I swallowed. My throat was still raw from trying not to cry. “You will.”
“What about the guy from outside your apartment?”
“No. But, I’m ready to talk about him. I think.”
Her face took on a pained, annoyed expression. “Does this happen often? Werewolves slaughtering each other for no apparent reason?”
“Oh, there’s always a reason,” I said. Realizing how bad that sounded, I looked away. “No, it doesn’t happen often.” Only when the power struggles happened. When a junior wolf like me got too big for her britches.
“Huh. And I thought police internal affairs was tough.”
I glanced at Cormac. His expression was a mask, inscrutable. I was sure he hadn’t called the cops. I said, “How did you know where to go?”
“Your sound guy called me.”
“Matt. Bastard,” I muttered. I thought he knew better than to get mixed up in supernatural rumbles.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m touched. Really, I am. Do you have any idea how I’m supposed to write this up? What am I supposed to do with you?”
I shrugged, wincing when the cut on my back split again. I was going to have to lie still for a good couple of hours if I wanted it to heal. “Should I call my lawyer?”
She stared hard at me, like she was trying to peel back my skin. My shoulders bunched. If she’d been a wolf, I’d have taken her stare as a challenge. I looked at my feet and tried to seem harmless, small, and inconsequential, metaphorical tail between my legs.
She tipped her chin up, a sort of decisive half-nod.
“I saw dogs fighting. That’s all I saw. But for God’s sake, call me next time.”
She walked away.
Cormac had my clothes in the passenger seat of his Jeep. I put them on, but still kept the blanket around me. I was cold.
He stopped the Jeep in front of my apartment building and shut off the engine. I had to work up to moving, taking a deep breath because I knew how much it was going to hurt.
When I gripped the handle of the door, Cormac said, “You need me to come in with you?”
The question was laden with meaning and unspoken assumptions. We weren’t exactly a couple on a first date, testing the waters to see if the evening was going to go on a little longer, him wondering if I would invite him, me wondering if I should. But there was a little of that. Maybe he wanted a second chance. Maybe I wanted him to have a second chance. I had to decide how hurt I was—but if I was hurt enough to need help, I was probably too hurt to give him that second chance. Maybe he was just trying to be nice. But why would he be trying to be nice if he didn’t want a second chance?
Or most likely I was reading too much into it. My head hurt, and I needed a shower. And sleep. Which meant no second chance.
But he had stopped the engine, like he really wanted to come inside.
“I’ll be okay.” I opened the door and eased myself to the sidewalk. I left the blanket on the seat. “Thanks. Thanks for everything. I think I probably owe you a couple now.”
He shrugged. “You saved me a bullet.”
I looked down, hiding a smirk. “You’re not angry at me for stealing your kill?”
“Just like a wolf to think that way when there’s plenty to go around.” He started the Jeep. The engine roared, then settled into its rhythm. “Watch your back.”
“Yeah. You, too.” I shut the door.
He drove away.
I spent the walk to the building still wondering if I should have asked Cormac to come with me. He had guns and wasn’t injured. There was the spot where T.J. killed Zan. What else was waiting in the shadows to attack me? Not the rogue wolf. Not anymore.
I’d killed the rogue. All by myself, I’d killed him. That should have made me feel strong, like I could walk down any dark street without fear, like I’d never have to be afraid again. Wolf could stand tall, her tail straight, unafraid.
But all I felt was tired. Tired, sad, sick. Even the Wolf was quiet. Even she’d had enough.
Behind every shrub and corner was a monster waiting to challenge me. The hair on my arms and neck tingled. I kept looking over my shoulder.
James had said she could give him a pack. She had made him, and she wanted him to kill the alpha.
Meg. Had to be. I didn’t know what to think. What had she been thinking, taking this guy under her wing? Had she really wanted him as head of the pack? He must have looked tough, tough enough to take on Carl. But James wouldn’t have lasted. He didn’t have the mind to lead—he’d groveled to me, after all. The pack would have torn him to shreds. Meg must have realized this, changed her mind, and left him hanging.
