Chapter 105

"Sometimes."

He chuckled. "I work for the Higher Lunar Council, mostly backing up territory defenses. Sometimes that's rogues, sometimes that's little shits who think it best to terrorize smaller packs. There's never been this much activity around Brightclaw, but no one on the force has died."

I nodded. "That's… good. I'm glad."

We got to the condo and I could tell from the way he carried himself that he likely wasn't completely unscathed. I retreated to my room as Arielle started to steer him towards her bedroom.

"I will. I will…" he said, his voice warm if a little annoyed. "You're as bad as Dev-- Hey!" A sharp smacking sound. "Really?"

"Your mom never turned you over her knee, but I will. To the bath with you, Zeke."

"Kinky."

I shook my head and got ready for bed before texting Dominic.

You wanted to talk?

Neil

I watched Renee’s car pull away, Arielle's wolfish grin burned in my mind. My heart was hammering, not from nerves, but from something softer. A warmth I didn’t feel often. Arielle’s endorsement wasn’t nothing. In fact, it was everything.

She was Mountainhowl’s Luna. If she seemed so assured of us, it was unlikely that Renee would ever doubt the viability of our relationship.

And it probably meant that I shouldn't either. I walked to the garage, waving my brother goodbye as he drove by. I wouldn't see him again for a few more days and something told me that he was going to tell everyone about having met Renee.

Maybe I should refrain from going home for at least another week or two just to give them time to calm down about it. The glow of the moment dulled a bit as I made my way through the dim parking garage. I was still thinking about Dominic. About how this was all going to work. About how we were going to balance magic, legacy, and jealousy in a three-way relationship when there was still so much of me that I hadn't unveiled.

I won't know until I do so if this will all work out. It was better to be hopeful than. Pessimistic. If that was easier said than done.

And that’s when I saw her.

Vivian sitting on the hood of my car like a vulture in designer knock-offs. Her lipstick smeared at the corners of her mouth. Eyes wide and glassy in a red jacket that was barley zipped enough to double as a shirt. She looked more like a ghost than a girl.

What was wrong with her? I didn't get a sense that she was magically affected or anything like that. It was just this manic sort of look about her.

I didn’t stop walking. “Get off my car.”

“You didn't even look my way at the office today,” she said, her tone light, practiced. “I figured you wanted a moment alone with me. Hard to do so with Renee around, right?”

I didn’t answer.

She slid down slowly, like she thought we were reenacting some kind of steamy noir flick. She stepped onto the too high heels, her legs mostly bare due to her leather shorts. I wondered if she'd been waiting here all night.

Seemed about right. And pathetic. Honestly, what was it going to take for this woman to get the hint?

“Neil, come on. You and I… were a much better match,” she pouted. “Mountainhowl or not. You don’t have to pretend with me. I know you and Renee aren’t together. I know you know she's beneath you.”

“I’m not pretending anything,” I said flatly, unlocking my door.

Vivian stepped in my path. “I’m just saying, I know you want a real woman, with real standing, given your position at the company, I could—”

“Vivian,” I growled. "Get out of my way."

Her eyes narrowed. “You think she’s better than me? She’s just a little half-orphaned charity case. She’s not even pretty! She's fat and--”

My vision went red. Probably literally from the way that she flinched.

It took everything in me not to grab her and toss her out of the parking structure. It seemed that all of my meditation and the high from the night was working in her favor. How unfortunate.

She was, however, smart enough to shut her mouth.

“Say one more thing about her,” I said, my voice low and deadly, “and I won't bother reporting you for harassment. I’ll rip your tongue out of your mouth and make you eat it.”

Her eyes widened. She paled. I could see the light from my own eyes reflecting in hers. Vivian stumbled back a step. The veneer of seduction gone, her fear was real.

I got in my car and slammed the door.

As I drove away, I didn’t look back. Though guilt twisted through me. What was I thinking, losing control like that? I could have very easily have killed her. I was still considering it. I could still do so, and no one would necessarily know but me.

By all the stars, I needed to calm down. But it wasn't as easy as it usually was. By the time I pulled up to my mother’s house, I was vibrating with anger.

But Mom opened the door with that warm, cinnamon-sweet smile of hers and wrapped me in a hug before I could even say a word.

“There’s my son… dragon-eyed tonight. Very odd,” she said, pulling me inside and guiding me straight to the kitchen. “You look like you’ve had a night. I thought you were going out with your team.”

She handed me a cinnamon roll the size of my head. I sat down, breathed in the smell of home, and let her fuss over me like she always did. The cinnamon roll was sticky with icing and I ate gratefully. My stomach growling with hunger. Restraining myself tended to use a lot of calories.

“Renee doing alright?” she asked as she poured tea.

“She’s… amazing,” I said. " I think she may have unlocked a bit of her magic tonight."

"That's great, dear. So what exactly pissed you off so much? Are we hiding bodies?"

I laughed. “Not yet.”

Dominic

I sat alone in my office, the journal open in front of me again. Hazel’s careful, slanted handwriting stared up at me, and still, it didn’t make sense.

None of it did.

There were no entries missing. No gaps. She wrote in this journal often. And the dates covered the entirety of our marriage, and a little bit before. I. There were a lot of mentions of a him, but no name. References to a place they would meet often, but no address, no map, nothing I could trace.

And then there were the receipts that I'd managed to pull together from the accounts I unearthed from her past. Old travel records. Withdrawals from unregistered accounts that still had balances. It was all a pattern I couldn’t ignore.

She had secrets. So many secrets.

And I had been a fool to not see that behind her sweet words, she had been plotting against me. Using me.

As for the accounts themselves, I considered giving them to Vivian, though when I looked at her court balance, it would be easier to use that money to pay for all of her fines.

It would be the smart thing to do for Vivian's sake.

Though, that money could also be used to pay reparations for line theft and all the other charges that Hazel should be charge with posthumously.

I clenched the edge of the desk until my knuckles went white. What scared me more than anything wasn’t Hazel’s lies, it was the fact that there was so much more to her betrayal now that Vivian had done so much.

The fact that Vivian wasn't mine was politically complicated.

I pressed my hand to the mark over my heart, thinking back. My bond with Hazel had one of a romance. It hadn't been political. I had just been drawn to her, but now I wondered how much of that had been manufactured.

The healer's words hit me hardest as I turned my attention back to my computer.

I swiped through the digital files again, rereading them all looking for a clue of how to find who Vivian's father was and how to plan for the aftermath of the eventual reveal of Vivian's true parentage.

Because I knew Vivian well enough to know. That if she couldn't find a way to weasel her way back or leverage the information against me to get what she wanted, she was just going to tear me down. Sell the information to the highest bidder for whatever she could get out of it. Cunning. Vicious.

Just like her mother.

I sat back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. How was I going to protect Renee from all of this? How was I even going to protect my pack from all of this? I had no idea. What was worse is that I had no idea how much more time I had either.