Chapter 8 #2
I hear a noise and when I look over, I see Briar emerging from her room. In today’s gray light she looks somehow younger and older at the same time. But then, fae are ageless. So that’s another suggestion that she’s got more fae in her than anything else.
I shake that off and scent her, but I still can’t get the faintest whiff of anything like power on her—much less fae power.
She freezes when she sees me. Her shoulders slump forward, and it’s true that I haven’t interacted with a whole lot of fae in my life.
Growing up, I never saw one here. There were fae in the various places we went every five years to participate in the all-pack gatherings.
We do business with a fae enclave down in Eureka.
In New York, there were always representatives of the Kind on the subway. We would all look at each other, nod, and keep ourselves to ourselves. All except the fae, who were always standing about in their full splendor, as if daring the humans to notice them.
They never did, of course. Humans in New York are particularly skilled at paying absolutely no attention to the Kind no matter what they see. At paying no attention to anything they see, in fact.
All the fae I’d seen there had an unworldly elegance about them, and a kind of glow. They did not hunch. They did not scuttle.
They did not fling their palms up to their chests, like they were clutching at their nonexistent pearls. Briar can’t seem to help herself.
It makes me want to take over protecting her myself, like I’m her security detail.
“Happy birthday,” I say again, and I smile. “I had a great time. I haven’t danced like that in ages. I hope you enjoyed yourself?”
“I had to bail,” Briar mutters, already blushing and looking like she can’t decide if she should smile back at me or run for the trees. “I know you’re all, like, dating those . . . that vampire. That fucking wolf. That doesn’t mean I want to hang out. It’s too weird.”
“You should see what it’s like up close,” I say, and laugh.
She huffs out a breath. It takes me a minute to realize that she’s actually laughing too.
Those rainstorm eyes of hers actually gleam a little. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ll pass on that.”
Then she scuttles away, off in the general direction of the kitchen. Yes. Scuttles.
If being her friend has any benefit at all, I hope that it will teach her to strut, not scuttle. Scuttling things get eaten.
I go back inside my cottage and take an overly long shower, mostly because I don’t feel like doing what I have to do. I know I have to do it. The packs are showing up at the den, and that means I need to be there as well.
I pack a bag, sigh heavily at the injustice of it all even though there are a whole lot worse things than staying in Ty’s personal den, and head out.
I’ve even dressed up a bit, because I know that some packs are fussy.
When we’re in our wolf forms, we all walk around in fur and that’s fine.
Yet some packs act like a glimpse of a female shoulder in skin is enough to start the downfall of society as we know it.
As if we don’t know how all of the males in those same packs act with the bitten women.
I circle around the back of my cottage, thinking I’ll take the long way to the den entrance because I’m feeling the need for a little hike to walk off the McCaffrey of it all.
I’m dressed in a nice pair of jeans—no tears—an actual pair of hiking boots, and a long-sleeve T-shirt to conceal the sight of my tattoos so that the prissier packs won’t get their panties into a twist.
Though it’s probably too late. McCaffrey got an eyeful of me in my little shorty pajamas with dachshunds all over them, which I’m sure he’ll spin as me attempting to seduce him in full view of his queen and pack.
I really hate wolf week. I’m already exhausted. A nice steep hike will do me a lot of good—
But I stop dead around the back of my cottage, because there’s another sacrifice there, waiting for me. Once again, defying everything I know about kills in the woods, I can’t smell it until I’m on top of it.
At first I think Savi must have scent-scrubbed it—but she’s not here. And if she was, and had, she would have cleaned it up, too.
I also know that it wasn’t here when I came home, because I passed right past this spot.
That was earlier this morning, and it’s not yet noon.
That leaves a very small window for someone to come here undetected by my cousin and the other wolves, as well as McCaffrey and his pack.
Much less indulge in all this butchery. A very small window and a whole lot of wolves to sneak past, not to mention the clearly defenseless Briar, who could have stumbled on this if she’d come out of her cottage at the wrong time.
I don’t like imagining that. I don’t like any of this. It doesn’t make sense.
I lean into the mess of the creature splayed out before me, scenting it deeply. Looking for anything in there somewhere that will lead me toward whoever—whatever—is doing this.
People can do anything. Sometimes they don’t even need a reason.
But I can’t find a trace no matter what form I’m in.
I pull back. I try to imagine who or what can keep killing things and leaving no scent behind, with or without an assist from Savi. I bury this latest offering near the others, and only then do I toss my bag over my shoulder and trudge off through the woods.
I walk until I feel less murderous. Then I go to the den.
When I get to the old mine, I nod at the sentries.
Today they’re a little too busy to give me a hard time.
It’s almost disappointing. I adjust my bag and walk into the den’s dark entry, but I don’t go into the grand cavern.
I can hear things happening in there, but I take one of the other tunnels that bypasses the cavern and goes deep into the cave system instead.
The tunnel that the men take when they come back to the den and don’t want to deal with their mates and their children. The tunnel the men use when they’re in the mood to party with the bitten in their private rooms as well as up on top of the hill and would rather not explain themselves to anyone.
The tunnel that takes me all the way back to Ty’s rooms without parading the fact that I have another place to live in front of assholes like McCaffrey.
As I walk down the tunnel, I do my best not to dwell on the unsavory reality that all the males in the pack have their private spaces back here too, some in addition to a space in the family caves.
All the males keep their family lives and what they call their brotherhood separate.
They act like the outlaw bikers they still are, and the expectation is that their women will suck it up. The end.
There’s no bargaining. This is how it is.
It’s only weird to them when I want to do my own thing too.
I make my way through the tunnels undetected and deposit my bag in Ty’s den.
And since I’m here, alone, I take the opportunity to take a few breaths in to make sure that murderous rage is still ebbing away.
I feel the way his scent wraps all around me.
The way it calms me down and sinks into my bones like warmth.
I breathe him in deep.
Only then do I think, I’m ready.
Or as ready as I’ll ever be to face all these wolves with their traditional pack expectations, so I put on my fated mate face and get to work.