Chapter Twenty-Five
Louis hadn’t wanted Melinda to find out like this. Tension held his twin’s body rigid. Neither had Pierre. It was all kinds of fucked up. A room full of people. Everyone staring at her. Melinda the only human.
Stefanie rose from the sofa and grabbed her purse. “I think this might be our cue to leave. Give these guys some time to talk, hm?”
Melinda sucked in a breath. Did she not want to be alone with them now? He could only hope, as with the night she’d found out they were werewolves, Melinda would come around. That the developing bond between the three of them would be too strong for her to resist and would override her fear.
The click of the door closing behind the others was loud in the silence of the penthouse.
“Don’t be afraid of us, Melinda. Please.” He reached for her, but she took another step back. “Have we not proved ourselves to you over the last few days?”
Her distrust tainting the air, Melinda clenched and unclenched her hands. Louis couldn’t blame her. It must seem as though she was being hit with one secret after another. The most damaging one was yet to come. If Pierre had his way, it would never come out.
She wiped her hands down her jeans. Merde. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and comfort her, promise her the world. He’d give it to her, too. So would Pierre. But she wasn’t having any of that right now, and if he made any move, he suspected she’d run.
Melinda raised her chin. “Tell me what reason your alpha would accept without question.”
Straight to the heart of it all. Courageous little thing. Fierce pride burned in his chest.
“First,” said Pierre, “you must understand why.”
“How about we all relax a little?” suggested Louis.
Standing here, Melinda looking like at any moment she might decide this was all too much for her, and Pierre—as rigid as a marble statue, the muscle ticking in his jaw the only hint he wasn’t—wasn’t helping anything.
“Melinda, why don’t you go make yourself comfortable on the sofa?
Pierre will make you some more tea, and I’ll order us some room service.
Something sweet. How about some key lime pie? It was the next one on my list to try.”
“Really, Louis?” Pierre snapped. “We’re in the middle of something important here. And you’ve just had a huge slice of pecan pie not five minutes ago. Now is not the time to indulge ourselves.”
Louis begged to differ. Now was the perfect time for a little comfort food. “Pierre.” He turned to his brother, allowing a hint of fang to show. “Go make Melinda some tea.”
Pierre opened his mouth to protest further.
Louis growled, a low rumble deep in his chest, and he bared his teeth at his twin.
It was rare for him to step up and give the orders.
Pierre had always been the more dominant twin, always in charge.
Louis had no need, or desire, to question the status quo, happy to follow his brother’s lead.
But sometimes his brother’s desire to control things meant he missed the emotional signals.
When things called for a gentler approach. Like now.
Pierre stormed off to the kitchen to make tea. Perhaps the ritual would do for Pierre what it did for Melinda. Louis dialed up the kitchen, gesturing for Melinda to find a comfortable spot on the sofa, and ordered three slices of pie with whipped cream.
By the time Pierre had steeped the tea, room service had arrived.
Louis handed Melinda a plate. “Key lime pie. Some say it’s synonymous with the Florida Keys, but it gets its name from the key limes used to make it.” At Melinda’s raised eyebrows, he winked. “I did a little research.” He always did. Terroir was important.
He thought he saw a hint of a smile. He’d take it.
Pierre joined them with tea for three, taking Louis’ lead and sitting next to him, leaving Melinda alone on the sofa, the large glass coffee table an effective barrier between them.
If giving Melinda space was what she needed, she would have it.
The eye twitch and the clench of his jaw told Louis how much it cost Pierre.
Oui. It was a struggle for him, too. But when they were the ones she feared, crowding her wouldn’t help their cause.
Louis scooped a forkful of pie and whipped cream into his mouth. What should be a delight, a balance of sweet and tart, tasted like ash. “Mm, this is good.” He nudged Pierre. “You should try it.”
Pierre stared at the pie as though Louis had served him up escargot. Give a werewolf bloody meat, brains or liver and he’ll salivate. Slugs, not so much.
Pierre shoved a bite of pie into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. Then another, his expression never changing. It was torture watching him.
