Gray Bishop (4 page)

Next to him, Jillian made a soft noise like she’d been struck by a stray thought.

“What is it?” Father asked.

She looked at him, her face uncertain. “If we believe the triplets are extremely impulsive and lacking in planning, we could potentially ambush them.”

“Go on.”

“If they saw a legitimate opportunity to abduct Knight again, they would likely jump on it.”

Father’s face hardened. “No. We are not at a point where I will consider using my son as bait. We still have other options.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bishop glared at her, pissed that she’d gone with that particular line of thought. They were doing everything possible to protect Knight from the triplets and their desire to breed with him. He would not go along with any plan that dangled Knight in front of them like the proverbial carrot.

For her own part, Jillian looked slightly relieved, and that thawed some of his initial anger. She’d been asked to share her thoughts, but it didn’t seem as though she liked the plan to begin with. Father was right. They weren’t that desperate.

“Is there anything else?” Father asked.

Rook glanced his way, but Bishop ignored him. The chess piece was still in the car. “What should we say about what we found, if asked?” Bishop asked.

“For now only the enforcers know there was an issue today,” Father said. “I don’t want it spread all over town and panicking anyone, but no one has to lie.”

Good. That would make talking to Knight a fraction easier now that he had permission to mention where he’d been.

“Dismissed, then. I have phone calls to make.”

Calls to the other run Alphas, no doubt. They needed to know about this.

Bishop retrieved the chess piece from his car before heading back home. He wanted to shower before he did anything else today.

***

For someone who was supposed to be with another person at all times, Knight had become very difficult to locate over the last few days. If he wasn’t tending to Shay, or to the needs of other loup around town, he was simply . . . gone. Bishop had half a mind to inject him with one of those veterinarian tracking chips they gave dogs, simply so he could always know where his brother was.

After searching the house and coming up empty, Bishop gave up and called him. The line almost went to voice mail before Knight picked up with a terse, “What?”

“Where are you?”

“Doing my damned job, Bishop. Michelle Barnes was in false labor earlier today, probably from stress, so I’m over here keeping her calm. Anything else?”

Bishop pinched the bridge of his nose, telling himself to not snap back. “No, I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“I gotta go.”

“Hold on a minute. I want to talk to you when you’re done. It’s about what we found in the woods today.”

Silence. “The triplets?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be maybe another hour or so.”

“Okay.”

He hung up, a little sorry for interrupting Knight when he was doing his duty as their White Wolf. Michelle Barnes was still a month away from giving birth to her second child, and he couldn’t imagine the stress of a false labor. No matter what else was going on around him, Knight’s duty was to the run.

Bishop wandered into the conservatory at the back of the house and gazed at his array of plants and flowers. Botany was a sort-of hobby he’d dabbled with for years. Plants relaxed him. They didn’t attack or bite. They simply existed, and so many of them were beautiful, flowering or not. He checked his bonsai tree, then his kaleidoscope orchid. He also had a bromeliad, a Medusa ornamental pepper, a money tree, a crab cactus, and more than a dozen varieties of potted rose plants. He loved roses. They had been their mother’s favorites.

He maintained a collection of plants and flowers outside as well, but he liked being able to see them all year long. To know that roses were always blooming in their house, in Mother’s honor.

In the corner of the room opposite all of the plants, Bishop had two upholstered chairs and a small side table. Sometimes he came in here to sit and collect his thoughts among the roses. Sometimes he went over auction business. Once in a while, like tonight, he chose this place for a serious conversation.

Knight shuffled inside a while later, dark smudges beneath his eyes that Bishop hadn’t been able to see earlier because of the sunglasses. He was pale and exhausted, and he slumped into the other chair. “So what did they do?”

Bishop shut the conservatory door, which made Knight sit up a little straighter. He sat back down and angled to face his brother. “They ripped five half-breeds apart and left the pieces for us to find.”

“Fuck.” Knight swallowed hard, anger and grief washing over Bishop as Knight’s emotions got away from him. Most of the time, Knight drew out and balanced the emotional state of others and kept a tight line on his own emotions. When he was stressed out or overtired, those emotions could bounce back on the people around him—if Knight was upset, the rest of the run was in danger of being upset. And Knight had lived in a state of constant agitation ever since he and Rook were held by Fiona.

“We weren’t able to track the triplets, but it was clearly a message reminding us that they’re out there.”

“Like we’d forget.”

“They also left something behind.”

Knight’s leg jumped. “What?”

Bishop removed the chess piece from his pocket and placed it on the table between them, his gaze steady on Knight. His brother stopped breathing, his face going gray. He stayed that way, perfectly still, for so long Bishop almost reached out to shake him. Then Knight sucked in a ragged breath.

