by Tamara Hogan
He burst to his feet. Papers flew and the mug tipped over, spilling what was left of his drink. Jack and Lorin shoved out of their chairs, sending them rolling toward the wall. Before he knew it, Lorin had his wrist clamped in a vice-like grip, and Jack stood behind Krispin Woolf, who hadn’t moved a muscle.
He might not have moved, but his eyes positively danced.
Wyland hissed, exposing every fang in his mouth. He tried to jerk away from Lorin, but she simply clamped down harder.
Woolf started rising to his feet.
Jack reached for his shoulders.
“Stop!” Claudette’s powerful siren’s voice rolled through the room. His muscles obeyed, locking him—locking everyone—in place. Across the table, Jack’s arms hung suspended, parallel to the floor; he’d been reaching for Woolf, who was frozen in a half-stand. Seated next to his father, Jacoby Woolf looked horrified. Lorin’s grip was painfully tight. His spilled drink dripped over the edge of the table and onto his shoe.
“Don’t panic,” Claudette said. “I’ve primarily targeted large muscle groups. The effects will wear off in approximately thirty seconds.”
Bloody hell, what if they didn’t? He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Best he could tell, his brain, lungs, and circulatory system were working, but everything else was immobile.
Any Council member stupid enough to think Claudette Fontaine had bonded with Elliott Sebastiani primarily to share his power had just been reminded that she had plenty of her own.
As Claudette walked towards Willem, whose hands hovered, suspended, over his keyboard, she rattled off the date and time. “Meeting adjourned.” Reaching around his fingers, she poked a key with her manicured nail. “Recording off.” She looked at Krispin, then at him. “Gentlemen, here’s how this is going to go down. Once you regain normal muscle function, Bailey will escort Wyland from the room. Krispin, Jack will accompany you to your car, and you will leave the premises. Do you understand?”
Clearly she didn’t expect an answer, but he tried to show his agreement with his eyes. Tried to apologize, for all the good it did. Her voice had frozen him with his fangs flashing—proof positive that he’d violated the Council’s most fundamental principle.
Krispin Woolf had played him like a grand piano.
Across the room, there was movement; Jack’s arm suddenly dropped. A couple of seconds later, Wyland felt his own muscles come back on-line, quickly and painlessly, with none of the neural tingling he’d expected. Lorin relaxed her grip on his wrist.
“Relax, everyone.” Claudette’s voice was a soothing balm, removing all tension from the room.
Everyone took a deep breath. His fangs receded. Lorin gave his hand a quick squeeze.
“Bailey, please escort Wyland from the room,” Claudette said.
He and Bailey both took an involuntary step toward the door. It felt like someone had nudged him from behind.
“Damn,” Bailey whispered.
Damn was right. At least Claudette hadn’t marched him from the room like a marionette on strings. Like he deserved. “I—” His vocal cords felt rusty. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “I apologize for the disruption.” After a pause, he bowed his head, then strode from the room. Bailey followed closely behind, grabbing his elbow as they crossed the executive suite’s carpeted lobby. She led him to the small conference room they’d so recently left.
Bailey pointed at a chair. “Sit.”
He sat.
“I’ll be right back.” She closed the door, leaving him alone.
But not for long. They, along with most of the people in the room they’d just left, were supposed to attend a follow-on meeting in Elliott’s office after the Council meeting ended.
If he still had a job, which was by no means a safe assumption. “Bloody hell,” he breathed, rubbing his temples. He had to inform Val, tell him—
“Here.” Bailey plunked a tall glass of warm blood onto the table, then sat down. “You know Woolf’s talking out of his ass, right?”
“Is he?” Woolf hadn’t said anything at the Council meeting that he hadn’t privately said to himself, more than once.
“Wyland, don’t let him in your head.”
Too late. “Maybe he’s just the first person to have the guts to say what everyone else is thinking—that I’m a middle-aged man besotted by his inappropriately young lover.” A bleak bark of laughter escaped. “What a fucking cliché.”
