by L. A. Banks
Sidney looked up from her stack of briefs and stared out the window for a moment. Sure she’d risen like a rocket to become one of the youngest partners in her firm, but she was still a long way from the corner office. She was still the new kid on the block. The older attorneys had dug in like ticks and sucked primo resources off the top, first.
Yet as she watched the sun set, sending a rose-orange light to reflect off the high-rise panes, she suddenly realized that the thrill of the chase, the adrenaline rush of the corporate climb had quietly died within her. Winning, losing, it didn’t feel like it mattered. It was all a game. Pointless. A secret part of her just wanted to roam free…feel the rush of exploring new lands, new sensations, feel the sun on her face and wind at her back. Brick.
Sidney set her pen down very slowly and took off the reading glasses that were poised on the bridge of her nose. She closed her eyes and gave herself strong counsel. Don’t go there. She’d worked too hard for too long to allow one wild night to destroy it all. There was too much invested, her life was too orderly. For the same reason she’d fight Douglass tooth and nail to protect what was hers as a matter of principle, she wouldn’t let a tall, fine interloper tear out her soft underbelly. No one would ever get that close to a sure kill again.
She opened her eyes and quickly stood, wondering where the horrific imagery of being surrounded by wolves came from. She hadn’t had those types of terror-filled thoughts in years.
An hour and a half on the road in rush-hour traffic left him feeling penned in and trapped. Now inside the little clapboard house in Reading, Pennsylvania, a sense of claustrophobia was strangling him. He needed to run and run hard.
Brick kept his gaze sweeping as they waited for the old woman to get done in the next room. Normally, he and his pack members came to Madame Irvinia late—after the human regulars had gone. But this was an impromptu visit.
As inconspicuously as possible he tested for scents, his line of vision trapping bundles of herbs, Gris Gris pouches, bones and feathers stashed over doorways. Rickety tables with matchbooks to level them out held tasseled shade lamps. Overstuffed chairs covered in tattered crimson and gold velvet drew one in, but he sat on the edge, not sure what powder or potions might have been shoved deep within the cushions.
From a sideline glance he studied his road partner. Leonora’s ears moved ever so slightly, picking up the faintest sound. She was a very cool alpha female, as much as she got on his nerves. Mild chaos tumbled in his gut—friends weren’t supposed to fall out with each other over a woman. As long as the object of desire was unclaimed, then the rivalry would go on, hot pursuit eminent. But once she’d been claimed, then…yeah, competitors would chill and go back to being buddies.
Problem was, it was too soon to tell, and he wasn’t trying to stake a claim—yet. And it just wasn’t protocol to run hard after your best friend’s hunt, and then not really want it. He had to know for sure, ’cause him and Leo went way back. Brick stared at the door, willing Madame Irvinia to hurry with her divination. Sidney Coleburn-West was becoming a problem.
After forty agonizing minutes, the parlor door flung open, and a nervous-looking young woman clutching her purse and a tissue slipped out with Madame Irvinia not far behind. Brick and Leonora were instantly on their feet.
“Now you remember what I told you to feed him, right? You want him back, that’s what you gotta do. You want him dead, come back and I’ll give ya something different.” The older woman dabbed sweat away from the scoop neckline of her purple and yellow flowered housecoat. “Don’t change my recipe, either, or ya might accidentally neuter that fool.”
The young woman wiped at her tears, nodded quickly, and then mumbled her thanks as she rushed out the front door.
Brick gave Leonora an I-told-you-so glance, which his friend ignored. Madame Irvinia issued him a jaunty pout and folded her arms over her sagging bosom.
“Now I know its gots ta be bad for you ta bring yo’ rusty behind to see dis ole lady.” Madame Irvinia smiled a toothless grin, her wrinkled, dark face stretched wide from the effort. She opened her scrawny arms, flabby biceps wiggling like a rooster’s comb as she went to Brick for a hug.
Laughing, he bent and pulled the elderly woman close. “Been a long time, Mom Irv.”
“You watch out for my wig, boy,” she said, swatting him away with mirth and adjusting what looked like a matted, dead gray cat on her head.
“Oh, so I don’t get no love,” Leonora said, bumping Brick out of the way to sweep Madame Irvinia into a hug.
