Thrown to the Wolves (Big Bad Wolf)

by Adhara, Charlie

  Cooper opened his mouth, closed it. It felt too late to say any of that now. Unnecessary, too. They’d been through too much together since then. Did the little details of how it started really matter anymore?

  “What was the other thing you wanted to tell me? Before?” Cooper asked instead. He wasn’t sure he liked the way this conversation had gone. He felt unbalanced and...bad. But that could easily be the tranquilizers still leaving his system.

  Park looked at the painting hanging over the fireplace. A watercolor of cliffs falling into the sea. “Just be careful tonight. The Rosetti pack and every other wolf in the area who can make it will be here pretending to pay their respects.”

  Cooper raised his eyebrow. “Your archnemeses are invited to the wake of their possible victim?”

  “They’re not our nemeses. And it’s—” Park hesitated, searching for a word “—a custom.”

  “You think they’d try something here surrounded by people?”

  “No. If it even is the Rosettis—and for once I agree with Stuart that it’s not—Sylvia’s no fool. You, on the other hand—”

  “Hey!”

  “—have made getting into sticky situations your own personal Olympic sport. Just please, for me, try not to medal for once.”

  Chapter Seven

  Murder plots aside, it was an ordinary enough ceremony. At times heartfelt, other times awkward and dull. If you’d been to a memorial before, you’d been to this one, and Cooper had been to more than his fair share.

  Joe Park had been cremated and someone had plowed a path half a mile to the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. There his family released his ashes into the wind and water. Halfway through the speeches, snow started to fall—just lightly at first—and it was disconcerting trying to distinguish the ashes from the flakes. Fitting, too, in its way. The man who had told stories of wolves as guardians of nature now indistinguishable from it.

  Many people came. Far more than Cooper was expecting. They joined the slow procession from the house to the overlook as they arrived in a particular order, and he got the distinct feeling there were many “customs” Park hadn’t bothered filling him in on. The atmosphere was more tense than sad, but perhaps that was only his perception, still reeling from what he’d learned.

  The family believed one of these wolves was very likely responsible for attacking them, and as the procession inched closer and closer to the cliffs, he couldn’t help picturing a wolf breaking out of the crowd and pushing one of the family over the edge. But Park was right—it would be madness to stage an attack now. The unsub, if there was an unsub, would no sooner reach their target than fifty wolves would be on them. Each of them fully carrying at all times.

  You think I don’t want to find whoever did this to you right now and rip them apart?

  Cooper exhaled shakily. That had been unexpected. And very unlike the genial, unflappable man he knew. But wanting to hurt someone and actually doing it could be different. And could he honestly say he’d feel any different if someone had shot Park?

  As the ceremony wound down to a close, Helena got up and said some things. Nothing too sentimental—not that Cooper would have expected that of her. She just thanked Joe for being a partner to her and a leader to his community.

  “All he ever wanted was to make a safe world for us,” she finished, and the words, shaking just a tad in their sincerity, reminded Cooper so much of what she’d said this morning that he had to look away.

  He didn’t like that they weren’t calling the cops or the BSI. But then he’d never needed to be afraid of either of them, either. Never had to protect a secret that, if revealed, would threaten his entire world. Not unless you counted how he’d felt being gay and closeted at thirteen when every secret felt earth-shattering, but that didn’t compare. He’d been taken aback by the dismissive look in Park’s eyes when he’d brought up involving the police again. But was it really so strange? What could the cops do?

  Not calling the BSI in was more difficult to defend—wolf crime was their purpose, after all—but he’d be lying if he didn’t see the Parks’ point of view. Even before his medical leave, Cooper had been struggling with his feelings about the agency. He wasn’t really happy there anymore—had he ever been? Though the agency had made moves in the right direction, progress was slow and this trip was illustrating just how ill-equipped and narrow-focused they still were. Pack wars? Targeted elimination of alphas? Even this wake, average and human on the surface, hinted at rules and customs the BSI knew nothing about.

