Grayson Lanning was not as tall as Ezekiel, but broader. Not as old as Natividad had expected: probably not yet even forty. But authoritative, even so. To a merely human eye, he would have looked like… a banker, maybe, or the director of a wealthy company, or maybe – and this was a little more accurate – the head of a ruthless drug cartel. Natividad knew exactly what he was: an extremely dominant black dog with a dangerous temper and a murderously strong shadow.
The Dimilioc Master’s eyes were deep-set and dark, his brows heavy, his mouth straight and humorless as an axe cut. Where Ezekiel Korte was lithe and light as a dancer, Grayson Lanning was rugged, broad, strong-boned, and powerful. Natividad didn’t have to remind herself to drop her eyes when he stared at her. The scent of charred wood and smoldering coal that surrounded him was, to her senses, very strong. It enshrouded the entire house. If any ordinary humans were in that house, she could not tell. She was almost sure no one else Pure was in there. She already knew that all the men on the porch were black dogs. No. Not black dogs at all. Dimilioc black wolves.
Alejandro glanced sideways at her. She pressed his hand hard, trying to steady him. Then she let go, because her brother would have to face the Dimilioc wolves without her help. She was sure he could. She could feel her own heart beating quickly and lightly, like the heart of a bird. Her brother would be able to hear it, probably. She smiled at him anyway, a bright, brave smile that denied fear. On her other side, Miguel did not smile. He looked very solemn.
Alejandro took one step forward, putting himself out in front of Natividad and Miguel, and went to his knees. To both knees. Natividad knew why: he was acknowledging that now it was impossible either to run or to fight. She dropped to her knees as well, knowing the Dimilioc wolves would expect that from all of them. Beside her, Miguel swung the pack down to the ground and also knelt. Alejandro did not glance back at them, but lifted his eyes and looked into Grayson Lanning’s face. Then he deliberately lowered his gaze to the ground.
“Well,” said the Dimilioc Master, speaking to Ezekiel Korte, “When I sent you out after our trespassers, I did not expect you to bring them to back to our very doorstep. Certainly not alive. I gather you believed I would benefit from meeting them personally?” His voice was heavy, a deep gritty bass that was almost a growl.
“They thought so,” Ezekiel answered, his tone faintly amused. “They’d left their car stuck someplace and were walking in on foot. Along the road, obvious as you please. Asked for you by name.” He leaned his hip on the porch rail and crossed his arms over his chest, looking cool and not very much concerned, for all the world like any posturing teenager. But he was not just any teenager, and he was not posturing.
“The boy’s human, but that girl’s Pure,” one of the older men said. Dark and heavyset. Old, at least fifty, but still strong. That would be Harrison Lanning, Grayson’s older brother. He was frowning, but did not look actually hostile. The other dark one, about Ezekiel’s age, that one must be Harrison’s son, Ethan Lanning. He had the look of the Lannings and he was the right age. He looked hostile – the only Dimilioc wolf to seem truly antagonistic rather than merely scornful. Natividad wasn’t sure she blamed him, though. It must be hard to be just ordinary when you lived in the same house as Ezekiel Korte.
“Yes, Harrison, we all know she is Pure,” said the oldest of the men, fair and light boned. That would be Zachariah Korte, Ezekiel’s uncle. He certainly had the same supercilious tilt to his head.
Grayson studied Natividad. “She may be Pure, but she’s a child.”
Natividad looked the leader of the Dimilioc in the face. As he had addressed her, she could answer. She said, as meekly as she knew how, “Fifteen, sir, though I have cousins my age who are married, so I don’t think I’m a child.”
Heavy brows lifted. “No? Well, perhaps you are right. And you believe your Purity will protect you. What do you think will protect your brothers? Especially that one?” He nodded toward Alejandro. “A black dog openly trespassing on our very doorstep.”
Natividad’s brows drew together. She opened her mouth to say, “We came in right along your road, didn’t we? You didn’t exactly plaster “No Trespassing” signs along the way, did you?” But Alejandro put in quickly, before she could say anything, “We all thought at least Natividad would be safe, and probably Miguel, and if we were wrong, sir, it’s my fault. I argued them into coming to you, so it’s my fault and not theirs.”
