by Lori Drake
“Em, it’s just me! Come on, you don’t have to hide.”
No answer.
Chris twisted the door handle. It was unlocked. “I’m opening the door.” He pushed it open.
Emma stood on the other side of the room, as far from the door as she could get, wreathed in a magical glow. She put on a brave face, but he could practically smell her fear.
“Don’t come any closer,” she said.
Chris held up his hands. “I won’t. I’ll stay right here. Don’t hex me, okay? I’ve had more than my share.”
Emma tilted her head and bit her lip, studying him from afar. Her eyes unfocused for a moment, but Chris remained where he was, not moving a muscle. “Chris?” The uncertainty hadn’t left her voice.
“In the flesh. Turns out I’m harder to kill than anyone realized.” He smiled, but it faded when she didn’t smile back.
“How is that even possible?”
“Believe me, I asked the same question. We all did. The best Cathy could come up with is that it’s because I’m a wolf, that I went into some sort of magical stasis when my spirit left my body. But even she’s not a hundred percent sure.”
Emma relaxed visibly, her shoulders lowering and stance shifting. That golden glow lingered around her, however. “You know who she is, right?”
“Yeah, she’s Joey’s godmother.”
Emma’s mouth dropped open. She recovered swiftly, though. “Joey’s godmother is the High Priestess of the San Diego coven?”
“Uh, former High Priestess, apparently. But I get the impression that’s a recent development, so I don’t fault you being out of the loop.”
“Shit.” The magic aura winked out around her.
“Can I come in now?”
Emma nodded, and he crossed the threshold, but he didn’t get far before she ran over and flung her arms around him, squeezing tightly. He hugged her back.
“It really is you, isn’t it?” She tipped her head back to look up at him, cheeks wet with tears.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He brushed the tears from her cheeks with gentle thumbs, but she buried her face against his chest immediately afterward.
“I’m so sorry, Chris. I never thought they’d come after you. It had to have been that damn bank account, but I don’t know how they connected it to me. I was so careful.”
He guided her over to sit on the edge of the bed, biting back a groan as he settled beside her. He must not have been entirely successful, because she looked over at him with concern.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just a little stiff from… being a stiff. Ha.” He chuckled, but he did it alone. “Sorry, just a little gallows humor. Oh god, now I’m doing it without meaning to.”
That did spark a chuckle from her. Her eyes lingered on him the way Joey’s had the previous night, as if she couldn’t believe he was sitting there in front of her. He could understand the sentiment.
“I’m sorry about Cheryl,” he said. It had been barely forty-eight hours since Emma had lost her wife. The fact that she was even functioning spoke volumes about her quiet strength.
Emma’s green eyes lowered abruptly. She didn’t say anything for a long moment, then softly said, “Me too.”
An awkward silence settled between them, prompting Chris to ask, “Do you want some breakfast? Sara made an amazing spread. I’m sure some of it’s vegan-friendly. If not, you’ve got free rein of the kitchen. The housekeeper’s not coming in today for, uh, obvious reasons.”
Emma lifted her eyes again, brows pinching together. “Oh shit. You’re not dead… what are you going to tell the cops?”
“I have no idea. I guess I could just say I went to Vegas for a week and didn’t tell anyone, but that won’t explain the empty coffin.” He shrugged. “I’m hoping my mother has some ideas that don’t involve a new identity. I’m not quite ready to give up my life, you know?”
“Yeah, that can be rough.”
Chris winced, belatedly remembering that she had some experience with that. She’d run away from a cult-like coven in Nevada a few years back; their quest to track her down and bring her back into the fold was what had started this whole mess.
“So… how are you handling all this?” she asked, changing the subject.
Chris thought about it. “Okay. It’s all a bit overwhelming, you know? It’s great, don’t get me wrong. It’s wonderful. But…”
“But you’ve been through some shit.”
Chris’s lips curved in a small smile. “Exactly. It’s going to take me a while to unpack it all, you know? Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just leave it packed, shove it in the back of the closet—so to speak—and try to get on with my life.”
Emma snorted softly. “That’s certainly the healthy way to go about it.”
“Hey, I’ve always been a little crazy. It’s what you like about me.” He nudged her shoulder with his.
“Maybe what Joey likes about you. Speaking of which, how did that reunion go?” Her brows lifted.
He smirked. “Way less interesting than you’re probably thinking, but it was fine. We’re fine.”
“Hey, the last time I saw you two together, you were going at it like, well, like it was your last night on earth.”
Chris rubbed his face. “Yeah, I know. And you weren’t the only witness.” He’d been lost in the moment at the time, but half the pack—including his mother—had been there.
“Did you at least talk about it?”
“Of course not.”
Emma sighed and laid her hand over his, giving his fingers a squeeze. “Chris… you’ve got a second chance. Don’t repeat the same mistakes.”
Chris turned his hand over and squeezed hers. He nodded, but couldn’t suppress the feeling that whatever was between him and Joey was the least of his problems at present.
Joey didn’t like Chris being out of her sight. She’d spent the night in his room, exhaustion claiming her at some point, and when she woke… he was gone. That’d sparked a bit of panic before she discovered he’d just gone down the hall to the bathroom.
