Requiem for the Dead (4 page)

It was protected and then some. It was the only reason I agreed to allow Aurora, Ava and Joseph to live there. They were the last of the Coni Clan of shape-shifting birds-of-prey—except for Phineas, who was off who knows where, doing hell knows what. He'd been gone for five weeks, and I missed him.

"Are you supposed to be wandering around with all this going on?" I asked before I could wonder if the question was rude or not.

Keenan's lips twitched. "Trust me, I am well protected."

"So we're at a standstill on this," Tybalt said. "Even if the Bengals challenged Marcellus now for Elder, Riley would fight in his place, and he stands a high chance of winning. There's no benefit to an early challenge."

"No, there's not." Marcus drummed his fingers against the tabletop, his irritation coming out in that short, jerky motion. "We have no way of knowing when the challenge will be issued."

No way of knowing when the last protection force for the city might suddenly find itself without half its members, leaving all humans vulnerable to attacks from goblins and half-Bloods.

"Is there a way to identify the potential challengers and, you know, encourage them to back off?" I asked.

"Everything we know so far is hearsay," Marcus said. "There's no proof, only rumors. And without proof of wrongdoing, the Assembly will punish any action taken, even as a pre-emptive measure."

"I wasn't talking about busting kneecaps or leaving horse's heads in their beds."

Marcus bristled (almost literally), and I realized he didn't understand the film reference. He probably thought I was making some tasteless joke about Jenner's death (which I wasn't). Shit.

"Evy means talking to them, not bullying them," Wyatt said, stepping in to save me before I crammed my foot any further down my own throat. "Informing them of the consequences of any actions taken against Riley."

"Threats will only strengthen their resolve," Marcus said. "It's not a good idea."

"So we do what?" Milo asked. "Sit and wait and hope they don't cheat when they send someone to fight Riley?"

"Yes."

"That plan sucks ass."

Marcus's mouth twitched. "Regardless, it's our only course of action right now. Our people don't need more inner turmoil, so we'll wait for the challenge."

Milo snapped the tab off the top of his soda can, then flipped it between his knuckles a few times. "I fucking hate waiting," he said.

We all hated waiting, but on this we had no choice.

#

Our table broke up a while later. Keenan whisked himself away to parts unknown, probably his aforementioned family home. Tybalt and Kyle headed off to their respective rooms; Wyatt wanted to stop by Operations and talk to Astrid and Baylor about everything going on; Marcus shuffled off somewhere with an intense look on his face. I was too keyed up to sleep, so I wandered toward the opposite end of the mall and the exercise and training rooms down the far leg of the U. It took a few seconds to realize Milo had fallen into step next to me.

"How's your head?" I asked.

"Nothing a few hours sleep won't cure."

"So why aren't you heading toward the bunks?"

"Too much energy to sleep."

I know the feeling.
"Spot you?"

"Sure."

The exercise area was two rooms. The first was full of weights and various stationary bikes and other machines. Almost anything you could want in a gym. The second room, at the rear of the first, had a dance barre on one wall for stretching and coordination techniques, and blue mats covered the floor. I'd spent almost a solid week in that room, mostly on my ass, while Phineas kicked it hard trying to get me back into fighting form after I'd been tortured for three weeks.

Ah, memories.

Two other people where there, riding the bikes, and I smiled through a strange sense of déjà vu. Shelby and Jackson had been working out in the gym the very first time Milo and I ever saw it, and there they were again. Shelby and Jackson were both Ursia (were-bears), and while I liked the latter a whole lot, the former still made my skin crawl sometimes. Like the polar bear in Shelby was always sizing me up as a meal.

We all exchanged friendly greetings. I'd worked with both Shelby and Jackson in the field, and they were among the dozen or so Therians working with us whom I mostly trusted. I don't give my trust easily. It has to be earned, and they were almost there. Shelby had a little more work to do than Jackson. Astrid, Marcus, and absentee-Phineas? Total trust. Everyone else was on a case-by-case. Most I trusted on a limited basis solely because Astrid vouched for them.

Milo and I used a freestanding folding screen as cover to change into sweats that always seemed to be on hand there. He adjusted the weights on one of the bars, settled himself on the bench, and I stood over him as he pressed himself into a sweat. We didn't talk, but I knew the look on his face.

