“It says here that you and Sandra work together in the Northern Recovery office. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Aside from what happened on Friday, would you say Sandra is a friendly person?”
Ken puzzled it over. He wasn’t sure where I was heading. “I suppose so.”
“Could it be that when Sandra told you that you looked nice, she might have just been trying to be friendly?”
“No.”
“So you had never seen her compliment anybody else in the office?”
He paused. “Well, yes, she does say nice things sometimes to people, but I mean, I’m the only guy there, so it’s different.”
This was so not my thing. I just wanted to hop on the table, knock him upside the head, and be done with it. “But it is possible that you might have misinterpreted Sandra’s comment?”
It took a few more seconds, and then he finally said, “It’s possible.”
Hallelujah. “Suppose there were a man working in your office. A much larger, stronger man. Let’s say a render. He came into the office wearing a new leather jacket. You had a friendly chat, you complimented his jacket, and that night you woke up with the man standing over you, nude and holding a bouquet of roses.”
Kenneth’s eyes went wide. “But I’m not gay!”
“It’s not about being gay; it’s about being confronted by someone larger and stronger than you are when you are at your most vulnerable. If you were to find this dude standing in your bedroom, would you be upset?”
“Hell yes, I’d be upset. I’d tell him to get the fuck out. But she didn’t tell me to get out. If she had said, ‘Ken, get the hell out!’ I would’ve left. She shot me eight times.”
Oh, screw it. “She is smaller and weaker than you are. She woke up, saw you naked and ready for action, and probably thought you were going to rape her. She was scared, Ken. You scared her half to death.”
“She didn’t have anything to be scared about! I wouldn’t have done anything.”
“She didn’t know that. You already broke into her house, so you have no respect for her property. What would make her think that you would respect her as a person and just walk away if she told you to leave?”
Muscles played along Ken’s jaws. “That’s the way the shapeshifters do it. Everybody knows that you didn’t encourage the Beast Lord, but he broke into your apartment and you didn’t shoot him.”
The audience got so quiet, I could hear myself breathe. So that was it. That was what Jennifer was after.
“I see.” My voice went quiet. “Is that why you decided to appeal directly to me?”
“Yes.”
“Who suggested it?”
“My alpha.”
Jennifer wanted to embarrass me. Well, if she expected me to wilt, she’d be waiting until hell sprouted roses. I turned and looked at Jennifer. She smiled back at me. Half a second to clear the desk, two seconds to cross the room and I could be sinking my fist into her face. Cure all her ills and mine.
“I had no idea that Clan Wolf’s alphas kept such a close eye on my relationship with the Beast Lord. I’ll have to check under our bed tonight to make sure no little wolf spies are hiding under there.”
Somebody snorted and choked it off.
“Do you know what I did after I discovered the Beast Lord in my apartment?”
Ken realized he was on shaky ground. “No.”
“I put a knife to his throat,” I said. “And I changed the lock on my door. Besides that, I had encouraged the Beast Lord prior to him breaking in. I flirted with him, I kissed him, and I paraded around in front of him in my underwear.”
I was almost done. I just had to keep from pummeling Jennifer for a little bit longer. “Did Sandra ever do any of those things?”
“No.”
Let’s get it all out there. “Did she ever make out with you in a hot tub or offer to serve you dinner naked?”
My face must’ve gotten darker, because Ken gulped. “No.”
I turned to George. “Does the Code of Pack Law have anything to say about courtship?”
George cleared her throat. “Article Five, Section One states that no member of the Pack may threaten or assault another member with the intention of forcing sexual congress.”
“What’s the punishment for rape?” I asked.
“Death,” George answered.
Ken turned white.
“Your actions can be construed as a prelude to sexual assault. It’s alarming that your alphas didn’t realize that, since it’s their job to know things like that and impress that understanding onto the members of their clan. Is forced mating common in Clan Wolf?”
