by Everly Frost
Not getting a rise out of Tristan, Cody lifts himself, his palms returning to my chest and resting across my breasts, a light and swift touch, before his focus shifts to my left shoulder.
His thumb strokes across the spot where he tried to mark me that night—where I also refused Tristan’s mark.
Now I understand why Tristan chose a one-shouldered dress. The fact that I haven’t been claimed is plain for all to see.
Cody steps back, his expression shuttered. “She’s clean.”
At his announcement, Baxter storms down the stairs. “What the fuck are you doing here, Tristan?”
Tristan keeps his arms extended at his sides. “I’m here to negotiate the terms of a truce.”
“Truce?” Baxter shouts. “We’ll never have a fucking truce—”
“Dad.” Cody’s quiet growl makes Baxter pause. “We should hear what Tristan has to say.”
Baxter glares at his son, but Cody doesn’t back down. “This dispute is getting out of control. We’ve lost ten shifters in the last week alone. We should consider what Tristan is willing to offer.”
“Nothing could ever be enough,” Baxter spits, but he returns his son’s firm stare, becoming more subdued by the second.
The last time I saw these two men interact, Baxter walloped Cody over the head, smacking him down the same way my mother did to me, but now the tension between them feels different. The power between them has shifted, but I’m not sure exactly when or how.
I’m suddenly aware of a woman hovering in the doorway at the top of the stairs, but I don’t get a good look at her. Her long, blonde hair and jewelry catch the light before she withdraws into the shadows.
“Fine,” Baxter says between gritted teeth. “Be our guests. The party ends at midnight. Then we’ll talk.” He muscles up to Tristan, who remains impassive. “If you cause even a hint of trouble or ruin this night for my family in any way, I’ll have you gunned down like the animal that you are, do you understand?”
Tristan doesn’t blink. “I understand.”
The second that Baxter backs off, Tristan’s focus zeroes in on me again. He prepares to return to my side, but Cody steps between us.
“Tessa will come with me as collateral,” Cody says. “To ensure good behavior.”
Tristan tenses but remains where he is.
Cody offers me his arm like a perfect gentleman, but the tension around his mouth and eyes increases. “This way, Tessa.”
Chapter Thirty
Pushing away the nerves invading my stomach as we ascend the stairs, I glance at Cody from beneath my lashes.
I’m intensely aware of Tristan watching us go.
“Taking me as collateral implies that I can’t defend myself,” I say to Cody. “I’m a little offended. What makes you think I’m not the greater threat?”
“I know you are.” Cody’s growled response is more genuine than I was expecting. His gold-flecked eyes gleam in the lights as we step inside the door. “I’m not a fool, Tessa. I may have walked a foolish path once, but I leaped off it when I witnessed its deadly consequences.”
We enter a room with the same grandeur as the exterior: marbled floor, golden pendant lights hanging from the ceiling, and waiting to take my coat is a butler, who arches his eyebrow at me when it’s clear I have neither a coat nor a bag to hand over.
The woman I glimpsed before is gone.
Music floods in from both sides of the house—a thumping beat from the door to the right and classical music from the door to the left.
Cody steers me toward the room with the classical music. “I’m sorry about your father.”
I should play disdain, hide my true feelings, but I can’t. My reaction is instinctive. I flinch away from Cody, snarls rising to my throat, hot rage shooting through me. “You… have no right to speak of him.”
Cody lets me put distance between us, but despite my warning, he continues. “Your father was a good alpha. A good man. I don’t know if he realized the extent of the bad blood between my father and Tristan when he got between them that night. He was trying to protect you and for that, I’m sorry.”
I take another step away from Cody, a hot mess of confusion and anger rising inside me. “You’re saying your father was coming after Tristan that night. He wasn’t coming after me.”
“My father doesn’t give a fuck about you, Tessa,” Cody says bluntly. “But he should. He’s lost perspective. If he could see beyond his need for vengeance, he’d realize he’s made an enemy of you.” Cody’s smile is cold, but his speech carries an element of respect I was not expecting. “You’re an enemy nobody can afford to have.”
Cody casts his burning stare at the door as Tristan steps through it, but he speaks to me. “Tristan was smart when he took you that night. He’s a lot smarter than anyone realizes.” Cody’s focus shifts to my bare shoulder again. “You should consider the fact that he knew your father would die trying to protect you.”
I shudder as the memories of the events before Tristan fought for me flood back. There was an instant when I thought I imagined an unspoken communication pass between Tristan and my father. If Tristan knew my father would die, then my father knew it too.
My breathing is too rapid. I look to Tristan where he remains just inside the front door. His emotions are still walled, preventing me from sensing what he’s feeling, but mine are leaking all over the place. The clench in his jaw tells me I’m like a wailing storm to him right now.
I thought I knew the rules of the game we would play tonight—a game of innuendo, seduction, and lies that would lead to me ripping out Baxter Griffin’s throat like he ripped out my father’s—but Cody has snatched the foundations out from under me with his honesty after I’ve barely set foot through the door.
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and hold it, exhaling my tension. Pink ocean… orange grass… violet sunrise… yellow forest…
It’s been nearly a week since I needed to recite lists, but it calms me now. I remind myself that I’m not fragile or vulnerable. I’m strong enough.
