CHAPTER ONE

The Problem with Purple

December 1895

“But Alpha, purple is simply not appropriate.” Quinn’s growly voice somehow edged into whining.

The rest of the werewolf pack tried to shush him, but the damage was done.

“I beg your pardon!” Sandalio de Rabiffano, newly minted Lord Falmouth, better known to the rarified fuzz and fang of the supernatural set as Biffy, Alpha of the London Pack, nearly leapt to his feet... at the dinner table. He was that offended. Of course, he remembered himself long before he could commit such a profound breach of etiquette. He was, after all, still Biffy.

He narrowed his eyes instead. “I assure you, purple is a perfectly delightful color and is more than appropriate to all venues, ages, genders, and species!”

“It doesn’t hearken to nature,” Phelan came to his pack mate’s defense with an intellectual argument. He cocked his head socratically, his studied air rather defeated by the fact that he had to stop stuffing his face with steak and kidney pie in order to talk. Biffy swung his discerning glare onto him, judging his manner, his decision to speak against his Alpha, his choice of argument, and his ill-judged belief that Quinn had opened the floodgates of objection.

This anti-purple rhetoric would be nipped, most sharply, in the bud. “Plenty of lovely natural things are purple: sunsets, sunrises for that matter, iris, aubergines, oysters.” Nip nip nip! “Although” – he frowned, and then remembered he didn’t like the way this wrinkled his forehead, so stopped – “these are all different shades of purple. Is that the true objection? Should I choose a different shade?”

A chorus of groans met that. They’d already been at this for an hour, Biffy finally settling on this particular deep, rich, dark plum velvet. Ordinarily, the pack didn’t care about interior decorations and would rather he choose without involving them. Ordinarily, he would have. But this was a communal curtain situation and they were his pack. Curtains should matter to his pack. And now, it seemed, of a sudden they did matter.

Biffy pursed his lips. He knew this was the correct color. Knew it in his very bones. Bones that moved and shifted and broke every full moon, so possibly not as reliable as they might once have been, but still... “Why are you arguing with me on this particular detail? Purple would suit the room best. You never usually care two tail shakes for this sort of thing.” Why object now about something I know is right?

Adelphus, who was at that moment wearing a purple evening jacket (not plum, more violet, but still), looked monumentally uncomfortable. He fiddled with one of the fabric samples set out before them. Biffy suppressed the instinct to slap the man’s hand away – Adelphus might leave a grease stain. But no, it was fine, Adelphus was mostly tame. “I simply feel the green...”

“In that room? Are you mad?” Biffy tried not to let the frustration color his voice. He knew what he was talking about. This was what he did. He made rooms beautiful. He made people beautiful. Or he used to, before he lost most of his soul and creativity.

Doubt, his old friend, shook him then. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the purple is unpleasant. Maybe I’ve lost my eye for color as well as everything else. No. Stop second-guessing. It’s the purple or nothing. And nothing was not an option in a house full of werewolves. Sunlight being rather more of an issue when one was allergic to it.

He took a breath. I’m the Alpha, for goodness’ sake. Aren’t they supposed to listen to me? Instinctively obey me?

“God’s teeth, it’s only curtains!” Even Rafe, the most easygoing of the pack, was getting annoyed.

Biffy huffed. “Curtains,” he explained slowly as though to a very thick child (which, to be fair, rather defined Rafe’s character), “are a serious business.”

“Don’t you think they’ll be too dark for the room?” Hemming was clearly not at all sure of himself. It sounded as if he were trying to come up with an excuse. As if he really had some other reason for objecting. As if they all did.

What is going on here?

Biffy swept a critical gaze over his nervous pack. “All right, chaps, what’s the truth here? What’s actually wrong with purple?”

His pack all looked collectively guilty. They exchanged glances. Finally, they all turned to Adelphus as if he were the one best at calming their new, young, purple-minded Alpha.

Poor Adelphus. He isn’t my Beta, but he keeps getting cast in that role. Biffy winced away from that thought, like touching a sore tooth. He didn’t want to think about his Beta. He didn’t want to miss him.

He’d agree with me about the purple.

A nice dark plum, ideal to show off the daring ash furniture and sumptuous cream brocades he’d chosen for the rest of the drawing room. With some luscious ferns scattered about, and a few other plants, shelves of books, and other knickknacks. It would look rich and striking yet bright and welcoming and...

