by Laura Taylor
Eleanor nodded. “Of course. We have a number of options as far as accommodation goes. I’m aware that many of you choose to live without the basic human comforts that Il Trosa favours, so if you wish, you may set up camp around one of the cottages flanking the manor, and then the cottage itself can be used for running water and shelter from the weather. Or if you prefer, we would be happy to put you up in the main house, if you would like a human bed and bathroom facilities. The cottages have functional kitchens, or you would be welcome to join Il Trosa for your evening meals in the main house. Either way, we can provide you with both human and wolf foods, as you find most suitable.”
“There are a lot of us,” Kajus spoke up suddenly, looking around at the group, “and you are already hosting Sempre and her pack. With so many on one property, hunting for food is not practical. So I would like to offer you payment for food and for any other expenses we cause. I’m sure my comrades would agree that since you did not invite this calamity upon yourselves, we should not take advantage of your hospitality.” He looked around at the other members of the Watch, and it didn’t escape Andre’s notice that he had neatly backed them all into a corner. They could refuse to offer any payment, but in light of Kajus’s announcement, it would make them look petty and mean. No exact amount of money had been specified, of course, but he would have bet his left arm that every single pack would be giving them a token sum, at the very least. He watched Kajus, as the others voiced their agreement, some more enthusiastically than others, and decided he was going to have to keep an eye on the Lithuanian male. He had a sharp eye and a knack for manipulating people, and the combination was the sort of thing that could be used equally well to benefit the weak and helpless, or to stab them in the back.
Roughly half the Grey Watch Panel chose each option, with one group wandering off towards the cottages on the opposite side of the manor to Sempre’s pack and the other half following Baron and Caroline inside to be shown to a spare wing that had been set aside for them.
An hour and a half later, Genna followed Eleanor out the front door of the manor and into the walled courtyard that had been set up for the negotiations. A wide semicircle of chairs sat on one side for the Grey Watch Panel, a small handful on the other side for the Council, and a long table had been placed ominously at the head of the courtyard, a variety of objects arranged neatly on its surface.
Genna felt her legs shake as she approached the table, her gut rolling as she looked around at the grim faces staring back at her. Baron, Caroline and Sempre sat behind the Council, but no other members of either pack had been asked to attend, and Genna wished that Tank had been allowed to sit in on this session as well. Having at least one onlooker who she knew was firmly on her side would have made the world of difference.
As it was, the wall of faces and the tense anticipation of everyone watching her were making her feel lightheaded. This was so similar to the sessions Sempre had forced her to go through, a series of demands, ever increasing in difficulty, disapproving glares every time she failed, with everyone too preoccupied with what she could do to care about who she was or how she felt. Because the Panel were not going to go easy on her, she knew. She’d seen the looks on their faces when they’d heard about her gift, seen the greed, the glee, the urge to grab and possess and own…
She hated the shifters, she thought in a moment of black despair, and what should she care if they all went to war and ripped each other to shreds?
“We’d like to start by asking you a few simple questions about your experience as a shifter,” Linnea said, opening the discussion, and Genna could only nod mutely as she stood stiff as a board in front of them. “How long ago were you converted?”
“About a year,” Genna replied.
“And how long ago did you discover your gift?”
“I don’t know,” Genna mumbled. “I think it was early summer.” It had been before the Densmeet in Scotland, though she couldn’t have pinned down an exact date.
“Late summer,” Sempre said from the sidelines, and for a moment, Genna thought she’d made a mistake. Sempre had found out about her talent in late summer, and Genna had told her at the time that she’d only just discovered it. But then she thought, what the heck. Hers and Sempre’s stories were going to disagree for a lot of the next few days, and Tank had told her to stick to the truth whenever possible.
“Early summer,” she repeated, looking Sempre defiantly in the eye.
She saw Linnea hesitate for a moment, as she glanced between the two of them, and then she wrote something down in the notebook she was holding. She wasn’t the only one taking notes, Genna realised, and she knew she was going to have to be extra careful. If her own story contradicted itself at any point, then the Panel would only have to refer back to their notes to catch her out.
“Sempre has told us that you are only able to move small objects and that you can keep them hidden for only a minute or two,” Linnea said. “Would you say that was an accurate description of your current abilities?”
Genna floundered for a moment, not sure how much she should actually reveal. She’d never been able to live up to Sempre’s expectations, but she’d managed to achieve significantly more than the marble-sized objects that were first in the line-up of test items on the table. Based on the extremely scant evidence she had, Sempre seemed to be downplaying her abilities, deliberately setting the Panel up to have low expectations of her.
She rapidly thought back to the conversation she’d had with Tank in the hotel and was dismayed to realise that this was a topic they hadn’t covered in all their careful planning. How would her abilities, or lack thereof, affect the rest of this trial? She was no strategist, and everything she’d done so far, since returning to Il Trosa’s estate, had been according to Tank’s plans.
