The Problem with Promises (4 page)

I should tell him he has no body fat. It would be a kindness.

I traced the ridges of his abdomen muscles.

Nah.

“Tink,” he said.

“Mm-hmm.”

Trowbridge rolled his head. Blue eyes, the color of the Mediterranean. Faint purple shadows below. A vein cut across the top of his right cheekbone. “Harry’s coming up the stairs.”

“Damn.” I glanced wistfully at the tub.

Trowbridge covered his eyes with his forearm while we listened to Harry’s footsteps. Our second stopped in front of our door. There was a long pause. Then coins jingled.
Harry’s thinking.
The scent of our lovemaking must perfume the entire upper floor.

“What is it, Harry?” called Trowbridge, his mouth barely moving.

“They’ve found Newland, boss. They’re bringing him in.”

Chapter Two

The jeans that Trowbridge had rued as a size too small were yanked back on. By the time I’d tossed on my T-shirt and slipped on my panties, Ralph had been retrieved from his lonely splendor on the lampshade, and thrown over his head.

My would-be murderer, Knox, had come to Creemore with two thugs. While the thinner of the NAW’s henchmen had been dispatched by the pack that very same night, the other—a burly guy I’d dubbed “Fatso” though his license had revealed that his true name was Kenneth Newland—had melted into the caves near Collingwood and had managed to escape capture for almost twelve hours.

Until now. Trowbridge had told Harry to call in their best tracker three hours ago when it was clear that the pack’s search team of accountants and insurance adjusters wasn’t putting their all into it.

At the door, my lover tilted his head to study me with narrowed eyes. “You might not be ready for this. This could get ugly.”

Uh-huh. Me staying behind doing needlepoint. And pigs may fly.

I followed him. The moment we passed the first bedroom, my niece, Anu, came to the door. “Blah, blah, blah,” the Alpha of Creemore said to her in Merenwynian. She halted, her green eyes wide, but when she saw me trailing behind him, her mouth firmed like a teenager denied Internet privileges. She fell into rank and filed behind me.

By the time we’d hit the landing, Cordelia’s door opened. Somehow, after dinner, she’d managed to nip over to the trailer and change. She wore a dove-gray twin set and a pair of lovely trousers, tailored to fit her thin, six-foot frame. My former roommate had accessorized it with a couple of necklaces—just the right amount of flash against the cool and somber tones of her woolens. Cordelia was always tasteful, proving that not all ex–drag queens mince about draped in pink boas.

Trowbridge paused by the arch to the living room. “Hey, Biggs.” When the dark-headed Were didn’t lift his head, he raised his voice. “Hey!”

Biggs jumped and almost dropped the cell phone he had clenched in his hand.

“Is that Knox’s phone?” Trowbridge asked.

Biggs nodded.

Trowbridge opened the door. “Bring it.”

*   *   *

Biggs trailed me as I zipped up my sweatshirt and stepped outside to join Trowbridge and Cordelia on the front porch.

Harry had picked up a weapon and strolled out, well before my Fae ears had managed to track the sound of an approaching car. The hairs on the nape of my neck bristled. I’d never seen this side of my old cowboy before. He stood apart from us—his rifle balanced over the crook of his arm, his profile turned toward the road—a silent figure down at the far end of the veranda, hidden where the porch lights couldn’t penetrate the gloom.

Everyone else’s attention was centered on the Mazda that had driven at a funereal speed all the way to the midpoint of the long drive, and now waited, engine idling, for permission to advance. The passengers were two dark and indistinct shadows.

Trowbridge, arms folded, gave a nod, and the car resumed its approach.

The vehicle stopped in front of the house, rather than going to the back where the family parked. The engine was turned off, and the overhead lights went on as the driver, a big guy who I recognized as a pack member whose name was either Derek or David, got out. A moment later, the passenger door opened, and Rachel Scawens slid out.

Trowbridge’s sister gave me her habitual thinly veiled look of hatred. When her son had become embroiled with the former Alpha of Creemore, Rachel had contacted her brother for help. He’d answered her call even though doing so had placed his life at risk.

But Stuart hadn’t wanted rescuing and Stuart had ended up dead.

Rachel blamed me for that.

“Your sister took her vow to her Alpha, then?” I asked quietly. Swearing fealty to the new Alpha was a required act, performed by each member of the pack.

