Simon Bellingham prowled the hall, frustration washing over him since the phone call from Genevieve.
“We have a problem.” Four small words, but they barely described the fury and horror. Julien was a problem. Working hand in hand with a band of unknown murderers, the lycan had created a much bigger issue. Simon’s people had been outed against their will.
Knowledge of the responsibility he bore as Lord of Lycans weighed heavily on his shoulders.
“Simon, lover?” Cara, his current bed partner, called from within the “boudoir,” as she continued to call it.
“I’ll be there in a moment.” He dragged a hand through his hair, aware that he needed to deal with this mess.
He’d hoped the vampires’ victory over Attar would bring a sense of peace. It appeared the removal of one evil left an opening for another to rise.
Julien. He’d have to deal with him.
Cara edged around the door frame. “Come back to bed, lover. I’m hungry.”
A hint of frustration wound through him. Cara had become clingy and irritating in her desire to push him to commit to her.
He’d enjoyed the dalliance. The sex was hot. A she-wolf who had no fears of procreation without the ritual. She was inventive. Gymnastic even from time to time, but that was palling.
“Cara, I’ve got a situation…”
“That’s always your excuse.” She pouted. “I’m ready and hot for you.”
He grunted. “This isn’t working, Cara.”
Her eyes widened. “What? I think you may need to reconsider what you just said.”
Simon grimaced as her words dripped with frigidity. But she was impeding his role. “Cara, I can’t. We can’t. You’re wonderful. Witty, beautiful, and exciting, but I have competing responsibilities. My people and role must come first. I’m sorry.”
Fury dawned on her face. “You fucking moron! I’ve given you my all. Devoted myself to keeping you satisfied, and this is it?” She flung her hand into the air. “I expected you to mate with me. To name me your consort!”
“I won’t lie to you, Cara. I have responsibilities. You’re lovely, but not the person I will take to consort. I made that clear at the beginning.” And indeed he had. When they’d entered this relationship, he’d told her clearly that this wasn’t love or ever after. He’d taken great care to ensure there were no false understandings. Whatever she had in her mind, she’d dragged it together all by herself.
She whirled into the bedroom, a tornado of snarling disappointment. She dragged clothes over her nude body while Simon watched her. Finally clothed, she tore the few items she’d hung in his cupboard from their hangers and stashed them in the large tote bag at the bottom of the storage unit, then marched to the bathroom.
Simon sighed. “I’ll need your key too,” he mumbled.
She snarled, reaching into her bag and tugging her keychain from the depths. Sliding it from the ring, she shoved it at his chest.
Her eyes, usually a soft blue, shone like pale sapphires. “You’re a bastard, Lord of Lycans. One of these days, you’ll face a threat, and I’ll rejoice when you’re removed from the position,” she hissed and then slammed her way from his house.
He moved through the house to his office. It wasn’t large, unlike the mansions the vampires inhabited with their humans. Lycans preferred family homes, somewhere small enough to suit a nuclear family, and this one served his needs.
He dragged the laptop from beneath the sheaves of paper and booted it up. He’d never really taken to them, but it was the only way to make it in this century, he had concluded.
Lycans might live hundreds of years, but they weren’t like the vamps, with corporations and nests that spanned generations. Instead, they lived in small groups, some off the grid while others made it through as mechanics, plumbers, and there was more than one doctor and dentist he could name.
He brought up the program that would allow him to talk face to face with his mentor, the man he’d succeeded as the Lord of Lycans. His grandfather, Frederick.
He didn’t look a day over fifty, and if Simon hadn’t known better, he would never have believed the man was approaching his five-hundredth birthday.
“Yo! Lord of Lycans. It's wonderful to see your face.”
Simon blinked. “Hi, Gramps. I need some advice.”
His grandfather paused for a moment, searching Simon’s face before turning around. “Take the kids outside, honey, and I’ll be with you shortly.”
“How’s Marta coping?” Simon asked once his grandfather faced the screen again.
Frederick grunted. “She’s finding it hard. Your newest aunt is teething, and Bernard refuses to do his reading after school.”
