Tarnished (17 page)

Silver nodded, and held out her good arm for the baby. Susan eyed her sling. Silver was practiced in using one arm, but what about with a broken collarbone? Andrew must have had the same thought, because he took Edmond before Susan had to say anything to Silver. “You won’t have to look far,” Andrew said, tipping his head to John coming up the stairs. Andrew and Silver slipped off toward the nursery.

“John?” Her voice came out wavery.

John’s head was down, so Susan couldn’t read his face, but his body slumped like the very definition of hangdog as he came into the bedroom with her. She sat down on the side of the bed with a thump. Not angry at least, then. She swallowed the phrases that crowded into her mind. She’d had to. She hadn’t wanted to. Sacramento could have killed John too, if the bullet had gone somewhere else in the struggle.

“Susan,” he began, and her stomach twisted with nausea as she waited for him to come out with it. “I love you.”

Susan’s laugh at the unexpected words came out half as a sob. When he lifted his head, John’s expression held only guilt and worry. She held out an arm and he sat beside her and drew her into a tight side hug. She’d really needed to hear that. It seemed out of character for John, though. Like he avoided physical affection in front of other Were, he’d never been one for stating that out loud. The handful of times he had stood out in her mind. When she’d told him she was pregnant. When he’d first held their son.

“Who told you to say that, Silver or Andrew?” Susan twisted to see his answer in his face, but she didn’t even need that. His muscles told her everything when he froze. The urge to scream came back. Dammit. Why was affection so
difficult
with John?

John turned so he could get both of his arms around her, tone a little panicked. “He didn’t say to—say it. Well, he did, but he said to say whatever was true, not that specifically…” He trailed off, perhaps in hopes she’d say something and rescue him from further flailing. Susan stayed silent. She needed so badly to hear this, and maybe John needed badly to be forced to say it too.

After a stretching pause, John drew in a deep breath. “I love you.”

He sounded so earnest that this time Susan leaned her head against his chest to release him from further verbal efforts. “I’m sorry I killed him.”

“No, don’t be sorry for anything.” His voice was emphatic. “
I’m
sorry. If I’d fought earlier, Sacramento wouldn’t have been able to draw any of you into danger. You did what you had to do.”

She drew in a deep breath. “Andrew thought you might kick him out, once all this was over. Thought of it immediately, like he was expecting it all along. Would you really have tossed him and Silver out, or was it all an act because he had a gun to your head?”

“I had to say something to end the call quickly, but…” John trailed off like he was considering lying. That would be the easy answer, Susan supposed. After all, if he said he wouldn’t have done it without being threatened, she could never prove otherwise. She punched him in the side, letting him see from her glare that she’d heard the pause. She wanted the
truth,
dammit.

“He’s not part of my pack,” John finally mumbled. He looked as sheepish as he sounded.

Susan tugged away from him, not breaking the hug, but putting a sliver of distance between them. “That didn’t matter to
him.
He and Silver have been nothing but kind to me, when many of your own pack barely tolerate me.”

“I know.”

Susan blinked at him. She didn’t quite know what she’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been such easy agreement.

John spoke into her silence. “You have to understand, Dare doesn’t just have a decade on me in age, he’s got much more experience. He lived in Europe, and let me tell you, their inter-pack politics aren’t just metaphorically bloody like they are here. And it sounds like he was the glue holding Roanoke together, and they’re hardly simple, either. Not like out here where it’s one alpha, one pack, one territory. That’s what I took over from my uncle. Simple.” John let out a long sigh. “Or that’s what I thought I took on, at least. Life is never that simple. I’ve been realizing that for a while now.”

Susan stared at the carpet in front of them. Someone had lost a big puff of fur, not just individual hairs. “I’m especially not simple, aren’t I? What I am, I mean. And now what I’ve done.” As admitting to herself what she’d done grew easier, the looming thoughts of her future pressed down to fill that space. Her throat grew almost too tight to get the words out. “What are they going to do to me?”

John pulled her against him. “I don’t think anything of value in life is simple. You’re my fresh air, the place I can be myself and not think about the responsibility of my rank or how I might fail it. But now I have failed it.” He let a long breath trickle out. Susan didn’t say anything. Her heart rose a little to hear him say that it had been the real John she’d been seeing when they were alone, but he was right. He
had
failed them in some ways.

