The Burning Claw: Book 10, The Grey Wolves Series (23 page)

“Alright, mom. I’ll take help when it’s offered.”

“Good.”

They hugged and said their goodbyes. Lilly opened the door to the suite just as Fane was reaching for the door on the other side and they nearly crashed into one another.

“Whoa, sorry about that Lilly,” he said, grabbing her shoulders and righting her before she fell over. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It’s fine, Fane. Your mind is on other things right now.” Lilly patted his cheek and blew Jacque one more kiss before disappearing through the door.

“Everything okay?” Jacque asked her mate as he shut the door behind him. He had a troubled look in his eyes as his brow furrowed and his mouth tightened.

“I called Costin while you were with your mom, just to see how he was. He didn’t answer, I’m afraid.”

Jacque was so glad to hear her mate say he wanted to check on Costin. Not too long ago, Fane wanted to kill Costin for something he never even did.

“Maybe he’s in the shower,” she suggested. “It’s still early enough.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Just try to call him back in a little while. Give him some time to get himself and Titus up and around,” Jacque told him.

“Alright,” Fane nodded. “I’ll call him later. If he doesn’t answer, I’m going to head over to the Serbian pack mansion and see for myself.”

“Or you could just call Decebel,” Jacque pointed out.

“I’d rather see for myself.”

“You don’t think he’s going to be able to fight it—the darkness—do you?” she asked.

Fane shrugged. “You’ve gone missing on me twice the only difference is that I knew where you were. I mean, I knew the circumstances. Sally is missing and Costin doesn’t even have the tiniest clue as to where she is or what’s happened.  If it was me in his shoes, I’d be losing my mind, darkness or not.”

P
eri watched the sleeping wolf, thinking of how much enjoyment she would receive if she clanged a cymbal right next to his ear.
Does that make me a bad person? Probably,
she thought. Then again, it’s not like the action would be a surprising move on her part. She did seem to have bitchy tendencies dancing around in her DNA. It was probably worse that she was just standing there staring at the Romania pack historian as he slept. Staring at a sleeping person who wasn’t your mate, or child, shot you straight up there to mayor of Creeperville.

She walked up toward the head of the bed and reached down, swiftly smacking the back of Wadim’s head. “Wake up, Historian. How can you be recording history if you’re lying in bed staring at the back of your eyelids?”

Wadim growled as he rubbed the back of his head. His glowing eyes met hers and held them for several seconds before he finally averted his gaze.

“Would it hurt you to knock?” he huffed out as he yawned and stretched before finally standing up.

“Depends on how hard I hit the door. I suppose if I knocked hard enough, then yes, it would hurt,” Peri deadpanned.

He glared at her. “I really don’t like you sometimes.”

She shrugged. “One day, you’ll love me and want to name your kids after me.”

He laughed. “You tend to be a bit delusional, but even for you, that’s a bit much.”

Peri sighed as though watching paint dry would be more interesting, which it might be depending on what Wadim had to tell her.

“I need to know what you know, wolf.” Her words were practically a growl. When he just stared at her, Peri rolled her eyes and added, “Please.”

“Amazing,” Wadim muttered as he headed toward the main room. “She was polite and somehow didn’t turn to stone.”

“I heard that,” she said as she followed him.

“Good.”

Once they were both positioned in front of Wadim’s many monitors— he sitting, she standing just behind his right shoulder— Wadim’s fingers began flying across his keyboard.

Peri listened to the clicking of the keys and wondered how anyone could spend their whole day click, click, clicking away on one of these things. The sound alone would drive her crazy. It was enough to make her want to cut off his fingers. But she refrained, seeing as how those fingers were the key to the hopefully valuable information he could give her. Granted, there were other fingers capable, but Wadim knew the system. He knew what to look for and where. Having to get a new historian because she got irritated and cut off the current historian’s fingers would be more trouble than it was worth.

“I found some interesting info,” he said as his typing finally came to a halt.

“Interesting how?” Peri purred.

Wadim gave his chair a nudge and it swiveled around to face her. “Read it and find out.” He motioned to the screen.

Peri’s eyes ran across the screen as she let the words absorb into her mind. Her chest grew tighter with every word, and, by the time she reached the final sentence, she was wound as tightly as a freshly strung bow. “Have what!” she yelled at the screen as if it would answer.

“That’s what I said,” Wadim huffed.

Peri began pacing, her mind reeling at the information she’d just read. There really were wolves in Oceanside, not that she’d doubted her pixie informant. But she hadn’t expected something akin to an established pack.

“I guess I’m going to be paying the Missouri Alpha a visit,” she said under her breath. She turned then to Wadim and held his gaze with her own hard stare. “Do not share this information with anyone. Not even Vasile—not yet.”

Wadim paled. “I can’t keep information from Vasile.”

“You can and you will. I will inform Vasile of what we know as soon as I’ve worked a few kinks out.”

“And what if he asks for a progress report? I can’t lie. He’ll know I’m lying. Believe it or not, Peri, I’ve grown quite attached to my hide. Lying to my Alpha is a good way to lose it.”

“Then I suggest you make yourself scarce for the day.” She smiled coolly at him. “Thank you for working so diligently on this, history boy. It is much appreciated.”

Just before she flashed from the room, Peri heard his gruff voice, “Well you are
not
welcome.”