After he left the dining room, she spent the rest of her morning meal glancing at the doorway every time she thought she heard someone approach, hoping that he’d return with Emma. He hadn’t yet, when Adelaide set her napkin aside and pushed back from the table.
“Josephine, Samuel, please join me in my study when you finish eating.”
“Yes, Mother,” Sam said.
Joey blinked. Being summoned to the Alpha’s den first thing in the morning never boded well. She glanced across the table at Sam, who was polishing off what remained on his plate quickly. He was still chewing when he pushed back his chair, drained the last of his coffee, and then headed off without a backward glance.
“Who do they think is going to do the dishes today?” Joey wondered aloud, lips twisting in a smirk.
“Eh, Ben and I will do it,” Jon said.
“We will?” Ben was surprised enough to answer with his mouth full.
“I can take care of it,” Sara said, and pushed to her feet. She’d been sitting there in front of an empty plate for a while. The woman ate like a bird, and always finished first, but wouldn’t leave the table before Adelaide.
Chuckling, Jon caught her arm and pulled her back down. He leaned over and planted a kiss on her cheek. “No way. You cooked, we clean. Them’s the rules.”
“Do you even know how to work the dishwasher?” Joey asked, smiling behind her coffee mug.
Jon grinned. “What do you think I need Ben for?”
“Work, work, work,” Ben said, but it was good-natured grousing. He stood and began picking up empty plates. Jon followed suit while Sara sat watching them, actually looking a bit forlorn, like the stepsister that didn’t get to go to the ball.
“All right, come on, babe. You can put the leftovers away,” Jon said.
Sara smiled and hopped up to round up serving bowls.
“Don’t forget about Emma,” Joey said. “She’s vegan, so
—”
“Got it,” Sara said, and nodded. “I’ll make her a plate.” She disappeared through the swinging door before Joey could get another word in.
Joey chuckled and shook her head. “I’ve never seen anyone else get that excited about cooking and cleaning. Maybe we should hire her out.”
“Then she’d never want to do it here,” Ben said. He paused by her on his way to the kitchen. “You done with that?”
Joey speared the last couple of potato chunks from her plate and motioned for him to go ahead.
“Best not keep your mother waiting, kitten,” Reginald said, glancing at her over the top of his newspaper.
Joey returned her father’s glance and nodded, then rose and topped off her coffee. She took the mug with her as she left the room, with a pause along the way to kiss his cheek. “See you later.”
There was no sign of Chris or Emma in the hallway. She wondered where they’d gotten off to as she struck off in the direction of her mother’s study. The nagging disquiet over him being out of her sight never quite left her, but she refused to succumb to it entirely. He had to be in the house somewhere, and he was moving a lot better this morning. She had to let him do his own thing, had to resist the irrational urge to shadow him everywhere. She wasn’t that needy.
Joey rapped sharply on the study door. Sam opened it and motioned her inside.
“What’s up?” she asked, sauntering over to a chair. She dropped into it as casually as she could without sloshing coffee out of her mug. Sam joined her, but remained standing beside the chair.
Adelaide sat behind her massive desk, barely glancing up as she extracted a business card from the pocket of an open folder. She held the card out across the desk, and Sam stepped forward to take it.
“Shall I…?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you, Samuel.”
Sam headed for the door, and Joey caught a glimpse of the logo embossed on the front of the folder as Adelaide flipped it closed. It was the funeral home that had handled Chris’s burial.
“What’s going on?” Joey asked, brows drawing together.
“Christopher’s return, while joyful, presents certain… complications,” Adelaide said, while Sam let himself out. “The police, for one, are going to want an explanation for why he’s not dead. And they’re certainly going to want to know who is in his coffin, if he is not.”
“What does the funeral home have to do with this?” Joey asked, nodding at the folder on her mother’s desk.
Adelaide’s eyes dropped briefly to the folder. “Perceptive,” she murmured, then got back to the topic at hand. “Samuel will locate a body to take Chris’s place in the cemetery. That way, when the police exhume the body—as they will—there will be someone in it.”
“It can’t be just anyone. It has to be someone that looks like Chris.” Joey sat up straighter in her chair, frowning.
“Indeed.”
“That’s a really specific needle in a big fucking haystack.”
“Language, Josephine,” Adelaide admonished her absently, as she stowed the folder in a desk drawer.
Joey snorted and eyed her mother. “You really think this’ll work?”
“It’s worked before.”
“Before?” The word shot down Joey’s spine like an icy drip of water. “What do you mean before?”
Adelaide sat back in her chair, elbows on the armrests and fingers steepled. “I’m nearly two centuries old, Josephine. I’ve had to fake a few deaths in my time to avoid suspicion.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that. But these days they’ve got databases and DNA evidence… it’s more complicated than it used to be.”
“Psh. Computers aren’t infallible. They’re all controlled by very human hands. All we have to do is grease the right palms and it will all go away.”
“If you say so…” Joey’s reservations lingered, but her mother seemed quite sure of herself. She decided to let it go.
An awkward silence settled between them. Joey was about to take her leave when Adelaide spoke again.
“You handled yourself well last night.”
