Men of the Otherworld (29 page)

“I could make it better for him.” Her gaze slid over me. “End it with a bang.”

I tugged my jacket tighter around me.

Malcolm shook his head. “Another time, Deedee. Clear out. Now.”

She pouted and flounced away.

Malcolm sipped his beer. “So, what'd it feel like, killing your first mutt?”

I shrugged.

He leaned forward and his eyes glittered. “Don't give me that. It felt good, didn't it? Taking a life. Made you feel powerful.”

I looked at him, and tried to figure out what he meant.

“Not comfortable with it yet?” he said. “I understand that. Can't be easy when
he
tells you it's wrong. But it isn't wrong. You feel that, don't you? Taking a life isn't a crime, it's an act of power.”

I needed information from him, so it seemed best to play along. I nodded and hoped that was enough.

He clapped me on the shoulder. “See? I do understand.”

“About the mutts,” I said. “Something's happening, isn't it? That's why there's more of them coming around.”

“You don't know why? You're a bright boy, Clayton. If you think about it, I'm sure you'll realize you already know the answer. Why are more mutts coming to Stonehaven?”

Stonehaven. Of course. With my own problems, I'd overlooked the obvious clue to solving this one. The mutts were coming only to Stonehaven. No one else in the Pack had reported an increase.

“You're sending them,” I said. “You're testing me.”

Malcolm's laugh startled the patrons at the next table. “Not bad, not bad at all. Wrong, but a good guess. I wouldn't do that to you, Clay. You're still too green to be facing mutts without backup. If I wanted to test you, I'd take you to the mutts, not send them to you. They're coming on their own. Think about it. Who lives at Stonehaven?”

I frowned. “We do. So? We've always lived—”

“Wait. Who lives there? You, Jeremy and me. Now most mutts don't know about you, so they're obviously coming to see Jeremy or me. Nothing new there but, as you said, something has changed. Something that makes them want to challenge us in particular.”

I hesitated, then looked up sharply. “You're both potential Alphas. The mutts know that, don't they? That you want to be Alpha and Dominic seems to be backing Jeremy”

Malcolm nodded. “Good boy. Now why would they—?”

“Why would they want to challenge a potential Alpha?” I cut in, my brain racing ahead to fill in the blanks. “Because it's as close to an Alpha as they can get. They can't challenge Dominic. Even if they won, the Pack would hunt them down. But they could challenge an Alpha candidate. That'd be the next best thing, wouldn't it?”

“And an opportunity that doesn't come around more than once or twice in a mutt's life. If this stretches on much longer, we'll have every mutt on the continent getting up the nerve to try his luck.”

I slumped into my seat. With Dominic showing no signs of giving up his position, this waiting game could continue for years. Years of having mutts on our doorstep, trespassing on our territory, threatening Jeremy.

“There is a way to stop it,” Malcolm said. “If Jeremy tells Dominic he doesn't want to be Alpha, he'd be out of the race. The mutts would hear about that, and they'd stop coming after him. Now, they'd still want to take a shot at me, but most of them know I don't spend much time at home. So Stonehaven would be safe again. Jeremy would be safe again.”

Malcolm really needed to work on his finesse. Play on my fears for Jeremy, and hope I could use my influence with Jeremy to persuade him to drop out of the Alpha race? Like I
had any
influence
with Jeremy. He wasn't even going to let me influence where I went to college.

I said none of this to Malcolm. Instead, I nodded and he settled into his chair, smiling, pleased with his success. In a way, he had succeeded. I now realized that Jeremy was in danger, and would continue to be in danger as long as he was an Alpha candidate.

So how would I deal with that? By removing the source of the danger.

To do that, I didn't need to persuade him not to challenge Malcolm for Alpha. As angry as I was at Jeremy, I still knew he'd make a good Alpha. What I had to do was stop the mutts from coming. But how?

I told Malcolm I wanted to meet up with Nick so I didn't return to the house with him and worry Jeremy. The truth was, I wanted to get out of his company as quickly as possible, and I wanted time by myself to work on this problem.

Malcolm dropped me off where he'd picked me up. I started heading back toward the party. Once he'd driven out of sight, I resumed my aimless wandering. I'd figure out how to get to the estate later. For now, I needed to think.

