Heartless pp-4 Read online

  Lord Akeldama flitted to one side, catching the wolf’s attention and directing his next charge away from Lady Maccon.

  Alexia said, deciding on a new tactic, “If you think you could hold him steady, my lord, I might be able to manage a calming touch. You know, some lads these days simply require a female to administer discipline.”

  “Of course, my plum, of course.”

  Biffy hit Lord Akeldama broadside, and in the same movement, the vampire turned all affectionate, instead of tossing him away. Wrapping both his arms and legs about the wolf, Lord Akeldama used the beast’s own momentum to tumble them both to the lush carpet. In an amazing feat of wrestling, the vampire got one elbow about Biffy’s muzzle, his hand closing firmly over the nose. With his other arm, he locked down the forelegs. With his legs, Lord Akeldama secured Biffy’s hindquarters. It was a remarkable exhibition of agility and flexibility. Alexia was duly impressed, having wrestled a bit with her husband. Lord Akeldama was clearly very experienced in the matter of intimate tussling.

  Alexia knew the vampire would not be able to pin the werewolf thus for very long. In the end, Biffy was stronger and would break free, but Lord Akeldama did have the beast momentarily confused.

  She waddled up and, casting her own safety to the winds, leaned forward, not unexpectedly losing her balance. She landed fully atop both supernatural creatures, ensuring her bare hands were in contact with Biffy but turning both men mortal in her enthusiasm.

  It was a very odd sensation, for in such a position, Alexia was uncomfortably aware of Biffy’s body changing from wolf to human. She could feel the slide of muscle and bone beneath her protruding belly as he shifted. It was eerily like the feel of her child kicking underneath her own skin.

  Biffy howled with the pain of it, directly into Alexia’s ear. A howl that turned to a scream of agony, then a whimper of remembered suffering, and finally little snuffles of acute embarrassment. Then, as he came to the horrific realization of what he had almost done, he turned to his former master.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear. Oh dear.” It was a litany of distress. “My lord, are you well? Did I cause any permanent injury? Oh look at your trousers! Oh, mercy. I am so sorry.”

  Lord Akeldama’s healing was paused midway so that the claw marks were still visible under the tattered ribbons of his silken britches.

  “ ’Tis but a scratch, my pet. Do not trouble yourself so.” He looked down at himself. “Well, several scratches, to be precise.”

  At this juncture, Alexia was forced into a realization that rather shook the foundations of her universe: there are some circumstances that even the very best manners could not possibly rectify. This was one such situation. For there she lay, pregnant and out of balance, atop a pile consisting of one overdressed vampire and one underdressed werewolf.

  “Biffy,” she said finally, “to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit? I was under the impression you were otherwise contained this evening.” It was a valiant attempt, but even such talk as this could not mask the awkwardness.

  Lord Akeldama attempted to unwind himself from Biffy and extract himself from Alexia without the aid of supernatural strength. When this was finally accomplished, he stood, dashed to the door to reassure his drones of his undamaged state, and sent one of them to fetch clothing.

  Biffy and Alexia helped each other to rise.

  “Are you unharmed, my lady?”

  Alexia did a quick internal check. “It would appear so. Remarkably resilient, this baby of mine. I could use a bit of a sit-down, though.”

  Biffy helped her to an ottoman—one of the few pieces of furniture in the room not overturned—her hand firmly clasped in his. They sat and stared off into space, grappling with how best to handle their predicament. Lord Maccon might be a blustering instrument of rudeness, but he did have his uses in dispersing awkward silences. Alexia handed Biffy a shawl, only slightly saliva-ridden. He set it gratefully in his lap.

  She tried not to look, of course she did, but Biffy did have a rather nice physique. Not nearly so splendid as her husband’s, but not everyone could be built like a steam engine, and the young dandy had kept himself well in hand before metamorphosis, for all his frivolous pursuits.

  “Biffy, were you secretly a Corinthian?” Alexia wondered out loud before she could stop herself.

  Biffy blushed. “No, my lady, although I did enjoy fencing rather more than some of my compatriots might consider healthy.”