My goal hasn’t changed.
Baxter Griffin killed my father. He invaded Tristan’s territory and attacked innocent shifters. I’m here to end him.
I open my eyes and reach for Cody’s arm. “Well, then, now that we understand each other, let’s pretend to be friends. You can get me a drink, we can make small talk, maybe flirt a little, and enjoy your brother’s birthday party like civilized people.”
Cody takes my hand, his palm closing over mine as he draws me back to his side. His smile tells me he’ll play the charade, but his statement makes me shiver. “I’m sure we can be convincing.”
A bar is situated to the far right of the room while circular tables set out with sparkling glassware are scattered throughout the space. Pendant lights across the ceiling give a soft glow. The room is filled with shifters, who all appear completely comfortable in their suits and dresses.
I bite the inside of my mouth and hold my head high when they stop in the middle of their conversations, casting sharp glances at us.
Cody narrows his eyes at them.
“Carry on,” he says, an edge of command in his voice. He’s acting more like an alpha than an alpha-in-training and it makes me wary. Baxter Griffin might still be calling the shots, but every pack transitions at some point. Cody might be preparing to take the reins.
The guests’ conversations restart, although the stares continue, growing more intense when I sense Tristan enter the room behind us. He doesn’t come after me, heading directly to the bar instead.
“Where’s your brother?” I ask Cody as he leads me across the room, winding between tables. “I should wish him a happy birthday.” It sounds like I’m trying to be polite, but I need to know where all members of Baxter’s family are located.
Cody tips his head in the other direction. “Where the real fun is.”
I guess he means the side of the house with the thumping music.
“And what of my half
-brother?” I ask, not seeing Dawson in the crowd.
“He returned to his father in the Highlands.” Cody gives me a sudden, cold smile. “He needed to lick his wounds.”
Damn. As much as I’m glad I had an impact on Dawson, I wanted to deal with him tonight, too. I even hoped my old alpha, Peter Nash, might be here.
Cody leads me through the throng to a table on the far side of the room. “You should meet my mother.”
The woman I glimpsed earlier rises from her seat. She’s wearing an elegant mermaid dress with a silver overlay that trails behind her when she moves out from behind the table. She was conversing with another woman about the same age—maybe late thirties, although it’s hard to tell since shifters age slowly once they hit their thirties—but it looks like a fake conversation.
Her attention is all on me.
She sips her drink as we approach her, her tight grip around the stem giving away her increasing tension.
“Mom,” Cody says. “I’d like to introduce Tessa Dean.” He turns from her to me. “Tessa, this is my mother, Charlotte.”
She’s shorter than me, petite, her blonde hair perfectly straight and cut to her shoulders. She casts me an overly bright smile. “Tessa. It’s lovely to meet you. Finally.”
This is the part where she says, I’ve heard a lot about you.
Instead, she says, “I hear you’re a formidable opponent.”
Her lips press together, her shoulders are tense, and her chest rises and falls a little too rapidly. I could interpret her body language in different ways, but the haunted look in her eyes gives her away.
She’s fucking afraid of me—despite being surrounded by her pack and with her son standing at my side.
If her husband has lost perspective, Charlotte seems to have a crystal clear view of my strength.
Baxter appears at her side just then, angling between us, a defensive move, his lips pulled back as he snarls at me. I guess he disagrees with his son’s decision to introduce me to Charlotte.
I expect Baxter to grab his mate and haul her out of there, but she’s the one gripping his arm, raising her eyes to his as a silent communication passes between them, after which she turns to me.
“I look forward to speaking with you more later, Tessa,” she says, her gaze flicking past me to Tristan. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Baxter takes her arm, waiting for her to choose their path before he accompanies her through the room, turning himself into a visual barrier between her and Tristan.
I stare after them, my lips parted. “Are they…?”
“True mates,” Cody says, watching me carefully.
I guess I don’t hide my surprise fast enough because he says, “You’re shocked that my father has a protective bone in his body. You should be. He’s an aggressive brute. He doesn’t love anybody anymore. But he would die for my mother.”
My heart sinks a little. The death of a true mate usually results in the death of the other. I’ll be killing two shifters if I carry through with my mission tonight.
For the next hour, Cody and I make conversation. He gets me a drink—something strongly alcoholic—which I barely touch, before he whisks it away and gets me a water. He leads me to a small table in an alcove at the back of the room where we can sit without being disturbed. Like the rest of the room, the alcove is beautifully decorated with silver filigree across the walls and silver lights trailing across the table. I experience a pang when they remind me of the garden in Hidden House.
We start with small talk. The weather. The constant rain. Then we move on to music, favorite food, and movies, not that I’ve seen many. We’ve just moved on to hobbies when several young women venture over. They look my age, but they act young and are more than a little drunk. Judging by the fact that everyone else in this room is older, I suspect they’ve come over to this side of the house purely to see Cody.
He stands and greets each of them formally, another confirmation that he’s transitioning to alpha. If he wasn’t, he would have joined them already, possibly even taken me over there.
