Billings said he’d spoken recently to most of the other Western alphas, and his pack wasn’t missing any members. He was just as polite in refusing to take Silver, but Andrew shouldn’t hesitate to call again if he had any other questions.
Alberta answered, but hung up the moment he’d finished his explanation. He hadn’t really expected to get much information from them about other packs. The packs were more influenced by human countries than they liked to admit, since Were usually had human birth certificates and passports. A Canadian pack wouldn’t know much about the doings of the American ones, and the only other Canadian packs were out in the wilds above the Arctic Circle, or east and strong allies with Roanoke. Ottawa or Halifax would have called immediately about someone missing.
Salt Lake gave much the same answers—no one he could think of was missing, why was Andrew asking, again? But the alpha seemed to be playing the game where he asserted his dominance by pretending that he was so busy, every word he spoke to someone else was an imposition. Andrew wasn’t fooled, but it was still a pain to wade through the constant repetition of “Is that all?” And of course Salt Lake had enough on his plate taking care of his pack as it was without taking on someone else. His pack was really too big, but the alpha didn’t want to kick anyone out—Andrew didn’t pursue the question.
Next came Reno. Andrew wanted to growl in frustration when he finally hung up on the man. He had to assume that if Reno had a missing Were, the alpha would have said something, but the man seemed determined not to give any information. The conversation had been all rapid-fire questions: Where had Andrew found her, again? Why was he asking about missing Were? What made him think someone had done it to her? What made him think she was from the West? Why was he asking about missing Were? Andrew didn’t bother asking if they’d take her.
He couldn’t figure out what Reno thought Andrew was trying to get away with. Did he think Andrew had manufactured Silver from whole cloth in order to—what? Get information about missing Were? That made no sense.
That left Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, and Denver. Andrew considered trying them again on his personal phone, but that could wait until morning.
The hall sounded clear, so Andrew let himself out, pausing at the bottom of the stairs to try to untangle scents to determine Silver’s location. He rarely went upstairs, so he couldn’t tell which were guest rooms and which were private except by the smell.
A cry of pain from one room settled the question. Andrew took the stairs two at a time and jerked open the door. Laurence’s back blocked his way. The beta whirled to face him, jumpy from the tension in the room. Andrew put a firm hand on the man’s shoulder and moved him aside. Sarah skittered aside without him having to do anything.
Silver was scrunched up against the bed’s headboard with a pillow brandished like a weapon. Across the room the brisk-looking Were who served as Roanoke’s doctor waited with strained patience. Most packs had one member with bits of nursing or medical training, but Were had so little need for a real doctor this woman was on call to all Roanoke. It wasn’t a perfect system, having her so far away when a real emergency came up, but it had worked well enough so far. Mostly her job involved rebreaking bones or digging out embedded bullets when quick healing hadn’t proved such a blessing.
The doctor sighed and picked up a second pillow from her feet. “Are you the one who brought her in?” she asked Andrew. “I’ve been trying forever to get her to let me examine her, never mind do anything about it. How did you get her to show you her arm?”
Andrew frowned. “There’s no trick to it. Just be gentle.” He sat down on the side of the bed. Silver’s brows drew down and she smacked the pillow against his shoulder. Andrew caught and held it so she couldn’t pull it back. She calmed down a little, like she’d gotten something out of her system.
“Stop treating me like I’m not here.” Silver glared at him.
Andrew tossed the pillow aside and scooted closer. “I don’t think anyone has any doubt you’re here.”
“If you pull out the snakes they dig their teeth in deeper. Deeper and deeper—” Silver’s voice changed to a whine, and Andrew lifted her bad arm away from her chest while she rambled. He held it out with one hand under her wrist, the other supporting her upper arm, and jerked his head for the doctor to look.
She was good at controlling her expression, but from this close Andrew could smell her shock. She rolled up her sleeves and reached out, but pulled back when Andrew made a strangled noise. “Enough silver left to burn you.” He opened his hand to show the fingertips, still angry red from his first encounter with Silver’s wound.