  Lady Maccon nodded sagely.

  Lord Akeldama returned, looking not a whit put out. His brief sojourn among his drones had resulted in hair and neck cloth back to crisp and pristine order and a new pair of satin trousers. How do they do it? wondered Alexia.

  “Biffy, duckling, what a surprise your visiting little old me at this time of moon.” He handed his former drone a pair of sapphire-colored britches.

  Biffy blushed, pulling them on with one hand. Alexia took polite interest in the opposite side of the room. “Yes, well, I wasn’t entirely in my right faculties, my lord, when I made the decision to, uh, call. I think I simply, well, instinctively”—he glanced at Lady Maccon from under his lashes—“headed home.”

  Lord Akeldama nodded. “Yes, my dove, but you have missed the mark. Your home is next door. I know it’s easy to be confused.”

  “Too easy. Especially in my altered state.”

  They were speaking about Biffy’s werewolfness as one would an evening’s inebriation. Alexia looked back and forth between the two of them. Lord Akeldama had taken a seat opposite his former drone, his eyes heavy-lidded, his posture informal, revealing nothing.

  Biffy, too, was beginning to assume his old dapperness, as though this were actually a social call. As though he were not half naked in a vampire’s drawing room. As though he had not just tried to kill them both.

  Lady Maccon had always admired Lord Akeldama’s ability to remain patently unruffled by the world about him. It was as commendable as his never-ending efforts to ensure that his own small corner of London was filled with nothing but beauty and pleasant conversation. But sometimes, and she should never say such a thing openly, it smacked of cowardice. She wondered if the immortal’s avoidance of life’s ugliness was a matter of survival or bigotry. Lord Akeldama did so love to know all the gossip about the mundane world, but it was in the manner of a cat amusing himself among the butterflies without a need to interfere should their wings get torn off. They were only butterflies, after all.

  Lady Maccon felt it behooved her, just this once, to point out the wounded wingless insect before him. Soullessness may confer practicality, but it did not always confer caution. “Gentlemen, you may place my abruptness at the door of my current condition, but I am not in the mood to tolerate idiosyncrasies. Circumstances have placed us all in an untenable position. No, Biffy, I do not mean your unclothed state—I mean your werewolf one.”

  Both Lord Akeldama and Biffy looked at her, mouths slightly agape.

  “The time has come to move onward. Both of you. Biffy, your choices were taken from you, and that is regrettable, but you are still an immortal—and not dead—which is more than most can say.” She turned her baleful look upon the vampire. “And you, my lord, must let go. This is not some contest you have lost. This is life, or afterlife, I suppose. For goodness’ sake, stop wallowing, both of you.”

  Biffy looked duly chastised.

  Lord Akeldama sputtered.

  Lady Maccon tilted her head in such a way as to dare him to deny the truth in her words. He was certainly old enough to know himself; whether he cared to admit such a fault out loud remained to be seen.

  The two men looked at each other, their faces tight.

  It was Biffy who closed his eyes a long moment and then nodded briefly.

  Lord Akeldama lifted one white hand and trailed two fingers down the side of his former drone’s face. “Ah, my boy. If it must be so.”

  Lady Maccon could be merciful, so she moved the conversation on. “Biffy, how did you get out o
f Woolsey’s dungeon?”

  Biffy shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t remember much when I’m a wolf. Someone must have unbolted the cell door.”

  “Yes, but why? And who?” Alexia looked suspiciously at Lord Akeldama. Was he meddling?

  The vampire shook his head. “Not me or mine, I assure you, blossom.”

  A loud knock sounded at the door to the drawing room, all the warning they got before it burst open and two men came stomping in.

  “Well,” said Alexia, “at least he knocked first. Perhaps he’s learning.”

  The earl strode across the room and bent to kiss his wife’s cheek. “Wife, thought I would find you here. And young Biffy, too—how are you, pup?”

  Lady Maccon looked to her husband’s Beta, gesturing at Biffy with her free hand. “The pack business that took you away?”