If the Panel knew what she could really do, they would be all the more eager to exploit her, just like Sempre had done. But the alternative was to play into the story Sempre was trying to weave – that she was an inept novice and that her gifts were little more than a neat party trick. And if there was one thing she’d learned in the past year, it was that Sempre was not to be trusted.
Wolves should be known not just for their loyalty, Tank had said, but also for their guile. And she certainly felt no loyalty towards Sempre.
So if guile was her choice, then showing Sempre to be a liar was an easy first step. “Actually, I’ve been practising quite hard,” Genna said, trying to make her voice strong and clear. “And I think I’ve made a good amount of progress.” Determinedly, she stepped up to the table and set the first of the objects in the centre. “Let me show you a couple of the things I’ve learned…”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By the time evening came around, John was beginning to feel a distinct and predictable anxiety about having so many people around. Growing up, he’d spent vast amounts of time alone and had had little opportunity to learn how to relate to people. While there was a part of him that was still desperate to hang out with other wolves, with other people who were like him, there was also a part of him that just found the whole thing too overwhelming.
Until recently, he would have found Baron, snarled at him that he was going to bed and then gone to read a book in their room until Baron showed up, falling asleep within the warm cocoon of his lover’s arms.
But tonight there would be no one coming quietly into the room after he’d gone to bed, no one cuddling up beside him, no murmured words to chase away the loneliness, and so while openly engaging with the foreign shifters all trying to awkwardly mingle was a task too strenuous for his already strained nerves, he was reluctant to call it a night just yet. If he went to bed too early, he’d just wake up again at three in the morning and lie there with all manner of grim thoughts running through his head.
A lot of the people wandering about the driveway and lawn weren’t the least bit interesting. This manor lacked the obvious patio that sat at the back of Misty Hills, so the area set up on the driveway for
people to talk and drink and eat dessert had been thrown together in a way that looked a bit like someone had just opened a box of party supplies and tossed it in the air, letting the pieces fall where they may. Why was Il Trosa even going to the effort to suck up to their visitors, anyway? The Panel were all Grey Watch, and no matter how much they wanted peace, John hardly thought they were going to take a dump on one of their own packs in order to achieve it. And if the Council had bought this estate so the Den could move here, then what was the fuss about anyway? All they needed to do was figure out if it was Sempre or Genna who had really contacted the Noturatii, kill the one responsible, and move the Den to Scotland.
John sighed, shifted into wolf form and slunk around the edge of the gathering, keeping to the shadows under a bush. The scent of a foreign wolf told him that one of the assassins had been in this exact spot earlier today, though there was no trace of the woman now, but he was pleased to think he’d just chosen the same sly observation point as one of the Council’s elite.
A moment later, he spotted the one person he was actually interested in seeing this evening, and a faint wag of his tail showed his satisfaction. Andre was standing with a glass of wine in his hand, though John knew from an hour or so of watching him that he hadn’t actually drunk any of it.
Andre had always been a bit of a conundrum for John. He was a skilful fighter and a ruthless killer, and John had no doubt that Andre would be able to beat him in a fight, which immediately earned him a large dose of respect. But at the same time, the man often did things that were completely baffling. He was a better fighter than Baron, but when he’d joined the Den, he’d deliberately lost not just one, but three status fights, so that he was now ranked below Silas. He stood back and let Baron and Caroline plan battles, when he had more experience and could have put a better plan together in half the time.
John was quite convinced that Andre was smart enough that he wasn’t just making stupid mistakes. Everything he did must have a plan, a strategy, a reason of some sort behind it. But so far, John had had a hard time working out what those reasons were. Andre was superior, in both fighting skills and experience, to almost everyone else in the Den, and yet he willingly pulled himself into line and followed the rules.
Just then, Miller crossed John’s line of sight, blocking out his view of Andre. By Sirius, he hated that Noturatii dog, and he still harboured fantasies of ripping his throat out. He realised that a low growl had risen in his throat and quickly silenced it, ashamed of himself. He had a long way to go if he was going to learn to be like Andre. If an assassin had been hiding in the bushes and watching a target, he would never have allowed himself to get distracted like that and potentially give away his position.
Did that have something to do with following the rules, John wondered suddenly? Did Andre have better concentration because he was used to doing what other people told him to? Because he paid attention to the details and followed the right procedures? Since moving out of Baron’s room, John had started doing his own laundry, but even though Heron had told him repeatedly to separate the dark clothes from the light ones, he’d ignored the warning and thrown them all in together, and now his white t-shirt with the dragon on it was a very faint blue instead.
Miller didn’t seem to be enjoying the party, and John watched as he wandered off to the side of the driveway, then a bit further, into the trees. There was no one else around, and John began to salivate at the thought of sneaking up behind him, wrapping his teeth around the man’s neck and biting down hard until he heard a satisfying crunch.
Killing a member of the pack was against the rules, as he well knew, but as far as he was concerned, Miller had no right to be claiming a place in this pack anyway.
Realising he’d stood up and taken a slow, stealthy step towards his target, John abruptly sat down again. He wanted to kill Miller… but what if he was to deliberately follow this one rule, he wondered? So far, he hadn’t harmed the man for sheer lack of opportunity. Not that he went around all day trying to corner him, but if he’d run across him alone out in the forest he might well have taken the chance while he had it.