The doctor nodded and remained silent through her examination, directing Andrew to angle Silver’s arm by flicking her fingers. “Well, your conclusion seems as good as mine would be. I’ve never seen something like this before, but the needle mark is there, and if the skin burns you…”
“Should we bleed her?” Andrew set Silver’s arm down. “I wondered that the first time I saw it, but I didn’t know—”
“No,” the doctor said, smoothing a light wisp of hair back into her French braid. “I’ve seen enough silver to know the wounds don’t heal right. We may get rid of the silver, but she’ll just keep bleeding afterward. I don’t think we should risk it, not when she’s otherwise stable.”
Andrew nodded and stood up as the doctor gathered her bag. Silver watched them both suspiciously, but the longer they left her alone, the more her eyelids drooped. He paused in the doorway to watch her after shoving Laurence out after the doctor and Sarah. She pulled all the bedding onto the floor, and curled up like she was in wolf, back pressed against the footboard.
“Watch her, she’s run before,” Andrew told Laurence after shutting the door. The other man’s lip curled at Andrew ordering him, but he nodded acknowledgment and stationed himself in front of the door.
Sarah fell in with him as he headed back downstairs. Or perhaps followed was more accurate, as she automatically positioned herself so that she was beyond Andrew’s reach.
“How long is Rory going to let her stay with us?” she asked, matter-of-fact.
Andrew stopped in the front hall and focused on the front door as a distraction from Sarah’s huge fear-fueled personal space. She made him feel guilty when he’d never done anything. “Who knows. Might be a while until I can find one of the Western packs to take her, though. They’re helpful, on balance, but not helpful enough to want to take on the entire responsibility for a madwoman any more than your husband is.”
Sarah made an apologetic little noise. “It’s not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just—”
“It’s just that he doesn’t want to.” Andrew rubbed his healed jaw. He shouldn’t snap, but it had been a long day, and he didn’t want to listen to Rory’s justifications delivered by someone he couldn’t argue with.
Sarah preserved a worried silence for a few moments, and then cautiously offered, “You’ll be traveling with her, though. You can make sure she gets to the right people.”
Andrew frowned. He supposed he would be. In Silver’s current state, one couldn’t just put her on a bus or plane unescorted. Another long job he didn’t want. He’d have to consider it as a vacation. He’d only gotten permission to visit Western pack lands a few times in his tenure as Rory’s enforcer—and that was only to attend the annual alphas’ convocation the years it was held out West, no sightseeing allowed. The land was beautiful out there.
“I have to get home,” he said at length. “Nothing’s getting settled tonight.”
Sarah took a step after him as he moved to the door. “It’s late. Why don’t you stay? We have plenty of space. There’s the futon in the TV room.” Andrew stifled a yawn just at the thought of the two-hour drive down to his place in Richmond. Sarah took that as agreement and brightened a little. “Since you’d just be coming back in the morning.”
She did have a point. Andrew didn’t want even more driving, but neither did he want to have to sleep with one eye open to make sure the more aggressive among Rory’s pack didn’t try something. Ritual combat was only for the alphaship, but they could gain points among their fellows for being the one to kick his ass.
As if summoned by the thought, Laurence came down the stairs. Andrew braced himself. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to wait until he was half asleep. He’d been counting on guard duty keeping Laurence busy for a few hours yet, dammit.
Laurence stopped on the bottom step, however, body language neutral. He shook his head at Andrew’s pointed frown. “Alpha had me relieved. He says you’ll need a plane.”
Sarah slipped past Laurence without any apparent qualms about how close it brought her to him. He was properly pack and thus not a threat, Andrew assumed. Lucky him. “I’ll make up the futon,” she said, and to Andrew’s surprise, Laurence didn’t object. The man really was staying on his best behavior. Sarah disappeared back into the house toward the basement stairs.
“Well, I’m not going to be able to take her commercial, that’s for sure.” Andrew eyed Laurence, but allowed the man to enjoy the height advantage being on the bottom step gave him. He needed it.
“Guy I know who does charter needs a little warning, or it’s pretty fucking expensive.” Laurence crossed his arms over his chest again, but for him his voice was neutral. “Where are you going?”
“Damned if I know.” Andrew shrugged. “Whichever pack’ll take her. Most likely all the way out to the West Coast, it’s looking like.”