It was too much. I should have expected it. It still hurt. At the same time, the path before me seemed clearer.
She was still out there. Who would she send after me next? Or would she come herself? I might have killed James, but I wasn’t in any condition to fight like that again tonight.
Maybe she was waiting in my apartment. I crept up the stairs, slinking close to the wall. My head throbbed, I was concentrating so hard on listening. The building was quiet. I took quick breaths, testing the air, hunting for a scent of danger. If a werewolf had been through here recently, I should have been able to smell it. If someone had carried a gun by here, I might have caught a trace of oil and steel.
Nothing but the old apartment smells of sweat and aged drywall.
I got to my apartment door. Still locked. By some miracle, the key was still in my jeans pocket. I tried to slide it in the lock and turn it without making a sound. No luck. The scrape of metal rattled my brain. I listened for noises within the apartment, wondering if someone had gotten inside somehow and was waiting for me. Still nothing.
My heart was pounding in my throat when I opened the door.
The place was empty.
I searched everywhere, even in cupboards too small for a rat to hide in. But I looked anyway. I locked the door behind me and pulled the shade over the window. Then I sat on the floor and covered my face, holding back hysteri-
cal laughter on the one hand and helpless tears on the other. Caution had degenerated into paranoia, and I was exhausted.
Huddled on the floor, I spent ten minutes debating whether to take a nap or a shower. Nap, shower, nap, shower. The skin over my entire body itched, so I decided I needed a shower more than anything. I smelled like the bad part of town.
By the time I got to the bathroom, I’d changed my mind and decided what I really needed to do first was brush my teeth. I brushed my teeth five times. Flossed twice. Didn’t look too closely at the bits I spat out.
I woke up. The sun glared around the edges of my window shade with late-afternoon light. I stretched, arching my back, reaching with my arms and legs, and smiled because while I was stiff, nothing hurt. No injuries cracked along my back.
For the moment, I didn’t want to move any more than that, because then I’d have to figure out what to do next.
Meg had overstepped her bounds.
T.J. didn’t answer his phone. He hadn’t for the last few days. He was far away, running from the cops, and I couldn’t call him for help.
Taking the bus to Meg’s place was much less cool than riding T.J.’s bike.
It also took longer, which meant I had a lot of time to reconsider.
I didn’t have any proof. I could tell Carl about what had happened last night, but I couldn’t trust him to do anything about it. After all, he hadn’t done anything about Meg’s
conspiring with Arturo to kill me, when he had concrete evidence. Then again, he had essentially asked me to fight her. To kill her, really. Take her place. But I didn’t want to be Carl’s alpha female.
Pack dynamics were predicated on a two-way relationship. I owed the alphas, Carl and Meg, total loyalty and devotion, and they owed me protection. I hadn’t felt protected in a long time. Carl seemed to value supporting Meg more than protecting
me. All that trust was gone. The center did not hold.
While I’d felt pretty cocky about facing Meg, I didn’t think I could face both of them. Not by myself.
I had to tell them what had happened last night. Doing so would probably start a fight. Their patience with me had probably worn thin enough that it wouldn’t be just a dominance, slap-her-around-a-little fight. Maybe Meg would be by herself.
I really, really missed T.J.
I got to the house. The front door was locked. Nobody home.
Meg had a real job. She kept up a pretty good semblance of a normal life, working as a stock clerk in a warehouse. It paid for the house, the car, the extras. Carl didn’t work. It looked like she wasn’t home yet and Carl was away.
The back door was locked, too. I sat against the wall on the patio and looked out to the hills, to the scattered trees that grew more frequent until they became the woods of the national forest property. The sun was shining straight at me. A warm, lazy afternoon, a scent of pines on a faint breeze. I closed my eyes, wanting to nap. If I didn’t think too hard, I could enjoy the moment.
