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CHAPTER 23

A rmand

“ Ma?tre? ” Daniel taps on my door one afternoon not long after I confined my mate to the dungeon to be my sweet little fuck toy. The guilt I felt at the beginning is starting to fade, because it is working. She is contained, she even seems happy. It’s the strangest thing.

Perhaps things are starting to finally come to order. Jenny Duplante seems happy enough with Beau, who seems happy enough with her, and the world is no longer at risk from Beatrix. The attack on the detectives seems to have been put down to wolves; wolf stories are rife at the moment.

I’ve banned the pack from shifting anywhere outside our immediate territory for the moment. There are rumors of hunters flying in with the intention of killing these man-eating beasts. But, all things considered, I’d say I have things under control.

“What can I do for you, Daniel?”

He lifts both his brows and breathes in a way I know heralds the end of my hopes of peace and quiet.

“What is it?”

“I have reason to believe we are being invaded by Russian wolves,” Daniel says. His tone is almost bored, faintly annoyed. I love this man like a brother, though he is only a cousin. I should say that aloud one day, he’d find it funny. Maybe when we are not being invaded.

I look out the window, but the sky is blue and the grass is green and there doesn’t seem to be an invasion anywhere about. I tap my pen on the desk blotter and look at him questioningly.

“Are they out the back? Coming down the chimney?”

“They’re in the town,” he says. “Two people died last night in wolf attacks. Their bones were found scattered around the old cemetery.”

The hair rises on the back of my neck.

“What did you just say?”

“You don’t actually want me to repeat that, do you, Ma?tre ?”

“No,” I say. “But it’s not possible. Beatrix is locked up, and I was with her last night. She didn’t escape the dungeon, kill two people, and come back. The security on those doors is…”

“I don’t think it was your mate,” he says. “Actually, I know it wasn’t.”

“How?”

“They shot one of them,” he says. “The wolves, that is. But they missed, they think, and accidentally shot a nudist hiding amid the graves. A Russian nudist. ”

He slides his phone across the desk to me. There’s a picture there from the local chat page. It’s a man looking sorry for himself, and nursing what looks to be a patched-up wound. The locals are raising funds and food for him, because they do not know a predator when they see one.

“We need to get this man into our custody immediately,” I say, standing up. “Let’s go get him. Bring the boys.”

“Are we taking the train?”

“Yes, and two cars. We’ll offer hospitality, the villagers will be relieved, and we will have these creatures where we want them.”

I am mobilizing the men when Mr. Volkov makes an appearance.

“If I could speak with you…”

“Not now, Mr. Volkov, we have important pack business to attend to.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder. I was not looking at him before. I am now. This man has been in my pack for weeks, getting deep inside the minds and hearts of everybody he speaks to. I have allowed him because I have regarded him, tattoos and strength and taciturn demeanor aside, to be mostly harmless. He does not look harmless now.

His expression is stoic as he looks at me. “We need to speak.”

I look him over, really look at him. I try to tell what has shifted and changed, why he suddenly seems more like a threat than a guest.

He’s wearing suit pants and a tight white shirt. I make a mental note to offer him the services of the chateau’s in-house tailor. Having a member of staff going about looking like he is about to burst out of his clothing is a poor showing.

I sit back behind my desk, well aware that I am in the process of being blindsided. Fortunately for me, I am quite used to being surprised by bad things, thanks to Trixie’s murder spree. I keep calm, because I truly do feel calm. Whatever this is, I feel equal to it. It could be delusion, could be confidence, could be the fact that I no longer care. Hard to say.

“I am not a therapist,” Mr. Volkov says.

I feel the internal clicking of things settling into place. Of course he isn’t. Of course the only man I could find capable of therapizing a pack is actually not a therapist at all. Werewolf therapist isn’t really a thing. But pretending to be a werewolf therapist? Well, that’s the perfect cover for someone who needs to add an inch to his neck size.

I have fucked up. I know that immediately, but I refuse to make a big deal of it. He is waiting for me to respond in shock, or surprise, or to curse him. I do not give him the satisfaction of any of those responses.

“Makes sense. You are terrible at it.”

I don’t ask him who he really is. I just wait while that burn sinks in, knowing that these events are all linked. Beatrix never trusted him. I was so concerned with helping her, changing her, that I never stopped to wonder if he needed to be trusted.

“I am Maxim Volkov, alpha of the Lesnik Siberian pack,” he declares. “My lineage is ancient.”

I stare at him blandly. “Do you want me to gasp, Mr. Volkov? Shall I faint? Or do you realize that quite literally everybody in this room has an ancient lineage and two thirds of us are alphas.”

“It’s like walking into a cake shop and calling yourself a fudge slice. Nobody cares,” Daniel adds helpfully.

Volkov makes an annoyed face at me and carries on with his grand reveal, which I am sure is already beginning to feel very anticlimactic. Sometimes, one of the greatest weapons of war is making your opponent feel like, as the British say, a complete wanker.

“Beatrix is one of ours,” he presses on bravely. “You’ll never contain her. But we respect the mate bond, so we’ve given you the chance to breed her. You can be assured she will be happier in more remote climes, with more opportunity to express her true nature. And your whelps will be well taken care of.”

He says all of that as if all I need are the bullet points of the situation. He’s a Siberian alpha. He intends to take my mate. I get the satisfaction of having knocked her up, and that’s the end of it, apparently.

“You mean dumped in an orphanage when you inevitably all get yourselves killed? I think not. I know you think we are weak, obsessed with pleasure, and given to frivolity. But I can assure you, Mr. Volkov, that we will tear you to pieces if you so much as try to touch my mate.”

