Chapter Four
Patrick
Pat returned to his townhouse in the early evening. They’d done as much as they could on the case, but were no closer to unlocking the files Mallory had found on vampire activity. Even Pat’s clearance hadn’t been enough to get their eyes on Alan’s old reports, and he’d been present for most of the other man’s cases.
They’d bit the bullet earlier in the day and broken the news to the girl’s family. Those sorts of visits always took longer than you could plan for. Pat wasn’t always the most sensitive person, but even he wouldn’t be so crass as to try and rush a sobbing mother in the fact of this kind of news.
He could only hope that Lynch would stay on schedule and have an initial autopsy for them tomorrow morning.
He went inside, wolf rumbling a little anxiously behind his heart at what state he’d find his mate. Every morning when he left, a part of Pat worried that the other man would have disappeared by the time he came home. It had happened before. And he hated himself for feeling this sort of distrust about the one person who meant so much in his life, who was integral to it. But in truth, Pat’s acknowledgment of their connection had only made his anxiety grow stronger.
It didn’t help that Ethan seemed to pass through the days, pale and silent as a ghost, breathing barely a word. It was impossible of late to get a rise out of him, where before the two of them had been all fire spitting and crackling against one another.
With a sigh of relief, Pat’s eyes swept over Ethan’s thin frame, curled up on one end of the sofa. At least the mage was sitting upright, rather than lying down in defeat, it made him appear more alert. He was reading. Pat wasn’t sure if this were usual. He couldn’t remember there being that many books in Ethan’s apartment. Now, his eyes trailed away from Ethan and took in the impressive tower of worn bindings stacked up next to the sofa higher than the top edge of the cushion.
“Hey,” he greeted Ethan in a soft voice. His wolf sat up, waiting to be acknowledged.
Barely a flick of green eyes met his before returning to the page.
“Hey,” Ethan replied.
“Did you have a good day?” Pat bit his tongue until it stung.
Ethan shrugged.
“Where’d you get the books?”
“Why?”
Pat pulled off his outerwear and began unlacing his waterproof boots. He’d never be as polished looking as Mallory, but suits and starched collars still made Pat antsy. What if he needed to chase a suspect? What if he had to climb through a sewer or a rat infested building?
“No reason. Just curious. Did you, uh, get them from your—”
“No,” Ethan interrupted. He marked his place on the page with a finger and looked up. “I left the apartment. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
“Did I say that?”
“Isn’t it?”
Pat made a frustrated noise. “I’m not trying to police your movements. I just wanted to know if you had a nice day. It’s called small talk.”
Ethan snorted. “We don’t do that.”
“We could.”
It made Pat uncomfortable, the look of disbelief that swept over Ethan’s face.
“We could,” he insisted.
“That’s stupid. We’re not those sorts of people.”
Pat spread his hands wide in supplication.
“The kind that make fucking ‘small talk,’” Ethan clarified. “We’re—”
“The kind that scream at each other about every little stupid comment? Yeah, I noticed,” Pat muttered.
“Well, it’s true,” Ethan said.
“It doesn’t have to be the only thing we talk.”
“My day was fine. I went to the magic shop.”
“Why?” he asked and then threw up his hands. “I’m not— Could you just try not to expect the worst from me? I’m curious. Just curious. I want—”
“What?” Ethan demanded.
Pat smiled, the muscles in his face twisting into an ugly expression that made something in his chest ache. “I just want you to feel like you could talk to me.”
“Because I’m your mate.”
And the way Ethan said the word made that ache expand, piercing him sharp and swift. Something belligerent in the other man’s tone, laced with a fair amount of disbelief. But at least he didn’t sound mocking.
Pat could take disbelief, hell, he felt enough disbelief of his own every time he spoke the word in the quiet of his mind. It was impossible to believe that Ethan wouldn’t be equally incredulous.
“Yes,” he said under his breath.
Ethan pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes, shoulders bunched up around his ears. Pat stared at him from under his eyelashes.
“Forget I asked,” he said when the silence between them went on too long. He turned away and began making his way upstairs to his bedroom. He needed a shower after the day he’d had.
As he stripped off his clothes in the bathroom, he heard the soft creak from a foot on the steps behind him.
Pat glanced over his shoulder and watched Ethan lean against the door jamb.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“You’re not going to cook, are you?”
He frowned. “I thought you liked my cooking?”
A dull flush zipped down the other man’s stubbled chin.
“And no. I figured we could go over to the pack house for dinner.”
In fact, his mother had sent him an email that afternoon reminding him how long it had been since he showed his face at the pack’s table. He’d been so wrapped up in this cloud hovering around Ethan, every afternoon for a month, rushing home to make sure the mage was still there. Listening to Ethan fail to fall asleep night after night. Dusting off his somewhat rusty cooking skills—Pat knew plenty about cooking from helping his father in the kitchen, but since he had moved out on his own, he’d grown lazy about his own meals—just so that he could make sure Ethan put something in his stomach every day.