“No—”
“Never mind her age, she’s a bloody journalist. Woolf’s right—what the hell am I thinking?”
“That you love her! That you love her, and that she loves you. Now shut up and listen to me for a minute. Christ on a cracker, what is it with lawyers?” she muttered. “Between you and Jack, it’s a miracle I get a word in edgewise.”
He lifted a brow. “You appear to be doing just fine.”
She took his hands in a none-too-gentle grip. “Listen. Yes, she’s younger. Yes, she’s a journalist. But she’s a journalist from your culture, and she knows the goddamn rules. I know, because I’ve checked.” The grip tightened. “I’ve checked, Wyland. Exhaustively. Thoroughly. I can’t find even one time where she’s leaked information, or fed the grapevine. She’s never published anything that could put your culture at risk. She hasn’t violated your trust.” She paused. “Unlike Deirdre d’Amour.”
Shock rocked him back in his seat. “How do you know about—”
“Dude, who do you think wrote your bio for the Archives? A bio I notice you modified recently, but I’ll save that lecture for another time.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Wyland, I get that you’ve been burned. We all have. But Tia makes you happy. You’ve been happy.”
“Do I look happy to you?”
“No, you look miserable,” she said cheerfully. “You’re in love. Welcome to the club.”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but then closed it again, thinking back to the limo ride home, to the snarl of emotions they’d exchanged along with their blood. To the way their heartbeats had combined, thundering together. “Does everyone else really walk around feeling so…out of sorts? So off-balance? How in the world do you get any work done?”
She laughed. “The ‘oh shit’ feeling passes. It does,” she reassured him.
“I just want my life back.”
“No, you don’t.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Wyland, you weren’t living. You were existing.”
She was right. He’d been living in black and white for over a century. Tia lived in Technicolor, leaving vivid splashes in her wake. Tia was laughter and light, the sunlight to his shade, bringing him pleasure after centuries of duty. But…the yoke of duty satisfied him, too, and brought him a true sense of purpose and accomplishment. He said as much, adding, “Other people rely upon me, but…she doesn’t.”
“An independent woman bothers you?”
Her facial expression told him he’d better consider his answer very, very carefully. “No, of course not, but—”
“Wyland, she’s with you because she wants to be, not because she needs to be. You mentioned the yoke of responsibility?” Bailey gave a half-shrug. “Let her share the load. Be happy, and enjoy the journey.”
“How can I be happy if I have to resign from Council to keep her?” The decision would cleave him in two.
“Oh, please,” Bailey scoffed. “No one’s going to ask you to resign.”
“I broke the rules. No violence in the boardroom.”
“You didn’t touch him.”
“I would have,” he admitted. “Claudette stopped me before I could.”
“Yes, she stopped you. Nothing happened.”
“Your interpretation of events is far too charitable. If I hadn’t exhibited clear, violent intent, Claudette wouldn’t have found it necessary to act.” The fact that she had would go down as one of the most mortifying moments in his very long life.
“I think you’ll find everyone else agrees with me.” Bailey gestured b
ehind him. “Look.”
He peered through the narrow slice of window, where everyone except Krispin and Jacoby milled in the lobby, waiting for them. “We’re late for the meeting.” If he still had a job five minutes from now. Well, he’d find out soon enough.
“Dude, they don’t give a damn about the meeting. They’re worried about you.”
He pushed to his feet, then straightened his suit jacket and tie. “Ready?” Without waiting for her answer, he opened the door, then walked directly to Elliott and Claudette.
“Wyland.” Claudette clasped his hands. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what? I’m the one who—”
“Scared the crap out of Krispin Woolf?” Antonia sidled up with a delighted grin. “That was so freaking awesome.”
He shot her a quelling glance. “It was completely inappropriate.”
“He was inappropriate first.”
“Yes, he was,” Claudette seconded. She gave his hands a squeeze. “How are you doing?”
Everyone crowded around, too many bodies standing too close. He didn’t deserve their comfort. Couldn’t accept it. His throat tightened up. If he didn’t speak soon, he’d never be able to get the words out. “Elliott, please accept my resignation from the Underworld Council.”
