Avery
“Can I fuck this one first?” I asked of the supposedly “easy target” Reinoso pack werewolf once our server was out of hearing range.
Wyatt’s eyes rolled. “I think it’d be best if you simply killed him.”
“You’re no fun.” And I hadn’t gotten laid since I’d been human. “What’s his name again?”
“Alcaeus.”
“Al-kay-huh?”
“Think ‘Al’ plus ‘chaos’—Alcaeus. Alcaeus is the name of Perseus and Andromeda’s son in Greek mythology.”
“Wow, they really excel at teaching useless subjects in private school. Why’s he an easy target?”
“Perry said he’s more of a scout and informant for the Reinoso pack than a rogue hunter. Apparently Alex and Milena have had him searching across America for signs of the capital R rogue for the past decade. Supposedly, he’s on his way to Denver next to meet with some of your old friends.”
Ah. “Well, can’t risk that happening.” I raised my fresh coffee cup in salute. “Kill him it is then.”
By “old friends,” Wyatt referred to the local Colorado pack I’d gotten acquainted with during my early werewolf days. Prior to Sloane’s birth, I’d felt the irrepressible, innate pull to belong to a pack, so I’d sought out and attempted to integrate with several. Unfortunately, in my ignorance as a new wolf, I’d done more to expose and endanger myself. As a result, I still had packs across the country hunting me to this day—in addition to all the rogue hunters I’d pissed off over the years.
With the first werewolf pack that had taken me in—the one here outside of Denver—I’d foolishly revealed surviving a rogue attack. That’s when I’d learned that humans didn’t survive rogue attacks. More importantly, humans didn’t survive the initial werewolf transformation. Ever. In fact, even half-weres born of human and werewolf unions rarely survived. I was quickly labeled an abomination by the pack elders and ordered killed.
Regrettably for that first pack, they lost big time picking a fight with me, because I wound up burning their entire Highlands Ranch gated community to the ground. I was a bit hormonal during my pregnancy, oddly obsessed with fire, and given to violent impulses that seemed to come out of nowhere at times.
After that I went on the run, pissing off several more packs along the way, before fabricating an acceptable backstory about myself in order to get a nice, God-fearing pack in North Carolina to take me in just prior to Sloane’s birth. I played the sympathy card by making up an abusive ex-boyfriend werewolf who’d knocked me up. It was a good thing my backstory worked because I couldn’t very well give birth at a hospital. And I wasn’t keen on giving birth by myself—or, heaven forbid, with Wyatt assisting me.
All was going well enough with the North Carolina pack and my luck was beginning to look up, but then my daughter, Sloane, was born utterly scentless—to everyone but me. Stranger still, I ceased having any sort of smell to anyone but myself and to Sloane the moment that Sloane was born.
Scent meant everything to wolves. They trusted their sense of smell above all other senses. The fact that my daughter and I suddenly had no discernable scent whatsoever was considered an aberrant horror on the scale of demonic possession.
So I went on the run again. And fortunately for me, the drive to belong to a pack had vanished along with my scent the moment that Sloane was born. Despite no longer needing a pack, I knew that I wasn’t a rogue in the true sense—at least not in the Rogue-with-a-capital-R sense. Because if I went too long without seeing Sloane, I experienced the same ill effects that other werewolves did when they attempted to go rogue. As long as I spent enough time with Sloane in between hunting rogue hunters, I was fine. Sloane, however, was another matter.
“So what about the Reinoso sister? Where’s her dossier of glamour shots? I expected more photos of her than anyone else.”
“What sister?”
“The sister. Perry said there was a sister who had also headed the family for ages.”
Wyatt’s brow pinched.
“Alex’s sister,” I clarified when Wyatt continued to give me a curiously blank look. “We talked about her before you went out there. Did she turn out to be a cousin or other relation then?”
“No …” He rubbed his temple. “No, there’s no sister. I’m sure I never said there was a sister.” He frowned. “Did I?”
“Yes. You did. You even mentioned her when you called me from Brazil.”
His frown deepened. He shook his head. “I couldn’t have. There was no sister.”
I felt my own forehead crumpling. It wasn’t like Wyatt to be forgetful. “You said she was the most gorgeous woman you’d ever seen,” I pressed. “You joked that you’d probably taken more photos of her than was necessary. God, what was her name? Alexis? Alexandria? No, that’s not it, but something close to that. Ugh.” I tapped my fingernail against the rim of my coffee mug. “It was like the female equivalent of Alex, but not Alexandria … It was …”
“You’re mistaken.” His voice sounded sure, but his eyes were still squinting with confusion and doubt. “I must’ve been talking about Milena, the Alpha.”
“Nope.” I shook my head and stood my ground. “Definitely not. Innocent-looking hippie waifs have never been your type. You fuck power-drunk, high-society stuck-up-bitch types who take no prisoners, both in the bedroom and in the boardroom. That is your type.”
“Ha! As if!” he balked. “That is not my type. And that is positively the most antifeminist sentiment I’ve ever heard out of you. I happen to like women who are comfortable with their sexuality and equally confident navigating a man’s world.”
