****
Keira watched from the passenger seat as Raul pulled into the driveway of Harold’s house. The animal part of her consciousness, coiled through the human pathways of her brain, insisted that this was a bad idea; that it could cause nothing but trouble. But she agreed with Raul that there wasn’t a better option on the table. The situation between the Pack and the panther clan had already erupted into one battle—if they didn’t do something about it, if nobody called a truce, then the two groups would go on fighting each other until the elementals got involved.
“You gave him notice we were coming, right?” Raul glanced at her as he shifted the car into park, and Keira nodded. As soon as they’d gotten into range, she had reached out mentally, telling Harold that she was safe, that she was coming to his house to brief him about the situation with the wolves—and that she was bringing a wolf with her.
“You better get any Alpha thoughts about taking charge of this conversation out of your head right now, Fido,” Keira said, knowing that she sounded more nervous than tough, and that Raul would hear it. “If you try and pretend like you’re doing Harold a favor bringing me back, then he’s going to stonewall you. Let me take the lead on this.”
“I’ll let you pretend you knocked me out and drove yourself here if you want,” Raul suggested, the playful tone of his voice belying the gunpowder scent of his apprehension. “But I don’t think even Harold would believe it.” Keira smiled slightly, her heart already beating faster in her chest, the animal consciousness in her mind gearing up to handle the situation. Harold was the Alpha of her clan; he was the only person she could truly trust to talk to about the situation. But she knew that she could only trust Harold so far. He might spare her because she was a mating-age female, but if he thought that she had violated the rules of the clan—and realistically, she had—then he could repudiate her, capture Raul, and kill them both.
“Let’s get this over with,” Keira said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes to push down the fear and apprehension she felt. She opened the passenger side door of the car and climbed out, immediately sniffing the air to catch any traces of scent-marks from members of the clan. She could smell familiar panther-marks, but none of them were fresh enough to suggest that they were still present, other than Harold’s own scent mark, leading from his truck in the driveway and towards the front door, a well-worn, often-refreshed marking. Keira glanced at Raul and saw that he was doing the same, sorting through the different, evanescent scents. “Hard to catch our smells, isn’t it?” Raul gave her a wry grin.
“Some of you are more obvious than others,” he said. “You must not be here all that often.”
“What makes you say that?” Keira frowned, looking around the property.
“If you were here often, even as faint as your trace is, I’d know it.” Keira felt her stomach lurch at the admission; if Raul knew her scent-mark that well, then he was starting to connect with her more seriously. Never should have given into the urge to blood him, she thought bitterly. At least Raul had had enough self-control to avoid blooding her; there would be hell to pay if she had the mark of a wolf’s love-bite on her neck, or if Harold could have scented her blood on Raul.
Keira dismissed the thought and started towards the front door of the Alpha’s house, telling herself that Harold was not nearly as hotheaded as Reginald had proven himself to be. “Remember,” she said sharply to Raul as they both stepped up onto the front porch.
“You’re in charge,” Raul said, assuming an appropriate subordinate position, just a step behind her. He smiled slightly and then wiped his face clean of the expression. Keira took another quick, deep breath and lifted her hand, willing the change to flow through her arm, transforming the fingers, the palm, into a paw. She scratched at the door, in the pattern that had been drilled into her mind ever since she had first begun transforming with the clan; it was the identifying “knock” of one member of the clan to another, something they all knew and recognized. If she hadn’t trusted Raul with her life, Keira would have simply knocked; she felt briefly nervous at what she was implying to her clan leader with the secret gesture, but he would scent Raul on her skin the moment he answered the door. There could be no hiding the attachment between them, tenuous as it was.
A moment later, Keira’s sharp ears picked up the sound of the lock’s tumblers turning over in the door, and then Harold appeared, looking from her to Raul distrustfully. “Come inside,” he said brusquely, his gaze settling once more on Raul, almost a scowl. “And you—wolf. Don’t think that just because I’m letting you into my home, you’re welcome to do as you please. I’ll enforce my right to rule my own property if I have to.”
“I understand,” Raul said, inclining his head ever so slightly in Harold’s direction. “I’m here to discuss issues between our groups—and Keira told me that the person to come to was you. I am a guest in your home.”
“You’re not a guest,” Harold said sharply. “You’re an associate.” Harold’s heavy gaze fell on Keira. “Why one of my own people would bring a damned wolf into my home is beyond me.”
“Let us in before someone sees,” Keira told the older man firmly. She kept her body language neutral, not quite submissive, and let her gaze fall away, telling him that she was not there to threaten. “We need to talk.”