But what if, here, now, with Miller standing right in front of him, he chose not to kill him? What if he chose to follow the rules for once, particularly this most aggravating rule that he wanted to break more than all the others? Andre followed the rules, and he was a far superior wolf to John.
It was worth trying the idea out, John decided, deliberately turning away from Miller and going back to watching Andre. And if he decided the rule wasn’t worth following after all, he could always kill Miller another day.
Kajus stood at the edge of the driveway, watching as a group of the Panel members and their advisors talked about the events and discoveries of the day. As far as he was concerned, this whole ‘party’, if you could call it that, was a farce. There was obvious tension between Il Trosa and Sempre’s pack, and while he had little idea how the two got along ordinarily, it was clear that tonight, they wanted nothing to do with each other.
The three Councillors were making an effort to get to know those of the Panel, though they were making rather a dog’s breakfast of it. Being entrenched in the human world, they were making use of their best manners, meaningless small talk and elegant politeness that was lost on most of those from the Watch. He hadn’t seen any of the three shift even once that day and had to wonder when they spent any time in wolf form, if they were so busy trying to play the role of human aristocrats.
But to be fair, the Watch members had hardly done any better. Putting a large group of wild wolves together was a recipe for disaster, and he’d already witnessed more than one squabble turn violent as the strangers jostled for dominance and territory. The Panel needed to take a leaf from the Council’s book, he decided, as humans were far better at making new acquaintances than wolves were. But at the same time, the Council needed to realise that people who lived in isolated forests and drank from cold streams were not going to give a shit what sort of wine they were served, or what sort of glass it came in.
After an hour or so of awkward mingling, a group of the Watch had broken off together and were now not so much having a conversation as all randomly sharing their opinions, with no real, discernible thread to the discussion.
“I have serious doubts about Sempre already,” Rita said, the translator from Greece. Luke had apparently been abandoned for the moment, and Kajus wasn’t sure how that boded for the pair’s relationship throughout the rest of the talks. “She said Genna had only the barest control of her abilities, but she was really quite spectacular during the demonstration.”
“She’s a weak pup,” someone else declared. “Genna, I mean. Particle mages in the past have been able to make whole forests disappear. She can hardly move a teapot.”
“That’s rubbish. They had more power than Genna, yes, but no one ever moved so much as a whole tree, never mind a forest.”
“Nonetheless, I don’t trust Sempre. If she’s lied about Genna, who knows what else she’s going to lie about.”
“We haven’t even heard the full story yet. From either of them.” Galina was speaking, a Russian alpha who gave the impression of being very even-tempered. “You can’t write off her whole personality based on one event.”
“Sempre’s the alpha of the pack,” said the male alpha from France – one of the few Grey Watch packs that actually had a male alpha. “She has far more reason to lie than Genna.”
“We can’t be making decisions before we’ve even started the trial!”
“Eleanor’s ego is a little out of control, don’t you think?”
“But she’s the leader not just of one pack, but of the whole of Il Trosa.”
“That’s why it’s better that the Watch doesn’t have a government. Too damned human, aside from anything else. Wild wolves would never obey the orders of a pack who lived a thousand miles away.” That was Oana, from Romania, speaking through her translator. So far she’d managed to disagree with everyth
ing anyone had said, and after only one afternoon, Kajus was already getting sick of her.
“I thought the Council were all equal. Eleanor’s not in charge of them all, is she?”
“It’s an interesting collection of people we have here,” Linnea said from beside Kajus, having arrived quietly in the last few moments. “It’s good to see you still run.”
Kajus turned his head to look at her for a moment, before facing the crowd again. “I heard you suffered an attack from the Noturatii last spring.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Linnea put a hand to her chest, high on the left side where, according to the rumours, she now bore a vicious and jagged scar. “I survived,” she said simply. “Which is more than can be said for the three Noturatii.”
“You should come and visit us one day,” Kajus said next. “It’s been too long.”
Linnea’s smile was hollow. “I doubt your alpha would share your enthusiasm for guests. Particularly from our part of the world.”
Kajus made a non-committal sound, then said, “Well, perhaps Sophija has lasted too long, as well.”
“And yet she saw fit to send you here?”
“More to get rid of me for a while, rather than because she thought I would be of any use. According to what I’ve heard of Sempre, she and Sophija are much alike.”
They both fell silent for a moment, then Linnea asked, “What’s your take on this so far?”
Kajus laughed. “We haven’t even begun the talks yet, and you’re already trying to get me to take sides? I’ve been watching this for the last half an hour,” he said, nodding to the group of Panel members. “Everyone has an opinion, though no one has any real information yet.”
“Let me ask a different question, then. What did you think of Genna’s display this afternoon?”
Now that was a far better question. “Perhaps we should find somewhere more private to talk?” he suggested lightly, knowing Linnea too well to not see where she was going with this. She nodded, and without a word, they both shifted, retreating further into the gardens.