“It’s worth the risk.”
Marcus found himself agreeing with the voice in his head once again. That was happening more and more often, which disturbed him.
“We need time to analyze the information you’ve brought us,” Porter said. “We’re sure Marcus would love to show Tessa around the ranch.”
Absolutely.
He was surprised Porter made the suggestion, though. Dexter would probably want to come along as a chaperone. Marcus could deal with that, as long as he could stay close to her. The bosses’ attention on her was making him want to growl, even without his dweller’s influence.
Marcus took a step toward her and she slid off the table—angling away from him—and headed for the door. Dexter was leaning against the wall next to it, arms crossed and knowing smirk on his face. Marcus wanted to rip it off.
Tessa turned back to Porter and did a small, strange wave. It took Vaughn snickering for Marcus to realize she was imitating a royal gesture, playing on the twins’ weird use of pronouns. He mashed his lips together to stifle a laugh.
As they neared the door, Dexter said, “Vaughn, why don’t you go with them?”
“Me?” Vaughn looked back and forth between Dexter and Porter.
Porter smiled. “It’ll be good for you to stretch your legs.”
“Sure.” Vaughn let out a sigh, then stood, keying in some commands with his watch. He strode to the door and rested his palm on the scanner. When the door opened, he looked pointedly at Marcus and gestured to the door. Under his breath, Marcus heard him say, “Leaders first.”
Marcus hesitated for a moment. If Dexter heard Vaughn talking like that, Marcus wouldn’t be the only one on the chopping block. Dexter didn’t want Marcus having any kind of pack, even if some members were human. Maybe it was a way of trying to help Marcus hold on to his humanity and not connect as strongly with his dweller nature. But denying his nature wasn’t always a good idea.
Until recently, thinking of Dexter as the alpha helped Marcus stay calm. Following orders chafed, but didn’t send Marcus spiraling out of control if he told himself that Dexter was in charge.
Dexter had killed all the werewolves in what would have become Marcus’s pack. While Marcus was trying to fight them off, the werewolves had talked about violence being used to establish dominance. If that was how rank was determined, Dexter was absolutely the alpha.
But Vaughn knew that sometimes when he left a room first, it set Marcus off. Marcus had never explained why, and from that comment, Vaughn had it all wrong. Marcus would explain as soon as he could—to let Vaughn know it wasn’t about dominance. Not entirely, anyway.
Having Dexter leave a room first wasn’t about showing deference for their leader—it was about knowing how skilled Dexter was in combat. If something was lying in wait on the other side of the door, it would get its ass handed to it as soon as it attacked. Dexter was not someone to mess with.
With Vaughn—and now Tessa—Marcus wanted to go first. He wanted to make sure that the hallway was safe, even though he knew his concern was ridiculous. They were in the sublevels of the ranch. There wasn’t a safer place in Providence, maybe even on the whole planet.
The overwhelming urge to protect his pack—no, his friends—was one of the few aspects of being a werewolf that Marcus didn’t mind.
Marcus waited outside the door and followed as Vaughn led the way to the elevator at the far end of the hall. When the doors opened, Marcus stepped in between them so he could see both spaces at once until everyone was safely inside.
The elevator felt smaller than usual. Tessa started to hum some music as they rose toward the ranch. Vaughn snorted, but then joined in while Marcus shook his head. A false door made to look like part of the bookshelf in the library swung forward as the elevator opened.
Marcus infinitely preferred the ranch to the stark walls and too-bright surfaces of the sublevels. Up here, even the presence of his dweller seemed lessened—as if it thought nothing interesting enough to hold its attention could happen in Marcus’s home. He hoped that would always be true.
Simple dark burgundy curtains hung open on the windows. There were no sunny spots on his favorite chair, though. Raindrops pelted the glass.
Tessa’s stomach growled, reminding him that she’d thrown up her breakfast—which hadn’t been much in the first place.
“Let’s start in the kitchen,” Marcus said.
