Rivals and Retribution (16 page)

Something that distressed him more than a member of Marlaena’s pack standing in our kitchen, drinking our—

“
Coffee?
” Cat said, peering into Gareth’s cup a moment before she took it from him and dumped it summarily into the sink. She glared at me.

Gareth was stunned.

“I apologize for my brother’s lack of courtesy,” Cat said, her smile a touch too saccharine. “We are a somewhat less than proper household, that is true, but we do make it a point of brewing each of our guests a proper cup of tea.”

Amy stepped in. “I’ll put the kettle on,” she said to Cat as she stepped past her.

It was as if they’d rehearsed, as if I were watching some well-planned and well-executed ballet in our kitchen.

“I don’t—” Gareth began, warily eyeing the tin Cat opened.

“What?” she asked. “You don’t drink tea?” It was clear from her tone that refusal was not an option. Not in this particular Russian-American werewolf household.

Gareth smiled weakly. “I would’ve been content with coffee. I don’t want you put to any trouble.” His eyes found mine. “Not any trouble at all.”

“Then why have you found yourself on our doorstep this early on a very cold winter morning?” I asked, taking a sip from my own mug. “The coffee is”—I cast a glance toward the sink, then back to Gareth—“was exceptional this morning.”

He sighed. “May I sit?”

“
Da
. Yes, of course,” I said, pointing to a chair. “Please do tell us what a member of Marlaena’s pack is doing in the household of her rival’s boyfriend.”

Gareth sighed. “Throwing myself at your mercy. To ask for sanctuary.”

Jessie

Morning’s arrival was bittersweet. I certainly didn’t want to risk another dream of Derek’s far from savory past, but having had several already, I needed more sleep.

Desperately.

I stumbled into the kitchen bleary eyed and fumbled with the coffeepot.

Annabelle Lee stared at me a moment before putting down the book she’d been reading (my paranormal novel definitely forgotten) and grabbing everything I needed for a low-impact breakfast: bowl, spoon, milk, and cereal. She arranged it all on the table in front of me and pointed to the chair.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, flopping into the chair.

“Is it like running a marathon?” she asked. “You really only feel it after it’s over?”

I couldn’t help it. I smiled. “Comparing a marathon to a kidnapping.” I winked at her. “Oddly, yes.” I opened the cereal box and dumped some of it into the bowl, covering most of it with milk.

Anna watched me the whole time.

I ate my fill and shoved the bowl out of my way. I glanced at the cereal box, one word jumping out at me and making my eyes fly open in my race to the bathroom.

Vomiting up the cereal I’d barely managed to get down, the word danced in my head:
FEED.

I needed to talk to Alexi.

Alexi

I sat back in my chair, surprised for the second time that morning. True, the coffee was exceptional this morning, but not nearly strong enough if this was the turn the conversation was destined to take. I set down my mug.
“Sanctuary?”

“Yes,” he insisted, leaning forward. “We’ve been betrayed.”

“No honor in a den of thieves?” Pietr mused.

Cat and Amy just stood, gawking, by the stove as the kettle began to hiss.

“Dmitri and Gabriel have taken our money and two of our young pack members and disappeared. Our rent is due. Without money, there is no place for us to sleep and even if we had money—the motel is no longer safe.”

“So what do you expect us to do about it?” Max asked.

The teakettle whistled and everyone jumped.

“I do not expect you to do anything. But I hope you will exceed my expectations and help us. We need to find Noah and Terra. And we need a safe place to stay while we figure out how to do that.”

I shook my head. “You want to bring an entire pack—a pack that has willingly moved as our rivals and put our own family members at risk—into our home?”

Gareth pressed his lips together and waited.

“
Nye
—”

“Now, brother,” Cat cooed, sliding a fresh cup of tea in front of Gareth, “let us not be hasty with our decisions. Let us first offer some small bit of hospitality to our guest and hear him out.”

“I’ve said almost all there is to say,” Gareth whispered.

Cat’s words were sharp, “Then drink the tea, Gareth.”

