“I’m going to head home.” Isaac’s voice at my ear almost made me jump. The wolf was a giddy schoolgirl in his presence, and she hadn’t felt like cluing me in to his approach. That she trusted him at our back worried me more than words could express. “Are you coming?”
The invitation painted a cozy picture. He phrased it to sound as if he was asking if I wanted to go home with him.
“No.” Glancing back at him, I frowned extra hard to let him know I was onto his shenanigans. “I’ll walk myself home once Zed’s eyes open. I’m not going anywhere until that happens.”
Having painted himself into a corner, Isaac had no choice but to leave or make it even more obvious he was challenging Enzo by staying. I didn’t have to fake my sunny smile when Isaac realized his mistake.
“I’ll wait up.” He bent down, eyes locked with Enzo, and pressed a kiss to the sensitive spot beneath my ear. “You’ve got my number if you need me.”
Oh, how my palm itched to slap him. I made a fist before I could fan the testosterone in the room and we all suffocated.
“I don’t need you,” I assured him.
He turned and left before I got out my claws.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Enzo’s voice came across a great distance, as if in seeing me with Isaac, he began to understand the gulf he would have to cross to reach me. “That’s the ex. Cam’s cousin. You dated a Gemini.”
Over me was implied.
“Heritage doesn’t matter a whole lot to me.” Mine was a hot mess, so who was I to question anyone else’s? I held up my hand. “Before you give me the speech about how stupid that was, I got the memo. Guys like Isaac don’t stick around. I know. Trust me. I figured that part out all by myself.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
The unexpected softness in his voice brought up my head. “Go on. Get it off your chest. You’ll live longer.”
“It was brave of you,” he told me with utter sincerity, “to give your heart to someone you knew couldn’t reciprocate. Not in the way you deserve.”
The parallels he drew between us ached with the same resigned acceptance of impending pain I recognized from my early days of infatuation with Isaac.
Hearts are foolish. They love what they love, who they love, and rarely consult our brains before it’s too late. By the time logic enters the picture, the world is rosy and the sun is bright. By the time common sense arrives to the party, it doesn’t matter how unsuitable a pair is, they’re all in. And once it’s too late, once you’re in too deep, that’s when your eyes flutter open. That’s when all the rose-colored glass in the world can’t change the landscape of your choices. Love is a choice, but it’s a decision most of us make with our eyes closed or else we might never act on the emotion at all.
“Enzo…”
“Stop hogging all the glory. Give someone else a chance to be brave.” He bumped my shoulder in passing. He unlocked the door to his office and crossed the threshold. “I’m going to start on that paperwork.”
I raised my hand in a half wave as he shut the door, leaving him to while away the stormy afternoon in his own company. I wandered into the conference room and started a pot of coffee. On one hand, it was motivation to stay awake for the next few hours. On the other, if the power went out, I would be stuck in the dark with instant packets and cold water.
“Any news from Tahvo?” I risked questing toward Haden on the off chance he hadn’t crashed yet.
“No.” The mental equivalent of a yawn brushed against me, and guilt for disturbing him so late came quick on its heels. “Looks like the joke’s on us. We screwed up so much of his equipment, he’s having to rebuild from scratch. He’s started tracing the strikes for you, but it’s slow going because of the density of recent activity and lack of resources to verify his findings.”
“Get some sleep,” I urged him. “We’ll talk later.”
His goodnight came out as mushy as jarred baby food.
I leaned my hip against the counter and listened to what should have been the comforting drip, drip, drip as my next fix brewed. This time the promise of impending caffeination skipped the warm fuzzies and left me craving a hit even Folgers couldn’t provide.
For there being so many people here, there sure were a lot of us ending our nights alone.
Chapter 15
“IV?” a coarse voice murmured in the vicinity of my ear.
I jerked upright, sleep coating my eyelids, and toppled backward, hitting the floor with a thump. I landed in a sprawl with one arm trapped beneath the ladder-back chair where I had been sitting.
Warg reflexes for the win!
