Reflected (Silver Series) (21 page)

And she didn’t want to ask for his help, she realized. She wanted to deal with this herself. Even if she told him about the problem, what could he do? He couldn’t smell Felicia and answer the mysteries from so far away. Better to avoid the question and talk about one of their other problems. “That’s not what’s worrying me at the moment. Tom said he could leave messages that you’d hear. Did you get any of those?”

On reaching their bedroom, Silver burrowed into their shared bed, though Dare’s scent had faded over her nights there alone. She pulled the bedding over her and curled around Dare’s voice from far away, to help hold back the growl when she thought of Craig.

“No, I—” Dare said several things that Silver didn’t follow, but she waited, and he trailed off and started again automatically. “I had to borrow … a place to call from. That’s why it’s taken so long, to find somewhere that won’t have three-quarters of the humans in the town hanging around to listen. And why I didn’t get the messages.”

“Well.” Silver exhaled a laugh as considering Dare’s situation in light of her own sparked a flash of humor. Not only did everyone have an opinion, they were always desperate to listen in to discover what they should offer an opinion about. She told Dare about the events, beginning with Craig’s petition, though she stepped carefully around the parts where Felicia intruded. She couldn’t see how to include those without the thread leading to the whole tangled mass.

“Lady above,” Dare said as she wound to a close. “If I thought anyone would pay any attention, I’d make a rule about playing chase with betas.” He fell silent, and Silver imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose as he did when organizing his thoughts, like the pressure would help push things into line.

Dare blew out a frustrated breath. “And it doesn’t look like I’ll be home soon. The human woman, she’s very young, and she can’t afford to raise the baby on her own. I told her I was the child’s uncle, and I got her to agree to adopt it in the family. She wants to maintain contact, though, so that means keeping it in Alaska. What’s taking so long is knocking heads together until a mated pair agrees to move into a town and stay in human most of the time. I think I’ll succeed in the end, but it takes time.”

“I’ll manage here,” Silver said, making her tone slightly more firm that she actually felt. But laying it all out had made her realize that while she didn’t have things under control yet, she at least had a direction for her efforts. The Were baby in Alaska was just as important as Portland’s, anyway. She’d deal with this to leave Dare free for that. “If you have any tricks for stopping people from questioning your decisions, I’d love to hear them, though.”

“All my voice is with your decision, incidentally,” Dare said, the rumble of warmth returning to his tone. “I don’t want to let that go unsaid. As for dealing with the questions, I think I can actually help with that. The secret is to listen—attentively, seriously—while they whine, for however long they need to whine. Agree whole voiced with every point they make that doesn’t directly contradict one of yours, and then remind them reluctantly that however good their points, the other side unfortunately outweighed them. It’s exhausting and you’ll wonder how people can be so stupid, but they want to be listened to, and they want to be understood, even if you don’t rule their way in the end. Let people wear themselves out whining, and then most will go home happy.”

Dare sighed. “Only most, however. I’d watch Charleston on something like this, for instance. And Billings.”

Silver smiled. “I think I took care of him, at least for the moment. I asked him who was alpha to the Lady.”

Dare laughed richly enough to fill the small space she’d cupped around their voices. “Well done. You might remind some others of that as well. I’ll yell at Charleston and whoever else I can get hold of before I have to leave here. First, though, is Felicia there?”

Death snorted, the sound muffled by the bedding between them, and Silver winced. She couldn’t tell properly without scent, but Dare did not sound entirely convinced that Felicia hadn’t been causing trouble. “She’s not home,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Dare made an acknowledging noise, then fell silent. As if summoned by her earlier thoughts, an errant air current brought a hint of Felicia’s flowers. The young woman had killed so many of them, their stench lingered in the den even without her, apparently.

The silence stretched until Silver started to worry. Was he annoyed, did he sense she was hiding something? Or with Dare so far away, had something had come between them, so he could no longer hear her voice? “Dare?”

