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The selfsame tingle I'd felt in Papa Breck's office.
The obvious prejudice, the hatred of vampires.
Circling the wagons around Jamie, protecting him.
"They aren't human," I said aloud, then glanced up, met Ethan's gaze.
"They aren't human?" Scott asked.
Ethan stared at me, and I saw the instant he understood. "The animosity. The distrust of vampires." He nodded. "You may very well be right."
"What are you saying?" Morgan asked.
Ethan, still looking at me, nodded, giving me the go-ahead to take the lead, to announce the conclusion. I looked around the room, met their gazes. "They're shifters. The Breckenridges are shifters."
That was why I'd felt the prickle of magic around Nick. He was a shifter. And unlike vampirism, being a shifter was hereditary, so he was a shifter like his father, like his brothers. All bound in loyalty to Gabriel Keene, the Apex, the alpha, of the North American Central Pack.
"The animal at the rave sight," I said, remembering that tingle of animal and magic.
"That must have been Nick."
Morgan's head snapped in my direction. "You went to a rave site?" He leaned forward, palms flat on the table, then turned his head toward Ethan. "You took her to a rave site?
She's barely two months old, for Christ's sake."
"She had her sword."
"And I repeat, she's barely two months old. Are you trying to get her killed?"
"I made a decision based upon my knowledge of her skills."
"Jesus, Sullivan. I don't understand you."
Ethan pushed back his chair, stood up and leaned over the conference table, fingers splayed on the tabletop. "First of all, I would never put Merit in a situation I didn't think she was equipped to handle. Besides which, she was with me, as well as Catcher and Mallory Carmichael, who, as we've discussed, is coming into sufficient powers of her own to offer protection to those within her circle. I understand the Order is establishing a presence in Chicago solely to be able to capitalize on her skills."
That made me sit up a little straighter. Apparently, Mallory's trips to Schaumburg were a little more meaningful than I'd been led to believe.
He leaned down a little farther, skewered Morgan with a glance that would have sent me into a corner whimpering, tail between my legs, and arched an imperious brow.
"Second, I have said this to you once before, and this is the last time I'll say it. You need to remember your position. I make no argument with the age or prestige of your House, Greer. But you have been a Master for less time than Merit has been a vampire, and you might recall that you owe your House to her, because your former Master saw fit to make an attempt on my life." He stopped talking, but the look in his eyes said plenty that he'd left unspoken - that if Morgan did challenge Ethan again, Ethan would see that he suffered the consequences of it.
The room fell heavily silent. After a minute of continuing to flay Morgan with that narrowed gaze - and Morgan staring back defiantly - Ethan slowly lifted green eyes to me, and I saw something different there.
Respect.
My stomach clenched with the force of that look, of being looked to as an equal by someone who'd previously seen me as something much less. We'd become a kind of team, a Cadogan duo united against our foes.
"Now," Ethan said, returning to his seat. "If they are shifters, how does that inform our investigation?"
"Maybe they're protecting the weaker member," Luc concluded. "They've been guarding Jamie, protecting Jamie, from this supposed threat against him. And from what I understand, that's unusual for the Brecks. Jamie had previously been the black sheep.
The aimless one. Maybe that's why the Breckenridges were picked. Maybe someone knows something about Jamie, thought that made the family vulnerable." He frowned.
"Jamie could have a magic glitch. Maybe he can't transform completely, maybe he can't shift at will. Something."
"If that's true, Papa Breck has a problem," Ethan concluded.
"And since Jamie's still alive, Papa Breck has a secret," Luc concluded.
I frowned at Luc. "What do you mean, since Jamie's still alive?"
"The Packs are strictly hierarchical," Noah explained. "The strongest members lead the Pack, the weaker members serve, or they're culled."
Culled. A politic way of suggesting the runts of the litter were put down. "That's...
horrible," I said, my eyes wide.
"In human terms," Noah said, "Maybe. But they aren't human. They're ruled by different instincts, have different histories, different challenges in their histories." He shrugged a shoulder. "I'm not sure it's for us to judge."
"Killing off members of your society?" I shook my head. "I'm fairly comfortable judging that, regardless of their history. Natural selection is one thing, but this is eugenics, social Darwinism."
"Merit," Ethan said. There was gentle chastisement in his voice. "Neither the time nor the place."
I closed my mouth, accepted the criticism. I heard a disgusted sniff from Morgan's side of the table, assumed he'd disagreed either with the chastisement or with my obeying it.
"Putting aside the ethics," Ethan said, "Jamie is clearly still a part of the family. Either Gabriel doesn't know, or he knows and doesn't care."
"Jesus Christ," Scott said, scrubbing hands across his face. "It was bad enough when it was us against the Trib and the city of Chicago, but now we're gonna face off against the goddamned North American Central? Greer was right," he said, worry clear in his face. "We're f**ked."
"Suggestions?" Ethan asked.
"Let me make a phone call," I said, figuring I already owed Jeff one favor. One more wasn't going to hurt.
Ethan looked at me for a moment, maybe deciding if he was willing to trust my judgment. He nodded. "Do it."
I volunteered to meet Jeff at the door of Cadogan House. I figured he'd appreciate the personal attention and be a little more comfortable in a House of vampires if he had his own personal guard and attendant. At least, that's how I explained it to him.
I stood in the doorway, arms crossed, waiting for the RDI guards to clear Jeff onto the property. He walked up wearing khakis and a long-sleeved, button-up shirt over his thin frame, the shirtsleeves rolled halfway to his elbows. His brown hair flopped as he bobbed up the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and a goofy grin on his face.
He hopped up the portico stairs and met me at the open door. There was a little more adoration in his eyes than I was comfortable with, but Jeff was doing us a big favor - particularly as a shifter, walking into a den of enemies - so I dealt.
