“Good-bye, my lord,” he said, meaning it this time. Because that smell would always be there now. Because it would be the last time he said “my lord” to any vampire. Because under lost love and changed identities was one ineffable fact more vital than the horror of that smell – every fiber in Biffy’s werewolf soul knew he was no servant to this man anymore. And never would be again.
Lord Akeldama looked at him and knew it too, in that perfect-quick way he had. One of the reasons Biffy had loved him so. “Lord Falmouth, best of luck with the relocation. And…” A pause and a slight curl of the lip. “…Greenwich.”
Biffy inclined his head. He had a memory then. A brief flash of this man – who managed, somehow, to still be a man as well as a vampire – under him. Lean and white and needy. And taken. For back then, in those few hours of privacy, when it was only the two of them, together, Biffy had always been the one to dominate. He had been the one in charge. Those rare moments, among all the rest of his time as a drone, had also been the very best. I should have known it would never work between us, werewolf or not.
“Lord Akeldama. Best of luck with the kittens.” Biffy let himself out of the vampire’s house, breathing in fresh cool air unscented by death, and breathing out a lifetime of regrets.
CHAPTER TWO
Home for the Holidays
Professor Randolph Lyall was tired. Tired from his toes to the tips of the (too long) sandy-colored hair on his (always, despite the length) neat and tidy head. London looked dirty and a little sad, but after so long away, he was still seized with the joy of it. It spread over and in him like bathing in slightly cold, but probably still edible, pea soup. Very cold, as it turned out. And congealed.
Home.
He’d separated from the Kingair Pack at Southampton – passing off his former Alpha to her new Beta. His replacement was there, waiting for her to disembark the ship – as any serviceable Beta should be. Phineas was a good-natured chap, a loner for most of his life, but Beta to the core. He’d need all three traits to put up with Sidheag Maccon, the Lady of Kingair. Still, Phineas was accustomed to Alpha females, if his partner was anything to go by. Lyall didn’t know her name – better not to. Those who inquired too closely into the identity of the Wicker Chicken disappeared. How the Dewan would survive henceforth, without his two best intelligencers, was anyone’s guess. But Lyall, who dealt all too often with the shadows, was glad to have the Wicker Chicken out of London at last, and Lady Kingair in very capable hands. What Phineas couldn’t keep in line, the Wicker Chicken would.
Lyall felt almost happy about such a smooth transfer of pack power. An unusual sensation for him to grapple with. The Kingair Pack, plus new additions, were all looking forward to some quiet time in Scotland. All Lyall needed do was wish them a pleasant farewell, which he did. Surprised to find that he actually meant it, for a change.
Not that he hadn’t tried his best to be a good Beta. Lady Kingair deserved nothing less than his best effort. But she hadn’t been his Alpha, not really. His real Alpha was here, in London.
Home.
Lyall jumped down from the hackney and paid the driver, eager to see his friends and pack-mates again. And his Alpha. My Alpha.
Unfortunately, much to his shock, the pack house was empty. He could smell the absence from the road, no pack present. Hadn’t been for a week or more.
Terror hit him hard and sure and sudden to the stomach, instantly coiling it into knots. He’d been at sea. Had he missed the news? Had something happened to his pack?
I left it too long. I knew he needed me back. Bloody hell, what if he couldn’t control them without me? What if he failed? What if they had to be eliminated?
His face, however, slid into a mask of cold indifference, and he kept his footsteps measured as he approached the house next door instead.
Lord Akeldama will know what happened. Where they are. Lord Akeldama always knows.
Lyall’s knock was answered, after a long pause, by a harried-looking drone. “Oh, good evening? Who are you? Never mind, come in quickly, do, or she’ll... nope, there she goes! Quick, catch her!”
Lyall bent down and scooped up the kitten before she had a chance to escape over the threshold – werewolf speed and werewolf reflexes. Like most cats, she’d no interest in objecting to his wolf nature. Prey animals, like sheep and rabbits, always seemed to know that they were likely thought tasty. Even when a werewolf was in his human form. Dogs, of course, liked to challenge or cringe. Cats, however, were simply cats about the whole supernatural thing. Or they had adapted to become so. Lyall had read a fascinating theory once that cats had malleable souls. Or, at the very least, a sense of superiority so strong that they regarded even immortals as their inferiors.
Well, who am I to challenge feline judgment?
The kitten in his arms struggled briefly and then gave him a wide-eyed look of perfect innocence. Finally, when Lyall cuddled her to his chest, she butted against his jaw and issued some consolatory (if raspy) tiny-tongue licks to his chin.
The drone quickly shut the door behind him. “Oh, sir, I am so sorry. Unpardonably rude but she will keep getting out, and she’s a bit too young as yet for the streets of London.”
Lyall clucked at the kitten and rubbed her cheeks. The kitten began emitting a remarkably loud purr for such a wee little thing.
The drone looked embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have allowed you in like that. This being the house of a vampire and all, and your being a strange chap and unknown element.”
Lyall looked the young man up and down. He appeared young and not quite as well dressed as Lyall had come to expect from one of Lord Akeldama’s drones. Lyall had been away from London for twenty years, but Lord Akeldama was a vampire and his tastes and standards didn’t alter that much.
“You’re new, I take it?”
“Is it very obvious?”
“Only to the oldest friends, my dearest Tiffin!” A cheerful voice spoke from within the drawing room – bright but a little too sharp, like untempered lemon juice.
Lyall knew it well. He also knew the smell; it hadn’t changed in the slightest. Citrus and hair wax, and old dead blood, faintly rotten and musty – vampire with a Lord Akeldama twist.
His hackles rose, the wolf ones, buried deep under urbanity and efficiency. He let them rise and then smoothed them over, accustomed to the wave of savagery battling against his human self. The wild predator, all emotions and instincts. It did no good to fight them, so he let them be, simply never let them show. A consummate man of culture, he became nothing more or less than Professor Lyall, an old Beta werewolf. Safe. He doubted even Lord Akeldama noticed the tiny twitch of territorial defense that briefly surfaced at the, frankly, disgusting smell of vampire.
I am, after all, in his home. It is on me to behave.
Lord Akeldama approached, looking as well put together and beautiful as ever. He was a paragon of calculated perfection. Lyall wasn’t fooled. Charmed – always – but never fooled.
This was a game they could both play, and play well. “Lord Akeldama, how delightful to see you again and in such good health. You don’t look a day over five hundred, if I do say so myself.”
“Dolly, darling, you flatter me. Just now returned to town and you visit me first! To what do I owe the incalculable honor?”
Lyall was tired, or he might have been less blunt. He cuddled the kitten and said, over the purr, “I seem to have misplaced my pack. Terribly careless, I know.”
Lord Akeldama gave a tinkling little laugh. “Of course, you realize everyone expected you a bit sooner.”
Lyall hid his wince. He had tried to return right after Biffy took over, but circumstances had not allowed it.