He tapped the teacup’s handle with a tentative finger. “Is that like ‘drink the Kool-Aid’? Because I didn’t come here to die. I came hoping for a chance to keep living.”

“Drink the damned tea, Gareth,” Cat snarled, and we all drew back, eyes wide.

Cat did
not
curse.

Not often.

“I will have a cup of tea,” I volunteered in hopes of making him understand Cat’s tea was no threat. Not even her cooking was a threat anymore. Much had changed since our arrival in Junction.

But she glared at me and shook her head. “Did I offer to make you a cup of tea, Sasha?”

“You didn’t really
offer
to make
me
a cup…,” Gareth pointed out, but she shot him a look filled with such venom that he quickly followed his statement us with, “Drinking the tea … drinking the tea…” Raising the dainty cup to his mouth, he sipped and Cat sighed, stepping back to lean against the counter and smile.

The kitchen fell into complete silence except for the sound of Gareth sipping tea and Cat’s occasional encouragement of “That’s a good boy” and “Just a bit more” and finally, “Finish up.”

She retrieved the cup and said over her shoulder, “Please restate the reason you want your pack to come stay with us, Gareth.”

“Because they are my family, and although they’ve made mistakes—big mistakes—they can be redeemed. But if we are kicked out on the street and forced to live on the run, in winter…”

Behind Gareth’s back Cat showed the cup to Amy, who shrugged at what she saw in its bottom. Cat’s smile only grew before she rinsed the leaves into the sink.

“You need not worry, Gareth,” she assured, resting a hand on his shoulder and fixing me with a stern look. “Your pack will have a place here with us at least until you’ve gotten Noah and Terra back.”

Gareth rested his head on the table, and I stared at Cat, my jaw hanging open.

Marlaena

He found me in the motel’s lobby, sucking icing off an inside-out plastic bag that five minutes earlier had held a cheese-filled Danish. I raised an eyebrow at him and then turned back to the plastic bag, ignoring the simple humans finishing up their breakfasts.

Except for the one female who kept staring at me. I made a face at her, and she busied herself arranging her napkin on her lap.

“We’ll be okay,” he said, moving past me to get an orange. He peeled it with deft fingers, leaning against the counter beside me and watching me as I crumbled up the Baggie.

“We’re always okay,” I said, keeping my voice low and looking pointedly at the pups who wandered around the space, chatting, eating, and playing.

He nodded. “Outside?”

I shrugged. “Fine.” I snatched a bagel off the counter and tucked an apple into my jacket pocket for later. With the wolf’s metabolism burning through me,
later
would be in half an hour.

We stopped just under the edge of the motel’s roof, looking for all the world like we were propping up one of its columns with our backs.

“Where’d you go?” I asked in my best
I really don’t care, but it’s only polite to ask
tone of voice.

“To make a deal. Find us some help.”

My stomach churned. “Gabe did the same thing not so long ago, you know? And look where that landed all of us.”

“The quality of help I went in search of is much better. And the results—much better.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and peered out at him from beneath my eyelashes. “Oh, really? And just who did you broker your deal with, Gareth Wycliff Samuelson?”

He winced at the mention of his middle name.

He didn’t know mine, but I’d made it a point to learn the middle names of all my pack members. There was something primitively powerful about invoking someone’s full and complete name like their mother might do during a scolding.

“The Rusakovas.”

The brief flood of power I’d felt fell away. “No.”

“Yes,” he assured me. “They were quite reasonable.”

“It’s impossible.” I stepped away from him, shaking my head the whole time, my bangs falling into my eyes. “After what we did to them…”

“People can forgive other people,” he said, stepping forward to put his hands on my upper arms.

“Not this fast,” I whispered, trying to squelch the fear rising in my voice. “What if it’s—”

“Stop. Stop it. It’s not a trap. And I haven’t bargained away anything. They’re giving us this as an opportunity. To help the pups.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Try. Pack the pups and let’s get ready to go. We’ll stay with them and get Noah and Terra back.”

“What did you manage to say to help convince them?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think it was really me at all. I think it was Cat.”

