Silver

by Rhiannon Held

  “Hi.” Andrew put on a pleasant smile and stepped around John. Might as well introduce himself to the woman. John had no reason to hide her now his secret was out. Andrew didn’t want that additional guilt confusing what he needed to find out.

  Silver slipped in behind him. Less worried about manners, she stared at Susan with frank interest.

  Susan rocked back on her heels like the hand Andrew extended to shake was some kind of threat. “Oh. Uh. Hi.” She glanced to John and her baby, and then to the door and escape. Andrew suppressed a frown. He was keeping his dominance as damped as he always did for humans. Was he getting that sloppy, that he was scaring her?

  “You smell of fear. Which, as Death says, is odd.” Silver prowled over to stand between Susan and the door. “What’s to fear? Those of our kind are hardly frightening unless you know.”

  “Know what?” Susan’s hands started shaking, and her fear flared to choking levels. “John said the friend coming to stay was kind of a hard-ass, that’s all.” She threw Andrew an apologetic smile.

  Andrew would have growled at Silver for scaring the woman for no reason, but Susan didn’t quite smell of fear of the unknown. She smelled of guilt and fear of being found out. Her and the entire pack. The stink of panic had gathered thickly enough to cloud the hall.

  Could she know about the Were? The conclusion seemed obvious, but Andrew couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that anyone would be so stupid as to tell a human anything, sleeping with her or not.

  “I doubt that’s what he really said.” Silver dropped to all fours, or at least three, with her bad arm tucked into her pocket. Susan flinched from the movement, a movement that, if anything, should have been less threatening in human terms.

  There was no mistaking Susan’s flare of fear, either. The human woman knew about them. How could John have told her? How could he?

  “No!” John tried to hand his child back to his mother, but quivering tension made her slow to respond. Silver straightened and slipped between them and gathered the baby up, cradling him in her good arm. The moment the baby was elsewhere, Andrew shook off his shocked paralysis and closed the distance to John.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Andrew had the satisfaction of seeing John flinch as he spat the words, a few inches from his face. “How could you possibly—”

  John put a restraining hand on his arm, and Andrew jerked it off. “Outside. Do this outside.” John repeated the motion, and Andrew repeated throwing it off.

  “Why? Since she knows already—” Andrew glanced to Susan, and when he looked back, he saw such fear in John’s eyes it disgusted him. Disgusted him with himself. He hated that his reputation was so bad people would actually think he’d threaten the life of John’s child, or even the human he loved.

  Andrew stomped for the front door without saying another word. John’s garbled explanations to his girlfriend followed Andrew out to the front step where he waited, door open, for the other man to follow.

  “—that’s why I said you couldn’t ever come to the house. He smelled it on you. It doesn’t matter how much self-control you have, you can’t hide that—”

  Silver made an exasperated sound, and Andrew smiled slightly, imagining the matching expression. “He’s not going to kill you. Either of you.” Susan’s wordless response didn’t sound particularly soothed. “However stupid you were.” That, too, sounded aimed at both members of the couple.

  “John,” Andrew snapped, putting an alpha’s command into the word. The moment he heard John’s steps coming toward him he started around the side of the house. He found the patch of shadows he wanted under the eaves alongside the garage. They’d still have to keep their voices down, but they would have more privacy from neighbors there than in the backyard.

  “Dare—” John’s voice was practically whining now. He dragged a hand through his hair, spiking it up.

  “Look.” Andrew brushed away a spider silk strand he’d picked up on his sleeve. The scent of decomposing grass clippings from the bin next door stung his nose. “Was this human woman the one who knew about the Bellingham pack, the person everyone was protecting?” He paused for John’s jerky nod. “Do you swear on the Lady no one else but Portland knew about Silver’s pack’s existence?” For that, he caught John’s gaze, to hit him with dominance as he answered, and read the truth in his eyes.

  “Yes,” John said, voice steady for that at least. Truth, so far as Andrew could tell.

