Springtime, all clean smells and crisp air and green leaves. I stuff my hands in my pockets and walk down the sidewalk briskly, keeping my head down as I pass groups of people milling about the storefronts that line the street. My nose twitches constantly and my eyes water with every over-cologned human I brush by, despite how blunted my senses are in this form. God, there's a reason I hate these jobs.
My four o'clock is standing in the tiny park in the middle of our slice of suburban heaven with long, curly brown hair, doe-like eyes, and a collar and leash clutched between her tiny hands. I make straight towards her, and she smiles brightly when she notices me.
"Ms. Cobalt?" I ask as I come within speaking distance. She nods enthusiastically as I step onto the grass. I smile and try to appear harmless. "I'm Reese Greymist."
She nods some more, eyes wide. "You're a lot younger than I thought you'd be," she blurts. I can't help the eyebrow that shoots up, and she blushes hard enough for me to smell it. "I mean, not that you sound old over the phone or anything, I just, uh …"
I take pity on her. "You wanted me to find your dog?"
"Yes!" She thrusts the collar and leash at me. "You said to bring something that smells like him?"
I take the items gingerly and lift them to my nose. "Mm." I take a deep sniff, wrinkle my nose, sneeze loud enough to wake the dead, and sniff again. "Easier this way," I murmur. Not that it isn't already pathetically easy. I smelled this dog on the way here. "This way." I head back the way I came, and after a moment, she follows.
I can feel her staring at me as we leave the park and cross the street. When she almost runs into someone for looking at me, I sigh. "Did you have a question?" I ask.
"Oh, um, it's just …" She leans a little forward as she walks, her eyes still trained on my face. "Are you really a werewolf?"
"No," I say, sharper than I'd intended. "Werewolves aren't real," I say, a little gentler. "The whole 'changes during the full moon, you turn into one if you get bit, only killed by silver' stuff is just Hollywood magick." I pause thoughtfully. "Though silver does hurt us if it breaks the skin." She nods, expression still rapt. "I'm a wolf-type shapeshifter. It's a hereditary thing. Most people agree that we're a separate species altogether—all shifters, not just wolves."
"Ohhh. So you can actually turn into a wolf?"
"Yes, ma'am," I say, disguising a grin as another sneeze.
"That's so cool!"
I shrug and round a corner into a long, narrow alley. I pause. "What's your dog's name?"
"Uh …" Again, I can smell her blush. "Wolfy."
Oh god. I plaster a smile to my face, though, and walk into the alley. Wolfy? Seriously? I half-expect an angry god to strike me down as I start calling the damn dog's name, but nothing so forgiving is forthcoming. Maybe it's an homage to Terminator or something. The dog trots out, tongue lolling and looking a little dirty, but none the worse for wear. Ms. Cobalt, of course, shrieks with joy and drops down to hug the dog, which earns her a few points because, hey, the ground is filthy.
It's all very cute and touching, and I can't wait to get to my five o'clock. Again, to her credit, she turns back to me after only a few moments, and business is concluded. She hovers, body tilted forward just slightly like she wants to say something before crouching by the dog and smiling up at me instead.
Whatever. I smile at the last second when I remember it's generally good practice to be nice to customers and walk away quickly, shrugging to get rid of that weird shivery feeling that always goes through me when I know I'm acting weird around a human, but I can't figure out why. Dealing with humans is so much more trouble than it's worth. If you're a normal wolf, that is. Otherwise, it's a necessity.
I bare my teeth before I squish the reaction back. I'm glum all the way across town to the place where I'm supposed to meet my five o'clock, my mind tracing over the same ifs and ands and buts, as always, with the same result. At least being around humans isn't as hard as dealing with the pack. Most humans even like me, smile and coo and try to pet me if they catch me with my ears and tail out.
I look up when I catch a whiff of dragon. Faint, very faint, and masked. Actually, I'm probably on top of—
I whip around and snarl at the man standing within arm's length behind me. He looks surprised before the expression melts away into an easy grin. I back away and shiver as I half-shift, just enough to give me my ears, tail, and claws. Shifting completely out in the open's liable to get me smacked, but a dragon's nothing to mess with.
"Relax, wolf," the dragon says, and he slouches, makes his body language deliberately non-threatening and casual. "I'm not here to hurt you."
"Then why are you here?" I snap and try to rein in my temper.
The dragon smirks, the expression evil on his delicately-defined face. "I believe I'm your five o'clock."
I do some quick mental acrobatics and glance at the buildings around us: tall, all of them at least five stories, closed in, no alleys, and empty. A warehouse district, usually quiet until nightfall, when most businesses out here do their shipping and restocking to take advantage of the jobs so many packs in one place provides. Damn.
"Fine," I say and straighten, allowing my posture to relax, though I don't return to a fully human form. Lets the dragon know I'm still wary. I won't be full human around a dragon unless that dragon's dead or dying. I tilt my head to the building closest to us, one of Ryan's. "Shall we?"
The dragon smiles hugely, showing off canines sharper than my own, and precedes me in. I sketch my eyes over his body as I follow him in and note at least two knives and a gun in a shoulder holster. The gun's on the right side, but dragons are well-known for being ambidextrous, so that means nothing.
The warehouse is dark, full of boxes and tables and whatnot. I ignore it all and head straight to the office sitting in the nearest corner. There's a fingerprint scanner on the door, all high-tech and secure and such. I press my middle finger to the scanner and pray that this warehouse is one of the ones that just got re-kitted. Just in case I need to take down an angry dragon. God, I hate dragons.
The door opens, and I step in, turn on the lights and all that, and my eyes flick briefly over the just-slightly-ajar bottom drawer of one of the filing cabinets. Thank God.
I claim that corner of the room and turn to give the dragon my best bored and uninterested stare, even though we can both smell the faint stink of fear and adrenaline. It would be embarrassing if he wasn't a dragon. Then again, if he wasn't a dragon, I wouldn't be afraid.
The dragon gives me a long, measured look. It's nothing special, except for the very faint green cast over his black eyes, the way his pupils aren't quite the right shape. He's got vaguely Asian features and super short black hair, a row of silver hoops through the cartilage of his right ear, and a piercing through his lower lip. If he were human, I'd say he was trying too hard. On the dragon, though, it's all very appropriately badass.
He pulls something out of his jacket in a quick flick of motion, and I flinch at the smack of something hitting the table between us. "Perhaps this will assuage your fears, wolf."
I eye him for a moment before snatching up the fold of leather and retreating to my corner again. I frown down at the badge and jump through some more mental hoops.
The Syndicate is like a mix of the FBI and the federal government to the unremarkable community. They handle all the weird inter-species issues, solve disputes, and they pass the general laws that everyone has to follow—stuff like 'don't attack humans' or 'don't murder faerie gentry'. They were a little late on that second one, though. It was because of the highly public and televised assassinations of the kings and queens of three faerie courts in Britain and the subsequent war that pulled in all of the unremarkable that the humans had had to sit up and face reality. Once the dust settled, the humans decided that, since we already had our own police force, they weren't getting in on that. We manage ourselves.
Some of the exceptions to the rule, though, are shifters, dragons, and demons. We police our own, and the Syndicate doesn't get involved and doesn't tell us what to do. We're strict, especially the shifters, and there's nothing the Syndicate can do that we can't—though they occasionally drop by and tell us to cooperate before disappearing back into the ether since packs and clans have a tendency to withhold information from each other.
If this dragon's badge is real, and he really is Teinen Kiari of the Emerald Clan, then things are worse than I thought, and this'll be stepping up Ryan's plans significantly.
"What's this about?" I ask and toss the badge back onto the table. The dragon doesn't move to take it back.
"I'm sure you've at least heard whispers of the string of shifter murders and kidnappings occurring on the East Coast for the past three months." It isn't a question. Everyone knows about the murders, though the clans whose lands they've occurred on are mostly mum on the situation. "We've managed to narrow down our suspect list to a couple of packs, and—"
"You think it's wolves?" I ask, crossing my arms. "Why?"
He shrugs. "Smells like wolves, though we can't pick out any specific pack. Wolf fur, wolf bite marks. That it was wolves was one of the first things we determined."
"Why are you coming to me about this?"
He gives me another one of those long, measuring looks, and I quell the urge to squirm. Damn dragons. He shrugs eventually. "You're well-liked and respected, wolf. Fuck me if we can figure out where you came from, but people trust you."
"Yeah," I drawl. "Everybody loves Reese Greymist, finder of lost dogs and kittens. Hell, even the local packs like me enough to not kill me dead for living in one of their neighboring towns."
"Those local packs want you to pick a side," he says patiently, and I narrow my eyes.
"No, those local packs want me gone," I breathe. I shrug. "You didn't answer my question."
"The pack that we're thinking is committing these murders is Deepine. They have a niche market for spices imported directly from China. All the major distribution in the US comes from them, and almost all of the victims have trace amounts of one of these spices, an especially rare one, on them."
"Why don't you just do an analysis on the hairs you found?"
"Because you know we don't have a database with every wolf shifter's hair on tap. That sort of thing is kept by the packs themselves." An edge of irritation floats underneath the dragon's tone, and I nod slowly.
Looks like the Syndicate's screwed on this one, even if they could risk working openly, which they won't. The packs would tear them apart for interfering where there's a tacit agreement of 'we don't kill you and you let us conduct our own business'. Half the reason the packs are so closeted is because most of almost every pack's revenue comes from illegal sales, debt collecting, what have you. I've heard that before the unremarkable came out and started getting openly involved with the economy, the human organization called the Mafia based a lot of their structure off of wolf packs they came in contact with.
"So what is it you want?" I ask.
"We want you to infiltrate Deepine, work up through the ranks, and find out what you can about the murders, and if they're involved."
"What makes you think I'll get anywhere? I'm an errand boy."
"Like I said, fuck if we know where you came from, but I've heard rumors you used to be an enforcer. A talented one." The dragon's tone is light, almost friendly, but I bare my teeth anyway. Ryan's going to flip his shit when he finds out someone was talking to the Syndicate.
"Fine," I say. "I'll look into submitting a bid to join." I cross the room and open the door, every hair on the back of my neck pricking up, and pause before my bravado can abandon me. "Come talk to me once I've started killing for them."
*~*~*
Shifter clans and packs are delicate things. Eternally at war with their neighbors, dominance and hierarchy are strictly controlled, and negotiations are usually less 'negotiate' and more 'murder'. Because of this, you'd think that enrollment in a pack or clan isn't all that well tracked. You'd be wrong. Enrollment is tracked meticulously: hair, blood, and tissue samples are taken, as well as fingerprints, paw prints, and depending on the species and pack, some even record your howl or cry. Attempting to join a new pack, called a bid, can take weeks or months, depending on circumstances and pack.
I know this is why people are so damn curious about me. I'm obviously socialized, which means I didn't grow up in the wild, but I'm unfamiliar with humans, so I can't have been raised by one. At the same time, I'm not on any enrollment list for a pack, anywhere, and enrollment is one of those things that every pack does, and they make sure all the Is are dotted and all the Ts are crossed, so I've got to be somewhere, right?
No one took Ryan's arrogance and desire for a secret killing machine into account, though I can't really blame them. There's no real accounting for Ryan.
Deepine has an open bid call, thankfully, and from what I can gather from the people I chat with at the only shifter-only bar in town, they don't have a set submission criteria. That makes it easier and harder. Packs can be stupidly specific about submission criteria, which is a pain, or they can have no submission criteria, which means you have to get creative, but not too creative cuz then they think you're crazy.
