“You won’t help me.” Jude didn’t mean her voice to wobble the way it did, hadn’t realized how close she was to tears until that very moment. “You won’t help me because I’m broken.” A thin, smoke-like tendril wrapped around her ankle, giving her squeeze.
“I never actually got a hold of you, Mr. Hemming,” Lux cut in, his voice sliding across the table. He was closer to the surface now, still invisible against the wall but only just. “Your assistant has quite the admirable runaround operation. She’s been their captive for nearly six months. They don’t give her regular money. They don’t give her food. She’s been left to fend for herself, and she’s done a respectable job. They leave her alone here during the full moon. Alone and in heat. She doesn’t have anyone but me right now. And as you said, it is important to take your time and know your opponent. I didn’t want to reveal anything that would put her in danger. I didn’t realize this was going to make such a difference to you.”
“Of course it doesn’t make a difference,” Jack snapped. He turned back to Jude, a kind smile replacing the sharp look, eyes crinkling in an identical manner as his son’s had. “There’s nothing wrong with you. If people have told you there is,theyare the wrong ones. You’re far from broken. This is just . . . something that happens sometimes, maybe every few generations. Always with a girl, I’ve noticed.”
“Maggie Templeton’s cousin,” the younger man piped up, and his father nodded.
“Exactly. And look what happened. She married a wolf. Had kids. And her kids change like everyone else, every month. I think she appreciates the break, to be honest. Your wolf is still there. She’s still there within you, breathing within you, sharing your skin. Your inability to shift doesn’t change what you are, and youarea wolf. I wouldn’t be sitting here if I couldn’t smell her there, telling us all what you are.”
Another one of those wide smiles, and that time she met it with a tremulous one of her own.
“They leave you alone during a heat cycle? Do you even have a normal heat?” When she nodded yes, father and son exchanged a fast, dark look. “Well, that’s the first thing that needs to betaken care of. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what a dangerous situation that creates, very dangerous.”
He glanced back across the room, his amiable smile slipping for the first time since his arrival, disgust practically radiating from him. When he turned back to her stricken look, he must have seen the alarmed confusion on her face, and his eyes closed briefly, sighing.
“Off suppressants and they have you here in a room full of wolves two weeks before the full moon. I don’t want to alarm you, but if they had planned this little party of theirs for next week, you’d be the main course of whatever buffet they have set up. Every wolf here would be taking a turn with you, probably more than once. It’s irresponsible and dangerous, and it’s sickening that they’d put you in that sort of peril.”
“Including you, Mr. Hemming?” she challenged, earning another glinting smile, hard and sharp. Jude remembered what Lux had told her about this man being dangerous, despite his outwardly affable air.
“Oh, I’d be the first in line. No question of that.” She refused to flinch under his steely smile, noticing his eye remained untouched. “But unlike most of the other wolves here, I’m smart enough to not put myself in those positions.” His teeth were the result of pricey whitening treatments, she decided, wondering if his canines had been filed or if they were naturally that sharp. “If we would have walked in and smelled you, we would have walked out, while control was still possible. I can’t say the same for my fellows here tonight, more than likely. She needs to be in seclusion by the first of the week,” he addressed the corner. “In seclusion and away from this place.”
“They’re getting antsy, dad. Gray wants pictures of everything, inside and out,” the younger man mumbled under his breath.
“You got most of the license plates already, right?” his father answered lightly, never turning. “Get a few panoramic shots, as many faces as possible. Make it look like you’re texting.”
Jude straightened up as he turned back to her, his genial smile reaffixed, no trace of the calculated hardness that had lived there only moments before.
“I don’t know what your shadowy friend here has shared with you already, Jude. There’s a foundation that I subsidize that is used for werewolves who . . . need a bit of help getting a new start in life. Whether they’re escaping packs or are trying to leave an abusive home, it doesn’t matter. You know, my wife came from a situation very much like yours.”
Her eyebrows shot up at the confidence, not expecting that a snob like this would ever dirty his paws with a pack girl like herself.Maybe there’s hope yet.
“She was trapped by her pack. Very little respect for each other, for their community. Promised in marriage to a wolf she’d never met. When she broke free, she never looked back.”
Jude nodded emphatically. She’d not squander this opportunity, if it was given to her.
“The foundation focuses on ending those cycles of pack subservience. There’s a house where you’ll be able to stay, in seclusion, like I mentioned, at least until your heat cycles are under control. It’s not permanent, and no one should get it into their heads that it will be, there are time limits for every resident at the house, but it’s better than a shelter, and you will have the camaraderie of other folks in your situation. You can come and go as you please, you can begin looking for work . . . all that we ask is that you respect the rules of the house during your time there.”
“I have money,” she whispered urgently, “it’s not a lot, but I’ll give you everything I have if you can get us away from here.I know that we’re supposed to tithe our alphas, and I’ll start saving, but — “
His smile was still kind as he held up a hand to stop her.
“The first step,” he began firmly, “is you’re going to need to retrain yourself out of thinking that way. Alphas and betas and pack protocol . . . We don’t follow any of that foolishness.”
His son leaned in, eyebrows drawn together again.
“You know that’s all bullshit, right? That’s not even the way wolves act in the wild. Why would we act that way as people?!”
She blinked in surprise. “There’s — there’s no pack?”
“No, I can’t say there is. At least, not in the way you’re thinking. Our packs are our families. I’m the alpha of my pack because my sons are going to be asking me for money and favors until I die, so I get to claim that role.”
The younger man snorted, rolling his eyes, and she smiled. She liked them both, she decided, but she didn’t believe for a second that the older man before her wasn’t an alpha of the loftiest order.
“You can ask some of the werewolves where we’re from who’s the alpha, and it’s true, they’ll probably say me,” he grinned almost as if he could read her thoughts. “But that doesn’t mean anything other than everyone knows my name. I don’t have any dominion over the way they live, or their money or their livelihoods, not unless they choose to invest with me. We are a community. We act in each other’s best interests and in the interests of our community, and I am very invested in our community. Neighbors help neighbors. And honestly, if they consider me their alpha, it’s only because they’re probably a little afraid of my wife.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “If she’s a pack girl, I understand why.” This wasn’t at all what she was expecting, and she wondered if Lux was just as surprised as she was. “You’re not like any alpha I know.”
“Oh, I’m not like anyone you know,” he agreed, and she swallowed at the gleam in his eyes. “I am burdened by the knowledge that our people still live on the fringes of society. Still living in packs, an outdated notion that reduces us to animal behavior. My only purpose in this world, Jude, is to leave it better for my sons and grandchildren, the generation of werewolves who will inherit it. The only way we can get out from under the humans’ thumb is by leaving behind a better future for the generation after us, do you understand? It doesn’t matter how you were treated as a child, it doesn’t matter what kind of pack you came from. All that’s behind you. If you’re taking a bed in my facility, you are committing to doing right by your fellow wolves. You’ll receive help finding a job, and after that it’s up to you. The only repayment I expect is for you to live the best life you can, and do your part to leave things a bit better for the next little girl who doesn’t change with the moon.”
