Page 53 of In the Mouth of the Wolf

The table broke into another round of hisses, and I held my hands up and bowed again. I knew it was a tough sell, but I couldn’t let it deter me. “I’m not saying every vampyr should mate with a shifter, but what if my sons inherited alpha strength, and imperviousness to the cold? Help me retrieve her, let me breed with her, and if you find my offspring wanting, I’ll cull them myself.”

Of course, that would never happen. I wanted a family with Marlowe more than anything, and recurring dreams of us surrounded by little auburn-haired boys with freckled faces taunted me every night. But the lie was worth the risk.

The high elder groaned when he came, patting his Lunessa on the cheek as she retreated back to the shadowed recesses of the chamber. “You’re asking a lot. We risk restarting a war between our species should we attack a pack, who by all rights have a greater claim over the omega than you.”

“She is MINE!” I snarled. Stunned by my own disrespect, I dropped to my knees. “Please. The loss of a Lunessa is one of the greatest pains a vampyr will know. And the taking of one is a crime against our people. By the Vampyric Code, Article 2, Section 3, you are honor-bound to accept my request of a unit of no less than twenty warriors to retrieve her.”

The high elder turned to his left and right, gauging the reactions of the four others. The elder to his left shrugged. “He’s right.”

The elder at the far right looked at his nails. “I’m fine either way.”

The other two pursed their lips. “Article 12, Section 19?” one offered.

A slow grin grew over the high elder’s face.

Article 12, Section 19? I racked my brain, trying to remember what rule he was referring to.

“I see you’re confused, Mr. Sanguinetti,” the high elder drawled. “If you want to force our hand using the Vampyric Code, then allow us to do the same. ‘As recompense for the retrieval and safe return of a lost Lunessa, the vampyr shall forfeit his claim to her for one night, yielding her chamber to his brethren in his stead.’”

I swallowed back the bile that rose in my throat, and my hands balled into fists, shaking at my sides. It was either a night with the elders, or a lifetime with the shifters.

“You cannot expect to extol the wonderful pleasures of copulating with shifter omegas and not allow your elders a taste.”

Lewd chuckles and smacking lips echoed in the stone chamber. I closed my eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. “I agree.”

“Excellent. Elder Roth will gather our strongest warriors. They will be ready to march upon the shifters in approximately one week. We will contact you then.”

One week? She could be fully bonded to them any day now, which meant only their death could release their hold. But with twenty vampyrs, it could be done.

“Thank you. I will await your call.”

26

ELIAS

“Shred or keep?”

I looked up from the box of documents I was working on to inspect the paper Marlowe now held in front of me. She had announced that morning that she really just wanted to keep her mind busy to try to process everything that had happened and had decided that starting the painstaking process of going through her dad’s house was just the project she needed.

Archer had tried to argue that what she really needed was a therapist, but I had shushed him and offered to help her go through the office.

Not just because it would give me some alone time with her, which I craved after discovering I was the only one who hadn’t even kissed her yet, but also because I understood how she felt. When my parents had died, the only thing that had helped me deal with the grief was delving headfirst into my work.

“Shred.”

We’d been at it for hours, and a large garbage bag full of shredded paper sat next to the desk.

I rubbed my eyes, allowing them to unfocus and look around the room to relieve the slight strain from all the reading I’d been doing, and I frowned at the hidden safe built into the wall across from me.

James had left a lot of detailed instructions in his will, but there had been no mention of that.

We had found it entirely by accident when Marlowe noticed a crooked painting. As she had tried to straighten it, she had heard a weird scraping sound and looked behind to see what had been catching the canvas.

Whatever was in there, James had intended to take it to his grave.

She went back to her own pile while biting her lower lip in thought. By now, she’d been able to figure out which sorts of records weren’t worth holding onto, but she still double checked with me every once in a while.

Were she one of my paralegals, I might have been annoyed. But I knew why she was really asking – she was just as aware of the fact that we hadn’t fooled around yet as I was and wanted to cut the silent tension in the room.

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