Black Rook (39 page)

Too bad he couldn’t thank Brynn for her Magus ring full of poison. Or apologize to Dr. Mike for stealing it out of his home lab.

Dr. Mike had removed the miniature glass vial of poison from the ring’s jewel in order to test it, and only a tiny amount was left. The vial was the size of a kidney bean, small enough to hide in the back of his mouth behind his molars, and it seemed thin enough to shatter with a good, solid bite. Knight hoped it was enough.

Not to say that he was suicidal. The last thing he wanted to do was die. He wanted a chance to live a full life. He wanted to fall in love, marry, and have children. He wanted to watch them grow and worry if they’d be Gray or cursed White like him. He wanted to see Cornerstone thrive, to see his brothers grow old with families of their own. He wanted to share his run’s joy and hope and love. It simply wasn’t to be.

He’d given brief consideration to some attempt at dosing Fiona with the Magus poison, but her sisters might interpret that sort of aggression as him breaking their pact. Cornerstone would still be in danger, with the Trouble Triplets more eager to drop vengeance down on their collective heads. No, trading himself and then taking the poison was the best option—Fiona wanted him, but her video did not specify the length of time she was allowed to have him.

For the first time in his life as a White Wolf—few though his remaining hours were—Knight felt like he was in total control of his own existence.

The decision to accept Fiona’s deal had been the hardest and easiest decision he’d ever made. Fiona had declared war on his entire species in order to further her goal of creating some kind of master race of supernatural hybrids. Going with her tonight would save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of loup garou—his Father and brothers and Shay included—and put a huge dent in Fiona’s plan when he took his own life via Brynn’s Magus poison.

The irony of the way everything had tangled together to give him a workable solution helped fuel him as he went about the rest of the day.

After his theft of the poison, he went upstairs to sit with Shay. She didn’t stir from her sleep when he sat down in the chair he’d come to think of as his. She only slept this deeply when she was sedated, which occurred more frequently than either Knight or Dr. Mike liked. Her mind was filled with horrors that surfaced when she tried to rest, which led to extreme bouts of agitation—all of which could lead to a forced shift if it wasn’t controlled. High doses of sleeping pills, carefully monitored, were the only way she seemed to get any real rest.

He liked sitting with Shay. At first, it had been a convenient excuse to avoid his family and their questions. He could hide up here under the flag of his duty as a White Wolf and use the time to not think about what Victoria had done. Now he came because he enjoyed being around Shay. Despite her injuries and the trauma she’d survived, he experienced an odd sense of peace when she was near. Peace he rarely felt from other loup and never so consistently. He longed for another White Wolf to speak with, to ask if they’d ever experienced such a thing. Had Father calmed their mother in a similar way?

He held Shay’s hand in his, absorbing that lifeline for a while, until Dr. Mike came upstairs and told him she’d likely sleep through supper. Knight thanked him, stayed with her awhile longer, and then kissed her forehead before he left.

The emotional temperature of the town was still at a feverish level, and Knight did his best to channel the turbulence around him. He visited the diner, the library, and several other businesses around town where large crowds had gathered for evening gossip. His own high spirits buoyed the spirits around him, giving the people he’d known his whole life—or likewise, their whole lives—a sense that things would turn out okay. Even if his high spirits were a complete farce.

No one outside of a secret circle of six knew what was happening tonight at midnight, and no one else
could
know. Devlin remarked on Knight’s strange good mood during their supper of burgers and onion rings at the diner. “Did you steal some antidepressants from Dr. Mike?” he asked, and Knight only laughed.

He hated not being able to tell his best friend the truth. Hated not being able to say a proper good-bye. They ate and joked and toasted their Cokes to O’Bannen, who had been an excellent enforcer and a good man who’d be missed.

Knight took an hour to slowly wander around the empty auction house, crossing floors he’d walked on since he was first able to toddle on his own two feet. He’d grown up here, surrounded by the hustle of auction day, the buzz of voices, and the bang of an auctioneer’s gavel. He remembered hundreds of auctions, thousands of pieces of merchandise, and more faces than he could ever recall names.

