Let the Storm In

Squinting in the purposefully dimmed light of the apartment, Grey studied the level of brandy in the bottle. He clucked his tongue as just a teaspoon of the stuff rolled down into the bottom corner of the bottle. Thick as syrup, although the darkness of the glass hid that from the man sitting across from him at the coffee table. ”All out,” he told him on a chuckle. ”You can hold your liquor, I’ll give you that Mr. Harris. Lemme get another bottle. Can’t do business over an empty glass, ‘s bad luck.” He let just a faint slur into his face, the accent roughening.

Grey pushed up from the couch, laughing as he wobbled faintly. He bobbed his brow as Harris shot a hand out to steady him. ”Maybe we should change to something lu … light … lighter.” More of a slur there in the man’s – wolf’s – voice.

He peeled Harris’ fingers away from his arm, tucking his hand neatly back into his lap. Grey rounded the couch, his fingers tightening on the neck of the bottle, the other hand coming down to clap against Harris’ shoulder. The man grunted, head lolling back, but he was mostly out as Grey recovered his balance to stroll across to the kitchen. The brandy bottle and its remnant of doctored brandy set down lightly on the counter. He curled his fingers in, extracting the empty vial. Its syrupy contents had gone into Harris’ glass each time. Slipping down easy with the brandy that would’ve got most drunk with the scent alone. Not him and not the wolf.

Oh, he’d clocked him the moment he’d approached the desk that afternoon. The little suitcase clattering along the marble floor. A smarmy smile that sharpened just enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck as the man leaned in to the counter. If Cat had been there she’d have been the one to greet him with a smile, her fingers calling up the line to him the minute Harris had headed up to his room. She wasn’t here though, it was his own gut he’d gone on. Grey had leaned to rely on that years ago. It rarely steered him wrong.

Stalking back without the bottle he’d slid Harris’ wallet out of his pocket. The drugged man grumbled something, but there was nothing intelligible in it. Probably a threat, a promise to kill him before he went down first. ”Sorry, Charlie,” Grey crooned as he looked at the receipt. Crumpled, the £6.40 Harris had paid for the two pints drawing a whistle out of him. The Foresters Arms. Right in the middle of the village. ”Surprised they didn’t tell you to strip everything down before you walked in. Never know what’s gonna get you caught.” Another grunt from the wolf. Grey dropped the receipt in the man’s lap. Damned.

His ritual wasn’t as flashy as some but there was a pounding in his ears as he pulled the coil of wire from his pocket. It slinked around Charlie’s neck, bit at his fingers as he hauled on it. The wolf seemed to half wake then, clawing at his arms as he tried to escape the choking noose of wire. Grey roared as the wolf’s claws sprang out, one raking a line of fire down his forearm. He hauled harder, had Charlie bowed back like he’d snap when the lift doors pinged open.

Chest heaving, Grey watched as Cat stepped into the apartment. Eyes going wide, not a word slipping out of her mouth before she was spinning away. ”Cat!” Her voice snapped out before he let go of the wire. Charlie flopped onto the couch like a landed fish as he bolted after her. Hands slapped against the door seconds after they slid shut. She wasn’t meant to see, wasn’t meant to know but the world was being blown wide open by Leah’s presence here. First Des, then her …

”Bastard.” The word emerged on a rasp as the wolf levered himself up. Blue eyes flashed at him as he turned away. He’d already seen the light above the doors stop two floors below. Cat’s suite. Not running yet.

Grey clucked his tongue, stalking back, angrier now. Charlie had made a mistake coming for him, he’d made another throwing that word at him. In one vicious move, the two of them clashed.

Ten minutes later it was over. Cloth wrapped around his forearm, Grey stepped out of the lift onto Cat’s floor. The lights overhead were dark, glass crunching under foot the same way it had in his room. He sank teeth into his upper lip as he tapped his master code into the lock on the door. She had to have expected he would. Cat wasn’t waving a knife in his direction as he stepped in though, she was out on the terrace instead.

Bypassing the decanter, he stepped lightly into the open doorway. The air was cool enough to have a shudder rolling through him. He looked up at her from under his lashes. ”I didn’t know you were comin’ back,” he said lightly, like that would explain everything. ”You weren’t meant to…” He gestured over his shoulder like it would explain it. Both hands slid into view then, the pale cloth visible, wrapped around the left as he held his hands up. ”I’m not gonna hurt you. I wouldn’t have hurt him either but … it was me or him, Cat.” Like it had been a dozen times before. This was never going to be over for the pack until either he was dead or he had put a stop to everything and for that he needed the druid, he needed the curse gone.

