The Problem with Promises (30 page)

“I didn’t go looking for Stuart,” I said. “He came for me.” Her darling son had broken down the door to the apartment I’d shared with my aunt. Then he’d beaten me up, and promised to do pretty much the same things she’d just threatened me with. In the end, I’d unleashed my magic on him. But I’d left him alive, though he’d been duct-taped to a water radiator, and had lost a few, much needed, brain cells.

If I’d only known how much trouble he’d turn out to be, I’d have … No. I wouldn’t have killed him then. I hadn’t crossed the line into murder then.

I sighed. “Rachel, I’m going to say this once. I did not kill your son.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“How very predictable. If you hate me—and all things Fae—why are you helping us now?”

“If I don’t, my brother will die.”

“Sisterly love,” I said slowly. “I can understand that. But I watched you yesterday. Where was all your family pride when Trowbridge asked the pack to pledge their loyalty? You should have been the first to step up—Trowbridges united and all that—but you were the last to take your vows, weren’t you?”

“I had to think carefully.”

I snorted. “About what? Me diluting your family bloodlines? Are you really such a—”

“I’m doing this for Petra,” she said.

“Your daughter?”

“She’s developing a flare,” she said, her tone pitched a half note below belligerent.

“Like your brother’s?” I frowned.

“Like an Alpha’s,” she replied. “Like my brother’s, and my father’s, and his father’s before him. Petra can already ignore the moon call longer than I can. At fifteen, she’s stronger than most males her age.” A cold smile. “Faster too. Every moon I have to force her to promise me that she won’t be the first to pull down the prey. She doesn’t understand. She thinks I’m trying to hold her back,” she said wearily. “She can’t help testing herself in other ways. She’s already proved that she’s a better tracker than me, and I’m one of the pack’s best.”

“Jealous of your own daughter, Bestie?”

“Never!” she snapped. “I am proud of her. She’s the finest thing I’ve ever done.”

And thus, Stuart’s hero-worship roots for Mannus were exposed. With Rachel for a mother, his odds of being deemed the prodigal son were as remote as one of those child actors breezing past their teens without paparazzi pictures.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re proud of your daughter but you don’t want her to become an Alpha. Doesn’t that strike you as a tad retro in thinking?”

“Have you ever met a female Alpha?”

I’m guessing my tenure as Alpha-by-proxy didn’t count in her recollection. When I didn’t reply, she said tersely, “There hasn’t been one in over seventy years.”

“So they’re rare.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t mean—”

“Edith ruled for less than half a year before she had an accident.”

Edith the Alpha? Now there was a name to inspire fear. I raised my eyebrows. “Did she have a suspicious accident?”

“Very,” she said grimly. “They killed her.”

“Which they?” Her brain had more twists than a mountain road.

“They!” she snapped helpfully. “They—the men in charge. The NAW, or the Great Council. It doesn’t matter which one of them ordered it. It could have even been someone from within her own pack.” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “Our men are misogynist throwbacks. Each and every one of them.”

I thought of Trowbridge’s hands cupping my face. “Your brother isn’t.”

“How well do you know him?” Rachel shut up as a car driven by a mortal woman passed us, heading in the opposite direction, then added, “Humans have no issue with their women being equal.”

There were a few million women who might disagree with that sweeping statement.

“Their women lead troops, rule countries, head companies, and make important decisions all the time. But our men don’t want any part of it. They want us to keep to the pack. Stay home. Raise the kids. We’re allowed to work outside of the home, but if any of us want a real career…”

Rachel was one froth away from spittle flying.

“Stay where we belong—that’s what they all want. All we’re good for is to bring children into the world,” Rachel carried on, full rant. “And if we can’t turn out a litter of boys then their eyes start to roam.”

My gaze rolled toward Cordelia. She mouthed “TMI” before rolling her lips back into one of her trademark gum-baring grimaces.

Trowbridge’s sister’s hands were claws on the wheel. “Our men forget that we’re biologically engineered to protect. We can do the job because we know the value of what we’re defending. And they know it … that’s why there’s no room on their council for a strong woman.” Her gaze was fixed on some point ahead on the road. “Petra has everything required to be an Alpha. The bloodline and the natural ability.”

I went back to stroking my ear. “And you’re worried that if Bridge is gone, she’ll want to step into the role.”

