Reflected (Silver Series) (34 page)

Craig made a fist of his hand on the table. “I don’t think Roanoke Silver is unbiased about the dangers to our child given Michelle’s … history, yes. But…” He trailed off, apparently frustrated with his inability to find the right words.

“And they’re in there getting more biased right now.” Eliza smoothed the dark waves of her hair back behind her ear and crossed her arms. “I don’t think it’s right for Shelly to model herself on Roanoke Silver. Leaving aside whether she can have a family or not, Roanoke Silver could never have a normal life the way Shelly can. She might willing to dedicate her life to being a leader, but I don’t think Shelly understands what she’s doing.”

Craig slammed his fist on the table and Eliza jumped. She’d apparently been so caught up in her own rhetoric that she hadn’t been watching his expression grow darker. “Michelle is an alpha whether you like it or not. That’s not what’s at issue here. If only you’d stayed home, everyone would be a lot happier.”

Eliza silently snarled at Craig. “You began this! It’s your petition to have her stand down as alpha that I’m trying to support.”

“Yes, I made that petition, for while she’s pregnant. To protect the child from a shift from the stress, nothing more. All this shit about being an alpha being a phase is your prey-stupidity, not mine.”

Felicia could hardly believe what she was hearing. Her plate was empty, and she’d even eaten the charred sausage she’d meant to save for Morsel. Any minute she was going to burst out and call them prey-stupid herself, so she got up as quietly as she could. If they noticed her and got annoyed, there was nothing for it.

They both seemed locked in their argument, though. They continued as she dumped her plate in the dishwasher and went to find Silver. She and Portland were in the living room, Portland down on the floor helping Edmond zoom his cars around.

Felicia slipped up beside Silver. “Seriously? Portland’s sister hopes you’d ever support her on
that
?” How could anyone think to go up against Silver on an issue of a woman leading and hope to win?

Silver burst into a startled laugh. “I think I’ve let them stew long enough before I go enforce my ruling once more—with teeth, this time.” Silver’s smile had an edge, but buried underneath Felicia thought she seemed tired. “And I could use your help, alpha’s daughter.”

Well, she certainly deserved to look a little tired. It was a weird feeling, but Felicia realized that she did want to help her. Not that she really saw how, but she figured Silver must have some kind of plan. She shrugged. “Okay.”

Portland looked up, her expression suggesting similar confusion about where Silver was going with this. Levering herself up without stepping on any of Edmond’s cars delayed her slightly, putting her behind Silver and Felicia as they entered the dining room. Craig and Eliza had fallen into sullen silence.

Silver waited for Felicia to come level with her, then put her arm across Felicia’s shoulders before addressing the two Were. Her smile held the full force of her creepiness, no tiredness visible. “I have been thinking. I could simply dismiss you both and borrow my mate’s strength to force you to go. Or I could turn my thoughts to appropriate punishments for questioning your alpha. For some reason, my store of patience has been drained of late.” Silver smiled wider, and Craig ducked his head, shoulders hunching defensively. Even Eliza, who had struck Felicia as awfully dense in the conversation she’d overheard, looked worried. It sounded like Portland was fidgeting behind them, but Felicia didn’t spare much attention for her.

“But.” Silver squeezed her hand on Felicia’s opposite shoulder. “Since this is all for the child, let us consider the
child.
Felicia?” She turned her head to Felicia. “Tell us. Has being the alpha’s daughter scarred you?”

Felicia snorted. That one was easy. Might as well have a little fun with this. “Not particularly. I’m sure parents are designed by the Lady to be unbearable no matter their rank.”

Eliza drew herself up. “But Roanoke Dare—”

“Is a man?” Silver gave the words a mocking twist. “But your argument is that Portland is not suited by her particular personality to maintain the position of authority while raising a child, is it not? You are not saying that all women are so unsuited?”

Eliza flushed slightly. “Didn’t raise her, was what I was going to say.”

Felicia crossed her arms in annoyance. She knew that was common knowledge, but it still felt too private for someone else to use as ammunition. “Well, he raised me since I was fifteen. So once Portland’s kid hits his or her Lady ceremony, she can do whatever she wants without affecting the kid?” She flicked a glance to Silver, hoping she didn’t mind Felicia snapping back an answer like that, but she smelled decidedly pleased.