Tagged: CATIA MCKENNA * Word Count: 956

She could have taken off, probably should’ve done considering what she’d walked in on. The only sign of where Cat had gone was that light that had stuck tight two floors below his own, and the crunch of glass beneath his shoes as Grey stepped out of the lift on the same floor minutes later. He approached slowly, arm stinging, eyes fixed on the door to her suite, wary. For years all Cat had seen was the tip of the iceberg, the public face of the man who’d killed more than a dozen already. She’d shown him every part of her life, had leaned on his shoulder, whispered those strange half truths that anybody else would’ve seen as a hysterical woman’s babblings. Cat hadn’t been crazy, she’d seen.

That psychic streak hadn’t revealed a bit of what he was even when she’d been the one feeding information to him. It was all locked away behind codes and elevator doors. Blood and bodies cleaned up before she could see a thing. If she’d had questions about guests going missing she’d kept them to herself, discreet to the bone. Loyal too, maybe that was what had kept her here now when anybody else would’ve ridden the wave of that hysteria and run for the kills, screaming for the sheriff on their way out. Forbes wouldn’t have found anything of course, he’d always been more careful than that.

Not tonight though.

Was it comfort? Grey felt the first stirrings of the opposite as he unlocked Catia’s door and inched in. The lights were out, she could’ve sprung something on him, raked at him with her nails as she fought the friend turned murderer who might’ve been coming for her too, but he could see her out there on the balcony, light painting the edges of her silver, glinting back from the glass in her hands. Those familiar dark eyes turned on him eventually, earning a huff out of him that might’ve been edged with dark humour. ”Definitely. You were always so damn careful about knocking before. Guess there’s always a first time right?” In most cases like this a last too but there was no wire wrapped around his hands, stinging as he pulled it taut and it bit at his skin, now.

A muscle in Grey’s jaw flickered with the tension in his smile as he glanced at where she was looking. No concern about the guy upstairs, whether or not he was dead – although it had to have been a reasonable assumption given that he was down here and Charlie hadn’t screamed his way through the hotel as he escaped. ”To my arm or with everything?” he asked. Grey stepped slowly down from the sill of the door as Catia gestured, another of those huffs, like he didn’t have the energy for a full laugh emerging. ”I can’t bump off my best employee, who else would put up with my shit.” Who else would keep their mouth shut about the weird shit going on for years or sit and calmly wait for an explanation when what they thought they knew took a dark turn.

Grey adjusted the towel around his arm as he sank down in the chair. He could’ve had it healing in minutes with his abilities – hard won from that tangled series of sacrifices that interspersed the more necessary deaths – but there’d been other matters to deal with. ”Not every day you see your boss throttlin’ a guy?” Still, Cat had taken it remarkably well. He glanced up from his arm as she bustled away, shaking his head but she was already back in the suite that had been set up for her in her absence, everything the same way she’d had it in their last branch. ”You don’t have to … it’ll …. Thanks.” Another explanation that was going to have to wait.

He sank his teeth into his lower lip as he peeled back the towel, revealing the ragged, raw claw marks scored between elbow and wrist – luckily not deep enough to sever an artery. ”Same reason a half dozen did before,” he said simply. ”A little trouble from back home. People who aren’t gonna settle until they’ve bumped me off. You didn’t … notice anything before?” He squinted at her as he asked. There had to have been signs there before, little things that couldn’t be explained as easily as he tried.

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Was there a finite amount of good luck? The scales had tipped towards it after that first motel in New York. The Alpha’s people kept coming, sacrificed one at a time to try and finally erase the Maddox family line from existence, but everything else had continued to build around it. Solid bedrock his life would grow on, no way for the pack to destroy it. Grey had never imagined he was gonna be his own downfall. He wasn’t Malcolm, he knew that everything he was doing here was right. This was his chance to wipe all of that out, if he could stop the ground from crumbling out from beneath him first. This wasn’t gonna be for nothing.

The next, possibly crushing, blow with that life destroying hammer was in Cat’s hands now. Grey had eased into her apartment like she’d swing it at any moment but it hadn’t exactly been the reaction he was expecting. She was laughing at his wry words. ”Let’s make it the first and only time, hmm?” he suggested with a hitch of his brows. It wasn’t like there was much else as explosive in his life for her to see – barring Leah. It might not take long for his sister to come sniffing around again, to lay hands on the throat of the only other person he was remotely connected to.