“Always thinking with your stomach.” Vaughn laughed, then bowed toward Tessa and gestured to the other room. “This way.”
The kitchen was Marcus’s favorite room at the ranch. It reminded him of home and family in the best possible way. Of course, his family’s house hadn’t sported the sleek chrome appliances, the rich bamboo flooring, or the tools that Vaughn had “upgraded”.
“Vaughn is amazing in the kitchen,” Marcus said.
“Excuse me, I’m amazing everywhere.” Vaughn briefly touched his chest as he turned and walked backwards, leading them into the kitchen. He spread his arms wide after crossing the threshold. “Behold my other kingdom.”
He ran his fingertips over the black surface of the island in the center of the space. Four stools were tucked under the bar portion of it. They would need to get another for Tessa. A huge cutting board dominated the workspace on the island, with Vaughn’s favorite knife resting on it.
The cutting board wasn’t made of wood. Marcus had no idea what it was crafted from. He did know that it was unbreakable, unburnable, and unscratchable. Vaughn had insisted Marcus help test it out—in his other form. It had been a fun afternoon. Regular knives were dulled almost immediately by it, but of course Vaughn had tweaked the knives as well.
“What are you in the mood for today, Marcus? Bacon, eggs, and bacon? Steak and bacon and eggs? Steak and steak and bacon? Or just steak?”
“Whatever Tessa wants.” Marcus was still hurting from seeing how she’d been living. He wanted to show her that he could provide anything she needed.
She crossed her arms and glared at them. “I’m vegan.”
Vaughn sighed. “Of course you are. I can work with that. You do know that Marcus, being what he is, pretty much only eats meat, right? Any time he eats something that used to have leaves, I’m afraid I’m going to find it hacked up on the carpet.”
Tessa busted out laughing. Vaughn cleared his throat as Marcus glared at him.
“Luckily, some of us need to eat a healthy, well-rounded diet,” Vaughn said. “We have fruit, cereal, salad…”
“I can make my own food.” Tessa walked over to the nearest cabinet and opened it. There were only plates inside.
“Um, the kitchen is my domain,” Vaughn said.
“I think I can pour my own cereal.” Tessa turned around and glared at him.
Vaughn sighed, then picked up his knife. “What’s this?”
“A knife.” She glanced over at Marcus and spread her hands in an “Is this guy serious?” gesture.
“Look closer.” Vaughn held the knife up for her to inspect.
She leaned in, and said, “Okay, it’s an electric knife.”
“You think you can slice up some fruit with this bad boy?” Vaughn said.
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
Vaughn put an apple on the cutting board, then switched the knife on. It hummed and snapped as it powered up. The serrated blade blurred to the point that the edge looked perfectly smooth. Blue light glittered across the metal.
Tessa’s eyes widened and she took a step forward. “What is that?”
“One of my kitchen doodads.” Vaughn smiled, then touched it to the apple.
Where the knife touched the fruit, it melted into what smelled like applesauce. Only the edges farthest from the blade were left intact.
“That is so cool,” Tessa said.
Vaughn clicked off the knife and smiled at Marcus. If Tessa wanted to win Vaughn over, praising his tech was the best way to do it.
She reached for one of the remaining bits of apple that had
skin on it, and brought it to her nose. Her smile vanished, and she dropped it back on the pile, wiping her right hand on her pant leg.
“What’s wrong?” Vaughn asked.
“It has blood on it.”
“What?” Vaughn looked at the knife. “How can you tell?”
“I can fee— I can smell it.”
He glanced over at Marcus, eyebrows hitched up. Marcus shook his head briefly, out of Tessa’s line of sight.
“I must have forgotten to run the self-cleaner after making Marcus dinner last night,” Vaughn said. He pressed his thumb against the handle and more blue light flickered up along the blade. “There. All clean and set for apple.”
“I’ll just go for a whole one.” Tessa picked up a large apple from the bowl, sniffed it, then started to eat.
Vaughn looked crestfallen. “I’ll be sure to get more next time I order groceries.”
