Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
NELL
The guest room at Blackwood Manor was an indictment of every cramped, one-bedroom apartment I’d ever worked my way through.
Mei Ling led me into a space that smelled of expensive linen and fresh-cut lilies.
The walls were a soft, muted cream, accented by heavy silk drapes that looked thick enough to stop a bullet.
Or at least keep out the prying eyes of the golden-eyed sentinels in the woods.
Every piece of furniture was a masterpiece of joinery and polish, looking more like a high-end boutique hotel room than a spare space in a family home.
“Sit,” Mei Ling commanded in that soft voice that was full of authority.
Her tone reminded me of my grandmother's.
She set a silver tea service on a low table.
The porcelain clinked with a delicate chime.
There were small cakes, too, and savory snacks that smelled of sesame and salt.
“You have had a long day, Ms. Odhiambo. You are the center of a very loud storm.”
I sat, but I didn't relax. I watched the way Mei Ling moved.
She was graceful, efficient, and entirely unreadable.
She stopped in the doorway, her frame small against the massive mahogany frame.
Once again, those dark jeweler's eyes appraised me.
Her voice reminded me of my grandmother dusting me off after a fall and sending me back out to the playground.
Her scrutiny reminded me of my mother blinking a few times when she remembered I was still in the room with her.
“Will your parents be missing you? Magnus has a habit of forgetting that people have lives outside of his requirements.”
“I don't have anyone.”
Mei Ling’s dark eyes sharpened. “No one?”
"Not anymore."
She gave me the look of an adult waiting for a child to explain more. And then she waited. For me to explain more.
I usually won the staring game, but something about this petite woman showed that I wasn't the HBIC. Clearly, she was in charge. Given that there was a wolf living inside her, I was the one who was more likely to be her bitch.
“My mother and my grandmother came to the U.S. when I was very small. They were escaping persecution.” I kept my voice flat.
Head bitch though she might be, I didn't explain the persecution to Mei Ling. Though I figured accusations of witchcraft and demon possession might not seem far-fetched to a werewolf. “They both passed away years ago. I’ve been on my own since I was seventeen.”
“And your father?”
I felt a ghost of a chill. “I never knew him. My mother didn't talk about him much, other than to say he died trying to help her escape.”
Mei Ling tilted her head, her gaze boring into me. “Escape what, exactly?”
Whoops. It was likely her grandmotherly tone that had made me forget myself. My mother had been little more than a ghost all my life, but my grandmother had been present. For the few precious years I got with her, that's where I'd learned to be strong and fierce.
I opened my mouth to spin a half-truth. At the same time, my hand moved to my neck. My fingers closed around the claw at my throat, the way they always did when I needed something solid to hold onto.
Mei Ling's eyes dropped to my hand. Then, to the necklace. "That's a beautiful piece. May I?"
I hesitated, then leaned forward. She reached out and lifted the claw from my sternum with two careful fingers, turning it in the lamplight. It was dark brown at the base, fading to a pale, translucent ivory at the tip. Old. Smooth from decades of being handled. My mother's hands first, then mine.
"My mother left it to me. She said it was my father's. His people believed panther claws meant protection. When I was little, I asked her if he killed the panther to get it."
Mei Ling's eyes flashed. A wolf looked back at me. "Your father killed a panther?"
"No, ma'am." It was the same response I would've given my grandmother if she accused me of sassing her. " My mother said the panther shed it. My father collected it, and he gave it to her."
Mei Ling set the claw back against my chest. She didn't let go immediately.
"You don't think there are panther shifters," I said. It came out as a statement rather than a question, with a small laugh underneath it. The kind of laugh you used to give someone an exit because the route the GPS suggested had a closed-off road.
Mei Ling didn't take the exit. "Wolves aren't the only animals that have learned to shift their shapes."
I stopped laughing.
The room felt different suddenly. The lamplight was the same.
The tea was warm in my cup, but something had shifted in the air between us.
I thought about my grandmother's hands sorting herbs in the kitchen.
I thought about my mother standing at the window on nights when she couldn't sleep, holding this exact claw in her palm, her lips moving in something that wasn't quite prayer.
I thought about the dream in the cabin. The amber eyes. The tongue on my cheek.
"I've never turned into an animal," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Although I do rock leopard print."
Mei Ling's smile deepened. She reached out and patted my hand once. "I like you, Nell."
"Thank you, Mrs. Blackwood."
"Don't get too attached to my son." Her smile held, but her eyes flashed again in warning.
I should've cowered. There was a wolf glaring at me, manicured claws just inches away from my throat. But I held her gaze. Something told me that if I backed down, I would be in far more danger.
“Oh, thank God,” Addie burst through the door, flopping onto the edge of the velvet-tufted bed. “I thought Vidar was going to keep me locked in the nursery all night.”
Mei Ling blinked, leashing her wolf and extinguishing the golden light in her eyes. Her smile was matronly again; all kind hostess. "I'll let you girls catch up. Don't spill any crumbs in the bed."
"Yes, ma'am." Addie and I said in unison.
Once the door closed behind her, I turned to my best friend, whom I'd known for almost a decade. “So. You’re a wolf."
Addie nodded.
"And married to one."
"Honestly, Nell, I'm surprised you’re taking the whole shifter thing so well.”
"Oh, I have my breakdown scheduled for this weekend along with a spa date."
"That sounds nice."
"Will Mr. Wolfy let you off the leash to come get a salt scrub with me?"
Addie shrugged. She looked tired. Underneath that, she also looked happier than I'd ever seen her.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey," she mimicked.
I sighed and flopped back onto the bed. "At least I got a whole company out of it."
"Yeah, you did. Nice one, boss."
“And now we’re in crime. Actual, high-stakes, international pack-war crime."
"Which is why I was trying to leave you out of this the day I left Sterling."
“Odhiambo, Blackwood the gold in his eyes, the proprietary way he stood between me. I thought about the way he’d stared at my mouth when he conceded the company name.
"Addie?"
"Yeah, babe?"
“Would you mind if I fucked your brother-in-law?”
Addie blinked. Then she laughed. Then she snorted.
When I didn't laugh along with her, she cocked her head, looking at me with concern.
"Magnus isn't —" she started, then stopped. "He's the Alpha Heir. He can't mate with a human."
"Mate? Does that mean fuck?"
"No, it means marry."
"Ew. You know that's not my kink."
She snorted and gave me a playful shove. "I'm being serious."
"So am I. I just need one night. To get him out of my system. Fuck the rest of the shock out of me. And then I'll be good."
Addie wrinkled her nose, like she was still unconvinced. I mean, he was her brother-in-law.
"For stress relief. Purely transactional. You know I don't do the other thing. Feelings. Relationships." I shimmied my shoulders in a shudder.
"One night," she repeated, not quite a question.
"One night," I confirmed.