It only makes sense for me to apply as an enforcer. I haven't got much else in the way of specialized talents, and enforcers can move up ranks pretty quickly if they're skilled and determined enough. All males serve as enforcers for at least three years after they turn eighteen unless they have a great deal of skill in some other area, and that rule differs from pack to pack. Some males come from families within a larger pack that are traditionally enforcers, and some males are trained from a very young age to be enforcers for the rest of their lives, like me. Ryan found me wandering around the pack hunting grounds when I was still just a pup, snot-nosed and half-frozen, took me in, and if he trained me to be a thug rather than his successor like everyone was expecting, well … there's not lot I can do about that.
I can't help reaching for forgiveness, even though I know I'll never get it. Partial exile doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's awful to hear about, worse to experience. Not allowed to hunt or live on pack lands, not allowed to visit more than a few times a month or talk to anyone … Not that anyone in my pack wants to talk to me.
I sit in a tree and watch Deepine mill about. There are three wolf packs that share control of this section of New England: Silverlight, Deepine, and River. All their hunting grounds fan out from the city, as they're all based here due to complicated political ties. Like most packs, they have designated group hunting days, though they divide up based on criteria I can't determine from here since they're so huge. Deepine's one of the biggest packs in North America, over one hundred members last time I heard, probably closer to two hundred by now. It takes a lot to manage a pack like that, and everyone's heard of Donovan, hereditary alpha and supposedly one of the most decent wolves around.
It isn't hard to pick him out of the crowd, though I can't see much detail. It's something about the way he carries himself, all alphas do it, like he's aware of each and every thing you're thinking and none of it bothers him cuz he knows you're his. Arrogant bastards, the lot of them. I wince a moment later and push the guilt away.
He knows I'm here, without a doubt, but he's waiting for me to make my move. I settle back against the tree trunk, one leg swinging easily over the side of the branch I'm sitting on, and contemplate. This sort of thing isn't like me at all, I can admit that easily enough. I'm used to the shadows, more used to dodging criticism than seeking praise, and I'm painfully aware that I have no credentials, nothing to back me up. All I have is a lifetime of training, and that won't do me a damn bit of good if I can't get this man's attention.
I clench my hands convulsively. I have to do this, too. If I do this, and do it well, maybe Ryan and the rest of the pack will forgive me.
Just pretend he's Ryan. All alphas are the same anyway, right? So what would please Ryan? I snort and shake my head, smiling, pretending the trace of bitterness isn't there. Right. This makes it easier.
I jump out of the tree, slipping into my half-form as I fall, and when I land on the ground, the forest is alive around me. I waste no time, don't give myself even half a chance to hesitate and lose my courage, and start running. I can't help the breathless laugh that escapes me as I run, drawn by the multitude of scents that blend and scream pack over the deep green and musk of the trees and plants themselves.
When I come to the edge of the clearing the pack is milling about in, the alpha's standing near the edge of the crowd, surrounded by four high-tier enforcers. They look like they're ready to kill me, but the alpha steps forward, out of their protective circle, and I frown before I catch the slip. I've never known an alpha to willingly leave the circle of his bodyguards to greet an unknown wolf.
"Reese Greymist?" the alpha asks, his tone polite.
So not unknown, I guess. "Yes," I say, a touch nervously.
The man cocks his head to the side, a small smile on his admittedly handsome face. "What are you doing here?"
Well, nothing for it now. I stride forward a couple of paces, until I'm nearly within arm's reach of the alpha, and drop to my knees, head bowed and the back of my neck very, very exposed. "I would like to submit a bid to join your pack."
The silence is so loud I have to resist the urge to look up and see if they're all still there. Okay, so maybe this plan was a little on the wrong side of creative. I have no doubt it would make Ryan blindingly happy to see me submit and humble myself in front of the pack, but then again, I haven't caused this alpha the problems I've caused Ryan. Is he going to decide I'm crazy and have me killed?
"No, wait," I hear him murmur, and then footsteps crunch over the grass, coming closer. A hand descends to rest on the back of my neck, and a full-body shudder runs through me. "What makes you want to join my pack out of all the packs that would have you?"
"Your pack is powerful and close-knit, and you're well-liked and respected," I say, echoing all the things my bar friends told me. "You're fair and …" I swallow hard. "I'm … tired of being alone." I could smack myself for that last comment. Alphas don't care about that, about loneliness. Why should they? They're never alone, never have to fend for themselves. Dammit, this was a stupid idea.
"Very well." The hand lifts, and grass crunches as the alpha kneels in front of me and sniffs at my neck. Is he going to smell Silverlight on me? I haven't been back in weeks, but that doesn't mean the scent won't linger. But he just rubs his cheek against mine and stands. "I accept your bid to join my pack." A gentle nudge at my chin has me looking up at him, and I suddenly become aware of just how gold his eyes are. "Bids typically take two to four months to complete. In that time, you will be supplied with room and board and are expected to participate in whatever activities we ask of you, within reason." Another slight head tilt. "Do you have a particular position you're applying for?"
"Enforcer," I say without hesitation.
A smirk flits over his face before disappearing. "Good," he says warmly. "You are, of course, permitted to visit your home pack, if you have any." His expression turns expectant, but I say nothing, and he smiles again. "And you may, of course, continue running your business." He half-turns to one of the men behind him. "Who knows, maybe we could do with a private investigator, hm?"
Laughter that isn't mocking surrounds me, and I fight to contain my frown. Just what have I gotten myself into?
*~*~*
I turn up at the training room, three weeks after I submitted my bid, for my daily workout and am instantly wary when I see Donovan lounging with Mika, my trainer, on the other side of the room. They're not paying attention to me, and I take my time walking over to get a feel for the situation.
The training room's neat as always: huge mats on the floor, chairs and pillows ringing the circumference of the room. It doubles as a meditation room when the other ones are full, but it's usually only this empty around midnight, when most of the pack is bedded down. There's several doors leading off two of the walls. One leads to the weapons rooms and the other leads to the armory where we keep the serious firepower. The atmosphere is relaxed and calm and my heart rate slows down.
I don't think Donovan's here to kick me out. He's relaxed and laughing at something Mika's saying, and people don't do that when they're gonna punish someone, right? God, I'm pathetic.
I stride up to the pair, and Donovan turns to look at me mid-laugh. I misstep and almost stumble, but manage to pass it off as a particularly enthusiastic stop.
"I'm glad you're here," Donovan says. He stands and claps a hand onto my shoulder. "You're so talented I've decided to step up your bid." Mika rises and grins at me from behind Donovan, the expression oddly mischievous on his normally stoic face. "Mika's gonna take you debt collecting today," Donovan continues, grinning, and I feel an answering smile spread across my face.
"Yeah?" I ask, rocking forward onto the balls of my feet, then back. I haven't had a chance to really go out and do what I spent my whole life learning to do in months.
Mika laughs. "I thought that'd cheer you up," he says. "There are a couple of gangs within the city that run supplies for us, mostly dealing with our spice trade, and they haven't paid us our percentage out of their sales yet."
"Do you control a lot of the gangs in the city?"
"Most." Mika leans against Donovan's shoulder. "Some run supplies, and some provide protection for some of the unremarkable businesses, you know?" He looks at Donovan. "There's really only one or two that we don't bother with, hm?"
"Mm." Donovan's staring right at me, and I lower my eyes automatically, a shiver running down my spine. He laughs and nudges my chin up. "Don't do that, pup," he says, smiling. "I was just thinking that you're awfully pretty."
Awfully … Awfully …
"Van, you broke him," Mika complains, and my entire face goes hot. They both laugh that not-mocking laughter I don't think I'll ever get used to, and Donovan ruffles his hand through my hair. "Ignore him, Reese, he just doesn't know when to shut up."
"O … kay." I glance at Donovan as Mika pulls me to the armory, but he's already walking away.
"So, you ready to go bust some heads open?" Mika asks as he hands me a gun.
I trace my fingers over the grip and finger the trigger. "Oh, yeah."
*~*~*
"First kill, pup," Mika murmurs next to me. We both look over the dossier Lee had handed to me this morning, and my blood's been singing ever since then. "Excited?"
"Yeah." I grin before I can tell myself not to, and besides, Mika's always telling me not to be so serious. I look around the empty training room and glance at Mika pointedly, but he ignores my unspoken question. I smooth the impatience from my face and flip through the dossier again. We've been waiting in here for at least ten minutes, but Mika shows no signs of getting up, so all I can do is fidget in my seat.
Two months, and they're finally gonna let me go out and kill somebody. I was starting to think that Donovan was gonna make me stay on guard duty around the mansion for forever. I sigh and smooth my fingers over the folder. No, he wouldn't do that. But even though he made the jump from me guarding to collecting pretty quickly, he hasn't let me go out and do it a lot. There's a fine tremor of adrenaline and excitement running through my body, and I haven't been let out enough to tame it. Sparring with Mika every day doesn't help, either, though I have to admit I've never had such a skilled sparring partner for this long before. Someone who's interested in sparring and not kicking the shit out of me every time he can.
I relax a little, and I see the corner of Mika's mouth tilt up. Bastard. I swear he does this stuff on purpose. I sigh loudly and slump in my seat, slinging an arm over the backrest even though my spine doesn't like the angle. I can be patient.
But five minutes later, I'm fidgeting again and shooting Mika glares that he ignores just like everything else. The man has the patience of a saint, I swear.
I open the dossier again. Rogue male from a southern pack. Late twenties, went feral some months back, but no one could catch him. He rampaged through a River and Dust training ground last month, and the whole East Coast has been out for his blood since then. He didn't kill anyone, but a lot of pups and kittens were hurt, and the mere thought of this wolf getting away has my hackles up.
"Down, boy," Mika says, his hand descending onto the back of my neck. I subside. "You'll get your chance, just give it a few minutes. Donovan got held up in a meeting."
Donovan? I glance at the door as if the thought will summon him. Why is Donovan going to brief me? I look at Mika as his hand returns to his lap, but there's no answer forthcoming from there, I know. I snort, but he still doesn't do anything, and I reel my impatience in. Deliberately trying to provoke my trainer, even one as patient as Mika, is always a stupid move.
But still. Why's Donovan briefing me? I've gotten the impression over the past few weeks that Donovan's personally managing my bid, but I haven't got any sort of clear indication until now. Normally, Mika would be the one to brief me and send me on my way; trainers generally have total control over the bid of the wolf they're training and only report to the alphas or head enforcers for major decisions and recommendations. Trainers are hugely powerful within a pack that has an open bid system like Deepine.
Footsteps echo down the hall, and I bolt upright and ignore Mika's chuckle. Donovan strides through the door and smiles when he sees me and Mika waiting. "I'm sorry I'm late," he says as he comes closer. Mika and I stand, and I tap my fingers against the dossier, even more eager to go now that Donovan's here. He laughs and grabs the back of my neck to reel me in so he can sniff my neck. Why does he keep doing that?
"He's been wiggling about for the last twenty minutes," Mika says, laughing briefly. I glare at him and hope they mistake the blush on my face for irritation rather than embarrassment.
"There's not much else I have to tell you," Donovan says, still hanging on to my neck. It's a habit of his I can't get used to. No one in Silverlight touches me unless they have to. "We know he's going to be within that area tonight, but not specifically where." He gives me a warm smile. "I have every confidence you'll do well."
"I'll make you proud," I murmur and lower my eyes, less out of habit this time as much as an attempt to save face. It's just all the smiles and general happiness that follows this alpha that I can't get used to, that's all.
