Kelly Meade - Black Rook

He wanted to touch her, needed to touch her, and his right hand lifted a few inches before he snatched it back, alarmed. Bishop had brought her up here for a reason, damn it. She could be a threat, and he was checking her out like a love-struck idiot.

She stared back at him with an expression that waffled between alarm and suspicion, and her eyes carried a lingering accusation. He didn’t know her (was positive he’d remember having met her at any point in his life) but she seemed pissed off at him for something. Maybe she didn’t like tattoos? Or the 00-gauge steel studs in both of his earlobes offended her beyond reason. They had certainly offended Bishop when he showed up two years ago with both lobes pierced. Whatever it was, her stormy expression squashed most of the interest rising from points south.

She blinked hard and the animosity disappeared behind a curious smile that she turned and directed at Father. “I was told there was an accident involving my car,” she said. Her voice was carefully controlled, devoid of accent, and sensual enough to drive a spike of heat right into Rook’s guts. Even his beast, usually silent unless threatened, stirred at the sound of her voice.

Father didn’t even blink at whatever lie Bishop had used to lure her upstairs. Bishop was smart enough to not close the office door yet, but he stood in it, his height and size blocking her only escape route. “Please, have a seat, Miss . . . ?” Father indicated one of the two wicker chairs across from his desk.

“Jones,” she said. “Brynn Jones. And I’ll stand, thank you. Mr. McQueen, I assume?”

“Thomas McQueen. Pleasure.”

“Likewise.” A slight trickle of sarcasm hinted at an unspoken “not.”

Rook inhaled hard, trying to her figure out. She did have a vague, indistinguishable human scent on the surface, but Knight was right—beneath it, threaded through, was something other . Almost definitely loup. Only she was doing everything a run loup (and most half-breeds, for that matter) wouldn’t dare do. She was looking an Alpha in the eye, for one thing. And she’d walked right into their town without permission, and without immediately introducing herself to the Alpha.

Even deeper below the other two things lingered that sweet female scent that drew Rook to her. Made him want to get closer, to breath that scent in deeper. Instead, he caught hold of his common sense and held still.

Father made a gesture, and Bishop closed the office door. Brynn took a few steps toward the center of the room, putting herself at equal distance from all of them, even though she kept her gaze trained on the Alpha. She fiddled with a ring on her right hand, its blue gem glinting in the office light.

“Ms. Jones, your car is fine,” Father said. “But we have a private matter to discuss with you.”

“Which is?”

“Why are you here?”

“You’re having a public auction. Do you interrogate everyone who attends for the first time?”

“Only when they give me a reason to do so.”

“What exactly have I done, Mr. McQueen?”

“According to all human laws, not a thing. But a few of our laws take exception to your presence here.”

“Your laws?”

“You seem too intelligent for word games, Ms. Jones, so allow me to be blunt. Your people should have told you it’s bad form to enter a sanctuary town without permission.”

Her jaw twitched, but she made no move to deny the fact that she wasn’t entirely human. Brave girl. “My apologies, then. I know my auction attendance is unusual, but I wasn’t aware of any laws requiring a Magus to ask permission to enter a sanctuary town.”

Magus? Rook inhaled deeply, catching Brynn’s scent again. He clearly identified human and loup, but not the bitter orange scent he associated with the arrogant magic users who called themselves Magi. What was she playing at?

Even Father frowned, his thick eyebrows furrowing in a deep vee. “You don’t smell like a Magus,” he said.

She reached beneath the collar of her shirt. Next to him, Knight stiffened, and Rook took a step forward. Brynn pulled a gold necklace out of her shirt and slipped the chain over her head. Her shoulder-length black hair fell back down in an obsidian wave and another blast of that floral scent wafted around the room. She put the necklace on the back of the nearest chair.

“It has a reflective spell,” she said. “The medallion was supposed to mimic the identifying scents of the humans around me and hide the fact that I’m Magi. I’m impressed you could smell through it.”

All four loup noses in the room flared at the same time as they reassessed the woman in front of them. The soft, earthy human scent was gone, and Rook caught a strong whiff of bitter orange.

Knight made a quiet, strangled sound. He gaped at Brynn with something like horror on his face. Bishop came closer, attention firmly on Knight. Bishop stopped within an arm’s reach of Brynn, and that’s when Rook scented it, too. Beneath the strong fragrance that marked Brynn as Magus remained the distinct smell of loup.

Brynn turned to face them, right hand clutched to her chest, tense. “What?”

“It’s a trick,” Bishop said. “It has to be.”

“What’s a trick? The necklace?” A blush stained her cheeks and her pulse jumped. “It was only meant for protection.”

“Protection from whom?” Father asked.

Her chest lifted higher as her breathing increased, her agitation rising to fear. She’d been caught in some sort of subterfuge and was fumbling to cover. As much as Rook wanted to calm her down and tell her she wouldn’t be hurt, he couldn’t speak up. Something about Brynn was wrong . Impossible, even. Protecting the run came miles ahead of comforting a woman he’d known for three minutes.

Father leaned slightly forward and planted his knuckles on the top of the desk, eyes hard. “Who sent you?”

“No one,” she said, the two words a plea. “I swear, I’m here on my own.”

“Why?”

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, but didn’t speak. Fine tremors shook her arms and shoulders. Rook didn’t pretend to know a lot about women, but he knew a scared rabbit cornered by a wolf when he saw one. The very first time his band performed at a music festival for a cash prize, the bass player had looked just like that in the final few minutes before they went onstage.

“Knight,” Father said quietly.

Brynn lurched to the side, but had nowhere to run. She pressed her back against the bookshelf holding Father’s collection of vintage textbooks and primers, eyes wide and hands up in a stop gesture. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I won’t hurt you.” Knight moved to the center of the room. “I promise. I just want to help you calm down.”

She tilted her head and glared at him, hands close to her neck, twisting that ring again. “You’re the one scaring me right now.”

“Trust me.”

“Touch me and I’ll scream.”

“I don’t have to touch you, Ms. Jones.” Knight’s voice adopted the soothing tone he used when calling upon his gift. “Look at me, okay?”

She did, and the moment her eyes met Knight’s, her entire body stilled. Something in the air crackled with energy, like static electricity, as her Magus nature fought against the part of her responding instinctively to Knight’s call.

Knight was the rarest of all loup garou: a White Wolf. Loup populations were relatively small, and one in five hundred had a chance of being born White. White Wolves had the unique ability to calm other loup, to soothe tensions and prevent the primal, base nature of their inner beasts from taking over. Having a White Wolf in a run kept them civilized. For that reason, and because of the rarity of their births, White Wolves were often treated more like precious commodities than run members. Runs were not allowed to have more than one if another run was currently without. A majority vote from the thirteen run Alphas across the country could change a White Wolf’s life in an instant, and the loup in question would have no say.