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After fighting a losing battle with her blankets, Amy dressed and headed downstairs. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but hopefully there was coffee. She swiped a hand through her hair and entered the lobby. Sure enough, the bitter scent met her the moment she walked in, and she staggered to the coffee station, still reeling from the night before. How the hell was she supposed to operate when the wolves wanted her dead and her mother’s people put her out on her ass? She’d told Journee she wasn’t leaving yet, and she meant it. She’d have to lay low, steer clear of the bookstore, and do her best to find the next step in her search. At least Dia would be happy to see her, she hoped. At this point, she didn’t know much of anything.
The girl at the front desk certainly wasn’t. Something about her made Amy think of Marrok, and Amy’s entire body jolted like she’d been zapped. The girl’s deep brown eyes narrowed, and while she didn’t appear downright hostile, Amy knew the look. Amy had worn the look, perfected the look. So she shot the look right back at the girl, who had the good sense to move her attention elsewhere.
She had to get the fuck out of Windsor soon before she lost her mind. Or her life.
Taking a seat near the fireplace, she removed Jane Eyre from her bag. She’d read the book fifty times over, knew it by heart, and loved it for the comfort it brought her. But she heard the wolf’s voice in the words. His annoyingly sexy accent ruined Rochester for her, for the moment. She hated him, even though he’d gone against his Alpha for her sake. She hated his perfect face and gorgeous body and the fact that he knew her favorite book inside and out and had the gall to mention the second edition at his store. She hated that she wanted to see him again.
After about an hour, people began milling around, heading to the dining room for breakfast. Amy’s stomach rumbled, but the thought of food just made her sick. She’d barely touched her coffee, which now sat cold in the black stoneware mug. She replaced her book and grabbed her cellphone. Though she couldn’t call Ember—knowing Em, she was in the middle of her morning bread baking, her favorite time of day—she thumbed through pictures of the two of them, which had been transferred from phone to phone as she upgraded. Her favorite was taken on Kai’s opening day: a selfie in front of the Open sign, the close-up of them both smiling, her so overjoyed for her li’l sis, who’d finally achieved her dream ... The last time Amy remembered being truly happy. She’d taken a hundred pictures of Ember that day, and she scrolled through them all, in each of them seeing Em’s resemblance to Rubi. Fuck.
She glanced up to see Rubi heading her way. Gods, she even walked like Ember, shoulders slightly forward, body sort of folded in like she tried to make herself small. Apart from the café, Ember never wanted to take up more space than necessary. She never wanted to make a scene. The peacekeepers of their clans. Tears pricked Amy’s eyes at the thought.
Rubi took a seat. Already, Amy knew Carney had sent her, but for what, Amy didn’t know. They looked at each other for a long moment, and maybe Rubi searched for herself in Amy, but Rubi would be disappointed. Amy had no interest in keeping peace.
“I’m sorry my mother ambushed you last night,” she said in a feather-light voice. “She said she told you about Ambre.”
“She did.”
Rubi nodded. “I know she asked you to leave. It’s ... not because we don’t want you here. We do. Maman and I do, and so many others in the clan do, too.”
“Did you come here to make excuses for your mum, or did you have a real reason?” Amy inwardly winced at the way the girl appeared to get even smaller.
“I do have a reason.” Rubi took a steadying breath. “I want you to talk to Grand-pere. My sister is missing, and no one is doing anything about it.”
I know that feeling.
“The same thing happened to Tante Margot, and I ...” Another deep breath. “I don’t want to lose Ambre. I can’t lose her. She’s my best friend.”
All of this struck the same chord as Dia’s disappearance. “My sister’s missing, too,” Amy hedged. “You reckon ol’ grandda knows anything about that?”
“If not, the conteur might.”
“The what now?”
Rubi cleared her throat. “Excuse. The storyteller. Our clan’s historian.”
The man Poochie had suggested Amy speak to.
“So let me get this straight.” Sitting back against the chair, Amy searched for the way to say this tactfully. “You want me to go talk to Grandda about sending out a search party for Ambre. The man who decided I wasn’t worth his time.”
“Ambre has been gone for days. The wolves have her, just like Margot. They killed Margot. And I will not sacrifice my sister for this feud. All of the older ones refuse to budge. I don’t know what they’re waiting for, but it will be my sister’s head on our front stoop if we don’t hurry.”
Especially if Ambre was still in the wolves’ clutches by the Solstice. “He won’t listen to me,” Amy said. “He won’t endanger any other of the clan. I’ve been there.”
“He won’t endanger the clan, no.”
Amy recognized the calculating look in her cousin’s eyes. “You lot are unbelievable.”
“Please, just come with me. Come talk to him. Surely we can do something.”
Shaking her head, Amy said, “If it gets you off my back, fine. But you’re buying coffee on the way.”
“Gladly,” Rubi replied. “But if you’re going to stay here, you need to take the back entrance. The girl at the front desk is part of the Pack.”
That explained the daggers the girl shot her way. “I don’t run from anyone,” she said.
“Then you need to make it look like you’ve checked out.”
She nodded. “I can do that. My friend works the afternoons. We’ll get it settled.” She stretched. “Now, then, about that coffee ...”
