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‘Maybe you should try giving your wolf the reins.’
He shook his head. ‘No. He’s bloodthirsty. He just wants to run and hunt.’
‘So does Esme,’ I confirmed. ‘We hunt first to sate that bloodlust, then we focus on whatever else needs to be done. It helps us after the change if we’ve eaten on the hunt, then we’re not cripplingly hungry when we turn back to two legs.’
‘Makes sense, but I’m still not going to try that any time soon.’
I thought it was a mistake, but not something we needed to argue about. We needed to be on the same page. Besides, he was probably right that now wasn’t the best time to set his wolf free, not when we had guests scrutinising our every move. Sexy smile or not, I didn’t doubt that Ace was watching our every move.
I changed the topic. ‘What security do we have in place at the mansion?’
Manners grimaced. ‘It’s piss poor, to be honest. I was going to talk to you about an upgrade. There’s a camera over the main entrance and exit, but that’s it. Anyone can drop from the balconies to the ground below, even in human form.’
‘Have you reviewed the footage?’
‘Not yet, but I can do that now.’
‘Can you order some new security for us?’
He considered my proposal. ‘If I order it through a company, it’ll probably take a week or two to be installed. If I utilise my connections in the brethren, I can get it done tomorrow.’
‘I don’t want to owe the brethren,’ I said.
‘I can get them to charge,’ he suggested. ‘It’s just that then we can do it expeditiously with equipment I already know.’
I wondered whether the ‘we’ referred to Manners and me, or Manners and the brethren.
I weighed it up. I wasn’t sure how well my pack would take to having brethren swarming all over the place putting in cameras, but it didn’t feel safe and my job was to protect the pack. Finally I said, ‘Get it done tomorrow. Make sure the brethren invoice for their time.’
‘I’ll put in the order now and review the existing footage. We’ve got a few hours before we leave for the hunt.’
‘Clear the order for security with Emory first,’ I suggested. ‘I don’t want to step on his toes.’
‘He won’t mind,’ Manners reassured me. ‘You’re his mate’s best friend.’ He saw my warning look and held up his hands. ‘I’ll clear it with him.’ As he went to the heavy door, he looked back to meet my eyes and a small smile tugged at his lips. ‘Catch you later, Peach.’ The absurd nickname startled a laugh out of me and he grinned as he shut the door.
I was alone again – as alone as I ever was in the Other. Something else had been pulling at my mind for days now, and I’d been too cowardly to deal with it. Today seemed to be a ‘getting shit done’ day, so I braced myself, pulled out my phone and dialled my mum’s number.
She answered on the second ring. ‘Lucy! How are you doing, my love?’ There was a time when that question was just a greeting, but now I could hear her underlying anxiety. Mum still hadn’t forgotten my brush with death. Without being able to tell her how I’d miraculously recovered by becoming a werewolf, my explanations had sounded somewhat hollow. I’d vaguely cited experimental treatment at the legendary Hoppas Centre, but my recovery was so fast that it was strange to ordinary humans.
Not that my mum is ordinary; she isn’t, she’s wonderful. She’s the most caring person around, with an edge of no bullshit that she’s refined to an art. Mum is a nurse, which was partly why she’d struggled to accept my miraculous recovery when she knewI’d been in organ failure.
‘I’m good, Ma.’ I hesitated. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this for a while, but there never seems to be a good time.’
‘Just spit it out, love.’
‘My adoption papers. Can I have a copy? When I was sick, I wished I knew more about my birth parents. If I’d known their medical history, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.’ I knew that was bullshit; I’d been laid low by a succubus, not a mysterious hereditary condition I knew nothing about. But it had opened a can of worms I thought I’d sealed shut long ago.
‘Of course you can,’ Mum said instantly.
‘It’s not that I don’t think of you one hundred percent as my mum, it’s just that there’s this void that hangs over me sometimes. I can’t remember a thing from my first three years of life. I know I was young – but nothing? You’d think I’d have a scent, or a sound, or a glimpse of a memory… ’
Mum’s tone was even. ‘The human mind is an amazing thing, Lucy. It goes to great lengths to protect itself.’
‘You think I came from an abusive home,’ I said flatly.
‘Not exactly, no. When we got you there was nothing in your medicals to suggest that. You appeared to be completely healthy and well looked after.’
I sensed the ‘but’. ‘But?’