Silence descended. Elliott finally spoke. “No.”
“What?”
“No,” Elliott repeated. “Your offer is declined.”
“But, surely you can’t allow—”
“Wyland.” Elliott looked tired. “If you want to argue as an intellectual exercise, you and Jack can have at it, but Krispin instigated the situation. His comments were inexcusable.” He glanced at his bondmate. “Thankfully, Claudette was there to prevent the situation from escalating.”
“He…blind-sided me,” Wyland admitted. Relief coursed through him. “It won’t happen a second time.”
Claudette’s nod seemed reluctant. Hell, he wouldn’t find his words very convincing, either.
“We are fractured,” Claudette said softly. “The Council is fractured.” She waved a hand at the room. “Look at us. Look at this. It’s 2:00 a.m. We just finished a nine-hour Council meeting. We’re about to go into Elliott’s office to discuss these threatening letters, but without the wolves. We’re having a de facto Council meeting, without the wolves, because there’s a fair chance that—that—”
“That the Alpha, or someone in his employ, might be responsible for sending them,” Bailey said.
Claudette took a deep breath, then released it. “Yes.”
Elliott gestured to his office. “Let’s take this conversation behind closed doors.”
It didn’t take long for everyone to settle. Jack and Bailey set up laptops at the four-person conference table next to the wall-mounted monitor. Antonia sat, cross-legged, on top of her father’s massive mahogany desk. Lorin and her mother, Valkyrie First Alka Schlessinger, joined Elliott and Claudette on love seats in the sleek furniture grouping, leaving the chair next to Elliott for him. Lukas and Scarlett usually shared the other chair.
The smaller group met here frequently enough that they basically had assigned seats. Claudette was right; the Council was fractured.
Elliott picked up the conversation. “We suspect Krispin Woolf of being responsible for a great many things, but there’s never been any evidence to connect him to a crime. Has that changed?”
Jack looked up from his laptop. “No.”
“It’s there,” Antonia muttered. “Keep looking.”
Elliott didn’t censure his daughter for saying what everyone was thinking. “Any evidence, should it be discovered, must be incontrovertible. No loopholes, no mistakes.” Elliott turned to him. “Please continue your research.”
Six months ago, Elliott had privately asked him to prepare a legal brief listing all possible scenarios under which a Council member could be removed from their seat. Though Wyland hadn’t asked, he’d known exactly which Council member was in the president’s crosshairs. What a relief to know Elliott still trusted him—
Jack’s phone pealed with a Code Red. “Excuse me,” he said, quickly silencing the device.
While Jack read, Bailey closed his laptop, collected his notebook and pen, and slipped them into his briefcase, a dance they’d performed countless times before. Their covert police force tagged Sebastiani Security when serious crimes occurred. A Code Red meant Jack had to leave.
“How about we adjourn?” Elliott suggested with a tired-sounding sigh. “Let’s go home, get some sleep. This isn’t a problem we’re going to solve tonight.”
“Seconded,” Antonia said through a yawn. “Let’s stick a fork in it.”
Wyland rose. He had rounds at the hospital, so the comfort of his own bed was at least half a day away—and once he dressed Tia down for not telling him about that letter, there was a good chance he’d be sleeping there alone.
“There’s been a break-in at the Archives,” Jack said.
His heart punched him in the ribs.
“Tia’s fine,” Jack reassured him. “She’s a little rattled, but she’s fine.”
The woman was going to be the death of him. “What happened?” He joined Jack and Bailey at the table.
“According to Nick, someone accessed the garage, then tried to force the security door at the top of the stairs. The alarm had barely gone off at the house when Tia called Nick, and dead-bolted herself in the lower-level bathroom. When he and the team got there, the perp was gone.”
Tia would never work at the Archives alone again.
“How the hell did someone get in the garage?” Bailey asked.
Jack’s expression was grim. “Good question.”