Adelphus looked uncomfortable. But at least he’s stylish. Perhaps I should listen to him. We have something in common.

Biffy paused to think a little on that. It took a great deal of effort for a werewolf to have style. Getting naked once a month, ripping clothes constantly, and turning into a slavering beast was only the start of the afterlife’s many dandy challenges.

Something for me to be proud of. Biffy had come a long way from the lonely, scruffy want-to-be vampire of his first few years as a werewolf pup. My hair alone was a complete shambles. Certainly, he still wasn’t a very good Alpha. He’d no idea how to run a pack. He’d never successfully metamorphosed a claviger, and he was still looked down upon by other Alphas. In fact, the litany of his failings over the past twenty years since his metamorphosis filled his brain, but... At least I am a werewolf with style. And I can bloody well pick out curtains!

He fully glared at Adelphus, putting Alpha will behind the look.

Adelphus crumpled. “See here, Alpha. I mean no disrespect and no insult to your former life.” His eyes were wary.

“Go on,” said Biffy, trying not to let his voice sink into a growl.

“But, sir...”

Now that felt weird. Adelphus was at least a hundred years his senior, possibly twice that, and sir was an honorific Biffy did not feel he deserved.

“Yes?”

“Purple is a vampire color.”

Biffy let out a long sighing kind of snort. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! We have colors now?”

Quinn tried to help. “It’s accepted all ‘round as standard practice for spaces and coaches and cushions and that sort of thing.” He failed the dismount.

“That sort of thing?” Biffy let his outrage show.

“It’s only, Alpha, this is a big step, us moving away from Himself next door. We don’t want any reminders of previous intimacies.” Hemming was trying to be kind.

What he was saying was actually: We don’t want you to have any reminders.

Biffy suddenly understood. They were worried he was pining for lost futures. How sweet of them.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m not upset about being a werewolf instead of a vampire?”

Incredulous looks all ‘round.

“Fine, I’m not upset anymore. Honestly.”

All the werewolves were displaying varying degrees of disbelief. Biffy had made no secret, at first, that werewolf was not what he wanted for an afterlife. Back then, it had been hard to hide, he was so wounded, knowing he could have made it. To have enough excess soul to become a werewolf meant he might have become a vampire instead. Vampire would have suited him so much better – his personality, his plans, his future, his soul (or what was left of it). But that wasn’t what happened, and he’d had twenty years to come to terms with that. Purple curtains were not going to sway him into flights of his former melancholy.

I assure you, he wanted to say again, I’m not pining! Except that he was. Only it wasn’t for a state of undead – it was for a person. It wasn’t so much an ache, a void at the edge of his consciousness, as a missing piece. The same piece that was missing from his pack, the balance point that they all yearned for. The one who could, so easily and gently, have settled the matter of purple curtains.

Biffy told himself for the millionth time that it was nothing more than an Alpha’s need for his Beta. He refused to believe that after twenty years, his heart hurt for a connection it had had so long ago, for such a short space of time. He forced his mind not to go in that direction. There were too many other things, too many important things that he must deal with, and pining for his Beta (non-sexually or otherwise) wouldn’t solve anything.

With a sigh, he capitulated. Which likely wasn’t a good decision. Alphas were supposed to be strong, commanding, hold to their point of view. Or something like that.

He went with his second option. “I suppose blood red is out, too.”

The pack all looked at one another.

“We werewolves customarily get outdoor colors like browns and greens and such.” Phelan was trying to help.

Biffy glared. “I am attempting to give us an aura of sophistication! It’s 1895. We live in London. Earth tones are so very last decade!”

The werewolves now looked as though they were trying not to laugh. At least a few of them did.

“Why do vampires get to have purple? Is it a rule? Something to do with royalty?” Biffy had learned there were lots of unwritten rules to immortality. The werewolves called them protocols, but really they were traditionally codified rules.

Adelphus smiled. “Not officially. It’s more to do with Rome.”

Biffy grinned back. “Oh, yes, ancient history, is it?”

Biffy knew he had a bit of a lax attitude about tradition. But then again, wasn’t that part of his role? In his lucid days, before the previous Alpha went mad with Alpha’s curse, Lord Maccon would say, This is your time, Biffy. Bring us into the modern age. We have to learn to accommodate the present, or we are going to become obsolete. You’re important to all werewolves – you represent a new kind of Alpha.

I’m failing. I’m failing him. And I’m failing them. Well, us, I suppose I should say. He looked at his pack sitting around the dinner table, worried, uncomfortable.

