Rebellious Hood

by Kendrai Meeks

  “Why are they our concern?” Geri stepped out of the shadows, her jaw hanging. “You just said it, Matron Ramathan: because they’re threatening to undo lupine social structure.”

  The Pink Matron blinked away her surprise. “Our purpose does not include assuring that werewolves remain bonded couples and happy families. Our role is to serve as a barrier between them and humanity, and to destroy any who threaten life.”

  Geri threw her head to the side. “Oh, please. I am so sick of hearing that hoods are some golden, virtuous race that protects hueys from animalistic heathens. Wolves are human, and our oldest stories say our purpose was to protect them from humanity, not the other way around. If anything, we’re the subhuman creatures, not them.”

  A hush descended over the matrons as they took the brunt of Geri’s vocal bitch slap. Finally, Chin, so flustered she could barely speak, leapt to her feet, turning on Brünhild.

  “Will you not punish such insolence, Grand Matron? How do you stand by and allow your own flesh and blood to desecrate our sacred calling that way?”

  “By remembering that we do not have a sacred calling,” Brünhild said, as cool as spring rain. “Nor is our history without fault. We have committed great atrocities, some even in this very building. I will not fault Gerwalta for speaking truth, no matter how bluntly.”

  “Atrocities?” Chin fell back in her chair. “What atrocities?”

  Brünhild crossed her arms over her chest. “As if I need mention the obvious.”

  “You cannot mean the affair of Gerwalta Faust.”

  “But I do, Chin. I mean that very thing. It is a blemish on our race, more because of our celebration of it than the deed itself. But at least, there is a path for us to remedy some of those injustices.” Brünhild paused, catching her daughter’s eye. “After all, as Gerwalta so appropriately stated, our true calling is to protect lupines. We can do that by protecting those most at risk: the asenaics, the descendants of Gerwalta Faust.”

  That knocked them righteous bitches off their rockers. Some gasped, some gawked, and at least one of them looked like she was going to town on someone. It wasn’t sexy.

  Pinkie was the first to recover. “Are you saying that the offspring of the Betrayer survived?”

  “Survived, thrived, and multiplied,” Brünhild confirmed. “Though for numerous reasons few of that limb of the family tree endure. In truth, there are only five. And as the Grand Matron, I tell you this now: our current priority is protecting them and ourselves by destroying the Ravens. There is to be no confusion on this. Once this mission has been completed, then I will pass word to those five that if they wish to disclose their identities, my office will accept them openly. I am currently determining their location. I will consider who should be included on the team and notify those called for duty as soon as I reach my decision.”

  I wanted to look at Pietro and Geri to see what their reaction was to that, but at the same time feared doing that would be like flashing a big, huge neon sign in their direction.

  Jolly Green lifted a hand. What did she think this was, elementary school?

  “Yes, Matron Smyth?”

  Smyth cleared her throat. “I took a vow to serve this council and execute its agendas, and I won’t pull back from that. However, the question remains unanswered. Why are Ravens so intent on finding these asenaics? Is it part of their scheme against the wolves?”

  “In a way, yes, and for the moment, you need know no more.”

  Apparently, that statement brought the gavel down on the meeting, because when Geri’s mom stood up, everyone else did too, and began filing out of the room.

  “Rebecca!” Brünhild called. “Please show everyone to your cottage. I know it will be crowded, but better uncomfortable with us than at risk in the valley below.”

  Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Everyone, sir?”

  “Yes, everyone.” Then, Brünhild paused, raising a finger. “Except for Pietro. He and I have business to discuss. Show him to my quarters. I will be there shortly.”

  Pietro grinned, as did his wife in return. Wow, great to see even Geri’s dysfunctional parents still got their groove thing on. Maybe my parents would find a way to pull it together eventually.

  Hey, vampires were real and slayers were a thing, so the totally absurd could happen, right?

  “Matron?” Cody said, holding up his oozing wrists.