Had Catia been expecting his hands around her throat? The bite of the wire? She was watching him, but not with the wide eyes of someone terrified of what he was about to do. He’d seen that fear in others, he knew exactly what it looked like.

Grey glanced down at his arm, studying the spots where his blood was blooming through the towel. It would be as though he’d never been touched in a day or two. Sacrifice the right people and even the worst wounds ended up barely a scratch – unless a wolflet got lucky and stopped your heart with enough juice. He could’ve gone to Destiny again, watched that light of hers fill up under his skin until he was basking in that healing glow. ”He took his chance when you arrived. It’s a few scratches, I think I’m gonna live.” He would live, neither the pack or his bitch sister was taking him down that easily. When you had the life you wanted you fought for it … but you didn’t always kill for it.

He was pretty sure he didn’t have to say it aloud but Grey had done anyway. It wasn’t just about finding someone new to serve as his right hand man – or woman – Catia hadn’t ever just been an employee. Grey made a small sound in his throat as she reiterated that she wasn’t going anywhere, the line of his mouth quirking to a tight smile. ”Anybody else wouldn’t have known me, not the way you do.” At the mention of an explanation he bobbed his head. Maybe his throat had gone a little dry but it took something out of your to pull that sort of truth out. He’d done it with Destiny to repair what Leah had shattered between them, he could do it again. Cat would allow him that. As a friend.

Humour and appreciation worked their way across Grey’s face as she slipped away to fetch the first aid kit, replaced for a moment by that hint of confusion. Even as a friend she was taking this better than he’d expected, her loyalty, her trust, probably more than most would have said he deserved after all he’d done. He followed every move she made she as she came back, eyes only dropping to his arm when he saw her cringe at the sight of those claw marks. Grey raked teeth over his lower lip as he shook his head. ”They’ll just get in the way of it healing … next week you’re not even gonna know … son of a bitch!” Eyes watering, Grey raised his other hand, warding off any chiding over his curse. It’d heal but it didn’t mean it wasn’t gonna sting like a bitch for now.

Through that thin sheen of pain he let out a tight laugh. Don’t kill me. Was it gonna be a running joke now? If so he was gonna call too soon on it for the moment – the body upstairs wasn’t even cold yet after all. Stained breaths rolled in and out, the pain nothing near the level it had hit when the wolf had fried his chest. Then the pain had been washed away in the purity of Tinkerbell’s light. Grey blinked at Cat as she looked back up, like she was checking he actually wanted to hear before she said. ”I wouldn’t have blamed you for poking … you always told me everything … I had all this going on and you didn’t ask once.” Because she was loyal, because she trusted. It was a miracle she did. He flexed his hand as she wrapped the bandage around his forearm, tucking the edges away to keep it in place. ”You never said. That’s all the …” His question tailed off as he used his other hand to gesture at his head, like he meant hers. The psychic powers that seemed to erupt right around Cameron’s death. ”You gonna pour me one too?” The softer edge was back in his voice, the ease that had slowly come with the years they’d spent building the Grey Haven empire.

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Boring and predictable – not while the pack was still out there. Not while Leah lurked like a bad smell, just ready to choke off his life. The possibility of it, so small it was barely calculable, brought a flicker of a smile to Grey’s lips as Catia got up to get the first aid kit. His dark brows knotted while she was gone, pale eyes flickering back and forth between the view from the terrace to the blood welling up in the claw marks on his arm. Just a year ago he’d thought peace was going to come when he finally broke the curse and killed the druid, but now the list of problems were growing and he just had more and more to protect here.

Before he’d have wrapped the wound with whatever was at hand and got rid of the body. Only after would he have sunk down on the sofa upstairs, a drink in hand, those words in an ancient language murmured while he poured herbs and the abilities he possessed thanks to the sacrifices into the torn flesh. In a couple of days nobody would’ve been able to pick out where the wounds had been on his flesh. No scar, no tell tale mark for the next wolf to see. Grey’s fingers twitched as he let out that huff of humour. ”It’s a long list. This … this isn’t even top of it, although, if you ever need another job, you might think about nursing.” Not that she would. If this wasn’t scaring Cat off, he doubted anything was going to.

Murder. Super healing. The revelation that he was some sort of supernatural thing that was so much more dangerous than being a psychic. Had Catia seen this coming the same way she had her boyfriend’s death? Probably not.