“I’m here.” Dare’s voice rumbled a little lower with distraction. “John was asking about talking to his wife, when we’re done here.” His tone sharpened. “You know, since we’re both trapped here with no one much else in human to talk to, John mentioned something. He said it wasn’t ‘Dare’ you asked for after Tom was hurt.”

“No, I suppose it wasn’t.” Silver waited for the worry about being found out to catch at her voice, but with more important things to hide now, trying to save Dare from worry about her overextending herself seemed foolish. “Tom was hurt. Death helped me remember so I could do what I had to.”

Silver heard in the tone of Dare’s breath that he wanted to apologize for what she’d had to do, but she was glad he refrained. It was in the past, Tom was all right, and she was all right. “I didn’t know you could call your old name and your memories back completely again,” he said instead.

“Neither did I.” Silver trod too close to the memories, even just remembering having them, and her chest constricted. She had to cough to get her next breath in. “I can’t—just because I did it a second time doesn’t mean I’ll be able to get her back for good or even do it ever again. What if the next time I lose myself completely? Don’t ask me to push for it, please.” Her voice whined at the end.

“Shhhh, no, love, no. Never.” Dare kept murmuring nothing in particular until Silver could breathe properly again, and the memories no longer hovered, waiting to stoop and rend her with their talons. “I’ll do anything to make sure you don’t have to.”

Silver scrubbed at the side of her face not resting against the bed. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “So what’s it like up there? Are you ready to move out and spend your life in wolf?”

Dare growled, low and amused. “I have never been so Lady-darkened bored in my entire life. You can’t talk to anyone properly. If you say screw it and go back to human for a while, you’re still outside, so it’s too damned cold, even for the short time to get dressed. I hate to think what it’s like in winter.”

“I’m glad you only miss my
conversation,
” Silver said, the innuendo coming out even more outrageously with her relief that he was running with the change of subject.

“Oh, I’ve had plenty of time to make plans for when I get back.” Dare told her about them, in detail. Silver laughed and burrowed deeper, as if she could save up his voice for later.

13

Felicia arrived back at the house after the meeting with Enrique to the news that her father had called, and Silver was still on the phone with him. She jogged halfway up the stairs before she thought it through. Did she actually even want to talk to her father? She missed him with a strength that annoyed her to realize, but what about everything she couldn’t talk about? Wouldn’t it be better to avoid talking to him?

By that time, Felicia’s slower steps had carried her to the open master bedroom door. Silver didn’t always remember to shut doors. Silver and her father’s voices carried, a little muffled like she was under the covers, but Felicia tried not to let the words resolve into meaning. She wasn’t here to eavesdrop.

Of course, that was before she heard her own name. After that, she couldn’t help but hear the actual words. She just couldn’t. And when Silver said she wasn’t home, Felicia stopped her hand just before knocking against the doorframe. That was a perfect excuse not to speak to her father, and she really shouldn’t ruin it. If she didn’t want to talk to her father, which she still wasn’t sure about.

And then they started talking about what Silver had done at the vet’s office. Felicia froze as all thoughts of interrupting disappeared. Silver couldn’t do that again…?

And then before she’d gathered her wits, the conversation turned to things she was desperate not to hear. Felicia put her fingers in her ears and fled. Any longer and she’d have to smash her forehead against the wall until the parts of her brain with the mental images were destroyed.

She needed space to think. If Silver couldn’t summon sanity again, that changed everything.

Felicia thumped down the stairs and hesitated at the bottom. Privacy was never assured in a pack house. Or around it, for that matter, but her chances of space to think outside were at least better. She headed for the front door. She could use airing out the car as her excuse. Since it was a pack car, to be polite she’d meant to return later and check the perfume had dissipated anyway.

Felicia opened the car door and collapsed to sit sideways on the passenger seat, one foot propped on the curb. The more she thought about it, the more what she’d heard drew over her like clouds covering the Lady’s face, stealing her voice.

Silver might actually get arrested, might actually get locked up for being crazy. She’d been so Lady-damned pleased with herself for nudging Enrique into that plan, and now it seemed it would actually work.