The audience turned to look at the wolf alphas. Daniel startled. Jennifer clenched her teeth.
Ken showed all the desperation of a man trapped on a chunk of ice in the middle of a raging river. “No.”
“So your alphas do not encourage rape, to the best of your knowledge?”
“No!”
“Very well. I’m ready to rule.” I looked at Sandra. “You may say something if you would like.”
She shook her head.
I looked at Ken. “You acted like an idiot and got eight bullets for your trouble. Count yourself lucky that she didn’t shoot you where it counted. If it had been me, I would’ve cut off your head and filed a police report after you were done bleeding out on my carpet. Suck it up, learn from it, and move on. You get nothing. Apologize to Sandra for scaring her and then causing her a load of embarrassment by having this matter dragged before the Pack assembly.”
He stared at her wild-eyed. “I’m sorry.”
“This proceeding is over.” I glanced at the wolf alphas. “Would the alphas of Clan Wolf please see me on their way out.”
The auditorium cleared in record time. I leaned back in my chair.
Daniel and Jennifer approached my desk.
Both of my boudas moved closer.
“Jezebel, Barabas, leave us,” I said. The fewer witnesses we had to this, the better.
Barabas reversed his course in midstep and went out the door. Jez hesitated, snarled something under her breath, and followed him out.
Just me, Jennifer, Daniel, and George.
“It’s been fun,” I said. “The game ends now.”
“What game?” Jennifer asked.
I shrugged. “You have three choices. First, you can quit fucking with me and walk away. Second, you can challenge me, and I’ll kill you. It would be good for me. I need the practice.”
Jennifer bared her teeth. Daniel put his hand on her forearm. I could take her alone. Both of them with magic down would be hard.
“Third, you can keep pestering me, in which case at the next Pack Council I’ll move for your removal. I can do that, can’t I, George?”
“Yes, you can,” George said with a big smile.
“On what grounds?” Jennifer snarled.
“Incompetence. I’ll cite this proceeding as evidence. This matter concerned two members of the wolf clan, which placed it under your authority. So either you didn’t know how to deal with it, or you didn’t want to deal with it, due to laziness or due to actively condoning rape. Either way, you should be removed and an investigation must be launched into the mating practices of the wolf clan.”
“They’ll find nothing,” Daniel said.
“Five hundred wolves, of which there are probably at least what, a hundred and fifty couples? How do you think they’ll react to having their mating rituals examined?”
“You can’t do that!” Jennifer spun to Daniel. “She can’t do that.”
“Technically, she can,” Daniel said. “It’s over, Jennifer. You can’t win this.”
Jennifer’s eyes went completely green. “What the hell would you even know about being an alpha? You’re a human. The only reason you’re here is because you’re fucking Curran.”
Nice. “I don’t know much, but I’m learning fast.” I rose. “And I’m here because I killed twenty-two sha
peshifters in two weeks. I’ve earned my place. How many challenges did you have, Jennifer? Oh, that’s right. None. Enlighten me, how did you become an alpha again?” I turned to Daniel. “Help me out here. Who was she fucking, Daniel? Was it you? It must be especially good for you, because that’s the only way you’d have gone along with this for so long.”
I barely saw Daniel move. One second he was standing there, loose, and the next he clamped Jennifer in a hug. It was a very careful hug—it looked gentle, but I could tell she couldn’t move an inch.
“We apologize for any offense to the Consort. We meant no disrespect,” he said.
“Apology accepted.”
“Stop talking like I’m not here,” Jennifer ground out.
“We look forward to working with you in the future,” Daniel said. “With your leave?”
“Please. Have a pleasant evening.”
Daniel moved, and Jennifer moved with him. Together they walked out of the auditorium.
I waited until the door closed and fell into my chair. George stared at me. “Oh my freaking God. I can’t believe she went that far.”
I closed my eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m tired. My knee is hurting again and I’m trying to teleport myself upstairs.”