He was angry about the Felia news, yes, but he was also punishing himself for earlier. For letting those Halfies get close enough to put that bruise on his forehead and mark on his neck.

When his face was red, sweat was trickling down his cheeks, and his reps had slowed too much for safety, I grabbed the bar and guided it back into the support. "Take a break, pal, before you hurt yourself."

He lay there a moment, arms dangling, staring up at the ceiling. I didn't bug him until he'd gotten his breathing back under control. I leaned down, dropping my voice until it was barely audible over the whirring noise of the bikes. "So you helped out the Felia Clan, huh?"

"Didn't know it at the time." Milo sat up and spun around on the bench to face me, hands on his knees. "It was actually the day before you were found at the train station, when Tybalt called and asked me to get some information for him. I didn't ask why, and he didn't tell me about it all until a few weeks ago when—" He stopped himself, then shrugged.

Now I was crazy curious. The train station referred to the place I was held captive and tortured by goblins, then left to die—my first death. That was months ago, though. Or technically, maybe a lifetime. "When what?" I asked.

He picked at a healing scab on his knee, courtesy of a hard tumble last week. "I asked him how he knew Marcus so well, and he finally told me the whole story."

It was a story I wouldn't mind having. I knew Tybalt had been raised by the Felia, and that he'd chosen his own name when he was eleven. I knew he'd been close with Marcus and Astrid before his banishment from the Pride, and that he hadn't had contact with them for six years prior to this spring. And rumor was he and Astrid once had a fling, back when they were both teenagers—which was a weird thought, given that Tybalt was going on twenty-three and Astrid looked like she was in her late thirties. But like the rest of us, Tybalt didn't like talking about himself.

Another little detail hadn't escaped my attention, and it created a funny little mix of hope and worry. "You were asking about Marcus?"

His eyes narrowed. "So?"

"Do you like him?"

"Sure, I do."

"I don't mean as a quad-mate, dumbass."

He stared at me with an expression I couldn't figure out, like he was thinking about denying it but was tired of not being honest. "I like him," he finally said in a tone that said the topic was over, so I let it go. But I couldn't help thinking back to earlier, when he said marriage and a litter of kittens wasn't what Marcus wanted.

I almost asked Milo about the specifics of this state of "like," considering how things had turned out with Felix. Or rather, hadn't turned out. Milo had allowed himself to fall in love with a man who couldn't love him back—not in the same, romantic way, at any rate. I didn't want Milo to fall into the same trap with Marcus. Therians lived incredibly short lives and procreation was expected of everyone in order to ensure the survival of the Clans; I'd never before heard of a gay Therian. Which really meant nothing, considering how little I collectively knew about Therians, anyway, and—

Speak of the devil.

Marcus rumbled into the gym like a thundercloud. He spotted us and seemed to relax just a little. I tilted my head. He came over, already dressed in sweats, his entire body coiled tight. "Couldn't sleep, either?" I said.

"No," Marcus replied. Milo twisted halfway around to see, and it was to Milo that Marcus added, "Astrid and I will be visiting Elder Dane in the morning to pay our respects, and to offer our support to Riley. How's your head?"

"Still attached," Milo replied.

Marcus quirked a slender eyebrow. "So I see. Pain?"

"Just one in my neck."
You
dangled at the end of the statement.

"I'm serious."

"Well, stop already. There's enough seriousness to go around. My head's fine, so stop worrying about it, for fuck's sake."

I stayed quiet, too amused by the friendly bickering to distract them. I also noted that both Jackson and Shelby had abandoned their bikes and were taking their time wiping down with towels. Probably listening. Damned Therian hearing. I caught Jackson's eye, gave him a glare, and he hustled Shelby out of the gym.

"Then how about a few rounds on the mats?" Marcus asked.

Marcus liked to wrestle. He was really fucking good at it, too, and he'd handed me my ass twice while I was still in post-torture training. Now I could hold my own, but I couldn't pin the bastard. Yet. One day I'd get the chance to win, but it wouldn't be today. Because he'd asked Milo.

"You sure you want to, old man?" Milo asked in a perfectly reasonable voice. "Don't think I'll take it easy on you because you got bad news."

