Chapter 7
Nick stood stock still, and for a moment, the room was silent. He rubbed a hand over the five o'clock shadow covering his jaw line. He hadn't slept in days. He collapsed bonelessly back in his chair, looking like he'd aged a hundred years. "We thought she'd lost the baby."
"You son of a bitch!" Luke growled. He rolled to his feet, ready to fight, but Sophia held him back. "You knew! It's just like Richie said. You knocked Dee up and left her to die."
"That is highly inaccurate." Adam retorted. "Richie was misinformed."
"About which part?" Vivian seethed. Her carefully organized composure was belied by the yellow glow in her eyes.
Nick turned to Adam. "We have to tell them the rest, all of it."
Adam's eyes swept over the room and he considered a moment. Finally, he nodded. "Agreed. But just immediate family. Some things are too private to show the whole town."
Vivian nodded. "Done."
"Vee." Matt grumbled.
"I'm still the Alpha here, Matthew. Until re-elections are held or someone takes me down, this is still my house." Vivian crossed her arms across her chest.
"Duly noted." Matt raised his hands. "John and I have plenty of work at the station. But you should still have a protection detail in the house."
"She'll have me. I can take care of my own mother, thanks." Luke growled. "I'm staying."
"And me." Tyler grumbled from the back.
"Not a chance, pal." Nick hissed. His chin jutted out like a bulldog and his eyes glittered with aggression.
Vivian rubbed her hands over her face, exhausted. "Tyler, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. In fact I think it's time we adjourned this meeting as a whole. Adam's right, this is a family matter now. Luke stays and Ruby if she wants to, but the rest of you I will kindly ask to leave. You have my thanks and my sincere promise that I will fill you in on any pertinent information as soon as I have it."
The Donners, Kanin, and MacLeod shuffled out. Sherman laid a comforting hand on Vivian's shoulder as he past. Tyler was harder to extricate.
"I mean it, Tyler." Vivian warned.
"I have a right to be here on behalf of my-"
"We can debate your claim on my daughter later." Vivian rebuked. "Now isn't the time."
"She bears my mark, Vee." Tyler countered. "Both of them."
Vivian's eyes flared yellow.
"Do you bear hers?" Adam asked casually.
"What?" Tyler whirled on Adam.
"You said," Adam continued. "Deirdre bears your mark. If you really are the Red Wolf, then we've all seen that mark. It's incontestable. But for a mating to be valid, it must be mutual. Wolves must mark and consummate their conquest mutually. And as you and Deirdre have hardly had time to consummate anything, your claim stands on the Mark. So I repeat, do you bear hers?"
Tyler's nostrils flared. Adam smirked. "I'll take that as a no."
"What would you know about it, Ungulate?" Tyler growled, getting up in Adam's face.
In response, Adam pulled his shirt to the side exposing a patch of slightly darker skin just over his collar bone. "Gloria claimed me as her mate. It wasn't easy, either. I have a durable hide. It's one of very few marks that has stuck around."
Nick piped up. "Are you saying that a mark like that one means a wolf has claimed you as their mate?"
Ruby nodded. "It's a visual and scent marker to the rest of the pack that identifies the claim."
"And if he doesn't have it?" Nick gave one of his snarky dangerous smirks.
Tyler's warning growl was gaining in volume. Luke answered sidled up to him, spoiling for a fight. "If he doesn't have it, he can get the hell out."
"Indeed," Adam smiled serenely into Tyler's reddening face. "Mr. Boyle?"
Nick nodded and pulled aside the neckline of his t-shirt revealing a mark similar to Adam's. All heads spun to him. Vivian lightly touched his shoulder. Nick allowed her to step closer and Vivian bent her head to the mark, inhaling deeply. Her daughter's scent had permeated the man's flesh, becoming an undernote to his own musky aroma.
Vivian was taken aback for a moment. Deirdre knew nothing of the ways of the Wolven. She'd been raised completely separately. Yet instinct had driven her to claim this man, this human man, as her own. Vivian composed herself quickly.
"Deirdre's claim is acknowledged."
"Vee." Tyler grumbled. But Vivian was tired, and she was having none of it.
"On a probationary basis, I will acknowledge my daughter's claim on Mr. Boyle until Deirdre herself offers explanation or denial. The matter is settled, Tyler. Go home."
Tyler glared deep into Nick's eyes and then Adam's before spinning on his heel and exiting the house.
"Well that guy is a piece of work." Nick grunted, relaxing.