His only clear memory of their mother was in this room, probably within weeks of her death. It was auction night, cold and snowy outside, toasty warm inside. According to Bishop, Knight had been having a “toddler tantrum” and would not behave himself upstairs in the office. He wanted to sit with Dad up at “the big box and bang the hammer.” So after sorely testing her endless supply of patience, Mom took him down to the floor, marched straight through the center aisle to the dais, and plopped him down in her husband’s lap.

Alpha and auction house proprietor titles aside, Thomas McQueen knew when to not argue with his wife and life mate. Knight had spent the rest of the evening slamming down the gavel when Dad told him to and grinning like a prince at the audience—thus began a lifelong task of charming the buyers out of their money.

Knight walked up to the dais and ran his fingers over the age-polished wood. A fine sheen of dust had already settled over it. Considering the mix of treasures and trash that came through on a weekly basis, the building was never spotless, but he hated seeing this area unkempt. The only other time in his life that they’d shut down the auction for an extended period was after their mother died—no one worked for a solid month.

How long would Father shut it down for this time?

He slid onto Father’s stool, in the center between two others, where Father had held court for decades. Rows of empty chairs stared back at him, a hodgepodge of wood and plastic, old and new, very few that actually matched. They even had two sections of old movie theater seats on one side, the red velvet worn to bare threads, joints that squealed loudly when you put the seat down. The item tables were empty, waiting to be filled. Without people or merchandise, the building felt so empty. Lifeless.

He lost track of time as he sat there, tracing the edges of the gavel without picking it up. His father’s scent still lingered in the air and the wood and the thin seat cushion. Their combined scents permeated the auction house, just as generations of McQueens permeated every corner the land and soil of Cornerstone.

No matter what, his family would carry on.

The front door squeaked open. Footsteps shuffled down the entry toward the main room, lighter than Father’s, but heavier than Rook’s.

Bishop eased into view, hands deep in his jeans pockets, shoulders slumped as he scanned the room. He didn’t seem surprised to see Knight up on the dais.

“Thought I might find you here,” Bishop said.

“Why’s that?”

“Because when you were a kid and you wanted to be alone, you came here.”

Knight raised an eyebrow. “So naturally you came to keep me company.”

He shrugged as he approached, taking slow and measured steps, like he thought going too fast might spook Knight into running. “Maybe I wanted to be alone.”

“Do you?”

“I haven’t been great company this afternoon. Jillian almost punched me in the eye a few minutes ago.”

“Really?” Knight stared at his big brother, both shocked and impressed he’d managed to get such a violent reaction out of the even-tempered woman. “What did you say to her?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Hell yes, I want to know.”

Bishop eased his tall frame into a front-row seat and stretched his legs out. “Trust me, I was being an asshole and she didn’t deserve it.”

And all because of Knight. He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

His brother’s love sifted through Knight’s mind and buoyed his courage.

Their eyes met, and a dozen things were said in silence. Apologies for not finding a different solution; for never taking the time to go fishing like they’d planned; for every fight, every slight, every misunderstanding. Nothing had to be said. With Bishop, he’d always spoken a simple language. Things either were or they weren’t, because that was Bishop’s way. This was happening. Bishop could hate it, but he wouldn’t waste words trying to change what couldn’t be changed.

With Bishop, not saying good-bye was easy.

Rook was an entirely different story.

***

The atmosphere in the McQueen house was that of a deathwatch, and as afternoon waned into evening, Brynn hated that she couldn’t do anything to ease the pain of father and sons. Even though her body still hummed with delight over those precious hours with Rook in her bedroom—and later in the shower—her mind kept turning to the awful task fast approaching. And she couldn’t prevent small doubts from creeping in alongside her joy—Rook forgave her today, but would he feel the same tomorrow, when Knight’s sacrifice was no longer hypothetical?