Biffy stood. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he had good form and excellent posture. He was a practiced gentleman and he called upon that sophistication (in lieu of arrogance) so that he could put his beautifully shod foot very firmly down.

“Purple curtains. End of discussion.”

Adelphus opened his mouth. Biffy glared. “End. Of. Discussion.”

Adelphus snapped his mouth closed and tilted his head quickly to show his neck. “Yes, Alpha.”

With a start, the others followed suit.

Biffy marched from the room. Feeling a little faint. Which he attributed to not having had time to eat – too busy arguing about curtains.

* * *

Biffy had elected to move the pack – his pack – for various reasons. But the main one was standing in the house next door’s entranceway, entreating him to come visit as he stormed past in a purple-curtain temper. Biffy was on a mission to settle his nerves. His authority had been questioned, not as Alpha but as arbiter of good taste. It made him feel unstable and petulant. Which was a long way of saying – he had hats to decorate. Having a gossip with his former lover, ex vampire-master, inveterate scandalmonger, and next-door neighbor was nowhere near as restful as hat decorating.

But Lord Akeldama was nothing if not persuasive, and Biffy was nothing if not courteous.

He might, of course, have pretended not to hear. But he had supernatural hearing, and Lord Akeldama knew that.

“Biffy! Pudding! Come be social with your old chum, it’s perishingly dull right now.”

It was also perishingly cold. Not as bad as last year when the blasted Thames had become an ice pit, but London was having another frigid winter in a string of them. Lord Akeldama, however, stood defiantly in his doorway wearing little more than a charming silk smoking jacket (though he didn’t smoke), a precocious gold monocle (although he had perfect vision), and skin-tight satin trousers (although it was not yet visiting hours). Vampires did not really feel the cold. They were cold already.

Biffy sighed, admiring the trousers. He no longer wore anything so well fitted. It was too difficult to strip out of tight clothing with speed and finesse. He shouldn’t have been shocked to learn (although he had been) that werewolves got naked a great deal more frequently than anyone else.

He admired the consequences of course – Biffy was a great appreciator of the male physique, and werewolves mainly came big and muscled. While that wasn’t his particular romantic preference, he could still admire – on an intellectual level, of course. But he did miss tight clothing. He himself had a slender build, but with nice lean muscles that he’d taken care to maintain, even in his human dandy lifetime, with fencing and dancing. He’d once quite enjoyed showing himself off with fashion. To be frank, he missed tight trousers.

“Are you admiring the cut of my jib, dahling?” inquired the vampire, tapping his monocle and smiling – without showing fang.

Biffy paused on the threshold and gave Lord Akeldama an assessing look. Goodness, I miss flirting.

“Will you be hoisting a petard any time soon?”

Lord Akeldama laughed. “Shall I run it up the flagpole and see if anything salutes?” His eyes drifted downwards, speculatively.

Biffy allowed a gentle chuckle to leak forth.

Lord Akeldama stepped back and gestured for him to come inside.

“Am I welcome?” Biffy hesitated.

“Ah, dear boy, you’ve been studying vampire-werewolf relationship protocols again, haven’t you?”

“I must learn.”

“Of course you must. Please, my lovely, come inside, do.”

At an outright verbalized invitation, Biffy walked inside the vampire’s home.

He was hit with a pang of regret almost instantly. Very little had changed. The hallway was still overly decorated in a French rococo style, full of opulence, gilt, and seductive tapestries featuring shepherds in compromising positions. There were marble statues of cupids and thick Persian rugs. Certainly, it wasn’t to Biffy’s taste, but it was to taste. It had a point of view and Biffy admired that in a house. And it was achingly familiar. I lived here for half as much time as I lived with the pack next door, and yet I miss this place more. Sentimentality? Perhaps it’s simply that I was so very happy here.

Lord Akeldama led him into his luxurious drawing room. Not the more comfortable sitting room – that was reserved for family and Biffy was no longer family.

“Tea? Pink slurp? Something raw and still wiggling?”

Biffy smiled. “A slurp would be lovely.” It wasn’t to his taste, but courtesy must take preeminence with vampires, even ex-lovers and old friends – especially then.

Lord Akeldama whistled up his current favorite drone, a beautiful young man with raven hair and catlike black eyes named Winkle. Well, not named Winkle, but called Winkle by my lord, and thus everyone else.