"I know you won't take it easy on me. I think I need the challenge."

"It's your ass on the mat."

I couldn't see Milo's face as he got up and followed Marcus into the other room, but I heard the note of pleasure in his tone. And from the smile that kept quirking the corners of Marcus's mouth, he was looking forward to the battle, too. The first time the two ever sparred, Milo had hustled Marcus beautifully, luring the larger, more muscular were-cat into a sense of overconfidence just broad enough to trip and pin him in the third round. And it had been a beautiful pin.

Feeling a bit like an intruder this time and not entirely sure why, I left them to their wrestling.

12:30 pm

With Marcus and Astrid out of the Watchtower for a while, our quad was given a day off from official business. This meant Wyatt and I had a few hours to spend on the unofficial business of finding three teenage boys in a city of half a million people—three teens who just happened to shape-shift into werewolves, and whose bites were highly infectious (and deadly) to humans. Wyatt found that out the hard way five weeks ago when he was bitten.

After several hours in a painful fever, he woke up…different. With silver-rimmed eyes, enhanced senses, and the ability to affect a partial-shift that was probably the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. I've seen some scary shit, things that would give people nightmares, but nothing compared to seeing his handsome face at odd angles, chin and neck covered in black fur, upper and lower jaw extended and full of sharp, deadly teeth. His eyes had gone completely silver, with a tiny red pupil. His fingernails had turned black and hard, and he'd actually grown a few inches in height.

He tried to describe the shift experience once: "Imagine the worst Charlie horse ever, all over your body, until the shift completes. Then imagine pins and needles racing up and down your limbs until you let yourself go back to normal. Everything's louder, sharper, like someone's messing with the focus on your computer screen, but you can't get it back to normal. It's awful, but it's also…freeing."

I didn't understand the "freeing" part. I couldn't see what was freeing about having a monster prowling around in your subconscious, ready to fight and attack at a moment's notice. Always angry, always hungry, always aroused—the first two he was letting me help him with. It was the third that made me want to whack him in the head with a solid object on a very regular basis. Lupa were apparently very sexual creatures, and they also mated for life. For complex reasons, Wyatt had declared me his mate to the Assembly several months ago, around the same time that we finally had the best sex ever.

Long story short: he wanted me, I wanted him, but he was still worried about controlling himself. I've been abused by a lot of people in the last couple of months. I was raped by a goblin. My pinkie finger was chopped off in the name of science. I was strapped to a table and tortured for three weeks. And the very last thing he wanted to do, Wyatt said over and over again, was to be another person who hurt me. Which was why every time we seemed to inch past the kissing and light petting stage, he shut back down.

It was also why I had a plan for later today; it was about damned time he stopped being so careful and let me take some control of our relationship. Maybe the timing wasn't ideal, given everything we were currently dealing with, but our lives never slowed down. There was no such thing as the perfect moment. We didn't get breaks for romance. I had to make this happen.

But first, teenager hunting.

Not as easy as it might seem, since the only information we had to go on were general descriptions (appeared between fifteen and seventeen years old, red hair, pale skin, tall and lanky) and names: John, Mark and Peter. The good news was that in the last five weeks, there had been no reports of animal attacks linked back to the Lupa pups. The bad news was that we had no reports of animal attacks linked back to the Lupa pups—no reports meant no leads. Our usual informants had nothing for us. The pups simply have not been seen.

And the disappearing act made me nervous. The man who raised them was dead. Half of their brothers were dead. The fact that they were given to a human by the Fey suggested they'd gone back to the Fey (or were taken by the Fey), but we had no way to verify that. So we were stuck driving around Mercy's Lot and hoping Wyatt's mental werewolf detector went off—some sort of telepathic link that exists among the Lupa packs. So far, no dice.

I turned onto Cottage Place and slowed a bit as we passed the empty storefront that had once been Old World Teas. Last month we'd busted the mage who ran the shop and given him a non-choice about getting the hell out of town. Brutus was a freelance magic worker who did spells and enchanted crystals, and he'd taken work from Wyatt on occasion. He'd also taken work from Walter Thackery and the Fey, and we were sympathetic enough to his sense of capitalism and the need to make a living that we didn't kill him outright.