“He’s Greek?”
“No, he’s annoying.” Bonnie started tugging on her leash, and I took the hint. “Nature calls.”
I almost said duty, but I didn’t want to jinx myself since I didn’t have any doggie poop bags.
“Lee,” he implored, eyes downcast. “I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you to cooperate with the pack, with me, but I do need you to keep me in the loop—in your loop—until we resolve this.” A grin hit his lips. “Think of me as your substitute Bishop.”
“Bishop is part of the team. There are things I could tell him that I can’t tell you.”
“I get that.” He shifted his weight, scuffed a heel. “I only want you to keep me in mind.”
“I’ll do that,” I promised. “Just like you have hard lines, I do too. I won’t cross them.”
“I can’t disobey my alpha,” he confided in a tone that hinted at secrets, and I heard the warning even if I didn’t understand it. “I always follow orders. It’s not a matter of conscience, it’s a physical compulsion for me.”
“Midas isn’t your alpha.”
“Yet.”
“He can exert that level of control over you?”
“The power makes him uncomfortable,” he neither confirmed nor denied. “That’s why he was happy playing second fiddle to his sister, but Lethe squirmed under her mother’s thumb. None of us were much surprised when she started her own pack where she can run things her own way.”
“He didn’t seem all that uncomfortable when he was staring me down last night.”
“Lee, darlin’, had you pulled that stunt with his mother, Tisdale would still be picking you out of her teeth.”
“Well, that’s comforting.” I ran a finger along the collar of my tee, but I had trouble swallowing. “He did say his control was excellent.”
“His position comes with certain…benefits. Midas isn’t fond of those either. He’s used to making eye contact with whomever he likes, so he gets frustrated when folks won’t look back. He snares them, like he did you. That’s why he didn’t punish you. It was his fault, and he knew it.”
Curious about that very topic, I prodded him. “What’s the deal with that anyway?”
“You can make brief eye contact with any pack member, with the exception of the alpha and the heir.” A pause told me he was thinking how to frame the rest. “Friends and lovers earn certain exemptions to the rules over time, but only with the gwyllgi they’re involved with, and only for as long as the relationship lasts.”
“I look at you all the time,” I pointed out. “I’m looking directly into your eyes now, as a matter of fact.”
“We’re friends, remember? I can look at you all day, and you can look right back, and it won’t ruffle that side of me.”
“I thought you said it happens over time? It’s been like twenty-four hours.”
“I’ve watched you for a lot longer.” He tapped the end of my nose. “You just recently made the mistake of letting me wedge my foot in the door is all.”
“Don’t blur the line between friend and stalker, Ford.”
“Gwyllgi don’t stalk.” Ford acted affronted as he escorted me out onto the sidewalk. “We’re not cats.”
Touchy, touchy.
With a promise to touch base soon, I set off under the pretense of walking my dog, which made her kind of handy as far as exit strategies go, then pulled out my cell to text Bishop.
HQ, which was less of a tongue twister than OPA, was fluid. Its location, I mean. Ask anyone on the POA’s team, and they would tell you we have several bases numbered one through twelve scattered throughout the city. They would also admit they had never stepped inside one.
Members of the team, aside from the POA (See what I mean about it being a tongue twister? Or maybe a brain twister. I mean, really. The POA is at the OPA. What’s with all the acronyms?), Bishop, and me, were kept anonymous.
Only Bishop knew their real identities, and he acted as a go-between. Yet another reason why he had been a desk jockey pre-Hadley. Maybe he was grateful I provided an excuse for him to venture out into the world, take a break from his computer screens. Or maybe he hoped I would fail in spectacular fashion, and the POA would remand him back to his techie temple to worship in peace.
I had a more pressing issue on my hands than whether Bishop liked or merely tolerated me. What to do with Bonnie. Only one person could grant her clearance to enter HQ with me, and I regretted there was no choice but to have the conversation in an unsecure location.
“Watch my back,” I told the shadow sniffing around Bonnie, hoping for a contact high. “I need about ten minutes.”
Slinking away, it began canvassing the area while I sucked in a fortifying breath and dialed the POA.
“Hadley.”
Even the way he said my name gave me chills. “Linus.”
Warmth tempered his voice, but it failed to thaw me. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I have a pet. Temporarily. A dog.”
“Congratulations.”
“Um, the thing is, she’s actually a friend’s dog. You know who I mean? The friend with a whole pack of them? So I guess I’m dog-sitting. Kind of.”
Even with Ambrose on the prowl, it was dangerous, so dangerous, to name any names.
“I see.”
“She got stuck, and she’s my responsibility until she gets unstuck.”
“Let me see if I have this straight. A pureblooded gwyllgi under Tisdale’s protection has glamoured itself to appear as a dog who is now in your custody. Did you perform a service for it? Or it for you to create this debt between you?”
Yet another reason why he was scary. He read between lines where air molecules wouldn’t fit.
“A little of both,” I supposed. “She doesn’t like men, so I acted as a buffer. We bonded over it, I guess. She took it personally when one of the cleaners got in my face about procedure. That’s when she…got stuck.”
“She was a witness?”
“She received a tip sent to her boss and followed up personally. We met her on-scene to assess the situation, and…it escalated from there.”
“Necromancers are forbidden to interact with fae.”
Since fae were more or less immortal all on their own—the very nerve!—and therefore required nothing from the Society, the Society viewed them as lesser beings rather than peers or—goddess forbid—superiors.
Our factions indulged in commerce—no surprise considering the Society prized wealth over life, or undeath—but those transactions were handled through specially bonded solicitors who negotiated on behalf of their clients.
“I didn’t knowingly interact with…her, but then it was too late. For what it’s worth, no one outside the, uh, top dogs, are aware of her…condition?” I bit the side of my cheek. “This covert stuff is harder than I thought it would be.”
All the awkward pauses made me sound like I was doing a Captain Kirk impression.
“You need clearance for your guest to accompany you to the meeting?”
“Yeah. That’s why I called in the first place.”