Chapter 24

Hāmweard, ðu londadl hǽðstapa, in 9 days

Homeward, you landsick heath-wanderer, in 9 days

There’s a man in another mighty building a block away. I’ve see him before. Well-dressed, fit, and successful, he stares out toward me. I would have said he was master of all he surveys, but increasingly, I think he’s waiting for something.

Then yesterday, I nodded to him and he nodded back, and I realized that this wasn’t a man at all, just a broken wolf reflected in the crystalline plate-glass windows when the light is low.

Is this what happened to Aldrich, all those years ago, before he drove into the lamppost?

“Mr. Sorensson? I couldn’t reach Janine,” screeches Dahlia’s voice over the intercom on my phone, an agony in my sensitive ears. “That man from Great North is here again.”

Given that our lives are ruled by the calendar, you’d think the Pack would have figured out how to use iCal.

“Send him in. And Dahlia, could you arrange for someone to fix my intercom?”

A minute later, the door closes.

“No hard feelings?” says the low, cool voice.

“Of course not. Have a seat.”

Tiberius shakes his head. “As soon as we finish here, I’m going straight home.”

Leaning back in my chair behind the barricade of my desk, I cross my ankle to my knee.

“Can I just ask why the Great North no longer uses the phone?”

“Because the Great North has been betrayed once and has become cautious. We will not be betrayed again.”

We?

“I’m going to repeat: The Great North is getting paranoid.”

Tiberius turns, scanning the halls through the glass door.

“You know Maxim Trianoff contacted the Alpha.”

“Did he? And what did he want?”

“Wanted to tell the CEO of Great North that you were coming unhinged, spinning out of control. Said you’d had an accident on your way back from your last trip up there. Thought maybe you’d been drinking. You look better, by the way.”

“It was just a flesh wound.”

“Mmm. He seemed especially upset about the time and resources and goodwill you wasted on something about protecting wolves. Wolves.” He smiles and says quietly, “The Alpha commends your hard work.”

“And how did she leave things with Max?”

“She just said that you enjoyed the full confidence of the Great North, and she expected to hear nothing more on the subject. She did it in that way a good Alpha does, and he couldn’t wait to get off the phone.” Tiberius picks up the skull from my desk. “What’s this?”

It’s everything I can do to stop from launching myself across the polished oak to snatch it back.

“Fisher.” The thing looks so small and vulnerable in his big hand. “Be careful with it.”

He lowers his head a little and sniffs. “You marked it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I touched it, that’s all.”

“You know as well as I do that there is a difference between marking and touching.” He takes another sniff. “Did you mark the woman who gave it to you as well?”

“And she is certainly none of your fucking business.” With a quick sweep of my forearm, the fisher skull is settled into the drawer next to the box of pine needles it came in. Then I jam the drawer shut, holding it closed with my thigh. “Now, why don’t you tell me your business.”

Tiberius touches his hand to his nose and draws in a slow, deep breath. His senses in skin are better than ours are as wolves. With every breath he takes, I feel exposed, my defenses stripped away.

He nods once as though confirming something to himself. “We will be having a lying-in soon, and the Alpha asks that you bring the necessary signature addenda with room for four new names.”

“Four? Tristan and Gabi always cull if there are over three. They—”

“There will be,” Tiberius insists tightly, “four.”

“And who are the parents?”

“Just bring the papers next moon.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I need the names of the adults who will be signing on their behalf.”

He stares out the window for a long time.

“Quicksilver Nilsdottir,” he says with a crack in his voice. “Tiberius Malasson.”

And for the first time, I see feeling in the Shifter’s dark face. It’s not anticipation or nervousness or joy. It’s nothing small or light. It’s pain and dread and guilt. He clamps his lips between his teeth, and the room reeks of salt and old leather. The unmistakable smell of fear.

I don’t know what to say to him. I can’t promise that his mate will make it. We use every bit of medical technology we can get our claws on, but we still lose females during the lying-in. Powerful females. Viable females. Females bearing only two. “Silver is strong of marrow,” I say, feeling the smallness of the comfort even as I say it. “And the whole of the Great North will be there for her. For you too, if it comes to that.”

Tiberius doesn’t pretend not to understand. He just slumps against the wall, his arms wrapped around his waist. He shakes his head and stares at the floor for a long time.

“I remember…” he finally says. “I remember when all I’d worry about was how to get rid of them. Women. How to get through those miserable morning hours before I could kick them out and start over. A clean slate.”

He rubs at his clipped beard, and I catch a glimpse of those freakish fangs that I’ve only heard about before.

“God, I miss it.” His shattered hand drops briefly to the braid at his neck, the sign of a mated wolf. “I miss the not caring.”

“Tiberius?”

He stops, his hand on the door, his head turned just a fraction.

“There will be room for four.”