They eye me off with differing attitudes. One of them ignores me completely, another won’t stop staring at me, and the third nearly sits in my lap trying to get Cody’s attention.
I stop myself before I grab her arm and break it.
Cody takes one look at my face and rapidly dismisses them. They pout at him. “Come over to the fun side, Cody,” they call as they leave. “We miss you.”
“Boxing,” I say, before the echo of their voices fades.
Cody’s forehead creases. A quizzical smile breaks across his face. He lowers himself back into his chair, stretching his legs out in a deliberately relaxed pose. “Boxing is your hobby?”
I stare at the crowd. “Dad taught me. It was what we had in common.”
I’d rather be fighting right now.
I seek Tristan across the room. By some miracle, he’s in polite conversation with an older couple. Somehow, he’s moving around the room, getting his bearings while I’m stuck in this alcove, making small talk, and getting nowhere.
Damn. My plan is unraveling. I didn’t expect Cody to be so forthright with me. His honesty prevents me from using guile. I also didn’t expect Baxter Griffin to have a true mate he would whisk out of the room. I’m sure he’ll return at some point, but he hasn’t yet. I need to get Baxter alone, but there’s no hope of that right now. I need to think, revise my plan, and start again.
“May I use your bathroom?” I ask Cody.
“Of course,” he says. His focus also shifts to Tristan, telling me he’s as aware of Tristan’s movements as I am. “It’s back through the entrance, up the stairs, last door on the left.”
He stands when I do and I’m not sure if he’s going to follow me, but he remains where he is.
I take care maneuvering around the tables and groups of shifters, making sure I don’t bump anyone. I consider whether or not to rejoin Tristan, but I think better of it. While we’re split up, we appear placid and under control. Returning to his side could be seen as a hostile move.
I take a breath of fresh air when I emerge from the dining room, but I’m disappointed that the entrance isn’t empty.
Two men stand at the bottom of the grand staircase, blocking it. Both are massive, although one is a full head taller than the other with piercing icy blue eyes and a shaved head. He’s wearing black pants but no jacket, his white collared shirt unbuttoned at the top while the sleeves are rolled up over biceps that push at the seams.
The other man wears an eyepatch over his left eye. His long, dark brown hair is slicked back and his jacket conforms to his muscles. He smiles at me with a grin that makes me shudder.
They must both be supernaturals—my buzzing instincts tell me that they are—but I can’t get a read on their exact species, which is even more unsettling. One of them must be blocking their supernatural status. If it were a magical barrier I could detect, then I might be able to break through it, but for now, I’ll just have to accept that I don’t know what they are.
“Excuse me,” I say, trying a polite approach first. “I’d like to get past.”
As I speak, another man emerges from the shadows at the side of the stairs.
It startles me that I didn’t sense his presence sooner. In fact, even now that he’s standing right in front of me, I can’t get a reading on him.
“Don’t mind my security guards,” he says. “They’re overzealous about my protection in situations like this.”
His voice is rough, but also like honey, setting me on edge and relaxing me at the same time, an unnerving combination. He’s tall, leaner than the other two men, wearing a suit of the darkest blue verging on black. His hair is light brown, but the more I stare at it, it could be dark blond, and his eyes are a shade of hazel green. Or maybe pale brown. While the details of his features are unsettlingly hard to determine, his jaw is shadowed with growth, his lips are perfectly curved, and high cheekbones round out his strong face.
<
br /> I blink rapidly, my instincts screaming at me, but I’m not sure if they’re telling me to run or stay.
“You’re human,” I say, drawing the only conclusion I can from the absence of any glow around him.
He leans on the balustrade at the foot of the stairs. “You’ve caused quite a stir, Tessa Dean,” he replies, as if we’re having an entirely different conversation.
I narrow my eyes at him in distrust. “What is a human doing here?”
The crease in his forehead disappears, a tension easing, but he doesn’t extend his hand when he introduces himself. “My name is Ford Vanguard. Baxter Griffin is my business partner. We’ve made a number of profitable deals together.”
“Sure.” The hairs on the back of my neck have risen and my skin prickles all over my body. I rub my arms, disliking the tingling sensation. “Would you mind asking your men to step aside?” I say. “Cody directed me to go this way.”
“Oh, he did?” Ford scratches his chin. “That’s interesting.”
The men continue to block my way and Ford continues to stare at me.
A growl threatens to erupt from my mouth. I take a swift step toward Ford, abandoning my polite approach.
“Tell your men to get the fuck out of my way or we’re going to have a problem, do you understand?”
Ford breaks into a grin. “Ah, there’s the woman I heard about.”
He tips his head at his men, who promptly step aside.
Even so, the gap between them is narrow.
I turn on my side, make myself small, and angle between them while they watch me closely.
The big guy with the pale blue eyes glowers down at me while the guy with the eyepatch is impassive, weirdly distracted, as if his mind is elsewhere.
My arm brushes the big guy’s bicep as I pass.
He’s ice cold.
I jolt. My eyes fly wide.
I should have realized sooner. These two giant guys just happen to be at Baxter Griffin’s party and they aren’t shifters.
They’re the ice jotunn and the warlock.