“Well, no…” Eliza floundered for a few moments longer before Silver stepped in.

“And if your father was forced by circumstances outside himself to step down from being alpha, how do you think he would react?”

Felicia winced. It didn’t bear thinking about. “Are you kidding? He’d go Lady-fu—” She coughed. “Lady-darned insane in, like, a day. He’d turn it inward and get all”—she curled both sets of fingertips into her palms—“silent and always hurting.”

Silver dipped her head in agreement with the assessment. “And if you knew
you
were the reason?”

Even though Felicia knew this was all imaginary, all aimed at Eliza, visceral fear tore at her voice even thinking about it. Everything else she was struggling with was too close to the surface, and the question brought it surging up. She’d made mistakes enough in her life, mistakes that had hurt many people, but to have put her father through that … She couldn’t find the words right away, but that didn’t seem to matter. Everyone in the room seemed to have smelled or read her reaction on her face. Portland made a small noise of shock.

“My sister would never blame her child for such a thing,” Eliza said, defensiveness sharpening her voice.

Felicia looked at Silver first this time. She nodded. “Kids aren’t
stupid
!” Felicia’s volume crept higher than she’d intended, but she didn’t bother moderating it. “No one needs to blame them for them to know they were part of whatever bad thing happened. They know. They especially know if everyone’s trying to hide it from them. You know they tried to tell me my father had ‘gone away for a while’? Later, they fed me lies when they claimed to be explaining it, but in the beginning they tried to hide it. I was four, five, but I
knew.
Knew my mother hadn’t ‘just died accidentally’ and my father hadn’t ‘gone away.’”

Silver moved her hand to rub Felicia’s back once, and Felicia realized she was panting. She’d been annoyed by private matters being brought up before, and now she’d brought them up herself. A deep need to make Eliza
understand
had taken hold of her, though. She suspected Silver felt something similar.

“Would you like to be the one who consigns a child to hurting so much, because his or her parent hurts so deeply in turn?” In contrast to Felicia’s volume, Silver’s voice was low and smooth.

“Shut up.” Craig dropped a big hand on Eliza’s shoulder when she would have spoken again. “Lose with some Lady-damned dignity.” He removed his hand and dropped to one knee in front of Silver. Felicia edged quickly to the side, back to watching rather than participating.

“I never meant for this to extend beyond the child’s birth, but it’s clear the issue is much deeper than that. I withdraw my petition. My apologies, Roanoke.” Craig dropped his head.

Portland released a ragged breath of relief. Craig looked hopefully up at her, but she shook her head. “It’s not that easy. Even if all of this hadn’t happened, Silver’s right, you can’t properly be my beta anymore, not when the rest of our relationship is so complicated. It’s your child too, but we need to”—she caught her lower lip in her teeth—“figure out how it’s going to work.” She came forward and offered Craig a hand up. He accepted, though it was clear he didn’t rest any of his weight on the contact.

Eliza smelled like stewing anger, but she didn’t say anything else. The other two ignored her completely as Silver ushered them all to the door, offering wishes for safe travels home.

Felicia slipped away, searching for her father. As she’d suspected, she didn’t have far to go. She found him in the living room, well within eavesdropping distance. She felt weird, having said all those things about being his daughter, and maybe he did too, because he didn’t say anything right away.

The awkward pause gave his appearance time to finally register. He was wearing a sport coat, hair combed so that the white locks stood out at either temple. He looked polished, the charming alpha who would set you completely at ease so you gave concessions before you even realized. “Are you going somewhere?” Felicia asked him.

He drained his coffee and headed to the kitchen. “The owners of the house you lured Silver to. They’ve agreed to talk to me. The Caballeros. I’m meeting him and his wife at his office.”

Felicia winced at his choice of “lured,” but she couldn’t really object. She followed him after a slight delay. “I should come.”

No answer, and the dishwasher door slammed. Her father must be pretending that he hadn’t heard her in the distraction of putting his mug away. Felicia caught up with him and gathered herself. Confidence. She could show them all how confident she could be, and help fix things too. “Please? It’s my fault, and I can help explain.” Felicia suddenly remembered what he’d said about apologies earlier. Maybe that was why he didn’t want to her to come. “This isn’t just to make myself feel better. I want to do something that actually helps.”