When Wyland’s phone vibrated, he grabbed it. A text from Tia: Attempted break-in at the Archives. I’m fine. Artifacts fine. Nick is here. Talk to you soon. <3.
In five simple sentences, she’d covered the basics—enough to ratchet his tension down a notch, at any rate—but… He showed the message to Bailey. “What does that symbol at the end mean?”
She grinned at him. “Aww, Tia sent you a heart. Or testicles. Depends on the context.”
Heat crept up his neck, but he ignored it. During the time frame the break-in must have occurred, he hadn’t felt even a blip of second-hand fear or fright from Tia. They hadn’t exchanged enough blood to have a reliable long-distance connection yet, but even if they had, he’d been too busy snarling at Krispin Woolf to notice. “We’re an hour away,” he said to Jack.
“Nick’s there,” Jack reminded him. “And the sooner we leave, the sooner we arrive.”
Jack’s logic was impeccable. Annoying, but impeccable. “Let’s go.”
They left Elliott’s office and took the elevator down to the underground parking garage. Wyland’s Porsche was in the row closest to the door. “Keep that thing to the posted speed limit,” Jack advised. “You’re no good to her dead.”
“You’re just full of pithy platitudes tonight.”
“But I’m right.” Jack started walking toward his Volvo sedan. “See you there.”
As Wyland climbed behind the wheel, he sat for a couple of heartbeats, then glazed his emotions with a sheet of ice. Jack was right. He’d concentrate on the drive, and he’d arrive alive. He’d hold it together, for a time.
But sooner or later, the ice would crack beneath his feet.
It inevitably did.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tia tried to focus as Jack and Nick examined the damaged doorknob—close enough to observe, yet well out of range of the fingerprint dust—but Wyland kept stealing her attention. Standing in the middle of the open garage, wearing a gorgeous gunmetal gray suit and looking calm, cool and collected, he watched Chico, in werewolf form, search the perimeter of the parking lot.
She brushed up against his mind.
No reaction.
She nudged a little harder.
He didn’t budge.
She poked.
Nothing. Nada. It was like trying to chip a
glacier with an ice pick.
“County sheriff coming up the road,” Chico called from outside.
His human voice, not a growl or bark. When had he shifted back to human form?
“There are too many cars in the lot,” Nick muttered. “She’ll pull in, check things out.”
They did not want to draw human law enforcement’s attention, and with the door handle broken and fingerprint powder all over the place, there was plenty to look at. Hopefully Chico wasn’t standing in the parking lot naked.
“I’ll take care of it.” Wyland walked toward the entrance.
Toward the rising morning sun.
Be careful! As soon as she issued the mental warning, she wanted to snatch it back. The man was over three hundred years old; he’d been managing his exposure to the sun a lot longer than she’d been alive— “Whoa.” Wyland was thralling the sheriff. She could sense the immense power and precision second-hand. Behind it, an emotional maelstrom raged.
Had something happened at the Council meeting? What the hell was going on?
Wyland and Chico returned—and yes, Chico was dressed. “That was…” Chico shook his head admiringly. “She just drove by. Didn’t even slow down.”
Wyland didn’t acknowledge the praise. His face a smooth mask, he joined them by the security door and considered the broken handle. “Chico didn’t find anything amiss outside.”
Chico nodded. “The windows are intact, and the other locks are undisturbed. There are a lot of animal scents around the building and in the parking lot.”
“We have a couple of scratches and pry marks here, but no prints,” Jack said. “Looks like a knife of some sort.”
“So, someone tried to force open the security door, setting off the alarm both here and at the house,” Nick said. “No fingerprints, no broken windows, no obvious signs of a break-in. How did someone get in the garage in the first place?”
Chico half-shrugged. “It’s easy enough to do if you know how.”
The discussion that followed, dissecting all the ways an automatic garage door could be breached, made Tia very happy she hadn’t installed hers yet. There were two garage door openers weighing down her sun visor as it was; pretty soon the thing would be so heavy it wouldn’t stay up.