“I should have been there—”
“No,” Ben and I said at once.
“It’s good that you weren’t,” Ben said, finishing the thought for both of us. “It was all werewolves, and you don’t have any guns—it was a mess.”
Cormac considered, then nodded. “Right. Want to tell me what’s happening then?”
“You trust him?” Caleb said. “He’s not one of us.”
“We trust him,” I said, my gaze on Cormac.
“You can’t bring him in on this,” the alpha said.
“If there’s trouble, you’re not leaving me out,” Cormac said.
I wanted to tell Cormac no. To protect him. He would say he was doing the same. We were a pack, right? I looked at Ben, who didn’t seem inclined to argue. But he and Cormac had been a team for a long time. Including him no doubt seemed natural.
“All right, then,” I said. “Introductions: Cormac, this is Caleb, alpha werewolf of the British Isles. Caleb, this is Cormac. He’s—” Words failed me, as they usually did when I tried to describe him.
“He’s family,” Ben said.
They regarded each other, gazes suspicious, yet curious. They both obviously had questions that they weren’t going to ask. That was fine. I just had to be sure I kept myself in between them.
A couple of Ned’s house staff worked at night, natch. The driver, Andy, and one of the housekeepers, Sara. She was in the kitchen; I begged some extra tea and snacks from her, and she seemed happy to provide.
The four of us retreated with our spoils to one of the smaller rooms in the back of the house. It was cozy, with chairs pulled up around a fireplace where a heater had been installed. We could imagine we were alone. The vampires would retreat to a set of basement rooms when dawn came.
“Tell me what happened,” Cormac said.
We explained our evening, talking over each other in a couple of places with our own take on events. The shadow conference of vampires had turned violent, one faction rising up to try to take out Ned. Cormac sat back, listening, hand on his chin.
“My first thought?” Cormac said. “Get out. You’re outnumbered. They got the jump on you once, they’re not going to just stop. You want to stay safe, get out, get home.”
“He’s got a point,” Caleb said. “You’re not so bad after all.”
“You don’t think they’ll just follow us?” Ben said. “Send another posse after us?”
“There’s that. But you’d be on your home turf.”
“Or we could stop them now,” I said. “The plan isn’t to fight. We want to sow a little dissention in the ranks.”
“You’re going to try talking them out of this war of yours, aren’t you?” Cormac said. He held a cup of tea, the vintage china looking out of place in his calloused grip. He wrinkled his nose at the liquid, but drank anyway. Maybe Amelia would help him develop a taste for the stuff.
“It’s not my war,” I muttered. “But yeah.”
“I think she’s got a chance at it,” Caleb said.
“In my experience, werewolves don’t stand still long enough to listen to much talk,” he said, setting the cup down.
“You didn’t see her earlier this week, at the convocation,” Ben said. “I think they were all so surprised they didn’t know which way to jump.”
“Yeah,” the hunter said. “That sounds about right.” Caleb made a gesture as if to say, you see?
“What do you want me to do?” Cormac said.
Stay in the car? “Keep watch? You know the kind of defenses panicking vampires are likely to have. We don’t want any surprises.”
“Just what do you know about panicking vampires?” Caleb asked.