"I know you will," he replies with perfect certainty. He buries his face in my neck again for a moment, and I try not to spontaneously combust before he moves away. "Good luck."
"Thank you." I frown after him. That's all? I thought he was going to brief me. I turn to Mika, and he takes the dossier.
"We've already gone over most of the information you need, pup." He flicks through the file quickly before closing it with a snap. "Yup, that's pretty much it. C'mon, let's get you kitted out." I trail after him to the armory and hover in the doorway as he flits about, picking up and discarding weapons as he goes.
"I thought Donovan was gonna brief me?" I tense even though I know Mika won't hit me for questioning him. Old habits die hard.
Mika smirks. "I already briefed you, pup, you know that. Donovan just wanted to send you off properly."
"Oh." I frown and watch him prance around. The armory's pretty big, the right half devoted to the guns lining the walls and tables, the left side to blades of all different types and sizes. There's a work table in the back for the quartermaster so he can repair the weapons if need be. Right now, there's a mostly disassembled handgun on top of the glass.
"Alright, here." I take the three knives and gun he hands me automatically. "Is that good, or do you want another knife?"
I shrug as I strap the knives on. "I'm fine with three." Two of the knives go in my boots, and I set the other one down as I slide on my shoulder holster. It doubles as a knife holster since I can't shoot worth shit with my left hand, but can use a knife just fine with both hands.
Back in the training room, I grab my jacket and slip it on, shrugging to settle it around the holster. I hate wearing concealed weapons, but even though the humans let us do our business our way for the most part, they balk at letting us wave our guns around in public. It makes sense, I guess.
Mika grins. "My baby's all grown up."
My whole body goes stiff. "Am I kitted out to your satisfaction?" I ask, leaning away slightly, and he frowns.
"Reese, you have to chill out sometimes," he says, crossing his arms and taking on his 'I am your trainer and you will obey me' pose. "Can't you take a joke?"
"You … were joking?" Dammit. I can't tell half the time, even with the smiling, because the others always smiled when they tried to trap me so they'd have an excuse to beat me up. Not that they needed an excuse, not really, after I disobeyed Ryan last time.
Mika sighs. "We'll talk about this later, pup. Now go out and kill that damn rogue."
I nod and keep my eyes lowered, just in case. "Yes, sir."
*~*~*
"Clever," I mutter. "Very clever."
The dragon gives me a slow smirk. "You did say to come talk to you after you started killing for them." He's sprawled in a chair across the metal table from me. I glance around the small, stark white interrogation room with some irritation.
"I did, but I didn't mean right after," I say. I shift carefully in my own seat and cradle the cup of coffee that was waiting for me when they brought me in here. "I would've liked a shower first, for one." I'm too tired for my words to have any bite, though, and the dragon laughs.
"This was the best way we could get you alone," he says. "I admit, though, we were expecting to have to fabricate some destroyed property as an excuse to bring you in."
I wince. "Feral for one wolf isn't always the same feral as another," I say. "We didn't think he'd be lucid enough to set a trap."
"Will you be okay?" There's a note of something like genuine concern in the dragon's voice, but I ignore it. I pull my coffee closer.
"Yeah. Nothing serious. I've been thrown through storefronts before." He nods, and there's a pause before he visibly changes gears.
"So how're things?" he asks, sing-songy like we're friends.
"Going good," I say and take a sip of my coffee. It burns my tongue, but it's hazelnut, so I don't care. I can feel every single cut and ache from that damn rogue. A few singed taste buds is nothing compared to that. "I'm still training, but I'm pretty sure he'll honor the bid," I continue. "They haven't told me much, but as far as I can gather, they have most of the gangs on the East Coast under their thumb running their spice trade. They take about seventy percent profit from the gangs." I shrug. "Besides that, I know they run protection services, but most of that's bullshit, of course."
"How do the gangs feel about this?"
I snort. "Most of them are pretty happy with the arrangement, but you get the odd couple of people who want to steal from us, and that's taken care of pretty quickly." I shrug again. "Donovan runs a tight ship. No corruption, no unfair treatment. You step of line and you die, but it's a pretty wide line."
"Do you like working for him?" The dragon's voice is soft, and I glare at him.
"That has no bearing on the job," I say flatly. "He's a competent and well-liked alpha, and he's respected within the community. You already know all of this."
"Easy," he says, his tone mocking. "I was just asking." His eyes glitter green for a second, and I drop my gaze.
"I can't tell you much else besides structure, but it's all typical. I haven't met the beta yet, but I've met most of the top-tier enforcers."
"Is the pack happy? Content? Does Donovan have any major rivals?" The dragon's tone is business-like again, and I let out a small sigh.
"The pack is happy and content. They love Donovan, and as far as I can tell, he has no major rivals." I take a too-large sip of my coffee and grimace. "The pack's stable."
"Anything unusual that you've noticed?"
"That they're all stupidly happy?" I growl. "I don't know." I grip the mug tighter. "They have a lot of enforcers. I mean, a lot, at least thirty percent of the pack. They shouldn't need so many, especially since the lower echelons of the business are human, and I get the feeling the alpha's keeping more out of sight for whatever reason. It's excessive." I stare into my coffee and grit my teeth. I have to tell the dragon these things, it's my job.
"And what could they be doing with all these enforcers, I wonder." There's a deliberate note of mocking inquisition in the dragon's voice and I grip the mug tighter.
"Usually, a pack swells its ranks in preparation for a territory war," I say. "After, if the new territory isn't bordering, or if it's large, the new ranks will be relocated to bring that territory to heel."
"Is that what you think is going on here?"
I contemplate my coffee for a long couple of seconds. I haven't been drinking a lot of coffee lately. As a shifter PI, I don't exactly get a lot of business, and most of my money is spent on necessities. With Deepine, though, maybe I can take up the habit again.
What, so you can drop it again when you leave?
"No. Something else is going on," I say quietly. "I don't know what, exactly, and I don't have any evidence. It's just a feeling."
"Alright, then. Thank you for your time, Reese." He stands, and I do, too. "Is there anywhere you'd like us to take you since your motorcycle was, ah, broken?"
"To my shop," I say, even as I decide to go home, my real home. Not that I can let this nosy dragon know that. "I need to wash your scent off me."
He grins. "Sure thing."
*~*~*
I slink into the mansion through the kitchen, ears flat, a low whine building in the back of my throat, and isn't this just pathetic?
The kitchen's empty, thank God. I don't think I could deal with the others when I'm already exhausted from walking here from my shop. I snag a loaf of bread before tip-toeing down the servant hallway, hardly breathing, moving at a glacier speed. Please don't see me, please don't see me, please—
"Reese?"
Damn. Double damn. Of all the people—
"Reese, get your butt in here! I can smell the blood clean on the other side of the mansion, you fool!"
"Coming," I say flatly, trying to keep the growl out of my voice. No sense is digging my grave any deeper.
Coriander's waiting for me in the back foyer, hands perched on her hips, fiery red hair making up for the lack of height, and a fierce scowl on her elfin face, disapproval radiating off her in bursts.
Her eyes widen briefly when she sees me, and I count it as a victory, pathetic as it is. "You should see the other guy."
The joke falls flat and lands on the black marble floor. I trod on it as I shuffle forward to take a seat, just to be sure.
Cori's already got the first aid kit with my name ready on a nearby table. She must not've been kidding about smelling me from the infirmary.
I sigh. That just means that Ryan knows I'm back and that I'm hurt.
"Where do you hurt the most?" she asks, a quiet note of pity in her voice. I scowl.
"I'll live," I say, and she makes a rude noise.
"That's not what I asked, Mr. Enforcer."
I sigh. Loudly. "My ribs, I guess."
She works quickly and efficiently, cutting off part of my ruined, bloody shirt, cleaning the long, shallow gashes with stinging antiseptic, and then bandaging everything up again.
I keep quiet about the cuts down my back and concentrate on eating my bread. They're still covered by my shirt, and besides, they're not that deep. Can't do anything about the roadrash down my face, or the glass embedded in my thigh, and Cori takes care of those quickly, stitching up the worst of the cuts without a word.
Damn rogue. He got everything that was coming to him.
"Reese?"
I jolt and give Cori a sheepish smile. Nothing to see here, move along now.
"I'll go change and see Ryan." She just nods and watches me limp away into the main hallway connecting the back of the mansion to the front.
The mansion's beautiful, with walls of dark wood cut from trees older than the oldest of the founders of the pack and accented by the black marble that covers nearly the entire mansion—even in some of the bedrooms, from the days when the pack was smaller and they were studies or libraries. Covering the wood, spaced between windows and doors, are pictures and portraits, furs from enemies defeated a long time ago. All practically myth and legend now.
Ugh. I hobble up the back staircase, breathing hard through my nose. Like that rogue's claws were myth and effing legend.
My room is close to the stairwell, more due to design than luck, and I nearly collapse against the heavy wood in relief as I fumble with the ludicrously ornate handle.
The point where I open the door and see Ryan sitting on my bed is the point where my day gets bad. I ignore him as much as I can as I limp to the bathroom. I strip and wash off with a damp towel, cleaning around the multitude of bandages with practiced ease.
I glare at my reflection in the mirror, at my grey eyes that aren't like anyone else's in the pack and at my brown hair, plain where everything else isn't, where everything about my manner is practiced, graceful by design, made to look effortless, even when I'm bleeding from seven new holes. Even when I'm flushed, embarrassed and ashamed.
There's a loose pair of sleep pants on top of the cleaner pile of laundry in the corner. I climb into those and steel myself.
Ryan wastes no time when I reappear in the bedroom.
"What are you doing, Reese? You shouldn't be here." His voice is sharper and harsher than a whip, though he used those plenty when I was younger and going through a rebellious phase. He stands as I move a little closer, and he towers over me, probably always will, in my memories and in real life.
I run my hands through my hair before I get a hold of myself and still the nervous tremor running through my body. "I told you, Donovan said I can come back if I need to." But my voice is flat, and I don’t bother putting more energy into my words. Ryan won't listen, anyway. How exactly can I defend myself when I don't even know why I'm here in the first place?
"It's dangerous! What if one of them starts to wonder who keeps patching you together after your little jobs? Did you report to the Syndicate?" There’s a hint of a snarl in his words that it took years to learn to ignore. If I was always cringing from his snarling, I’d never get off the floor.
"Yes, and I know, Ryan." It takes everything in me to keep my shoulders straight, my head high, my tone even. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Can't exactly tell him I don't want to deal with Noelle.
"Good. Don't forget the job I sent you to do; this is far too important for you to mess up just because you're homesick."
I flinch despite myself. Never let it be said that Ryan believes in pulling punches.
"Of course not," I make myself say as calmly as possible, my tone hovering along bored insolence. "I would never fail you."
He stares at me hard, and I make myself meet his gaze head-on. Staring the alpha down, that’s something I taught myself, despite thousands of years of instincts. Despite all of my formative years featuring this man and his disapproval and his cold, yellow eyes.
Nothing like Donovan's, and I tell myself to shut up. Ryan's always been good at picking up on things like that.
"You're right," he says abruptly. "You won't."
He leaves, and I make myself lay down on the bed—on top of the covers because even their small weight is a discomfort on my injuries I don't feel like dealing with. I might as well enjoy my time here, reveling in the smell of pack and home.