That hint of a smile was back on Melinda’s lips. At Pierre’s expense. He supposed it was a little funny—Pierre forcing himself to eat something he detested.
Melinda dug her fork into the pie and cream and took a tentative taste. “It’s good.”
Nothing like food to bring people together. He ate another forkful, then set his plate down. “Now, before we answer your question, Melinda, first there are a few things you should know about the Langeais wolves.”
Melinda plonked her plate down and grabbed her tea like it was a lifeline. Oui. Maybe she was going to need it.
Pierre abandoned the plate of sweet pie and picked up his tea, too.
Anything to wash away the combination of lime, cream and pastry.
He didn’t have the love of sweet things Louis did, but he had to give it to his twin.
Melinda was not as close as he would’ve liked, but she was still here. In the penthouse. With them.
Louis jerked his head in Melinda’s direction. “Tell her all about us, Pierre.”
He shot his brother a filthy look. Typical. Louis was the lover, the charmer. He wouldn’t back down from a fight, but he never liked to be the one to deliver unpleasant news or make a difficult decision. That he preferred to leave to Pierre.
He set his cup on the table, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together save he reach for her. “The Langeais wolves are an ancient pack, and we have a few key differences to other shifter clans.”
He paused. Melinda’s white-knuckled grip on her cup made his chest tight and his wolf whine in his mind. Putain. He’d imagined having this conversation with her. In the afterglow of their lovemaking, Melinda cradled between them, all languid, soft and flushed. Not like this.
“As Annabelle and Stef would have told you, we’re longer lived, impervious to disease and hard to kill.”
Her gaze flicked from his thigh to Louis’ shoulder. She’d witnessed how fast they healed.
“And now you know we can turn humans into werewolves.”
She sipped her tea, trying to cover the little hitch in her breath. Nothing escaped them. She’d have to know that, too. If not from Annabelle and Stef, then from the four days they’d spent together.
“There’s a reason for that.” There was no good way to say this. Best to follow Louis’ lead and dive right in. “Langeais wolves can’t procreate with humans, and sometimes our fated mates aren’t werewolves.”
“Fated mates?”
That was the part she’d focused on? Fated mates? He shared a look with Louis. Perhaps there was hope for them yet.
Fated mates? Melinda’s whole body lit up at the thought. Why do I like the sound of that so much? Then her brain kicked in and absorbed what Pierre had said. Langeais wolves can’t procreate with humans, and sometimes their fated mates aren’t werewolves. “Like Annabelle?”
“Exactly.” Louis grinned and slapped a hand on Pierre’s shoulder. “Our little cipher is smart.”
Our little cipher? The words had her mind tumbling over everything she’d learned, everything she’d seen.
The way Gabriel was with Annabelle. How he’d said Pierre and Louis would die for her.
How Annabelle had said Isobella would mate not one, but two Montagne ancestors.
Twins. Her mind raced to the pace of her furiously beating heart.
Could that mean…? Melinda wasn’t sure she was ready for the answer to that question.
“So, Isobella, when she mates your ancestors,” she asked instead, “they’ll turn her into a werewolf and that’ll cure her cancer?”
“Oui, it will,” affirmed Pierre.
“But she doesn’t know she’s going to mate a werewolf. Or two.”
“No, but”—Louis shrugged—“she’s probably figured out she’s going to get turned into one. All the same, we can’t tell her or we risk changing something.”
Melinda sipped her tea, letting it all sink in. Her mind circled back to her unspoken question. To what the implications were for her. Would they risk telling her all this, revealing their true nature if she wasn’t…? “Does it hurt?”
Louis dropped his head, and Pierre pushed himself back on the sofa, his expression shuttered. She focused on Pierre. If anyone was going to deliver the bad news, it would be him.
He cleared his throat. “The turning lasts for three days and is…” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Painful. But we have medication to temper the pain now. No one would suffer needlessly. We’d sedate them.”
Them. No one. Abstract terms. Not her. Not you. Was this his way of telling her she wasn’t their mate? She resisted the urge to rub at the burn in her chest. Did she want to be their mate? “And the bite?”