  “Fine. If she can swear she didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t hear anything about her, understand? I don’t want to—” Andrew was so frustrated he couldn’t figure out what he’d intended with his gesture, so he aborted it halfway. “Deal with this. Any of this. I think you’re a moron who should have been castrated if he was going to let his dick do his thinking for him to this degree, but I can’t scare the knowledge out of her, can I? So it can wait until I’ve dealt with the killer, and then you can have your pack back and all these stupid problems with it, and welcome.”

  John stared at him in silence for several moments. “Oh,” he said at length. “Who’d have thought.” Andrew speared him with an annoyed glance, and he continued. “That you’re that style of alpha.”

  Andrew snorted. “What, temporary? Sure. Makes life much easier.” He set his fist against the garage wall’s siding, careful to hold back any force. “We none of us bask in unobscured moonlight. I married a European, of all things. No one was exactly happy about that at the time, as I recall. But that ended badly, and you know this is going to also.”

  “Susan’s intelligent. She would never—”

  “She’s a young human. ‘I won’t tell anyone’ actually means ‘—except my closest friend I trust not to tell anyone else.’ You see how it starts?” Andrew got up into John’s face again. “Or imagine if she was tortured. She can take a lot less than a werewolf could, should the killer decide to dig for a little information.”

  John barked a harsh laugh. “It’s not like Selene could take much either. And yet you’ve hardly cut ties to her, have you?”

  “Silver.” The correction slipped out before Andrew even thought about it. “I’m protecting her from the danger she was already in when I met her. You’re putting Susan into it.”

  The garage door machinery in the next house rumbled a warning of prying eyes arriving soon. The two men eyed each other for a moment before heading back to the front door.

  Susan sipped a cup of coffee at the kitchen counter as they came in. She looked a little less severe with her jacket hung over the chair back, but maintained a self-possessed air.

  Silver sat on a step stool rather than a kitchen chair, the baby in her lap now to save her arm from getting too tired. She made little yipping and growling noises as well as faces, entertaining him with canine baby talk. Susan looked twitchy, showing the usual human discomfort with the Were habit of passing a child around the pack like it belonged to everyone.

  Seeing John, Susan picked up a second mug of coffee that had been waiting ready, and came over to offer it to him. “I’m so sorry—I thought I’d just be here for two minutes, and what I know or don’t know wouldn’t even come up—”

  “It was going to come up eventually anyway,” Andrew said before John could answer. “Better me than someone else.”

  Silver balanced the child’s weight so she could prop him up for Andrew to look him in the face. He stared at Andrew blankly, lips a little poked out. “You can see his wild shape in his eyes!” Her face shone with excitement. “Even though he doesn’t have a real one yet. Maybe that’s where mine hid.” She continued holding up the baby, like Andrew was supposed to look into his eyes and see—whatever was so important to Silver.

  He ruffled the baby’s hair instead, and the boy transferred his blankly intense gaze from the opposite wall to Andrew. Andrew’s heart squeezed. He missed his daughter like a physical pain sometimes. Silver’s arm looked like it was tiring from the strain, so Andrew got a good grip, took the baby from her, and swooped him a
round to the side. The baby made a sound like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh or not. John flinched, and Andrew handed the boy to him unharmed.

  “What the hell is she talking about?” Susan looked from Silver to John and back.

  Andrew hadn’t realized how Silver had gone from being incomprehensible to sounding almost normal to him until he saw Susan’s completely baffled expression. “Silver sees our Goddess a lot. I think she’s talking about how your son can’t shift yet.”

  “Yet?” Susan glanced to John. The word had a dangerous overtone.

  John winced. “I told you, there was always a chance that he wouldn’t inherit—”

  Andrew snorted. “And by ‘always a chance’ he means ‘certain unsubstantiated rumors’ about crossbreeds—”

  “You may not have planned him, but he is the Lady’s. Her light is on his face.” Silver inserted herself into the conversation as she came up to flick the baby’s cheek. “She watches over the smallest of Her children.”