Grayson lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
Alejandro said as sharply as he dared, “It is! Because of what our father said about Dimilioc and about you. He said Dimilioc was lucky you were Master, he said Thos Korte might have started the war, but you could finish it; he said you would fight the war cueste lo que cueste. He said, when the vampire miasma failed, Thos Korte would have failed too; he would have let the vampires regain their strength, he would have been afraid to lose the miasma, afraid of what ordinary human people would do when they became able to see us all. But you would pursue the war to the end, no matter what it cost…” He faltered and stopped.
Natividad knew her brother had been silenced by the stark memory of exactly what the true cost of Dimilioc’s war had been: emboldened strays hunting as they pleased; and worse, far worse, Papá’s own bitterest enemy tracking him down at last. She wanted to touch Alejandro’s hand, say something to help him, but she could think of nothing to say.
Then Alejandro drew a hard breath and said, “Papá said you were a good Master and an honorable man. So, I said we should come. So, our offense is my fault, sir, and if you punish our insolence, you should punish me and not my brother and sister. No matter how many of our cousins married young, Natividad is only fifteen and that’s a child. And Miguel – he’s not a black dog and he’s no older than she is, and anyway, what would she do without a brother to protect her? You must not punish them.”
“Your father?”
Alejandro had, of course, deliberately provoked Grayson to ask that question, but now he wasn’t quick to answer. A whole lifetime of silence was hard to overcome.
“Edward Toland, sir,” Miguel said. Very respectfully.
Grayson’s heavy brows rose. “Edward. Well. I wouldn’t have guessed that at all.” He paused, studying Miguel, and then went on, “Though perhaps I see a similarity. A subtle likeness, but now I look for it, I might believe that you come from the Toland bloodline.”
“Yes, sir. We do,” Miguel assured him.
Grayson examined them all, one after another. “You all have the same mother? A Pure woman? Do I understand that correctly?”
“Yes. Yes, sir.”
“How very imprudent of Edward. Thos would not have liked that at all. No wonder he hid himself and his family so carefully. Well… Well, he is now dead, I imagine? During the war?”
Natividad looked down, swallowing. Her dark grief was nothing she wanted to show strangers; it was too ready to tear open, a chasm that could swallow her whole. She was grateful when Miguel answered because that meant she didn’t have to. “After the war, when the black dogs began hunting so boldly,” her twin explained. “Papá hid from Dimilioc well enough before, but not… after the war…” Miguel stopped, taking a hard breath, not as unaffected as he tried to seem.
“Yes, I understand. There are many more stray black dogs in Mexico than here, of course.” Grayson’s hard gaze moved to Natividad, then to Alejandro. He said to Alejandro, “Thus, your decision to cross the border.”
“Yes, sir,” said Alejandro. He didn’t look at Miguel. He said, “We needed to get Natividad somewhere safe. We couldn’t protect her – I could not. Our father’s enemies, they would not stop.”
“Your father’s enemies,” Grayson Lanning repeated, his voice expressionless.
Alejandro had argued that they shouldn’t explain the real reason they’d had to leave Mexico, in case the Dimilioc Master wondered whether he really needed another enemy. But Miguel had said they had better not start at Dimilioc with a lie and Natividad had sided
with her twin. So now Alejandro said, still not looking at Miguel, pretending everything had always been his idea, “Vonhausel.”
“That old enmity,” said Zachariah. His tone was dry and unamused. “Yes, I recall that quarrel vividly. So, it did not die even after both Edward and Malvern Vonhausel were cast out.”
“No, sir,” said Alejandro. He started to say something else, but Miguel, interrupting, said quickly and earnestly, “At first I think Papá thought he might track Vonhausel down and kill him, but then I guess Vonhausel got too strong, and Papá met Mamá, and after that Mamá kept us hidden, but I guess maybe there was a lot of magic loose during the war, and somehow Vonhausel learned where we were–”
Alejandro said, overriding Miguel’s lighter voice, “I cannot protect my sister from Malvern Vonhausel. But Dimilioc can surely protect her. If you will. Master.”