Alexi

I could not believe Cat. I waited five very respectful minutes after Gareth had left our house before I spoke my mind. “What the hell was that about? Telling him their pack could stay here? With us?”

Cat shrugged and smiled sweetly at me. “I am doing as Fate proscribes.”

“Fate?” I smacked my hand on the table. “You are determining our future based on a few tea leaves scattered around the bottom of someone’s cup?”

“The tea leaves never lie.” She shrugged again, motioned to Amy, and started from the room.

Amy shrugged and turned to follow, but Cat looked over her shoulder at me, adding, “The tea leaves told us about Jessie.”

“Ah, yes. Jessie. What do you suppose
she’ll
think of housing the girl who may have tried to kill her?”

Cat froze an instant, Amy nearly bumping into her back. “She will realize what you have so often told us—
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
.”

Jessie

“I think I should be there for this,” I said into my cell phone. I had gotten past the
She did what?
and
He agreed to that?
stage of the conversation pretty quickly. Mentally I lingered on the
You let them do this because…?
But I didn’t give it the voice it probably deserved.

Pietr’s voice was grim. “
Da,
you should be here. It will help make sure she sees that you are firmly a part of the family.”

I glanced out the window. Dad was already gone to work. “Can Max—”

“Give you a ride?
Da
. I’ll send him. Max—”

“I need to get my license,” I complained.

“What good would it do you with having only one vehicle in your family?”

“Good point. But I don’t know … Don’t you think at our age we should have our licenses? I mean, I don’t want to be nineteen and just getting my license then. That screams slacker to me.”

“Max is on his way.”

“With Amy?”

“Of course with Amy.”

“I guess that’s the only way those two travel.”

“They’re good for each other.” He was quiet a moment, and I wondered if I needed to come up with something to say. He cleared his throat, though, saying, “Do you think I am good for you?”

“
Good
for me?”

“You’ve been in danger often since knowing me,” he pointed out.

“I would have been in even more danger if Derek had gotten control of me,” I said.

He was quiet again. “About that … Alexi…”

“What has Alexi said?” I asked, my throat tightening. I hadn’t given Alexi permission to tell Pietr anything regarding what Derek had possibly shoved into my mind during his violent death. Or what seemed to be seeping into my consciousness from the residue Derek had implanted there.…

“He is worried about you.”

“Is that all he said?”

“
Da
. That is all he said.” A long pause followed. “Should
I
be worried about you?”

“No,” I whispered. “You saved me, remember? There’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine. Great.”

“Which is it? Fine or great?”

“Both. I’m so good, it’s both. Look, I need to grab my stuff before Max gets here. And tell Annabelle Lee where I’m going. And for how long…”

“
Da
. Good idea.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Pietr,” I repeated, noting the way his tone had changed.

“Fine. I will not worry.”

“Great. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I hung up and grabbed my coat, gloves, and scarf and shoved my feet into my boots. I needed to be prepared. What did you say when your enemy—your all-but-mortal enemy—was moving in with your boyfriend and his family? What did you do when someone was quite obviously moving in on your turf? I paused, realizing how possessive I sounded. It wasn’t like Pietr was my property. Pietr was …

… my
everything
. He was who I was willing to lie for, kill and die for. I was terrified of losing that connection.

Lost in my thoughts, I only jumped back into action when I noticed Max starting cautiously up the long driveway. “Anna!” I shouted.

She grunted back, surely reading.

“Going with Max and Amy to Pietr’s. Be back for dinner. I think,” I added. I pushed through the door and heard it click shut behind me as I bounded off the porch and down the stairs, making a beeline for the car, my thoughts still on the potential battle ahead.

I needed to make sure the Marlaena situation was under control, figure out what power I could wield in this messy situation.…

My knees gave way beneath me, my legs failing, and I fell face-first into the snow.

Mommy’s voice reached out to me from across the cold and the emptiness, tossing us into familiar territory once again.

I steadied myself in Derek’s nonexistent form, glancing down at our shared body. We were older still—fifteen? Sixteen? I couldn’t be certain. But from the way we strutted down the hallway of Wanda’s mind, I knew we had developed our skills.