“I haven’t shown this to our father yet,” Bishop said.

Knight’s wide eyes flickered to him. “Why?”

“I wanted to talk to you first.”

“About?”

“The blue ribbon.”

Knight grimaced. “What’s to talk about? The triplets want to make babies with me. Maybe they’re hoping the first one’s a boy.”

Bishop picked through Knight’s words in his head, unable to find fault with them. He did hear a slight subterfuge. “Do they have reason to hope for that? That it’s a boy?”

“Hope is hope, Bishop. They live in their own fantasy world where they’ll have a passel of baby half-breed horrors to terrorize us with, all courtesy of my sperm. Everything about this is hypothetical.”

“Is it?”

Knight’s eyes narrowed at the challenge. “I told Father what happened.”

“Tell me.”

“You aren’t my Alpha.” He stood up, his anger etched into his face. “You can’t order me to do anything.”

Bishop stood as well, concern overwhelming his irritation at Knight’s rudeness. “I’m asking as your brother, Knight.”

“Fine. I was tricked by Fiona. I was attacked, fed from, tied up, stripped down, and then felt up by a pair of insane females. Rook nearly died of silver poisoning because of me, and I am sick when I think of what could have happened if Brynn and O’Bannen hadn’t found us when they did. Happy that you know all that now?” Knight hadn’t raised his voice, but each word was coated with ice. “Good, so fuck off.”

Bishop didn’t stop Knight from storming out.

Stripped down. Felt up.
The words tumbled around in his mind, stoking his hatred for the women who’d assaulted his brother, sick at hearing the specifics for the first time. Ashamed of himself for not asking sooner. His gut was screaming at him that Knight had censored himself somehow. He’d felt the same way when Rook and Knight first described their ordeal over the phone post-rescue, but he’d pushed it aside in favor of believing their story.

He glared at the chess piece, hating that it existed at all.

Footsteps shuffled into the conservatory. “I take it that didn’t go well?” Rook asked. Jillian stood just behind him in the open doorway, her expression deceptively blank.

“I should have let you approach him with it,” Bishop said wearily. “You two have always been a lot closer, ever since we were kids. I was arrogant to think he’d talk to me.”

Rook frowned. “You’re still his brother.”

Bishop snatched the offensive chess piece off the table and held it out to Rook. “Try. Please.”

“Okay.” Rook pocketed the piece. “He didn’t say anything?”

“Nothing you and Father didn’t already know, I expect. A few details I didn’t.”

“Do you believe him?”

Bishop’s instincts were rarely wrong. “I think he believes what he’s saying, and that worries me even more than what he might not be saying.”

Rook nodded. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Right.”

He left, and Bishop was alone with Jillian. She watched him steadily, not speaking, until the stare became too much for him. “Say it.”

“Say what exactly?” Jillian asked.

“Whatever the hell it is you’re thinking at me so hard.”

“Fine. Right now you’re thinking like a frightened sibling and not like an Alpha. That piece should have gone straight to your father for him to handle. He’s Knight’s Alpha, and he’s also his father. It’s not your job to protect Knight from this. It is your job to collect answers and protect this town.”

She was absolutely correct in everything she’d said, but that didn’t stop the words from stoking his temper. Or her proximity from stirring his beast. “I can manage all three. I’ve been doing it his whole life.”

“Maybe that’s the problem.”

He snarled. “Explain that.” Was she trying to insinuate that his attempts to protect his brother were what got him hurt in the first place?

“You aren’t his parent, Bishop. His or Rook’s. I know you feel responsible for them—”

“I am responsible for them.”

“They have a father.”

“But not a mother, not their whole lives, and that’s on me.”

Jillian blinked hard. “How is that on you? You were all children when she was killed.”

“I should have done more to stop those loup from taking Knight. If I had fought harder or raised the alarm sooner, things would have ended differently.”

“That’s true.” Before he could growl at her, she continued, “You could have been killed, too. Or Mrs. Troost, or your father, or anyone else who fought to get Knight back. You don’t know that things could have turned out any better than they did.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? We’ll never know.”

“Your mother died that night, and that’s a horrible thing for any child to endure, but look at it from another perspective. If she had survived, you would have lost Knight anyway. Your mother and Knight were both White Wolves. Once he was old enough, he could have been sent to a run that needed a White. You’d have eventually lost one of them no matter what.”

Bishop sat down heavily in a chair, knowing she was right and hating it. Hating that with her death, their mother had ensured Knight would never be separated from his brothers by the will of the other Alphas. The only people trying to take him away now were the triplets.