“With what, Ma?tre ? Your pack is full of sad ladies, old men, painters, artists, librarians, cooks, financiers, almost nobody with any fighting experience. The most dangerous wolf in your pack is your mate, and you cannot control her. I have called in my pack—wolves all with Beatrix’s nature. Can you begin to imagine?”

“I can. I think it would be a bloody and inefficient invasion, and I suspect half of your force would be distracted by killing the wrong people. I think they have already started to do that in the village.”

“My pack is better trained than your wild mate,” he says. “We have actual discipline, not a little slap and tickle when it takes our fancy.”

“My dad could beat your dad,” I respond, as the conversation devolves into a sort of childish set of threats. He cannot intimidate me, because I am single minded when it comes to Beatrix. I will do anything, be anything to keep her.

Volkov narrows his eyes further, until it seems I am being peered at by two pieces of cut glass.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Armand, but I will if I have to.”

“That’s funny, because I do want to hurt you, and I definitely will.”

I have to give him credit of some kind for announcing this before we went to town and started rounding up his pack. It was actually somewhat sporting of him, and it is why we are not fighting right now.

“Did you expect us to roll over?”

“You can’t keep her in the basement forever. You know that. You can’t give her what she needs—a steady stream of prey, and praise for doing what comes naturally to her. We are all animals, Armand. But you are trying to stop what she is. You won’t do it. She was born in blood, and she will die in blood. Any peace you manage to wrest from her will be temporary and end in tragedy. This is the destiny written in her DNA.”

Those words make the silence a lot heavier.

“You might be right. But I will not give up on her.”

“Then you will not…” he draws in a breath, “do this alone. Our kind is dwindling as it is. Especially when it comes to those with significant percentages of the blood. We cannot afford to fight.”

“I thought you were going to take my mate from my bleeding hands,” I frown. “Explain yourself, Volkov.”

“I thought the threat might absolve you of any guilt associated with giving her into our care. If I threatened you, then you could tell yourself you did what you did for your pack.”

“Enough games. Enough brinksmanship. What do you want, Volkov?”

“I have called my pack here, but they are not an invasion force. Not if you do not want them to be.”

“They’ve killed two people in the village.”

“Four, actually. The two in the village, and the two detectives. I am sorry for both those incidents. They were the products of misunderstandings.”

I stare at him, remembering how Beatrix told me she didn’t kill the detectives. She only said it once, and I did not believe her. She has not tried to defend herself since. She just took the burden of the blame. I need to talk to her.

“The wolves nearby, the ones I have called to us? They are her kin. Distantly related, because the massacres killed all her direct relatives, but they will give her context.”

“So we’ve gone from you stealing my mate to infiltrating my pack with yours.” I lean back again. I don’t think this is what it first seemed to be at all. I don’t think this is an aggressive move. I think this is a cry for help. He does have Beatrix’s bloodlines. He doesn’t know how to just ask for what he needs. He has to fuck around in the edges of things, posturing, threatening, sneaking, anything other than just being clear.

“What is it you need, Volkov? Besides a new tailor?”

I shouldn’t have added the snark.

He sighs and he sits down, staring out the window as all pretense of power fades. In this moment, he is another supplicant in front of my desk, another dependent who needs something.

“Volkov, you’ve helped us. I think. We’ve talked enough shit. If there’s something I can do for you, then tell me. If it’s something that can avoid bloodshed, even better.”

“I will be honest. My pack only contains nine shifters. Our numbers have dwindled over the years. Beatrix is the first of our kind in a long time to be pregnant. There are only three females left, and all of them are in their forties and fifties. None of them bred. There are three younger males, their sons, but no daughters. We are facing extinction if we cannot find mates, and we cannot find mates in the Siberian tundra. The Russian packs will not blend their blood with ours. So, we have come here.”

The problem he is facing is a problem many shifters have faced. It was the very problem I suffered. Being unable to find a suitable mate, being unable to locate anybody who makes the mate bond sing. The news that he’s brought three young Siberian shifters with Beatrix’s bloodline is enough to make any alpha pale with concern, but I have enough dungeon space for them all if necessary.

I decide to welcome them. I wanted them in my control regardless, having them as guests suits me, saves on the shackles and the fighting.

“Why don’t the nine of you invade the east wing,” I suggest. “On the following stipulations: No killing on site. No killing off site. And no encouraging my mate to kill.”

“We are better behaved than your mate.”

“A body count of four suggests that’s not entirely true. If you are not, there will be consequences. Now, please, Volkov, go and get your pack before it tears up my favorite town.”

“Thank you, Ma?tre ,” he says, rising to his feet and leaving the room.

I know what it cost him to call me ma?tre . I know what it means. And I cannot say that there is not a significant sense of satisfaction in it. All that posturing, all those threats, and in the end he submitted because he has to acknowledge that, murder brat or not, I have my pack in check and my world is in order.

This is the most therapeutic thing he could have possibly done for me.

“Some people really don’t know how to ask for a favor,” Daniel says, slinging himself into the chair Volkov just vacated.

“Did he call this an invasion, or did you?”

“I might have taken poetic license,” Daniel grins. “But he did want to take Beatrix. I heard it all when I was waiting for my session. He was on the phone. I speak Russian of course, so I understood it all. He’s been planning this for a while, I think. Sounded desperate.”

Strength is a horrible burden to have to bear, to have to posture with aggression when what one really wants is sanctuary. I realize that the man who came to me in the guise of a helper really needs help himself.

“One Siberian wolf has been so entertaining,” he adds. “I’m sure adding eight more, nine including Volkov, will be fun for the whole pack. Sounds like they’re all older ladies and younger men. And a couple of loose cannons and Volkov.”

“We’ll take them as they come,” I say, getting up. “I need to go free my mate.”