  “How do you know we didn’t—?” Susan’s anger turned to focus on Silver.

  “Death undoubtedly told her. Come on, Silver. Stop scaring the nice lady.” Andrew patted Silver’s shoulder and she snapped her teeth at his hand. He wasn’t going to explain it in front of Silver, but it was an obvious conclusion. He doubted John would have planned to give himself the trouble a crossbreed child would cause. And he was nearly certain the man would not have lied about the chances of werewolf blood being inherited if he’d been faced with a woman making an informed decision.

  Andrew moved around Silver to get a better position to smell Susan’s reaction as he asked his next question. Hopefully her confusion over Silver’s rambling would distract her and make her answer more honestly. “Did you ever tell anyone about John’s friends up in Bellingham? Doesn’t matter if you said they were human or not, just that you said they were in Bellingham.”

  Susan shook her head. “I didn’t know he had friends in Bellingham.” No lie in her scent.

  Andrew let a breath trickle out. That was that, he supposed. Seattle wasn’t hiding anything after all. And so the time continued to tick away without him having a real lead.

  “I should go back there. Try to find the monster’s name where the memories are stronger.”

  All eyes in the room turned to Silver except Susan’s. Her disgruntled expression at having no clue what was going on deepened. Silver crossed her arms, good holding up bad, and looked stubborn.

  “No.” John spoke the word as Andrew opened his mouth to say the same. Andrew’s automatic instinct to oppose John whenever he tried to meddle in Silver’s business made him pause long enough to really see Silver’s expression.

  She looked and smelled frightened, but not like she had been before, at the mention of the killer or going back to the scene of the crime. It seemed like fear that had been harnessed to fuel action, resolve. He frowned. “Maybe she should. There’s a lot that would help us if she could remember it.”

  John’s expression started to darken. “No—”

  “Death speaks to me in their voices. It’s not as if I can escape them even here. You can’t wrap me up and save me from what’s in my own head and walking beside me.” Silver tapped her temple and gestured to the area beside her feet that Death seemed to occupy most often. “Look to your own pack. Look to your child. Dare will need my help if he is to find the monster before the monster finds you.”

  “So let Dare go to Bellingham, if there’s something in Bellingham.” John held the baby closer and the boy squalled at the jostling.

  Silver started to shake, and Andrew caught her shoulders in case she should start a seizure, but the trembling had the same focused quality as her fear, carrying her to her goal. “Dare doesn’t know what I know. I have to help. He’d kill the baby first, you know. The monster would. That’s how he caught us. The children. Held a knife to their throats, and we all sat still for him to tie up, no fight. That easy. To save the children from harm.

  “And then he killed them. For mercy. Let the Lady keep the innocent soul while he tried to save yours. Only all his knives were silver. So it wasn’t a mercy. One clean stroke, but you could see in their eyes that it burned to the last. The last thing they felt was the poison in their blood.”

  Susan made a strangled, gagging noise and grabbed for her child. The boy cried louder as he left his father’s arms. John hissed a curse under his breath. Andrew tightened his grip on Silver, remembering only belatedly to think of bruises. Just when he thought he’d discovered the depth of the killer’s perversions, something shook him to the core once more. Using a pack’s children against them?

  Silver switched her intense gaze to him. “You understand inaction, don’t you? Let me do something. Let me go home. Stop him before it’s someone else who is listening to silver screams.”

  Andrew drew in a long breath. She was right. He understood inaction, the emotions bubbling up until they either had to be turned inward, or outward. His had been rage, not fear, but who was he to say Silver didn’t have some rage too. She had been a powerful woman and that didn’t just go away. She’d want justice even more than he did. “Give me a chance to exhaust every other lead, at least. After that, we’ll go.” There had to be something he’d overlooked. He’d do everything he could to find it, to save her the need to face her home.