But she’d found out before they’d put the plan into action. She clung to that glimmer of the Lady’s light. She could still do something about it.

Felicia shoved to her feet, slammed the door, and circled the car to the driver’s side. She needed to call Enrique immediately and at least try to stall him somehow. That needed absolutely assured privacy. She drove across the closest arterial to park along a side street the pack would have no reason to travel or glance down. She opened her address book to Enrique’s entry but stopped herself before she connected the call. He couldn’t get Silver arrested in the next two minutes. He was relying on Felicia’s help anyway. Better she plan out what she was going to say, and not sound breathless and panicked.

When she had it straight in her mind, she dialed his number. When he answered, his greeting sounded suspicious. “Has something happened?”

“No.” Felicia licked her lips and closed her eyes to aid her composure. She wanted to sound absolutely nonchalant about this. “I’ve been thinking about your plan. Isn’t it too risky for the Were as a whole to have her talking to the police? When she’s babbling, who knows what she might say that would get someone thinking.”

Enrique snorted a laugh. “Felicia, I thought better of you. Your white tail is showing.” Like a rabbit or deer as it ran away, he meant. “That’s a pitiful excuse. No. We go ahead with the plan, or I show your pack the proof of where your loyalties really lay.”

“Lie,” Felicia corrected without thinking, and then wanted to release a hysterical giggle. Lady. It all came back to those stupid e-mails. Why did Madrid have to be so good at forgery, so they were so very believable? Why did she have to be so stupid as to lie for and get drunk with someone she couldn’t trust?

“Do you want me to do that?” Enrique gave Felicia several beats of silence, and when she didn’t answer, she heard his smile in his voice. “That’s what I thought.

Felicia ended the call, tossed the phone on the seat beside her, and clenched her hands on the steering wheel to stop herself shaking. She shouldn’t have called him. She should have known she wouldn’t change his mind, and now she’d verified for him how good his hold was on her.

Fine. Felicia slapped her hands on the sides of the steering wheel, repeated the word out loud. He had a hold on her, but she was still working against him. Felicia took a few deep breaths to try to think logically. She needed delaying tactics, not direct opposition, which would send Enrique to the pack with his “proof.”

They had to get Silver to go into the house where she’d be trespassing, and it would have to be Felicia who led her there. Silver would never follow a stranger anywhere. Felicia could lead Silver to the wrong place, somewhere she’d be stopped before she even got inside, but that would also be too obvious.

It came to her like frightened and confused prey bolting the right direction directly into your jaws. She could get herself grounded. All she’d have to do is mouth off a little. Then she wouldn’t be able to lead Silver anywhere.

But what would piss Silver off, without getting Felicia kicked out of the house or the pack completely? She knew her father’s buttons intimately, but Silver’s anger was usually deep and hidden and creepy, not something Felicia could chart easily.

Felicia hiccupped with laughter as a crazy idea occurred to her. Why not a pet? Bringing home something weak and preylike that no one was supposed to eat was dumb enough to piss off any Were. Plus, it seemed like just the kind of thing she might have done when she was younger to prove that she could do whatever she wanted.

Felicia started the car and pulled away, anxious to put her counter to Enrique in motion as soon as possible. She knew where the animal shelter was, she’d passed it often enough when driving around.

When she arrived at the shelter and pushed in the front doors, the vet’s office came uncomfortably to mind. The shelter had the same kind of linoleum and the same smell of cleaners and animals packed close together. Felicia bit her lip and tilted her chin up. That didn’t matter. She was doing this. She went right up to the counter and told the shelter employee, a woman with gray in her enthusiastically curling hair, that she wanted to adopt.

Of course, when the woman asked what kind of animal Felicia wanted, she had to think fast. Not a dog. That was just weird. They looked too much like people, but stupid, but still people … Apparently the shelter had rabbits too, which Felicia also immediately discounted.
She’d
want to eat one if she brought it home, never mind the rest of the pack. But a cat seemed right. The gray-haired woman smiled and gestured her through the doorway beside the counter. She met Felicia on the other side to accompany her.