  For instance, if half these wolves were the Parks’ enemies, why had they even been invited here today? Murders were more often than not committed by someone the victim knew, but this seemed over the top. If he had half as many suspects to his murder show up to his wake, Cooper would wonder what the hell was going on. Of course, he doubted he’d have half as many people at his wake to begin with, but still. He was getting the feeling that Park was not telling him the whole story.

  Eventually the sky got even darker and wind kicked up. It was especially vicious at the edge of the cliffs—tree limbs submitted to a frantic jerk and sway, and snow found its way under Cooper’s collar and into the hollows at the base of his throat. The others seemed anxious by the sudden turn in the weather. Guests were hunching their shoulders and pacing, glancing side to side. Beneath the wind and rustling trees, sound was distorted. Scents probably were, too. Cooper supposed if he lost two of his keenest senses while surrounded by potential enemies, he’d be nervy, too.

  Finally, the ceremony was cut short and the group moved back up to the house and indoors, spreading out across the ground floor. Someone had lit a fire in the fireplace and it crackled pleasantly, giving a misleadingly comforting sheen to an uncomfortable evening. Park—or some version of Park Cooper had rarely seen before—stayed glued to his side throughout it all. A restless, angry presence that hovered without ever touching, even accidentally, and stared almost challengingly at anyone who approached them who wasn’t a relative.

  When Cooper spotted the woman with the blue-striped hair from the market in the corner and started toward her, Park physically stopped him. “We are not speaking to Sylvia Rosetti tonight,” Park murmured.

  “That’s the Sylvia? Customer-only restroom police by day, enemy alpha by night?”

  Park shhed him, looking around. “She’s not our enemy,” he said firmly before guiding him to a more approved conversation partner. It was honestly exhausting, but Cooper didn’t know how to discourage him without hurting his feelings.

  After a solid forty-five minutes of talking to Park’s cousin Delia about the best bars in DC, he finally had to tap out. She was perfectly pleasant, much nicer than her father, and god knew Cooper liked a drink—evidenced by the three glasses of wine he’d had already—but he frankly didn’t go out enough these days to warrant a neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdown. Also, the trek through the snow and the endless standing began to make itself known in a throbbing up his leg, and he gratefully took the excuse for a little breathing room.

  “Go on. Talk to your family and your...” Cooper looked around the room. “Talk to people. I’m just going to sit on my own for a bit.”

  “Are you sure? Do you need me to find Mai? Or we can just go upstairs. Or we can still leave,” Park added hopefully.

  Cooper glanced outside. It was near twilight now. An eerie gray-green light seeped rather than shone through the massive windows and the snow had worsened. The wind forced the flakes to form alliances in the air, creating shapes and the illusion of figures circling the house. Vultures at twilight.

  He felt a sudden chill run up his spine. “I think our opportunity to escape has passed, don’t you?”

  “Say the word and I would dig us out myself.”

  “Save your spoons. I just want to sit. Besides, your not-enemy Sylvia’s already gone.” Park looked around to confirm that and Coope
r touched his waist lightly, lowering his voice. “You said we’re not in any danger, right?”

  Park grimaced. “A move against any of us today would be self-destruction.”

  “So don’t worry about me. Spend time with your family. Because as soon as possible I’m going to drag you out of this creepy Forster novel and I’m not letting you come back for a very long time.”

  “Promise?” Park said, joking, but also not. He looked exhausted. Spider-lines crinkled the corners of his eyes and mouth, and there was a muscle twitching away in his jaw.

  “Mmm. Have I lied to you yet?” Cooper leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek and felt him stiffen, uncomfortable. Cooper pulled back. “Sorry. Was I not supposed to do that?”

  “No, no, you’re fine,” Park said hastily, but he wouldn’t look him in the eye and was scanning the room as if making note of everyone who might have seen.

  Cooper followed his gaze and realized to his discomfort they were being very carefully watched. Not outright. But he knew what it looked like when one was trying to eavesdrop inconspicuously. Some of the guests stood a little too still—no longer speaking or doing anything at all—just staring anywhere but at Cooper and Park, straining to hear.