Joey blinked. A compliment was the last thing she’d expected. “Uh—”
“Your brothers told me what you did, how you took the lead while I was unconscious. It was an untenable situation and you handled it well.”
Adelaide was not a woman to be lavish with praise. It was all Joey could do to keep her mouth from hanging open, much less formulate an appropriate response. She nodded in what she hoped was a gracious manner.
Her mother went on, “I think it’s time you took on more responsibility around here.”
“What kind of responsibility?” Joey asked, pleased she didn’t sound as dubious as she felt.
“Change is coming. I want you to help me chart our course for the future. It’ll involve things like helping your brother with matters like this, but also helping me make difficult decisions that affect everyone.”
Joey shifted in her seat, lips turning down once more. “Since when have you needed help making up your mind about anything, much less telling us what to do?”
Adelaide chuckled, smirking faintly. “See, that’s exactly what I need. Your honesty. Your willingness to ask questions, to challenge the status quo.”
“No offense, Mom, but usually that just seems to piss you off.”
“None taken,” Adelaide replied, quirking a small smile. “That’s more my fault than yours. You know that we’re an unusual family, yes?”
She couldn’t mean the fact that they were wolves. That’d be too obvious. Joey thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. We’re all alphas. Well, except for Sara.”
“Correct. To have so many alphas in one pack, well, conflict is inevitable. And you’re a strong alpha, Josephine. Stronger than your brothers, stronger than your father. Maybe even stronger than me.” Adelaide paused, eyeing her daughter. “One day. At any rate, it’s time for you to take your place at my side.”
“What about Sam?” Joey shifted in her seat and glanced at the door.
“Samuel is a good soldier, but he’s not you. You were born for this.”
Joey looked down at her lap, thoughts racing. She wasn’t sure how she felt about all of this, but one thing was clear: her mother was offering her an olive branch and carte blanche to speak her mind. But at what cost? How much of her independence would she have to give up to be her mother’s right hand?
“I won’t be at your beck and call every day,” Joey said, seeking her mother’s eyes once more. Adelaide arched a brow, and Joey doubled down. “I’m not your lapdog. That’s Sam’s job.”
Her mother snorted softly and waved a hand. “Don’t be vulgar. All I ask is that you keep your phone with you and actually answer when I call. You’ll also begin training with your brothers, immediately. It was foolish of me to put it off for so long.”
“What kind of training?”
“Combat training. Self-defense to start, but you need to be able to mount an offensive as well, on two legs as well as four.”
“Are we going to war?” Joey asked, blinking.
“Maybe,” Adelaide said, green eyes shifting toward a window. “Time will tell.”
Joey studied her mother’s profile for a moment, then rose from her seat. “I guess if I’m going to help Sam, I should catch up before he gets too far.”
Adelaide’s focus returned to her daughter. “Actually, there’s something else I want to discuss with you, but for now I must ask that it not leave this room.”
Joey grimaced, hovering just on the verge of standing for a moment before dropping back into the chair. “Haven’t secrets gotten this family in enough trouble?”
“Every family has secrets. But as secrets go, this is far from dire.”
“All right, lay it on me.”
“I’ve been giving some thought to the next chapter of our family’s life. We’ve been in the San Diego area nearly thirty years, which is… about as long as we can linger anywhere without attr
acting suspicion.”
Joey took this in quietly, though a frown tugged at her lips. She’d always known that one day they would have to leave, but never expected it to be quite so soon.
“You want to move?”
Adelaide’s shoulders lifted in an elegant shrug. “It’s what we do, Josephine. We linger while we can, then move on. It used to be a lot easier, before the internet came along. Anyhow, when Christopher died—or when we thought he was dead—it seemed like it might be a good opportunity to make a fresh start. Now that he’s returned, it seems even more prudent. It’s going to be difficult for him to find normalcy in a city where all of his friends attended his funeral, where the police may still be sniffing around…”
Joey frowned and shrugged. “It’s worth considering, I guess. I mean, I always knew we’d have to leave eventually, but you know Chris is still pretty wrecked from all this shit. Maybe familiar surroundings are what he needs.”
“There is also the matter of the Eastgate coven.”
Joey’s brows went up. “Emma’s old coven? What about them? We sent a pretty strong message back along with that bitch’s body.”
“If their leader is as dangerous as Gretchen and Catherine fear—or, rather, if he is dangerous enough that they fear him—there is reason for us to be cautious.”
Gretchen, the High Priestess of the San Diego coven, had been afraid enough of the megalomaniacal cult leader that she’d refused to aid Chris and Emma in their hour of need. The only reason Cathy had been able to assist them was by cutting all ties with her coven. She was anathema to them now, exiled from not just the city of San Diego but the whole county.
“Speaking of Emma, what happens to her if we skip town?” Joey asked, concern wrinkling her forehead. “We can’t just leave her here to fend for herself.”
“As far as I’m concerned, she’s welcome to come with us, but we’ll need to consult with Jon to determine what the terms of her bail allow.”
“Where would we go?”
“The Seattle Art Museum has been courting me for some time. Their curator has been flirting with retirement for several years now. I believe I could easily secure a position there.”