Her nod was thoughtful. “She’s not ready. She needs a few years to refine her abilities and to form the right relationships inside the pack. She’ll need support when the opportunity is right.”

“You coldhearted bitch,” accused Cordelia.

We’d arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously. “You’re using Bridge as a place warmer,” I said incredulously. “You want everything lined up for Petra so that she can step into the role of the Alpha of Creemore. So much for Trowbridge collecting an old age pension.” I didn’t even have to glance back to Cordelia. Her scent broadcasted a swift shift from banked caution to flat-out aggression. “Are you nuts?” I asked Rachel. “Hello? I’m his mate. Do you think I can’t read between the lines? When the time is Petra-ripe, you’re going to wipe out your brother.”

Her glance was swift and without any expression. “I won’t have to do anything to Robbie. He makes enemies as easily as you do. Sooner or later one of you will cross the wrong person. I thought Mannus was going to bring the council down on us before I was ready, but my kid brother is twice as bad … Bridge got everyone’s back up so quickly.” The paved segment of the road ended and the car coasted onto a gravel road. “What I’m giving you is time.”

“That’s why you asked Bridge to come home,” I said.

“Mannus was sick,” she said reflectively. “As much as I loved my son, he never had it in him to be leader. No one in the pack could step into the job like my daughter. But she wasn’t ready and if she stepped up too soon…” She shrugged. “I needed Bridge.”

“Even though returning to Creemore was as risky for him as wearing antlers during hunting season.” I stared hard at Trowbridge’s sister. “Don’t you have any real feelings for anyone other than your daughter?”

“I loved Robbie once,” she said stiffly. “I half raised him. But he screwed up. He should have been there the night the Fae crossed the gates, instead of in a bar drinking.”

“He returned home in time but he was knocked out.”

“He was impaired and easy prey,” she said, her tone inflexible. “You never saw the house after the massacre. You didn’t fill up bucket after bucket with hot water and bleach. You didn’t scrub the walls. Don’t you make excuses for him. He was a party boy. Always looking for a way to escape his duties. My son turned out to be no better.”

“Your brother is not the man he was. The things he’s gone through have changed him. He’s—”

“I am not interested in hearing you talk about my brother.” She hissed through her teeth as the car hit a pothole. “I kept my ear to the ground. I listened. Robbie the rogue wolf behaved exactly like Robbie my spoiled kid brother. Irresponsible. Drifter. Drank too much.”

The ferret chattered in distress.

“Robson Trowbridge may have been all those things you said he was,” I said, holding on to my temper with both hands. “Maybe he was an alcoholic with serious commitment issues once, but he’s not like that anymore.”

“I don’t see any change!” she shouted. “He chose you for his mate!”

“We belong together!” I shouted back. “And I’m damn well not going to apologize for being Fae or his mate anymore! Not to you. Not to the pack. Not to anyone.”

Or to myself. That ends now.

The air in the vehicle was too close—a swirl of anger from Cordelia and Rachel and a hovering question mark of fear and misery from Biggs. I rolled down the window, and breathed through my mouth, silently counting to myself.
One Mississippi … don’t hurt her … two Mississippi … I need all the muscle I can muster … three Mississippi … I have to deal with Biggs yet … four Mississippi … lunging at her throat would be a bad, bad thing …

Goddess, I was exhausted. I leaned my aching head against the door frame just in time for the truck to hit a particularly deep pothole.

I straightened. Slowly, like my temple wasn’t going “ow, ow, ow.”

She’d aimed for the rut deliberately. A person with borderline Asperger’s could figure that out with one glance at the satisfied curl of her lip. The pure childishness of her action should have enraged me—I’d been trembling on the edge of a good flameout—but all it did was make me look at Trowbridge’s sister with detachment.
Emotional bitch, is she? Given to pinches and the like?

“Let me hit her,” Cordelia bit out. “Just one good slap.”

“One of us needs to drive,” Rachel said. “One of us needs to watch the traitor. And
she
can’t drive because the steering wheel will burn her hand.”