Trowbridge’s nod was abrupt.

It was cold. I wished I’d lifted a jacket from one of the pegs by the door before I’d ventured outside.

The driver, Derek/David, went around to the back fender. (Henceforth to be known as Derek because he was tall as a crane, and about as pretty as an oil rig). He sent Bridge a sideways glance, read permission, then hit the button on his key fob to pop the trunk. Immediately, a stream of foul ripeness wafted out of the enclosed space. Fatso had been on the run for his life and he’d sweated a whole bunch.

“They didn’t kill him,” observed Biggs, from the doorway.

A statement that the occupant of the trunk couldn’t have translated as a hopeful sign. Suddenly, a foot—no, not one, but two feet bound so closely together at the ankles that Fatso’s legs looked like the bottom of a Pez dispenser—slashed out.

An understandable but completely futile effort. Derek was more than up to the challenge of evading flying Pez feet. Thus, the consequence of Fatso’s escape attempt was a couple of nasty rabbit punches for the wolf in the trunk, before Derek and Rachel hauled their captive out.

Without much ceremony, they threw him at their Alpha’s feet.

The last time I’d seen Knox’s sidekick, he’d been a naked sprinter, hoping to break thousand-yard dash records as he fled the gathering field. Since then, he’d raided someone’s clothesline, and he’d been well trussed—arms behind his back, double-tied with rope. His borrowed shirt had rucked up, and his gut gleamed above his jeans like the curve of whale’s white underbelly.

“Is this the wolf?” Trowbridge looked down his long nose at the prey. “The one that led you to that tree?”

I thought back to the hysteria of the burn-the-bitch mentality that had begun with a trial and ended up with me chained to the old oak. There had been so many hands, so many scents. Had his been among them?

“Yes,” I said, deciding it didn’t matter. Fatso had hit me. He’d pushed me through the crowds, and he’d smiled when Knox had pulled out his knife.

Trowbridge jerked his head to the right toward the maple tree his mother had planted so long ago in their front garden. “Give me the chains and turn on the yard lights,” he said softly to Harry, as Derek and Rachel began to drag their catch across the lawn.

Harry grunted, then bent to gather up the chains that Fatso and Know had used to secure us to our execution posts. I didn’t know what was worse—the grim rattle of those fetters as Harry stepped off the porch, or the unyielding hangman’s stare he leveled at the quaking wolf as he passed the bonds to his Alpha.

Trowbridge weighed a length in his hands for a long thoughtful moment. “Untie his hands,” he told Derek and Petra, “then stand back from him.”

Fatso must have realized it was now-or-never once they’d cut the ropes around his elbows and wrists. Handicapped by his Pez-feet, he lurched forward, possibly hoping to hop his way to freedom.

There was no setup, no slow burn. Trowbridge let loose his flare. Blue electric light burst from my man’s eyes with the sudden blinding intensity of a lighthouse’s searching beam. Fatso froze, hunched for the next sack-race hop, his sweating face twisting in panic as its heat bathed his features.

If an Alpha’s flare is leveled at you with the sole intent of flattening you? Say hello to the dirt. Few can withstand that awful wish to submit, to grovel, to plead …

Fatso’s belligerence held for three shuddering breaths before his mouth contorted into the downward droop of a man quavering on the edge of a chest-heaving bawl. On the fourth inhale, his resistance visibly snapped, and with a defeated, high-pitched whine, he shrank back against the maple’s spine.

“Biggs,” Trowbridge said, “use Knox’s phone to film this.”

The heavy chains swung from the Alpha of Creemore’s fist as he walked across the grass. “Stand up straight,” he murmured as he approached the flinching wolf.

The NAW’s man lifted a meaty arm to block the light trained on him. “I didn’t mean it,” he cried before burying his face into the crook of his elbow. Even that self-defense move proved an inadequate shield against Trowbridge’s unforgiving flare—Fatso’s subsequent moan morphed into a broken hum.

I covered my mouth, remembering what it felt like to be under that surge of dominance. I didn’t need to see this. I didn’t want to see my own misery replayed in front of me. Nor did I want it videoed. There had been enough
recordings.
Knox had made one, showing my lover and brother leaping through the gates’ round hobbit-sized window. “Trowbridge, you don’t—”

“Hush, mate,” he replied.

Did he just hush me?