***
She should have learned long before now how futile a venture like this would be. She’d relived it in Iceland, Japan, India—all the places where she’d searched for signs of Dia. A clan would give her information, take her in, and then use her in one way or another. Even if for extra feathers on the Solstice. Rubi drove with the windows down, the radio maybe two notches above muted. She gripped the steering wheel with hands at ten and two, just like Ember. It was unreal to her how deep their similarities ran. “You cook?” she asked.
Rubi shook her head. “Not really. I’m a much better carver than cooker.” As she pulled into the gravel lot outside the lodge, she gestured to the twin Thunderbirds.
“You did those?”
“I did. Some of my best work to date.”
Maybe one day, Amy would have time to study the intricacies of the carvings, but Rubi’s purposeful strides forced her to follow. The lodge house was quiet, seemingly empty, but Amy sensed the history in the wooden walls, in the air, and she wondered if her mother had had that same sensation in their old village. If she sensed the history there, snaking through the trees on the wind and surrounding their Solstice bonfires. Rubi continued into the back room where their grandfather waited with a man even older than him. The elder turned around, faced limned with decades of knowledge and stories, eyes blinded by the years. To her surprise, Carney was nowhere in sight.
“Rubi, what is this?” Grandda asked. “You asked us to meet you for her?”
“Maybe if you’d listen for two-point-five seconds, you’d understand,” Amy snapped. “I know about Ambre and about the feud with the wolves, how you lost Margot to them. How it led to my parents being together. One of those damned wolves came to visit me last night and warn me off being here, and since everyone seems determined to make me leave, I’m staying. There’s obviously more going on here than you want me to know about.”
“It’s clan—”
“I swear,” she growled, “if you say ‘it’s clan business,’ I will burn this fucking lodge down myself. You are as stubborn as my old man, if not more so. Your granddaughter is gone. Might suffer the same fate as your own daughter. I have already lived this shit, too. You wanna know what happened to Trina?”
At the mention of her mother, her grandda’s stony face softened for a brief moment. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“She died saving my baby sis’ life from an attack that my father was too stubborn to stop. If history is really repeating itself, then you’re gonna want to watch your ass around the Solstice.”
Next to her, Rubi stiffened, then placed a consoling hand on Amy’s shoulder. It took everything in her not to shrug it off.
“What about Dia?” he asked.
The fact that he knew her name shocked Amy to the core. “You actually give a shit about that? I didn’t even know you knew about Dia. About any of us.”
“I know more than you want to believe.”
“She’s gone. Somewhere. Out there, out where I can’t find her.” For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, her voice broke. “I’ve abandoned my baby sis to look for her because my father won’t. He never learned his lesson from the first time.”
The elder started babbling in a language Amy didn’t recognize; it definitely wasn’t French. Amy glanced at Rubi. Grandda shook his head. “That’s not an option. She’s not one of us.”
“The hell did he say,” Amy growled. “Whatever it was, I have a right to know.”
“The Great Thunderbird,” Rubi said before Grandda could stop her, “has shown him that a prodigal would return to the clan and end the feud that has stolen so many of our daughters and killed so many of our sons.”
A prodigal? At least someone considered her part of the clan. “Did he say how?”
Another mumbling in that peculiar language. “The Thunderbird hasn’t shown him the way,” her cousin translated, “but there would be peace in the province for the first time in generations ... if you succeed.” She said the last bit slowly and with a bit of trepidation, glancing between Amy and the old man with fear in her eyes.
“Meaning I could fail,” Amy muttered.
“Meaning you could die,” Rubi said. Looking to the elder, she said, “We can’t trade one life for another. That isn’t right.”
Good to know one of them had scruples. “No, it ain’t. And I’m not putting myself at risk for the sake of a clan that rejected me out of hand. I’m sorry, Rubi.” Amy took the other girl’s hand and squeezed. “I know what this is like.”
“A deal,” Grandda said. “I’ll make a deal with you.” The hard glint in his eyes unnerved her.
“Oh? What’s that?” He wants to get me killed.
He seemed to consider his words, or maybe he just wanted to pause for dramatic effect. Amy had already had enough of his particular brand of bullshit for the rest of her life. “If you’ll help us rescue Ambre, I will give you every resource to find Dia.”
Oh, this limey bastard. Amy chewed the inside of her jaw. “What resources would those be?”
“Bring my granddaughter home, and you’ll find out.”
Amy could smell a lie a mile away these days. She held Grandda’s stare, but he didn’t waver. “Let me put this out there right now. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you any more than I trust the wolf that visited me last night. The only reason I am agreeing to this is because you’ll help me with Dia. And when I come out on the other side of this spic and span, you’d best be prepared to keep up your end of the bargain; otherwise, I will bring hell down on you. You do not tease me with info about my sis and then not deliver.”
The old man nodded. “I’ll be ready.”
“You better be.”
His lips twisted in a wry smile. “Less than five weeks remain until the Solstice. We will have a joyous celebration—if what the Thunderbird has shown comes to pass.”
Heart in her throat, Amy nodded. “Then I’m going to need to know everything about these wolves, starting with the validity of a certain story I’ve heard ...”
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