It takes two hours of me lying still, staring up at the ceiling, for me to admit that this place doesn't feel like home anymore, doesn't smell like pack, doesn't feel safe and comfortable and warm. But I don't move because leaving would be like admitting … admitting what? Defeat? Loss? That I don't know what the hell I'm doing?
As soon as dawn starts turning the ceiling grey, I slip out of bed and get dressed, my mind carefully blank. I leave my bloodied clothes by the door in the hall and trot down the stairs. The kitchen's half-full when I make it down, and everybody pauses to give me an icy glare. I lower my eyes, and I feel their attention move elsewhere like a tangible weight lifting.
I walk to the island and hesitate. I'd have to go through the group of first-tier enforcers there to get to the food, and I'm too sore to be fighting right now. I look around, and my gaze rests on Cori. She's standing on the other side of the island and could easily pass me the bread I prefer to eat in the morning. She glances at the enforcers, then turns her back to me.
For just a second, my temper roars up fierce, righteously hot, before I douse the fire. I slip out the door without a word and quell the hurt that swells to replace the anger. It's not her fault, it's not like she has a choice. It's not fair to blame her for my own actions.
I spend the walk back to Deepine cooling off and regaining control of myself. It's another long walk up another long drive to another mansion, but this time, I come in through the front door.
I push the gloomy thoughts away and focus on smiling and nodding and greeting people and not looking guilty or hurt or—
"Reese!" I spin around and plaster a smile to my face.
Donovan grins broadly as he jogs across the expensive foyer to me, and people pause where he passes. I swallow hard and hope Mika doesn't walk in. "Did you just get back? I heard you trounced that rogue."
I grin weakly. "After he wrecked me and my bike, sure I did."
His grin falls as his eyes track over my face. "This all is from falling off your bike?" He draws a little closer, and the foyer gets quiet. I try to ignore the fact that pretty much everyone is staring right at me, but it's hard, and I'm sure the heat I can feel on my cheeks is abundantly obvious to everyone, blunted senses or not. "You weren't wearing a helmet?"
"I was," I say, and why does all my training go out the window with him? I barely resist the urge to fidget under his honey-gold gaze. "He was strong."
"Where are you hurt the worst?" There's a frown sitting on his lips now, far too severe on a face used to smiles and laughter and please oh please let this all be a waste of my time. He shakes his head. "Never mind. Go see Noelle. I'll be there in minute." He turns away.
"I've already seen a doctor," I say very, very quietly.
He whirls back around, and his eyes are like the sun now, blazing, furious, and I cringe. "Only someone utterly incompetent would release you without checking those cuts on your back. Now go!"
I go.
The infirmary's mostly empty when I walk in. Mostly, except for Noelle, who's the only doctor Donovan will employ, and at least a hundred years old if she's a day. She gives me a narrow-eyed glare as I take a seat by the door, but says nothing. For now. Noelle's the only wolf in this pack who openly dislikes me, which is nice, I guess.
"What'd you do now?" she snaps, waving me over to a bed. She follows after me, dragging a cart behind her.
"Took out the rogue that rampaged through the training grounds River shares with Dust," I say quietly as I shift around until I’m seated to her liking. "Donovan wanted me to do it alone." Sudden fear makes me freeze. Did he do that knowing the rogue was almost too strong for me? Has he figured it out?
But no, he seemed genuinely surprised to see half my face bandaged up. That wouldn't be the case if he wanted me to be hurt, would it? So does this just mean that I'm not as strong as he thought I was? Does this mean I failed?
"He dead?" Noelle rasps out. She starts cutting at my shirt, and I muffle a sigh and try not to wilt.
"Of course," I say, shifting around to accommodate her hands. "I wouldn't be back if he wasn't."
"Not that your dedication isn't admirable, but I hope you have more sense than that." Donovan's leaning in the doorframe, still frowning. He doesn't come any closer, and I cringe inside. Is this the part where he tells me I'm not good enough for his pack?
"Nothing severe," Noelle says, pitching her voice so it carries farther. "Mostly shallow lacerations. Boy, you need to stop swimming in glass." I wince at the sting of antiseptic and bite back the urge to snap that it's not my fault all my prey seem drawn to broken glass—and seeing me bleed all over it.
A tiny smile quirks Donovan's lips, and I get the feeling he caught my unspoken statement loud and clear. This is why I like Donovan more than Ryan. Not that I'm picking sides, or that it matters. I just ... I do.
There’s silence for a few minutes as Noelle finishes taping gauze onto my back. I’m not gonna be able to move without dislodging something, and then I’ll get yelled at more, I just know it. Noelle pats my shoulder lightly and walks away, dragging her cart behind her, and I roll my shoulders gingerly.
"What are you thinking about, pup?"
I flinch and feel my face explode with heat. God, I'm too stupid to live. "Nothing important," I mutter, and he laughs.
"I don't know. You looked pretty serious there for a minute." I shake my head and stare resolutely at the floor, refusing to look up even as he paces closer, footsteps measured and calm. Everything I should be and utterly fail at around this wolf.
"Are you happy here?" he asks. He crouches in front of me so I either have to meet his eyes or look like an idiot. Not that I don't already, regularly. Constantly.
"What do you mean?" I look down at my clasped hands, well aware of how pathetic I must look to him. Bandaged, stitched together and painted black and blue from that collecting job that went funny last week. Covered in layers of gauze and bandages, making the bruises stand out even more against my already pale skin. Scrawny, because Ryan believes that a well-fed wolf is a lazy wolf.
"I mean, are you happy here, in my pack? Are you happy enforcing for me?"
Happy? What does happiness have to do with anything? I do as I'm told, isn't that good enough?
Donovan sighs, almost a growl, really, and shifts forward so he can rest his hands on my knees. "Do you like working for me? You seem content enough, but is that true?" He smiles when I hesitate again. "C'mon, pup, speak up. I won't bite."
"Why does it matter?" I ask.
Something flickers across his face too fast for me to catch, but I can smell his sudden anger. I shrink back, instinctive reaction to appease the bigger, badder wolf. "Shit, I 'm sorry, pup. I'm an ass." I lift my eyes to glance at his face, relaxing when the smell of anger fades and his expression calms.
"Sorry," I say, because that usually calms Ryan down when I don’t know what I did to piss him off, and one alpha is much like the other. Not that Ryan and Donovan are anything alike, and I really need to stop thinking about these things. Is it because I just saw Ryan for the first time in weeks?
"No, it’s not your fault." He pats my knee, then pets it, his eyes on my face. I have to look away, though I know it does nothing to hide the blush creeping up my face. Why does he keep looking at me?
"Okay," I say awkwardly, and he chuffs out a laugh.
"Answer my question, pup."
There’s a gentle, but unmistakable note of command in his voice now, and I fight back a shiver. "I like it here," I say and gnaw at the inside of my lip. God, I’m awful at this. What the hell was the dragon thinking? "Everyone’s nice."
"See, was that so hard?" What, from Ryan, would be mocking is nothing more than vaguely admonishing from Donovan. So maybe they’re really different. He taps my cheek. "I’ve come to a decision regarding your bid to join my pack."
I look at him, my pulse picking up speed. If I fail at this, it’s entirely possible that Ryan will kill me, and who knows what the Syndicate will do in retaliation for wasting months and months of their time. If I’m not good enough to join Donovan’s pack, even if it’s under these pretenses, I think I might welcome their punishment.
Oh. I’ve got it bad, don’t I?
Donovan just looks at me for a few seconds that feel like years, and I don’t know what he’s looking for, but he seems satisfied when a smile finally overtakes his face. "Reese Greymist, your bid to join my pack was submitted two months ago. In that time, you’ve proven yourself to be a capable enforcer and an excellent wolf. I would be honored if you would join my pack as one of my second-tier enforcers."
I try really hard to stop a smile that would get me smacked in my pack. But they’re not my pack anymore, and if it’s all just a lie, well, I can pretend for a bit, can’t I?
"I—thank you," I say quietly. "It would be an honor to join your pack." I duck my head to hide that stupid smile, but Donovan taps my cheek again, and I look up.
"Good," he says, nodding. "You’re not allowed to go back to your old pack, you hear?" A scowl flashes across his face before he quells it. "I won’t allow you to go back to a place where you were so badly mistreated."
"They don’t—"
"They do." A whisper of his power flows through his words and what may be the tentative beginnings of a pack bond, and I shiver. "I know people don’t like to think that their pack was treating them badly, but Reese—for God’s sake, you’re afraid to smile! I won’t tolerate them being cruel to you when you’re under my protection, so no more contact." He pets my knee and gives me a small smile. "You’ll be happy here."
I smile and say okay and go through all the motions of formally accepting the invitation, but I’m not really involved with it. Happy. Please let this all be a waste of my time. I would rather take Ryan’s punishment for something that isn’t my fault than find out that this whole pack with its vibrant livelihood is just another lie.
When I finally get out of my head, it’s dinnertime. Unlike Silverlight, Deepine takes most of their meals together in a massive dining hall that somehow manages to hold everyone despite the fact that this pack keeps growing.
I cast a glance around my new room. It's larger, a little nicer, and closer to Donovan’s rooms, as per my promotion to second-tier enforcer. Second-tier. I didn’t think I’d get this high. Even in Silverlight I was only fourth-tier, though that was mostly because Ryan didn’t want people knowing too much about me. Fourth-tier is out of the way, hidden. Second-tier is public, a position of honor in any pack.
I hope no one resents me too much for it.
I step into the hall, turn around to close my door, and feel several wolves move in behind me. I step away from the door with forced casualness and face the wolves—enforcers, for them to be in this wing.
"Reese," the male in front says, nodding. His scent reaches out and wraps around me, and I relax a little despite myself.
"You must be Dorian," I say. Two males detach themselves from the group to drift around to my sides, but I keep my eyes on Dorian. "Pleased to meet you."
Dorian smirks. "Van wasn’t kidding. You’ve got spirit." He ghosts a little closer. "Wonder how that spirit holds up in a fight."
I shrug. "I’d say you could ask my prey, but then, they’re all dead, so I guess you can’t."
Dorian laughs, and there’s the family resemblance. Proof that the alphas of Deepine were made to smile and laugh, not be mean and sneaky. "I see why Van likes you so much, pup." The men behind Dorian, three, not including the two eying up my sides for dinner, relax, and Dorian slings an arm around my shoulders before I can stop him. "Come on, you’ll eat with me. Van assigned me to get you oriented and all that, but Mika'll still be your trainer and handler." He starts dragging me forward, and the men fall into line behind us. It’s hard to match Dorian’s pace, what with him being way taller than me, and leaning most of his weight down on my shoulders, but I refuse to fail these little tests.
"Why would Donovan assign you to orient me?" I ask as we merge into a larger hallway. There’s already a stream of people trickling toward the dining hall, and I smile and nod at the people I recognize.
"Why not?"
"You’re second-in-command," I say and have to wrap an arm around his waist to balance myself when he keeps stopping and starting with the flow of traffic. "Alphas and betas don’t orient new enforcers."
"Ah, but you’re so much more than just a new enforcer, pup." He ruffles my hair and grins down at me. I clamp down on the urge to punch him. "You’re a second-tier enforcer right out of the trial box, and that’s special."
"Really?" I glance up at him, but he seems to be telling the truth, and he grins broadly.
"Yup." He leans down closer so he can whisper in my ear, though who he thinks he’s kidding, I don’t know. "Last six enforcers we inducted to second-tier right off ended up married to the alpha."
"Six?" I make my voice as irritated and not embarrassed and panicked and outraged as I can. "Six doesn’t sound special."