Grey grunted, his teeth sinking into his lower lip hard enough to have it blanching. His gaze flicked back to Catia before he lifted his chin up, like he was indicating upstairs. ”It’s a combination thing. You end up sacrificing the right people and you get, you know, juiced up in certain ways. Healing, extra smarts, extra strength…” The ability to cover up just whoever you were with an extra powerful glamour. All the things a growing darach needed to protect themselves … and others. Like Destiny.

Cat’s life had butted up against his for so long. He’d seen her at her lowest and she must’ve thought she was seeing everything in his. Maybe she’d realised there was more to it all than he was letting on, but she hadn’t tried to dig through the wall he kept up. He’d appreciated it, although that made this all the more difficult to negotiate. He rubbed his fingertips together, feeling the faint sting beneath the bandage. It wouldn’t be long before it turned into the itch of healing. ”Still wouldn’t have stopped most people,” Grey said lightly. ”This stuff was goin’ right on under your nose.” She’d seen something, but until it was right there in her face she’d not taken a good look at it. It was probably a miracle she hadn’t.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t had her own things going on. Her fiancé dying had put a major crimp in things for her. Grey swallowed, focusing on the bottle for a moment to avoid looking in Cat’s eyes. How close had he come to something like that when Destiny had turned up in his apartment with those finger marks on her neck? Too close. So close that he couldn’t just let Leah carry on skulking out there. ”Like you stopped yourself diggin’ around in my head?” It hadn’t been telepathy that had shown her the premonition of Cameron’s death though. As she told him to pour for himself, Grey pouted. He reached out and took the glass with his uninjured hand. ”I’m an invalid, you know,” he grumped. The liquor went down easy at least. Grey tapped his fingers against the side of the glass as he looked at her over its rim. ”Was it telepathy with Cameron?” Maybe he shouldn’t have brought that up but if they were getting all of this out in the open, he wanted to know the full limits of it all.

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Grey looked up from the bandage on his arm to Catia, a half smile playing over his lips. He wasn’t about to layer on the truth too thickly of what those sacrifices had brought him by explaining the rapid healing. Hopefully by the time she saw his forearm again the shock of this – what little there had been – would already have slipped away. The story peeled away like layers on an onion, most of it just as noxious. He knew now that Catia could handle it though, even if it did sting her eyes or sending her running for a time. She wouldn’t take what he’d told her to anybody and get him in real trouble. She was a friend – the first one he could actually have called that, which felt strange as hell still.

When she could’ve dug into his head, like one of those things kids smashed the sweets out of, Catia had restrained herself. That was respect, something he returned, even if it had only been to her for a time. He’d done the same to her, although Catia had always shared far more with him about who she was, what she was. ”I always figured it was protecting you as much as it was me. Saved you being torn in two about doing something about what was going on.” There’d been no guarantee that Catia was going to be this OK with it all. In fact that was still a surprise now, but one he’d take when he had Destiny to protect now too.

A low sound rolled out of Grey – almost embarrassment – as Cat had revealed the signs that things were going on. Not as careful as he thought then. That was going to have to change, especially with Leah in town, ready to exploit any mistake he made. She could bring his life down in ways nobody else could … although maybe Cat would help there. Grey raked his teeth over his lower lip, knowing that was going to be more of an ask than he’d ever made with her. ”It took time to get used to it?” There wasn’t much question there, the training with Malcolm hadn’t been much easier on him, although that had been completely different. ”For everything to settle. I didn’t have much choice with this … although I guess once I was here – in America – I could’ve tried to move away from it all.” And he’d have left himself open to something that likely would’ve killed him long before now. The druids who had done this to his family would’ve finally gotten what they’d wanted – his lineage gone for good. Tough luck, he wasn’t dead yet, just a little dinged up.

He’d never been one to pull out a sob story, but now Grey was snorting over Catia’s chiding. He turned his hand over and back again, picking up his glass without any trouble at all. ”I didn’t say it was instant,” he said, amused. ”I guess I’m not, but you’ve got a soft spot for me anyway.” He’d been there for her through thick and thin, including the loss of her fiancé. His brows furrowed faintly, the whiskey going down easy as Cat told him how her power had fed back into it. ”You saw him die, before he did, though. You knew it was going to happen?” She hadn’t been able to stop it though. Maybe there was no stopping what fate had already planned out for you. Maybe everything happening with Leah now – and Destiny – had been planned out from the start. Wasn’t that grim.

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