  But it was Geri who stepped in. “Oh, my god, I’m sorry, Cody. In the heat of the moment I forgot all about that. Here, let me.”

  And zip-a-dee-doo-dah, she magicked his restraints right off.

  Before I could look back from the scene, the Grand Matron was gone.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Brünhild

  I wound my way up the tower, each step a measure of my increasing anxiety as I wondered who I would find waiting above.

  As an asenaic, it was not surprising that Pietro often had dueling instincts, the hood and the wolf in him in constant struggle. His ability to balance and reconcile what would drive other men insane had drawn me to him from the first time I’d met him. That did not mean, however, that he could always maintain stability. There were times, fleeting but frequent, when his lupine half placed us at odds. Luckily, that nature had also claimed me as mate, and no matter how I wronged him – and how much I may deserve his disdain – the fury that would flare up refused to endure.

  I didn’t deserve him.

  He deserved so much more than me.

  He stood by the fireplace when I entered the study, his eyes fixed on the sack Yan had left on my desk on my orders.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it is true. She is dead.” His throat bobbed. “At last.”

  My inner grand matron pushed me to make some grandiose statement, something along the lines of “Yes, at last the vampire who killed both your grandfather and my father, and threatened to kill our daughter, is dead. May she forever more burn in the hottest fires in hell.” But though I felt a burden ease in knowing Inga Rosethorn could no longer threaten my family, I couldn’t be the grand matron right now. Not when my heart-made-flesh looked back at me with his soft, loving gaze, resolve and relief shining through. All I wanted at this moment was to be Pietro’s mate, to fall into his arms and tell him that justice had finally been done. The world knew my strength, the hoods obeyed my commands. But only my husband saw my cracks, gathered together my broken pieces, and held me together.

  We met half way between the door and the fireplace, my head pressing into his shoulder as his arms locked around me.

  Pietro kissed my forehead. “When Markus told me you were tracking her, I was so afraid. If she had discovered you...”

  “She couldn’t.”

  “If I lost you, Brünhild...”

  “You never will.” I pressed my lips to his. “Like you said our first night together, we stepped off the cliff together. I’m in for the fall, no matter how far. Siempre.”

  “Siempre.” My mate’s hand stroked my cheek. “Mi familia es mi plata. My family is my silver.”

  As his hold loosened, I felt the air shift around us.

  “Mi Corazon, Gerwalta is...” His words tapered away.

  “Coming into her own,” I said, completing his sentiment. “She has learned to harness both her lupine and hood strengths. I worried the day may never come, and now, her power is even more than I could have imagined.”

  A line formed between Pietro’s eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest. “How, though? You stopped her from being claimed by the Casa de Amarillo. How is she able to wield her silver, having never taken her fire?”

  My eyes went to the floor. “Markus says when they were in Istanbul, there was an... incident. Caleb Helsing hit her with his solarium. Accidentally,” I quickly amended as my husband’s wolf threatened violence. “He was trying to defend her, but she was caught in the crosshairs. I don’t know what to think, Pietro. Perhaps it was providence. It managed to wake up every
part of her, give her the defenses she needed just in the nick of time.”

  Pride beamed from his eyes. “Alexandra’s death was a tragedy, but it is a blessing that the illustrian baby has come here; who better to mother such a child than one whose own nature is likewise drawn from so many roots?”

  There was truth in what he said, but I also knew that until we defeated the Ravens, young Mina’s existence was under the very same threat Gerwalta had been for years. Vlad Tepeş saw the enhancements crossing supernatural species gave the blood of those born to multiple natures as no more than a weapon he could wield.

  “She needs every ally, every strength we can give her.” I paused, knowing my husband would be reluctant to believe what I was about to say. “Including having her mate at her side.”

  Pietro’s eyebrows arched. “So you’ve finally accepted that Markus and Gerwalta will never wed?”

  “Each other?” I asked, my voice flat. “When wolves fly.”