“Aw, baby, don’t you be jealous,” Madame Irvinia crooned. “You know you my pumpkin.” She kissed Leonora’s cheek. “C’mon into the kitchen—my conjurin’ room. Y’all look like you both need some real mojo tonight.”
Douglass pushed the envelope across his polished oak desk toward two thick-bodied street mercenaries. Dark shades hid their eyes, but the bomber jackets couldn’t hide their physical bulk.
“I want her hurt and scared, not dead. If she’s killed, it’ll seem too suspicious given our long property settlement battle. I can’t afford that.”
Both henchmen nodded.
“We got you,” one said, standing and tucking away the envelope into the breast pocket of his jacket.
“Anybody could get mugged in Center City.” The other henchmen shrugged with a wicked smile. “Parking lots are dangerous at night.”
They watched the old woman flop down at her yellowing linoleum kitchen table, putting strain on an elderly, plastic-covered dinette chair. Brick eased himself into one, noting that Leonora did the same, half afraid that their weight would make their chairs give way.
“Y’all want some tea?”
“No,” Brick and Leonora said in unison, and then backed off to mellow the response.
“Just ate, Mom,” Brick said, glimpsing Leonora.
“You know me, Ma—I’m good. I don’t eat much till after midnight,” Leonora said.
Madame Irvinia sucked her teeth. “I wouldn’t root y’all—you’s good as kin. ’Sides, what would the point be? Ya already got more on ya than you can practic’ly bear. Humph!”
“Now don’t get testy, Mom. We’re just sorta in a rush,” Brick soothed, reaching across the table to grasp the elderly woman’s hand.
Still salty from the rebuff, Madame Irvinia withdrew her hand. “That’s my conjurin’ hand, best be careful, and it got Arthur—so don’t be grabbin’ it with your big paw.”
Leonora swallowed away a smile. “He didn’t mean no harm, Ma. He’s just all messed up over this human female, and needs a little advice.”
“Speak for yourself,” Brick muttered.
Madame Irvinia narrowed her gaze but the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth gave her away. “Seem like ya both is hankerin for the same bone, but that ain’t my business.”
Leonora looked away. Brick gave the elderly woman a sheepish sideways glance and chuckled.
“That’s not why we’re here, really. See, we can’t just hunt down this guy that’s been giving our client the blues,” Brick explained, trying to reason with Madame Irvinia while eying Leonora’s agitation.
“Why not?” Madame Irvinia fussed. “If he’s a complete horse’s ass, which he’d have to be if y’all took the case, then…”
“The lady said no violence,” Leonora groaned, throwing her hands up in the air with disgust.
“Then why’d y’all take the case!” Madame Irvinia pushed away from the table and grunted.
Brick raised an eyebrow and looked at Leonora. “Because it was a friend of Leo’s—that’s why.”
“So, how long you been going with this girl, Leonora?” Madame Irvinia asked, standing in a huff. “How she got your nose so wide open as a human dat she kin tell you not to hunt down a threat as a wolf? You tell her what you was yet, baby? You shape-shift on her so she could see? ’Cause there was no reason to get this big lug all up in it, if you was gonna make him repress his hunt. You don’t call in an enforcer for minor squabbles, ya know dat. I do
n’ know if I got anything in my cabinets strong enough to keep his wolf down, once a threat scent is in his nose, baby, so—”
“I’m not sleeping with her,” Leonora said quietly. “She’s straight…just my best friend.”
Madame Irvinia glanced from Leonora to Brick. “Well she done slept with somebody up in here, and it weren’t me, I tell ya, ’cause I picked up a nookie aura the moment you two crossed my threshold.”
Brick looked out the window over the sink. “We’ve gotta get pictures, track him, come up with enough evidence to pin on him, so the lady can get out of the sham of a marriage she’s in,” he muttered, deflecting the charge.
“What!” Madame Irvinia rounded the table and stood before Brick with her arms folded. She then shook her head. “Whoooo boy. Fresh, too. Not even twenty-four hours old since ya got some, is it?”
“Mom…”
“Uh, huh. And she wants you to be non-violent? She know you a wolf?”
