She stepped from cool tile onto padded carpet, and Annie looked up at the sound.
“Hey, not bad,” she said, closing her book and rising from where she’d been perched on the edge of the bed. “I was afraid they’d be falling off you. Oh, do you need me to find you a pair of socks or slippers or something?”
Cassidy smiled. “No, thanks. I’m fine. But I think I’ve officially reached my adventure quotient for the evening. I’d better get my keys and get changed so I can go home. The city will be a safer place for it.”
“Don’t worry about getting changed. You’ve just put all that on, so it seems silly to take it off again. Keep it. That’s what Missy has it here for. Or if you’re determined to give it back, go ahead and stick it in the mail. Or drop it off at the club anytime. No worries.”
The chatty brunette led the way out of the room Cassidy had landed in and down a darkly wainscoted residential hall. More residential than any Cassidy had seen at Vircolac before. She frowned.
“You know, I thought that with Nana dragging me around here for so many years, I’d seen all there was to see of the club. But I have to confess, I don’t remember this.”
“We’re not in the club. We’re in Graham and Missy’s house next door,” Annie said and glanced back over her shoulder. “I assumed you knew that. I guess it’s a good thing I’m taking you back to the roof then. You really are lost.”
She had landed in the private residence of the Alpha werewolf of the Silverback Clan?
“I guess I am,” she said, trying to laugh it off. “That will teach me to give Nana the slip, won’t it?”
Annie stopped in front of a paneled door and reached for the handle, holding it open so Cassidy could step through. At least she was grinning, though, and not filing a police report for trespassing. “Don’t worry about it. If there’s anything the Alpha and his mate understand, it’s the desire to get away from friends and relatives. Especially the well-meaning ones.”
Cassidy laughed and stepped through the door onto the cool tar of the rooftop. “Thanks for the guidance,” she said. “I’m just going to run and get my keys and get out of here. The stairs back down into the club, I think I remember.”
“Sure thing.” Annie smiled, stepping back inside with a little wave. “Have a good night, Ms. Poe. It was nice to meet you.”
“Cassidy, please.”
“Cassidy. Just give a yell if you need anything else. Anyone you ask will know how to find me.”
“Thanks.”
Annie waved again and disappeared inside. The door clicked shut behind her, leaving Cassidy alone on the roof.
Which was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place.
After a cautious look around, she moved with quiet steps toward the greenhouse, eyes, ears, and nose open for any sign of her Lupine attacker from earlier. A slight breeze stirred the crisp air and carried the scent of the winter city to her, but no trace of wolf. She blew out a relieved breath, still moving quickly and quietly toward where she’d last had her keys. It didn’t pay to let down her guard.
The warm air of the greenhouse felt strange after the chilly night outside and raised goose bumps on her skin. She shivered and glanced around the plant-filled area, her keen night vision scanning the slate for the glint of metal.
Over by the dahlias.
She hurried to the spilled ring and found her small clutch under the table to the left. She took one look at her dress, which was covered in dust and rust-colored fur, and was torn in at least two places by sharp black claws, and abandoned it as hopeless. A quick glance revealed no men’s clothing, so maybe the werewolf had gotten dressed and left. Still, she wasn’t taking chances.
Grabbing her keys and her purse, she took another wary look around and beat a path to the stairway door. Time to get the hell home and forget this night had ever happened.
She wrenched open the door, took a step forward, and felt her stomach sink into her ankles.
“Good Lord! Cassidy Emilia! What on earth happened to you?”
Five
If luck had been on her side—the good kind rather than the kind she could usually count on having—she would have been on her way to a quiet apartment, a steaming hot bath, and a very, very large glass of white burgundy. But instead, she was frozen solid on the threshold of the rooftop door and trying to muster a calm smile for her outraged grandmother.
“Nana. Are you having a good evening?”
“What in the world is going on here, young lady? I demand an explanation.”