  My soul renewed with his laugh. Soon, however, Pietro continued in earnest. “We will rescue him then. Perhaps Vlad’s serum is a blessing in disguise. It will allow this wolf to love our daughter.”

  My insides curdled. “It seems at first blush, but I was able to finally track down the one who developed it, a Dracule by the name of Xin. I forced the truth from her before she died.”

  My husband’s face screwed up, but he didn’t ask. He knew my methods to procure information, even if he didn’t agree with them. “And?”

  “And, the results are valid. A therapy of the serum, administered regularly, will weaken the lupine bond. It does not destroy it, however, it only masks it. After the therapy is discontinued, its effects dissipate. Within a few weeks, the bonding rebounds. From Vlad’s perspective, it wouldn’t matter. A few weeks of unmade bonds is long enough to corrupt the foundation of lupine society.”

  “So even if we rescue Tobias Somfield—”

  I shrugged. “He is also an asenaic, though his only hood ancestor appears to have been the Betrayer. Like the Muñezes, the residual enhancements are very weak. Still, we do not know. Perhaps having a genetic baseline, the serum’s ability to hold in his system will prove stronger than with the other subject the Dracule tested.”

  Pietro mused a space before his head dipped in a single nod. “There is a chance then, and if a chance is all we can give to our daughter for happiness, then it shall be done. But for me, mi Corazon...”

  He crossed back to the table, his hand disappearing inside the bag. Little blood remained in Inga Rosethorn’s severed head; she must not have fed for several days before cornering my daughter in the hospital. Pietro’s hands threaded her hair, pulling it high into the air. He locked me in his sight.

  “Por mi padre, por favor.”

  Silver flame, fed by a bit of the metal I kept always wound around my arm, lit the air, licking across the space, and found its target with a preternatural instinct.

  As the vampire’s head turned to dust, a smile spread across my mate’s face.

  I hoped somewhere in the afterlife, his lupine grandfather found peace as well.

  TWENTY-TWO

  GERI

  You’d think it was the first baby they’d ever seen. Maybe it was. Alex had mentioned there hadn’t been any pregnancies for some time. Which... made me begin to wonder how I was supposed to just randomly bring up the topic that that should probably change soon.

  Hey, since you guys might be the last of your kind and you’re not getting any younger, perhaps consider having sex like crazy so you don’t actually die out, okay? Start now if you like, I can go in the other room.

  I mean, unless they wanted to actually cease to be a species, they’d better get to the baby making. At least they had Caleb with them. As soon as the sole surviving Helsing was able to get over our break-up, I had great faith in his ability to... well, hold the opening ceremonies.

  “Isn’t she the sweetest thing ever?”

  Teiko was the only female slayer of Asian heritage, but like all the women, she’d been raised in the harem speaking English, Turkish, and Vlad’s own dialect of Romanian. She was also one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met. Petite, but with ebony locks that would have fallen past her waist if she didn’t twist the mass of it around her head like a crown. Her amber eyes twinkled, reflecting the fire burning in the hearth.

  Teiko finished wrapping up Mina’s diaper the way Petunia had demonstrated when she’d stopped by earlier in the evening to also inform me she was good with the plan. “I can’t believe Alex named her Mina. It’s so cliché.”

  I tapped on the tablet sitting in my lap to close the map of Spain it displayed. “What’s cliché about it?”

  Amy sauntered in from the kitchen, handing Sergei, a ruddy-faced blond stick of a man, a cup of juice. “Come on, Geri. Even I know that one. Mina, you know? From Dracula?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, still not getting it.”

  The blond huey rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you have to take that lit class your freshmen year? Oh, I forgot, you were a transfer. Mina is the name of the English prude old Drac tries to bone in that book by Bram Stoker.”

  I let out a scoffing laugh. “Everyone in the supe world knows those huey knockoffs are hogwash.”

  Amy fixed me with her best ‘oh-really’ stare as she settled on the floor at Teiko’s feet. “Just like the Grimm Brothers?”

