Melody lifted her chin. “That’s the Alliance’s problem.”
I met her stare steadily, my mind racing. “If you change your mind, you know how to reach us.”
Melody’s jaw tightened.
We were almost at the door when she spoke again.
“The covens have long memories. And some witches have longer ones still.”
I turned to look at her. She stood behind her desk, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
“What does that mean?”
Melody remained mute.
We left the building in tense silence, an invisible cloud following uson the way out.
“She looked terrified,” I told Samuel quietly as he pulled away from the building.
“I noticed.” A muscle jumped in his jawline. “The question is what’s frightening her enough to stay silent.”
“Or who.” I frowned at the gloomy Victorian houses sliding past. “One thing we can be sure of now. She’s not the one behind the Lincoln sisters’ disappearance.”
10
SOCIAL HOWL
The next morningdawned with none of us any clearer as to who might be threatening Melody or made the Lincoln sisters disappear.
I was drinking my coffee moodily when Nora glided into the dining room with a serving cart laden with steaming food, her movements as silent as a ghost’s. I perked up at the delicious smells filling the air.
The cart was packed with fluffy scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, toast cut into perfect triangles, and something dark and glistening that I was trying very hard not to examine too closely.
Bo stuck his head over the edge of the table.
“What’s that?” the Husky asked, nose twitching at the mystery dish.
“Black pudding,” Nora said serenely as she proceeded to serve breakfast. “Old family recipe.”
Bo cocked his ears warily. “Whose family?”
Nora’s faint smile suggested some questions werebetter left unasked. Bo’s ears flattened. He slunk quietly under the table while Nora put the rest of the food on the sideboard and left to get a fresh pot of coffee.
Victoria was working her way through a stack of correspondence with the competence of a woman who had been managing pack politics for decades. Samuel sat beside me, frowning at a report while absently stirring his cooling coffee. Pearl had claimed the sunny spot on the windowsill and was grooming herself with studied indifference.
I dug into my breakfast, determined to make the most of this brief moment of peace. It was shattered when Hugh stumbled into the room.
He looked like he’d lost a fight with his own bedsheets.
“Morning,” Hugh mumbled. He dropped into a chair and immediately reached for Samuel’s bacon.
Samuel moved his plate without looking up. “Get your own.”
“But yours is right there.”
“Get. Your. Own.” A low growl underscored my alpha’s voice.
Hugh grumbled and slouched toward the sideboard. I stared.