Jillian knelt in front of him, her palms pressing over his knees. Warmth that spoke to his beast, and he quelled the urge to haul her against him. To kiss her again, as he’d done that night in the backyard.

“You’re a good man, Bishop, and I know you love your family. But I think you’re wrong to keep this from your father.”

“Noted.”

“And you have forty-eight hours to tell him before I do.”

She stood and strode out of the room on a waft of apple-blossom-scented air. He gazed across the room at the array of potted rose bushes, her words turning over in his mind. If Rook didn’t have any luck getting Knight to talk about the discovery of the chess piece, then Bishop would have no choice but to tell their father. He wouldn’t wait the full forty-eight hours, either. His family needed the whole truth so they could better plan how to face what might come next.

Bishop left the conservatory and shut the door for the night, exhausted from the day and more certain than ever that the ribbon meant something irreversible had happened to his brother.

Knight stalked the uncompromising length of his bedroom, desperate for more space in which to exhaust his anxiety and bleed out some of his anger. He couldn’t wander around outside after dark, because it was when the triplets were most likely to attack, and even he wasn’t stupid or upset enough to tempt fate that way. He didn’t want to pace the backyard, because anyone in the household could find him and try to make him talk, like they’d been trying to for weeks.

So he stalked across the wooden floor. Ten strides one way, turn, ten strides back. It wasn’t enough.

He was absolutely sick. Sick of the looks. Sick of the questions. Sick of trying to convince his family that he was fine, when he was slowly but surely fracturing down the center. The run was under siege by a fierce, deadly enemy, and the fear and worry from more than seven hundred loup was striking at him from all sides. He didn’t have the control to keep his empathy shields up at all times, which filled his attempts to sleep with nightmares of slaughter and mayhem. And he couldn’t block the emotions of the other loup completely. If he didn’t take the edge off, at least to a small degree, tempers would explode all over town.

He would not allow that to happen. He would not fail his people.

The only time of day he felt any peace at all was when Shay was nearby. She calmed him in a way he didn’t understand and refused to question. He needed the relief so badly that he found himself spending hours a day by her side, reading books aloud, or simply watching television. They didn’t talk about the massacre of her town, and they didn’t talk about him. They existed in a bubble that was broken far too often by the demands of his role as a White Wolf and son of the Alpha.

He’d been tempted to knock on her bedroom door, but propriety kept him away. She was an unmarried Black Wolf and an Alpha’s daughter. Being in her bedroom, however innocent, was inappropriate and he knew better. He longed for the peace she gifted him with, though. The memory of that ribbon-tied chess piece haunted him, lingering in his chest and throat like the first heave before vomiting. He couldn’t get a breath, but he couldn’t sit still, he was so sick with fear and hate.

Daddy.

Fiona had said that more than once. He was past thinking she was speaking in hypothetical terms.

And Bishop tonight . . . God, Knight could not remember the last time Bishop had called and asked to speak with him. Bishop’s anxiety had been through the roof when he walked into the conservatory and saw his brother sitting there. Bishop hid his emotions well, almost better than Father, but he hadn’t been able to hide his concern. Not over this.

Knight hadn’t wanted to aggravate that concern so he’d stuck to his canned responses about those hours he’d been locked in a bedroom with Fiona and Victoria. He even took a layer of worry away from Bishop. His brother needed to be calm and collected, to help their father get the town through this siege. Bishop could not be consumed with Knight’s well-being right now.

His phone chimed, and he checked the display. Devlin. One of the only people in his life who treated him like everything was normal. “Hey, Dev.”

“You busy right now?”

“No.” Not busy and very much in need of a distraction.

“Good, I’m off patrol and was going down to Belle’s for a burger, maybe shoot some pool. You in?”

Simplicity at its finest. Belle’s was the seedy town bar to Smythe’s nicer restaurant, even though the place didn’t sell alcohol. Cornerstone was a dry town for the simple fact that loup garou physiology made it nearly impossible to get drunk. The amount of liquor required would cause alcohol poisoning before they got a buzz, so there was no point. Belle’s served diner food, was open twenty-four hours a day, and boasted every known soft drink available the same way a bar would advertise their beer selections. It also had three pool tables, two dartboards, and a back room full of arcade games that Knight had played on for hours as a child.

“I’m in,” Knight replied. “Meet you there?”

“I’m already on your sidewalk. I’ll walk over with you.”

He rolled his eyes at the overprotective gesture, but Devlin was doing his job as one of the run enforcers. Off duty or not, he was looking after Knight. “Okay, I’ll be right down.” He texted Father where he was going and with whom, so no one worried when they couldn’t find him in the house.