“I don’t think I’m built to be like Dare. He takes responsibility for…” John laughed, low. “The world, really, as he meets it, person by person. He wants to protect them all. But I know I can protect
you.
They’re not going to do anything to you. I won’t let them.”

“Do you get to ‘let’ them?” Susan let her anger at John rise and cupped it in metaphorical hands for a moment to warm her. It was all very well for John to say “there, there” and tell her it would be all right. She was smarter than that. But then, what else could he say when the situation was out of his control?

“I’ll do anything I have to.” That came out in an emphatic burst and then John was silent a moment, perhaps thinking of how to support it with something concrete. “For an alpha’s death, we’ll have to take the matter before the Convocation of North American alphas. It’s in a couple weeks. That’s why Dare showed up in the first place. I know it doesn’t—” he hesitated, “sound good, but being human might help you. They’ll be more likely to believe you were simply a mother defending her young.”

Susan pressed her lips together hard, and tried to look at that from a Were perspective. What wasn’t John saying? “Humans don’t put animals on trial when they kill someone, we put them down.” She could feel shaking beginning in her muscles, trying to take her over. John and Dare and Silver, they wouldn’t let anyone put her down, she reminded herself.
She
wouldn’t let anyone put her down, even if she had to pick up a gun again.

“We don’t see you like that!” Beyond the denial, John seemed to be having trouble finding words. Susan suspected that meant a lot of Were saw her exactly like that. “It’s more complicated than that. But even if it had been a Were. If Silver had been the one to pull the trigger, that still wouldn’t necessarily mean she’d be…”

“Killed,” Susan filled in, since John apparently was too cowardly to say it. Someone had to.

“If it comes to that, I’ll say I did it, and that my pack’s just trying to push responsibility onto the human to save me. I told you, I’ll do
anything
necessary. But I don’t think it will come to that. I’ve given it a lot of thought.” John let her go and turned so he sat sideways, facing her. “I have an idea for something I can do to at least help this.”

Susan listened to John’s plan, and nodded slowly at the end. She’d been wrong. He did have something more to offer than just platitudes.

17

When they left John and Susan, Silver passed the nursery and gestured Andrew downstairs. Edmond squirmed and Andrew adjusted his grip. He assumed she wanted to take the baby downstairs with them so she could hold him. It seemed like a reasonable idea to him. He’d seen the longing way she looked at all of the children.

Many of the pack had called in sick today, so there were several of them clustered around the TV in the living room for the communal experience of mocking a team of humans trying to complete challenges together in the jungle.

Andrew sat beside Silver after settling Edmond on her lap. Andrew had the side of the couch, with two teen Were beyond Silver, one cross-legged and the other straddling the couch arm. Pierce joined them, folding to the floor in front of Silver’s feet. His hair was still a little damp from the shower and free of product for once. He offered Silver a brush hopefully. Before Andrew quite knew what had happened, Edmond ended up back on his lap so Silver could brush.

Pierce had apparently grabbed one of the brushes used on wolf forms by mistake, so every so often she stopped to pluck out a light-colored hair from among the dark. Pierce didn’t seem to mind, since it extended the brushing process. It was harder to make a massage out of it like you could for a wolf form, since there was less to brush.

Edmond remarked “Woof!” to no one in particular and tried to climb up on the arm of the couch. Andrew prevented him from getting all the way up, but helped him stand on his thighs. Edmond looked around the whole room with interest from this new angle. Andrew remembered this stage with his daughter, the calm before the storm of her getting into absolutely everything she could reach as she cruised around the house.

Andrew’s throat constricted at the thought of his daughter, but Edmond was clinging to his thumb with one tiny hand, and he couldn’t just dump him off his lap. He took a deep breath to clear the constriction and reminded himself how different Edmond smelled.

John entered, Susan lagging a little behind as he increased the length of his stride. He smelled like he wanted to get something over with. Andrew winced internally. Here he was playing with the man’s son while Silver brushed his beta.

“Dare? Silver?” John came to a stop and stood braced, hands loose at his sides.