I caught a scent, a trace on the breeze, a familiar taste of wolf, of pack. Shading my eyes, I looked. Someone was out there. Not close. I scanned the hills, but couldn’t see anything, not a flicker of movement. Then the scent was gone. Probably an echo, a shadow. This place was covered with the smell of pack.
Carl came around the side of the house. He stopped when he saw me, closing his fists and hunching his shoulders, posturing. I glanced at him, then turned my face back to the sun, basking.
“Hi, Carl.”
“What were you looking at?” He said this suspiciously, like he thought I was hiding something.
“I don’t know. I thought I saw something. T.J., maybe.”
Carl relaxed a little and continued toward me. He leaned against the wall, towering over me. “I haven’t seen him in days. I know he likes to go roaming. I thought you might know where he went this time.”
“He’s hiding. The police are looking for him, for killing Zan.”
After a pause he said, “Zan is dead?”
I looked at him. I assumed T.J. told him everything. “You didn’t know?”
“Meg told me he left. Ran off. I thought maybe he and T.J. ran off together.” He made a suggestive humph, adding meaning to ‘together.’ Geez, even if Zan had swung that way, T.J. had better taste.
“Meg’s a liar.”
“Why would T.J. kill him?”
“Zan attacked me. T.J. was protecting me.”
“Why would Zan attack you?” he said.
“Are you serious? Are you really so clueless about what’s happening in your own pack?”
His shoulders tightened, hackles rising. Then he blew out a breath in a sigh and let himself slouch. “What am I going to do with you?”
I hugged my knees and glared out at the hills, painted gold by the sun. Shadows of the trees lengthened, crawling toward me.
“I’m going to have a talk with Meg. I don’t know what you’re going to do. You’ll either stay out of the way, or you’ll back Meg. I don’t know which.”
“Can you take down Meg?”
“I can try.”
“Then you’ll take her place.”
“No. I don’t want her place.” I wanted my own place; how could I make him see that?
“I can’t be head of this pack by myself.” He sounded almost panicked.
“Maybe you could learn.”
He said, his voice tight, “Why won’t you even consider it?”
“Because I don’t need the pack. I have my own life.” Rogue wolf. I could do it. “So, are you going to back her up or stay out of my way?”
He hooked his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked away. It occurred to me that Carl wasn’t that old. Maybe thirty-four, thirty-five. I didn’t know how much of that time he’d spent as a werewolf. He lacked the confidence of maturity. How much effort did it take him to put on the tough act, to maintain that dominant stance he needed to stay in control? I’d never noticed before, but the confidence didn’t come naturally to him. Not like it did to, say, Cormac.
“You want to come inside to wait for her?”
“I think I’ll stay here.”
He went back around the corner of the house.
Not too much longer after that, he came out the back door. Meg was with him. They stood side by side, looking down at me. I should have been butt-sore from sitting on the concrete that long. But it really was a nice afternoon. The air was starting to get a hint of twilight chill. I was comfortable.
“Hey, Meg. Tell me about James,” I said without turning.
The pause before she answered went on a little too long. “Who?”
“James. Rogue werewolf.”
Carl said, “Kitty, what are you talking about?”
“I think Meg’s been holding out on you. I think she found somebody who looked big and tough, made him one of us, and started grooming him to be your replacement. She didn’t want to fight you herself. He would be an alpha male who owed everything to her. But the guy was nuts. Unstable. She couldn’t control him. She abandoned him, and he started killing. She didn’t like me talking to the cops about it; maybe she was afraid I’d figure it out, catch her scent and trace the rogue back to her. So she sent Zan to get rid of me. Too bad the whole teaming-up with Arturo to hire Cormac to kill me didn’t work earlier. Would have made everyone’s lives easier. I think she’s had it in for me for a while, ever since she thought I might threaten her place.”
“Where is this James now?” Carl looked at me, not Meg.
But I looked straight at Meg. “I killed him.”
