Men of the Otherworld (10 page)

Behind us, the door opened and a voice said, “Well, I'm glad to see everyone is having such a good time. If I'd known my return would have made you this happy, I'd have stayed away.”

“Fuck off, Malcolm,” Antonio said. “This is a private party.”

Malcolm walked in and closed the door. “And what might we be celebrating?”

“Your son's birthday, which you've obviously forgotten.”

“Hardly. I remember every second of the day that slant-eyed bitch whelped him. Much the way one might remember the day one is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Had I known how he would turn out, I'd have put him in a sack and dropped him off the nearest bridge. I should have guessed the outcome, really, right from the moment he was born. Any normal child would come out into the world bawling his lungs out. My brat? He didn't make a peep. Even as a baby he didn't have the balls to complain.”

“Cake?” Jeremy said, holding out a piece.

Malcolm ignored him and dropped onto the sofa. Jeremy shrugged and gave me the piece. Antonio rolled his eyes and mouthed something to Jeremy. The corners of Jeremy's mouth
flicked in the faintest of smiles, but he kept the rest of his face impassive.

“Did you bring Jeremy a gift?” Antonio asked.

Malcolm snorted and reached for the brandy snifter.

“Want to see what I got him?”

Antonio grabbed the tiny jeweler's box from the table and tossed it to Malcolm. A spark of worry passed behind Jeremy's eyes, but when Malcolm saw what was in the box, he laughed nearly as loudly as his son.

“A silver bullet with my name on it,” he said. “One can never accuse you of subtlety, Tonio.”

“Regular bullets may work just as well,” Antonio said, “but I thought this one might find a special place in your heart.”

Malcolm laughed again. “Only if you fired the gun, my boy. That one would never do it. He doesn't have the nerve. You're too good to him. You inherited your father's soft spot for weaklings. Your intentions are admirable, but you should pick more worthy friends.”

“Like you? Sorry, Malcolm, but I already have a father. And you already have a son.”

Jeremy closed his eyes, the barest wince, fingers tightening around his cake plate as if bracing himself.

“Son?” Malcolm snarled. “That's not a son. It's a punishment. An embarrassment I would have rid myself of twenty-two years ago if my father hadn't—”

“But he did,” Jeremy said softly. “And you were stuck with me, as you've reminded me every day since.” He got to his feet. “I think someone is getting tired.”

He looked at me, but it must have been a mistake, because I was wide awake and absorbing every word.

“Does he have a kennel out back?” Malcolm asked. “Or is he housebroken already?”

“Off you go,” Jeremy said, putting one hand behind my back and propelling me to the door.

Antonio closed the door behind us and followed us up the stairs.

Jeremy's bedroom was at the far end of the hall. I'd been sleeping there since I came to Stonehaven. Jeremy had tried setting me up in a room of my own, but I was having none of that. Now that Malcolm was here, it would be a while before he started encouraging me to take a separate room again, which was the only obvious advantage to his father's return.

Jeremy's room was furnished as a place to sleep and nothing more, just a bed, a nightstand and a dresser. The floor was bare wood, no carpet. The walls were unadorned except for a cluster of small framed sketches by the window. All the sketches were portraits, Antonio being the only one I recognized. It would be years before I realized Jeremy was the artist.

I did know that Jeremy drew. He painted, too, though this was rarer. Usually, he just sketched, sometimes not even pictures, just symbols. He'd be working and he'd get this faraway look in his eyes and when I looked at the page, I'd see weird symbols drawn in the margins. When I asked what they were, he'd mumble something about doodling, tear off the page and get back to work. The drawings he let me see, especially the ones of me in wolf form. I liked those.

With the portraits in his room, though, I didn't make the connection to his drawings. When I'd asked about them, he'd only named the people pictured and explained their relationships to one another. It would have never occurred to him to say he'd drawn them.

Antonio walked in behind us and threw himself onto the bed. “Paradise lost. The serpent has returned.”

“Get ready for bed, Clayton. Just push Tonio out of the way.”

Antonio propped his head up on his arms. “I could help you regain that paradise, Jer. Just say the word and he's—”

“That's enough,” Jeremy said, jerking his chin at me. “He doesn't know you're joking.”

