste on the back of my tongue, flesh and blood, the iron warmth of it squishing between sharp teeth, gulping down my throat. It wasn’t even my memory, it was Wolf’s. I hardly remembered it, except that the sensory detail had never gone away. “Just that one time.”
Ned gave me an inquiring look. “You? Really?”
“The other one was just a nibble…” I really did have to stop and think about how many people I’d taken a chunk out of. I put a hand on my forehead. The night had gotten very long indeed.
“I’m not sure I know about the other one,” Ben said, looking at me with … curiosity? Admiration?
“It was that guy in Montana,” I said.
“Ah.”
“Ms. Norville, you are constantly intriguing,” Marid said, leaning on his cane. Even Caleb regarded me appraisingly.
“I really think it’s time for us to go. You guys have fun.” I grabbed Ben’s hand and pulled him from the parlor.
Emma put a hand on my arm in the doorway. “Thanks. For sticking up for me.”
Kitty Steals the Show Page 17