Lord Akeldama assessed him. Those changeable eyes of his were so calculating. Lyall knew what the vampire saw. Lyall had let his sandy hair grow long, and sported a neat beard in response to the current fashions. He wasn’t sure why he’d adopted such a marked physical change. But he had. No doubt Lord Akeldama would understand exactly what this implied.
Immortals didn’t grow hair, not like normal people, so for Lyall to have changed his, there could be only one explanation. He’d spent months inside the God Breaker Plague zone in Egypt. There, his immortality, and all stasis that went with it, had been broken. He had aged too, although not noticeably. It had been oddly restful and liberating to be mortal again. He had thought to simply... stay. Maybe, finally, to stop.
Except that he wasn’t done yet. He had an Alpha to serve. Another one. More lives to live.
He wasn’t sure what he expected from the vampire. A snide comment: How was Egypt? Or a probing one: Are the Maccons well? He got neither.
The vampire allowed his new appearance to pass without remark. A truly out-of-character maneuver.
“I’m afraid, Dolly dear, they up and moved. Abandoned me to my own devices.”
Is that relief in Lord Akeldama’s tone? “They did?”
“Several weeks ago. At least, I think it was several weeks. You know me and time.”
“Old bedfellows?”
Lord Akeldama laughed.
Lyall shook his head trying to make sense of this. But why would Biffy leave his love? Neighbors were better than nothing. “But where?” he asked, trying not to sound plaintive.
Lord Akeldama’s mouth twisted slightly. “To Greenwich.”
Lyall swallowed. He wasn’t sure why, but the statement felt like an accusation, as if for some reason Lord Akeldama blamed Lyall for the relocation. Perhaps that accounted for the lack of personal commentary on the state of Lyall’s hair. Anger.
He let his wolf a little closer to the surface. “Of course, Blackheath. An excellent choice for pack, and it balances out the supernatural distribution over the greater London environs.”
“My dear Dolly, that is almost exactly what I said about the decision.” Lord Akeldama smiled, showing fang. Definitely anger. Or disappointment.
Both of us know, of course, that there are a million other reasons for Biffy to move his pack away from you. Did you try to get him back? Did you try to break his heart all over again? Or was it simply too much for both of you, wanting and not being able to have?
Lyall allowed his eyes to flicker over the ancient vampire. Old friend or old nemesis? One never knew with vampires. Lyall was pushing decades, a long afterlife for a werewolf – I must be at least four hundred at this point. But Lord Akeldama was pushing centuries. Roves, the ones that did not go mad, could live a very long time indeed.
“Where, exactly?”
“Ah, I wasn’t given the courtesy of an address.” The vampire pretended to be hurt. As though his drones had not already determined the exact location. It was damn near impossible to hide a pack. Hives were no problem at all, but packs had no subtlety.
“And you don’t know?” Lyall would not give him quarter.
“What fun is there in that? Use your much-vaunted werewolf nose, Dolly my sweet.”
Lyall sighed. No point in arguing. He inclined his head. The win must go to the vampire this time. At least I know they’re in Greenwich. God, I’m tired.
Lord Akeldama, for lack of another way of putting it, took pity on him. “However, as we are heading into the Christmas season, you must know where your Alpha is most likely to be on a busy night like tonight.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you for that, my lord.”
Lord Akeldama dipped his head, a funny, sad movement. “Welcome home, Professor.”
“Thank you, sir. Happy Christmas.” Lyall, ensuring the kitten was well ensconced in the young, new, confused drone’s arms, touched the brim of his hat and strode back out into the cold night.
They’d never even left the foyer.
*
The relocation had gone relatively smoothly, or as smoothly as such things go with a pack of werewolves. It helped that most of the London Pack was actually in London at the moment. Everyone said that when Alpha transition occurred, a pack was justified in recusing itself from military obligation for at least a decade. Fortunately, the government agreed. In fact, Queen Victoria was so set on the power shift going smoothly with her largest and strongest pack (especially as the last power transfer had resulted in a botched assassination attempt), she’d given the London Pack a fifteen-year dispensation from all foreign service – to ensure cohesion under a new Alpha.
It was still peculiar to Biffy that he had actually met her. The Queen of England! She was shorter than he had expected. He’d stood before her while she granted him lands and title, for all Alphas were aristocrats by royal decree.
“We are very pleased,” she’d said, looking a little less constipated than usual in her evident pleasure, “to have a city pack at all. We should like to keep it healthy. We understand you to be a most civilized young man.” Her eyes had said she approved Biffy’s well-coiffed appearance and fine manners. Even at seventy-six, the queen was said to have an eye for pretty men. Biffy was not ashamed to say he preyed upon that weakness. He was the only existing werewolf Alpha who could. Oh, there were other good-looking Alphas in England; they simply weren’t pretty.
“Arise, my Lord Rabiffano, Earl of Falmouth.”
So, now Biffy was a proper earl of something he was rather embarrassed to say aloud. And he was Alpha of a strong if anti-purple pack. He still preferred to be a milliner. Fortunately, such eccentricity was permitted. Actually, it was permitted even more so now that he was an aristocrat. After all, proper aristocrats always had peculiar hobbies. Of course, by rights he ought to give away his art to the deserving poor. Engaging in trade couldn’t even be excused as insanity, let alone eccentricity, but Chapeau de Poupe was a thriving business concern, and Biffy liked selling hats. So everyone, including the shopper, turned a blind eye to either his habits or his title, depending on how they felt about it at the moment.
It was a generally accepted practice that when working on milling hats, he was referred to as Mr Rabiffano. When advising on the choice of a hat, he was to be called Lord Falmouth. And when actually handling the expenses, a mere Biffy would suffice. It was odd what society would do to accommodate the acquisition of a really beautiful hat.
He was Lord Falmouth at the moment, taking the clientele in hand, advising the rampaging hordes on the efficaciousness of feathers over flowers for the winter season.
He was avoiding the new pack house. All was still in chaos after the move, and he had learned his own Alpha moods well enough to realize his pack must be left to squabble about who got which room without him. Otherwise, he was compelled to interfere, and in these kinds of petty cohabitation matters, his authority was neither needed nor wanted.
So, he’d taken refuge in his favorite place, where he could bury himself in the beauty of pretty things and the organization of attractive wares.
Until his hard-won calm was disturbed.
He smelled the other werewolf before he saw him. There was a scent of strangeness, wolf but not quite his pack, wild with the spice of dry, hot sands and exotic lands.
Look at me, getting poetical even with a possible fight on my hands. How droll.
It wasn’t odd, a loner werewolf in London, but it was for a loner to enter his hat shop uninvited and unannounced. He braced himself, nervous.
Why a challenger right now? As if moving wasn’t stressful enough. I suppose he couldn’t simply be after a hat, could he? No.