It was a good thing Asil’s wolf had decided to revert to the partner he’d not been for the last few hundred years. If Asil were still dealing with a rabid fiend, even his amazing control might be strained. But it wasn’t just anger he felt.
Ruby had gathered together a band of misfits and given them a mission, an odd mission of rescuing miserable spirits. No one who spoke to any of them for longer than half a minute could doubt their dedication. Caring for others, even if those others were dead, when they could hardly care for themselves—it touched Asil’s heart.
Peg was a white witch who used up all her meager power feeding the shadow of her brother. Terry was a white witch, too, and he had less power than Peg. Normally Asil did not like witches, but not even his wolf could find anything threatening about those two. Max had some sort of lesser fae a fair distance down his family tree. With Ruby’s power straightjacketed, the lot of them had about enough magic to light a witch lantern.
Allah in his infinite wisdom knew that a little magic was so much worse than no magic. There were dozens of types of creatures out hunting for victims with just a little magic.
He no longer wondered why Alan had been the one waiting for him on the porch with Ruby. In this group, the submissivewerewolf had been the most powerful guardian they owned. Submissive or not, at least a werewolf was a werewolf. Without Alan, this lot were bait looking for a big bad shark to eat them.
Asil and his wolf were going to keep all of them, every single one of them, safe.
“You are going to help,” said Alan, very softly. If Asil had not been sitting next to him, he would not have heard him.
“I am,” Asil said. He’d gotten two of the cords untangled—and reached for the next to see that the rest of them lay in neat bundles. He stilled for a moment, unhappy to have had such a thing happen without his notice.
He looked into the face of the shadowy boy and said, “Thank you.”
You are going to help, the boy said, though his still mouth never moved.
To that spirit, Asil said, “Inshallah.”
“And that’s not weird,” muttered Alan, staring at the tidy cords.
Asil stood up and gathered cords. “Come, my friend. You and I can lay these while the others work on that poor camera, no?”
For all that it was gently said, Alan heard the demand in it. He nodded, grabbed the two cords Asil had not, and followed him out the door and down the stairs.
“I don’t actually know where these go,” Alan said.
“It does not matter,” Asil said. They were far enough away from the ballroom that their voices would not carry if they were quiet. “We need to talk, and this is an excuse. You need to tell me what Ruby’s troubles are.”
“No.” Alan stumbled down a step—not from clumsiness; hewas not clumsy. He was a werewolf. But he was torn between loyalty to Ruby and the demands of a dominant wolf. The power gap was so large between a submissive wolf and Asil that Alan’s resistance was impressive. “I don’t have the right to share Ruby’s secrets. You have to ask her.”
His refusal could not last, but Asil decided to wait until they were off the stairway before he forced the issue. If Alan fell all the way down the stairs, he’d make enough noise to summon the others. He would try persuasion first.
“I can help,” Asil assured him, knowing Alan would hear the truth in his words. “I understand you wish your Ruby—”
Our Ruby, growled his wolf. And it was far too soon for that.
“—would tell me everything herself,” he told Alan as they came to the ground floor. For lack of another goal, he continued into the reception room and dropped the cords to the ground. “But she seems to think that she needs to handle her own problems. I do not think she can do so. Nor do I think we are going to have much time.”
He based that on his experience with his previous three dates.
Alan shook his head, hunching his shoulders as he dropped his cords onto the ground on top of Asil’s. “It isn’t my place—”
Asil could make him—they both knew it.
“You must,” Asil said, his voice gentle.
But he backed off again because the pressure he was putting on the submissive wolf was bothering his own wolf—submissives were to be cared for.
He said, “There are few others in history who have been as strong, as capable as I.”
It was not his habit to manifest false modesty. That otherswere unused to meeting someone of his abilities—of his magnificence—was not his problem. That did not mean he didn’t understand how his statements of truth affected people.
He expected to amuse Alan, to soften the atmosphere so they could better converse.
“I know,” said Alan.