“Winkle, darling. Two pink slurps when you have a moment.”

“Of course, my lord, coming right up.”

“And we are not to be disturbed.”

Winkle frowned, looking disturbed himself. “Oh, but sir...”

“What is it, my pet?”

“There’s the matter of the kitten?”

“Kitten, Winkle?”

“Yes, sir, you promised Kippers. Remember? You agreed that we should get a new kitten, since Madame Pudgemuffin...”

Lord Akeldama tapped his lip with one fingertip. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? Is Kippers bringing around the candidate soonish?”

“They’re in the kitchen as we speak.”

“They? They! I believe I was quite clear on this matter – only one cat at a time in this household. I can’t be seen to have more than one cat, it simply isn’t done. It’s too much. Too eccentric in a vampire.”

Biffy leaned back. Trying not to slide comfortably into the ridiculous banter of Lord Akeldama’s household. Trying not to enjoy the conversation too much. Trying not to jump in and mediate, as once would have been his role. It hurt. By George, it hurt. Although not as much as it once had. Twenty years were remarkably numbing.

“But sir! They are so cute. A brother-and-sister pair.”

Lord Akeldama frowned. “Do they match to my aesthetic?”

“A ginger and a tabby, sir.”

Lord Akeldama winced. “I shall have to entirely redecorate the sitting room. Ginger indeed!”

“He has the cutest little face...” Winkle gave a winning smile. “Looks like he’s got a most serious statement mustache.”

“Mustache? Mustache! In my house?” Lord Akeldama was not to be persuaded by mustaches on cats. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Winkle made his eyes big. “Please, sir?”

Lord Akeldama gave a very elegant snort. “I shall think about it. Now, bring us the slurps and leave us be for twenty minutes. I trust you can entertain the candidates until then? How many of you are home at the moment?”

“Only four of us drones, my lord.”

“That should be enough for two kittens.”

More fateful words were never spoken. Biffy hid a grin.

Winkle nodded. “I hope so, sir. They are most ebullient.”

“Well, you’d best hop to it, then, hadn’t you, my sweet?”

Winkle hurried off, returning in mere moments with the champagne mixed with blood, and then excusing himself with a slightly panicked look in his eye.

Lord Akeldama sipped his slurp and turned his piercing eyes back to Biffy.

“So, Alpha, how is everything with your new pack?”

“As well as can be expected.”

“It has only been a few months since you became the power behind the fur. Is that correct? You know me and time.”

Biffy could have calculated to the exact hour he’d assumed leadership of the London Pack, but he didn’t want to let his former master know how much the responsibility weighed upon him. “A few, as you say, my lord.”

“None of that anymore, my dear. We’re equals now.”

Biffy winced. Technically, of course, he was Lord Akeldama’s social superior. An Alpha werewolf with a full pack outranked a rove vampire. He’d recently been learning all about it. He didn’t think Lord Akeldama would like it if he mentioned that little fact.

Lord Akeldama put down his drink softly. “A little bird told me you’ll be leaving us soon.”

Biffy wasn’t surprised at all by the knowledge, although he was a little shocked by the seriousness of the accusation. Lord Akeldama was never serious.

“Yes.” He made the excuses in his head because it would never do to volunteer information to a vampire, least of all Lord Akeldama – not anymore. I don’t think it’s healthy for werewolves to be in such close proximity to a vampire. I need my own space, to establish a change from one Alpha to the next. I need change. And I need to redecorate.

“Sweetie, I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

“You do?” Biffy blinked at him.

“You’re taking into account established influence of the supernatural set in other parts of the city? We’re a bit weighted at this juncture to north and west London.”

Biffy fell, too easily, into their old strategic confidences. “Of course.”

“Not Dulwich?” Lord Akeldama gave a delicate little shudder. “The name alone.”

“Certainly not! Greenwich.”

“Ah.” The pink drink swirled in the glass as the vampire contemplated the bubbles therein.

“There’s Blackheath right there and it’s still close enough to the important parts of town.” Biffy tried not to sound as if he were defending his decision.

“Not too rough-and-tumble?”

“For me, perhaps, but not for them. In addition, there is the theater and the music hall.”

“You’re thinking of new clavigers? Very wise, dear boy. Very wise indeed.”

Biffy tried not to puff up at the praise from his former master.

“Well, my pet, you will bring some charm and civilizing force to the area.”

“That’s the general idea, yes.” Biffy leaned forward, determined to get them away from this serious track. “How do you feel about purple curtains?”