She smiled. The history wolf was growing on her. Maybe a little like a fungus, but growing on her nonetheless.

Peri appeared at the doorstep of the Missouri pack mansion. She didn’t have to knock. The Alpha, Tyler Reed, was already aware of her arrival. The door opened and the tall Alpha looked down at her.

“Perizada.” He bowed his head slightly.

“Reed,” Peri returned, though she did not bow her head in return.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Oh can the crap, Alpha. Nobody every thinks it’s a pleasure when they see me on their doorstep.”

“Too true,” he chuckled. “Does that apply to your mate as well?”

Peri’s eyes flashed and her power flared around her. “Careful, wolf. I’ve killed for lesser insults.”

“Why are you here?” Tyler asked, obviously giving up the pretense of mister hospitality. Tyler was not a bad guy, but he
was
an Alpha. It was amazing how often that equated to also being a jackass. Vasile was an exception to the rule. Decebel, well, some days he was an exception. Other days he was quickly put in his place by his firecracker mate.

“I need to talk to you about Cross, Jericho, and two other female wolves.”

Tyler’s face darkened as the names left Peri’s lips. His eyes narrowed on her. “What about them?”

“Why did Jericho and Cross leave your pack?” she asked, holding his gaze and not backing down when his wolf attempted to win the dominance game.

“There were issues upon which we did not see eye to eye. I gave them a choice. They could see reason, or they could leave our pack. They decided to make a life elsewhere,” he answered, attempting at nonchalance.

“Didn’t see eye to eye?” she asked tilting her head slightly. “Would this not seeing eye to eye have anything to do with The Order of the Burning Claw?”

Reed’s eyes snapped up and began to glow as his wolf pushed for dominance. “Don’t speak those words here,” he growled.

Peri rolled her eyes. “Please tell me you aren’t pulling the whole
Harry Potter, He Who Must Not be Named
, crap.”

Tyler snapped at her. “You know better than anyone how powerful the spoken word is. Do not draw the attention of such evil into my territory.”

“I’m going to take that as an affirmative. The reason they left had to do with the Order.”

Tyler didn’t respond. He simply stared at her.

“Are they dangerous?” she asked.

“Anyone affiliated with the Claw is dangerous, you know that.”

“Bloody hell,” Peri muttered, then grinned because she’d used Jen’s favorite curse. “I thought the Order had died out.”

“What have they done?” Tyler asked, taking a step toward her.

Peri shook her head. “It’s better if you didn’t know.”

“That bad,” he murmured.

“Probably worse than what you’re imagining,” she admitted. “Can you give me any information on them?”

“I’ll do what I can to help, of course. But I’ve not had any contact with them in decades. I’ve made some attempts to reach out to them—to learn their fates—but I’ve never been able to discover anything. I confess that I didn’t devote my best efforts to the task. Even when they were under my power and protection, they weren’t the best pack mates. I can’t blame Jericho. Jericho’s true mate died a long time ago. You know what that can do to a wolf. To my knowledge, Cross has never met his. The cousins are crazy, seriously, crazy.”

“Great, just what I need, more crazy bitches in my life,” Peri muttered. “Thanks for your time, Tyler Reed. You were incredibly unhelpful, but that’s not your fault. You’re a dominant male and therefore mostly useless without your mate.” She gave him a bow that was not at all respectful and then flashed.

Peri appeared in the grove of her realm and saw that her mate was waiting for her. She immediately started pacing, not even glancing at Lucian.

“How did it go with the Missouri Alpha?” he asked her in that calm way of his.

She shot him a glare.

“That good?”

“What do you know about The Order of the Burning Claw?” she asked, not acknowledging his question.

A low, deadly growl rose up from his chest when he took a step toward her. “At one time they were radical, dangerous, supernaturals who loathed humans. I thought they had dissolved.”

“You and me both. Who was the leader of it?”

Lucian shook his head. “No one ever knew.”

“I’m really getting sick of evil pricks being able to stay under the radar. It’s beginning to really grate on my nerves.”

Peri filled him in on everything she’d learned from Wadim and Tyler.

“Why not tell Vasile?” Lucian asked her.

“I need to know what we are up against before I alert the pack. If I tell him, someone else will find out. I swear Jen has an army of little house mice that gather intel for her,” Peri grumbled. “Then these wolves will find out that we are on to them. We might not hear from them again until something bad happens. I want to know who is behind all this. I need to know if the Order really is still active. Or maybe it’s been revived after all these years and these wolves are responsible. Regardless, I have to know. You know how much I hate being treated like a mushroom.”

“Treated like a mushroom?” Lucian cocked his head at his mate.

“Kept in the dark and fed bullshit,” she barked.

Her mate just shook his head. “Where are you headed now?”

“I suppose it’s time to pay a visit to the wayward wolves of Oceanside.”

“You just said you didn’t want them to know that we are on to them,” said Lucian.

“Exactly. I don’t want them to know that other
wolves
are on to them. I don’t want Vasile and his pack to go charging in all growly, bitey like,” she responded. “If that happens, then the rogue pack probably all ends up dead and we learn nothing. But if I go, then they know something bigger is at work. Perhaps, they think the high fae are investigating them. Then they get desperate, maybe make a mistake. I have resources that Vasile doesn’t have, resources that could help me catch these rebel wolves when they do slip up.”