Meg said, “I don’t believe you.”
Bingo. I got her. “Which part? That this guy exists, or that I—little old me—was able to kill him?” I stood without using my hands. “I ripped his fucking throat out, Meg. You want me to tell you what it tasted like? Should I demonstrate?”
That was way too cocky. I was starting to sound like Carl. Too late to back down now.
Meg moved a step behind Carl.
A thrill warmed me, a static shock up my spine. I hadn’t even touched her yet, but she was scared. Of me. I could breathe on her right now and she might scream. I narrowed my gaze and smiled.
This was why Carl got off on being a bully. This was how it felt to be strong.
“If you want me dead, Meg, why don’t you just challenge me face-to-face? Don’t you have the guts?” I circled Carl, moving toward her. She moved as well, keeping him between us.
“Kitty, that’s enough,” Carl said.
“No, it isn’t. I’m calling her out. I want to challenge her. What do you say, Meg?”
She stared at me, her body still. “I think you’re crazy.”
“I’m pissed off is what I am! I mean, what the hell were you thinking, dealing with that guy?”
Still, she didn’t deny it, didn’t confirm it. Didn’t say anything.
It was going to happen. I could feel it, a charge in the air, our glares colliding. My blood rushed; I could feel my pulse pounding in my brain. My throat was tight, holding back a growl. She closed her hands, preparing.
Then Carl stepped between us. “I won’t let you do this. Stand down, Kitty. Now.”
“And why should I listen to you? Where were you all those times people tried to kill me? You’re useless, Carl! I don’t owe you anything!”
Carl took a couple of steps toward me. His posture was stiff, arms slightly bent, ready to swing fists.
However much I wanted to back away, I held my ground. Even my Wolf didn’t cringe at his approach. Even she was too angry.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I said, my voice tight. “Let me challenge her, Carl. I thought you wanted me to challenge her.”
He paused, glancing over his shoulder.
With a calculating look and a thin smile, Meg turned her gaze away from me. She stepped toward Carl, touched his back, and put her face agai
nst his shoulder. She glanced at me from the shelter of his body, then closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek down his shoulder, holding his arm, clinging to him.
She showed herself submissive to him. She put herself in his power; then, it followed, he would protect her. She was asking him to fight her fight.
My jaw opened, disbelieving. “Were you always this much of a bitch?”
That was a stupid question.
“I know my place,” she said. Slowly, she crouched, until she was kneeling at Carl’s feet. She gripped his leg, pressing her face to his thigh.
And Carl, insecure dominant that he was, fell for it. He swelled, appearing to grow a few inches in all directions as he puffed out his chest and cocked his arms, preparing to fight.
Oh, please.
“Come on, Carl,” I said. “She’s putting on an act. She’s scared that I might actually have a chance against her.”
“You challenge my mate, you fight me.”
“And what about everything she’s done? Giving the photos to Arturo, sending Zan after me—and that doesn’t even touch on what she did to James. She wanted to kill you! Why protect her after all that?”
“She hasn’t said she was behind James.”
“She hasn’t denied it.”
We both looked at her. I might get out of this yet.
Meg, contrite as a Catholic schoolgirl, bowing her head so her hair fell across her face, said, “James was a mistake. It’ll never happen again. I’m sorry.”
That was ultimately why I could never take Meg’s place at Carl’s side. I couldn’t grovel like that. At least, not anymore. Carl needed someone who would grovel at his feet.
The sun finally dipped behind the hills. Everything turned to shadow. The sky was darkening to that rich, twilight blue of velvet, of dreams. This was the Elfland blue that Dunsany described. It made me feel like I could take a step and be in another world, a magic place where nothing hurt. Where no one hurt another. Or where the adventures someone had were symbolic and meaningful, leading to enlightenment, adulthood, or at the very least a nice treasure. Maybe a talking goose.
I’d seen plenty of magic in my world. None of it impressed me a whole lot.