“I’ll just check that out,” I said, moving toward it while Ethan searched for a T-shirt.
Gabriel stood in the living room in front of the coffee table, arms crossed, watching as Berna and several shifters, her apparent helpers, carried in aluminum trays of food. My stomach, empty and roiling, rejoiced.
“I have brought dinner,” Berna pronounced, eyeing me nastily, as if there was a chance I’d decline free food. My patience for shifters was growing shorter by the moment.
“Honestly, Berna, when have you ever known me not to eat?”
She didn’t seem entirely satisfied with the answer, but I was saved by distraction.
Ethan walked into the room, hair still damp but fully dressed. Berna’s eyes lit with feminine appreciation.
“Berna brought us dinner,” I said.
“That was very thoughtful of you, Berna,” Ethan said.
“Is for health,” she said, squeezing her knotted fingers around Ethan’s biceps. “For muscles and teeth. Good, strong muscle. Strong. Good.”
“I think they’ve got it.” Gabriel smirked.
She humphed and herded her crew back to the door, but not before snapping a towel in his direction.
“I’ll meet you outside,” Gabriel said, closing the door when he was the only shifter left in the room.
“Chow time for the prisoners?” Ethan asked. His voice was low, threatening, and very, very alpha.
Gabriel grunted and headed for the kitchen. While Ethan, Mallory, Catcher, and I exchanged glances, the refrigerator door opened and closed again, and the clink of glass sounded.
He walked back in with a bottle of beer in hand and looked, I realized for the first time, utterly exhausted. He’d probably been playing Apex all evening, and for the festival he’d planned for. Here, finally, he was with people who weren’t his subjects. For a brief moment—a rare moment—he shook off the mantle of power and sprawled onto the couch.
“The Pack is pissed,” he said, taking a drink of the beer. “No,” he amended, gesturing with the bottle. “They’re scared. And that’s infinitely worse.”
Ethan considered the admission for a moment, then took a seat on the couch across from Gabe. If you hadn’t known they were Apex and Master, you might have thought them athletes relaxing after a game. Or A-list actors between scenes on a movie set. There was just something about the supernatural that brought out the best in male genetics.
Taking cues from the alphas, Mallory and I took seats as well, and Catcher followed. I sat beside Ethan, comforted by the closeness of his body and the smell of his cologne, the familiar things that brought comfort in unusual times.
That, I thought, was one of the best parts of being in a relationship. No matter how foreign the world, the landmarks, the customs, I’d never be a stranger beside Ethan. Love bred the best kind of familiarity.
If, down the road, Ethan was leaving dirty socks on the floor, I might not find the familiarity so charming. But for now, it soothed with a depth that surprised me.
“We are not their enemy,” Ethan said.
“No,” Gabe said, taking another drink, the bottle slung between two fingers. “But trouble arrived shortly after you did. That coincidence isn’t going unnoticed.” He looked up, smiled wolfishly. “It would go a long way toward mending fences if you could figure out what happened.”
“You haven’t given us much choice,” Ethan said. “You’ve made it sound like we’re guilty if we don’t figure it out.”
“Added incentive,” Gabriel said with a smile.
I didn’t smile back. I, for one, was sick of being manipulated by shape-shifters. In addition to being slammed in the face. At the moment, those two things were at the top of my shit list.
Gabe sat forward. “Look. You’re not cops, and you’re certainly not on the Pack payroll. It’s not your job to solve our problems. I get that. But you know how to do this.” He glanced at me. “You and your team have a way of figuring these things out. You’re better at it than I am, even if I had the time. But I’ve got colleagues to mourn, a Pack to watch over.” He paused. “I need the help, Sullivan. And I’m asking for it.”
Ethan watched him silently, jaw clenched. He didn’t like being manipulated. But he was a vampire and a Master at that, and honor was everything to him.
“All right,” Ethan said, resignation in his voice. “But we’ll need information, starting with your theory about who orchestrated this attack.”
“I don’t know of anyone with the skills to build a hoard of harpies,” Gabriel said.
“Magic can be bought,” Catcher said. “But animosity like we saw tonight grows naturally.”
“Our enemy list hasn’t grown any deeper recently,” Gabriel said. “Yes, there are people who don’t like the family, don’t like the Pack, don’t like shifters. But there haven’t been any catalysts—nothing that would have set off a night like this.”
“What about Aline?” I asked. “You said she butted heads with your father. What’s the story there?”
Gabe nodded, glanced at me. “She had relatives—cousins—in the Atlantic Pack. They got into trouble—got drunk, roughed up a clerk at a bodega, and stole some money. Afterward, they wanted shelter and turned to us. Aline was in favor of it, said the kids were set up. But my father didn’t buy it and wouldn’t allow it. He didn’t want to shelter troublemakers. He told Aline about his decision, and they had a very public disagreement. She backed down, but she didn’t forgive him.”
“And the cousins?” Ethan asked.
“Killed,” Gabe said. “The robbery wasn’t the first time they got into trouble, and it wasn’t the last. They tried grift, a short con, and got caught. The vic wasn’t amused, and made an example of them.”
I grimaced. “That couldn’t have engendered any better feelings in Aline.”
“It didn’t,” Gabriel said. “When my father died, she rallied for another alpha to take over the Pack.” He smiled, with teeth. “That particular whelp was not successful.”
“And now Aline is missing,” Catcher said.
“Or she left,” I said. “It sounds like her anger’s been simmering for a long time.”
Gabriel nodded. “I think that’s accurate. But I wouldn’t say there’s been anything recently. And I don’t know of any connections she’d have to magic like this.”