by T. G. Ayer
As chivalry hadn’t yet died for the walker male only the females occupied the available seating. Members of the High Council were the exception. They’d sit at the head table at the front of the room. Those called on council business would take seats at a smaller table at the side.
At the moment both tables were empty, but places against the walls were filling up as the non-councilmen arranged themselves for the best view of the proceedings.
Well, the non-councilmen and me.
Ignoring Grams’ hesitation, I put a hand on her shoulder and gently pressed her down into the last available chair. She patted my fingers before I let go.
The air moved next to me and I looked up to find Mom standing there, her white pants-suit glowing pearlescent.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, shocked to see Mom attending a council meeting. To my knowledge she’d never been invited to one. She was human, of course.
Mom shrugged. “I was summoned,” she said, making light of the formal invitation.
I wasn’t fooled. For the High Council to summon a human was not a commonplace thing, so it didn’t take long for me to scan the crowd and gauge the number of eyes flickering in our direction, a few expressions of surprise at Mom’s presence.
It was a harsh reality to be faced with the fact that my mom’s species had been widely known and accepted, by everyone except for me. And more the fact that so many of them seemed accepting of her, and concerned with what her presence meant.
A few chairs to Grams’ right a heavyset blonde woman leaned forward. Mary Hevers, the wife of the lynx alpha of Montana. She waved her fat fingers at Mom and curved her lips in what she probably hoped would be construed as a supportive smile.
Her lips lied.
Or maybe I was better at recognizing fake than most. Always being the one on the sidelines had taught me to watch for those little tells that gave away what people really thought—even when they were silent. Especially when they were silent. Words mean little. Actions speak the truth.
If you know what to look for.
Tonight Mary held her jaw tight, her spine tighter. She knew something, the thin smile on her face filled with glee and triumph. I glanced at Mom and the tightness at the sides of her eyes told me that she too was very good at picking up emotional tells.
I took a tiny step closer to Mom and relaxed a little when I felt her arm curl around my waist. I didn’t want to be seen comforting her because that would have made her look weak in front of all the other Alpha wives. And my mother was not weak.
Instead, I leaned into her comfort, glad I was there to be a support during what I felt was going to be very bad news.
Across the room, Dad now sat at the small council table placed along the wall at a right angle to the main conference table. The light from the ancient chandelier above him lent a hooded, shadowed cowl to his face. Beside him sat Alfred Gordon, cougar alpha of Texas, whose wife was Fae. On his other side sat Jem Gumble, Lynx alpha from Maine. His wife, Elaine, was human.
Human and fae. Not walker. I was beginning to see a pattern.
All three men sat very still, blank-faced, not looking at each other or anyone else. They too knew something was wrong but perhaps not precisely what. The meeting hadn’t started yet.
“What’s going on?” I muttered.
“Exactly what you think is going on, sweetie.”
I turned to the owner of that voice of dripping ice—Denise Farnsworth, wife of one of the High Council members—but she’d dropped her little poison bomb and moved away, spine stiff, skin pale as if blood was in scarce supply.
I glared after her. “Who does she think she is?”
“High Council wife,” was all Mom said.
The crack of gavel hitting block in the now stuffy room pulled everyone’s attention to the head table and the—now seated—High Council.
I gave the room a quick, sweeping study. From the expressions on the faces of various general members it was clear some of them knew what was on the meeting’s agenda and not all of them agreed with it. A few looked downright upset. But here they stood, in spite of their unhappiness.
It was massively clear who was in control here, and it was the council members whose forefathers had been elected into their illustrious positions decades ago.
Grams often said that it was high time new members were elected but few walkers, Alphas or otherwise, were powerful enough to go against such an ancient tradition.
And yet I too had to stand by and watch as the Walker High Council bound the strongest people in the history of Walkers.
This cannot be happening.
Council Leader Joseph Marsden got to his feet and swept his pale gaze over the gathered Alphas. He stood there for a moment, spine stiff, his hands behind his back like some great leader instead of a power-hungry, turkey-necked wannabe. He loved holding court, this overbearing old creep. As he spoke his throat wobbled, loose skin shivering, making my stomach turn.
I knew what he was going to say before he spoke, and I listened in cold horror.
“Alphas of the United States, wives and family members. We, the High Council, welcome you to today’s meeting and would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation for your immediate acceptance of our invitation.”
I called bull. I didn’t think they’d sent invitations.
A rumble across the crowd confirmed they agreed with me.
“Just get on with it,” someone complained from the back row. Marsden’s face tightened and he cleared his throat. “We have received every communication from the alphas regarding our last discussion and we have finalized and passed the Addendum to the Codex of Rules laws. Now we have an unpleasant task to perform.”
As he spoke he moved away from the head table and went to hover over the trio of stony-faced alphas at the smaller table, like an overgrown vulture. Dad watched him, his expression unwaveringly cool.
“According to the tenets of the new law,” Marsden continued, “all alphas in a relationship with, or married to, a non-walker will have their alpha statuses revoked forthwith.”
Forthwith? Who even said forthwith anymore?
