“Yes,” he said. “But there is more to it than that. We are also cousins.”
“Wait a minute. If you were cousins, that means your sister and Wolfgang were cousins, too. Isn’t that illegal or something?”
“Cousin marriage has always been common in aristocracies,” Tom pointed out. “Both lupin and human.”
“You call them lupins too?”
He nodded. “Sometimes. We go by many names: varulv, loup-garou, vukodlak, kveldulf, nagual….”
“Sounds better than werewolf, at least,” I said, rubbing my temples and trying to absorb what Tom had told me. After a few moments, I gave up and took another swig of wine. “So Wolfgang’s beef with my dad has got the whole historical ally thing going on. Plus he’s still pissed about losing Alsace.”
“Correct.”
“Which means my father’s chances of escaping execution are just about nil.”
“Unless you want to call in the French and start a war, you may be right,” he said softly.
“Don’t you think they’re going to want to avenge him if he dies anyway?”
“Perhaps,” he said, giving me a pointed look. “Although that would depend on who succeeds him.”
“What?”
“It would depend on who succeeds him,” he repeated slowly.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly realizing the implications of what he was suggesting. “You mean … me?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “You would be the natural heir to your father’s position.”
I shook my head. “No way.”
“No? Why not? Many werewolves would kill for the opportunity. It is a very prestigious position.”
“You turned it down,” I reminded him.
“Yes, I did. Because I didn’t want to murder my own brother. But you have no sibling to battle with.”
“Even so. I’ve never even been to France. And how can I be alpha of the Paris pack when I barely speak French?” I mean, I knew what a croissant was, but after three years of foreign language classes, that was about all I remembered. That and prêt-à-porter.
Tom shrugged. “Astrid did not speak German until she went to Strasbourg. If you choose to take the position, that obstacle can easily be overcome.”
“The Paris pack wanted to kill me when I was born!”
“They didn’t know about you,” he pointed out calmly. “And things have changed substantially over the last fifty years.”
“And what about the current female alpha?” I asked, realizing I’d never found out if there was one. “She’s not going to want to step down for me, so it’s a moot point anyway. Luc said something about someone named Elise; she must be the alpha, right?”
Tom shook his head. “Your father has never partnered with anyone.”
“And how did my father become alpha, anyway? Isn’t there some kind of succession thing?”
“He was part of the royal family,” Tom said, “but rather distantly related, and not in direct line. When the previous alpha died, he had only a weak son to replace him—he had suffered an accident that left him mentally disabled.”
“So what happened?”
“Your father challenged him. And won.”
“And they just handed the position to him?”
“He had, of course, been gaining political allies for some time. Your father is a very intelligent man.”
“Intelligent werewolf,” I corrected him.
“Werewolf, then.”
I sighed. “So there are no other children in line.”
“Correct.”
“Won’t someone else just step into his shoes, then?”
“They will ask you first.”
I took another swig of wine and set the glass down with a bang. “I’m not interested.”
“Are you certain?”
I turned to look at him. Was he serious? “Of course I’m certain.”
“Certain enough to renounce all rights, eternally?”
“I guess so. Why?”
“Because if you do not take the mantle, that is what your father’s successor will require of you. Either that, or death.”
I swallowed hard. “Wonderful.”
We were quiet for a moment, each lost in our own rather unpleasant reveries. Then Tom spoke. “I brought you something. It is why I wanted to meet tonight.”
“What is it?”
“It’s in my jacket pocket. Over by the door.”
I retrieved the jacket for him—our fingers touched as I handed it to him, sending a pleasant little current through me—and watched as he dug in the left-hand pocket and pulled out a small book. He tossed it to me. “Take a look.”
I caught it, along with a hefty whiff of dust. The cover was leather, and the pages were yellowed with age. Embossed on the front, in gold letters, were the words Codex Werwolfarius.
I opened it up to a random page; it was filled with dense text that looked like it was in German.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Turn it around and upside down,” he said.
I did. On the back, in the same faded gold ink, were the words The Code of the Werewolves. Goose bumps rose on my arms as I touched the soft leather.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“I retrieved it from Wolfgang’s farmhouse,” he said. “There are very few in print, and they are jealously guarded, lest they fall into the wrong hands.”
Human hands, I thought.
“I figured you needed it more than he did,” he continued. “That’s why I wanted to see you tonight. If you’re going to defend your father, it will help to know what the rules are.”
So the infamous “code” was an actual document. And one that had been around the block a few times, from the look of it. I flipped to a page at random. Rules Concerning the Hunting of Humans, it read. Yikes. “How up to date is this, exactly?”
“Some of the sections are antiquated,” he said. “This is an older version; some of the hunting rules have changed in newer editions.”
“I hope so,” I said, reading further. Apparently women and children were verboten, at least.
“But the rules regarding the Howl—and the trial protocol—are still in force.”
I was still staring at the entry in the book. Packs must limit their human kills to two per month. Good lord.