"Over eight hundred years."
Oh.
"Why are you telling me this?" Under Dorian’s arm like this, his scent is pretty much wrapped all around me, and he smells so much like Donovan it’s uncanny. Maybe they’re fraternal twins? I don’t ever remember hearing the age difference between them.
"Thought it might be useful information for you to have." His voice is very deliberately casual, and he straightens as we get closer to the hall.
So that’s the way of it, then. I stare at the entryway to the dining hall and try to ignore the wolf hanging off me. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy. Does Dorian suspect? If anyone would, it would be him. I’ve heard stories of Dorian’s ability to detect lies and infiltrators.
I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m not. This is necessary.
*~*~*
Silence and dark and the smell of mildew are underlying everything, on top of the scent of old wood and burned stone and whiffs of rain drifting through the shattered windows. I eye the glass shining on the ground and grimace. What's the bet I end up on that before this night's over? But I creep around the glass, steps light and soundless, and move further into the recesses of the house. I can barely hear the sound of the others moving down other hallways, and I catch a glint of moonlight off an exposed blade.
I grit my teeth and keep moving. Stupid pup. But I can't say anything without possibly revealing our location, and that's not acceptable. The chances are too great that the rogue could hear us—if he hasn't already.
I almost wish he'd jump out and just attack already. Hunts aren't usually like this, with the sneaking and hiding and creeping about. Rogues are usually half-gone with blood lust by the time we get to them, and hiding isn't high on their list of priorities. This rogue is different, though, somehow, and I freeze.
Different. Differences in the attacks—shit, there's more than one rogue!
I backtrack as quickly as I can without making any noise, my heart hammering in my throat, and round a corner that leads to the hallway the rookie had gone down just in time to see a shadow split off from a corner and dive at the pup.
By the grace of some ancient god, the rogue's knife glances off the doorframe instead of hitting the rookie, and it gives us the second we need. I hit the rogue running, ramming him hard in the stomach with my shoulder, and we go down in a tumble of arms, legs, and silver, the sudden din of fighting erupting all around us.
A half-second of fear shoots through me at how vulnerable I am like this, but then the rookie's on top of us, his foot descending on the rogue's wrist. The snap of bone breaking is loud over the general background ruckus of shouting, grunting, and crunching glass. The rogue yells, and I bring an elbow down into his solar plexus, cutting off the sound before it can fully form. Another hit and a pair of handcuffs, and he's down for the count.
The rookie crouches next to me, his eyes backlit in the dark, and both of us are tense, but our orders were clear: if we found and took down the rogue, we were supposed to wait for reinforcements to execute him. "Thank you," he whispers, and I nod and give his shoulder a brief squeeze.
Gunshots roar through the house, and I pull the rookie down, almost onto the rogue's still body. "Stay here," I whisper.
"But Dorian said—"
"Dorian didn't account for guns," I hiss and take off, staying low, keeping my footsteps silent. Dorian didn't account for guns cuz this should've been one mostly blood-hungry rogue, not an organized group of what, dissenters? Dammit.
I make my way through the mansion fast, relying mostly on the blueprint we had all memorized before we came in. It's an old Deepine holding, abandoned and due for demolition later this month, and Dorian was supposed to be just a couple hallways over …
I round a corner and almost run right into a war zone. I duck behind a couch just in time to avoid getting shot, and then almost get stabbed when I surprise Dorian. His eyes are backlit, pupils dilated so there's only a tiny ring of gold around the pupil, and the smell of blood hits me hard.
"Where are you hit?" I demand under the gunfire and curses.
"Where's Matlin?" he asks, but lifts his hand to show the pool of dark blood seeping through his shirt around his stomach.
"Safe. Where's—Desmond!" Dorian's personal bodyguard is a few feet away, bent double behind a turned over table. I shuck off my shirt and start ripping strips off. "Desmond!" I yell again when he doesn't turn. Gunfire almost drowns my words out as I shove Dorian's shirt out of the way, but Desmond turns and throws me the first aid kit after a brief hesitation.
I snatch it up and Dorian pushes weakly at my hands when I start riffling through it. "You all need to go," he pants, and I smack his hands away.
"Bullshit. Was the bullet silver?" I dump out a small bottle of antiseptic and rip open a packet of gauze, my hands shaking so hard I can barely get the antiseptic open.
"No." His eyelids flutter closed and panic makes my heart rate jump up. I dump half the bottle over the wound, and he yelps and tries to shove me away again.
"Reese!" The crack of a gun going off practically next to my ear has me diving over Dorian, but a thud behind me reveals one of the men attacking us, bleeding from the bullet wound in his chest. I whip around to stare at Desmond—when the fuck did he have time to get a gun? "Hurry!" he yells, and I nod, my whole body thrumming with adrenaline.
Dorian doesn't fight me when I press gauze to his wound and bind it up with the remains of my shirt. "Put pressure on it," I say and press his hands down over the wound. He's too pale in the moonlight, his normally tanned skin ashen, and I yell something at Desmond, the words garbled, but he gets it.
The gunfire from our side suddenly picks up, and half a second later, there's four people around me, two already fully shifted. "Reese!" Desmond's still behind his table. "Get Dorian out of here! We'll cover you!"
"Matlin," Dorian murmurs, his eyes half-shut.
"I know," I pant and get him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. I crouch, and one of the other men, Lee, nods. The gunfire nearly deafens me, but I run towards the door, the wolves flanking me, and by some miracle, no one gets shot.
I can't hear a damn thing as we run through the black halls except Dorian's too-slow breathing and my own panting. I run past the hall where Matlin was, empty but for the body of the man we'd caught before, and hope the plan didn't fall completely apart. But no, I didn't see Nathan in that ballroom, or whatever it was.
A shadow with a gun appears a few feet ahead of us, and I backpedal furiously, almost tripping over debris and glass, and one of the wolves lunges forward, snarling. He gets a mouthful of the man's gun arm and the man goes down, screaming. I run past, the other wolf following, and the smell of blood, combined with my own panic and adrenaline, forces a ripple of power through me. I squash the feeling hard, gasping to hold back the urge to shift, and make myself keep running.
These men aren't wolves, or they aren't all wolves. Who would be stupid enough to try to take out the beta of one of the most powerful packs around?
Something hits my side hard, and for a second all I can hear is snarling and the ringing in my ears as the hall darkens and swims oddly. I shake my head and heave before I can push the pain away, wiping ineffectually at the blood running down my cheek, and take a moment to note the hot damp of blood spreading against my side. Dorian's growling, I can feel the vibrations through my chest, and I make myself get up from where I'd crumpled against the wall. The wolf is tearing into the man, snarling, the sound almost feral, and I stumble forward, almost falling on the wolf.
He whips around to snarl in my face, and I grab his muzzle. "No. Stop." I can barely hear the words, and I'm probably yelling at the poor guy, but I shake his head. "Come on. We need to leave." For one long second, I think he's going to rip into my face, but the fury dims in his amber eyes, and he licks a long strip along my chin.
It takes more strength than I think I really have to pick Dorian up again. All this jostling around can't be good for his wound, and when I straighten, I think I'm going to throw up. The wolf—Quinn, maybe?—whines and noses at my hand, and I make myself get a grip. This isn't the time to be weak.
Every step seems to take hours on the way out of the house and into the woods, and I frequently have to grab the wolf to steady myself. At some point, another wolf joins us, and when we've gotten far enough away that the sounds of gunfire and yelling are faint and distant, I stop and set Dorian down and drop to the grass as well, panting.
The wolf I think is Quinn whines and noses at my chest, and I reach up and twine my fingers through his soft brown fur for a few seconds before turning to Dorian. He's propped up on a rock, his hands over the wound, and he smiles faintly when he sees me looking at him.
"I'll be fine, pup," he says hoarsely. "Already healing."
The other wolf—Lee, I think—whines quietly. He slinks over to me to shove his nose against the ache in my side, and then does the same to Dorian. He sneezes and takes off into the underbrush. Quinn growls quietly and shoves his head against my shoulder until I move to lean against the boulder next to Dorian.
Way to be pathetic, I think sourly. How exactly is this different from collecting or hunting rogues? Just because someone got hurt, and I'm not used to patching someone other than me up. I stare at the ground. Maybe I could—but no, it'd be dumb to waste the energy to heal some of the worst wounds. Nothing time won't fix.
"You did good," Dorian says softly.
"I could've done better." I shift around, trying to get comfortable and distract myself from the heat in my face. Quinn, who's sitting next to me, tilts his head from side to side, and I glare at him. He sneezes on me.
We sit in silence until little rustles and the sound of branches breaking filters through the trees. Quinn's ears prick up, but he doesn't move, so I don't bother to, either. Three wolves trot into the clearing, their tongues lolling, and make straight for us. Quinn stands up to rub noses with the wolf in front, and then they're on us, poking and prodding with their noses and just generally making a nuisance of themselves.
"Stop," I say to the fourth wolf to nose my injury, and my voice is incredibly whiny even to my own ears. He chuffs out a sound like a laugh and licks my cheek before turning his attention to Dorian. None of the wolves seem overly concerned about him, so I figure he'll be okay. I concentrate very hard on not drawing more attention to my side than I absolutely have to. I'd like to think they won't try to beat me up, but too often, you don't know what a wolf really thinks of you until you're vulnerable and he's not.
"Come on, Reese," Dorian says. He levers himself up, leaning heavily on the fourth wolf until he's standing. "They're gonna take us home. Are you good to walk?"
"Yeah." I force myself to stand, my side screaming now that I'm calm enough to feel pain. Quinn lets me lean on him, but as soon as I turn to take a step, I double over and heave, my stomach contracting so hard I half-fear I'm gonna throw up something vital.
The scent of wolves surrounds me, and I cringe, but all they do is nose at me and whine. Dorian sighs, and I wince, but can only wait until the nausea passes and I can move again. The wolf Quinn rubbed noses with pushes against my side, and I thread my fingers through his dark brown fur and lean on him as we make our slow, slow way through the forest back to the mansion.
It seems like the walk back to the mansion will never end, and at some point, I just leave my body on autopilot, guided by the wolf under my hand. When we finally, thank you God, get to the mansion, Noelle's in the yard already waiting for us.
She scowls and curses at us, but her hands are gentle, and I realize just why she's the only doctor Donovan tolerates when she gets a good sniff at me and hollers for a stretcher. I try to push her hands away, but she's having none of it, and she doesn't quit haranguing me until I'm lying on the stretcher and two third-tier enforcers start carting me up the hill.
"Stupid pup!" she snaps. I let my arm dangle off the stretcher so I can keep my hand on the wolf, and stare up at Noelle. "You tell people when you have silver poisoning! I don't care if it's just a scratch!" she yells shrilly, and I realize I was protesting. "And you're concussed! This will just make you more stupid!"
She's in rare form today. Do wolf doctors only come in one flavor?
"Stupid pup! What day is it? What time is it and what's your name? Fool!"
I let my eyes slip closed and yelp when she smacks me. "No sleeping with a concussion!" She yammers on and on over my hazy protests, and by the time we get to the infirmary, all I have the energy to do is lie there while she berates me.
They move me to a bed, and I lose my grip on the wolf. I try to sit up to look for him—who was it, anyway?—but Noelle shrieks at me, so I lie down again. She kicks everyone else out, and I have to bear the brunt of her anger by myself until Dorian shows up, trailed by several more wolves and Desmond.
Despite the commotion, Noelle yelling, and the pain, I start to drift off after I figure out that no one's seriously injured. Crazy woman.