"You've never been married to him." Ruby retorted.
Vivian rolled her eyes at both of them and turned to Adam. "You were about to offer explanations?"
Adam grabbed his rucksack, nodded and stepped behind Vivian's desk. "I'll need the use of your computer."
"Of course." Vivian nodded sagely. "Why?"
Nick took up the narrative. "After what happened in London, Deirdre and I and the rest of my Legacy colleagues parted ways. We returned to San Francisco, while Adam and Deirdre moved on their villa in Paris."
"Your villa in Paris?" Ruby raised an eyebrow.
Adam rolled his eyes and fiddled with wires he was running from the computer to Vivian's television. "It was really just a flat of apartments near the Seine. We were on holiday on our way to Tibet. I have friends with a temple sanctuary where Deirdre could meditate and learn about her new abilities."
"Anyway, a couple of weeks back in the saddle in the Bay area, and I get a call from Deirdre. She was terrified, mumbling about how a bunch of werewolves had attacked the villa. She was able to make it out, but she was convinced that Adam was dead." Nick took a deep breath in. "That's when she told me that she was pregnant. I didn't even have to ask. I knew the baby was mine. I asked Dee what her location was, and we came up with a retrieval plan. I was on the next plane out of San Francisco."
Luke scoffed. "Okay, say we believe that. Why did Deirdre think that Doc was dead?"
"When we arrived in Paris, we didn't arrive unnoticed." Adam explained, tapping away on Vivian's keyboard. "The Watcher's Council keeps track of the movements of its Slayers even if they are not actively supervising them. Someone tipped off Travers, and the bastard decided to initiate The Cruciamentum."
"The Cruciamentum?" Ruby asked.
Adam nodded. "Short for Tento di Cruciamentum. It's an archaic right of passage whereby, upon turning eighteen, a Slayer is drugged into helplessness by her Watcher and made to fight some worthy but seemingly unbeatable foe."
"That's despicable!" Ruby gasped.
Vivian snarled. "And I take it you did not agree with this 'right of passage'?"
"She's made it to adulthood, therefore she must be made to fight harder to keep her right to live?" Adam rolled his eyes. "It's ridiculous."
"But Travers didn't share your disdain for the practice?" Vivian prompted.
"Evidently not." Adam confirmed. "He had her darted with the weakening serum while she was out patrolling one night. Dee had an adverse reaction to the serum that forced her to Flip. She had to find a secluded alley, and when the mixture wore off an hour later, she was seen running naked in human form up the Champs Elysees. Luckily no one saw her shift one way or the other, but it was a near thing."
"By that time she'd been sick so many mornings that she'd taken a pregnancy test, and it came up positive. With the forced Flip, we knew something wasn't kosher. So Deirdre was in the process of calling Mr. Boyle when the French wolves stormed our flat. Brutal sons of bitches lead by Jean Chastel, La Bête du Gévaudan."
Luke noticed his mother wince at the name. Adam continued tapping and talking.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Travers siced Chastel on Deirdre neither knowing nor caring about her delicate condition. But we've had an escape plan worked out since she was ten. She was able to grab a go bag and get away while I held them off."
"While you held them off?" Vivian scoffed, looking him up and down.
Adam gave her a half offended smirk. "I'm more durable than I look."
"Then why did Dee think you died in the attack?" Luke repeated.
Adam shifted uncomfortably. "There was a lightning storm that night, and the power went out. She must have assumed…"
Ruby nodded as Adam trailed off. "She must have assumed the wolves were better in the dark then you were."
"That's one theory." Adam conceded.
"So Dee was running scared, away from a whole pack of French wolves." Luke talked as he paced. "She hops a bus to Switzerland and calls Nick. Then what?"
"We set up an extraction plan." Nick answered. "She was still being chased. So it took a couple of tries. Dee kept heading west but I kept missing her. She'd hitch a ride to Italy, but I'd miss her in Milan. We'd set up a meet in Croatia but she'd get jumped in Zagreb. The last time I saw her in person before last night was in Budapest. We set a meetup at the Keleti Railway Station. I was just a few feet away from Deirdre. I called out to her. She turned, and it looked like I was finally going to get to hold her again. She was already starting to show."
Nick got choked up for a moment before continuing. "But at the last second her eyes went wide. She turned and bolted onto a departing passenger car. It was only after that I saw the shady French thugs that were chasing her get onto the next car. By then, the train left the station and there was nothing I could do."
Vivian gave him a sympathetic look, but prodded. "And Romania?"