  Cooper opened his mouth to apologize—for what? Park was out, he said it was fine—but was interrupted by a swift return kiss. It was a lot more possessive than Cooper’s casual, practically platonic cheek peck had been and he was swaying slightly and seeing dots when Park finally released him.

  “Stay out of trouble,” Park said, voice rough, and guided him into a seat by the fire with a fresh glass of wine before Cooper could regain control of his lips and ask what the fuck that had been about.

  He watched as Park crossed into the adjoining room to speak to Camille and Ricky and the crowd parted before him, ducking their heads in deference. It was...strange.

  This was not the first time Cooper had seen wolves react submissively to Park by any means. Every other case they went on usually involved some wolf whose eyes widened in fear the moment Park entered a room. Most of the Trust agents avoided him, too. Cooper had always assumed they were reacting to some signal hidden to humans and related to being an alpha.

  But there were certainly other alphas in the room and they didn’t get quite the same amount of space, nervous shifting and eyes tracking their every move that Park did. Was it something else the wolves reacted to? The prodigal son returning, perhaps? The wealth of his family? Cooper realized he didn’t like the idea of yet another hidden signal Park carried that he couldn’t see.

  It wouldn’t have bothered you before this morning.

  Cooper scanned the room for Helena and instead saw Sylvia’s electric-blue streaks slipping back into the room. She hadn’t left after all. He checked to see if any of the other Parks had noticed, but a particularly rowdy recounting of “that time Joe got kicked by a moose while on a run” was happening in the corner and the family seemed preoccupied.

  Sylvia skirted around the edge of the room, moving to a group of lone wolves standing awkwardly in the corner, balancing wineglasses and tiny plates of food. As if feeling his gaze, she turned to look at him. Cooper raised a hand in greeting and she changed direction toward him instead. Sorry, Oliver.

  But she’d come to him. And he wasn’t investigating, just...following up with an acquaintance made yesterday. If the topic of murder came up? Well, that was just shoptalk. Cooper’s shop, hopefully, and not Sylvia’s.

  “Hello, again. Did you just get here?” Cooper asked cheerfully, standing to greet her.

  Sylvia smiled slowly. He knew she’d been here the whole time. She knew he knew. Cooper may not speak wolf, but he still had a couple of codes up his sleeve. “Just using the bathroom. It’s a big house. Easy to get lost.”

  “You’re lucky it wasn’t customer-only.”

  “Well, you could say I’ve been in a sort of business relationship with the family longer than you’ve been alive.”

  “I’m younger than I look,” Cooper said. “That must have been a shock, though. Such a long-term...associate dying unexpectedly like that.”

  “Is death at ninety-two ever really unexpected?” Sylvia said. She leaned in close, and Cooper caught the faint scent of oregano and cigarettes. “Some of the people here think he did it himself.”

  Cooper’s eyebrows shot up so fast he felt the skin around his scab tug sickly.

  “Not me, of course,” Sylvia continued briskly. “If you knew Joe as long as I did, you’d know he was never the sort to let go of anything willingly. Oh, dear. You’ve made yourself bleed, again.” Sylvia licked the edge of her thumb and swiped gently at the little trickle of fresh blood.

  Cooper was too shocked to move away. It was a gentle, kind, purely motherly gesture made vaguely terrifying by the fact he’d only met her the once. He had no idea if it was meant to be threatening or if Sylvia was just a nut with no personal boundaries. Or maybe it was a wolf thing. It was the second time he’d had a stranger’s spit on him in forty-eight hours, and that was something he hadn’t been able to say since college.

  “There,” she said, examining him, satisfied. “Not as pretty as he likes, maybe, but not quite so bedraggled anymore. Besides, it’s refreshing to see Ollie with someone so different. We don’t get nearly enough new blood in Port Drove.”