There's a dip on the bed next to my hip, and I force my eyes open. Donovan's sitting next to me, a frown on his face. It's much quieter now, and the lights are dim, though Noelle's still grumbling. I must've fallen asleep for a while. I lift my hands to rub my eyes, but Donovan catches my right hand.
"You have an IV," he says quietly. His pets the back of my hand, carefully avoiding the IV, and I watch him, a headache buzzing at the back of my head.
When it seems like he's content to sit there for forever without talking, I shift a little. His eyes flick up to meet mine, but he returns his attention to my hand after a second. "Donovan?"
"I've gotten some preliminary reports back," he says without looking away from my hand.
"I'm sorry I disobeyed orders," I say, "but the gunfire—"
"I would never be angry at you for making the right call," he says immediately, his tone firm. "And even if it wasn't the right call, you did what you thought was best. The best enforcers are the ones who can make that call."
"Then what's wrong?"
"I'm very proud of you, pup," he says, and this time he does look at me. "You did such an excellent job."
"I didn't—"
"You did." He meets my eyes straight-on until I drop my gaze. He nudges my chin, and I look up. He smiles a little. "You probably saved Dorian's life, you took care of Quinn, and Matlin says he would've been screwed if you hadn't shown up."
"Then why are you … " I wave my free hand vaguely, and he laughs.
"I was just worried, pup. You were slurring your words something fierce and kept getting distracted. Dorian said you hit your head, but he couldn't tell if you'd lost consciousness or not." He sighs. "Not to mention you were staggering like a drunk all the way back to the mansion."
I frown. "I don't remember you being there."
He smiles. "You were leaning on me the whole time."
"Oh."
He laughs and squeezes my hand lightly. "If you can still blush like that, then I guess you'll be okay."
I don't know what to say to that, so I stay quiet, and Donovan doesn't say anything else, either. The fuzziness from the headache drags me down, and this time, I don't fight the urge to sleep. The last thing I see before I drop off is Donovan's smile.
*~*~*
"Light duty, idiot!" Noelle yells after me as I leave the infirmary. I wave my hand at her and hunch my shoulders as I walk down the hall. I keep getting stopped by people asking if I'm alright, and it takes way too long to get back to my room.
I close the door behind me and rest my forehead on the doorframe. God, I feel awful, weak and shaky, and my head still hurts.
"Alright, little wolf?"
I whirl around and sag against the door when my head throbs angrily. I grit my teeth and battle the urge to throw up until it fades.
"I'm sorry, pup." Dorian's hovering a few feet away, and I wave away his concern.
"Why are you here?" I mumble. I stagger towards my bed and sink onto the cool sheets. A glass of water and a few pills appear under my nose, and I take both gratefully.
Dorian sits next to me, and I hold the glass to my cheek, my eyelids drooping. Noelle kicked me out of the infirmary cuz it's too noisy, and I kept waking up, and God do I want to go back to sleep right now.
"What do you remember from the other night, after we got back to the mansion?"
I give Dorian an unamused look, but he doesn't yield. I sigh. "I already talked to Donovan and Mika."
"Well, I want to know."
I close my eyes. "Not much. Mostly Noelle yelling my ear off. She wasn't happy I hadn't said anything about the silver, and I didn't want to get on the stretcher." And Donovan, but there's no way I'm telling that to Dorian.
"Where did you come from, Reese?" I frown, and he elaborates. "Your home pack. You don't ever talk about who raised you directly. You've pretty much admitted you have a home pack, but that's it, and that's more than anyone else knows."
"I don't want to talk about it." Standard answer to anyone who asks, though no one's asked in a long, long time.
"Well, you're gonna talk about it now because I want to know." There's a hard note in Dorian's voice now, and instinct has me itching to do as he says. "Who trained you? You're a highly competent enforcer, so why did you do such a shit job on my field dressing? You were panicked, like you didn't know what you were doing."
I shake my head and rotate the glass. "I don't want to talk about it." Ryan told me not to.
"Tell me, Reese."
"No." Ryan's order is still holding. I couldn't tell Dorian if I wanted to. I start to shake with the strain of dealing with two opposing orders, though, and my headache increases tenfold.
"Tell me now."
"I won't," I say through gritted teeth.
"Just make this easier on yourself and tell me."
"I … can't," I grind out.
He jumps on that. "Why not?"
I curl into myself. "Stop," I say.
"I won't. Tell me what you're hiding, Reese." There's a harder note of command in his voice now, and Ryan hasn't been around to exert control for months.
The glass slips from my fingers and breaks against the floor. "Stop it."
"Tell me."
Splitting agony erupts behind my eyes, and I whine, pressing my hands against my ears, but Dorian grabs my wrists and forces me to uncurl. "Stop it!"
"Reese, tell me what you're hiding!"
I do the only thing I can: I shift into my full wolf form, and the pain disappears. I pull my tail down and curl up in front of the beta, whining. Anger and frustration roll off him, and he snarls before stomping away.
I lay on my bed and pant, bury my head in my paws and just breathe for a while. Not good. This isn't good, not good at all.
I spend the next few days as a wolf, partially because I'm too tired from fighting Dorian's orders and recovering to shift back, and partially to protect myself if he decides to try again. I get a lot of curious looks as I trot around the mansion; I rarely spend whole days in my wolf form, though there are plenty of people who do.
Dorian tries to corner me for a few days before giving up. It's a lot easier to sneak around the mansion as a wolf, and I take shameless advantage of this fact. I know, on some level, that things can't stay like this. There's a lot I have to do, but it's easier to avoid thinking about those things as a wolf.
I know I'm failing my mission, but I don't care. I'm not ready to be found out, not yet. I haven't found out what I need to know.
I watch the pups roll around in the grass in the yard behind the mansion, happy for a while to watch them play from the shade of one of the huge pine trees that lines the property. I never got to do that when I was growing up. Playing was wasted time that could have been spent training, and Ryan didn't permit the other pups my age to talk to me much. Just one more reason why they all hate me.
I jerk my head up as Donovan drops down to sit next to me. He runs a hand along my back, and I sidle a little closer to press against his side. It's easier to do a lot of things as a wolf. He smiles and rubs my ears, and I shove my head into his chest. The only person who ever rubbed my ears was Cori, and that was only when the others weren't around. He laughs softly and indulges me till I'm half-asleep in his lap, warm and happy and content.
He strokes a hand down my side and leans over until his mouth's right next to my ear. "Change back, Reese."
With my defenses completely lowered, the order goes straight down to wherever we keep track of such things as dominance and loyalty and shatters Ryan's hold over me. I whine, but shift back obediently, habit guiding the change so I come back with my clothes on. I try to jump up when I'm settled inside my skin, but Donovan's arm across my chest keeps me right where I am. He nuzzles against me and pets me until I'm calm, and when I'm relaxed again, he starts talking.
"I'm sorry Dorian stressed you out like that, but he was trying to keep things from my attention until he knew what was going on," he says. "He didn't realize that your old alpha had such a hold on you still." He leans back against the tree and pulls me with him until I'm settled between his legs, my head on his thigh as he pets my hair. "He's very fond of you, actually. I think he wanted to protect you until he figured out what you're hiding. He just usually doesn't go about these things the right way."
"I'm sorry," I say, and he tugs on a lock of my hair.
"It's okay. I'm not gonna ask what you're hiding, or what you don't want to talk about," he says softly. "I want you to come to me and tell me when you're ready, okay?"
"But …"
"It's okay." There's a smile in his voice now as he traces his fingers along my throat and shoulder. "I trust you. I want you to come to me when you trust me. Okay?"
I have to swallow hard before I can reply, and I stubbornly ignore the burning behind my eyes. "Okay."
*~*~*
Donovan's office is moderately sized and brightly lit by the huge windows against the back walls. There are bookshelves covering all available wall space and more stacks taking some floor space. All in all, it's comfortable and familiar.
Just like Donovan. I refuse to glance at him and instead keep my eyes very firmly on Mika, who's giving me and the rest of the first and high-tier enforcers a brief rundown of what this meeting's supposed to be about.
Finally, they trust me enough. I should be happy about this meeting. Thrilled, even. This is a huge step towards my goal. I should be proud of myself.
So why do I want to crawl into a hole and never come out?
"Alright." I jerk my eyes up to Donovan, who's leaning against his desk with his arms crossed and a frown on his face. "I think it's about time we tell you all exactly what's going on." He glances at Dorian, who's sprawled in a chair a few feet away. Next to me, Nathan fidgets and nudges me. I shrug and don't look away from Donovan.
"We haven't been honest with you," Dorian says abruptly, and we all switch out attention to him. He straightens in his seat and makes a face. "We haven't been honest with most of you," he corrects. "To get down to it, we've been losing people. A lot of people."
"There've been kidnappings," Donovan says softly. "Whole teams going missing. We've been very careful about keeping it quiet, telling you all they were relocated, or that they're visiting allies. We've increased the ranks to make it easier to hide our losses, but the fact of the matter is, there have been a lot of losses."
"Why haven't you reported it?" Lee asks. "It's no secret that at least five packs have reported kidnappings. Why not tell the Syndicate?"
There's a low murmur of discontent at the idea of involving the Syndicate, but Lee doesn't back down, and we all look at Donovan when it becomes clear Lee isn't going to retract the question.
"Because those packs are our rivals," Donovan says. "Not a single one of our allies have reported kidnappings, to the Syndicate, or to us."
"You think we're being targeted," I say, the words falling out of my mouth before I can stop them. I cringe, but nobody looks irritated.
"Yes," Donovan says, giving me a little smile before he looks at Dorian.
"My spies haven't been able to find anything," Dorian says, and it's clear that he takes the lack of valuable information as a personal affront. "All we can really determine is that we're being targeted, but we don't know by who, or for what. If our allies aren't directly involved, then they can't help us, and I don't much like the idea of going up against Greenfield, Snowridge, and Silverlight. That's just asking for trouble."
"You think the attack last week was a continuation of the kidnappings?" Luka, a second-tier enforcer, asks. "Why would they try to take our beta?"
"Maybe they didn't know," Nathan says, a nasty edge to his tone. "Dorian coming along was a last-minute change, remember? Maybe they wanted someone else."
They fall into bickering, fueled by the fact that most everyone's in their half-form and therefore more volatile, and I toy with the idea of telling them my suspicions. But no, I'd have to tell them everything, and I can't do that. I can't betray Ryan again. I stare at the carpet, acutely aware of the gradually shifting atmosphere of the room from grim, but controlled to something anxious and fearful. Enforcers aren't the most stable bunch around, and there's a reason why we're not usually involved in decision-making meetings.
"You can't say we're not being herded!"
I jerk my head up and frown at Desmond. "What do you mean?" I ask, cutting clear across the other arguments, and the others fall silent.
"I mean we're stuck, and it can't be an accident," he snarls. "We could find out what's going on if we went to the Syndicate, but we can't do that because none of our allies can, and we'd be outnumbered. If we don't say anything, though, then we're still screwed cuz something's going on, and we don't know what! We can't move either way, and it's gonna bite us in the ass."
There's a dead stillness in the room, a shocked sort of silence as what he said sinks in. He's right, he's absolutely right.
"Shit." Donovan presses his hands to his eyes and stress and anger flow through the pack bond loud and clear. I cross my arms and lean back against the wall more firmly, resisting the urge to cross the room. It's not my place, not my right.