How could I get mutts to stop coming to Stonehaven?

As I walked, I remembered Jeremy's “riddle” to Antonio, his explanation for why he was letting Malcolm train me. If I was a good enough fighter, I wouldn't need to fight. Not a riddle, but a logical fact, one that only now made sense. When you reached the top of your game, fewer and fewer people cared to take you on. Yes, mutts came to Stonehaven looking for a fight with Malcolm, the Pack's top fighter. Yet mutts did the same to other Pack wolves, picking the one they thought was in their league.

On average, fewer mutts came to Malcolm than to Antonio or
Wally Santos, who were the next best fighters in the Pack. Most mutts aren't suicidal—they challenge the best Pack wolf whom they think they have a shot at beating, and Malcolm was more than most cared to handle.

When a less experienced Pack wolf, like Stephen Santos, traveled, he always had to be careful. Technically mutts weren't supposed to hold territory, but Dominic didn't like to bother with mutts any more than necessary, so many settled in cities and defended them against all comers. If Stephen passed through a city that a mutt considered
his
territory, Stephen was in for a fight. When Malcolm came to town, though, all but the stupidest mutts decided it was time for a vacation.

What I had to do was make sure mutts knew that to challenge Jeremy, they had to get through me first. If I was a formidable enough fighter, few would care to bother.

Great plan. Only one problem. Such a reputation took years, maybe decades, to build. I didn't have that much time. I needed to stop these mutts before the campaign for Alpha gained momentum. To do that, I had to cheat my way to a reputation.

Instead of fighting dozens of battles, I needed to do something that would fly through the rumor mill and make every mutt in the country decide he didn't want to tangle with me. How? I had no idea.

I heard someone shout, but was too engrossed in my thoughts to look. When footsteps sounded behind me, I wheeled.

“Whoa!” Nick said, backpedaling. “I thought you heard me call you.”

I shook my head and continued walking. He jogged beside me.

“Okay, you're mad,” he said. “I don't blame you. I was a total jerk.”

It took a moment for me to remember what he was talking
about. When I did, I brushed it off with a muttered “it's okay” and returned to my thoughts.

“I had too much to drink, and then Becky's boyfriend showed up and she took off with him, and then I walked out to the backyard, saw you standing over Mike, and I lost it. I know you hate parties. I didn't mean to be there that long and I'm sorry.”

Another mumbled “it's okay.”

“I've been driving around for hours looking for you. It's too late to catch a show, but we could get pizza. Do you want pizza?”

I shook my head, still walking.

Nick exhaled loudly. “Shit, you really are mad. Okay, okay, well, at least come back to the car with me. Please?”

I stopped and blinked, returning to reality.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Let's go.”

I started for the car.

“You sure you don't want pizza?” Nick said, hurrying up beside me. “There's this great—”

“Pizza's fine. I'm just trying to work out a problem.”

“Oh, well, okay, then. Maybe I can help.”

I shook my head. “Not your kind of problem.” I paused. “But thanks … for offering.”

“So we're square?”

“No. You owe me pizza, a movie and your first Change. Then we'll be square.”

He grinned. “The first tonight, the second tomorrow and the third soon. Real soon, I hope.”

I didn't come up with a plan that night. Or that weekend. Or that month. This was a problem that required serious deliberation, and that would take time.

My life swung out of its rough patch soon after that weekend. Jeremy shelved the college debate, which gave me time to cool down and see that I'd overreacted, jumping to the conclusion that he was getting rid of me. Old fears die hard, I suppose.

In trying to send me off to college he only wanted what he always wanted for me: the best. In this case, that meant the best education possible. I still had no intention of leaving Stonehaven next year, but if I wanted to stay, I needed to stop shouting and throwing things, and come up with a logical argument.

So I set to work researching the matter and within a few weeks developed a line of attack—verbal, nonconfrontational attack. After earning my undergrad degree, I wanted to go to graduate school. My goal was a career in anthropology research, and I needed a Ph.D. for that.