“What, you can’t be bothered to buy your own groceries?” she said.
“I do buy our groceries, I just have them delivered. It’s called being efficient.”
“Vaughn doesn’t like to leave the house,” Marcus said.
Tessa snorted. “If I had a place like this, I wouldn’t want to leave, either.”
Her statement seemed to placate Vaughn a bit. Marcus rested his hand on Vaughn’s shoulder briefly, and said, “Steak sounds good. Do you mind?”
“Sure.” Vaughn’s face brightened as he adjusted the setting again. “You’ll love this. Unless the whole vegan thing is because you can’t stand the thought of eating animals. In which case, you should probably go back to the library.”
“She’s not going anywhere.” Marcus opened the pantry doors and stepped into the closet-sized space. He pulled out some cereal boxes and took them to Tessa. One apple was not enough. When he set the boxes next to her, she bit into her apple and held it in her mouth, picking up the boxes and reading the ingredients.
“I’ll get you a bowl,” Marcus said.
Tessa grunted as she bit through the apple. Around the huge bite, she said, “No need.”
She sat on one of the barstools, then opened a cereal box and reached in, popping the flakes into her mouth like popcorn.
Vaughn’s eyebrows were spiked up his forehead again. His mouth was even hanging open a bit.
“You’ve got yourself a real keeper there,” he said.
Tessa snorted again at the same time Marcus let out a growl. She glared at him.
“Nobody keeps me,” she said.
“Okay, then.” Vaughn looked back and forth between them for a moment, then went to the fridge.
He returned with a large hunk of steak. There was more in the freezer built into the back of the pantry. A whole cow’s worth.
Vaughn picked up his knife and switched it on, then started on Marcus’s breakfast.
“On this setting, my knife can cut slices of steak tartare thin enough to see through.” Vaughn held up one of the slices proudly before setting it aside. “It cuts through flesh and bone like they’re butter that’s been sitting out in the sun. It even…cuts through awkward moments.”
“Very useful.” Tessa grinned.
“We have spoons, too, you know,” he said.
“What do they do?”
Vaughn shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “Lift food to your mouth.”
She laughed again. “I think I can manage on my own.” She stuffed another handful of cereal into her mouth.
“We are going to have to teach you some table manners,” Vaughn said. “And you made a crack about us domesticating Marcus.”
“One I didn’t like.” Marcus stepped next to Vaughn and picked up a slice of meat. Feeling oddly self-conscious, he turned his back to them before eating it.
“Now you’re doing it, too,” Vaughn said. “Get a plate.”
Marcus grinned before obliging. He passed the plate to Vaughn, who heaped the sliced meat onto it. As Marcus sat next to Tessa, Vaughn picked up the remains of the first apple and tossed them in the trash. He pressed a button on the cutting board—causing more crackling light to spread over its surface, cleaning it—then did the same to his knife. With Tessa’s attention diverted, Marcus ate as quickly as he could.
“Marcus, you know I don’t like it when you wolf down your food,” Vaughn said. “It furthers the stereotype.”
“I must have finally gone insane.” Tessa laughed and shook her head.
Vaughn turned from the sink where he was washing his hands. “Come on. Your manners aren’t that bad. Although, I am wondering about you a little since you turned down my cooking.”
“All I’ve seen you make is sliced raw meat and applesauce.”
Vaughn looked offended. “I can cook.”
“He really can,” Marcus said.
Praising Vaughn’s tech was a great way to appeal to him. Insulting his cooking would start a war. Marcus had to maintain the peace between them. He needed them to get along.
“Porter talks about it all the time, as well as other Blades who have visited,” Marcus said. “And it smells so good, I’m sometimes tempted to try it, even with my…special needs.”
“I believe you.” She laughed again.
Special needs… He wondered if Tessa’s vegan diet was somehow tied to her dweller. If Marcus ate anything other than raw meat, it didn’t upset his stomach, but it did upset his mood. He became volatile and it was harder to maintain control.
