CHAPTER 8 #2
He cut a glance at me. “We can’t discount that as a possibility, but judging by her reaction at dinner and her response to us leaving, I don’t currently believe it was her intent.
I think she wanted to keep you close. You’re an unknown commodity.
She can’t learn how best to manipulate you without getting to know you.
Tonight was a test. If we had stayed, she would have continued testing you until she discovered every one of your buttons.
And then she would have invited you out in public and started pushing them. ”
“You know, I think a city full of homicidal preternaturals on the brink of war sounds like a much nicer place to hang out than your parents’ house after all.”
Michael laughed. It was the first time I’d heard him really laugh.
The sound was low, but infectious. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he looked over at me, and the aloof refinement I’d come to expect from him slipped a little, a tendril of warmth surfacing in its stead.
His full lips spread wide to reveal perfectly even teeth.
I stared at him in near shock. Dear Goddess. The man had dimples.
Quickly, I turned away and schooled my thoughts. Danger lay that way. Much safer to keep my mind on his diabolical mother and the mess I now found myself in.
We fell silent as we crept closer to the city center.
I gazed out of the window, our surroundings fading as I turned my focus inward.
In my pack, we told stories of legendary mated pairs, wolves bound together from warring clans, who started out as bitter enemies but eventually united their people under one banner.
Would Michael and I be counted among them one day?
Or would we end up serving as a cautionary tale instead?
After everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I was worried we’d be the latter.
We eased to a stop at a light just off the highway, and the unhoused man on the corner holding a sign saying ANYTHING WILL HELP nodded at our car. Michael lifted his fingers off the steering wheel in greeting.
I sat up and started to pay attention. There was foot traffic here, restaurants offering a wide variety of fare.
My gaze skipped over the people littering the sidewalks, coming to rest here and there on the ones who moved just a little bit differently than the rest. They walked with more purpose, had an innate litheness that humans couldn’t compete with.
Shifters.
We rolled through intersection after intersection.
I counted a dozen werewolves in the streets between them, some hidden in shadow, some standing bold as brass beneath the electric glow of neon lights.
These were the Kolbecks’ foot soldiers, out prowling their territory as they kept the peace and held the front line.
Last night Michael told me that the Back Bay was the most northern point of the werewolves’ turf in Boston.
The border with the vamps started at the Common.
The bloodsuckers made their roost in the very heart of the city, but their feeding grounds extended all the way down to Southie and then west into Roxbury.
To the north, the witches ruled over everything between the Charles and Mystic Rivers, from Bunker Hill up to Medford.
“Quite the forward force,” I said.
Michael glanced over at me. “You noticed?”
I nodded.
“You have a good eye for security. Were you an enforcer in your pack?”
“No. My dad is one of the few, though. We don’t have a need for many because our pack is pretty large, and we’re on good terms with the Allagash pack in Maine and the Long Trail pack in Vermont. If anyone threatened us, they’d have to face several hundred pissed-off wolves.”
“Only several hundred?”
I glanced over at him. “You say that like it’s a small number.”
He was quiet.
“Michael, how many wolves are in your pack?”
“Counting the outlying communities that answer to us, roughly five thousand.”
Holy shit.
Five thousand wolves. Living in the city, its suburbs, and the rest of the heavily populated state. How did I not know this? How did they stand it? And how the hell had they avoided discovery by all the humans around them?
“You had no idea,” Michael said, picking up on my shock.
“No. There weren’t many other wolves in Amherst.”
“Because of the witches.”
I nodded. “And I’ve never really paid much attention to pack politics or other clans. With my family history, it seemed like a good idea to keep my head down.”
“I’ll need to get you caught up. There are pack politics, and then there are inner pack politics. Here in the city, you need to worry about both. With so many wolves answering to us, there’s a constant struggle for dominance and supremacy. And we have several competing factions within the ranks.”
I could already see where this was going. “Each of which will want to know where I stand in the hierarchy.”
Michael nodded. “And may want to challenge whatever position they think you hold.”
I put my face in my hands and fought off a wave of exhaustion. The past forty-eight hours had finally caught up to me. Bonded against my will. My life packed up. The overstimulation of the city. Michael’s family. Warring preternaturals. And now this.
Michael reached out and gripped my shoulder through my T-shirt. “We’re almost there,” he said, no doubt feeling how done I was with today.
A few minutes later, he turned away from the Charles River onto a quieter street lined with brownstones.
He took a right, down a one-way lane that ran between buildings.
The Range Rover barely fit, and we crawled to a stop as Michael hit another button on his visor.
He turned again, taking a concrete ramp down beneath the buildings into a small garage that looked more like a bunker.
A large man in his midforties, his graying hair cut into a severe buzzcut, detached himself from the wall and came over to greet us.
The breadth of his shoulders and chest spoke of long hours spent in the gym.
His flinty brown eyes were hard. You could break your fist on his jaw, and the way he moved projected a persona of barely contained violence.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Ronald, my head of security,” Michael answered. “He’s not a threat.”
I climbed out of the vehicle, and Michael joined me on my side just before Ronald reached us.
The older man came to a halt a few feet away, looked me over, and then turned to his boss. “Your mother has called three times.” His voice was a deep baritone that seemed to rumble up out of his chest. He smelled annoyed.
“Stop answering the phone,” Michael said.
Ronald raised a brow. His tone turned acerbic. “You gonna step in front of the bullet she tries to put in me for disobeying her?”
Michael made a low sound, bordering on a growl. Apparently, we were both done with today. “Fine. Keep answering. What does she want?”