“Please tell me they don’t hunt humans anymore,” I said.
“No. And it was never particularly common, thankfully, but since the advent of forensics, it’s been strictly forbidden.”
I’d like to think it was more than the risk of being caught that would prevent my fellow werewolves from running down and tearing apart humans, but what the hey. “How old is this book?”
“I think that’s the 1850s edition. It was printed in two languages specifically for the Anglo-German population in Texas.”
“So it was still all right to hunt people then,” I said. “Even here, in Texas.”
“It was legal, but it wasn’t done much,” he said.
Even so, a shiver ran down my back. Many of the Texas packs had made their fortune rustling cattle, Tom had once told me. Did that include hunting down the cowboys who guarded them? Tom could probably tell me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
I flipped through the pages of the Codex. It was thrilling, somehow, to see the mysterious “code” in actual black and white—even if parts of it were downright repulsive. I closed it and set it gingerly on the coffee table. “I don’t know how to thank you, Tom. When do you need it back?”
“I did not request permission to borrow it, so it would be best if you returned it to me tomorrow. I suggest you make a copy and return it to me when I come to pick you up for the Howl.”
I’d almost forgotten; I’d have to have another session with my bottle of Midnight Satin. Would I have any hair left by the end of the week? Not that my hair was my first priority, of course, but I didn’t want to have to attend my father’s execution bald. “What’s on the agenda tomorrow, an
yway?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“It’s the night of the assembly,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Kind of an inter-pack council, where things like matings, alliances, and inter-pack issues are brought up before the alphas and voted on.”
“The alphas get to vote on matings?”
He shrugged. “Werewolf society is very hierarchical,” he said.
“A bit too hierarchical, if you ask me.” Despite the fact that my father was bound to be on the agenda—and my feelings in general with the rather feudal way werewolf society appeared to be run—I found myself curious about the proceedings. It was bound to be more interesting than the annual auditor conferences I attended, in any case. “Are you sure you’ll be up to going?” I asked, eyeing his leg.
“Absolutely. It’s a minor wound.”
If what had happened to his leg was minor, I didn’t want to imagine what he considered major. Amputation?
He finished the rest of his scotch and glanced at his watch. “I should leave you now,” he said, levering himself up out of my couch.
“Do you need a ride to … to wherever you’re staying?” I didn’t want to ask if it was at Lindsey’s place. “You had a lot of scotch”—half the bottle, in fact—“and after that motorcycle accident…” I took a deep breath, inhaling his musky, wolfie scent. “You know you can always stay here.”
“Oh?” His eyebrow rose jauntily, and the level of pheromones in my living room just about tripled. There was what I guess you’d call a pregnant pause, then he said, “What a tempting invitation.”
I felt my cheeks flush with heat. I’d never been with a werewolf before, and I often found myself wondering all kinds of things about Tom, in particular the fit body beneath his leather jacket, jeans, and now, wads of gauze. The stolen kiss we had shared stirred something deep, deep inside me—I might go so far as to call it something animal. What would it be like to have him in my bed? To feel his warm lips on my skin? To wake up with my head on his muscular chest?
To explain to Lindsey that I’d slept with her boyfriend?
Stupid reality—always interfering with my fantasy life. “On the couch,” I finally said. I was nothing if not a good friend.
“Pity.” Our eyes locked for a moment, and all kinds of images flashed through my head. Me running a hand across his chest, tasting his salty skin. His mouth trailing down my neck, pushing aside the fabric of my blouse …
Down, girl.
“Ah, well,” he said, slinging his jacket over his shoulder. “Perhaps another time. I imagine Mark wouldn’t approve anyway.”
No, he wouldn’t. “Lindsey wouldn’t be too excited about it either,” I reminded him, watching as he limped to the door. Even with the wound on his leg, he had the grace of a predator at the top of his form. “Speaking of Lindsey, is she still bugging you about becoming a werewolf?” I asked.
His lips twitched into a smile. “Constantly.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I will have to make a change. Soon.”
I drew in my breath. “And by ‘make a change,’ you mean exactly … what?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he replied.
Was Tom thinking of making her a werewolf? Or breaking up with her? He did have a reputation as a womanizer, after all. “Would you do me a favor?” I asked.
“What?”
I took a deep breath. “Please don’t make Lindsey a werewolf.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Is it so bad, then?”
“It hasn’t been the thrill of a lifetime, no,” I confessed. Sure, I might have great skin into my nineties—or even longer. But I wasn’t sure it was worth all the inconvenience. Not to mention the cost of razors.
“I’ll take your concern into consideration,” he said. “I will pick you up tomorrow. Can you be here by five?”
“No problem. I’ll leave work a little early,” I said.
When the door closed, I sank back into the love seat, trying to take it all in. Centuries-old European werewolf wars, fiery, wing-sprouting boyfriends, hot, forbidden werewolves, impending executions, antique human-hunting rules …
At least I couldn’t complain that life was dull.