He glanced, askance, at Ethan again to see his response, but he had turned to walk away.
“Wait, is that okay?”
“I’m not going to tell you not to have dinner with your family,” Ethan called over his shoulder.
Pat followed him into the hall, the cool air prickling his bare skin. “Do you want to come though?”
“I’m fine. I have a lot to read. The books are only on loan.”
Pat stood there, watching the human’s retreating back with disappointment uncurling in his belly. His shoulders slumped, and without feeling much enthusiasm for it, he went to take his shower. He dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. A little digging through his drawers produced a soft merino sweater in maroon—a gift from one of his sisters last Christmas—which he put on in deference to the chill outside. The weather report on the radio had predicted snow overnight.
Ethan wasn’t in sight when he went downstairs, but if Pat took a second and listened, he could make out the soft steady thump of his heart somewhere in the townhouse.
Pat opened his mouth and froze. What should he say? What would Ethan want him to say?
He sighed.
“I won’t be out too late,” he said to the empty living room.
The drive to his parents’ house was slow thanks to the last threads of commuter traffic, and Pat was in a dark mood by the time he parked on the curb outside.
Light and noise spilled out the front door as he ducked inside, shaking persistent droplets of rain out of his dark hair. He left his coat draped across the hall table and his shoes kicked off next to the door. As he walked towards the kitchen he realized that one of the male voices belonged to his cousin. Vector stood next to Pat’s father at the stove, asking quiet questions about spice combinations. Far from being inconvenienced by this, Jon Clanahan seemed inordinately delighted to have a captive pupil.
“Hey, Pat.” His sister Grace set down a stack of plates and gave him a little wave. He crossed the kitchen to help her.
“Hey,” he said, addressing the room, which was full with bodies, his brother Campbell and sister Mal, Mal’s husband and one of her children, Vector and his father, and his youngest sister Roisin who sat at the kitchen table reading a book with an intent look on her face.
“Grab the silverware,” Grace told him.
The two of them worked in companionable silence to set the dining room table.
“Mom guilt you into coming tonight?” she asked in a low voice, reaching across him to set the last dinner plate down at the head of the table.
He grimaced.
“You’ve been busy,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I notice your significant other didn’t tag along.”
“He’s not feeling up to…” Pat bit his tongue.
“Strangers?”
“Don’t.”
She held up her empty hands. “I don’t want a fight.”
Pat stared at Grace in disbelief. “Since when?” but he could see, now that he was looking, the shadows lurking under her eyes, deep purple and speaking of her own sleepless nights. Her face was pale and drawn, for once no hint of a teasing grin lurking anywhere between her mouth and her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, reaching out to cup her shoulder.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, gesturing at his face.
“I asked you first.”
“Just tired. End of the year stuff. You know. Now your turn.”
“Caught a new case at work. Left a bad taste in my mouth.”
The corner of her mouth turned down. “What kind of case?”
He shook his head.
“Fine,” she said. They parted as the swinging kitchen doors opened and the rest of the family trooped in, carrying drinks and heaped dishes of food.
Pat returned Vector’s brisk nod, the two of them taking seats across from one another at the left end of the table. Jon sat at the right head. They all sat for a moment in awkward silence before Roisin groaned and pushed her chair back.
“I’ll go get everyone else,” she said, too polite to just give a shout that dinner was ready. Campbell’s wife and baby slipped past Roisin as she went to find the pack alpha.
The warm smells of potatoes and meat filled the air, Pat’s mouth watering as his eyes swept across the glistening pork roast nestled amongst a bed of onions, carrots, and winter parsnips at the center of the table. The family began passing around rolls and mashed potatoes while they waited.
Teagan arrived and shot a pleased look between Pat and his cousin before she sat in the chair at the head of the table near them.
“Everything smells delicious, dear,” she called down the table to her blushing husband.
“Do you want a glass of wine?” Pat asked his mother, half rising from his chair.
“Please.” She held out her glass.
He found a bottle of chianti open on the counter in the kitchen. He had poured drinks for himself and his alpha when Vector came up behind him. Pat offered him the bottle. The other wolf sniffed delicately at Teagan’s glass, a distracted look on his face.
Pat waited for his cousin to make a decision.
“I probably shouldn’t ask.”
“You probably shouldn’t eavesdrop on other peoples’ conversations,” Pat replied.
Vector’s eyebrows rose as he turned a soft, wide-eyed expression on him.
“It didn’t sound like a private conversation,” he said.
“Just ask if you’re going to.”
“I don’t need to if you don’t want to—”
“I don’t. We don’t need the Feds sticking their noses in where they don’t belong.”
“That’s not what—”
Pat grabbed the two glasses of wine and left Vector holding the bottle. His mother gave him a look as he set her glass down on the table, but she kept her comment to a quiet, “Thank you, darling.”
He had to ask Mal to pass the roast around again so he could fill his plate, staring down at his food with an intensity meat and potatoes didn’t really warrant.