Devlin wasn’t alone on the sidewalk. Rachel, one of the half-human refugees from Potomac, was waiting with him, a shy smile on her face. When Knight joined the pair, he wasn’t surprised to find them holding hands.

“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t realize I was going to be a third wheel.”

Rachel blushed. “Dev insisted I come along. Are you mad?”

“Of course not.” He glanced at their joined hands, then at Devlin. “Are you sure about this?”

“No.” Devlin squeezed her hand. “But Rachel knows how I feel about her. My beast responds to her, Knight, the way I’ve always been told he will when I’ve found my mate. I know I’ll need permission from Alpha McQueen to marry, but I don’t care that she’s half human.”

Knight allowed a rush of emotion through his walls, and the warmth and affection flooded him. From both of them, toward each other. “Others will care.”

“I know. Winston has already told me I’m an idiot, but he’ll support us. How about you?”

“Of course I will.” He and Dev had been friends since they were in diapers, and they’d always had each other’s backs. Them and Rook, the Three Musketeers of Cornerstone. It was about damned time Devlin found a woman. “All for one, right?”

“Right.”

They walked to Belle’s in an easy silence, Knight on Devlin’s right, and Rachel on his left. Windows along Main Street burned with light and life, and Knight received several polite greetings from passersby. Loup garou were social creatures, a benefit of the close-knit nature of the sanctuary towns, and another reason why Belle’s was always open.

Belle’s was about half full when they arrived, conversation a pleasant buzz that dimmed a few seconds later as they were noticed. Knight knew he was handsome—a fact that had gotten him a lot of unwanted female attention as a teen—and Devlin was nothing to sneeze at, but they weren’t the ones drawing the attention. Rachel squared her shoulders and stuck out her chin, not cowering beneath the hard stares coming her way.

Knight took a single step forward and made a throaty noise that wasn’t quite a growl, but still meant business. Heads turned back to their food and pool games, and the conversation din rose again. “Come on,” he said to his friends.

He wove their way to the pool tables in the back. Two were occupied, so he bought a rack of balls while Devlin got them cues.

“You want something to drink?” Knight asked them both. He took their orders, then went up to the main counter to wait his turn.

Stephen Lester, a nice kid working the floor bussing tables and running orders, came over. His parents currently owned the diner. “Hey, Mr. McQueen, what can I get for you?”

Knight gave the order, plus a basket of loaded nachos, not bothering to correct him. Most of the teenagers and children addressed him formally, as a sign of respect. He preferred people his own age called him Knight.

Stephen poured the sodas and lined them up on the counter. “I’ll bring over the nachos, okay? Tab?”

“Yeah, thanks. Put it on me.”

He grabbed the three glasses and took them back to the table, irritated to find Rachel standing alone by the wall, while Devlin was talking to two other enforcers. Even with their backs to him, Knight identified A.J. Fowler and Patrick Lester, Stephen’s brother. Devlin’s agitation was clear in his stiff back and narrowed eyes.

“Problem, gentlemen?” Knight asked. He plunked the three glasses down on the bar rail near Rachel, then channeled his anxiety and frustration into a glare aimed right at A.J. and Patrick.

The pair faced him, neither bothering to hide their anger. Knight didn’t have to lower his barriers to feel it. “Having a discussion with our friend Dev, is all,” A.J. said.

“About what? Perimeter security? Tomorrow’s patrol? Things that are actually important right now?”

Patrick looked at the floor, but A.J. held Knight’s gaze. “Loyalty, actually.”

Knight growled. “I’d be careful about questioning loyalties if I were you.”

“You gonna have one of your brothers beat me up if I don’t?”

Fury seared through Knight’s chest at the implication that he couldn’t defend himself. Tempers were high all over town, especially among the more volatile Black Wolves, and that was partly his own fault. But Knight did not need a defender. He took three long strides forward, getting in A.J.’s face in a clear challenge.

“I may not be a Black,” Knight snarled, “but I sure as hell can fight like one. Test me.”

A.J. didn’t back down, and the feral side of Knight’s inner beast roared at the idea of a fight. At a chance to take out some of his own aggression. No one, to his knowledge, had ever challenged a White Wolf. Whites were protected by the run, but damn it all if Knight didn’t crave a chance to prove he didn’t need protecting. That he was as strong as his brothers, and worthy of being the Alpha’s son.

He was vaguely aware of the diner going quiet, as everyone nearby tuned in to the emotional state of their White Wolf. Knight reined in his anger before it got out of control and began feeding the loup around him. He had to maintain control.