  “So now we know why they didn’t fight,” John said, rage in his voice sliding into desperation. “Lady’s light in Her realm above. Using the children. But how does that help us?”

  “We know it could have been one man alone,” Andrew said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to think. He was no detective—as enforcer, he put his nose to the trail of the perpetrator, and found them for punishment. Easy, clear-cut. “We know he could have been a stranger…” He repeated that to himself a few times and got no farther.

  What he needed was a fresh perspective. He got out his phone and nodded to John. “I’m going to make some calls.” He headed for the stairs. This time, it was less important if someone overheard. It might strengthen the impression their alpha was accomplishing something, even, when he really wasn’t. At the head of the stairs, Andrew drew in a deep breath until he found the direction with the strongest scent of John. Silver verified that clue by turning that way without stopping after she climbed the stairs behind him.

  John’s former room was reasonably spacious, though a lot of that room was taken up by his king bed. A flat-screen TV spanned the entire wall between the windows opposite it. Even with clean sheets on the bed, the place still stank of John in a way that suggested his dirty clothing hadn’t often made it into a hamper in the closet. Silver jumped on the bed immediately, pulling over a pillow to lean on.

  Andrew remained standing as he dialed Benjamin. The older alpha waited patiently after they exchanged greetings for Andrew to get to his real point but Andrew couldn’t think of a way to phrase his question without sounding weak. When the silence drew out a bit too long, he started with the easier thing first. “Any news on that lone of yours?”

  “Nothing yet.” Again, Andrew got the sense Benjamin suspected there was more to this call than that, and was waiting for Andrew to get his act together.

  Better to just say it, then. “I don’t know where to pick up this scent, Benjamin. I’m reduced to backtracking, but I keep feeling like there’s something I’ve missed.” He summarized all he’d found for Boston. Laid out, it seemed so little. Probably Were, could have been someone alone since he’d controlled the pack with threats to the children.

  “Have you called your contacts in Europe to see what they can add? I know it’s not anything you’ve seen before, but the use of silver remains.”

  Andrew drew in a deep breath against the familiar surge of anger. Why couldn’t anyone leave it alone? Of course he hadn’t.

  “You should have seen him the last time someone mentioned his past,” Silver remarked, coming into range of the cell phone’s pickup. “You’re smart to stay out
of reach to bring it up.”

  “Leave it alone.” It was hard for Andrew to get the words out with his jaw clenched.

  Silver cocked her head in a listening posture. “Death wishes to point out that you’re avoiding your memories as much as I am.”

  “You’re the one who just finished saying you didn’t have any idea for what to do next.” Benjamin’s tone took on a paternal flavor of exasperation. “What, you called thinking I’d give you permission not to do what you’re avoiding so hard? No such luck.”

  “Of course not. But I’m still not going to.” Andrew put his hand on Silver’s shoulder to shove her aside and out of the conversation, but she proved surprisingly resistant, bracing herself on both feet.

  “Death says your wife wants you to man up and stop being such a coward.”

  Andrew shoved hard enough to throw Silver off balance this time. She smirked and pressed right back into his personal space. “Come. I can take you down easily.” She brought up her hand to make a “bring it on” gesture. It was so incongruous, laughter bubbled up from somewhere. Andrew had no doubt that Silver could hold her own in a conflict, but it would be from knowing not to start a head-on fight. This was playacting.

  He snorted, and took her good wrist, holding it tightly enough that she couldn’t move her arm. She kept her eyes on him calmly, as if she was waiting for him to think it through now that she’d freed him from his immediate, unreasoning anger.

  “They wouldn’t tell me anything anyway. If they did, they’d lie.” It came out as a snarl. He dropped her wrist.

  Silver stepped away this time. “You still need to try.”

  Rich laughter came from the phone. “Well, well.”

  Andrew snarled again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Benjamin gave a last chuckle. “It means good luck. Tell the young woman I’m impressed.” With that, Benjamin ended the call.