  Professor Lyall nodded. “He led us a merry chase before we traced him here.” He tapped his nose, indicating the method of tracking.

  “How’d he get out?”

  Professor Lyall tilted his head, which was as good as he would get to admitting that he had no idea.

  Alexia nudged her husband in Biffy’s direction. He shot her a brief glance out of resigned tawny eyes and then crouched down in front of the half-naked dandy. It was a very servile position for an Alpha. He lowered his voice to a soft growl, of the kind meant to be comforting. It’s terribly difficult for a werewolf to be comforting—especially an Alpha dealing with a reluctant pack member. The instinct is to subdue and discipline.

  Alexia nodded at him encouragingly.

  “My boy, why did you run here?”

  Biffy looked up at the ceiling and then back down again. He swallowed, nervous. “I don’t know, my lord, some instinct. I’m sorry, but this is still home to me.”

  Lord Maccon looked at Lord Akeldama, predator to predator. Then he turned back to his pack member.

  “It has been six months, many moons, and still you are not settling. I know this was not the end you wanted, but it is the end you have been given. Somehow we must make this work.”

  No one missed the we.

  Alexia was extremely proud of her husband at that moment. He can be taught!

  He took a deep breath. “How can we make this easier for you? How can I?”

  Biffy looked utterly startled to be asked such a question by such a man. “Perhaps,” he ventured, “perhaps I could be allowed to take up permanent residence here, in town?”

  Lord Maccon frowned, glancing at Lord Akeldama. “Is that wise?”

  Lord Akeldama stood as though totally disinterested in the entire conversation. He walked to the other side of the room and stared down at his torn watercolor paintings.

  Professor Lyall stepped in to fill the breach. “Young Biffy might benefit from a distraction. Some form of employment, perhaps?”

  Biffy started. He was a gentleman, born and bred; honest work was a little beyond his frame of reference. “I suppose I could try it. I’ve never had proper employment before.” He spoke as though it were some kind of exotic cuisine he had not yet sampled.

  Lord Maccon nodded. “At BUR? After all, you have contacts within society that might prove useful. I am in a position to see you well settled with the government.”

  Biffy looked somewhat intrigued.

  Professor Lyall came around to stand before Alexia, next to her crouching husband. His normally passive face showed genuine concern for the new pack member, and it was clear that he had put thought into how Biffy might be better integrated.

  “We could come up with a suitable range of duties. Regular occupation might help you acclimatize to your new position.”

  Lady Maccon looked, really looked, at her husband’s second for the first time in their acquaintance. At the way he stood, shoulders not too straight, gaze not too direct. At the way he dressed, almost to the height of style but with a studied carelessness, the simple knot to his cravat, the reserved cut to his waistcoat. There was just enough not perfect about his appearance as to make him forgettable. Professor Lyall was the type of man who could stand in the center of a group and no one would remember he was there, except that the group would stay together because of him.

  And then, right there, holding on to the hand of a half-naked dandy, Alexia discovered the piece of the puzzle she had been missing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ivy’s Agent Doom

  “It was you!”

  It had taken well over two hours to configure the wine cellar of the new house to hold Biffy for the remainder of the evening without damage to either the wine, the cellar, or, most importantly, Biffy. They would have to devise a better long-term solution if he was to take up permanent residence in town. They left Lord Maccon coaching him through the change, arms wrapped about him, gruff voice keeping him calm.

  Alexia had pigeon-holed Lyall and practically dragged him into the back parlor, giving Floote very strict instructions that under no circumstances were they to be disturbed by anyone. Now she was busy waving her parasol wildly in his direction.

  “You’re Agent Doom! How ninnyhammered of me not to have seen it sooner! You rigged the whole thing back then. The whole Kingair attempt. And that was the point, of course, that it should be only an attempt. It was never meant to succeed. The queen was never meant to die. The point was to convince the Kingair Pack to turn against their Alpha, to give him a reason to leave. You needed Conall to come to London so he could challenge Lord Woolsey. The Alpha who had gone mad.” The parasol inscribed ever increasing wiggles in the air in her enthusiasm.