Not surprising, considering how good Adele was at making demands. Cassidy scrambled for a plausible cover story. One that didn’t involve a naked game of chase with the Lupine leader of the European delegation whose name she still didn’t know.
“I’m sorry, Nana,” she said, trying to sound repentant. She’d had years of practice. “I developed a searing headache earlier and I just came up here to try and clear the fog. I thought the quiet and fresh air might help.”
Adele folded both hands over the top of the cane she didn’t quite need and raised one dark, arching eyebrow. “And how do you explain your attire?”
Cassidy looked down at herself and blinked. She’d forgotten about the sweat suit. “My attire. Right. Well . . . you see . . .”
“Cassidy.”
Her grandmother spoke her name and Cassidy looked up, feeling like a four-year-old caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. It amazed her that even at the age of twenty-nine, it only took one look from Adele to send her right back to that place.
She shifted uncomfortably in the silence. Even though she recognized the tactic as one of her grandmother’s favorites, she was helpless against it. Which explained the whole “favorite” thing.
“Cassidy,” Adele finally repeated, using that weary voice that brought guilt slamming down on her granddaughter’s head like divine retribution. “I don’t know what to say to you. I’m so very disappointed. I thought you knew how important this evening is. I hoped you would realize when I requested your company that it would be critical for you to set aside your rebelliousness for one evening and act as the lady I raised you to be.”
Cassidy fought the animal urge to drop her head, curl her body, and show her belly to Adele. She would deal with this in human terms just as Nana was doing. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.
“I wasn’t rebelling, Nana.” She kept her voice low and even, and spoke clearly. “I told you I wasn’t feeling well. I decided to come up here to clear my head and I . . . I spilled champagne on my dress.” Okay, so that wasn’t quite the truth. In this case, it was better. “A friend lent me something to wear so I could run down to my car to get a change of clothes. I was on my way there when you found me.”
She felt a little better as she eased back toward almost not lying. It allowed her to muster something akin to a smile.
Adele looked as if she almost believed it. “You spilled champagne on your shoes, as well?”
“You know me. Klutz and a half.”
“Mmm.”
The sound was low and noncommittal. Adele tilted her head to the side and sniffed the air delicately. Her brow furrowed—something she spent a fortune on face creams trying to prevent—and she sniffed again.
“Why do I smell something odd?”
Oh, shit. Cassidy braced herself, her mind furiously grasping for plausible answers even as she saw her grandmother’s lip curl into a snarl. There was no way Dame Berry would react well to the news that her granddaughter had been rolling around on the rooftop with a “common” Lupine. Adele viewed all Lupines as commoners, and she and her kind as aristocracy.
“You smell of wolf!” Adele spat the words and lifted her cane in a white-knuckled grip. “Explain yourself!”
“Nana, it’s not a big deal. Honestly.” She held up her hands and tried to smile. “The girl who loaned me the clothes is a Silverback. But since I didn’t think it would be appropriate to scurry among the guests downstairs in my unm
entionables, I could hardly turn down her offer of something to wear, could I?”
Lips pursed and eyes narrowed, Adele remained silent.
“Honestly, Nana, what would have been worse? Having me seen downstairs in a Lupine’s borrowed jogging suit, or having me seen downstairs naked and dripping with Cristal?”
Silence.
“Do you need another minute to think about it?”
“Cassidy—”
“Nana, honestly. Let’s be sensible here. It’s not like I eloped with a werewolf.” Or rolled around on the floor with one. Or kissed one. Or wanted to strip one naked and—“It’s a borrowed sweat suit. If you’re so bothered by it, give me fifteen minutes to run down to my car, and I’ll change out of it. Will that make you feel better?”
The amused exasperation in her voice was real, and the familiar argument eased enough of her tension that the vaguely nauseated feeling generated by her frayed nerves was starting to fade. She considered that a good thing.