“What shade of purple?”

“My point exactly!”

And just like that, they were back on familiar ground. Biffy spent a comfortable quarter of an hour debating the measure of interior decorating and the relative advantages when combined with the rather brutish attitude most werewolves extended towards furniture and finally rose to depart.

Cries from the sitting room notwithstanding (the kittens, it seemed, were indeed a handful), it was time for Biffy to take his leave.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, what has their britches in a bunch now?” Lord Akeldama pondered, as he led Biffy towards his inner sanctum rather than the front door.

Biffy hesitated to follow the vampire into his private quarters, but he was wildly curious.

Lord Akeldama pushed open the sitting-room door to chaos. One of his drones was perched precariously atop the back of a settee trying to reach a small ginger fluff-ball that was, apparently, climbing the (not purple) curtains. Another drone was trying to gently shake said kitten off said curtains. The kitten clung as if life and limb depended upon it.

Two other drones were down on their knees (at great risk of indelicate rending, given they took after their vampire master in the matter of tightly fitted trousers). They were fishing about under the self-same settee, presumably for the second kitten. Several chairs had been knocked over and there was a bowl sitting in what could only be a damp patch of spilled milk.

Biffy glanced at Lord Akeldama to assess his reaction to the madness. The vampire’s first glance was one of shining affection, but he quickly schooled his features into that of disciplinarian and teacher. Biffy also watched him take in Winkle’s pert bottom as he attempted to retrieve the tabby. Or perhaps that hunger was the result of a bit of naked neck (between hair and cravat) exposed by the kneeling drone.

Even as a drone himself, Biffy had never deluded himself about Lord Akeldama. Perhaps there had once been a youthful fantasy about Biffy becoming a vampire and the two of them immortal together forever. But in his heart, Biffy had always known that he was a one-immortal kind of dandy, and Lord Akeldama was not. The vampire had never led him on. Lord Akeldama’s love, such as it was, was always transient and shared.

Now Biffy understood why. True, Biffy was a young immortal, but he was almost fifty, and he’d seen his mortal friends grow old while he had not. Or die in the attempt to become like him. He wasn’t yet old enough to have grown the protective thickness around his heart, the one that made Lord Akeldama’s smiles brittle, but Biffy now knew why it was there. Frankly, he wasn’t convinced he’d ever be the type that preferred to share. For now, he’d decided he’d rather be alone than constantly watch his lovers leave him, one way or another. As a drone, Biffy had understood, and had shared, because that was the only way he got a piece of Lord Akeldama. As a werewolf, even if it were possible, he wouldn’t take that wager.

I’m on my own now.

Lord Akeldama was distracted, on to the next crisis, on to the next evening’s entertainment, on to the next toy. It was how he weathered immortality. I wonder if he’s as lonely in his way as I am in mine.

Biffy bent and kissed the vampire’s cheek, aware of the imposition. Aware of the hairs rising on his arm and the press of his own supernatural instincts urging him to change shape. Protect himself. Instincts that screamed in his head. Vampire. Predator. Not pack. Enemy. He was aware too of the faint smell of carrion, like rotting flesh and decayed bones, that hung under the citrus cologne that Lord Akeldama always wore. Something Biffy had never scented when they lived together. When Biffy was human.

“Good-bye, my lord,” he said, meaning it this time. Because that smell would always be there now. Because it would be the last time he said “my lord” to any vampire. Because under lost love and changed identities was one ineffable fact more vital than the horror of that smell – every fiber in Biffy’s werewolf soul knew he was no servant to this man anymore. And never would be again.

Lord Akeldama looked at him and knew it too, in that perfect-quick way he had. One of the reasons Biffy had loved him so. “Lord Falmouth, best of luck with the relocation. And…” A pause and a slight curl of the lip. “…Greenwich.”

Biffy inclined his head. He had a memory then. A brief flash of this man – who managed, somehow, to still be a man as well as a vampire – under him. Lean and white and needy. And taken. For back then, in those few hours of privacy, when it was only the two of them, together, Biffy had always been the one to dominate. He had been the one in charge. Those rare moments, among all the rest of his time as a drone, had also been the very best. I should have known it would never work between us, werewolf or not.

“Lord Akeldama. Best of luck with the kittens.” Biffy let himself out of the vampire’s house, breathing in fresh cool air unscented by death, and breathing out a lifetime of regrets.