  Professor Lyall turned away, walking to the other side of the room, his soft brown boots making no noise on the carpet. His sandy head was bent only slightly. He spoke to the wall. “You have no idea what a blessing it is, to have a capable Alpha.”

  “And you are Beta. You would do whatever it took to keep your pack together. Even arrange to steal another pack’s leader. Does my husband know what you did?”

  Lyall stiffened.

  Alexia answered her own question. “No, of course he doesn’t know. He needs to trust you. He needs you to be his reliable second just as much as you need him as leader. Telling him would defeat the very action you took; it would disturb the cohesion of your pack.”

  Professor Lyall turned to face her. His hazel eyes were tired, for all they were set in that eternally young face. There was no pleading in them. “Are you going to tell him?”

  “That you were a double agent? That you destroyed his relationship with his old pack, with his best friend, with his homeland, to steal him for Woolsey? I don’t know.” Alexia put a hand to her stomach, suddenly exhausted by the events of the past week. “It would destroy him, I think. Treachery from his Beta, his lynchpin. A second time.”

  She paused, looking him full in the face. “But to keep this information from Conall, to share in your deception? You must know that this puts me in an untenable position as his wife.”

  Professor Lyall avoided her direct gaze, wincing slightly. “I had no choice. You must see that? Lord Maccon was the only werewolf in Britain capable of taking on Lord Woolsey and winning. When Alphas go bad, my lady, it is sickening. All that concentrated attention to pack cohesion and all that protective energy turns rotten—no one is safe. As Beta, I could shield the others but only for so long. Eventually, I knew his psychosis would leak out, encompassing them as well. Such a thing can drive an entire pack to madness. We don’t talk of it. The howlers don’t sing of it. But it occurs. I am not trying to excuse myself, you understand, simply explain.”

  Alexia was still stuck on the horror of having such knowledge when her husband did not. “Who else knows? Who else knew?”

  A knock sounded and then immediately the door crashed open.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, doesn’t anyone wait to be bidden entrance anymore?” cried Alexia in vexation, whirling to face the intruder, parasol quite definitely at the ready. “I said no one was to disturb us!”

  It was Major Channing Chan
ning of the Chesterfield Channings.

  “And what are you doing here?” Lady Maccon’s tone was far from welcoming, but her parasol relaxed into a safer position.

  “Biffy is missing!”

  “Yes, yes, you’re late. He turned up next door, got into a tussle with Lord Akeldama, and now Conall has him down in the wine cellar.”

  The Gamma paused. “You have a crazed werewolf in your wine cellar?”

  “You can think of a better place to stash him?”

  “What about the wine?”

  Lady Maccon abruptly lost interest in dealing with her husband’s Gamma. She turned back to Professor Lyall, who was looking cowed. “Does he know?”

  “Me? Know what?” Channing’s beautiful ice-blue eyes were the picture of innocence. But his eyelids flickered as he took in Alexia’s militant attitude and Professor Lyall’s intimidated demeanor, the latter as out of character as the former was standard. Everyone was accustomed to Professor Lyall skulking about in the background, but he did that with an air of quiet confidence, not shame.

  The major looked back and forth between the two, but instead of leaving them to their private discourse, he turned, slammed the door, and wedged a seat under the handle.

  “Lyall, your disruptor, if you would?”

  Professor Lyall reached into his waistcoat and pulled out a harmonic auditory resonance disruptor. He tossed the small crystal device to Channing, who set it atop the chair in front of the door and then quickly flicked the two tuning forks, activating the discordant humming.

  Only then did he approach Lady Maccon. “What do I know?” He asked it as though he could predict her answer.

  Alexia looked at Lyall.

  Channing cocked his head. “Is this about the past? I told you no good could come of your meddling.”

  Lyall raised his head, smelling the air. Then he turned to look at Channing.

  For the first time, Alexia realized the two men were probably old friends. Sometime enemies, of course, but only in the manner of those who have been too long in each other’s company, possibly centuries. These two had known each other far longer than either had known Lord Maccon.