“You don’t have an IV.” I rolled onto the side where my arm was pinned to get my weight off the chair so I could sit upright. “You got a couple of shots of—I don’t know what—but that’s it.”
“Your breath.” Zed angled his head so he could look down at me. “Smells like you’ve been running on a coffee IV all night.”
The whole covering-your-mouth-and-blowing-into-your-palm thing was unnecessary. The inside of my mouth tasted like burnt roast and powdered sugar dreams. “Are you blaming my bad breath for waking you?”
“You said it.” He fanned the air in front of his nose. “Not me.”
“You’re lucky I love you so much.” I pushed to my knees, set the chair upright and then stood. “I’ll pretend this conversation never happened.”
A slight grin pulled at his lips. “Love you too.”
“You better.” I punched his shoulder lightly. “I saved your butt.”
“That’s a habit of yours,” he agreed.
“New best friends are hard to train.” I scooted the chair closer and sat near enough I could rest my chin on his shoulder. “You want to explain what happened out there?”
“I don’t know.” He tangled his fingers in the ends of my hair, taking comfort. “The last thing I remember is driving with the windows down and catching your scent. I got to thinking about what happened to you, and the storm was coming…” He twirled a curl around his pinky until it stung, but I didn’t pull away. “I wanted a chance to search the area before the best scent markers got washed away.”
“Did you find anything?” I took his hand to give him something to do other than worry me a bald spot.
“If I did, I don’t remember.” His grip on me tightened. “There is one thing.”
A tad alarmed by his hold, I leaned forward. “What’s that?”
“I heard a lullaby.” He shook his head. “Whatever was out in that field, it was singing.”
The weight of his confession set my brain itching with remnants of a tattered memory.
“A lullaby,” I repeated. “That’s a good place to start.”
He leveraged himself upright in slow increments. “What do you mean?”
“Research.” I scooted back to give his legs somewhere to go. “This thing is fae. It has to be. It’s taken a fae and a human so far. One male and one female.” I studied him. “You’re a guy. I wonder why it didn’t keep you?”
“Thanks for noticing.” Careful not to feed me a sausage and meatball sub, since he was naked and hard as salami, he slid to the floor to test his legs. “Do I have pants here?” He folded his arms over his chest, which did nothing to hide his problem. “This is damn awkward, and it’s not going away anytime soon.”
“The curse of the morning wood,” I said solemnly.
“Don’t mock, Dell.” Blood rushed north, straight into his cheeks. “A man can’t help that his body wakes with eternal optimism.”
I arranged my face in a bland mask. “I didn’t say a word.”
“Knock, knock.” The chipper voice preceded physical knocking on the doorframe. “I thought I heard voices in here and…”
“Morning, Enzo.” I caught the scent of fresh grounds, and my caffeine-deprived synapses fired in excitement. “Is that coffee for me?”
“Yes.” The arm holding the mug swung out, but his gaze remained nailed to the flo
or. “I came to see how Zed was feeling.”
“He’s up and about, as you can see.” I bit my lip to hold in a snicker as he palmed my forehead with enough force my head snapped back. “Yowch.”
Mouth set in a grim line, Zed showed no remorse. “You earned that, and you know it.”
“You struck your beta, and I have a witness.” I inched toward Enzo and accepted the coffee with a blissful sigh. “I could have you tarred and feathered. Or something. For insubordination.”
“I’ll buy you one of those Keurig things,” Zed offered.
I pivoted on my heel and stuck my nose up in the air. “Who says I accept bribes?”
A gleam lit in his eyes. “Are you saying no?”
I considered him. “No?”
“Maybe is the same as yes,” he informed me, “which means you’re willing to take bribes. That proves you’re corrupt, which means if you punish me, then I’ll be forced to go to the alphas about your amoral activities.”
“I admire you.” I was awed. “I can’t think until my fourth or fifth cup of coffee, and there you are, blackmailing me like a pro.” I mimed wiping a tear. “You make me so proud.”