“Am I? The Pack Laws don't always apply to the beloved youngest son of the Alpha.”

I'd spent the last few exchanges standing there with my shirt pulled up around my neck, listening. Jeremy tugged my shirt off and lifted me onto the bed. He shoved Antonio to the side, folded back the covers and motioned me inside.

“All right,” Antonio sighed. “Forget the permanent solution. How about just kicking him out? After all, it is your house.” He grinned. “I still can't believe you actually said that to him.”

Jeremy sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his socks.

“You shouldn't let him forget that,” Antonio continued. “There's a reason Edward passed over Malcolm and left it all to you. Because he knew his son was a psychotic son-of-a-bitch and he hoped you'd toss him out on his ass the moment the will was read.”

“I don't think that was quite what my grandfather had in mind.”

Jeremy folded our clothing and laid it on the dresser. Then he turned out the light and crawled into bed beside me. Antonio ignored the hint. He stripped off his shirt and pants and thudded back on the bed.

“This bed isn't that big,” Jeremy said.

“I wasn't done talking.”

“Are you ever?”

“Watch it or I'll take back those revolvers. Now shove over, scrap.”

Antonio wriggled under the covers and knocked me with his hip. I held my ground. I'd been here first.

“If you kicked him out, my father would support you.”

“Hmmm.”

Antonio flipped onto his side. “Don't think you can fool me, Jer. You're not afraid to kick him out; you're just too damned stubborn. It's like the ultimate challenge of willpower. If you can survive Malcolm, you can survive anything.”

Jeremy said nothing.

“Don't pretend you've fallen asleep either.”

“I'm not pretending anything. You were pontificating so nicely, I hated to interrupt.”

“Ha.”

Silence fell, punctuated only by heartbeats and slow breathing. I curled up between them. Waves of heat and scent ebbed out from either side of me. As I closed my eyes, the anxiety of the last few hours washed away. After a while, the bed creaked and I sensed Jeremy looking down at me.

“He's asleep,” Antonio said.

“Hmmm.”

“What's wrong?”

“I was just thinking.” A pause. “Perhaps I haven't done the best thing for him. Bringing him here. Into this.”

“You know, I was thinking the same thing myself—what a monster Jeremy is, snatching this poor kid from that swamp, hauling him across the country and forcing him to endure some semblance of a normal life. I mean, the boy is absolutely miserable here. Anyone could see that.”

“You don't need to be sarcastic.”

“And you don't need to be stupid. If you didn't rescue Clayton, he'd have been dead within the year, and I don't mean by natural causes. The whole Pack heard Malcolm's story. How long do you
think it'd be before someone decided it was too risky, having a child werewolf running around Louisiana? No one else would think of rescuing him. Not even me. You're different.”

“So I've been told,” Jeremy murmured.

“You did the right thing, Jer. End of discussion.”

Silence. I was starting to drift off when Antonio started up again.

“You don't need to worry about him, you know.”

“End of discussion?”

“End of your discussion, not mine. Malcolm has too much to risk by hurting him. He knows you wouldn't stand for it, and he wouldn't find sympathy anywhere else. My father won't put up with that shit. He keeps Malcolm around because he's useful, but he's not useful enough to earn his keep.”

Jeremy paused, then spoke, his voice barely audible. “If ever I wanted to throw him out, it would be now. But I can't risk retaliation.”

“I know. He'd go after the boy. I'll shut up about it.”

“Careful. I wouldn't want you hurting yourself.”

Something shot over my head. I peeked to see a pillow sail clear over the bed and land with a soft
ivhump
on the floor.

“You need to work on your aim.”

“It was just a warning shot.”

“Ah.”

Jeremy rolled over. I waited until I was certain I wouldn't be missing anything, then let myself fall asleep.

It would be years before I figured out the terms of Edward Danvers's will. The simple version is that Jeremy's grandfather left everything to him. I've heard that before Jeremy's birth, Edward had bequeathed his property to the Sorrentinos. One could say that he was only taking care of his son—knowing he'd
burn through the money and mortgage the property, and instead ensuring he'd have a slow but steady income throughout his life. More likely, it was life insurance. Will everything to Malcolm and Edward would be signing his death warrant.

