20. Aleks
Aleks
The leader of the Boise coven, Ermengarde, was like a hole in the world.
Just being in a room with her made everything feel darker. Uglier. She was a beautiful woman, so it wasn’t some kind of childish “she’s unattractive so I don’t like hanging around her.”
No, it was that her very presence was dark. She made me feel cold and shivery, like when I was a child, worried about monsters hiding under my bed. Like maybe she’d been the monster under everyone’s bed all along.
She looked like the princess in that German fairy tale, with pale skin, hair as black as night, and lips as red as blood.
Sure, all of those things were likely makeup and hair dye, or maybe some kind of cosmetic magic, but instead of making me think “she’s beautiful,” every time I looked at her, the falseness of it was what struck me.
The young man at her side, who looked too alike to her for them to not be related, had similar features, but softer, less dramatic.
His hair was auburn, matching his eyebrows perfectly, unlike her own brows, which looked like they were some shade of brown, but penciled in with makeup.
His skin was light and unblemished, but there was a smattering of freckles across his nose that made him seem more real and less like an idealized painting.
She’d called him Daire, and the disdain in her voice when she’d said it had made me think the fairy tale princess had perhaps grown up to be just like her wicked stepmother.
“You’ll challenge them,” she told Grant, and I almost laughed, barely holding myself back in time.
Viktor was standing behind me, uninvited to the meeting, but having showed up nonetheless.
I suspected he wasn’t going to leave my side until things were entirely settled over Evie, one way or another.
The witch wanted him to challenge the huge, square-jawed wolf from the cover of the magazine? That man would tear Grant in half, easily.
Not that such an outcome would break my heart.
Grant, though, clearly agreed with me, because he pursed his lips and while deliberately not looking at any of us, said, “He destroyed my brother. He’s not exactly an easy target.”
Ermengarde seemed unimpressed, and huffed an impatient sigh, which sort of messed up her perfect, polished facade, but I wasn’t going to be the one to say something like that to a woman who looked like she enjoyed turning people into toads.
“Not the alpha,” she told him, her tone suggesting his intelligence was on par with the toads I’d been picturing.
“People are saying they’re an alpha pair.
It means the actual alpha has accepted the cute little boy as an equal. ”
My mind froze a moment on calling the younger Asian man a “cute little boy.” He looked about my age, so that was dismissive at best, but also . . .
“You called him witchwolf,” I pointed out. “He will use magic, set Grant on fire.”
For a moment, I treasured that image. Wished I hadn’t pointed it out, so maybe I would get the chance to see it in person.
Grant turned to glance up at me, looking a little green, then back at Ermengarde. “The boy’s right. I’ve got no defense against a witch.”
She sighed, long and put-upon, tapping her nails impatiently across the table. “Don’t you know anything about your own mutt laws? He can’t use magic in a duel.”
A growl started up in one of the goons when she referred to us as mutts, which Grant glared at him for. It was funny, because I thought it proved her point nicely. Why should she bother not to call us animals, if we acted like animals?
I wished Mama were there. She knew all of pack law, and would know if this woman was making things up in order to get Grant killed.
On the other hand, who cared if she was?
If this witchwolf used magic and killed Grant, all it meant to me was that one of my obstacles was gone.
No doubt one or more of his goons would think to kill me to usurp my potential alphahood, but losing them in a challenge could only benefit the pack.
Even if I didn’t live long enough to be alpha, getting rid of the jackasses who sat around and leeched off the pack while hurting its members could only do the people good.
By the time Ermengarde and her people left, it was decided.
Grant would take a dozen members of the pack—mostly his goons—go stay in Ermengarde’s house in San Francisco, and challenge the Crescent pack based on some old rule about reintegrating lost pack members when taking control after a bad alpha.
I thought it assumed a lot of things, and stretched a lot of rules to breaking point, but in this case, I didn’t care that much. At least in part because I didn’t think Grant had half a chance in hell of making it all work.
This Crescent pack wasn’t just going to let him prance in and take over. They were rich and had a strong alpha and a fucking witch in charge of them. I would never say it aloud, but they were currently our superiors in every way.
It wasn’t until the witches were leaving in their shiny SUVs that I realized Tommy had been missing for the whole meeting. I only realized it then because he arrived, looking like he was headed for his own execution.
It was like watching a train wreck. Inevitable, horrible, and with nothing at all you could do to stop it or really even help, till the damage was done.
Grant turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised and annoyance writ large on his face—he was always pissy after meeting with Ermengarde, because he didn’t like that he had to be respectful to anyone, so he always took it out on us afterward. Tommy, here, was giving him an excuse.
Even worse, he cleared his throat, then swallowed hard and said . . . “They’re gone.”
“We know,” Marcus answered, rolling his eyes and motioning to the departing cars.
But that wasn’t what Tommy meant, oh no.
This was somehow so much better and so much worse.
I knew, without him saying. I knew, because it was the only answer. How was it possible for a thing to be so good, and so right, and so utterly heartrending, at the same time?