Donal hesitated, glancing from me to his president and back again. When Fionn said nothing to contradict me, Donal shook his head slightly.
“Naw, girl. You don' get it, see? The Louisiana Wolves are a club all in of themselves, ya? It's not good manners to be goin' turnin' up at each other's clubhouse uninvited.” Donal clicked his tongue, like I was the stupidest fucking thing alive.
Maybe I was.
But one thing I knew for sure … this Hunt belonged to me. How dare he question my orders?
“Let her in,” I ordered once more, pressing a careful mental finger against the little glowing orb that was Donal.
That was all it took. Just the reminder that I was the Veil Keeper. Memories or not. And I was never to be disobeyed.
“Of course, Gardien, right away.” Donal dipped his head in obedience and retreated back out of the room. His face beneath his beard was pale, and his gaze skittered across the floor like a horse in a thunderstorm, but instead of regretting my actions, I felt almost a sense of satisfaction.
“Good.” Sadhbh murmured, watching me with the intensity of a falcon on a mouse. “The unity between old and new is still happening. It's slow. But it's happening. There is hope for us all yet.”
This time, I knew exactly what she meant. I could feel it happening. Feel my mind … shifting. With every word we spoke, every magic we used, we became closer to one.
“Delta.” Fionn stood as the dark wolf-woman entered the room with an animalistic grace.
“President.” She nodded in return, then turned her golden brown eyes to me. “Veil Keeper.”
She flashed a bright grin at me, moving into the room and past Reece’s scowling face. Arlo growled at her, but Killian just watched impassively, like he didn’t much care either way. I saw right through him. Nobody in this room liked the werewolf.
“Can we help you?” Sadhbh asked with a cocked brow, pushing red hair over her shoulder and turning to face the newcomer. “You’re breaking every rule in the book right now.”
“Rules?” the girl said with a laugh, scooping her waist-length braids forward and moving around Sadhbh to take a spare seat. “What rules? The Veil Keeper’s back; there are no rules.”
“Like hell dere ain’t,” Reece snarled, but his mother lifted a hand to shush him. He growled low under his breath and I flicked my eyes his way, watching as his snarl shifted into a slight grin. “We don’t need no wolves prowlin’ around da clubhouse, Miss Ciarah.”
“Why are you here?” I asked, because I wanted to hear for myself. That, and I was intrigued by the alpha we’d met outside the bar. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” the girl asked me, her honey-brown eyes locked onto mine. Her skin was the color of roasted pecans, her clothing not dissimilar to what Sadhbh was wearing, only more colorful. Underneath her leather jacket, she had on a bright pink shirt that she’d paired with holey jeans and brown boots. “I want what everyone here wants,” she said, and I tasted the truth in the air as she spoke, wetting my lips for a moment. “I want back across the Veil,” she said, like her voice was strained to the point of breaking. “I want to see what else is out there beyond this shit …” She trailed off, snapping that last word off the end of her tongue and scowling as she turned away.
“You’re a child, too young to miss the Veil,” Fionn said, but the Delta girl—Amelie—ignored him.
“You’re not the same Veil Keeper,” she said, chewing her lower lip. “That’s good because we need someone modern to deal with the modern world, not some old bag of bones.”
“That’s enough!” Fionn roared, but Sadhbh reached out and put her hand on his belly.
“That is quite enough,” she whispered and I swear, for a moment there, I saw his glamour crack. Either that, or I could simply … see through it to the man underneath. I turned back to Amelie.
“Rafe has sent me as his representative, to ensure that our pack isn’t left in the dust when the time comes.”
“How arrogant,” Killian said, his arms crossed over his chest, his leather trench coat hanging down past the seat of the bar stool he was perched on. He leaned forward, putting an elbow on either knee and steepling his fingers together. “The fact that your alpha thinks you even deserve a representative. This is gentry business.”
“The Veil is everyone’s business,” Amelie ground out, flicking her eyes briefly to Killian and then turning back to me. “The last Veil Keeper didn’t think so, but maybe this one is different?” She scooted toward me. “Are you different, then? You feel different. You might be in her body, but you’ve still got a mind of your own, don’t you?”
“I …” I started to say, but Arlo interrupted, clearly still upset at not having been able to finish mating. I had the bull by the horns so to speak.
“Let’s toss this bitch out on her ass,” he growled, stalking across the room.
Amelie was up and out of her seat, spinning around to stand behind the couch.
“You touch me and it’s war,” she snapped, her teeth much longer, much sharper than a normal human’s. But then, she wasn’t human, was she? She was werewolf.
“Touch you? You come in here and try to manipulate the Veil Keeper? I should rip you to pieces and feed you to Reece’s goddamn gator.”
“Try me,” Amelie snarled, but I was already rising to my feet.
“She stays,” I blurted and saw Arlo’s green eyes flicker over to mine, the color of wet leaves after a rainstorm. He looked ready to kill the wolf girl. “I want to know what else she has to say.”
“What else?” Arlo snapped, gesturing wildly in the girl’s direction. “She doesn’t know shit. Killian is right—this is gentry business.”
“You mean faerie business,” Amelie purred, a menacing note in her voice.
“I mean gentry,” Arlo growled right back.
It took my fractured mind a moment to put the pieces together. Faerie, fae … any creature born on the other side of the Veil, sharing one intrinsic quality … they cannot lie. And gentry? The elite, the ruling class, like the sidhe.
“I can’t take anymore shouting,” I whispered, because shouting brought to mind other things, endless nights of torture and pain, of iron teeth and claws, being berated for memories that I didn’t have, that I didn’t know. This was almost the same as that—everyone wanted to know what I knew, and they wanted me to do something about it.
I didn’t know a fucking thing.
And I also knew there was a damn good reason for that.
I rose from my seat at the same moment I heard a car pull up outside the clubhouse, tires loud against the gravel driveway.
“Fuck me, that’ll be Caley,” Arlo said, glancing at an old clock on the wall, its plastic face cracked right down the middle. The room went silent for a moment as Arlo’s sister entered and then went completely still.
“I was just checking in …” she began as Arlo rolled his eyes at her.
“Caley,” I said, because I felt like I needed to get out of there. “I don’t have any clothes.”