"We're fucked," Mika says softly, and the fear and confusion and anger jangle through the air, turning the warm scent of the room acrid and sour. "We need to figure out how to split the pack, send people to our allies to keep them safe until we figure out what to do."
Immediately, the others start protesting, yelling at Mika and each other as the tension snaps, exploding in a torrent of pent-up energy and denial, the almost fanatic desire to save face. I bite back the urge to join in the argument—I'm all too familiar with the need to never appear weak, to always show a strong front even when it's a lie. Most especially when it's a lie.
I close my eyes. In another few minutes, someone's gonna snap and shift fully, and this whole room's gonna turn into one huge brawl with the best fighters in the pack. I can't do anything here, can't risk my cover. But … I could take a look. I could get a message to the dragon, ask for what I need. I could find out if I'm right. Not defy Ryan, no, but … I could check, that's all. Just to be thorough.
I open my eyes and see Donovan, unmoved except that now he's pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut, and I realize just how angry and stressed he must be not to bring his enforcers to heel. The enforcers respect him too much to allow this incident to hurt his dominance, but if he doesn't do something, it's just gonna put everyone more on edge. No one likes to know that their alpha doesn't know what to do.
I'm across the room before I make the conscious decision to move, and Donovan doesn't open his eyes when he reaches out and tugs me closer to him. I go easily and wrap my arms around his waist, bowing my head so he can bury his face in my neck and take a deep breath. I nuzzle against his shoulder and let out a long, shaky breath as the anxiety in the bond alleviates. I was always so used to Ryan telegraphing anger and disappointment at me, I never realized that other emotions could be sent, too, or how much of an effect they have.
I pretty much melt against Donovan, for once too relieved to be embarrassed at the physical contact. This is better than all the other emotions flying about, and Donovan smells much nicer without the undercurrent of anger and desperation riding along his scent.
I ignore the part of me that's pointing out that this sort of thing isn't my right, isn't something I should be doing. I'm not Donovan's spouse, I don't have the right to calm him down or soothe him. But he doesn't seem angry, and it's working. It's not like I'm going to be making a habit of this sort of behavior.
I also ignore the part of me that very much so wants to make this a habit.
"Alright, what we're going to do is start drawing up plans like Mika said." Donovan sounds more level now, and I realize that the arguing has stopped. I try to move away, to straighten, but Donovan doesn't so much as let me lift my head. "We're going to talk to our allies and see if we can't discover some kidnappings they hadn't felt like sharing with us, and if not, if we can arrange some. We've seen how they work—I'm sure we can replicate the situation. If that works, and we can make it so we won't be so outnumbered, then we'll go to the Syndicate."
"And if not?" Dorian drawls out.
"Then I'm sure we can find a wolf we can talk to." There's an edge to Donovan's voice I haven't heard before, something that reminds me a little of Ryan when he's getting ready to hurt someone, or when he was ordering me to kill that wolf, and I kept refusing. Danger, I guess it is. Donovan's ready to kill to protect his pack.
"Sounds like a plan," Dorian says. I tilt my head a little against Donovan's shoulder so I can see him, still lounging in his chair like he hasn't a care. He sees me looking at him and smirks. "Mika, you've handled these kinds of things before. Get everyone organized and kitted out and talk to who you need to so you can get things rolling."
"In the meantime, there's a rogue that needs killing," Mika says tiredly.
"I'll go." I push against Donovan's stomach and squirm until he lets me straighten, though he doesn't let me go. I half-turn so I can see my handler. "I'll take care of the rogue."
He frowns. "I'd prefer you stay close, Reese."
I glare at him. "Why? I can take care of it."
"That's not the problem, pup, I just—"
Donovan makes a small sound, and I look at him, then at my handler. They aren't telling me something, but neither of them looks ready to volunteer the information, and I'm not exactly going to question my alpha in front of everyone.
"I want to go," I say, firmer. "It's the one on the northern sector, right? It's easy, I can take him and be back later."
Mika appears to be gritting his teeth before he nods sharply. "Van can give you the dossier."
"I'd rather someone else go," Donovan says quietly as everyone else files out, much more relaxed now that we have orders.
"Why?" I ask sharply.
He smiles. "I'm not going to tell you." He pulls me closer again, his fingers petting over the small of my back, a little above the base of my tail. "You have to guess."
"Why?" I ask again, trying to repress a shiver.
He laughs. "Because I want you to, pup. It's more fun if you guess." He laughs again at my disgruntled expression and nuzzles against my shoulder. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't poke fun. But I like that you're comfortable enough to snap and glare at me like that."
"You deserve it," I grumble, hitting his shoulder with the heel of my palm. He grabs my wrist and sniffs at my palm, a bright smile on his face.
"Maybe," he concedes. He surges up and nips at my ear, and I yelp and shove him away. He catches my wrist before I go too far and reels me back in, making low coaxing noises until I'm back where I started.
I let myself enjoy the contact for a little while before making myself deal with reality. Because I want to be thorough.
"Donovan?"
"Mm?"
"Can I have access to the enrollment database?" I trace my fingers over the backs of his shoulders. "There's … something I want to check."
He nips at my ear again, sharper than before, and I duck my head at the clear admonishment. But I don't explain further or relent, and he sighs after a minute. "As if I would tell you no, pup. Of course you can."
"Thank you." I rub my cheek against his shoulder. I'm sure it won't take the dragon long to get the information I need. I can check the database tomorrow and then … figure out what I'm going to do. Because honestly, it's probably time that I admitted that my loyalties aren't as absolute as I would like to think they are. It's hard to be loyal to an alpha you can't feel anymore. I've heard stories of wolves going undercover for years—I could never last that long. I've barely lasted six months as it is.
Donovan makes a low growling noise, and I wince. Way to cuddle up to the alpha and practically announce your guilt and conflict.
"Pup, I know I said I wouldn't pressure you to confide in me or anything, but you're not exactly making this easy." His hands tighten on my hips, and I lean up to bite his ear gently.
"Sorry," I say quietly.
He snorts. "That sounded sincere."
I press my cheek to his. "I am sorry. I … why are you putting up with this?" There's no use pretending that he doesn't at least suspect, and taking the meeting into account …
"I'm not going to tell you," he says softly. "You're a very good enforcer and a decent lone wolf. But you're an awful pack wolf, and it shows."
"I don't understand."
"Your alpha didn't have a spouse, did he?" he asks. He leans back a little so he can see my face, and I frown.
"No," I admit after a tense moment of eye contact before I concede. "How did you know?"
He smiles. "I'm incredibly intelligent, in case you forgot."
I glare at his shoulder. "I didn't. But how did you know?"
He yanks on my ears, and I snarl at him, shoving hard, but I'm trapped between his legs, and he's laughing. "I'm not going to tell you."
"Let go of my ears!" I push at his face, but he keeps laughing, tugging, but not painfully though I know I'm going to lose a few hanks of fur, and I grab his ears and pull. He's completely unperturbed, laughing like a fool, even as I try to twist and squirm out of his grasp. "Lemme go!" I wail when I end up bent backwards and to the left, my side protesting something fierce.
There's a distinct throat-clearing somewhere behind me, and I can almost see whoever's standing near the door. Two whoever's, actually, and Donovan releases my ears and spins me around, pressing my back to his chest, his arms wrapped around my waist again.
I get a good look at the person Lee's escorting, and my stomach drops out into the ground. Ian, Ryan's personal bodyguard, is standing behind Lee, and he's looking right at me with barely-disguised contempt and loathing.
Oh God. How much did they see? But it doesn't matter, it's enough. Just the sight of me playing with the Deepine alpha …
"Who are you and what do you want?" Donovan asks, his tone something less than warm. His tightens his arms around me, and strokes his thumb over my hip. Ian's pointed glance says that he sees the little gesture, and that he's going to take great pleasure reporting it to Ryan. Oh God, why is he here?
"I have a message from my alpha, Ryan Silverlight," Ian says.
"Get on with it," Donovan says, sounding perfectly bored and not at all like he doesn't suspect Silverlight of having something to do with the current situation.
"This is a matter of some sensitivity. I understand you wish for your mate to be present, but the law dictates I can request he leave," Ian says, perfectly polite, if a bit frosty, and I feel my face flame.
Mate? What? Why would he think that? What would make him think I'm Donovan's—
"I have no need to entertain you at all," Donovan says, his tone freezing. "You will respect my wishes concerning whomever I choose to be here, spouse or not."
I half-turn, and Donovan looks down at me, one eyebrow raised, as if daring me to comment. "I need to get started on that rogue," I say. "I should go anyway."
His mouth sets in a fine line, but he nods and reaches behind him. He lets me go and hands me the dossier. I stare at the folder, then back at him. I feel like I need to say something, but I don't know what, or why I'm hesitating, and Ian's probably ready to bust a blood vessel, but what am I supposed to—
"Be careful." Donovan ruffles a hand through my hair, and then I can breathe again. I smile and walk away, determinedly not looking at Ian even though there's a tension strumming through him that he always gets when he's getting ready to kick my ass.
The hall's quiet, and Lee gives me an inscrutable look from where he's lounging against the wall by the door. I start to walk off, then hesitate. "Lee?"
"What's up, Reese?"
"Watch that guy," I murmur. "He's dangerous."
"Sure thing." Lee's mastered that tone of voice that conveys absolute carelessness despite the fact that one of his knives is naked in his hand, and he looks half-ready to kill something. I smile as I walk away. Lee may not be Donovan's bodyguard, but he'll do a hell of a job protecting our alpha, I know.
*~*~*
"To what do I owe the pleasure, Reese?"
I finally stop smashing in windows over the dead rogue's body and turn to face the dragon. He's standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and customary smirk on his face, the very picture of nonchalance.
"I need something from you," I say, dropping my crowbar. "Tonight."
He tilts his head to the side, green cast over his eyes, and his nose flares for a second. He nods. "Come on, then, let's get you out of the cold."
*~*~*
It's funny, I think as I lay half-drowned on cold concrete, that I was expecting a tiny bit of mercy from Ryan. Nothing big. After all, it's not like Ian walked in on me fucking Donovan.
A hard kick flips me onto my back, and I stare up at the sky, all weeping and raining down tears on my face. Actually, it might've been better if that had happened. I could play off something like that, say I was just trying to get into his good graces. But playing with Donovan, pulling on his ears like that … That, Ryan won't forgive, I know.
More kicks, Ryan screaming something at me … I cough up something hot and wet and wince, spit it out. Someone drags me to my feet, and I stare at Ryan's hazy form through the rain. He grabs my chin hard enough to bruise, his eyes backlit, and for just a second, I think he's going to kill me.
"You will go back to that filthy pack's den," he says, enunciating each word clearly. "You will do as I told you to do six months ago. You will report them to the Syndicate, and you will come back home so that you may be properly punished. Do you hear me?"
"Yes," I rasp out and swallow hard on the urge to cough. He backhands me, and I fall to the ground, coughing hard and painfully until it feels like something's been rattled loose in my chest and I'm about to see it in a puddle of water and blood. Someone pulls me back up, their hands hot against the cold of the rain, and Ryan grabs my hair and yanks my head back.
"What did you say?" he asks, very pleasantly.
"Yes, sir," I whisper. He nods curtly, and whoever was holding me drops me to crumple onto the street. One by one, I hear them leave, whisper silent under the downpour and thunder. I crawl over to the bag I'd talked out of Teinen, lying discarded on the sidewalk. Waterproof, I'd said, and he'd given me a funny look, but pulled out what seemed like ten bags worth of things from the one sitting on the ground by his leg and gave me his.
