Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
The weekend flew by in a haze of dust, papercuts, and pleas to the gods for eye bleach.
Instead of the songs of the seventies on KLXX, Sunday’s soundtrack was the buzzing of the industrial shredder punctuated by intermittent moments of gut-gripping horror, Fennel’s subsequent comforting purring, and Cecil’s almost-nice chitter.
Ronan came home late Saturday night, and even later on Sunday. He’d slept in well past my wake-up time, and we hadn’t spoken much, even in bed.
By the time Monday arrived, I was dragging, physically and mentally. Only Fennel had accompanied me to Floyd’s bar tonight, and he was patrolling outside, watching the alley entrance. Mason had called earlier to let me know he had wolves keeping an eye on the place but wouldn’t be in himself.
I hoisted two bags of shredded files onto my shoulder. “Last batch tonight,” I announced to no one as I locked the office door.
“Quitting time already, Alpha Lennox?” a male voice said from the other end of the dark hallway.
I nearly leapt out of my skin. The trash bags hit the floor, and I let loose a string of curses. Several strings. Ten mooring lines off a naval ship of cuss words.
“Damn. You’re really good at that. If there was a cussing Olympics, you’d definitely win gold.”
Ironically, it was the nicest thing anyone in the pack had said to me since I took over. The second nicest thing had occurred a week ago, in Ronan’s pub. An elder female had stomped up to me, sniffed me from head-to-toe, and said, “I won’t kill you now, but I make no promises about the future.”
I got downright misty thinking about it.
“Who are you?” I asked.
The man stepped into the light at the end of the hall. He was in his mid-twenties, tall, tanned, blond. Built like a fitness model. Unreasonably handsome.
He held out both hands, palms up. “One of your loyal wolf shifters, Alpha. I mean no harm, I swear.”
“Great. Fabulous. I’m sure I can totally trust you. Did you see a black cat out there?” I asked, once my pulse was out of the stratosphere.
“You mean your familiar? Yeah. He’s keeping an eye on things in the alley.” He held up a key. “I came in through the front door.”
“Partner, not familiar.”
I’d stupidly told Fennel to watch the rear entrance since I hadn’t thought anyone would be bold enough to break in through the front. Even if they had, the sound would be loud enough to summon him. The door was padlocked and in plain view of the street.
I hadn’t accounted for someone breaking in with a key.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
“I don’t know who you are, but if you’re here to kill me, I suggest you think twice. I’m an earth witch who powers her magic with soil, but any sort of dust or dirt will do, and I’ve spent the last few days in an office that hasn’t been vacuumed since the Carter administration.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m bursting with power and my patience is razor thin. If I hit you with a stun spell, I might accidentally kill you.” My shoulders dropped. “I’m too tired to kill anyone tonight. I just want a shower and maybe a burrito.”
“No, what do you mean by ‘the Carter administration?’”
I gaped at him. “Are you serious? Jimmy Carter was the U.S. president at the end of the seventies. Probably the kindest one we’ve ever had.”
“Oh, right.” He nodded enthusiastically. “You’re talking about American history from back in the nineteen hundreds.”
I took that comment like a punch to the solar plexus. “I’m not going to strangle you for that, though I’m tempted.”
“Sorry, Alpha.” His tone toed the line between cute and obnoxious.
“Why the hell are you here?” I asked, my voice carrying a trace of the weariness I felt.
“Partly to thank you.”
“This feels like a trick. Is this an attack? Are you setting me up? Are there more wolves with you?” I went up on my toes to look over his shoulder. “Some sort of male model shifter cabal?”
There was no way that was possible. I might’ve missed one wolf who looked like him, but I damn sure wouldn’t have missed an organized group of them.
“It’s not a trick, and I don’t know what a cabal is, but I’m pretty sure I’m not in one. My name’s Dylan—Dylan Milano. Trey Jefferson was my friend.”
Trey.
The name went straight to my heart. Floyd and his bastard loyalists had murdered the young wolf by clawing him nearly to death then pouring copious amounts of silver into the wounds so he couldn’t heal.
Every time I thought about his abused body sprawled on Ida’s back porch, a flesh and blood example of the depths of Floyd’s cruelty, bile rose in the back of my throat and my demon side threatened to break free and rise to the surface.
Again.
“My deepest sympathies for your loss,” I said softly.
“Thanks. He was a good guy. A little naive, but the world hadn’t yet hurt him as badly as it’s hurt the rest of us—until it did.” He smiled, and there was so much pain in it. Too much for someone so young. “I appreciate what you did for him. For all of us.”
