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Chapter Thirteen
Hours later I stepped into the apartment that once belonged to the primal known as Alvis. The last time I’d walked in here it had been covered in the remnants of Alvis’s murder, but now I could see all the mementos of his long life.
“They did a great job.” Trent took a deep whiff of the air around us. “I can’t even smell the cleaning products. It must be some kind of spell. All I’m getting is the jasmine.”
Alvis had grown night-blooming jasmine in pretty pots around his place. I had briefly noticed them during the initial investigation, but the gloom of murder had dulled how lively his space was. Now it had been cleaned and sorted and made to shine for this gathering.
I glanced around the room. There were thirty or forty beings milling about. Some had wine glasses in their hands, while the primals were all in somber robes. Grim expressions would sometimes turn to bright smiles as a story about the deceased was obviously shared.
This was a wake for a male who had walked the Earth plane for thousands of years. Who’d been born a human and devolved into what many would call a monster, and yet he’d been part of a gentle, intelligent society. One of the walls of his inner office was covered in pictures of people who had to be his friends and students. Some were black and white and obviously taken at the dawn of photography, and some were Polaroids. Some were printed copies of cell phone pics.
He’d witnessed the plane go from feudalism to modern times, watching from the shadows.
Now he was the one who would have to be remembered, and I had to ask myself if one of these people hadn’t killed him.
“How do you really feel about the new alpha?” I brought the lemonade I’d been offered in lieu of wine to my lips as I studied the wall of pictures. We hadn’t talked much about my meeting with Jered Armstrong beyond Trent asking me if I was okay.
I wasn’t. I didn’t like thinking about what Fen and Evan had been forced to go through. Being confronted with their ongoing struggle had placed their situation in the back of my mind all day.
“I have notes on him. A whole file,” Trent said blandly.
I turned his way, keeping my voice low. Soft music was playing through the rooms, provided by a well-dressed small troll playing a baby grand piano. “I don’t want notes. I want to know how you feel.”
Trent seemed to think about how to reply. “I feel like he would likely be an excellent leader in another time. He’s good at staying calm and he knows how to compromise.”
I stared at him, willing him to see the problem with that statement.
He sighed. “You know how rigid the wolf world can be. He’s in a vulnerable position. He has to balance the needs of the ever-shrinking pack with the traditions so many of them follow. I want you to understand that if I thought for a second he was the one behind the attempts on Evan’s life, I would kill him myself. Those came from rogue packs. There are a few of them. They’re more extreme than Armstrong’s, but they don’t agree with Lupus Solum. The rogue packs want Fen at the head of the wolf world, but they want their own daughters at his side.”
“And Lupus Solum wants him dead because he had a primal father.” That summed up the situation neatly.
“I think Fen prefers the death threats to what the rogue groups want from him,” Trent said with a chuckle. “You know they tried to offer him three mates, a daughter from the three most powerful families. That’s not saying much though. There’s not a lot of power among the wolves these days.”
“Three wives? How old was he when they suggested that scenario?”
“He was fifteen and horrified,” Trent explained. “I’m afraid he’s far more used to the idea of having another man involved in a marriage than multiple women. Not that he would have considered any offer. When we turned them down, that was when the assassination attempts started. The truth of the matter is I don’t think they would stop even if Fen agreed to take a she-wolf mate. As long as Evan is in his life, they will come after her.”
“Have you thought about how to change that?” We moved down the hall, and here the photographs changed to paintings. I stopped in front of the first one. It was a beautiful seascape with brilliant light seeming to illuminate the canvas from within.
“Of course.” His hands skimmed over my shoulders as he stood behind me. “I’ve kept up with the heads of the rogue packs. I’ve thought seriously about assassinating them to send a message, but it’s been fairly quiet lately. I suspect now that Evan’s fathers have returned they’ll think twice.”
“Or they’ll get desperate.” I had to wonder what Donovan would be walking into. I moved to the next painting. This one was a portrait. It showed a lovely young woman in old-time clothing. I wasn’t a student of history, but she looked like she could have walked out of a Jane Austen novel, so I was betting that was the time she was from.
“We’re all desperate these days,” Trent whispered. “Now that you’re back, they will try something. They will go on the offensive because if they don’t the king will shut them down. They have to come after us. We have to be ready.”
I wasn’t sure we could be totally ready for them. I’d read the intelligence. I’d spent much of the afternoon in the library reading through everything the primals had on Myrddin and what he was capable of. Throwing in a couple of rogue wolf packs who wanted to kill the princess was one more problem I didn’t know if we could handle.
How many wakes would I have to go to? How many friends would I lose?
“She was a companion,” a deep voice said. “Her name was Marie.”
I turned and there were two primals and the woman who’d seen to my wounds yesterday. Rufus was taller than the new guy, but Christopher Miller was built on slightly bulkier lines. I recognized the primal as the male who nearly killed us all in Wyoming months… Yep, that was years ago. This whole time thing was hard on me.
Rose stood with Christopher, her hand tucked away in his. “Alvis said she loved to sing. She’s why he always has a piano. Had a piano.”
I’d been meaning to sit down and talk with Christopher and Rose but hadn’t found the time yet. Rose worked in the clinic all afternoon, and Christopher’s time had been spent contemplating Alvis’s death as part of the primal funeral rituals. I glanced back at the portrait they were looking at. Again there was a glow that seemed to come from the painting. “She was beautiful. Was she Alvis’s companion?”
“Not in a technical sense, of course,” Rufus said. “But she did abide with him for the majority of her life. She was a bit like our Rose.”