Her father sighed. “I appreciate that, but status was already difficult even when I talked to him on the phone. I’m going to have to play it delicately, and you’re of very low rank in human terms.”

“Wouldn’t that swing the balance in your favor, though? Having a follower along who stands silently and looks contrite? I can look contrite. And I won’t say anything unless you prompt me to, promise.” Felicia dropped her head to demonstrate how low ranked she could look. Her father took her shoulder and nudged her around to face out of the kitchen.

“I’m leaving in fifteen minutes. If you can make yourself look presentable that fast, you can come.”

Felicia bolted for the stairs. It took her sixteen minutes, all told. She changed into one of Susan’s fitted jackets over a camisole. Susan wouldn’t mind her borrowing it. Hopefully. She had more bust than Susan did, so she left the jacket unbuttoned. Her hair took the longest, getting it braided back without curls escaping everywhere. Her father was just climbing into his car when she hit the front door. She paused on the doorstep to tug on the hem of her jacket then hurried over to climb in with him.

Rather than a high-rise downtown, they pulled into an office park with shorter buildings and trees liberally planted among the parking lots. Except for the big logo over the entrance, Mr. Caballero’s office building could have held any company. Felicia thought she recognized the name of the man’s company as something to do with insurance.

They checked in with reception and were directed up a floor to the man’s office. Felicia practiced looking apologetic as they walked down the hall. Her father seemed surprisingly comfortable in this kind of environment. He nodded in pleasant greeting to passing workers, and they smiled back and made room for him like he was high ranked in their hierarchy and not a stranger. Felicia felt vaguely like she should be taking notes for when she got a job.

The man who met them in the office doorway wore his power much more ostentatiously than her father did. He held himself very straight, and his suit was immaculate. The room wasn’t full of antiques, but the complex multilevels of expensive wood desk covered with the latest in electronic equipment spoke of wealth in another way.

The men shook hands and Mr. Caballero introduced his wife, a woman who matched her husband in projecting ostentatious power, including a very masculine cut to her suit and graying hair in a tight twist at the back of her head. Susan always seemed to manage to look authoritative without anything so stark.

Felicia didn’t take part in the handshaking. Her father introduced her a bit dismissively, like a naughty child dragged along to rub her nose in what she’d done, and she did her best to play along, making her body language droop.

Her father sat in a chair in front of the flat table wing of the desk monstrosity, and the wife sat with her husband inside its curve. Felicia listened more to her father’s tone than to his words. He was being coaxing, as she’d expected from how he’d dressed. The charm wasn’t working, though. Mr. Caballero apparently valued his territory quite highly.

It struck Felicia that he looked much more like a person, not a ranked position, in the photos on the walls. There were plenty of them: Mr. Caballero out fishing, smiling with his wife in vacation destinations, and posed with different combinations of what she presumed were his three children, though they were all teens or adults themselves.

But none with both wife and children, she noticed. She subtly turned and found none with both on any of the office’s other walls.

Mr. Caballero cleared his throat. “You say your daughter has admitted to tracking footprints off the path to lead your girlfriend there as a joke, but I don’t understand the point of this joke.”

“Because she’s practically my stepmother.” The words burst out before Felicia could stop them. So much for her promise to keep quiet. Better see it through now that she’d spoken. She stepped forward. “If Dad would just get around to asking her.” Her father sputtered, and Felicia smiled when she saw a flash of amusement in the wife’s eyes.

She caught the woman’s eyes, appealing to her. “That’s been getting clearer lately, and I didn’t know what to think about it. I mean, my mother died so young I can hardly remember her. So Dad’s away on his business trip, and I end up fighting with S—” Felicia remembered at the last second, Silver’s old name would be on the court documents. “Selene over something incredibly stupid, and I stomped out, and I could only sort of…” She rubbed at her cheeks as if to scrub away the flush they should hopefully read as embarrassment over her behavior in front of Silver. Really, it was more from worrying about her father’s reaction now. At least he wasn’t interrupting, just watching with his go-on-keep-digging-we’ll-see-if-you-come-out-the-other-side-or-end-up-crying-in-a-hole-you-can’t-climb-out-of expression.