Oh, it was nothing. I simply allowed my vengeance to take over and handed my consciousness to my demon side, who suppressed my earth witch, which had the effect of nuking my entire garden room and nearly destroying my relationships with everyone I love. All in a day’s work.
“I liked Trey, too,” I said.
“Makes sense. He was easy to like.” Dylan’s gaze rested on an inoffensive spot near my collarbone. “Can I be honest with you?”
“Sure.” I inwardly groaned.
“I know you’re trying your best with the pack, but I’m not sure it’s enough.”
“There it is. There’s the insult. You started out so strong, too.” I unlocked the office door and gestured for him to come inside. “Come on. We can talk in here, if you don’t want to go ahead and fuck off right now.”
“Oh, yeah, okay.” He trailed me into the room. “I honestly didn’t intend to insult you.”
“You’re bad at not insulting people. Might want to work on that before you get rocked upside the cranium by an exhausted witch.” I leaned against one of the filing cabinets and crossed my arms over my chest. “Lay it on me, Dylan.”
For the first time since approaching me, he looked nervous.
“Hey, you’ve really changed the place. Especially this room.
” A muscle in his jaw twitched as his gaze swept across the line of filing cabinets.
His fists clenched, and there was a brilliant flash of gold in his eyes before he tamped down his reaction.
The man looked as if he’d love nothing more than to jerk open every drawer and dump lighter fluid and a lit match inside.
I started to speak but closed my mouth when he continued.
“The last time I was in this room was,” his voice broke, “before Trey was killed.” He cleared his throat and shook like a retriever shaking water off its fur. When he spoke again, his voice was steady. “Feels weird to be in here like this. Like I’m doing something forbidden.”
“Believe me,” I said, “I know.”
“So, did you like, Mary Poppins this place? Can witches do things like that? I don’t know much about magicals, to be honest.”
I started to take offense, but Dylan wasn’t being facetious; he seemed genuinely curious.
“No Mary Poppins-ing. Except for the carpet. This past Sunday morning one of my partners used a flameless fire spell to burn every last fiber to ashes—and then he burnt the ashes. There was no saving it. It was starting to grow moss.”
He laughed.
“Wish I was kidding,” I muttered.
“The desk is still here,” he said.
True, Floyd’s big ugly desk was still there, but instead of the two smelly chairs, I’d set up a couple of metal folding chairs I’d found in a closet.
The aforementioned carpet was gone, and I’d swept the concrete subfloor myself.
The walls still needed to be painted, but overall, it was an improvement.
“You mentioned you wanted to talk to me about not being enough for the pack?”
“That’s right.” He sniffed the air. “Vanilla?”
“Are you stalling, Dylan?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Working up my courage. Being in this room has me off balance.”
I liked his honesty. The office obviously made him uncomfortable. It made every decent person who walked into it want to stop, spin around, and walk the hell back out. If I’d been so inclined, I could’ve put it to use as a litmus test to identify the Floyd loyalist stragglers.
Walk into this room without cringing? Horrible person.
Instead of challenging Dylan to get to the point, I decided to give him a moment to work his way around to it.
“Vanilla lavender,” I said.
“Huh?” He jerked as if I’d stirred him from a daydream.
I pointed to a candle nestled under a small halogen lamp. “Picked it up at DiscMart yesterday. My mom had that candle warmer lamp thing packed in a closet—probably a gift or something. I brought it in here to fight the bad stink with pretty stink.”
He gave me a smile so bright I considered slipping on a pair of sunglasses. Straight and white and gleaming teeth. I was about to ask him which whitening strips he used when he spoke again.
“Alpha Lennox, respectfully, I came here today to ask if you’d consider reopening the bar.”
“Call me Betty,” I said. “Why are you asking this?”
“Pallás Place employed a lot of wolves, including me, who are now out of a job since the place was shut down three weeks ago.” Goddess, it had been three weeks.
Three weeks tomorrow. How time flies when you’re leading a wolf pack that hates you and being persecuted by a murderous, demon-hunting organization.
“I’m not asking only for our benefit, I swear. The bar actually brought in decent income for the, uh, previous Alpha.”
And now that Floyd was gone, some of that money might actually reach the people who needed it. Wasn’t the point of being Alpha to take care of the pack? This seemed like a good way to do that.
“Okay,” I said.
He’d moved closer to the candle and was examining the unlit wick. “Okay?”
“You’re right. We should reopen, only I have no idea how to do that. Who was the manager before the shutdown?”