Andrew sat Edmond down on the floor where he promptly pulled himself up again using the couch. Andrew caught Pierce’s eye, and he nodded acceptance of the responsibility of watching the child. Andrew stepped around the baby and couch to face John. This was undoubtedly his warning to leave John’s territory. He should have anticipated this, instead of letting himself get comfortable playing with children.

Silver took a moment longer to disentangle herself from the couch without jostling her shoulder. He exchanged a glance with her as she joined him, and found her expression also controlled against whatever unpleasantness was to come. Andrew inclined his head. “Seattle.”

John shook his head and went to one knee, head bowed. “Seattle.”

Andrew’s next breath caught on the way in. He finished it in a ragged gasp. John couldn’t be ceding him the pack, just like that. Could he? It made no sense. “Get up,” he said sharply, and reached under John’s arm to drag him up. Did John think that was what Andrew had been aiming for? To take over the pack by undermining his self-confidence? John should have known that if Andrew wanted the pack, he would have challenged honorably.

“No.” John threw Andrew’s hand off. “You—you and Silver—could use the status of being alphas going into the Convocation, couldn’t you? I’ll make it clear I abdicated by choice. It’s the most concrete sign of endorsement I can think of. I just need—” He swallowed. “Need you to promise to defend Susan against any charges, the same as you would any member of your pack. I can’t do it myself, not when Sacramento’s men will make sure everyone knows she’s my lover and I have a conflict of interest.”

Andrew looked over at Susan. She was white-lipped but composed, so John had apparently explained his plan to her ahead of time. Maybe there was hope for the man yet.

That pause seemed to worry John, because he set his shoulders and stumbled into explanations again. “I made mistakes, dealing with Sacramento and after. I let my pack down. I have a lot left to learn, clearly. If you’ll accept me as your beta, maybe I can start learning it, before you move on to Roanoke.”

Andrew drew a deep breath as he scanned all the Seattle pack members gathered in the room. “Gathered” was the operative word, he realized. They’d already been gathered around him and Silver before John walked in, some sign of subconscious acceptance. No one growled or snarled. He saw expressions of awkwardness and resignation, but no anger.

Then Andrew looked at Silver. Something instinctive shouted at him to accept before the offer was withdrawn or the pack changed their minds. Having an alpha’s status in the Convocation would go a long way toward getting him the time to win people over. And if he admitted it to himself, something in him itched to lead. But this was not just his decision.

Silver met his eyes at the same moment. She smiled, a smile of the same kind of rightness he was feeling. He drew her to him, meaning to whisper against her ear, check for sure, but a deep breath of her scent, eager with anticipation, told him all he needed to know.

“Yes,” Silver said, for the both of them. “We won’t have to defend Susan
like
a member of the pack when she
is
one.” She stepped away from Andrew and spread her arm to invite John to stand for a hug. “And of course you’re beta.” They embraced, John chuckling roughly in relief. He probably laughed at feeling the weight of responsibility lift from his shoulders, even as it settled on Andrew’s. But Andrew might as well get credit for the responsibility he seemed to always end up taking on anyway.

He heard the Were behind him go to their knees, acknowledging the new alpha pair. He turned his head to catch Pierce out of the corner of his eye, to see if he would object to being demoted. Pierce didn’t kneel, as he was already sitting, but he did incline his head. Not too grudging.

Andrew checked on Susan next. She caught him at it and with a wry smile, she went to her knees too. Her look was as clear as words: see, I’m learning. Andrew gave her a thin smile of encouragement. She’d have a lot more to learn yet if he was going to keep her safe at the Convocation.

18

Andrew paused after stepping out of the rental minivan to let the sunlight seep into his skin. The Convocation had been held at this ranch south of Flagstaff the last few years, and the drive from the airport had been comforting in its familiarity. Pines topped the scree-slopes flanking the highway and spread out beyond, as abundant as other species of evergreen in Seattle, but giving the impression of sparseness with little else but grass and rocky soil beneath. He wouldn’t have chosen it for a permanent home, but there was beauty in the wild spaces and easier running beneath the pines. The smells were dustier with less underbrush, but the trail of a cottontail rabbit or coyote carried more easily.