“I can come back later.” Enzo slipped into the hall. “I should— Later.”
I dissolved into laughter once the witch’s door shut behind him. “You’d think he’d be used to seeing warg peens.”
“Mine in particular.” Zed swiped one of Moore’s faded newspapers, sat down and made a tent over his lap. “God knows he’s probed every orifice I’ve got. He should have walked in and shaken hands with it. They ought to be old friends by now.”
The reminder was calculated, and I didn’t mind it too much. “I know what he is, who he is. You don’t have to fret over me. I’ve got it under control.”
“Is that so?” He reached out and tapped my mug. “He brewed this, brought it to you, and you didn’t even sniff it before you turned it bottoms up.” He stared through the door, across the hall. “He’s a witch. He could be putting anything in there, and you wouldn’t know it until you sprouted a second head or grew a third nipple.”
Lips on the edge of the mug, I sucked coffee up the back of my nose when I laughed. “I’ll take your concerns under advisement, and you’ll be the first to know if I sprout another boob.”
“I don’t know why.”
“Why I would tell you?” I set the mug on the end of the table. “To horrify you, of course.”
“No.” He waved that conversation aside. “Why the fae in the pasture didn’t keep me.”
“Oh.” I shifted mental gears to get us back on track. “Maybe it’s because you were a wolf?”
His head lifted. “I didn’t think about that.”
“Most deserters can tell I’m a warg and not a natural wolf.” The duka sure had no trouble with it. “The first victim was a fae male, the second a human female. A male warg would keep the pattern going. Another male victim. Another new species. Maybe this one couldn’t determine your sex.”
“Thanks.” His glower cranked up a few notches. “Always with the compliments.”
Why would a fae taking a sampling of the locals turn down a warg who fit our working profile, as flimsy as it was?
Sensing my distress, my wolf offered a barrage of images for me to sift through, bare flickers of her recollections that made no sense. All the mishmash did was confirm the area where we found Zed was the same chipmunk-infested stretch of pasture where we stumbled across…whatever had forced my brain through a sieve.
“What’s wrong?” He gripped my wrist. “Did you remember something?”
“No.” I pulled away and massaged my temples. “The wolf is giving me impressions, but they’re jumbled too. She doesn’t remember much, but that she has any memory at all suggests the fae has trouble managing that aspect of our nature.”
“Do you think that’s why it chose a human after Mr. O’Malley?”
“It’s possible.” I honestly had no idea. “If it had trouble managing the fae it had already taken, I can see it going after something weaker the next time.” It did make me wonder. “Why did it attack you and not me?”
“Your wolf is more dominant.” He considered me. “Your resistance is probably higher than mine. That, or your wolf figured out the danger faster.”
Or maybe whatever had been out in that field wasn’t interested in hurting me.
That was a terrifying thought.
“I brought breakfast.” Isaac entered the room with three plastic bags hung on one arm and a tray full of drinks in the other. “I figured you’d need the calories after last night.”
A growl revved in Zed’s chest that he didn’t try and disguise. “Isaac is here?”
“You missed that memo, huh?”
“Probably because you never sent it.”
“Here.” Isaac shoved two boxes, each marked with a Waffle Iron logo, into Zed’s hands. It was a good thing too, or else Zed might have glared him to death. “Top box is all meat. The bottom box is everything else.” He set one of the Styrofoam cups on the table beside him. “I got you orange juice.”
The heady scent of fried meats filled the air, and my stomach rumbled. Zed cradled his food to his chest and eyed me warily.
“This is yours.” Isaac pressed a box into my hands. “It’s half and half. Bacon and sausage.” He offered me a cup. “This is also for you.”
“Coffee?” I asked with all the hope of a child on Christmas morning.
“Not coffee.” He peeled back the tab on the lid. “It’s a decaf chai latte.”
“Decaf?” I wrinkled my nose. “Were they out of the good stuff?”
“You’re in detox.” He squared off with me. “You never drank coffee before, but you’re slamming it back two-fisted now. That much caffeine is not good for you. You need to eat better and delegate more.”
