Andrew clenched his jaw. Oh, he knew that hunger.
“Her brother wasn’t that much older, but she just wasn’t at the right stage yet, I don’t think. She should have been out roaming, trying out packs until she found someone to settle down with. But I think her mother’s death left her so close to Ares she kept hanging around, hoping someone would roam by and stay with her instead.”
“Maybe someone did roam by.” Andrew hadn’t intended to bludgeon the woman with all the death and gloom of the pack’s fate again, but the words slipped out. “Who actually knew about the Bellingham pack, anyway? It was news to Roanoke. We thought you guys went all the way up to where Alaska ends.”
The woman flushed, just visible under her freckles. She stalled, grabbing a plate and arranging the apple slices on it. “Well … uh. Portland probably had to have known.” Her scent muddied, matching her flush in showing she was hiding something.
Andrew frowned. “Besides them. Anyone else?”
“No one else knows.”
That was a lie. A blatant one. Even if Andrew hadn’t smelled it, he could hear the woman’s voice waver. The woman edged away with a sullen look that told Andrew that the more he pushed, the farther the woman would retreat, leaving no information behind. Maybe he could set Silver on coaxing it from her? Or would that be too close to topics that Silver was trying to avoid?
The woman got very busy with collecting her son and feeding him, cutting off further conversation. Andrew didn’t linger. He needed somewhere to think this out. He’d use his newly acquired bedroom, but werewolves couldn’t help but hear him pacing through adjoining walls. He was trying to keep everyone calm, not infect them with his tension. The only place in the house without that problem that he could think of would be the basement. Silver seemed to sense his mood, because she joined him and waited at the door for him to open it.
Andrew shut the door carefully, jogged down the stairs, and then allowed himself to pace. He carefully didn’t look at the ring set into the wall. “Who’d they tell?” He was just thinking out loud, but Silver tilted her head, listening. He’d have to phrase carefully to avoid giving her flashbacks. “The Seattle pack told someone about where you lived. Someone they shouldn’t have. I doubt I’d smell that kind of guilt on her if it was someone like a member of the Billings pack. People have friends. It happens.”
Andrew stopped to lean on his hands on the couch back. “So who’s shameful to talk to? None of the pack smelled guilty when I asked them if they knew someone involved with what happened in Bellingham. Why react to the one question and not the other?”
Silver frowned at the empty air, and then slapped her hand against the paneling. “If you don’t want to tell me, fine! There’s no need to be so smug about it!” She grimaced apologetically at Andrew. “Death says we’ll find out soon enough. He’s been crowing about this all day, in his laconic way—‘Dare won’t find what he expects.’” Silver’s expression twisted. “Cat’s bastard.”
Andrew pushed off the couch to pace again. “I wanted to avoid ordering people to give me information, but I might have no choice. We’re going to run out of time soon and we’re not getting anywhere.”
Footsteps thundered up to the door, and someone yanked it open. “Mom! Go away. I don’t care if the new alpha’s down there.”
Andrew didn’t have to get a look at the sullen expression, or smell the sulkiness. He could hear the teenage tantrum in each stomp down the stairs. The girl making all the noise looked about thirteen, dressed in what Andrew assumed to be the best in current teen fashion. Her jeans were ripped, her top looked like the design had smeared in printing, and her hair was bleached and shaggy.
The girl’s mother appeared at the top of the stairs, anxiety clear on her face as she opened her mouth to apologize for her daughter’s behavior, but Andrew waved her away. He could handle one teenager.
The girl stumbled to a stop on the stairs when Andrew came over, probably realizing an alpha in person was more intimidating than one in abstract. She dropped her head. “Um. Sorry. Sir.”
Andrew nodded to acknowledge her respect, and moved to push past and leave her the basement. He needed to go order that woman to tell him who knew about Bellingham. Silver stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Aren’t you going to ask her what’s wrong, alpha?” she murmured, soft.