He looked at the floor. “No. Just a tracker. She doesn’t believe in the supernatural.”
“What!”
Both Leonora and Brick cringed as the old woman’s voice hit a decibel that hurt.
“She’s real straight,” Leonora said. “As in mainline suburban.”
“Aw, Lawd.” Madame Irvinia slapped her forehead. “Mitchell Brickland, lemme tell you somethin’, young man.” She pointed a gnarled finger toward his chest, but her voice was gentle. “This ain’t nothin’ but heartbreak, ya hear me? She ain’t gonna be able to deal with you howling at no full moon.” She then looked at him hard when he turned away from her, and cupped his cheek. “Baby, you best stop messin’ with her right now ’fore you give her what you got. Understand?”
Brick shrugged out of the caress and stood. “It ain’t about all that. We’re just here to get a clean line on where to sniff. It’s more efficient than running around for a few nights trying to pick up the trail. All we need is a start point.”
“Ma…what he’s saying is, after being with her, he can’t go tracking to all the places our client’s threat has been. The longer Brick hunts, the worse the urge to bring West down like road kill will get, and within a few nights when the moon goes full, he might not be able to keep his word to our client not to rip the bastard’s throat out—especially if that jerk steps wrong.”
Leonora sighed and leaned her head back against the kitchen wall while sitting with her eyes closed. “This was my fault, really. I never shoulda introduced the two of ’em.”
Madame Irvinia waved her hand. “Aw, ain’t no blame, ain’t no fault. It is what it is. Humph. She must be a pretty lil’ thang to have y’all all messed up like this.” She sighed and sat down again on the creaky chair. “All right. Whatchu got? Something from the threat, something from your client. Thas what I need to go to work.”
Panic swept through Brick. “I only brought what she gave me of his.” He produced the brush and slid it across the table towards Madame Irvinia.
But the old woman cut Leonora a glare. “Give it up. I needs it to get a bead on thangs.”
A rush of rosy pink flushed Leonora’s cheeks as she kept her gaze on the sink ahead and dug deep into her pants pocket to produce a pair of lacy, pink boxers. The low growl that rumbled in Brick’s throat started way down deep in his diaphragm. Leonora’s lip curled into what was beginning to be a snarl. Instantly, both potential combatants were on their feet. Madame Irvinia snatched the garment and banged on the table.
“She met her first, Brick—and if ya start some crazy dog fight up in my house, I’ll root ya both. Now sit!”
It took a moment, but after a bit, Brick and Leonora flopped back down, ignoring the shaky condition of the furniture and smoothing the hair at the napes of their necks. Madame Irvinia gave them both a warning glare and sucked her teeth, then pulled a small pouch of stones and bones from her cleavage and cast the contents on the table amid the brush and panties.
“He’s a real smacked ass, ain’t he?” the old woman said, studying her bizarre spread. “Yeah, I can see the attraction y’all have for ’er. She’s got a heart of gold and a little wolf in her, too.” She looked up to stunned expressions with a smile. “Uh, huh. Got bit by a stray dog that lived through a Lupe attack when she was an itty-bitty thang. Had to be a Beta or maybe one of the pack’s adolescent pups that tangled with it, but the mangy creature lived to bite that sweet thang. She’s scared ta death of dogs. Y’all know that?”
She-scent wafting off Sidney’s panties and the information Madame Irvinia had just given him, made Brick stand and pace. His heart was suddenly thudding too hard within his chest and he needed to run, be outside, wanted to feel the fall air rushing through his coat.
“’Nuff to almost make ya shift on the spot, ain’t it, boy?”
He ignored Madame Irvinia’s chuckles and went to the sink so he could stare out the window.
“Go, ’head. You can open it. Ya look like you need you some air—don’ be passin’ out on my floor, my kitchen ain’t dat big.”
Leonora stood and leaned against the wall, seeming faint. “I knew she was scared of dogs all her life…she told me she’d been bitten…showed me the small scar from the stitches once…on her calf. I just never knew the dog was a carrier.” Her voice drifted off becoming a murmur of appreciation. “Damn, no wonder we both have it so bad for Sid.”
