"I am the Master here, and I have no rivals," Arturo said—to Rick. Not to Mercedes. She observed the subtlety with a lilt to her perfectly plucked brow.
Oh, this was going to get ugly.
I raised my hand. "Since you obviously don't think too much of us, can we leave? Please?"
"Kitty," Mercedes said. "You and your mate carry yourselves like alphas. Two alpha pairs can't live within the same territory. It can't be done, you know it."
I looked away to hide my smile. "See, I think it can. I've seen some interesting things since I left. I've seen two dozen lycanthropes packed into a room, with none of them fighting. If they all agree to it, they can get along. Carl, I promise you, I don't want this territory. I'll stay out of your way if you just leave Ben and me alone. I've always been straight with you."
He grimaced. "Just you being here is a threat to my authority."
No, your incompetence is a threat to your authority. I didn't say it. What I did say wasn't much better. "Can you just for a minute try to act like a rational human being?"
On cue, he growled.
Rick gave me a look over his shoulder. "You're provoking him."
I couldn't help it. "Sorry."
Mercedes sighed dramatically. Could she sigh any other way? "I can see we won't have any kind of civilized conversation with all of you here. Kitty, you're right, you and yours should probably leave. Thank you for coming, especially since the circumstances were a bit…staged. You—" She pointed at the trio by the door. "You will let them leave."
Who was she to command us all like that? I suddenly didn't want to go, just to be contrary.
"Rick, will you escort Kitty and Ben out? Thank you."
In a strange choreography, Arturo steered Carl and Meg away from the door, while Rick cleared a path for me and Ben. Herding werewolves. It was almost laughable.
I paused for a look back. Mercedes sat like a queen on her sofa, a totally different woman from the one I'd met two days ago. I didn't know who she was. Carl, standing off to the side, still looked like he wanted to jump out of his skin to get me. The gratifying sight of Meg hiding behind him didn't even make me feel better.
"Thanks for the drinks," I said with pure sarcasm. Then I got the hell out. Rick followed us into the hall and closed the door. With that sound, a weight lifted. I slumped back against the wall and sighed. Ben watched patiently—far too calmly in my opinion. I resisted an urge to fall into his arms and start blubbering.
"I hate him," I muttered, wiping away a few stray, stressed tears. "I hate him so much."
"Let's go," Rick said. "The more distance between you the better."
I grilled him as we rode the elevator to the lobby. "So. When I asked if there was another Master moving in and you said 'not exactly,' were you talking about her?" He grimaced, which was all the answer I needed. "What did you tell her? Did you have any idea what she was going to do in there?"
"Um…not exactly," he said softly. His face was taut, strained. He was worried, and that made me worried. "I went to her for information. Maybe even to find out which of us she'd support. Our conversation never got that far."
"Who is she really?"
"The Master vampires have always known she's a vampire. She's moved as an envoy between the cities for decades. As a performer, she travels freely, and by tradition vampires like her have immunity, even outside the protection of the Families. In a sense, she's a member of all the Families. And none of them. The system helps keep the peace. But it's also started wars. If I were smart I'd walk away. Leave town and find someplace else, like I've always done before."
"Why don't you?"
"Because sooner or later, I'm going to have to make a stand. I like it here. I like the people." He looked squarely at me. "Seems as good a place and time as any."
We'd reached the lobby by that time, and stopped near the front doors, shifting out of the doorman's hearing.
"What does 'sooner or later' really mean to a vampire?"
He said, "It means not thinking about the future. It means there is no future. There's only now, and what you can protect now. Sooner or later is always now."
"Protect. From what?"
"Predators," he said. "She's sizing us up. She'll take the news to the other Families. It isn't like it was a hundred years ago, when Arturo settled here. There are no new cities to build. A vampire who wants to be a Master has to become one by force. Or guile. If word gets out that Denver is unstable, others will come. Scavengers. If I wanted to be really sinister, I'd say that someone sent Mercedes here to stir things up. To make the situation unstable. More unstable, that is."
"How long has she been doing this? How old is she?"
"God knows. I should get back to it." He turned back to the elevators. Ben took my arm and drew me away, out the hotel's front doors.
"Well, that was fun," he said with false brightness.
"You see what we're dealing with?" I marched along the sidewalk, quickly putting distance between me and that place. We'd parked in a lot a couple of blocks up the street. I couldn't get there fast enough.
"Sure. There were a lot of really insecure people in that room."
I almost laughed, except I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. Spent adrenaline. "Yeah. Did you have to provoke him like that?" I said. I could still see the look on Carl's face.
"He's a bully. I love bullies. They have such big, shiny red buttons to push."
He was such a lawyer.
"Didn't he make you at all nervous? The wolf side, I mean. Didn't he make you want to either grovel or crawl out of your skin?"
"Yeah, but you were with me so I felt okay. I feel okay when you're around."
I could have hugged him for that. But it was too much responsibility. I didn't want to be alpha, not even of a pack of two. "That's flattering. Most of the time I feel like I'm falling apart."
"But you haven't actually fallen." His smile was tight, anxious. Using humor to combat the fear.
"You're insufferable, you know that?" I held his arm, both gaining and giving comfort with the touch.
It didn't entirely help.
"Oh, my God. I'm fucked. I am so fucked." I started shivering when the cool evening air got to my sweaty skin. Or it could have been the churning in my gut. I walked faster, as if I could flee my own reaction.
Ben kept up, stayed alongside me, watching me. "I've never seen you like this. It's kind of freaking me out."
I stopped and doubled over, clutching my stomach.
Run. We can run. Get away, out of his territory, far away—
"Kitty." Ben put his hand on my back, a comforting pressure. "Keep it together."
Anyone passing by would have probably tsked at the scene, maybe smiled in amusement—some chick drank too much at the bars, and her attentive boyfriend was looking after her. How cute. My Wolf was right on the surface, though, fighting. Carl brought her out and I couldn't put her back.
"Kitty."
I concentrated on Ben's voice, his touch, human skin against human skin. His palm slid across my shirt. Focusing on my spine, I straightened—stay upright, vertical backbone, not horizontal, not like Wolf. I took deep, careful breaths.
Ben took off his suit jacket and put it over my shoulders. I clung to it tightly, snuggling into its warmth. His arm across my back, we walked on, close together, our bodies touching. Our pack of two.
"If he finds you alone, he'll kill you, won't he?" he said.
"I think so."
We'd traveled another block before he said, "Right. Just as long as I know where we all stand."