Grayson regarded him thoughtfully. “Well, that is likely true. But am I seriously meant to believe that at some point before he died, Edward Toland actually advised you to appeal to Dimilioc for protection?” A slight incredulity had come into the Master’s voice.
Alejandro answered, “Yes, sir. He told… He told us about Dimilioc. He said that the only black dogs who do not live in fear belong to Dimilioc and call themselves wolves. He told us that Dimilioc black wolves live together with humans and with the Pure. That Dimilioc wolves use the Aplacando, the Calming, and cherish the Pure. We know… Everyone knows Dimilioc has always killed any black dog who dares hunt the Pure.” Alejandro paused, then went on, “And then we heard that Thos Korte was dead and you were Master. Papá said if we had to… to leave Mexico, we should come to you.”
What Papá had actually said was, “Don’t stand and fight, hear me?”
He had been speaking to Alejandro; it would not have occurred to Natividad or even Miguel to stand and fight. And he had not exactly been speaking. He had been snarling, the change half on him. They had known by then that Vonhausel had come, that he was close. That they would not be able to fight. The dry forest around Potosi was already burning, the oaks smoldering into slow flames and the pines going up like torches. Black smoke had veiled the whole sky.
Mamá had been trying to show Natividad a special way to hide, always hard for the Pure. Natividad had been trying to learn it, crying with fear and trying not to beg to stay with Miguel. She had known if she stayed too close to her brother, she might draw black dogs to them both. She had had to hide by herself, at the base of the live oak, concealed by its living shadow, and Mamá… Natividad wouldn’t think about that.
But she couldn’t help but remember how desperate and furious Papá had sounded when he’d ordered Alejandro: “Get clear of this, don’t fight, lead those bastards off of us, as many as you can get to follow you. Come back if you can, find your brother and sister, take them north. Dimilioc’s the only chance you’ll have, understand me? You’ll have to throw the dice. Grayson Lanning has got to be better than old Thos, he could hardly be worse, and Toland is a name he’ll recognize.”
Alejandro said only, “He told me Dimilioc would remember his name. He said you might take us in.”
“Is that what your father told you?” Grayson was silent for a moment. He did not seem to expect a response, but at length went on, quietly, his deep voice dropping into a still lower register, “It’s been, what? Twenty years, since your father quarreled with Vonhausel and then, like a lunatic, with Thos Korte. At least twenty years. I find it interesting that your father, though exiled from Dimilioc, nevertheless found himself a Pure woman. That he even married her. I find it incredible that he lived long enough to have children your age and yet never once brought himself to our attention.”
Alejandro apparently could think of no response to make to this. Natividad certainly couldn’t. Not even Miguel seemed to have anything to say.
“And now you are here. Possibly with Malvern Vonhausel snapping at your heels. Well. And you think Dimilioc should lay claim to your father’s old quarrel?”
Here it was, this moment, which held either life or death, which held their futures and all their lives. Natividad wished she could answer. Or Miguel, who could always find words that were smooth and polite and persuasive. But the Dimilioc Master would expect Alejandro to answer before his younger human brother or Pure sister.
So it was Alejandro who took a breath, met Grayson’s eyes, and answered, “Dimilioc hunts down descontrolados black dogs and sends them into the fell dark; Dimilioc clears moon-bound shifters out of the sunlit world and protects the Pure. Twenty years ago, Vonhausel did not dare challenge Dimilioc. Now the war is done, if there still exists any civilized House of black wolves he will not dare challenge, it is this one. So, I brought my sister here. Will you not take her in?”
The Dimilioc Master did not answer. He regarded Alejandro with narrow-eyed intensity.
Alejandro lowered his gaze, but from the angle of his head, Natividad knew he continued to watch Grayson covertly. He said suddenly, “Was the cost of the war with the vampires so high?” Alejandro looked from man to man on the porch: Grayson and Harrison and Ethan Lanning; Zachariah and Ezekiel Korte. “Is this all your strength?”
Grayson said nothing.
“You are weak,” Alejandro said harshly. “Dimilioc is weak. All the callejeros were hiding before, they were quiet, but now why should they hide their shadows? Never mind Vonhausel: if even ordinary stray black dogs look north now, who is here to stop them?”