“A man’s world?” I scoffed into my coffee cup. “And I’m antifeminist?”
“You know what I meant.”
“Suuure.”
“It’s easy enough to settle this.” Wyatt retrieved his phone from his pocket and set it on the table. “I’ll just message Perry and ask him if he ever gave me information on a Reinoso sister.”
He was thumbing through his contacts when the phone began to vibrate atop the Formica surface. The name “Lessa” flashed across the screen. As soon as it did, Wyatt’s face lit up like the Dow Jones had just gained five hundred points.
Whoa. “No time for dating, huh? Who’s Lessa?”
A vacuous, dreamy grin overcame Wyatt’s features as he snatched his phone up. “Ah … no one,” he said absently, beaming down at the vibrating device in his hands. “Just a new acquaintance.”
But his heart rate had spiked and his thumb hovered anxiously over the “talk” button a few moments too long before declining the call to voicemail for Lessa to be no one.
“You make a face like a twelve-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert anytime no one important calls you?”
He made a “pfft” noise of dismissal and quickly composed his features before tucking his phone away. “Don’t be absurd. Bieber hasn’t toured in years.”
“Seriously? That’s the joke you’re gonna go with as your defense here? What happened to calling Perry?”
“Who? Oh, right.” He whipped his phone back out, emitting a nervous chuckle.
I’d never seen Wyatt flustered like this. Giddy wasn’t part of his normal repertoire.
“How long have you been seeing no one?”
“Really, there’s nothing to share. It’s all very recent. Lessa was seated next to me on my flight back from São Paulo, actually. And then we ran into one another at a fundraising event in Manhattan a few days later.”
“Wow.” I nodded slowly, feeling my eyebrows strain for my hairline. “And you’ve decided this was kismet, huh? Not … strategic coincidence?”
“Avery, she’s no one.”
“No one who just happened to be on the same flight as you from Brazil? And then at the same event days later?”
“Trust me, she’s not connected to all this in any way. True coincidences do still happen.”
His phone vibrated, and “Lessa” flashed across the screen once more. He shrugged sheepishly at my withering look.
“So you ran a background check and she came up clean?”
“Yes—I mean, no. But I will.” He tugged distractedly at the roots of his hair. “Look, there’s nothing to be concerned about, all right? The woman’s an angel. Involved in charity work for kids and homeless seniors—”
“Don’t need details.” I held my hand up. “Just run the check, please.”
“Of course.” Apologetic blue eyes cut back and forth from me to his phone. “I think … I think maybe I should get this. What if it’s important?”
I pointed to the clock on the wall. “It’s ten to three a.m., Wyatt. Who rings their new fling at this hour? Does she not know how to text?”
“She texts. She’s just old school,” he said defensively. “Besides, she’s in New York. It’d be five a.m. her time.”
Ignoring the unblinking, are-you-fucking-kidding-me stare I leveled at him, he answered the call, and a look of gleeful innocence erupted over his face in a way I’d never seen before. “Hi, there.” He cradled the phone close to his ear and arose from the table, well aware of my supernatural hearing abilities.
An awful sense of dread settled in my gut. I needed Wyatt, and I couldn’t afford for him not to be focused. It was selfish of me, I knew, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed his help more than ever right now with this werelock situation unfolding. Wyatt was the only ally I had.
I tasted both jealousy and contrition as I watched him pace in place on the opposite side of the diner—his face alight with happiness. It was hardly the first time I’d felt a sense of guilt over the knowledge that involving him in my werewolf problems had probably prevented him from having a normal life and starting a family these past ten years. I liked to rationalize that he’d long been a workaholic playboy who’d steered clear of settling down anyway, but Wyatt was pushing fifty now. And he was on track to be a Brad Pitt or Dylan McDermott kind of fifty—still hot and getting hotter with age.
He came back over to the table and rifled through his briefcase, giving me another apologetic look and mouthing something about Lessa needing a contact he’d promised her.
I couldn’t deny I felt threatened by another woman stealing his attention. It wasn’t that I had romantic inclinations toward him. Sure, he was good-looking and charming, and admittedly, I’d had a fleeting schoolgirl crush on him as a teenager, but he’d quickly become a big brother figure in my life, and that’s where he’d remained. We enjoyed one of those rare male-female relationships where, despite any inherent romantic appeal, we understood one another well enough to know that we’d always be best suited as friends. And that was before I’d turned into another species.
“I need to run out to the car,” he whispered to me, holding the phone to his chest. “I’m sorry. It’ll only take a second.” Still searching through his briefcase as he pushed the diner door open with his foot, he missed the baleful look I gave him as he went off in search of whatever it was Ms. Needy so desperately required at this hour.
I was so wrapped up in my thoughts as I watched Wyatt bound across the street to his parked rental car that too late I noticed the prolonged absence of our server and the scent of freshly spilled blood coming from the kitchen. It was the telltale scent of C-4 that caught my attention just seconds before the rear wall lining the kitchen exploded.