But Marsden wasn’t done. “Alphas Odel, Gordon, and Gumble,” he toned solemnly. “It is my sad duty to relieve you—”
The noise of movement behind him drew Marsden’s attention and he swung away from the seated alphas to glare at the crowd. Fae Marcia Gordon and human Elaine Gumble were on their feet and moving along their rows toward Mom and me.
What was going on?
“Point of order,” Mom said clearly and took a step forward. “I believe what you’re about to do is a violation of the law.”
He stared at her down his nose. “Really, human? What do you know of our laws?”
“I know that under the new addendum it’s illegal to relieve an alpha of his position if his wife is no longer with him. We”—she gestured to Marcia and Elaine—“are no longer with our husbands.”
“What?” A pallid man to begin with, Marsden managed to blanch a few shades whiter and his eyebrows hiked up as far as they could go. “What are you talking about?”
Behind him, Dad, Gordon, and Gumble snapped their dropped jaws closed and tried to look as if this was old news.
“I am saying,” said Mom, speaking very slowly, “that I am not with my husband. We’ve been separated for a good long while now. Everyone is well aware of that.” Mom shrugged. “Not sure you can punish a man for his past before a law came into being? I don’t believe so.”
Marsden’s color had turned from white to dangerously red. His gaze shifted to Gumble’s wife. “Is this true, human?”
A curvaceous woman with bright yellow hair and a face as round as an apple, Elaine could have played the role of Viking lady on any stage. She gave Marsden a coy smile, her eyes glowing dangerously despite her seductive expression.
“If you kept up to date with the welfare of your people,” she said sweetly, “you’d be well aware that Jem and I have had a rocky relation
ship this last year. As a matter of fact, I moved out two weeks ago. Or did your underlings not tell you?”
Wow, she was daring.
Apparently Marsden hadn’t been aware of the Gumble’s rocky relationship. It was just as well Marsden had his back to the table because, judging by old Jem’s expression, he hadn’t been aware of it either.
Marsden, struggling to control his swiftly rising fury, moved his attention to Gordon’s wife. “And you, fae?”
Marcia stood very still beside Mom, her rapid pulse beating at the base of her neck. Then she laughed, a humorless, croaking sound.
“If you think marriage to that old goat is fun then think again. I’m with these girls. I’m better off with him as my alpha than as my husband. Thanks to your law I’ve finally been given the perfect opportunity to toss his wrinkled old ass out of my bed.”
Someone snorted.
A couple of people in the back row were unable to control their laughter, and around us a good few were struggling to hide their smiles. Even old Gumble himself couldn’t stop the corner of his lip from curving before he sobered into alpha blankness.
But I couldn’t laugh. It wasn’t simply my reaction to the sudden breakup of three alpha marriages that sobered me. It was knowing that Marcia, who exuded youth and beauty courtesy of her Fae genes, had been married to ‘the old goat’ for decades. Now, because of Marsden and his ilk, she and Gordon would be denied their last years together. It was cruel.
“Enough!” Marsden snarled, and the laughter in the room died. He swung back to face the three almost-ex-alphas. “Is this true?”
Together, as if choreographed by a master, each man gave him an arrogant, very alpha, inclination of the head.
Our marriages. Our business. You’re incompetent. Oh yeah, that nod said it all.
Marsden stood still for another moment, but I could see his face. It was a strange shade of purple and he looked like he’d swallowed a bowlful of jalapeños.
I hoped my parents, the Gumbles, and the Gordons knew what they were doing. Lying to the High Council was a dangerous game.
Chapter 9
THE ONLY THING THAT BROKE the icy silence in my apartment was the low bubbling of the kettle.
Why does it seem like I am always making tea?
Dad sat on our sofa, hunched over staring at the floor, his fingers threaded, elbows on his knees. Mom rubbed his back, her expression sad but determined.
He cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Of course, I should have,” she said
“I’ve only just gotten you back.” His voice sounded strained.
She sighed, a soft breath of sound. “There are more important things than us.”
He shifted his gaze to her face and the look he gave her drew hot tears to my eyes.
But Mom seemed unfazed by the raw pain in her husband’s eyes. She patted his cheek. “We have all the time in the world for us. Right now, the clans are troubled and they need you. Besides.” She grinned. “A sordid affair with one’s ex is far more interesting than boring old marriage.”
Dad gave a harsh laugh and shook his head. He, like Grams and me, was still recovering from shock after Mom’s little performance with her two comrades. Iain, unfortunately, had to attend to business in Tukats.
I snorted. “I’m still not sure I believe what you did.”
Mom shifted in her seat and glanced over her shoulder at me. Never before had I seen her slim build, her clean profile, her dark hair, as being so much like mine. And so human.
“Would you have done any differently?” she asked softly, her hand never leaving Dad’s shoulder.
Grams moved past me and began to prepare the tea, leaving me with no option but to answer Mom.
“Fine,” I said. “I would have done the same thing. But you three seemed to have had it planned.”
