Julia pulled up an ancient swivel chair that had bits of grey stuffing sticking out of the back of it and sat down heavily. For a few minutes she didn’t say anything at all. I laid the paper down on the cluttered wooden desk and waited.
Finally she spoke. “We need you here and we want you here, Mackenzie. Don’t ever forget that. This is not just about the geas or about the Brethren. It’s about us too.”
I was taken aback at the honesty in her eyes and suddenly found myself blinking furiously.
‘Don’t take me wrong,” she continued, “you’re antagonistic and temperamental. You don’t follow orders and you can’t be compelled. And whatever it is you’ve got inside you that flares up causes me great concern. God only knows how you can do some of the things that you can do. But I would trust you with my life, and the pack’s lives, and I know they feel the same. I also know that there is nothing you wouldn’t do for us.”
“Anton might argue with you on that one.”
“He’s young. He’ll get over that chip on his shoulder soon enough. My point is,” she leaned forward, “that I am not protecting you because I’m being forced to as a result of some spell. You might not be a shifter but you are still one of us. Not only that but we need you to find out what happened to John, just as soon as we know it’s safe to do so and we have all the information we need. I love everyone in this pack but I have no illusions that we don’t have many able fighters. And you appear to have certain skills and abilities that are closed to us. So we need you emotionally and physically.”
I struggled to find my voice. “I…I…need you too. I need all of you.”
She picked at the arm of the chair. “I know, dear. Which is why we need to make very sure that the Brethren don’t have any reason to pay you any attention whatsoever. I can gloss over your part in John’s final hours and I’m confident that we’ve improved on the scent lotion from last time. As long as you regularly apply it every six to eight hours, no-one will smell human on you. We need you to act nondescript, however. Become grey.”
“Huh?” I was momentarily confused. The emotions that her words had stirred, coupled with the almost overwhelming grief that I was only just managing to keep a lid on, were muddling my thoughts.
“I mean fade in with wallpaper. Dye your hair so it’s not longer the colour of fire. And, speaking of fire, keep that down inside of you as well. Wear dull clothes. Don’t discuss shifting. Don’t discuss anything, in fact. It’s only for three days and then they won’t bother us again.”
I thought about what she’d said before, that they might stay for longer if there was danger. “What if it’s longer? What if they decide to stay?”
“We will give them no reason to do so. I will assure them that we are capable of finding John’s killer for ourselves. We certainly have a history of being independent and capable – and remember a lot of that is down to your skill in keeping us safe. That will stand us in good stead. The pack will be good and keep the geas, although expect a certain level of starstruck idiocy when the Brethren first arrive.” She paused for a moment and changed her tone. “Are you going to be all right, Mackenzie?”
I fixed her with a confident look. “Yes, no problem.” I was all business-like now. Go me. “They’re not going to dazzle me and I can do all those other things. Head down, be unobtrusive, don’t discuss anything with anyone.”
“Are going to be all right with dealing with John?”
She meant dealing with his death. I swallowed and paused for a heartbeat before taking a deep breath and answering. “Yes. Because I have to be.” My voice rang clear and I knew it was true. I’d do him no favours by curling up somewhere in a corner and weeping.
Julia stared at me for a moment, her eyes unblinking. Then she nodded as if to herself. “Okay then.” She stood up and stretched, catlike despite her age. “I am going to take a long bath. There’s lotion in the cupboard.” She jerked her head to the closet next to the study door. “They’ll be here at noon tomorrow – be ready.”
I nodded. Julia left quietly but I remained standing there for a second or too, mulling over what she had said. I didn’t want the Brethren to come. But then I hadn’t wanted John to die either. I just had to swallow it down and last the distance. It couldn’t be that hard. With that resolve in my mind, I opened the closet and found the unmarked lotion bottles. I took them all. If I was going to do this, then I was going to do it properly. It was time to get ready.
Chapter Four
After midday the next day my unshakeable resolve was weakening. I was hot and irritated. My scalp felt itchy from the dye and every time I turned my head I could smell the shifter lotion reeking from my skin. Of course I didn’t dislike shifter smells – after living with them for so long I rarely even noticed any difference between their scent and mine, not that it was an unpleasant difference – but I wasn’t used to smelling them on myself.