Andrew stopped. In the normal course of things, she would have been correct. A large part of the alpha’s job was keeping track of everything bothering his pack. Temporary or not, he supposed he had a duty to watch over the pack’s health while he was in charge, even if it would take a little more time.
He sighed and turned back to the girl. He slid his hands into his pockets to keep his posture casual. Even knowing his daughter was around this age, he found he couldn’t imagine the sweet toddler he’d known transformed into this leggy, conflicted, proto-adult. “What’s up?”
The girl twisted to look up at her mother. “Mom says I can’t go to the movies until I do my shifting practice, but I usually practice down here, and you’re down here, and anyway, I don’t see what good it does. People are just able to shift farther from the full naturally, as they get older.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “Are they? Or does everyone get better because of all the practicing they’ve been doing?”
Her expression grew suspicious. “Well, I don’t know, I guess.”
“And so when some Were from a neighboring pack is taking liberties, you just roll over, and tell him to wait a few years?” Andrew took the sting from the words with a grin, which made her bristle more. As he’d suspected it might. This was a feisty one. “Everyone has to practice shifting outside the full when they’re young. Besides, if everyone else your age can’t shift right now, don’t you want to show them up?”
The girl looked struck by this for a moment, but then her sullenness started to creep back in. Andrew started pulling his shirt over his head. “Come on. I’ll do it with you.”
The girl hesitated a few beats, but then she started pulling off her clothes too. “But you already shifted back and forth this morning.” Since he was a comparative stranger, she frowned and crossed her arms over her chest before his own nudity made it more like any night of the full among her own pack. She relaxed and let her arms fall.
“But that’s what practicing gets you.” Andrew closed his eyes, having to search to find the point to push. The bigger drain this morning had been his injuries, not the shifting, but either way he was exhausted. Every Were hated shifting tired, and every young Were hated learning to shift when they couldn’t just fall into it like in the full, but it was something you had to know how to do in an emergency.
He gritted his teeth against the pain of twisted muscles and bones. He was tired enough this was almost as bad as shifting in the new. Then the process was like shoving a heavy rock uphill, every muscle screaming in protest. The longer the shift took, the longer his body spent in a halfway configuration it wasn’t designed to stand, and the worse it hurt.
It didn’t get any easier, either. It hurt all the way until the moment when he was on four feet and the process was complete. A few muscles still jerked, but he shook himself, smoothing soreness out with movement.
The girl was still in human form, and he tilted his muzzle up to look her in the face. The height difference was annoying. He growled lightly to remind her time was wasting, and she closed her eyes, making a low whine in her throat with her effort.
Andrew waited a good five minutes, but her scent stayed static. It suggested that in his metaphor, she couldn’t even find the damn rock in the first place. He couldn’t coach her at the moment, either.
He dropped his head. Time to start the process all over again. It was worse going back, since he had less energy, and his muscles started out sore. When he was done, he stayed sitting on the floor, trying to look nonchalant about the fact that he couldn’t stand.
“That was— Wow.” The girl looked at him with big eyes.
&nbs
p; Andrew nodded. His voice might betray him by being breathy if he answered. Judging by the smirk she threw his way, he suspected he hadn’t fooled Silver. “Be glad the Lady’s light is still there for you to find if you search,” she told the girl, lips twisting.
The girl looked blank. “What?”
Andrew drew a deep breath. He could probably talk now without betraying himself. “She means it’s not just about pushing harder. You’re pushing plenty, but it doesn’t do you any good if it’s in the wrong spot. If you just fall into it every full, you don’t learn the exact spot in your mind where the shift starts.”
Silver shook her head. “If I’d meant that, I’d have said that. You have to use the Lady’s light between the clouds. The light is dimmer, and you can’t see your wild self as well. Remember that she’s always beside you, you just have to call louder.” Her voice wavered at the end, but she suppressed it. “Call to your wild self. Call until she listens. Don’t drag her in by the scuff, growling all the way.” She gave Andrew a pointed look. When he matched her look for look, she stuck out the tip of her tongue.