“This is going to be fun.” Zed bit into a strip of bacon. “Maybe I won’t disembowel him for hurting you after all. Not today anyway.”
“At the risk of sounding juvenile, you’re not the boss of me.” I dug out a sausage link and snapped it in half with my teeth. Isaac raised an eyebrow. “I can drink coffee if I want.”
“You’re running on fumes.” Isaac didn’t budge in his stance. “You’re not taking care of yourself.”
“You make it sound like that’s your problem,” Zed said conversationally.
“Dell is my problem.” Isaac cut him a hard look. “Yours too. As long as she’s acting as alpha by proxy for this pack, her health and wellbeing ought to be Lorimar’s prime concern.”
The fleeting instant where I thought he might be taking an interest in my health for me flickered and passed.
“I have my hands full here.” I moved on to gnawing on a slice of ham. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“No one is dismissing your accomplishments.” He glared at the cup in my hand until I took a sip. It was warm and creamy and…I couldn’t do it. Chai was Cam’s thing. Not mine. “You’re working your ass off, but you didn’t get training to be beta before this became a solo gig. No one is pointing fingers or casting blame. It happened, and here we are. All I’m saying is—let us make this easier on you. Let us help.”
This was an intervention? He bribed us with breakfast meats so he could slap me down? I balked so hard, I didn’t react when he took the chai from my hand and replaced it with a different cup from the tray, this one filled with orange juice.
“I spoke with Cord last night.” Isaac must have sensed his death nearing, because he stepped out of range of my claws. “I wanted to find out if there was precedent for naming a third position to the pack hierarchy.”
“Is this punishment because I sent you home alone last night?” I had to ask if he was that petty.
The bacon in Zed’s fist snapped in half as he growled out, “What?”
“I offered to walk her home. She declined,” Isaac informed him without taking his eyes off me. “And no, Dell, this is not a punishment. This is me, looking out f
or you.”
“This is also nothing official,” Zed reassured me. “No one outside the pack can make decisions that directly affect the pack. Cord would never go over your head, Dell.” He speared Isaac with a glare. “This is purely hypothetical.”
His soothing words calmed my inner wolf. A little. Enough she didn’t burst from my skin.
“Fine,” I gritted from between clenched teeth. “What did he have to say?”
“That gammas are rare. Healthy packs don’t require a triad to keep them stable. The alpha—or alpha pair—manages it with help from their beta.” He waited to see that I sipped the juice before taking a drag on the chai I had turned down. Part of me was fascinated, surprised that he would risk getting my cooties. “Lorimar is stable, or was stable. Now it’s teetering without another leg to support it.”
I bared my teeth, a snarl curling my upper lip. “What are you implying?”
“You. Need. Help.” He sighed like I was the one making him tired. “Back me up here?” he flung at Zed. “You don’t have to like me to agree with me. Not about this.”
“He’s not wrong.” Zed moved food around the box with his finger. “Things were bad before.” His glare at Isaac was so sharp, I expected the Gemini to start bleeding. “They’re better now.” He set his food aside as if the thought of where I had been a few days ago turned his stomach. “I want what’s best for you, Dell. This… It’s what you need, even if you don’t want to hear it.”
“They’re right,” a third voice entered the conversation.
All heads turned toward the witch in the doorway.
“You too, huh?” I glanced between the three of them. “Great. Lovely. Wonderful.”
I stood with as much dignity as I could muster, slammed my plate down on the seat of my chair—because Meemaw would paddle me for wasting perfectly good food—and left the guys to stand around and pat each other on the back for ambushing me.
All these weeks of busting my hump, pinching pennies and spreading our budget to cover food and supplies for those who couldn’t afford them, and this was the thanks I got. Being told I wasn’t good enough, I hadn’t tried hard enough. I wasn’t alpha enough. Well thank God for that. This was as high on the ladder as I ever wanted to climb, and it was far enough off the ground that falling would break me.
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