Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Rocks the House

“My Mistress has. Many years ago. He offered her power. She walked away. Fled, rather, to the colonies. She opposes him by staying out of his reach.”

“How much longer do you think she’ll be able to keep that up?”

A trace of anxiety furrowed his brow. “That is why I am here. I had hoped to speak to Ricardo of this.”

“I’m telling you what he’d tell you. You have allies. We’ve already exposed Roman and a number of his followers. The more of us watching for him, the better chance we have of stopping him. He can be beaten.” I hoped he could …

Another long moment of sizing each other up passed. I had the impression that he could see through me, read my mind even. My skin itched, but through an act of will I didn’t fidget.

“I am supposed to tell Mistress Bianca that the Master of Denver has more important business than speaking with her chosen representative?”

Etiquette wasn’t my strong suit, and I couldn’t help but fail miserably at it where vampires were concerned. I sighed. “I keep forgetting you people have so much time on your hands you have nothing better to do than take offense at everything.” He flattened his hands on the table and opened his mouth to speak, but I gestured to stop him. “I know, I know. Sending a werewolf to talk to you is an insult. You’ll just have to believe me that Rick is dealing with a serious matter than no one else can handle, and that I really do know what he does about Dux Bellorum.”

Titus seemed mollified. “I believe you know enough. This is all so very … chaotic.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it. We just have to keep paddling along, yeah?” He rewarded me with a thin, amused smile. “Can we contact you if we need to? Will you contact us, if you learn anything?”

He hesitated, and every moment he did my hopes sank a notch. He drew breath and said, “I’m skeptical, I confess. The situation in Denver seems less stable than I was led to believe. Are you and Ricardo truly strong enough to mount an opposition against Roman?”

“We’ve stood up to him before. Yes,” I said, because I had to.

“Then I’ll return home and report to my Mistress. She’ll send word of her response.”

He started to push back from the table, but I rushed out a question while I had the chance. “Before you go, can I ask you something? Do you know anything about vampires working for the Vatican?” Argentina was a Catholic country, right? What could it hurt to ask?

“You’re joking, yes?”

“Never mind,” I said, sighing.

He stood and walked out without further acknowledgment, without giving me another chance to talk at him. To convince him. Bianca, Mistress of Buenos Aires, was the only vampire Master in South America we were absolutely sure didn’t belong to Roman. Not that South America was swarming with vampires, but I didn’t much like the feeling of facing an entire continent outside our influence.

I slumped forward and put my head on my arms, just to rest for a moment.

Footsteps approached, and I caught the scent of werewolf before me. Darren. Chin up, shoulders broad, he smiled at me and sat in the chair across from me, the one where Titus had been a moment before. Ben moved toward us in a hurry.

The restaurant had emptied while Titus and I talked. The manager and a couple of staff remained, working to close up. Becky was still here, by the front door, hackles up. The moment seemed frozen—something was happening. I caught Ben’s gaze and shook my head, asking him to wait. I wanted to see how this played out. Ben stopped, but almost bounced in place, hands clenched, looking back and forth between Darren and Becky.

Darren ignored him and said, “It’s tough, isn’t it? Being in charge. Staying in control.”

I tried to puzzle out his intention. The obvious condescension in his tone wasn’t mean, but wasn’t very sympathetic, either. He mostly sounded like he was making a casual observation. Never mind that the words slipped a knife between my ribs.

“I didn’t realize I was being graded.”

He went on, “You’ve had to work very hard, haven’t you? Leading this pack, putting yourself out there.”

Ben leaned in. “You’re out of line—”

I held up a hand to stop him. Maybe we could good cop/bad cop this. “I do okay.”

Darren’s smile cut. “I mean you’ve had to work hard to be an alpha. Because you’re not, really. You certainly weren’t born an alpha. You were happier when you had somebody taking care of you, weren’t you?”

I flashed back on those years, bottom of the pack, everyone’s baby, everyone’s punching bag. Maybe that had been less work, but “happy” certainly wasn’t the word I’d use to describe that time. It was never as much work to roll over and show your belly as it was to stand up straight. But standing straight felt so much better.

I grinned, teeth showing. “That’s a little Calvinistic, don’t you think? Predeterministic? You don’t believe in upward mobility?”

“You can’t change your basic nature.”

A few feet away, Ben was just about trembling with anger. I tried to radiate calm. I didn’t want to get blood all over my nice restaurant. “That’s the big debate for the ages, isn’t it? Nature versus nurture. So you’re a nature guy, I take it?”

“All your talk just covers up your fears—you’re afraid I’m right.”

Talking had worked so far. I leaned back, not breaking eye contact—not giving an inch, not letting him think his challenge was working. I declaimed, “Some are born alpha, some achieve alpha-ness, and some have alpha-ness thrust upon them. You know, that actually has a nice ring to it.”

If I was getting to him—discouraging him, making him angry, maybe even amusing him—he didn’t reveal it. He would wear me down with impenetrable, paternalistic kindness. He was only trying to help, really. The more I argued, the more I’d prove his point.

Well, it was the only thing I knew how to do, really. “So, what are you doing? You think you can do a better job? You calling me out?”

“You’re the one who brought it up, not me.”

Ben started to lunge, but I stood and braced against him, stopping him. An aggressive response might have been instinctive, but it showed weakness, showed Darren that he could get to us. Never mind if any of what he said was true. This was all about appearances. This didn’t look too good.

I had an urge to attack him myself, really. I imagined the taste of his blood on my tongue, his flesh parting at the touch of my teeth. My heart burned with the thought, but the sound of voices calmed me. The manager in back, talking to the cook who was scraping the grill. This was the human den, the human place, where people sat in chairs, ate with forks, glared at each other across the table and didn’t throw punches, no matter how much they wanted to. This wasn’t the place for a fight. Not Wolf’s kind of fight. Surely I had that much control. I would not start a fight here.

“You can’t have Denver,” I said, startled at how petulant my voice sounded. I didn’t sound strong, but like a whining child, and this all felt like it was happening to someone else. I watched myself glare at him. I radiated challenge. But that was Wolf, not me.

Ben broke away from me, but didn’t get any farther than leaning across the table, teeth bared. Darren stood, knocking the chair back to the floor, mirroring the glare and snarl.

“You going to start something?” Darren said, eager.

“There will be no fighting in my restaurant,” I said. Not that I could stop them if either one of them decided to cross the table.

“Yeah,” Darren said, chuckling. “That’s what I thought. You don’t have it in you.” He walked away, flicking his hand in a way that made me think I was the one being dismissed.