He made a note to ask about her dweller as soon as they were alone. She obviously didn’t want the others to know about it. With everything she was dealing with, he couldn’t blame her.
“Anyway, what’s insane about this?” Marcus said.
“Everything. I’m sitting in a Blades of Janus base, laughing while having breakfast with a werewolf and his personal chef—”
“Excuse me,” Vaughn said. “I’m the IT guy.”
“That’s not making it any less weird,” she said.
“Marcus is a Blade, like any other.” Vaughn stepped back to the counter. “Just sometimes a little hairier. Although, that new guy they just recruited in Atlanta…”
Marcus snorted.
“You have a base in Atlanta, too?” Tessa asked.
“We have bases all over the world,” Marcus said. “Dwellers don’t care about human territories.”
“But they’re also nomadic,” Tessa said. “How do you handle that?”
“Marcus isn’t handling anything until he washes his hands.” Vaughn cocked his head at the sink.
Marcus picked up his plate, then headed for the sink. He brushed his shoulder against Vaughn’s as he passed, hoping Vaughn knew how much it meant that he was trying to get along with Tessa.
She let out another burst of laughter and gestured at Marcus as he started to wash his hands. “And how do you do that?”
“Do what?” Vaughn asked.
“Order around a werewolf without getting your head ripped off?”
Vaughn went from looking confused to angry. “Marcus would never hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it. He’s a good person.”
“He’s not a person,” she said. “He’s a werewolf.”
Marcus actually had to grab Vaughn’s elbow to hold him back. A fight wouldn’t end well for Vaughn. Tessa was a seasoned hunter.
She set down her box of cereal and stood, squaring off with them.
Marcus felt his skin start to itch. She was challenging him, which he liked. But she was doing it in front of Vaughn. She was bringing disorder to their precarious balance.
“Being evil or good is a choice,” Vaughn said.
Tessa snorted. “Dwellers don’t have human values like good and evil. They’re aliens. For them it’s hosts and prey. They can’t control it. The urge to propagate will win out eventually.”
“That’s not true.” Marcus dug his fingertips into his palms to keep his claws from sprouting. “I’m always in control.”
Always in control. No matter how painful it was. No matter how much he wanted to cu
t loose.
“Like back in the van?” She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“That was different.”
“What happened in the van?” Vaughn said.
Before they could say more, Porter and Dexter walked into the room. Marcus was almost relieved to see them.
Almost.
“Are we interrupting something?” Porter said.
A chill swept over Marcus’s skin at the uncanny similarity in their movements as the twins approached. Their feet and arms moved in synch. He wished they would go back to rarely being in the same room at once.
Dexter stopped near the counter on Marcus and Vaughn’s side. Porter stood near Tessa.
“We see your tour ended early,” Porter said. “If you’ve eaten enough, perhaps you’d like to see your room.” He gestured toward the other exit from the kitchen that led to the rest of the ranch and the front foyer.
“Sounds great.” Tessa dusted off her hands. “I can’t wait to see the freaking four poster, king sized bed and spa tub that probably comes along with it.”
Dexter smirked at her. “If you’d prefer, we can throw a blanket on the couch.”
She glared at him, then grabbed her box of cereal.
“Let’s go.” She looked at Marcus. Marcus.
He took a step toward her, but Dexter slid in front of him. “We have more debriefing to do.”
Marcus let out a low growl. His hands flexed.
Dexter only smiled at him. “Are we going to have a problem, Marcus?”
An image of Marcus ripping off Dexter’s head filled his mind. But Dexter was within reach of Vaughn’s knife, and Marcus knew he’d be deadly with it. He wouldn’t even need silver to take Marcus down.
Tessa was safe with all the Blades. Marcus was sure of it. The sooner he let her go, the sooner he could deal with Dexter and then check on her.
“No problem,” Marcus said.
Tessa actually looked disappointed for a moment. But then she shook her head and said, “Fine. We shall leave.”
She followed Porter out of the room.
Pack Page 13