“Knock it off, A.J.,” Patrick said. He shoved A.J. toward the other pool table, effectively breaking the stare-down. “Apologies,” he said to Knight.

“Get him out of here,” Knight said.

“Christ on a cracker, Knight,” Devlin said when the pair was gone. “You were giving off seriously mad vibes.”

“What did they want?”

Dev rolled his eyes. “What do you think? They don’t like that I’m here with Rachel.”

“I’m so sorry for causing trouble,” Rachel said. She reached for Dev, then hesitated. He took her hand and pulled her to his side. Staking a claim and reassuring her at the same time.

“You did nothing wrong,” Knight said. “You have to know that most loup garou runs are somewhat intolerant of humans, and extremely intolerant of human-loup offspring. Potomac’s lifestyle was quite unorthodox.”

“I know, and I’m grateful that I am being allowed to stay here. I owe much to your Alpha for his generosity.”

“You’re under my father’s protection, and it’s likely that the Potomac refugees will soon become permanent members of our run. Your acceptance or exclusion will set a precedent for Cornerstone. No half-breed has ever been allowed to live here before.”

Rachel’s eyes went wide. “Are you serious?”

“Perfectly.” To Dev he asked, “You didn’t tell her that?”

“No,” Devlin said, not hiding his guilt.

“What if I’m not allowed to stay?” She latched onto Devlin’s arm, her face going pale. “I have no family that I know of. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Devlin cupped her cheeks in his hands, keeping her steady. “If you’re sent away, or if the Alpha refuses to grant us permission to be together, I’ll go with you. My beast has chosen you, Rachel. I won’t abandon you.”

Knight caught a drift of affection from them again, and he seized it, needing it to hold himself together. While he doubted Father would make the decision to send Rachel away, allowing her to stay would be an unpopular choice. Rachel would need Devlin’s support, and Devlin would need theirs. The entire situation was sticky and complicated, and it would only escalate the longer their emotions were toyed with by the triplets and their games.

“You’re half human, but you’re also half loup,” Knight said. Loup blood meant something, damn it, no matter the rest of the DNA. “I’ll do what I can to make sure you aren’t abandoned, Rachel. I promise.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said. “Your family has been very generous, even when we don’t deserve it.”

“Stop,” Devlin said to her. “Lila wasn’t your fault.”

Knight frowned. “Lila? Lila Smythe?”

“Yeah, she got in Rachel’s face this morning about me. It got nasty. Rachel slapped her. Rook and Bishop handled it.”

“You slapped Lila Smythe?” Knight couldn’t hold back his surprise. She’d had a crush on Devlin for years, even while flirting with every other male loup within a five-year age span, including himself. She was cute, granted, but Knight gave her little thought beyond her skills as a waitress at her family’s restaurant.

Rachel’s cheeks colored again. The poor thing blushed a lot. “Yes. Your brother Bishop asked me to apologize, and I did, but slapping her felt wonderful.”

Knight pressed his mouth tight so he didn’t smile. “I’d say you have a firecracker in her, Dev. She’s going to give you a run for your money.”

Devlin grinned and slipped his arm across her shoulders. “I’m counting on it.” He gazed down at her fondly, but something dark slipped by.

A stray emotion Knight did not miss on his friend’s face. Devlin had been part of the group that went to investigate today’s lead in the woods. He hadn’t asked Bishop or Father or anyone else for details beyond dead half-breeds and that goddamn chess piece. But Devlin had seen something that was still haunting him, and it was Knight’s fault. He was the one the triplets wanted.

“It was bad today, wasn’t it?” Knight asked softly.

Dev pressed his lips together, his face grim. “Yeah. You know, I saw the devastation in Stonehill, and I saw the kill firsthand at Potomac, but this . . . I overheard Jillian say that they enjoyed this slaughter. They wanted those people to suffer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, pal.”

“Indirectly, it is.”

Devlin pulled away from Rachel and herded him into the corner of the room, away from listening ears. “Fuck that, Knight, you know better,” he said in a harsh whisper. “It’s not your fault those nutcases want you. All of this is on them, not you.”

He didn’t want Devlin worrying about him and where he placed his guilt, so Knight lied. “I keep telling myself that. Maybe one day soon it will stick.”

“Make it stick. No one blames you.”

Sure they did. No one was going to say it out loud, though. They’d only tempt the wrath of the Alpha, his sons, and a lot of enraged enforcers who had sworn to protect the run and all of its inhabitants. And Knight didn’t care if some people blamed him. They couldn’t possibly think anything of him that he hadn’t already thought of himself.