“Oh!” The girl concentrated for a moment, then her shift began. It took a full two minutes to complete, and she made panting noises of pain the entire time, but Andrew had never seen such a proud expression on someone in wolf before.
She trotted up the stairs to whuff triumphantly at her mother. The woman looked just as proud, but hid it better. “Good job. Remember you have to shift back for school tomorrow.” She turned back to Andrew, but hesitated before saying anything else. “Thank you.”
“Come here,” Silver offered. “You should rest a little before you shift back.” The girl came to thrust her ears under Silver’s hand for scratching and her mother disappeared upstairs, apparently willing to put her faith in the alpha handling the girl alone from here on out.
Andrew left the girl to Silver’s petting as he dressed until he heard a panting growl. He turned to find the girl shifting back.
He sighed and crouched beside her. “I’m an alpha, and I also have a good few decades on you,” he pointed out as she whined and twisted. “No need to show off.”
The girl collapsed on her side, wheezing, once she made it back to human. She seemed to be too exhausted and aching to be smug or even nod, but Andrew figured she’d taken his point. He smoothed her hair, and helped Silver slide a floor pillow under her head.
Andrew was conscious of time passing, but there was no way he was going to just leave the girl now. He went to poke around the entertainment equipment to give her some privacy. He turned on the TV to find only static. It was hooked to a cable outlet, but it undoubtedly required some arcane combination of inputs, outputs, and channels to be chosen on each device involved in the tangle. Andrew noticed Silver watching him with interest, though he couldn’t see any understanding of the equipment on her face. “Does Death give advice on electronics too?” Andrew chuckled when she gave him a look. “He seems a wolf of many talents, you have to admit.”
After about five minutes, the girl pushed herself up onto her elbow. “I’ve never seen someone with white hair before,” she told Silver as she pulled her clothes over to her. Exhaustion had stripped the teenage arrogance from her voice, leaving it much more pleasant. “Are you white in wolf too?”
Silver picked at a loose thread on the pillow. “I can’t shift. My wild self got lost.”
“Lost?” The girl’s face scrunched up in confusion. “You can’t lose something that’s … part of your body, can you? It comes from growing up. Like your period.” She paused after pulling on her shirt.
“Oh, that’s gone too. I doubt I’ll ever have cubs.” The bleakness in Silver’s words made Andrew’s throat tighten.
“Leave it,” he said, raising his voice, when it seemed like the girl might say something else.
The following silence felt thick. Andrew racked his brain for something that would interest a teen.
Silver beat him to it, though her voice’s cadence was better suited to a younger child. “The Lady is white, you know. Her wild self. And her face up there.” Silver pointed to the sky. “Like Death is black. She creates the light and he absorbs it.”
The girl pressed her thumb to her forehead, automatic. “Well, Death is evil.”
Silver laughed. The sound grabbed at Andrew’s gut for some reason, compelling. “I suppose I thought that at one point too, but mostly he’s full of himself.” She laughed again. “Yes, you are.”
The girl gave Silver an incredulous look. “Who are you talking to?”
“Oh, Death follows me. But don’t worry. I won’t let him near you. It’s me he wants. Dare made it so he can’t have me, but I think he still follows me just to be an ass.”
The girl tittered nervously. “You goth or something? Death betrayed the Lady.”
Andrew sat on the couch as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb Silver.
“Not because he wanted to. It may not make sense to you now, but when you get older you’ll understand that sometimes things have to be done. Hard things. But everyone will hate the person who finally does them.”
Andrew drew himself up straighter, recognizing the echo of his own words. Silver gave him a tiny smile when their eyes caught, then she looked away again. “But if they do them anyway, that’s the mark of true honor.” She let her breath slip out in a sigh and her words took on a storytelling cadence. “When the world was young, we couldn’t die. Not by sickness or age, or injury. Only fire could destroy us, since fire was where the world began. Fire is how the world rebuilds itself even now. But back then the Lady lived among us, with Death at Her side, Her partner in everything. But the humans and the human gods were jealous. That is how humans exist—they are driven to take everything they see, and destroy it if they can’t take it. The human gods gave them fire, and sent them to take what we have.