Conversation flowed between the werewolves around him, focused primarily around Roisin’s classes for the most part—she had just finished her first quarter at the University of Washington and was full of stories about the other kids in her dorm. She laughed when her father made a disapproving noise about the parties the boys floor above her liked to throw.
“I hope you’re studying enough,” he said.
Roisin gestured with the book she’d had in the kitchen and brought out to the table with her. “What do you think I’m doing? My Women in Pop Culture professor sent out the reading list early. I think I can get through most of it before break is over. Don’t worry, Dad, I’m all over this shit.” She grinned and stuffed a large spoonful of mash in her mouth.
When there was a lull, their alpha sat forward in her chair, set down her knife and fork and reached for her glass of wine. She fixed a serious eye first on her eldest son, Pat, and then turned to Vector.
“And how is Mr Graham doing?”
Vector froze, eyes fixed on his plate. Pat watched his cousin curiously. They hadn’t had an opportunity to speak with one another since before he and Ethan left town at the end of summer. The name “Graham” sounded familiar, but it took Pat a beat to place where he’d heard it before: the human Vector had brought with him to the pack’s Fourth of July barbecue. The one whose friend had died. The ex-cop.
Pat frowned when he realized that the entire table had fallen still, as though they were all waiting with their breaths held to hear Vector’s answer.
“He’s doing better.”
Teagan nodded her dark head. “When he’s feeling well enough you should bring him for dinner again.”
“We’ll fill him up with lots of good stuff,” Jon called down the table. “Grace told us about the raman.” Pat’s father shook his head as though he couldn’t believe his own words.
Pat glanced between them and caught the flicker of amusement pass across his cousin’s face.
“Trust me, I’ve cleaned out every instant noodle box in the apartment. Lachlan doesn’t mind eating good things. You just can’t trust him near a stove.”
Teagan finished her wine and set the glass down on the table. She laid her hand across the back of Vector’s.
“We’re all hoping to see him soon.”
Vector sat back, subtly extracting his hand from under her’s and nodded.
While Pat was considering all of this, his mother rounded on him next with an arch expression.
“And your young man, where is he?”
“At the house.”
“Your house?”
He gave her a sharp look. She knew that Ethan had moved in with him almost the second they were back in Seattle. Since that disastrous trip on the boat—
“He’s working on a research project.”
“He didn’t want to come,” she said.
Pat fought down a furious blush at her words, his wolf embarrassed by Ethan’s disdain to know the pack palpable in his belly. He hadn’t gotten the mage to come here since before that ill-fated encounter with his half—well, everything had been different since that night, hadn’t it? He didn’t see why his mother had to go airing it at the dinner table. What did she expect him to say?
Unwilling to say anything against Ethan’s decision, he kept his mouth shut.
Teagan made a considering noise and piled her dirty silverware on her plate, stood up and carried her dishes into the kitchen. Silence reigned in her wake. Pat met Vector’s eyes across the table. His cousin cocked his head, eyes losing a little of their sharp focus as he listened to something from another room.
Pat found that he’d lost his appetite for the food. He forced down a couple more bites of meat before clearing his throat.
“Everything was excellent,” he told his father and stood from the table.
Vector sprang up, nodding along with his words, and the two of them cleared their place settings. Pat was surprised when they didn’t meet Teagan in the kitchen. His cousin took his plate from him and scraped the remains of their dinners into the garbage. Then he walked Pat to the front door.
Pat pulled on his coat and jumped when his cousin stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you have a number?” Vector asked.
He handed over his work phone. Vector typed something into it. A second later his pocket buzzed, and he handed the device back to Pat.
“If you need any help, I’ve been reassigned to the Seattle office.”
“Yeah, mom mentioned…”
Vector nodded. “I’m on call, because of—I took some leave. And they only need me for special cases, so if you can use me—”
Pat shook his head and frowned. “You moved out of the townhouse?”
“Yeah. A while ago.”
“But—”
His cousin’s face creased in a pained look, eyes focused on something far away. “Lachlan’s not doing very well. He tried to take himself off the oxygen last week but…” The other wolf swallowed thickly and ran one slender hand over his face.
Now that he was looking at him, Pat noticed how thin Vector looked. His cousin had always been tall and narrow, whipcord strong instead of broad like Patrick. But he looked drawn and grey around the edges standing their under the bare porch bulb above the front door.
A gust of cold air twisted around them, prompting Pat to tug his coat closed and making Vector shiver and stuff his hands in his pockets. His cousin turned up his nose and sniffed delicately at the air.
“Smells like snow.”
Pat took in a deep lungful of crisp winter air. “Yeah. Better get it over with now.”
“I think it’s going to be a bad winter.”
“It’ll be raining again next week.”
“Maybe,” Vector said without conviction. “I’ll see you around.”
“’Night.”
When he looked back from the Camero’s driver’s seat, Pat saw Vector’s dark form standing against the halo of light from the hall, face still tipped up towards the moonless sky.