Ilona Andrews - Magic Breaks

We, huh? “Perish the thought.”

“And to think that Clan Wolf is missing out on all of the perks and benefits a good relationship with the Beast Lord and Consort could bring. A shame.” Desandra sighed and winked at me. “But have no worries. I, unlike some, am a team player. I have no problems being friendly and even humble if my clan can benefit from it.”

Aha. And she was rubbing Jennifer’s nose in it in front of witnesses. “You are the devil.”

“Thank you, Consort. You say the nicest things.” Desandra lowered her voice to a murmur. “Is she watching?”

“She’s watching.”

“See those three guys with her? They’re her bodyguards.” Desandra sneered. “She has to have bodyguards , Kate. I can smell the fear.” She waved her hand in front of her face, as if fanning an aroma to her nose. “Mmm, delicious.”

I nodded at Jim and the small crowd of fighters who maintained the great distance of a whole ten feet around me.

“That’s different,” Desandra said. “You’re the Consort and a human, and this shindig is all about ceremony. We are supposed to defend you to the death. But an alpha of a clan should never require bodyguards.”

Jennifer turned sharply and went inside. The three men followed her. She had to have heard that.

“I thought you’d challenge her by now,” Jim said. “What are you waiting for?”

“Do I have the Beast Lord and Consort’s approval?” Desandra asked.

Her questions weren’t questions, they were bear traps ready to be sprung. “The leadership of Clan Wolf is a private matter to be decided within the clan. We do not interfere. I won’t speak for the Beast Lord, but I will tell you that I prefer a peaceful solution.”

“That was very diplomatic,” Desandra said. “Not very clear. Also, since when do you prefer peaceful solutions?”

“Since I don’t want to deal with a bloodbath for Christmas. She’s the widow of a man who sacrificed himself for the Pack. If you murder her in cold blood and leave her daughter an orphan, I’ll make things harder for you. So will the other wolves. Handle it like the alpha you want to be.”

Desandra grimaced. “I’m not about to make her a martyr. And I don’t want to leave her daughter an orphan. There’s no need for tragedies. It’s not time anyway. The clan isn’t completely mine yet, but I’m getting there. Jennifer knows I’m watching for her to stumble, so she hesitates. She puts off important decisions and gets defensive when people question her, which makes her look weak and timid. Meanwhile I sit in the shadows and bide my time, converting the clan one by one. The wolves require a strong leader and the longer Jennifer teeters on the edge, the louder they rumble. Soon they will come to me. They’ll say that it’s regrettable, but the clan has had enough of Jennifer’s leadership. I will be hesitant and humble. I’ll need to be convinced that this is the right thing, the noble thing to do. It will take some doing to convince me, and when I force her out, the entirety of the clan will be overjoyed.”

Desandra grinned at us. “So you don’t have to worry. I won’t kill her in the middle of some formal dinner. I’m not my father, after all. Enjoy your meal.” She winked, turned, and walked away.

Wow.

“This is going to turn into a giant pain in the ass, isn’t it?” Barabas said.

“Yes, it will.” Suddenly I missed my apartment. It was small and cramped and located in a rough part of town, but it had been all mine, before my aunt had demolished it. It was a ruin now, but I really wanted to go home, close the door, and not have to deal with any of this bullshit.

A dark SUV turned the corner. Another followed, then another. The People were incoming.

“Showtime,” Jim said.

Black Bear Lodge. If I got through this, I’d get two weeks with Curran at Black Bear Lodge. I put my business face on and marched into Bernard’s with ten shapeshifters at my heels.

• • •

“WE ARE NOT saying that the Pack can’t buy a building on the border of our city territory.” Ryan Kelly tapped the table with his index finger. “We’re saying that when they do, we notice.”

I killed a yawn before it started. Most Masters of the Dead maintained a strict corporate uniform that would’ve made them at home in any high-pressure boardroom. Ryan sounded the part and looked the part as far as his dress was concerned. His navy suit was obviously custom tailored, his square chin clean shaven, and his cologne expensive. He also had a huge purple Mohawk. The Mohawk was currently lying down, draped over the left side of his skull, and he kept tossing his head back, because the hair kept getting into his eyes. The flip of the purple hair turned out to be strangely hypnotic and I had to force myself to listen to what he said instead of waiting for another head toss.

“It’s not that we object to the purchase of that particular building.” Flip. “It’s the principle . . .”

Bernard’s had put us into a private dining room with one long table. We sat on one side, the People sat on the other. To the right of me Jim surveyed the room, periodically glancing at the door. To the left of me Robert Lonesco played with his fork, his handsome face lost in thought. Ryan’s journeywoman, whose name was Meghan and who stood behind her boss’s chair, was discreetly checking him out. Robert turned heads. He had the kind of quiet beauty that with the right photographer and a big billboard would stop traffic. His skin was a light even bronze, his hair soft and so dark it was almost blue-black, and his eyes, serious and large, seemed bottomless.

To the right of Ryan, Ghastek watched Meghan’s pining with neutral curiosity. Thin to the point of being gaunt, he was somewhere on the crossroads of thirty and forty, his short brown hair still untouched by gray, and he wore “smart” like it was a perfume. Where Ryan Kelly looked like a businessman who somehow sprouted a Mohawk, Ghastek looked more like a scientist who accidentally found himself invited to a formal party where everyone was dumber than him and was now spinning his wheels, trying to make his brain acclimate.

Mulradin Grant himself was MIA, since it was Ghastek’s turn to participate in the Conclave, but his wife, Claire, was in attendance. She was in her late thirties, blond, well-groomed, with an average build and a toned figure. Her pantsuit looked expensive and her hair spoke of pampering and many salon visits.

Ryan droned on. He supported Mulradin and he would’ve loved nothing more than to create some sort of problem between the Pack and the People and then dump it in Ghastek’s lap. Unfortunately for him, nothing potentially problematic had happened, and so he was forced to make a mountain out of a molehill. He knew it, everyone else knew it, and now we were all collectively bored to death by it. Out of convenience, the People and the Pack had divided the city into imaginary territories, with each party patrolling their own imaginary borders, and Raphael’s reclamation business happened to have bought a building on the border.

Claire tugged at the metal bracelet on her wrist. All of the People wore one today, and knowing them, the new jewelry was a corporate fashion statement.

“. . . we object to the Pack’s continued disregard for . . .”

The double doors separating the private dining room from the rest of Bernard’s swung open. A tall broad-shouldered body filled the doorway. Hugh d’Ambray strode into the room.

For a moment my mind struggled to digest the fact that Hugh was there, and then every cell in my body went on full alert, as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on me and then shocked me with a live wire.

My memory shot me back to last summer. I heard the crunch of his back snapping as Curran broke his body over the stone parapet. I smelled the smoke of the stone-melting conjured fire that devoured Castle Megobari and watched Hugh fall into the flames down below. Yet here he was, wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a black T-shirt. He seemed no worse for wear, the bastard. No limp. No stiffness. Even his hair, dark, almost black, was the same length, falling to his shoulders. Same fist-breaking chin, same hard, square jaw, same stubble. Over six feet tall, he was corded with hard, supple muscle and he moved with a swordsman’s grace, perfectly balanced, sure, and adroit in his control.