I couldn’t help it—I laughed. “You’re talking about cold iron, right? Well there, you’re partially right, Miss Misinformed. Pure Faes can’t tolerate contact with cold iron. But I’ll bet you my last Cherry Blossom against your entire stack of outdated encyclopedias that a Fae could sit in this truck and not feel much more than a tad faint-headed. You know why? Because the iron used isn’t a pure cold element anymore. It’s been melted—gone through a fire hotter than hell—and been mixed with stuff like carbon and sulfur and manganese. It’s come out of the fire wearing a different name. Steel.”

My tone hardened. “Your brother has walked through fire in Merenwyn. Whatever he saw and did there turned him into who he was always supposed to be—an Alpha of the most extraordinary kind. One with steel in his blood. So don’t you
ever
speak negatively about him in my presence again.” My heart started slamming into my chest. “You may be taller, you may be older, and God knows you’ve got more wolf in you. But I’ve got an inner-bitch who’s fed up to her canines with hearing shit spewed about her mate, and a Fae who’d gleefully squeeze you until every single one of your ribs was broken.”

Merry’s chain bit into my neck as she pulled herself up out of my cleavage. My pal was still the color of burned butter, still cool to the touch, but she was mad enough to muster a rapid pulse of angry red light from the center of her amber belly. Blip, blip. Asrai for “Screw you, Wolf-bitch.”

With a nod to the pendant looking about ready to self-ignite, I added, “Not only that, but I’ve got a personal bodyguard who has a personal prejudice against anyone named Scawens.”

“And a surrogate mother,” drawled Cordelia, “who has chewed through more chicken-breasted, bandy-legged divas than Elizabeth Taylor chewed through men.”

Rachel stopped smiling.

We drove another thirty feet, a family road trip gone decidedly wrong.

She braked in front of a driveway that hadn’t seen a set of tires for a good long time. “I will help you find Brenda and then I’m gone,” she said. “The rest is up to you. If you fail, I need to be with Petra.” All business, she took a snootful of the night air. “Kids come here. But only at night. No fully grown human has visited this place for a while.”

“It will do,” I said.

*   *   *

Beech trees had tried to embrace the boarded-up house. Their long boughs stretched over the tin roof, offering whatever protection gained by its leafless branches. Kids had partied here—teenagers who’d left the burned-out fire pit and several dust-filmed wine bottles stacked into a tower.

Biggs sat on the backdoor stoop. Sweat trailed down either side of his throat. His body had expelled one slug and was working on the other. “I didn’t mean to betray the pack.”

“You withheld the fact that you were acquainted with Knox’s girlfriend,” I said flatly. “You think that doesn’t qualify? And you lied to your Alpha.”

I didn’t even know you could.

“She’s
not
his girlfriend.”

My hands fisted into two plump and swollen boxing gloves. “When Knox had zero seconds to send the most important video of his life, he sent it to Brenda Pritty, not his boss. Her scent is all over his wallet and that bottle of sun potion. She was his girlfriend.” Bile in my gut, rising, rising. “Damn your hide. While we were running from the NAW, you were texting Knox’s woman. You led them right to us.”

“You think I was just going to hand her to Bridge on a plate?” he said, with traces of his usual beleaguered belligerence. “She was tied up with Knox, and the Alpha of Creemore is not the type of guy who forgives people. You saw what he did to Fatso.”

“So you chose some girl you hardly knew over your own pack.”

His expression hardened. “Isn’t that what Bridge did?”

Cordelia sucked in her breath sharply.

“Believe what you want,” he said after a beat. “When I met her two summers ago, she used a different name. I didn’t connect the dots between Becci and Brenda until tonight.”

A lie. Or a rationalization so deep that he couldn’t see the light of truth from the bottom of the hole he’d dug for himself. He had to have known who she was. He was a wolf and their nose can recall every person they ever crossed paths with.

Rachel let out a snort of disgust. “What is it with you people? Don’t any of you use your real name?”

“Only if absolutely forced to,” retorted Cordelia. With a stage grimace, she turned from a bush she’d been inspecting. Near its base, a used condom hung from a spindly branch.

“Brenda Pritty’s scent was on the bottle of sun potion, Biggs,” I said. “And her personal perfume was all over Knox. That didn’t twig your scent recall?”

“She’s been drinking that sun potion shit. Her signature has changed,” he replied, his eyes downcast. “Not a lot but…” He paused to lift shoulders that appeared to be heavily weighted with remorse. “Enough for me to doubt what I was smelling.”