When he changed the beneficiary to Jeremy, he protected his grandson with a similar clause—on Jeremy's death, if he was under thirty-five and had no children, the estate would be auctioned off to charity… and a letter would go to the current Alpha, listing details of murders Malcolm had committed that he couldn't defend under Pack Law.

The understanding, as with the original will, was that Malcolm could continue to use the house and receive a stipend. Maybe Edward was only thinking of protecting his grandson and his legacy. Maybe he even hoped that rather than be indebted to Jeremy for his living, Malcolm would actually get a job. If so, he hadn't understood his son very well.

As much as Malcolm complained about needing to go to Jeremy for money, I think he took a perverse pleasure in it. While he was off traveling the world, Jeremy was stuck home managing the estate. While Malcolm was at Stonehaven laying about the house, reading magazines and watching television, Jeremy was working long hours and agonizing over accounts, trying to keep the creditors at bay.

Jeremy could have kicked Malcolm out. There was no stipulation in the will forbidding it. But to do so meant relinquishing the only control he had over his father's behavior. Rid himself of the monster, and he'd only unleash him on the world. That was something Jeremy would never do.

The next day, the three of us were in the backyard, and had been for most of the afternoon, namely because Malcolm was indoors.

Antonio and Jeremy were wrestling. At first, Antonio thought it would be fun to teach me a few moves, but after a flip sent me skidding to the ground with a bloody nose, I was relegated to spectator status.

Personally, I would have continued playing, but when Jeremy hoisted me off the ground and set me on the stone wall, I knew I'd better stay there. Watching wasn't so bad. It was an interesting study of maneuvers and strategies, possibly transferable to more important things, like hunting.

Antonio had the clear advantage of weight and muscle, but he pinned Jeremy less than half the time. He'd thunder and charge, and Jeremy would just dart out of the way, often slipping around behind him and taking advantage of the momentum of Antonio's charge to knock him face first to the ground. Soon Antonio had a bloody nose to match mine, but no one suggested
he stop
playing.

Jeremy didn't always get out of the way in time. Once, when he was a split second too slow and Antonio had him flat on his back, the phone started to ring. Now, the phone was over a hundred feet away and inside the house, but all three of us heard it. Even in human form, we share a wolf's keener senses of smell and hearing.

“Will he answer it?” Antonio asked, taking his knee off Jeremy's chest.

“Only if he's expecting a call.”

“Are you?”

“No.” The phone continued to ring. “It's probably for you.”

Antonio grunted, grabbed his shirt from a nearby bush and wiped the streaming sweat from his face. He looked toward the house, hesitated, then headed for the back door. Jeremy sat up in the grass and rotated his shoulders, wincing as something cracked.

“Hop down, Clayton, and I'll show you some moves.”

We played for a few minutes before Antonio came back, walking out of the house even slower than he'd walked in.

“Trouble at home?” Jeremy said.

Antonio muttered something and dropped onto the grass. “A meeting in Chicago. My father can't make it. Something's happened at the factory and he's stuck in New York.”

“When do you leave?”

“Tonight. Damn. I hate responsibility.”

Jeremy smiled. “You're good at it. Better than anyone expected.”

Antonio snorted and broke an icy twig off a tree. He pretended to study it. “My father thinks you should stay in New York with him for a while. You and Clayton.”

“No.”

“Don't be—”

“I appreciate the concern, but Clayton's not ready for that yet, the new surroundings, the new people. We'll be fine here.”

Antonio threw down the stick. “You have to introduce him to the Pack eventually. Why not now?”

“I don't want to rush him.”

“You're stubborn.”

“No, I'm realistic.”

“Stubborn.”

“Up you get, Clayton,” Jeremy said, lifting me under the armpits. “It's getting cold and I imagine you're hungry.”

Antonio muttered something under his breath, but followed us into the house in silence, probably afraid Jeremy would withhold the food if he continued arguing.

That night, after Antonio left, Jeremy and I were in the study, where we spent most of our evenings. I lay on the carpet before the fire, eyes half closed, content to doze and daydream. Jeremy was poring over some ragged book that stank of time and poor storage. On top of the book he kept a notepad, and wrote in it as he read, his eyes never leaving the page.