Supper guests not part of the plan—Jillian, Devlin, Dr. Mike, and a handful of enforcers whose names Brynn still hadn’t memorized—seemed confused by the subdued level of conversation over Mrs. Troost’s platter of barbecued ribs and corn salad. The mood could be blamed on the continued threat of the hybrids, or for those in the know, the recent confirmation of Shay Butler’s trust fund.

The trustee was a small holding company in Albany, New York, that was created three days before the trust agreement was signed. Brynn had confirmed without hesitation that the holding company handled private Magus financial matters—the name had appeared on her tutoring pay stubs. The information supported Fiona’s claim about the trust, but the timing of the company’s formation supplied reasonable doubt about Andrew Butler’s complicity in his wife’s disappearance. And with Andrew three days dead, they had reached a dead end with finding those answers.

Despite their churning thoughts, supper and dessert passed in peace, coffee was poured, and then the group broke up.

Keeping Jillian Reynolds in the dark was akin to stopping a speeding train.

She followed Brynn onto the back patio, where Brynn had hoped to escape with her coffee and watch the lightning bugs dance. Instead, she found her view of the backyard blocked by Jillian and her intense stare.

“You know what’s going on,” she said without preamble.

“You’ll have to be more specific than that,” Brynn replied.

“You know why Alpha McQueen and the others are acting strangely. It has something to do with your excursion to Philadelphia this morning.”

Brynn didn’t want to lie to Jillian, so she said nothing. She wasn’t certain what, if anything, Jillian had been told about the plethora of new information that Brynn had brought back. Everything would be revealed to Jillian, her father, and the other Alphas in the morning. Until then, Brynn would not break her promise.

“I know it’s not my place to question Alpha McQueen’s decisions,” Jillian said, “but I’ve been privy to everything else. I don’t like being kept out of the loop on this.”

“Jillian, if there is a loop that you’re outside of, then there must be a good reason for it. You just need to be patient.”

“I have no patience when loup are being attacked and murdered, and when I don’t know when to expect the next assault.”

Brynn wanted to reassure the woman that no assault should occur tonight, so she could rest easy, but she didn’t. Even that seemed like giving away too much. “I wish I could help you, I really do.”

Jillian huffed, which blew her straight bangs up from her forehead. She flattened them back out with an annoyed swipe of her palm. “I know. It’s inappropriate of me to be asking you to defy the Alpha’s confidence.”

“But you’re worried.”

“I am.”

“Things will be much different tomorrow, if you trust in Alpha McQueen and be patient.”

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, then said, “I only hope the change is a good one.”

Brynn had no answer.

***

As the evening passed and eleven o’clock approached, Rook made one last ditch effort to corner Knight, who’d done an amazing job of avoiding Rook all night long. He wasn’t stupid. They knew each other too damned well. Knight didn’t want him to try to change his mind, or to take Father’s idea and lock him into the quarterly room in the basement to prevent him from going to Fiona.

Not that Rook would stoop to kidnapping his own brother. No matter how much Rook hated it, this was Knight’s decision.

He used his nose to track Knight down and found him on the roof of the Smythe Building, in almost the same spot Rook had stood with Brynn the day before. He climbed off the fire escape and followed the path around. In the light of the three-quarters moon, all of Cornerstone spread out in front of them, dotted here and there with the occasional house light. So deceptively peaceful.

He stood next to Knight, his brother and best friend, and gazed out over the town they both loved so much.

“I’m glad you have her,” Knight said.

Rook didn’t have to ask who or what he meant. Knight would be able to sense the shift in Rook’s emotions since making love with Brynn—the joy of finding his mate, even under all of the anxiety and sorrow surrounding tonight’s plan. “Me, too.”

“Bishop will make an excellent Alpha.”

“Yes, he will.”

“And you’ll support him.”

“Always.”

“Do me a favor?”

Rook swallowed, wanted to tell Knight to take his favors and shove them because he wasn’t leaving. “Sure.”

“Play your guitar for Shay once in a while. I think music will help.”

Something hot pressed the backs of Rook’s eyeballs and he blinked hard. “I can do that. Maybe a nice folk song.”

“Good idea. When she’s well, I bet she and Brynn will have a lot to talk about.”