Wolf at the Door

chapter Two



Rachael had known that, had been expecting that, so it wasn’t the shock Michael had feared.

She remembered the incident well, and the memorial afterward, on the occasion where they’d had the chance to meet the queen and her consort. Rachael hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse, or much chance to hear the trial—Wyndham Manor had been crawling with thousands of her kind—but regardless of what little she saw, she still found Betsy Taylor silly beyond belief.

No one had especially liked the late Antonia Wolfton (except Derik, Michael’s best friend), but they’d all been angry that a werewolf had died on a vampire’s watch. And what the hell kind of a name for a monarch was Betsy?

“I need someone smart, someone I can trust, who can take care of herself—they don’t have any cranberry bogs out there for you to fall in—”

“Ha, ha, O Rotund Pack Leader.”

“Back off, I’ve only gained a couple pounds since Lara started all that ruckus. Do you know how many boys have been following her home? She’s in goddamned elementary school and the boys are already trotting after her! I’m gonna have to start beating them off with sticks!”

“The terrible trials of our magnificently round Pack leader.”

“That’s all sheathed in sculpted muscle, Rache.” He patted his (to be fair, reasonably flat) stomach. In fact, Rachael was pleased to see evidence that he was able to relax enough to indulge now and then. Before his mating, before his cubs came, he had the lean look of a man always too close to a bad mistake. Jeannie and the children had changed all that.

It occurred to her, again, that he had changed in other ways. Usually when she saw him, there were dozens of others around, usually the cousins and their kin. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been alone with him. So things she normally never thought of were not only occurring to her, she was thinking of them again and again. Things that had changed . . . and things that never changed.

His looks, for instance. In addition to the change in his coloring, there had been changes to his very nature . . . external and out. He’d been narrow and lean until adulthood, all gawky elbows and long legs. Maturity had helped him grow into a powerful body. He might have relaxed enough to dodge workouts, but he could still put his fist through the trunk of a tree, could still squeeze a rock into gravel.

His eyes, though . . .

His eyes had always been a savage gold, rare and striking even among their kind. From the moment he pulled her from the bog, she knew this boy would be the greatest Pack leader in the history of the lupi viri. And no matter what had happened to the Pack since then, no matter the deaths and births and matings and Challenges, his eyes had never changed.

No, Michael Wyndham was in the right place, the right Pack, and she knew it, and nearly everyone else did, too.

Oh, sure, there were scuffles now and again, mostly in the early years. Jeannie Wyndham, mother of Lara, the future Pack leader, was involved with at least one. That had been humbling for all of them. A human coming to Michael’s rescue and saving them all with time left over to bitch about how chilly the manor got in the darker corners . . . ah, the shame of it . . .

Now, years later, as an adult male in his prime (to be fair, the males tended to be bigger and stronger with no effort on their part, though she disliked distinctions by gender), his no-longer-black, no-longer-long, now-shoulder-length dark gold hair had a ripple of a wave through it, and when he stepped into sunshine, it often looked to her as though he was blessed by the sun god; their Pack leader was dazzling, which was annoying.

He had no idea. At all. No idea that to her, to the Pack, he really did seem as something of a living god. And that was annoying, too. She could hear herself thinking such nonsense and wanted to roll her eyes. Unfortunately, knowing it was a cliché (and a silly one, too) did not make it untrue.

He snarled at her, showing a lot of teeth, but it was more show than substance, he was still trying to articulate what he needed from her. Her! One of his least fiery, passionate, ferocious Pack members. One who never married, one who kept to herself, had never left the state of Massachusetts except for one ill-fated trip to New York City. One who didn’t seek people out.

Come to think of it, she would go because Michael knew all her flaws, knew she disliked fights and intrigues, knew she was more sapiens than any other Pack member, knew she was happy at spreadsheets. She would go because Michael knew all those things about her . . . and loved and valued her not despite her odd habits, but because of them.

Her father and Michael’s father had been brothers born a generation apart. Her father loved to read, loved to figure things out, loved to learn, loved to teach.

Michael’s father loved to fight.

So here they were, two branches of the same tree, but for all they had in common, there were many differences, too.

“Listen: I don’t think they mean trouble for us. Specifically, I don’t think Queen Betsy does. I don’t know what her consort wants . . . that f*cker’s harder to read than my own dad was.”

Yow. Not a lightly made comparison. Her uncle had been famous for sitting quietly one moment with a cub in his lap, then exploding into a fight to the death after tossing said cub to a bystander.

Her irritation at the rude uprooting of her business and personal life—

What personal life, you silly bitch?

That’s enough out of you, inner voice who sounds like Mother.

—began to fade, and interest began to take its place. The interest wasn’t necessary, but it was a bonus she was grateful for. Because the two people in this room knew she would leave at once for Minnesota, despite the dreadful seven-month winters.

Of course she would go; there had never been a doubt. If it meant her death, fine. If it meant permanent banishment from her homeland followed by death, as it had for Antonia, fine. If it meant tedious meetings and bad food and shrill vampires and dreadful weather and frostbite and a thousand tornadoes (they had all sorts of them in Minnesota, right?) and having to eat lutefisk and lefse so as to blend in, and to march through the monument to consumerism that was (drum roll, please, or maybe a cow bell?) THE MALL OF AMERICA . . . so be it.

But she was a family member first, a werewolf second, and an accountant third. Aw, nuts. If her mom was still alive, she would have given Rachael a smack. Mother had always thought her only daughter’s priorities should be different.

But! Mother was (probably) dead. So Rachael’s priorities were her own.

And it suited her fine.

She would go. He was family; more, she loved him like a brother and was bound, not only by their blood, but by her heart, to do as he asked.

But it would never do for Michael to know too much of that, so she fumed and scowled and insulted him and let herself be placated and pretended this thing was a terrible inconvenience.

Oh, wait. It was.

Dammit!