Mom smiled and got to her feet. The pearlescent silk of her suit pants clung to her hips as she strode to the kitchen to make her coffee. She’d never been a tea girl. “The alphas have been expecting something like this since the last High Council meeting.”
“You spoke to Marcia and Elaine?”
Mom nodded. “We were well prepared.”
“But you didn’t bother to tell us,” Dad said, his voice rough.
Mom lifted her gaze from the coffee machine to him, her fingers hovering over the switches. “Giving you three advanced warning would have guaranteed the High Council’s win. You know as well as I do that you would have shot us down.”
Her words fell like hot rocks onto snow. Devastating.
“High Council really wanted you out,” I told Dad hoping he’d explain why.
His face paled a little, but when he didn’t answer, I decided to ask my questions up front, “Have you heard anything? Rumor mill? Grapevine? Underground?”
He glanced up at me, and the truth was written in his guilty face. “You’ve known all along.”
“Of course he did, dear,” said Grams from my side. She elbowed me gently out of the way and, with nothing left to do with my hands I went to sit beside Dad.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“He’s going to keep on going, as if nothing happened,” Grams said before he could reply. “While he does that, we are going to deepen our investigation.”
“You and Mom?”
Grams nodded. “I have feelers out. Marsden and his cronies still have an agenda.”
“We’ve got a hacker working on their servers,” Mom said. “We’re just waiting to find something damning, but”—she shrugged—“So far nothing.”
Grams sighed. “Only hints and implications. Nothing concrete. They seem to be covering their tracks too well. Even the big guns are coming up empty.”
“Sentinel is on this?” They had to be, surely.
“Like a bear all over a honey pot.”
As our laughter subsided, Mom said, “I’m going to stay here for a while. Dad and I can’t be seen living in the same house.”
I raised my eyebrows. It went against nature when parents grew up and moved back in with their kids. Would this mean I’d be kicked out of my room?
Mom’s mouth curved into a secretive smile. “Do you still have your key, darling?”
It was my house. Of course I did.
“Of course, I do,” my father said.
Huh?
“And in all this time you never once used it?” Mom’s voice held a hint of accusation.
What?
“You left,” Dad said tiredly. “You made it clear we were done. Whether it was to protect our children or not, you said we were done. Why would I use it?”
What. The. Hell?
“Because it’s time you both grew up.” Grams marched over and placed the platter of teacakes and pastries on the dining room table. “I’m tired of watching you two kids going around and around in circles. You did what you did at the time to protect your children. That’s it. They don’t need protection any longer. So be done with the past, and start thinking about the future.” She skewered Dad with a don’t-mess-with-me glare. “Use your key.”
My parents turned to stare at Grams, their expressions a blend of shock, annoyance and gratitude.
I stared at Grams too. But not in gratitude. Would I ever get the image of my parents having sneaky sex like a couple of hormonal teenagers out of my brain?
No. No, I wouldn’t.
“Food,” I said, feeling nauseous. I waved both hands at the trays like a demented magician. Don’t think about it. “Food.”
Dad got to his feet, giving me an odd look, and walked over to Mom. After a moment of silent communication, he placed a hand around her waist and guided her to a seat at the table.
She patted the chair next to her and he took it. Grams and I joined them.
For a while we limited the conversation to asking for the sugar, the teacakes, the pastries. Finally, though, we had to move to the real issues. Dad started the ball rolling.
“S
o,” he said, sounding resigned. “What the hell am I supposed to do while you ladies do the groundwork?”
“Gather the Alphas and start preparing,” Mom said. “Do your own investigations to find the traitors. Someone from the clans is feeding information to the High Council and that info is being used against us. We need to know who the mole is.”
I cleared my throat. “And target those High Council members who looked like they were sitting on hot coals. Not all of them were thrilled with the new Addendum or with what Marsden had planned. Surely they would be the first to turn on him as long as they were promised discretion and safety?”
Dad shifted his attention to me, his expression impressed. “I hadn’t noticed their discomfort, but I think that’s going to be my first order of the day.”
“No,” Mom said. “It’s not.” She had a strange smile on her face, and when he raised his eyebrows she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Don’t forget, we have an affair to carry out.”
Don’t think about it.
“Do we now?” He leaned back with a cheeky smile.
They looked like two kids in love. So cheesy, yet so cute.
If they were someone else’s parents.
“You get your key,” Mom said, “and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
They both got to their feet, Dad heading for the coat-rack and Mom to my room where she’d thrown her coat and purse.
“Downstairs?” I echoed.
“Yes,” she called from my room. “My apartment is downstairs.”
What?
“Your apartment is downstairs?” I squeaked. Couldn’t help it. I didn’t even know that the downstairs apartments were occupied. Grams and I had had the building to ourselves since I moved in a couple years ago.
“Yes, honey.” Mom emerged from the room, coat in hand, her bag slung over her shoulder.
“Your apartment?”
“Is downstairs.” She smiled at me, at Grams, and slid her arm into the crook of Dad’s elbow. Then they both glided out of the apartment as if they hadn’t just dropped a bomb on me.
Don’t think about it.
I gave a delicate shudder, and the door clicked shut behind them.