“Um, Kate, you can’t do that.”
“I know. But I’m trying very hard. Let me know if I start fading?”
Sadly, teleporting didn’t work. I climbed the stairs, got into the shower, washed off the dirt and blood, and put on clean clothes.
The rooms felt empty without Curran. I stood in the doorway of the bedroom for a while and looked at the bed.
I didn’t want it all to turn out to be one big lie.
A small part of me wanted to leave. Just leave now, without any explanations and disappointments. Disappear. That way if this was a lie, I’d never know.
But then I didn’t run from my challenges. I met them straight on and bashed my head against them, until it left me hurt, bloody, and dazed.
I hugged myself. When I was with Curran, he filled the empty space. If I was sad, he’d make me laugh. If I was pissed off, he’d invite me to spar. I was forgetting what it was like to be on my own. And I was on my own. Aside from Roland, there wasn’t another human being this screwed up for thousands of miles.
If tomorrow I woke up and Roland waited on the Keep’s doorstep, I would die. Pretty quickly, too. Evdokia was right. I had all the training with the sword I would ever need, but when my father and I met, the fight wouldn’t be decided by the sword. I needed magic training and a lot of it. And I had no idea how Curran would react to it. Hey, baby, you don’t mind if I practice turning a vampire inside out on the Keep’s grounds, do you? Please ignore the torturous screams of your people when things go horribly wrong.
It was one thing to know you had mated with Roland’s daughter. It was another thing entirely to have your nose rubbed in it.
Ultimately, I didn’t have to figure out whether Curran truly loved me. All I had to know was whether I loved him enough not to care why he was with me. I knew the answer. I just didn’t want to admit it. If he called right now, hurt, I would find him and save him, even if it cost me my life, whether he loved me or not. This was all sorts of screwed up.
No. I was wrong. If he was with me because he needed me to fight Roland, I had to leave. I couldn’t stay here, sleep next to him in this bed, touch him, kiss him, knowing that he didn’t truly love me but was bound by the need for survival. I would still love him, but I couldn’t stay. Had he laid it out for me from the start, before I had a chance to fall in love, I might have joined forces with him anyway. I wouldn’t have slept with Curran, but an alliance with the Pack would have strengthened me, and he and I might have gone for some sort of business arrangement. It was too late now. I wanted love or nothing.
I stole my pillow off the bed and curled up on the couch, wrapped in a spare blanket. Eventually he’d come home. Then we’d talk.
CHAPTER 13
THE ALARM WENT OFF AT SIX A.M., SIGNALING THE end of night and the absence of magic. My back and sides had decided to develop an ache overnight. I rolled off the couch, feeling every knot and snarl in my muscles, pulled on my sweats, and padded downstairs to the gym. Forty minutes later I felt much better. I still didn’t know where Curran and I stood, but for now it couldn’t be helped. I still had people to kill and a Doomsday Device to find.
I made the trip to the guard desk. “Any messages for me?”
Curtis, an older dark-haired werewolf, offered me two scraps of paper. “There is also a message from the Beast Lord, Consort. It’s in your private box. You can access it from your quarters by dialing 1000.”
He called but didn’t talk to me. Chicken. “When did he call?”
“Twelve minutes past midnight.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Curtis looked uncomfortable. “He instructed us that you shouldn’t be disturbed.”
Should I be pissed off because he didn’t want to talk to me or touched because he’d thought about letting me rest? I wasn’t sure.
I glanced at the top scrap of paper. The message stated that the trackers had found Julie’s scent on the outskirts of the city. At least she hadn’t been kidnapped.
The second message had a number and a name. Roman.
I took my scraps of paper, headed upstairs, and dialed 1000. Curran’s voice filled the room. “Hey. It’s me.”
I landed in the chair. Hearing him was like coming home in a downpour and finding the lights on and the house warm. I was in so deep, I couldn’t even see the surface anymore.