Simon laughed. Incongruous as it may be, after the death of his grandmother, Elinore, Frederick had mated twenty years ago. He and Marta were now the proud parents of five-month-old Sharna, six-year-old Bernard, and ten-year-old twins Marla and Ned.
“I wish Dad could have seen them.”
Frederick grunted. “He’d have complained every time one of them burped on his shoulder or got off with his hats.”
Simon laughed. “True.”
“So tell me. What’s the problem?”
Simon shook his head. “I’ve got this half-shifter woman and her mate. They’re planning to join the pack, but she’s got a ghost in the cupboard, I guess you might say. An upstart from one of the southern packs, and he’s troublesome.”
Frederick tapped a hand on the table. “And?”
“Julien has been running with an unknown crowd. He’s somehow involved in the murders of several servants of unhoused vamps.”
“Hand it over to the vamps, then.”
Simon winced. “It’s not quite that simple. They’re stretched, and while their team brought down Attar—the murderous freak vamp—they need my assistance. They actively requested it through Genevieve’s mate.”
“Through her mate?” The words were low and full of disbelief.
Unable to contain the sigh, Simon nodded. “He was a Yeux Secondes.”
Frederick inhaled. “Boy, what are you mixed up in?”
“Normally, I would let the Liaison Division and the vamp Council deal with it, but we’ve got a lycan at the centre of this mess.” He shook his head, feeling very unsure of what he should do.
“You need an investigator. Someone with connections.”
“You know someone, Gramps?”
Frederick blinked. “I may do. Let me reach out to them, ask, and if they’re amenable, I’ll have them contact you.”
“Thanks. You better go help Marta now.”
Frederick barked a laugh. “Ha! It’s your turn now. Any female who appeals?”
Simon grimaced. “No. I just ended it with Cara.”
Frederick sighed. “She won’t have taken that well. I know her type. Pretty, but wanted to tie you up in a bow you didn’t want, right?”
“Something like that. Anyway, I better get some sleep. It’s getting late.”
Frederick laughed. “And the day is still young here. Simon, you know I’m proud of you. The man you’ve become. The leader. Your father would be too.”
The words pierced him. He barely remembered his parents, as they’d perished along with his younger brother in a house fire.
“That means a lot.” He touched the screen, thankful his grandfather still had many years left. “I gotta go.”
He disconnected between them, then sat there in the gloom, looking at the screen.
Niamh waited until the lights went out, then stretched and opened the front door. If only she could live openly, but the world wasn’t yet ready for her kind to appear. So instead, she remained hidden from earthly view. She wore a uniform she’d customised for her size and specific requirements; unlike the sparkle of blond in her hair and the mischievous lights in her green eyes, the dull greyish blue was drab.
In the depths of the night, tugging her jacket around herself, concealing her wings, Niamh skipped out into the street.
Working in an alien environment wasn’t quite how she’d seen her life unfolding, but fates were fickle. She’d been sent far away from the land of her birth. She'd hoped to make a new life, and she was coping. Barely, but she was learning the strange ways of the Americans. It hadn’t been her choice, but she would make the best of it.
Footsteps echoed behind her, and she looked for somewhere to hide, but the jungle of suburbia wasn’t filled with trees or green spaces where she might blend in. Not for the first time, she wished she could return to Ireland, but Niamh had been banished until she could prove able to provide for herself. And everyone knew opportunity knocked in the colonial countries, didn’t they? Her cousin, Iona, had settled in Australia and was working on a large cattle station, well at home among the cattle and large open areas.
Making herself settle to the matter at hand, Niamh loosened the carefully altered uniform sleeves under her jacket, ready to divest it should she need to.
It paid to be prepared in the city, Niamh reminded herself. She kept moving, but tension wound around her.
In the large window opposite, she caught sight of a man loping close behind. Something about his attitude told her he was full of menace.
At the brush of a hand, she gasped, slid free of her coat, and unfurled her wings. She rose, allowing her wings to beat furiously while she turned in mid-air.
Her attacker's face was obscured at the height she’d achieved, But his anger battered at her as she zoomed up and away.