Laurence looked up the stairs in the vague direction of Silver’s room. “That’s a long way for her to go just to end up with strangers.” A muscle jumped in his jaw, but having come that close to commenting on his alpha’s orders, he swerved away again. “Not just going to dump her, are you?”
Andrew blinked. Was that something that might even be a second or third cousin of concern in the man’s voice? “Not without checking who it is that I’m dumping her on, if that’s what you mean. Even non-pack, she deserves better than that.”
Laurence nodded once. “Good.” The golden-haired woman crossed the hall to get from living room to kitchen, and Laurence’s manner changed immediately. “You would know, wouldn’t you? Being as good as non-pack.” His mouth curled into a sneer. Laurence jostled Andrew as he moved off into the house. Andrew smoothed his expression so his lip didn’t curl in contempt. That man was a beta, and yet he didn’t have the confidence to stand up for his opinions in front of the pack? Pathetic.
Why shouldn’t Andrew stay the night, anyway? As enforcer, he had a right to be here. They could remember that for once. He headed out to the car to get his overnight bag.
6
Silver couldn’t remember being so warm in a long time. The den glowed with a soft version of the Lady’s light that showed a healthy pack lived here, and Silver could smell cubs somewhere around, though they were being kept away from her. She knew it was probably foolish, probably dangerous, but she let herself sleep anyway. Really sleep, casting herself into the mist of dreams until nothing around her felt the Lady’s light either.
When she woke, the disrespectful alpha’s mate was still sitting nearby, watching over her. She bustled about, bringing Silver morsels picked from the bones of their earlier kill, and crisp water from the stream. Silver set it on the floor nearby for Death to drink too. After he’d had his fill, he brought his muzzle up too fast and droplets scattered, glittering crystalline on black for a moment before they soaked into his fur.
Silver let the alpha’s mate show her where to bathe and then groom her, because it kept the woman calm. Silver didn’t blame her for being on edge, not with Death prowling around like he owned the place. Silver had lost her fear of him only because he refused to leave her, and she knew his ways intimately by now.
The alpha strutted in and frowned down at her. His mate smoothed her hair a last time, glow from her simple, pure kindness lingering on the white strands for a moment. “Don’t get too attached. We’re looking for her last pack, if she was a lone, so we can send her to them.” The alpha looked at his mate as he spoke, as if Silver wasn’t even there.
Silver watched the snakes twine on her arm. She’d find no protection here, then, despite what the warrior had promised. It surprised her how much that hurt.
Death came up beside the alpha’s wild self, which was heavyset and muddy gray. He bit down into the fur around the alpha’s neck, a play nip that didn’t reach the skin. The wild self didn’t even notice. “Wouldn’t use his voice even if I had it.” Death whuffed and then lolled out his tongue as if to rid his mouth of the taste. “Has to shout to carry his authority.”
He spoke using the voice Silver thought of as his, though of course it wasn’t. It was simply the voice of a dead man she’d never known.
The alpha looked at her straight. “This would be so much easier if you’d stop babbling nonsense and tell us where you came from.”
That wasn’t a direct question, so Silver ignored it. Not for this man would she brave the fierce agony of the fire that threaded through her thoughts and memories of everything before. She closed her eyes, letting his voice wash over her as she came to a decision.
If this alpha did not wish her here, she would leave. The others guarding her had watched closely. Their alpha did not. Silver ignored his questions and waited for her moment.
* * *
Despite his worries, Andrew slept unmolested until around eight when Rory’s nine-year-old daughter Ginnie peeked in at him. Her light brown hair was mostly caught back in a ponytail, but plenty had sprung free around her forehead. He could have sworn she was inches taller than the last time he’d seen her. That had only been a few weeks ago. He remembered her birth, and she couldn’t be more than three or four years from her first shift now. Where did the time go?
Her mother followed close behind her and they argued, low-voiced on one side, much less so on the other. Ginnie tried to convince her mother that Andrew would be delighted at the chance to watch her morning cartoons with her.
He resolved matters by pushing the door open between them to carry his overnight bag to the bathroom. He arrived back showered and dressed to find Ginnie ensconced in a nest she’d made from his blankets, bright cartoons warbling at her.