"Mustn't keep Marcus waiting." She turned and began threading her way through the tables.
I glanced at Irving. "Something you want to tell me?"
"Raina's our alpha female. If the punishment's going to be really bad, she does it. She's a lot more creative than Marcus."
Raina was motioning to us by the archway near the bar. Her lovely face was frowning, looking a little less lovely, and a lot more bitchy.
I patted his shoulder. "I won't let her hurt you."
"You can't stop it."
"We'll see," I said.
He nodded, but not as if he believed me. He started between the tables. I followed. A woman touched his hand as he walked past. Gave him a smile. She was about my size, and dainty, with straight black hair cut short that framed her face like black lace. Irving squeezed her fingers and kept walking. Her large, dark eyes met mine. The eyes told me nothing. They had smiled at Irving; for me they were neutral. Like the eyes of a wolf I'd seen once in California. I'd walked around a tree and there it had stood. I had never really understood what neutral meant until that moment. Those pale eyes stared at me, waiting. If I threatened it, it would attack. If I left it alone, it would run. My choice. The wolf hadn't given a damn which way it turned out.
I kept walking, but the space between my shoulder blades was itching. I knew if I turned around that nearly every eye would be on me, on us. The weight of their gaze was physical.
I had an urge to whirl and say boo, but fought it off. I had a feeling they were all staring at me with neutral inhuman eyes, and I didn't want to see it.
Raina led us to a closed door at the back of the dining room. She pushed it open and motioned us through with a theatrical wave of her arm. Irving just walked through. I walked through but kept my eyes on her. I was nearly close enough for her to have hugged me. Close enough that with her reflexes she could probably take me.
Lycanthropes are just faster than a normal human. It isn't mind tricks like with vampires. They are just flat out better. I wasn't sure how much better in human form, though. Staring up into Raina's smiling face, I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.
We stood in a narrow hallway. There was a door at either end, one showing the cold night through its glass window, the other closed, a question mark.
Raina closed the door behind us, leaning on it. She seemed to collapse against it, head hanging down, hair spilling forward.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at me.
I gasped. I couldn't help myself.
She was gorgeous. Her cheekbones were high and sculpted. Her eyes wider and more centered in her face. She looked like what might have been her sister, a family resemblance but not the same person.
"What did you just do?"
She gave that rich, bedroom laugh again. "I am alpha, Ms. Blake. I can do a great many things that most shifters cannot."
I was willing to bet that. "You moved your bones around, on purpose, like do-it-yourself cosmetic surgery."
"Very good, Ms. Blake, very good." Her amber-brown eyes flashed to Irving. The smile left her face. "Do you still insist on this one being at the meeting?"
"Yes, I do."
Her lips pursed, as though she'd tasted something sour. "Marcus said to ask, then to bring you." She shrugged, and stood away from the door. She was taller by about three inches. I wished I'd paid more attention to her hands. Had they changed, too?
"Why the body sculpting?" I asked.
"The other form is my day form. This is real."
"Why the disguise?"
"In case I have to do something nefarious," she said.
Nefarious?
She stalked down the hall towards the other closed door. Her walk was a gliding, athletic movement like a big cat's. Or would that be big wolf's?
She knocked on the door. I heard nothing, but she opened the door. She stood there, arms crossed over her stomach, cradling her breasts, smiling at us. I was beginning not to like Raina's smiles.
The room was a banquet hall with cloth-covered tables grouped in a horseshoe. A raised platform with four chairs and a lectern closed the mouth of the horseshoe. Two men stood on the platform. One was at least six feet tall, slender but muscled like a basketball player. His hair was black, cut short with a matching finger-thin mustache and goatee beard. He stood with one hand gripping his opposite wrist. A jock pose. A bodyguard pose.
He wore a skintight pair of black jeans, and a sweater with a black-on-black design clung to wide shoulders. There was a fringe of dark chest hair just above the scooped neckline. Black tooled cowboy boots and a large blocky watch completed the badass look.
The other man was no more than five foot seven. His hair was that funny shade of blond that has brown highlights in it, but still manages to be blond. The hair was short but styled and blow-dried, and would have been lovely to look at if it had been a little longer. His face was clean-shaven, square jawed, with a dimple in his chin. The dimple should have made the face look fun, but it didn't. It was a face for rules. Those thin lips were built for saying, my way or else.
He wore a pale blue linen suit jacket over black pants. A pale blue turtleneck that matched the jacket to perfection completed the outfit. His shoes were black and polished to a shine.
It had to be Marcus. "Alfred." One word, but it was an order. The bigger man stepped-leaped off the platform. It was a graceful, bounding movement. He moved in a cloud of his own vitality. It rolled and boiled around him almost like heat rising off pavement. You couldn't see it with the naked eye, but you could sure as hell feel it.
Alfred came at me as though he had a purpose. I put my back to the wall, keeping Raina in sight, along with everybody else. Irving moved back with me. He stood a little away from all of us, but closer to me than anyone.
I put the trench coat back so the gun showed plainly. "Your intentions better be friendly, Alfred."
"Alfred," the other man said. One word, even the tone sounded the same, but this time Alfie stopped in his tracks. He stood, staring at me. His eyes weren't neutral, they were hostile. People don't usually dislike me on sight. But hey, I wasn't too thrilled with him, either.
"We have not offered you violence, Ms. Blake," Marcus said.
"Yeah, right. Alfie there is contained violence in motion. I want to know what his intentions are before he comes closer."
Marcus looked at me as if I'd done something interesting. "A very apt description, Ms. Blake. You can see our auras, then?"
"If that's what you want to call it," I said.
"Alfred's intentions are not hostile. He will merely search you for weapons. It is standard procedure for nonshifters. It is nothing personal, I assure you."
The very fact that they didn't want me armed made me want to keep my weapons. Stubbornness, or a strong survival instinct.
"Maybe I'd agree to being searched if you explained why I'm here first." Stall, until I could decide what to do.
"We don't discuss business in front of the press, Ms. Blake."
"Well, I'm not talking to you without him."
"I will not jeopardize all of us to satisfy idle curiosity." He was still standing on the platform like a general surveying his troops.
"The only reason I'm here at all is because Irving is a friend. Insulting him isn't going to endear you to me."
"I do not wish to endear myself to you, Ms. Blake. I wish your aid."