Louis raised his head and smirked. “We’re focused on other things when it happens.”
She gaped at them. “You do it when you’re having sex?”
“Oui,” said the twins in unison, Louis openly grinning, Pierre determined.
The trill of a phone interrupted them.
“Ignore it,” said Louis.
Pierre stared at his phone. “I can’t. It’s Maxime.”
Louis face palmed. “He has the worst timing.”
Pierre levered himself off the sofa. “It’s our alpha, Melinda. I have to take this.”
His phone to his ear, Pierre paced by the window, talking in low tones.
Louis focused on his key lime pie. He wouldn’t tell her anything more without Pierre.
Was there anything more to tell? They’d said she’d have all of them, they’d called her theirs, but that didn’t mean…
She’d known them all of…what…two weeks? It seemed like a lifetime ago she’d suspected them of stalking her, only to discover they were her new neighbors.
Two weeks wasn’t enough time to develop anything serious. Was it? But Gabriel had said…
Pierre ended his call. “We have a new lead. Regis Veilleux is the leader of the men with the fancy F tattoos on their necks. Five days ago, he flew into San Francisco.”
“Does Maxime have a photo?” asked Louis.
Pierre’s phone dinged. “He sent it through.”
Melinda set her tea down. “I guess we better get onto that, then. Find this man. Wherever he is, that’s where my client will be.”
Both Louis and Pierre looked pained.
Pierre pinned her with his gaze. “This conversation isn’t over, but—”
“—we’ll track down this Veilleux and find your client first,” finished Louis.
Melinda nodded. “Okay. Let’s get to work. I’ll just…” She pointed at the stairs. “Too many cups of tea.”
She dashed up the stairs, hyper-aware of twin gazes following her. Melinda had her own thoughts about finding her client, and perhaps this Veilleux guy.
The malware.
With everything that had happened in London—the break in, the assassin in her apartment, their desperate flight to San Francisco and the craziness that had happened since—she’d forgotten all about it. She’d once suspected Pierre and Louis were behind it.
After using the bathroom, she fished around for her purse and pulled out the USB drive.
On it, a nasty little virus. If she could trace the malware, she might be able to get a location.
Or at least a region. Then she’d let the virus do its work and shut down their tech. A little payback was in order.
The soft rumble of male voices filtered up the stairs. She popped the USB into her pocket and headed back down.
Pierre had set her key lime pie beside her laptop, and she ate a few more bites as she ran a thorough diagnostic check on her firewalls.
Then she amped up her security, before opening up the identity she’d created.
The one that had triggered the cyber-attack.
Using every skill she had, she teased apart the malware, looking for weakness, for hints of who might have created it.
It was an elegant piece of code. And she was going to use it against its owner.
It’d been used to track her. If she could reverse it, turn it on itself…
There. Yes!
With the twins absorbed in their work, tapping away at their keyboards, she worked the code.
“You’ve been quiet for a while, Melinda.” Louis set a fresh cup of tea in front of her.
“I’m working on something. I’m not sure if it’s going to work, but…we’ll see.”
Pierre glanced at her over his screen. “Need any help?”
“I think I’ve sorted it. But if it doesn’t work, I might take you up on that offer.”
Both Louis and Pierre were brilliant. Working with them on something like this would be…amazing. But they had their hands full chasing down this Veilluex guy.
Melinda plugged the USB into her laptop. Accessing the file she needed, she attached the virus to the altered malware code, weaving it through in much the same way the hacker had weaved the malware through her IDS alerts.
“I’ve got him,” said Louis, peering at his screen. “At the international terminal at San Francisco airport.”
Pierre leaned over for a closer look. “He’s not on any manifest. Must have used a fake passport.”
Louis smirked. “Doesn’t matter. Not when we have access to facial recognition tech.”
Melinda double checked her firewalls and gave her code a final look over. If this worked, in a matter of minutes, she might have the information they needed.
Melinda hit enter and sent it through cyberspace.