We were all stood in the hall. It was a large room immediately off the great oak front door. Shabby portraits of alphas from decades past adorned the walls, along with a couple of twee chocolate box landscapes. Underneath the paintings were panels of varnished yet undecorated wood and on the floor were slabs of smoothed grey stone. I tried to push aside the reminder of why we had all been there in the same place just last night, feeling myself still perilously close to great hiccupping tears that I was pretty confident would never stop if I let them start. Standing towards the back, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I had chosen my spot very carefully so I could keep myself relatively hidden from the gaze of the incoming Brethren. I was too sensible to aim for the very back – that’s where the trouble-makers usually headed and I was sure that those stood there would be noted immediately for no other reason than that they were hanging back. But I still wasn’t happy.
The tension in the room was palpable. I tried to breathe through my mouth to avoid being assailed by the stench of weak fear that was emanating from those around me. It was so obvious that even I could smell it. By my side I could feel Tom shifting from foot to foot. I hissed at him in irritation and he stilled for a heartbeat before returning to his nervous shuffle.
“It’s been almost an hour,” he moaned. “Why aren’t they here yet?”
“Perhaps they’ve been held up because they haven’t finished eating all their young yet,” I snapped.
“Oh dear,” came a soft voice sheathed in steel from behind me. “I hardly think that attitude is going to impress the Brethren, Mackenzie.”
“And why the fuck would I want to impress them, Anton?”
The voice laughed, gratingly. “I give you two hours before they see you for the rabid animal you are and put you out of your misery. Oh, but wait, you’re not an animal, are you? You’re…” The voice deliberately stopped just there, daring me to fill in the blank myself.
I spun around, left hand clenched whilst my right reached into my sleeve for my dagger.
Cease.
I brushed away the voice inside my head and began to slide it out of its sheath. In front of me, Anton’s blue eyes sparked, daring me to continue.
Mackenzie Smith. You are drawing attention to yourself.
I stilled, realizing that other heads were starting to turn my way.
“Red, are you crazy?” Tom’s hand snatched at my wrist although his body remained facing the front. “Do you want them to notice you?”
“They’re not here yet.”
“And what happens when they arrive and you’ve got your hands wrapped around his throat?” Tom nodded his head in Anton’s direction. “You don’t want to give them any reason to single you out.”
Anton’s eyebrows raised tauntingly.
Mackenzie. The boy is right. Remember what we spoke about. You know what would happen if…
I pushed the voice out, slamming shut the mental gates, and turned back to face the dais. Unable to help myself, I glanced in Julia’s direction. The older woman gazed back impassively, no sign on her face that she was upset that she’d been shut out from my thoughts. I grimaced and forced my hand to move back down to my side. My fingernails dug into my palms. I could hear Anton laughing from behind me.
Not a good start. And it hadn’t actually even started yet.
Anton had the same geas about revealing my true nature placed on him as the rest of my pack, and couldn’t say a direct word about it, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find other ways of forcing my hand and making me show who I really was. I didn’t know why my presence caused him to feel so much animosity but I’d given up trying to change his mind about me years ago. I was certainly never going to be anything but human, not unless a vamp decided to snack on me at least and even then that might not work. John had offered me the chance to be turned into a shifter when I reached my majority of eighteen. I had jumped at the chance, naturally. It had meant that I would finally, truly, belong. He’d bitten me and waited for the cells in his saliva to work their way through my body. Unfortunately something inexplicable had prevented the lycanthropic cells from taking hold – just another reason for Anton to jibe at me for being different. The result of the bite had merely been several days of unbelievable agony. And of course by the end of it I was still frustratingly human. However, if I kept my cool, and didn’t let my bloodfire get out of control then Anton wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Piece of cake.
Tom’s eyes slid towards me. I nodded slowly and he exhaled, his hand releasing my arm.
My usual bright red hair was now a mousy brown and I was wearing a uniform of generic jeans and t-shirt. Nothing that would draw any attention to me whatsoever, unlike several of the pack members who had taken the opportunity to dress dramatically. As far as I was concerned, though, as soon as this rigmarole of a ceremony was over, I could forget the Brethren ever existed. Until then all my attempts to hide in plain sight would be for nothing if I couldn’t get a grip on my temper.