His eyes had been curious, but he hadn't asked, for once, not even when I told him to wait for my call. I curl around the bag for a few minutes, needing the rest even though the cold and wet is seeping into my bones. I recite his phone number in my head over and over, not trusting that the cell phone they'd given me would make it through the night. And hadn't that gotten me another strange look, but I'd ignored it.
Just like I'm trying to ignore the pain right now, though with a somewhat lesser degree of success. But I'm not too far away from the mansion, and I work on taking one short stagger of a step after another, the bag on my shoulder a too-heavy weight even though it doesn't hold anything, but a phone and a flash drive.
I can do this. And before I know it, I'm in my room, taking in Deepine's—Donovan's—scent, wrapping it around me like a blanket. I strip off my clothes and head straight for the shower. Have to get Silverlight's scent off me, get rid of the stench of blood and fear. He's going to kill me, I know he will. I've disobeyed him for the last time.
I take a break from pulling on clothes over my still-damp body to laugh until I'm coughing, and then I have to sit on my bed for a few seconds so I don't fall over. I very carefully don't let myself feel all the aches and broken bones and where Ian had punched me with a silver necklace wrapped around his knuckles. Ingenuity, part of being an enforcer.
I pick up the bag and start walking to the enrollment room. The bag is even heavier now with the files I'd collected and printed. I haven't known where my loyalties lay for a lot longer than I'd thought, going by those files. But I just need a few more and then this whole mess will be over. I can go back to finding kittens and dogs and lost scarves and others of that ilk.
Annie, the enrollment officer on duty, almost screams when she sees me. I barely repress the urge to give her a comforting smile—I know my mouth is bloody again.
"Please," I say as I drop into a seat. The room is cramped and dimly-lit with at least ten computers lining three walls.
"Noelle needs to take a look at you!" she says, her hands fluttering over the places where I'm obviously still bleeding.
"No," I say firmly. I dig the flash drive out of the bag. "This first." She stares at the flash drive like she's never seen one in her life. "Please." My voice breaks embarrassingly, but I push the flash drive at her. "It's for the pack."
She's sitting in her chair, fingers flying over the keyboard, and I think I'm losing patches of time. I watch her from where I'm slowly sliding out of my chair, and she gasps.
"Reese, where did you get this information? How did you know about the wolfsbane?"
I smile, forgetting for a second, and she recoils a little. "Do you collate and bind?"
*~*~*
"Reese!"
"Wake up, damn you!"
I glare at Noelle, then look down at the phone clenched in my hand. I smile. "Anybody got my reports?" I force the words out past sandpaper and blood.
Annie shoves the bag into my lap. "Collated and bound," she whispers. "You called someone—you told me to tell you when you woke up."
"Good," I slur. "They'll be here …"
*~*~*
"He shouldn't be moved so soon!"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but the fact of the matter is, this situation needs to be taken care of quickly, and he's the only one who can make sense of these reports. And you said yourself he's increased his own healing rate."
"At the expense of draining his body of energy it needs!" Noelle screeches. "He needs rest!"
I open my eyes. Still in the enrollment room. The dragon's out-bullying Noelle, who looks ready to commit murder. I shove myself into a seated position and wince at the pain, though it's considerably less than before.
"Reese!"
"I'm fine," I say brusquely. "I just needed to rest a little." I turn to the dragon, and see Annie forcibly restraining Noelle in my peripheral vision. "Get Donovan and Dorian," I say, and he nods.
Half an hour has me inside the same interrogation room as before, the dragon leaning against the opposite wall. He's staring at me hard, and I avoid his gaze as much as possible, waiting impatiently. There's a commotion in the hallway, and the dragon straightens.
"So Reese," he says as the door opens, "who are you actually working for?"
I ignore the question as Donovan and Dorian burst into the room behind another damn dragon. Donovan sees me after half a second and lunges towards me. "Reese! What the hell happened?"
"I'll kindly thank you to unhand our consultant," Teinen says curtly, and Donovan lets my arms go as if he was burned.
"What's going on?" Dorian asks. He puts a hand on Donovan's shoulder for a second, and they retreat from both me and the dragon.
It doesn't hurt. It doesn't.
"I was hoping Reese could enlighten us. A lot seems to have happened in the six hours since I last saw him." The dragon's tone is poisonous—he's obviously pissed about something, though I can't fathom what.
I open the bag and pull out a file. "This is the entire file detailing the job the Syndicate hired me to perform six months ago." I drop it onto the table with a slap. "This is my enrollment file for Silverlight." Another file, another slap. "This is my file detailing the job Ryan ordered me to do six months ago. This is my enrollment file for Deepine and the work I've done for them since submitting my bid six months ago." Two more files, two more smacks in the dead stillness of the room. "This is my file detailing Deepine's business, along with their manufacturers for the past forty years. This is my file detailing Silverlight and allies' reaction to the expansion of Deepine into the spice trade. This is my file detailing public political disputes over land ties within the last twenty years that led to the gradual isolation of Deepine from their allies in terms of physical territory."
The files dropping onto the table are a constant rhythm over my words now. "This is my file detailing the use of double agents within the last forty years to attempt to destabilize Deepine. This is my file detailing all of Deepine's enemies and Silverlight's allies within the past one hundred years, and why. This is my file detailing the wolves that have been kidnapped or otherwise have gone missing within the past two years, and this is a copy of the Syndicate file with samples of all the hair, saliva, and paw evidence found at the recent string of murders on the East Coast, along with the undisclosed information pertaining to traces of wolfsbane found at the scenes.
"This is the file correlating all of the evidence found at the murder sites with the missing wolves, and this is my file detailing a stolen shipment of the rare spice only Deepine imports from a holding three years ago. This is my file correlating the evidence the Syndicate found with the information the pack keeps from its suppliers for quality control purposes."
Finally the bag is empty, and the silence in the room is ringing. I keep my eyes on Teinen. "The string of murders on the East Coast over the last nine months was nothing more than a plan started twenty years ago to attempt to destabilize Deepine and move in on their spice trade by framing Deepine for the murders. They kidnapped enforcers and used wolfsbane on them to make it appear as if Deepine was attacking their enemies. Of course, Deepine couldn't refute the claims because they refused to get involved due to their lack of allies directly involved in the situation. It is also my belief that they wanted to divide the pack; Deepine is large and headed by a competent alpha, and therefore is a threat to the smaller packs such as Silverlight."
The expression on the dragon's face is nothing less than stunned, and in some tiny corner of my mind, I let myself revel in the satisfaction of so thoroughly discomfiting a dragon. He clears his throat a second later, though his expression doesn't smooth out. "Like I said, wolf, who do you actually work for?"
"I—" I clamp down on the urge to confess the truth—that I don't know anymore. "That's irrelevant," I say. "I've given you the truth. You hired me to infiltrate Deepine and find out the truth."
The dragon drifts forward and tugs on a file from the bottom of the pile. "You belong to Silverlight."
"Ryan took me in and raised me."
"He told you to do—what?"
"Plant evidence that would confirm Deepine's guilt." I keep my eyes on the dragon's cartilage piercings, don't let myself look at anything—one—else.
"Why didn't you?"
"I … " I swallow hard. "It wasn't right. He wants Deepine gone for petty reasons."
The dragon frowns at me. "Was he the one who hurt you?"
I stiffen. "Who else would?"
A tiny smirk quirks his lips. "Oh, I don't know. I can't imagine your mate's happy with you right now." He glances at the corner where Donovan and Dorian are standing, but I refuse to rise to the bait.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say tiredly. "I've done what you asked. Can I leave now?"
"Reese—"
The dragon's looking at me funny, his mouth open like he's gonna say something, but he finally just shrugs. "Sure. Faine will take you home." The other dragon steps into the room like he was summoned, and I cringe. "Deepine, you're gonna have to stay."
I glance at Donovan as I follow the other dragon out of the room. He looks furious, and Teinen looks positively gleeful. Dorian catches my eye, and I look away quickly. The door closes behind me, and I concentrate on following the other dragon because I know if I let myself think about anything else, I'm going to start screaming or crying, or both.
I did the right thing. I didn't obey Ryan, I helped Deepine—helped Donovan. He's not going to suffer because of me.
This is the only outcome I have the right to hope for.
*~*~*
My little office fills with the clamor of bells I'd placed over the door, and I try to back out of the closet, balancing coats, maps and boxes precariously in my arms and on my shoulders. "I'll be out in a minute!" I call and focus on trying to escape a cave-in in the making.
I finally manage to retreat with the little box I'd been looking for clutched firmly in my hand and turn to my customer, an apology on the tip of my tongue. I freeze.
"What are you doing here?" I blurt. It's been three weeks. Is he finally here to punish me?
Donovan gives me a blank look, and I can't feel his emotions at all. Is he purposefully blocking the pack bond, or is it … gone?
"I'm looking for someone," he says finally. He leans against the wall next to the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest, and he seems so perfectly at ease, so unchanged by everything that my temper flares up, fueled by hurt even though I have no reason or right to feel that.
"Yeah?" I bite out. I put the box down and lean against my desk, trying to project a calm air, trying to pretend we can't both smell my anger, hot and acrid in the air between us.
"Yeah," he says, no mocking, no derision, just confirming what wasn't really a question. "You see, I managed to lose him somehow." He tilts his head to the side. "Do you want more details?"
As long as Donovan's playing this stupid game, then I can, too. "Sure, why not."
He smiles, but it isn't a happy sort of smile. "Okay, then." There's something deliberately languid in his stance, something liquid and deadly, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Something's going on.
He pushes off the wall and stalks closer. "This person is a wolf, a capable, talented enforcer, and he's well-respected within my pack, even though he's new. He's pissy when he isn't thinking about decorum, and he holds his own with my brother, who's one of the most cutting, sarcastic people I know.
"This wolf wasn't raised right, or he would know that he's my mate, and I'll make him my husband as soon as I can get my hands on him. If this wolf wasn't so worried about what he thinks I'm going to do, he'd realize that there's no way I could ever be angry at him when he disobeyed his father and betrayed his old pack to save me and mine."
He's close enough to touch, and all I can do is close my eyes and shiver when he wraps a hand around the back of my neck and pulls me close. I cling to his shirt even as I tell myself not to and try to convince myself that this doesn't feel like coming home.
"I love this wolf," he murmurs in my ear, "and I've waited three weeks for him to sort himself out and come back to me. Well, I'm done waiting, and all I want to know right now is if my wolf feels the same way."
I clench my jaw and wait until the tightness in my throat subsides so I can look him in the eye and not warble like a pathetic weakling. "I wanted to come back," I admit. "But I thought you'd be angry." There's a barely-perceptible tightening around his mouth, and I let myself smile. "I didn't think it was my right."
He snorts. "You didn't ever think it was weird how everyone deferred to you, how you were able to control Quinn when he almost went feral? Or how I personally managed your bid? Or how even a dragon referred to me as your mate?"
I feel my whole face heat, even to my ears. "I—I didn't think …"
He presses his forehead to mine, his fingers petting through my hair. "Your romanticism could use some work, but I love you, too."
"Oh!" I tug on his shirt and smile. "I love you."
He brushes a kiss over my lips. "Marry me?"
I smack his shoulder. "You have to take me on a date first!"
He laughs, and there it is, the bond, and his happiness is so complete and overwhelming I have to rest my head on his shoulder for a few seconds. This is it, this is warm and safe and pack. He pulls me closer, and I nuzzle against his shoulder. This is home.