“They said you’re asleep. I’m glad you’re home safe. I’m stuck in some hellhole in the Southside. Leslie’s been running all over the city. No rhyme or reason to it. We’ll catch up to her eventually. She can’t run forever.”
And when they did, there would be a bloodbath.
“I thought about what you said. Fair enough. I do things this way because it usually works and I’ve done them this way for a long time. But I wouldn’t want it done to me.”
Ha! I’d won one.
“But we agreed that we wouldn’t do the not-talking thing and you hung up on me twice. If our agreement changed, I didn’t get the memo.”
He had me there.
“Anyway, I’m getting pretty sick of chasing the render around, so I’m going to catch her tomorrow and come home. I want to know if we’re cool. I’ll try to call you at work when I get done. Bye, baby.”
I played the message again. It didn’t say anything different.
He wanted to know if we were cool. That made two of us.
I dialed the number on the message from Roman, whoever he was. A familiar male voice answered. “Hello?”
Ha! The volhv. “Morning.”
“You should give the staff back to me. I can come to your office and pick it up. I promise, no tricks even. Nobody will die.”
“You got that right.”
“Are you going to be a hardass about this?” he asked.
“I’ll trade you the staff for Adam Kamen.”
“No.”
“Those are my terms.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. “We could do this like civilized people. But no, now I’ll have to go to your office and unleash plagues on things, and set things on fire, and condemn things. Nobody wants that. Just give me the staff and we’ll call it even. I am trying not to be a bad guy here.”
As soon as the magic wave hit, I’d have to reinforce the wards, just in case. I’d taken him down, but it was mostly luck and surprise. This time he would be ready.
“An hour with Kamen, and you can have your stick back.”
“Chyort poberi, you are a stubborn woman.”
“You’re a pagan. Saying ‘Devil take you’ is a Christian curse. How does this work exactly?”
“That’s a funny thing about Christianity; when the dead God’s priests came to Europe, they made all the old gods into devils. So
technically when I am saying Chyort, I’m appealing to the Black One. Anyway, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Wait. When you snagged Adam from his workshop, did you take the thing he built with you?”
Roman paused. “Hypothetically, if we had taken such a thing, it would no longer exist. It would be as if it had never been built. An urban legend.”
“So is it? A legend?” If they had gotten hold of the device, they would’ve destroyed it by now.
“Not so much.”
He hung up. Starting the day with a philosophical debate with a priest of the Embodiment of All Evil. It could only go downhill from here.
I took a shower, got dressed, got a sandwich, and went down the stairs, eating it on the way. No shapeshifters assaulted me and tried to take my food. No wolf alphas sprung any surprise attacks. Nobody even offered me a bouquet of headless roses. The lack of drama was downright disheartening.
Outside, the sunrise split the horizon, sudden and bright, like a gush of blood from a knife wound. Both of my vehicles were idling in the yard. The boy wonder had started my car for me and now waited by his Jeep. He wore a dark hooded sweatshirt and beat-up jeans. If you didn’t see his face and didn’t pay attention to the broad shoulders, you’d think he was just a kid, fifteen, maybe sixteen. Knowing Derek, he did it on purpose. The younger he appeared, the less his potential opponents would think of him. Except he was filling out. Another year at this rate, and he’d have to update his wardrobe.
“Thanks for starting the car.”
He grinned, a quick flash of teeth.
“Where is the bane of my existence?”
“He knows the time. I’m not his nanny.”
“What did you think of him?”
“Not much. He’s a spoiled baby.” He shrugged. “You give boudas a young male and they fall over themselves to pamper him.”
A side door opened and Ascanio emerged, followed by a familiar plump woman. She looked to be in her early fifties, with graying hair rolled into a bun, and a kind face, like a young grandmother. You half expected her to start handing out school lunches and tell you to play nice with the other kids.
She waved at us. “Kate!”
Oh crap.
I cleared my throat. “Aunt B, good morning.”
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