Trowbridge considered the cowering Were for a moment. “Hey,” he said. When Fatso declined the opportunity to trade gazes, the Alpha of Creemore tapped his arm. “Look at me.”

It took Fatso a good two seconds to summon up the guts to obey.

Trowbridge nodded, then said evenly, “Hold this.”

The NAW’s goon whimpered, but he did as he was told—he accepted the end of the chain and held it obediently while Trowbridge did a slow, tight circle around the tree.

It’s hideous to watch a person being bound like that. The chink of the chain, the frantic expression on the face of the person as it dawns on them that there could be and would be, no escape. Oh, sweet heavens, how could the pack have stood watching it happen to me? Hadn’t the sight sickened a few? Wrenched a teaspoon of pity from at least one of them?

Fatso’s flesh bulged over the links.

“The creature deserves it,” I heard my Fae say.

So … she’d finally found her voice again. Following her bid for autonomy in Threall—now known as an epic fail—she’d fallen into a quiet, sullen funk. But I’d felt her, brooding and silent, watching me and mine interact. And sometimes, I’d sensed her sampling my feelings—admittedly fleetingly—while Trowbridge cuddled me postsexual bliss.

Comparing things, I’d thought.

Was she right?

Perhaps Fatso did deserve all of this, but I found no joy in hearing his wolf pants of distress—those pathetic heh-heh-hehs—nor satisfaction watching him blink against the dribble of sweat that trickled into his eyes.

No, this wasn’t what I needed or I wanted.

I need peace. I want a fairy godmother to wave a hand over all our problems and make them go away.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? I swallowed and walked across the crabgrass that was doing a damn good job of choking the last few clumps of civilized Kentucky blue.

Trowbridge was studying his captive, his head canted to the side. “You looked different,” he told me, when I was close enough to hit him or kiss him. “The picture isn’t quite right.”

“Because, by the time you got there, I had a blade stuck in my chest.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Let’s not do this. Enough blood’s been shed.”

“You had something on your head,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard me.

“A blindfold.” Actually a red bandana that carried Fatso’s scent.

“That’s it.” Trowbridge peeled off his own shirt. He pulled it taut, then twisted it a few times so that the jersey was a coiled rope. Fatso—why can’t I remember the wolf’s name?—visibly cringed as my lover reached to blind him with the fabric.

Mouth flattened into a hard line, the Alpha of Creemore rocked back on his heels to embrace the overall picture. His flare died. He examined the shaking wolf for a long beat then said, “So you’re Ken Newland. Somehow I pictured you differently.”

“Biggs,” I said quietly. “Stop recording this.”

“You take your finger off that button and you’ll lose it,” said Trowbridge in a tone I hardly recognized.

Bile rose from my stomach. “I don’t want a record of this—we don’t need to see—”

“Not now, Hedi.”

Unbelievable. He did it again. He shushed me.

“Want to tell me why the NAW sent you and Knox to Creemore?” Trowbridge asked the blindfolded Were.

Ken wet his lips. “We came to charge Helen Stronghold—”

“Hedi Peacock,” Trowbridge corrected.

“Hedi Peacock,” the other Were parroted, then with an overeager nod, “For crimes she committed in the absence of the true and rightful Alpha of Creemore.”

That sounded wordy and well rehearsed. I had a mental picture of Knox and his two goons singing that chorus all the way up the 400 Highway to Creemore—three happy summer campers heading up toward the Muskokas for a spot of weekend fun.

“Did one of my pack lodge a complaint?” inquired Trowbridge.

“What?”

“That’s the only legitimate reason the NAW could use to enter my territory. Unless we were behind on our tithes?” He lifted his shoulders in mock confusion and called, “Hey, Harry, come on over here.”

The older Were was leaning against the porch column, filling in time by pruning his nails with a wicked-looking knife. “Coming.” He closed it with a click and sauntered down the steps.

Trowbridge waited until his second was nicely framed for the camera before asking, “Was the pack behind in the accounting?”

Harry’s mouth pruned then he shook his head. “No, boss.”

“So all the usual shit had been taken care of? The monthly meeting reports, the paperwork—all that useless bureaucratic crap that the council insists we send them like clockwork—had it all been done? Sent in on time?”

Not by me.

“Yes,” replied Cordelia. I turned. She stood where I’d left her, underneath the soft golden glow of an old porch light. Harsh grooves bracketed her mouth.