Adele held some old-school attitudes about more than cocktail dresses and Emily Post manners. She also believed that Lupines, and all werefolk who followed the moon cycles in their changes, were somehow inferior to herself and her kind. Because Foxwomen were not technically werefolk—they appeared along an entirely different ramp on the evolutionary highway—some of them believed their magic was stronger than that of the Lupines and the other werekin.
Cassidy had never gotten that. As far as she was concerned, a change was a change, and humans would shoot her with a silver bullet just as fast as someone like Annie. They all experienced pain; they all bled the same color; and they all sprouted fur. Sometimes.
“I would appreciate it if you would refrain from twisting this conversation into that old argument, Cassidy.” If Adele pinched her lips together any tighter, Cassidy thought they might go permanently numb. “That is not the point of this discussion.”
Cassidy sighed. “Then what was the point, Nana? That I managed to disappoint you again? Unfortunate, but hardly unexpected, is it?”
“Please do not use that tone with me, young lady. I might be an old woman, but I am still your elder and you were raised in my den. I expect better of you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Cassidy gritted her teeth.
“Now, come inside.” Adele punctuated the order with a thump of her cane and held the door open for Cassidy to follow. “There are still people here I want you to meet, and you need to be wearing something more presentable than that before I admit you’re my granddaughter.”
Cassidy bit back a groan. How she wished that Nana really would pretend not to know her. But nothing was ever that easy with Adele Billinghurst Spencer Berry. If Nana wanted her to meet the queen, she’d better learn how to curtsy, and if Nana wanted to introduce her to some friends, she’d better get a move on to her car and find that emergency outfit.
Drawing on years of practice, Cassidy morphed her groan into a barely audible sigh of resignation and followed her grandmother into the stairwell. “Who is it I have to meet?”
“Several important people with whom I’d like you to become acquainted.” Adele’s voice rose clear and crisp over the click of her heels on the stairs. “I’ve been far too indulgent in allowing you to avoid the social responsibilities that come with being a member of this family. Most of my circle barely knows you, and I’m certain the majority wouldn’t recognize you if they passed you in the street. It’s high time you started to shoulder some of the duties that your parents and my parents and their parents did.”
Oh, God, not again. They’d had this argument too many times to count. Cassidy had thought she’d finally won it after the incident last summer, when she had broken the toe of the visiting prince of a very influential family of djinn. She’d warned him she didn’t know how to samba, but djinn always thought they could charm anyone into anything.
“Nana,” she began cautiously, “maybe it would be better if we wrote off tonight. I mean, even if I change, I’m sure I look a mess. My hair must be—”
“Out of the question,” Adele snapped. “I have already let everyone know that the granddaughter I have told them all about is here tonight, and I refuse to make still more excuses to the Council as to why you can’t be bothered—”
Cassidy froze just as the door clicked shut behind them, her hand still curled around the knob. She blinked in the dim light of the stairwell. “The Council? You want to introduce me to the members of the Council?”
“Yes. And an exercise suit is hardly suitable apparel for the situation.”
“Why in the world would you want to introduce me to the Council?”
Okay, so maybe a note of panic had crept into her voice, but the extent to which this was not a good idea could make anyone panic. Cassidy became tongue-tied in front of authority figures. She’d barely made it out of her dissertation defense alive, and she was supposed to not make an idiot of herself in front of the most powerful Others in the city?
Adele swept her way down the stairs, her spine perfectly straight and unbowed with age.
A tornado couldn’t bow Adele Berry’s spine.
Cassidy hurried after her. “Nana, you never said I’d have to meet anyone from the Council. That was not part of our deal when I agreed to show up tonight.”
“Cassidy, darling, you are a well-educated woman with a normally sensible head. You hold a doctoral degree in anthropology, and you lecture regularly before classes of five hundred students at Columbia University. Do you honestly have stage fright about making the acquaintance of fourteen crusty old buggers like me?”