Brick glanced at Leonora over his shoulder, annoyed that he’d missed the scar in the dark despite the intimate encounter. Now he wanted to touch that place she’d been nipped…kiss it, find it on her shapely cinnamon leg. “Me and you have got to get to a place of peace on this, Leo.”
Leonora nodded. “I love her…but she told me she was flip-top over you when I stopped by there this morning.”
Brick pushed away from the sink, knowing the information Leonora had given him was a peace offering. The part about Sidney’s reaction to him almost made him hyperventilate. Still, the fact that Leonora had gone over to Sidney’s so soon after they’d been together bothered him. “You saw her this morning?”
“Get over it,” Leonora snarled. “It’s our routine. She makes me coffee, I have it in her bedroom so we can talk like girls—while she gets dressed and takes a shower.”
It took everything in him not to lunge. Just the idea that Leonora got to watch Sidney get naked and shower in broad daylight, and he hadn’t, made him irrational. “From this point on, that’s out!”
“You making a claim on that territory—or is it still wide open and up for grabs?”
“It’s claimed!” he shouted before his brain could consult his mouth.
“Good!” Leonora shouted back. “And you’d better not mess her over, either! She deserves the real deal, permanent mate bond! You got that?”
“I got it, you got it. Leo? Don’t fuck with me, I’m serious!”
“Whooowe,” Madame Irvinia exclaimed, shaking her head, and making the two wolves remember that she was in the room. “Boy, you just made you a declaration with a witness.”
Brick ran his palm over his bristling hair and turned back toward the window. Somehow the half smile he glimpsed on Leonora’s face just before he turned away made him feel like he mighta just gotten set up. But still, there was no doubt about it; Sidney Coleburn-West definitely had his nose wide open.
She said goodnight to the evening guard by rote and got on the elevators that led to the parking garage. It seemed like she’d worked insane hours her whole life, and ever since her marriage had crumbled, she’d taken it to an entirely new level of workaholism. But what else was there to do? she mused, digging her keys out of her purse. Now was not the time to slack off. No telling what Douglass would do or what he would take and she needed to be shielded with a nice nest egg if he got half of her assets.
The urge to call Brick was making her palms itch, but she held her head up and clutched her purse, car keys, and briefcase, refusing to go for her cell phone as she crossed the concrete divide. An eerie sense of being watched made her hesitate, gl
ance around, and then hasten her steps. When she reached her silver BMW, she froze.
“Hey pretty lady,” a deep voice said, as a man with a ski mask and large gun stepped out from behind a steel column.
Her voice and breath were trapped in her throat for a second, and then logic quickly swept through her as she held out her purse.
Another figure stepped behind her, boxing her in between her car and the adjacent vehicle.
“Smart, too,” the man behind her said, and then suddenly yanked her against him.
The gun leveled at her forehead kept the scream inside her chest. But feeling the hard body behind her with an erection gouging into her butt cheek made her terror impossible to hide. Panic sweat made the fabric of her blouse and slacks instantly stick to her. Pinpoints of light were beginning to dance before her eyes. She felt nauseous, couldn’t breathe.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” she whispered as a huge forearm crushed her windpipe. “Just take the money—please…there’s credit cards, everything in my bag.”
“Don’t you like it when they beg, man?” the man holding her asked his accomplice.
The gunman ripped Sidney’s purse from her shoulder. “Love it, ’specially when they’re this damn fine.”
A low growl made the gunman whirl around. The man holding Sidney backed up, dragging her as a body shield. From the shadows a large, black wolf stalked out, head hug low, canines glistening, eyes a strange, reflective gold. It moved forward slowly; its shoulders the height of the BMW’s hood. Her scream echoed through the lot, but neither the gunman nor the man half-strangling her seemed to care.
“Shoot it!” the man holding Sidney yelled, pulling her further away as his partner backed up.
Appearing almost paralyzed with fear, the man holding the gun lifted it ever so slightly for better aim. Sidney saw it in slow motion; the minute movement of his arm. The enormous animal before him leapt to the right in a blur, landed on a car hood, then zigzagged to the roof of her Beamer as the mugger spun and squeezed off erratic rounds. Before she could blink, the gunman had lost an arm and she shrieked and turned away as he fell between the cars with the wolf standing on his chest.