  “I’m, uh, not staying,” Cooper stammered, mind spinning. Maybe he shouldn’t have started this last glass of wine. He had started the evening with a feathered cocktail to the thigh, after all.

  “That’s what they all say. But look at these people.” She nodded at the packed room. “They didn’t plan on staying, either. But the Parks always did have a knack for...collecting. Oliver, especially.” Sylvia twirled a lock of blue hair around her finger. “Even I was just a tourist passing through once.”

  “I met a couple of tourists yesterday who mentioned knowing you, actually,” Cooper said impulsively. “I was hoping to get in touch with them before I leave. I left a jacket in their car. A Dr. and Mr. Freeman?”

  A shout of laughter came from across the room, and Sylvia’s attention seemed to wander, snagging on Lorelei and Tim whispering furtively in the corner.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” she said distractedly. “But there are almost as many Rosettis in Port Drove as there are Parks, if you catch my meaning. Here.”

  She flicked her fingers at someone behind Cooper’s shoulder and a man appeared, as if conjured. “Perhaps Geoff can assist you. Now, I should really give my condolences to Helena and leave before the snow entombs us all. Come by the market soon and we can chat. I might even let you into the back room for a tinkle. In the meantime, drink and be merry.”

  “For tomorrow we die?” Cooper asked, finishing the saying.

  “Enjoy the party, Mr. Dayton.” She winked and walked away, and the man she’d summoned immediately filled her place—preventing Cooper from watching where she went next—so smoothly it seemed choreographed.

  The man—Geoff, he presumed—was tall, taller than Cooper by at least five inches. White, bald, thick-necked and sporting a bad sunburn across his nose, he looked like what the old gangster movies called a bruiser. Since Park didn’t like all the cinematic metaphors, Cooper would just call him a threat. When he tried to step around, the man stepped with him, blocking his way. Obviously, he was the muscle Sylvia had summoned to stop him from following.

  Counterintuitively, part of Cooper felt safer, or at least on steadier ground, around Geoff. This was intimidation he understood loud and clear. Purely physical. He and Sylvia didn’t even speak the same language.

  “So you’re the new one,” Geoff said stiffly, as if even this basic social nicety was painful. “Drink?” He offered him a fresh glass of pinot, looking like an after-school special. Stranger danger, times ten. Cooper was surprised he didn’t see smoke shaped like skulls and crossbones gurgling over the rim.


  “I’m good, thanks.”

  Geoff shrugged, a little wine slipping over the edge and running over his fingers to the carpet. “You like Port Drove?”

  “How could I not, with all the warm and welcoming people,” Cooper said blandly. Geoff wasn’t amused.

  “You staying long?” His dark eyes were too shrewd, too intense for it to be a casual question.

  Cooper shrugged, trying to keep it vague. “I think that depends on the storm. And you? Are you from around here?”

  “Been living with Sylvia for three years now.”

  “Oh. Are you and she...” Cooper trailed off, and Geoff looked at him blankly.

  “I work for her. In her market.”

  “Right. I was there yesterday. Nice place. Sylvia mentioned you might be able to put me in touch with some people I met in town. The Freemans?”

  Geoff’s bland concrete expression darkened and twisted into a gargoyle’s. “The researchers,” he said with the same level of delight people used for the word cockroaches. “What kind of business do the Parks have with them?”

  “No business,” Cooper said quickly, not wanting to be deemed a spokesperson for the pack and start any rumors. “They just gave me a ride yesterday and I left my jacket in the car. Silly of me. But with weather like this I could use all the layers I can get.”

  Geoff wasn’t buying it. “I don’t know them.”

  “Really? ’Cause they mentioned they had a meeting with someone in the Rosetti, uh, family. Maybe you could—”

  “Nope. There was no meeting.” Geoff crossed his arms, and Cooper couldn’t help but notice the arms of his suit jacket strain to contain his shoulder muscles. “Not unless you’re talking about that stick-up-his-ass dude claiming he wanted to talk about some old property deeds he’d dug up in the records office.”