I’d barely sat down behind my desk the next morning before Lindsey was in my visitor’s chair, looking fetching as always in a navy pantsuit and low-cut red blouse. Her long brown hair shone in the light from the window, and I found myself wondering if she’d spent the night with Tom.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Have you talked with Tom?”
“I called him last night, but I haven’t heard back. No one tells me anything!”
I’m ashamed to admit it, but hearing that Tom hadn’t slept at Lindsey’s made me feel better. “He had a motorcycle accident last night,” I told her.
Her gray eyes grew round. “Oh, my God! Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. His leg’s a little torn up, but it will mend.”
Then her eyes narrowed. “How come you know about it and I don’t?”
“Close the door,” I said. As Lindsey walked to the door, I reached into my briefcase and pulled out the book Tom had given me last night, dropping it on the desk. A little puff of dust blew out of it. “He brought me this,” I said.
She picked it up gingerly. “Codex Werwolfarius? What’s that?”
“Turn it over,” I said.
“The Code of the Werewolves,” she read, then sucked in her breath. “Wow … how cool! I didn’t know it was an actual book. I thought it was just… I don’t know. Understood.”
“So did I.”
She leafed through it, touching the pages with something like reverence, and looked up at me. “Did he drop this off at your loft last night?”
I nodded, and her gray eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“It’s to help me defend my father. It lays out the basic werewolf laws,” I said as she flipped through the pages.
“Yikes. Rules for hunting humans?” she asked, reminding me why werewolves were rather cautious about the book’s distribution. Perhaps if Lindsey spent some time going through the gorier aspects of pack rules and regulations, it would be a nice little werewolf prophylactic, if you know what I mean.
“I have to make a copy and return it to Tom tonight,” I said. “If you want, I’ll make you one, too, so you can read it. And decide if this is something you really want.”
She flipped a few pages and made a face. “Ick. You have to get approval from the pack leader to mate?”
“Like I said, the whole fur-and-fangs thing has its drawbacks.”
“Surely this is outdated,” she said. “When was this printed, like the 1700s or something? It looks ancient.”
“It’s from the 1850s, according to Tom. And some of it may be out of date,” I confessed. “But not all of it. The sections on Howl rules and on trials are all supposedly current. And I know the mating approval thing is still in force, at least here.”
She thought about that for a moment, then returned her attention to the book on her lap. “How about this human-hunting-rules thing? Is that still on the books?”
“Not so much,” I admitted. “But only because I think they’re afraid of being caught.”
“That makes sense,” she said, nodding.
Makes sense? It didn’t bother her that the group she was dying to join spent so much time killing people that they needed to regulate it? Not outlaw it, mind you … but manage it? It was like reading the Texas hunting code, only replacing deer with person.
“This should help us with your dad’s defense,” she said, flipping through the section on the Howl rules. “He can appoint someone to represent him, it looks like.”
“Speaking of appointing people,” I said. “Who appointed you to tell Heath about my father?”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “He called you, then.”
“Yes,” I said, “he did. And oddly enough,
he couldn’t find any reference to my father’s murder trial in the court records.”
“That would be a challenge,” she admitted.
“Lindsey,” I said. “This whole werewolf thing may seem like a game to you, but it’s not. If the wrong people find out about me, I don’t know what would happen. They might kill me, or stick me in a cage for observation for the rest of my life.”
“But…”
Before she could say anything more, there was a firm knock at the door, and it swung open.
It was Heath.
“Sophie,” he said, walking in and shutting the door behind him. He looked good enough to eat, as always, in khakis and a brown-striped oxford that picked up the chocolate color of his eyes. The smoky scent of Miranda clung to him, along with the more familiar aroma of CK1 and laundry starch; either they were sharing the same office these days or Mark had been right about Heath’s increasingly intimate relations with his lovely associate.
For a long moment, I sat there staring at my ex-boyfriend, unable to think of a thing to say. Unfortunately, that was what Lindsey was doing, too, which wasn’t a very good plan, because what she should have been doing was finding somewhere to put the Codex Werwolfarius.
“Heath,” I said in a strangled voice.
“What happened to your hair?” he asked.
“It was an experiment that didn’t work,” I said vaguely, finally finding my voice. I darted a glance at Lindsey and attempted to communicate telepathically. Hide the book, you idiot!
But of course she didn’t. “What brings you here?” I asked Heath.
“I told you I wasn’t going to stop bothering you until you told me what I could do to help,” he said. His eyes alighted on Lindsey. “And you’re here, too. Great.”
“Yes,” I said feebly.
“What’s that?” he said. And then it happened, in what seemed like slow motion. Heath reached down and plucked the book from Lindsey’s hands. She made a small squeaky sound as he looked at the cover. “Codex Werwolfarius? Weird title.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, standing up and making a grab for it. But before I could pry it from his hands, Heath flipped it over and saw the English title.
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