  “Yes, just like the Grimm Brothers,” I said without thinking. “Like the hoggiest of washes.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Amy began counting out a point on each finger. “They did sort of nail that it was a red riding hood, when it could have come from any of the clans. And Grandmother’s house?” She motioned vaguely in the direction of the castle. “Matron’s house. Eating the grandmother, the huntsman coming after the wolf and killing him? Hunts woman maybe, but that even sticks.”

  “Not to mention,” Teiko added, “Bram Stoker had an affair with a slayer.”

  Amy’s eyes went wide. “No way!”

  “Totally.” Teiko grinned, pleased at having an audience. I foresaw the beginning of a beautiful friendship between these two. “You mean Caleb didn’t tell you?”

  Amy and I exchanged a look.

  Just at that moment, the indicted himself came into the room, carrying an armload of baby supplies some of the hoods residing in the castle had gathered. “Tell them what?”

  Teiko rose, taking Mina along with her. “That you got an Irish writer in your family tree.”

  Caleb blushed. “He wasn’t part of my family tree.”

  Even I found my curiosity piqued. “It’s true, then?”

  The slayer collapsed into a chair at the table next to me. “Kinda? Albert Helsing and Bram Stoker had a passionate, lustful, and brief relationship. They still managed to be on good terms long enough for Albert to give Bram the four-one-one on Vlad. Stoker, of course, changed the details and added a “van” to our family name, but he got lots of things right, too.”

  Amy’s mouth dropped open. “How is that not the first thing you tell people when you meet them?”

  Caleb smirked. “Tell me, Barbie, did Geri lead with ‘I’m named after the famous Little Red Riding Hood and FYI she actually is considered a traitor by my people’ the first time you met her?”

  “No, I think she told me she’d just moved away from a place called Paradise, and I made some smart-ass comment about why would you leave Paradise for Chicago.”

  But the wheels in my mind were spinning. Grimm Brothers, fairy tales, the truth in our world...

  “My mother in her study with the leather book...”

  Everyone turned on me, Caleb saying, “Pretty sure it was Mrs. Peacock in the foyer with the pipe wrench.”

  I stood, putting a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “I was too young to read back then. Markus and I snuck into my mother’s private office and there was an old copy of Little Red Riding Hood. No, that doesn’t sound right. Why would we have a copy of a Grimm fairy tale? But it was?
I think it was. I... I can’t remember.” I stood and started for the door. “Teiko, can you watch Mina for a while?”

  “Geri?” Caleb was just a step behind me. “Where are you going? We all agreed we needed to just lay low and rest for a day or two.”

  “I’m not leaving the compound. I just have to go see something in my mother’s study.”

  “Right, and where is that?”

  I pointed up. “Top of the tower.”

  He looked incredulous. “They wouldn’t even let you beyond the council chambers yesterday. You and mommy might have bridged a gap a bit, but you’re still relinquished.”

  “I am so not relinquished, and I’ll slice anyone who insists I am.”

  My body ricocheted off his arm as he strapped it across the door. “Exactly, you have enemies there. You can’t just go gallivanting about.”

  I gently moved his arm to the side. “Relax, Helsing. I know how to stay hidden. I was walking these hallways before I could even crawl.”

  His face screwed up. “How did that work exactly?”

  “Don’t mark up my metaphors to full price. What I mean is, I know this castle, inside and out. I can get in from the cliffs.”

  Caleb blinked his surprise. “That doesn’t sound very secure.”

  “It is, though,” I insisted, even as I summoned my red cloak into being, its gentle weight falling like a hug upon my shoulders. I could get up to the tower covertly, but I still had to get across a courtyard full of young hoods in the midst of training. Looking like one of them, conveniently with my face hidden, was a golden ticket. “No one else but the Grand Matron knows about it.”

  “And everyone in this room who heard you say it exists.”

  I stifled a laugh and pulled silver I’d left in a ball on a side table over my skin, hiding it from view. “You can’t open it. It requires a special key that only hoods can use.”