“But the Lady didn’t see it. She thought we were safe. Death knew better. He knew that we were complacent, and if we did not learn of mortality, we would never stand against the humans. So he killed the first of us with his own jaws, so we could know death and fear it, and fight against it when the humans came. He had to do it, and it worked.
“And the Lady punished him, for betraying Her, because She had to do it too. Because he had stolen the voices of Her slain people, She stole his voice, so he must forever after borrow those of the souls he takes and returns to her. She took his name. And worst of all, She barred him from Her side until the end of our time. So he loves Her, but he can never feel Her presence again.”
Silver tilted her head up so her tears couldn’t spill free. Andrew’s instincts screamed at him to touch, to pet, to hold, but the girl was right there, and the moment passed. Silver pulled herself together.
“Little heavy for a kid, don’t you think?” he teased awkwardly.
“I’m not a kid,” the girl protested. “But I still think Death is evil.”
Silver smiled, a little tight, but a good effort. “I know, puppy.” The girl bristled further at the diminutive and pushed herself up to finish getting dressed.
Andrew watched Silver, rather than the girl. Her expression was unreadable, but he kept turning her words over in his thoughts. Was he Death, doing what no one else would, or was Silver, barred from the Lady’s presence? He supposed to Silver’s mind he was barred from the Lady too, though he had chosen that when he ceased to believe.
17
Once Andrew had seen the girl to her mother, he returned to the kitchen where Pierce and another couple Were had gathered, cleaning up after lunch. Now he had a sensitive question, he might as well try it on everyone.
Something made everyone’s heads come up before Andrew could speak, however. Unused to sorting traffic on the road from traffic up the driveway for this particular house, Andrew took a moment to realize what had attracted their attention. A car door slammed, and someone’s key scraped in the front door.
“John!” Everyone seemed too frozen to answer. A woman’s heels t
apped down the hall. “Look, I’m so sorry, but there’s no one else to take Edmond.”
Pierce cast a frustrated glance at Andrew and stepped forward to intercept the woman. The other Were faded back into the kitchen, smelling of fear and more guilt. What the hell was going on?
John’s footsteps thumped down the stairs in a great hurry and he skidded into the entryway behind her a moment later. The woman stopped short at John’s sudden entrance. She was close enough now that Andrew could match her to the human woman’s scent around the house. She looked to be in her midtwenties, with an aggressively fashionable haircut of the kind Andrew associated with women planning to climb the corporate ladder.
The baby in the sling across her front squalled, but subsided when she cupped her arm underneath to bounce him. He needed his diaper changed. Strange choice of girlfriend. Awfully young, and Andrew wouldn’t have thought that John was the type to put up with a single mother.
“Susan, not now—” Pierce started herding her toward the door. The scent of panic bloomed from John’s direction when he noticed Andrew watching the whole scene. He strode forward like he wanted to block Andrew’s view with his shoulders. Andrew just sidestepped.
“I’m just dropping him off. I’ll only be here a minute, I promise.” Susan pushed right past the beta. Dominant. That made more sense for John. She unbuckled the sling and dropped a hefty diaper bag covered with tulips at John’s feet. “Please, just for a few hours.” She put the baby into John’s unresisting arms.
Andrew rubbed at his jaw. That’s how it was, then. John must be the child’s father. Was this what John had been hiding? But this was too simple. People would give John shit, sure, but everyone had some human blood somewhere in their family tree. It was like how everyone had a relative among the true wolves if one looked far enough. These things happened, especially when you lived in a world where one had to practically live and breathe human. He presumed this explained yesterday’s late arrival. John must have been arguing with her over whatever excuse he was using to keep her away while Andrew was here.
Silver Page 16