"That was Stanton's idea." Nick replied. "He's the Head of the Legacy's Ruling House in London. Derek was keeping him apprised of the situation and Stanton suggested that Deirdre take shelter at the Legacy House in Bucharest. The next time Dee called in, I missed the call. She got forwarded to the San Francisco house's landline and my colleague Alex Moreau relayed the instructions for Dee to head to Romania."
"As far as we know," Adam interjected. "Romania is where it all went south."
Adam tapped a few final keys on the keyboard and a bright set of images sprang up on Vivian's television. The ones at the top showed a "before" picture of a huge stone castle with sharply pointed spires. Another showed a lavishly decorated interior and a number of faces of people in stylish business attire popped up alongside.
Adam let them all examine the photos for a moment, then tapped a key and a video appeared on the screen pasted over the pictures. It was a foreign language newscast. And though the Cates's couldn't understand the Romanian newscaster, the aerial shots of the castle engulfed in flames were self-explanatory.
Vivian's eyes went wide. "She was inside?"
Adam nodded. "That's what we thought initially."
"Adam contacted and met me in Hungary after the train incident." Nick finished. "By the time we got to the Bucharest House, the fires had already been extinguished. We found bodies of all the house members burnt to a crisp. There were some remains in the basement and they took a while to identify. The Romanian police were all too happy to let the Legacy step in to take over the investigation."
"History has shown them that what they don't understand can hurt them." Adam theorised.
"Anyway," Nick sighed. "Stanton brought in a team and along with Adam and me, we were able to determine that they belonged to the house Prefect, Daniela Ionescu, and three unidentified werewolves. From the size, Adam figured that they were some of Chastel's."
"French wolves of legend are smaller than Walachian breeds." Adam offered.
Vivian nodded. "So the wolves chased Deirdre to the Bucharest House, but found the regular occupants instead. And, what, torched the place?"
Adam and Nick exchanged a dire look. Adam shook his head. "Not exactly. Stanton's team was able to recover this from what was left of the house's security footage."
Another tap on the keys brought a grainy black and white picture to the screen. There was no sound. In the background, a badly injured woman in a pantsuit was lying on the cement floor of what looked like a hospital room. The naked and half furry bodies of dismembered werewolves lay scattered around her. Deirdre was standing with her back to the camera. The two women were clearly arguing. Deirdre lifted her arm and a light flared in her hand. A match. Dee threw it at the woman's feet, and the floor erupted in flames. The image distorted before cutting out completely.
The occupants of Vivian's office were silent for a moment. Luke was the first to speak.
"Deirdre torched the place?" Luke sputtered. "With people in it? That doesn't make any sense."
Adam nodded. "That's what I said. I tried to get access to the security system to see if I could get any more off of it. Anything that would explain why Deirdre would set fire to a house full of allies. But Stanton had already made up his mind."
"He charged her with the murders of the Bucharest House members. Attack on any one Legacy House is treated as an attack on the Legacy as a whole." Nick said. "When we weren't able to find Dee's remains in the wreckage, Stanton put out a kill or capture order on her."
"You're saying that both the Watcher's Council and the Legacy were trying to kill my daughter?" Vivian growled.
"Not were." Adam corrected. "Are. At last report Stanton contacted Quentin Travers personally, there is now a joint task force combing Europe for Deirdre Pierson."
"And you two?" Ruby's eyes narrowed.
"When Macleod called me to let me know that Deirdre was in hospital in Wolf Lake, Nick and I picked a fight with Stanton." Adam smirked.
"We were very convincing." Nick nodded. "Stanton ordered us back to San Francisco. Derek is covering for us. As far as the heads of the Watcher's or the Legacy know, we're in California right now. And Deirdre is still MIA."
"And how long is that going to last?" Luke asked.
"Not long I'd wager." Adam replied. "So we are now under the gun, ladies and gentlemen. We need to find out what really happened to Deirdre in the Bucharest House, and what made her want to commit arson. In the meantime, we need to run interference to make bloody well sure Stanton and Travers stay the hell away from Wolf Lake."
Vivian rounded her desk and picked up the phone.
"Who are you calling?" Luke asked.
"Matt." Vivian replied. "He needs to know that we may have another fight headed our way. We need to come up with a plan of action."
"Evacuation?" Ruby offered.
"I'm not ruling that out. But it's a last resort." Vivian breathed. "In the meantime, it might be time for you and Sophia to attempt another stroll around Deirdre's subconscious."