“Good. Well, not good, but . . .” I wince. My heartbeat seems to have stabilized. “Thank you, Mai, for . . . keeping me safe. And I’m sorry that you got stuck with the Vampyre-killing job.”
“Are you kidding? I love it.”
“Do you?”
“Mai is my eldest second,” Koen explains. “He gets his pick of assignments.”
We chat for a while. Mai pulls out his phone to show us a few pictures of John, who looks adorable, and a menace, and wants to be Koen when he grows up— like most children in the pack, apparently. But something needling and confusing sticks to the walls of my head, a thought that won’t let go, not even hours later, when I’m alone in bed under the covers, surrounded by home-decor-store quantities of pillows.
Mai is my eldest second, Koen said. The problem is, Mai looks half a decade older than Koen, tops. Which would put him around only forty. Not eldest material.
Unable to sleep despite my exhaustion, I retrace the last few days. Every step I’ve taken since entering Northwest territory. Every person I met. And when the realization hits me, I want to take my lack of observational skills and drown it in the nearby river. I can’t believe it took me so long to notice how young everyone is.
This is not the typical age distribution for a pack. I’ve now met most of Lowe’s seconds, and a third of them looked old enough to be his parents. Not to mention that Lowe’s house was somewhat of a revolving door of Weres of all ages seeking audience for all sorts of problems.
So it’s something else. I turn inward, gears spinning. When it comes to the Northwest, I have a lot of pieces, but I’m not sure how they fit together. Yet.
On impulse, I reach for my phone on the nightstand and type a text.
U up?
Misery: I’m a Vampyre and it’s the middle of the night.
I roll my eyes. Can you ask Lowe how long Koen has been Alpha?
The reply comes in seconds. I won’t.
Serena: Why?
Misery: Because I already know the answer.
I roll my eyes harder. Misery, how long has Koen been Alpha?
Misery: So nice of you to ask! Twenty-one years. Why?
I set the phone aside.
Koen was fifteen when he became Alpha. Fifteen. And around the same time, something big happened— something that killed Brenna’s family, destroyed pack records, and gave the Northwest a reason to reunite.
I’m not sure what the age of majority is among Weres, but I’ve seen the way young Were members are treated in packs, and I can’t imagine anyone would be happy with a fifteen-year-old becoming Alpha, least of all the fifteen-year-old in question.
Unless . . .
Unless there were no alternatives. Unless there were no dominant older members to take over. Because everyone who was past their late teens left, or was . . . eliminated. Some kind of accident? An attack? But how does that happen? What slices a pack with such surgical precision? Who does?
I grab my phone again. Ask Lowe how a boy of fifteen managed to unify an entire pack.
I fall asleep several minutes later, still waiting for the answer.
CHAPTER 15
The cabin smells like . . .
Impossible. He must be losing his mind.
THE NIGHT BRINGS SPANKING NEW LEVELS OF PAIN AND MORTIFICATION.
The recollections do not abound, but as far as I can telclass="underline" I wake up a few hours after going to bed, gasping like a rhino with sleep apnea, and make my way to the bathroom as my body works through spasms, cramps, and the fire taking over every layer of my epidermis. I sit in the shower as cold water flows over my head and beg my soon- to- be corpse to pipe the fuck down. I picture Koen walking in to find what’s left of me, a beached manta ray lifeless on the bathroom floor, deflated after puking up her internal organs.
That’s when it all gets fuzzy. I don’t recall getting up or leaving the bathroom. I definitely don’t recall crawling into Koen’s bed. And yet it’s where I wake up. Could be a Were evolutionary trait: in the face of probable death, seek refuge close to Alpha. I might be onto something. I should ask Koen, if I’m ever able to face him after what I’ve done to his room.
It’s . . . a lot.
In the harsh morning light, I stare down at the drenched mess of his bed. I wobble on my feet, strip the cotton sheets off the mattress, and realize that it soaked through. It’s sweat. A lot of sweat. Just spent one hour on the treadmill sweat. My scent is thick, pungent, vaguely reminiscent of things I’d rather not acknowledge.
And it saturates every inch of his bed.
This is an invasion of Koen’s private space.
It’s desecrating.
Small mercy is, Koen spent the night outside. I beg the god of physiologically dysregulated bitches with sleep disorders to keep him away for ten more minutes. I stuff his bedding, then mine, in the laundry machine. Setting: bulky items. Then I clean his room, trying to force it to smell . . . like not me, but also like a deranged person didn’t just pour disinfectant all over— a fine, impossible- to- strike balance.
I speed through my shower, rehearsing what I’ll tell Koen if he calls me out on this new sanitizing facet of my personality. Why did I wash your sheets? Because I’m a wonderful houseguest. Would you like a complimentary glass of limoncello? I get dressed in my new clothes, but something feels . . . wrong. On my way out, I have an idea— one that no sane person would entertain, but that’s no longer my side of the Venn diagram. I slip back inside Koen’s room, steal one of his T- shirts, hastily put it on under my sweater.
And exhale in relief.
It’s as though my fur was being brushed against the grain, but this five-dollar shirt smoothed it back down where it belongs. No, I won’t be pondering the matter at this moment.
I walk to the back porch and find Amanda wearing a long parka and nothing else. “Oh my God.” She lights up when I hand her a mug of coffee. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Patrolling around me.”
“Are you kidding? I get to chill in wolf form. Pay attention to forest noises. Growl at the squirrels. It’s everyone’s favorite kind of duty. Well, except for Jorma. But that’s because he’s thirsty for spreadsheets.”
I take a seat and follow her gaze to the group of wolves a couple hundred feet ahead of us. They sit on their hind legs, observing the spectacle— which happens to be a fight.
Which happens to involve Koen.
I stare at his wolf form. The double-layered coat. His muscular frame. His terrifying maw. I guess I have one, too, but I haven’t seen it in a while. Nor am I currently wrapping it around the bare throat of a fellow Were, like it’s an oven-roasted turkey leg.
The smaller reddish-brown wolf lets out a whimpering, submissive sound. When Koen releases her, she briefly rolls on her back to show her soft belly. Then, after an affectionate nip from her Alpha, she trots toward the rest of the group, and a new fighter takes her place. I spot Twinkles among them. He looks very excited to be in the thick of the action, if comically smaller than the Weres surrounding him. Still, Ana will be pleased to hear that he’s keeping busy.