“I expect we’d manage somehow,” murmured Ezekiel, cool and mocking and totally unimpressed.
“Oh, yes, will you? Should black dogs fear the Dimilioc verdugo?” Alejandro asked him. “The Dimilioc executioner, who can find you anywhere and will step silently out of the night to tear out your heart – every black dog fears the verdugo! But even the executioner himself cannot fight ten black dogs at once… or twenty… or fifty.”
“You might be surprised,” said Ezekiel, smiling a little.
Alejandro shook his head. “It’s fear that defended Dimilioc. It was fear of you that kept the callejeros quiet in the world. But now Gehorsam is gone from Germany, and nearly all the Lumondiere wolves dead in France, so we hear, and who knows about the Dacha? Or the cartels in Syria and Saudi Arabia; not that they are a loss, but they were strong and now they are gone. If not even Dimilioc remains strong enough to make all the norteamericano black dogs afraid, then the callejeros will hunt the Pure, and never mind what Malvern Vonhausel will do! Any black dog with strength enough to force another to follow him will come to pull you down. If you have only five wolves to meet them, they will do it–”
Grayson gave Alejandro a burning look, and Alejandro stopped. The Dimilioc Master said, his tone harsh, “I assure you, pup, black dogs everywhere are still wise to fear Dimilioc.”
Alejandro lowered his eyes, but Miguel, less impressed by black dog aggression, said, “If Dimilioc can’t hold against stray black dogs, that would be… Look, you have to hold. If Dimilioc was gone, even the weakest of the black dogs would hunt as they please. There would be another war, this one between black dogs and humans, and no one would win that one either, but black dogs would lose it.”
Grayson transferred his burning look to Miguel.
Miguel didn’t seem to notice. He said earnestly, “Dimilioc needs to be stronger, whether Vonhausel comes or does not come. You don’t have time to breed more black wolves of Dimilioc bloodlines. You need us as much as we need you! Toland used to be Dimilioc. We could be again. Alejandro is strong right now – Papá trained him all his life–”
“Enough!” snapped Alejandro. But he said to Grayson, “But that is true. That is all true. We came to ask Dimilioc to take us in. If you can protect my sister and brother, then we will strengthen Dimilioc.”
Grayson Lanning tilted his head, amusement and something else in his hard face. “You amaze me.”
“I will be loyal to Dimilioc,” Alejandro insisted. “We all will be. Six wolves would be stronger than five. Enough, maybe. M
iguel will make himself useful to you – and, after all, our sister is Pure.”
Ethan Lanning said with contempt, “Pimping your sister, are you, pup?”
Only Natividad’s grab at his arm kept Alejandro in his place. She was furious and didn’t mind letting it show, because meekness was all very well, but there were limits. She said sharply to Grayson, ignoring Ethan, “I told Alejandro he should say that. It’s obvious anyway. Did you think it was an accident I said that about my married cousins? I’m not a puta; I won’t lie down with them all. But if you take us into Dimilioc, I’ll take any one of your wolves you say.” She jerked her head scornfully at Ethan. “Even him.”
Ethan Lanning flushed and snarled, his shadow rising fast through him so that his jaw distorted and his claws slid out of his hands, which Natividad affected not to notice. But, with impressive control, he stopped the change there, his shadow subsiding, at no more than a look from his father.
“If we kill your brothers and keep you?” Harrison said to Natividad. He glowered at her, though she couldn’t tell whether that was because he was angry with her, or irritated with his son, or whether that was only his normal manner.
She tossed her head, glaring back at him. “Then I’ll hate you all. You don’t want that.”
“We don’t,” Grayson agreed, his rough voice cutting across Harrison’s response. The Dimilioc Master walked down the steps and put one thick finger under Natividad’s chin, tipping her face up. She met his eyes, though she knew perfectly well how dangerous that was. She could see Alejandro staring at her, willing her to be meek and submissive. But she wasn’t a black dog. She didn’t have to drop her gaze. Nor did the Master of the Dimilioc wolves seem offended. After a moment, he let her go.
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