At that level, though, no one really cared where you'd taken your undergrad courses. It was the advanced degrees that counted. Since I had no intention of spending seven years living away from Jeremy and the Pack, it made sense for me to reserve the “good” schools for my grad degrees. As well, that would give
me a few years to get accustomed to college life before I ventured out on my own.

When I was ready, I argued my case to Jeremy. He listened, asked questions and then agreed to think about it for a few days. Then he came back with a decision. As long as I promised to go to a top-tier school for my graduate degrees, I could attend un-dergrad classes in Syracuse.

Nick had his first Change at the end of October. Although Jeremy and I had prepared him as best we could, it wasn't easy. Yet if it was any less wondrous than he expected, he never let on, never complained.

In the past few years, the question of Alpha succession had gone from back-room rumblings to heated debate, and I'm sure that whenever Dominic walked into a room and heard conversation stop, he knew exactly what was being discussed.

Dominic had now turned over all youth training to Jeremy. He'd also put him in charge of the Legacy—the Pack history book. This latter chore I'm sure he was glad to hand off, and no one else was clamoring for the job, but it still sent a clear message. These were Alpha duties, and everyone took that to mean that any day now, Dominic would officially endorse Jeremy as his choice of successor.

That did not necessarily mean Jeremy would be the next Alpha. An Alpha will back a Pack brother as his choice, but the actual process of ascension was more democratic. Everyone in the Pack endorsed a candidate, and the one with the most power behind him won.

Right now, Jeremy had only Antonio squarely in his corner.
Although Jorge, Nick and I also supported him, we were still considered junior members, so our votes carried little weight.

For now, it didn't matter. Dominic wasn't going anywhere. When Malcolm “accidentally” swiped the first bite of meat after a Pack deer hunt, Dominic trounced him. The battle was closer than Dominic might have liked, but he won, proving he still deserved to be Alpha.

I eventually hit on a plan to stop mutts from coming to Stonehaven. It wasn't a simple scheme. It required planning— lots of planning, and lots of research on subjects that weren't readily available in the local library.

By the time I felt ready to carry out my plan, it was spring. The next problem, though, was that I needed a specific and uncommon set of circumstances. I didn't want a mutt who was too young and inexperienced, or too old and feeble … or too bright.

The next two mutts who showed up at Stonehaven didn't fit my needs, so I killed them quickly, disposed of the bodies and continued to wait. Winter came. Another mutt came. That time, Jeremy met him first, and had to deal with it himself. I decided then that I couldn't wait for my set of circumstances to occur naturally. I needed to create them.

September came and college began. It took time for me to adjust. Change is never easy for me, and something like this, being inundated with new faces, new schedules, new expectations, threw me off balance, making me edgy and moody.

Two weeks into the semester, a teacher scheduled me for a 5:30 p.m. conference, which totally screwed up my routine. By the time I drove back from Syracuse, it was after seven. I'd meant
to grab a sandwich at the cafeteria, but was so eager to get home that I forgot.

I arrived at Stonehaven starving. I parked and bolted for the door, certain dinner would be waiting for me. Instead I found Jeremy engrossed in a new painting. The frozen shepherd's pie he'd put into the oven was still frozen because he'd been so distracted by his work that he'd forgotten to turn it on.

I blew up. Accused him of being thoughtless and insensitive to my needs. A shitty thing to say—and laughably untrue—but I was hungry.

I stormed to the kitchen, grabbed the makings of a sandwich, then decided it was too much work to assemble one and wolfed down the components separately. When my stomach was full, I knew I'd been out of line with Jeremy. I also knew that, given my recent mood swings, if I tried to say I was sorry, I was liable to turn the apology into another fight. So I fixed Jeremy a sandwich and dropped it off outside his studio door with a note saying I'd gone for a walk.

Once outside, I debated working off some energy with a run, but was too edgy to Change, so I wandered the forest, mentally working through an essay I needed to write. I was in the midst of composing my thesis statement when a movement in the trees ahead made me stop short. It was almost nine now, and dark. Though I had good night vision, with no moon overhead to help, I could only make out the shape of a tall, dark-haired man.

As proof of my distracted sense of mind, I never thought to sneak in for a sniff and a closer look. I assumed it was Jeremy and strode forward. When I stepped onto the path, the man wheeled. It wasn't Jeremy.