“Some of those crusty old buggers could tear my throat out with their teeth. And would enjoy it.”
“Darling, any and every one of them could do that.”
“Wow. Your compassionate response has so comforted me.”
“Sarcasm is the wit of a small-minded thinker, Cassidy.”
Shaking her head, Cassidy stepped off the last rooftop stair and followed her grandmother down the hall. “Nana, seriously. I’m not trying to be funny. This is ridiculous. There’s no reason for me to meet anyone on the Council. I’m never going to take a seat on it. We agreed on that.”
“You agreed, dear. I refuse to believe that the Council will be forced to operate for an entire generation without the benefit of a member of this family in its ranks.” Adele began to swan her way down another staircase with Cassidy scurrying behind. “Rafael De Santos agrees that the very idea would be tragic.”
Cassidy walked straight into the banister. “Who agrees about what?”
“Dear, do watch where you’re going.” Adele took her granddaughter by the elbow and guided her down the rest of the stairs. “The last thing we need is for you to knock yourself silly and bleed all over your change of clothes, as well.”
“Nana!” Cassidy dug her heels into the parquet flooring of the club’s entry hall and refused to take another step. “You’ve gone round the bend. There is no earthly reason for Rafael De Santos, the head of a Council I’ve never met, to have any idea who I am. I’m a nobody! I’m an anthropologist! An academic! A nerd! And . . . and . . . and . . . and stuff!”
“Very eloquent, dear. It’s no wonder you command such respect in your field.”
“The slow-minded, Nana. Remember?”
Adele placed her hand between Cassidy’s shoulder blades and nudged her toward the front door. “Go run and get changed. I’ve already wasted enough time looking for you.”
“Nana!”
“Cassidy! Go.”
Rolling her eyes and repressing the urge to stomp her feet, Cassidy turned to the front door, jingling her keys angrily. “Fine. But I still want an answer when I get back.”
“When you get back, we can discuss it.”
Cassidy ignored that answer—the one she’d hated since she was a toddler—and headed for her car. She’d taken about five steps toward the exit when a tall, intimidating figure stepped in front of her and blocked her path.
“I’m sorry, mis
s, but I can’t let you leave.”
“Okay, where the hell is the camera? Because this has got to be some twisted kind of reality show.”
“Young man, what seems to be the trouble?” Adele stepped forward with an imperious scowl, her cane tapping impatiently. “I am afraid I have not the pleasure of understanding why you refuse to allow my granddaughter to fetch a change of clothes.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the bouncer said, standing firm, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “I have orders that you and your granddaughter are to stay. There’s been an emergency meeting of the Council called, and you’re both wanted downstairs.”
That managed to accomplish something Cassidy had never seen—it left Adele speechless for nearly a full minute.
“An emergency meeting?” the older woman finally parroted when she had drawn herself together. “But tonight was to be only the reception. The meeting is scheduled for tomorrow night. What has happened?”
The man’s expression and stance did not change. “I’m not privy to that information, ma’am. It’s a closed-door meeting.”
Cassidy was more concerned over the previous part of his statement. “Both of us? You mean, I’m supposed to go to the Council meeting? That’s impossible. I’m not a member of the Council at large, let alone of the Inner Circle.”
The bouncer stared above her head. “I was instructed to be sure you accompanied your grandmother. I wasn’t given an explanation.”
She decided to try reason, even if it was a long shot. “There must be some sort of mistake. Maybe they just meant I was supposed to stay downstairs, meaning here, and not upstairs, where I was before and shouldn’t have been. I think that makes a lot more sense than—”
“Cassidy!” Adele’s voice sounded even snappier than it had on the roof, and Cassidy turned to her in surprise. “This is not an appropriate moment to argue. If the Council wishes to see you, then of course you will be present. And you’ll just have to go as you are. There’s no time to change clothes now. We’ll have to hope the Council will not take offense at your appearance.”
Wolf at the Door Page 4