Wolf at the Door - By MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,3

everything electronically, right?”

“Mmmm.” This was Rachael’s way of saying, Dammit, I know there’s a flaw in your stupid plan, and when I figure it out, I’m giving you a ground-glass suppository though I will obey you anyway because that’s how we do things around here.

“And you won’t be on twenty-four/seven.”

“On the vampire queen?” Ugh.

He nodded, jerking a gold wave out of his eyes. “If you need to fly back here to meet a client or see one of us or, I dunno, pick apples or something—”

“Pick apples?” When in the blue hell would she ever turn to tourist agriculture? If I kill him, I have to kill Lara, too, and then Jeannie will shoot me in the face, which will ruin everyone’s weekend.

“—someone will keep watch on the queen while you’re gone.”

The flaw! Not only was she being sent away, there would occasionally be a blundering werewolf she didn’t know and probably didn’t want to know stumbling through her rental house, making messes, and generally being a pain in her sometimes-fuzzy hindquarters. When she returned to St. Paul, it would doubtless be to clean up whatever mess he or she left.

Wherever you are, Mother, you’re laughing, aren’t you? Even as an infant, Rachael had disliked having her things moved around. Back then, her only weapons had been poop, pee, and drool, and she had heartlessly wielded them. Mighty had been her poops of wrath.

“The economy’s still pretty bad,” she added with more than a little warning. “You might not have noticed, O Mightily Wealthy Pack Leader, who never once worried about a meal in his spoiled silly life—”

He started to grin, then his gold brows rushed together and he did a credible job of looking stern. Too bad he didn’t smell stern. He could fool the sapiens, he could even fool werewolves who didn’t know him very well. He couldn’t fool family, ever.

She was trying to stay annoyed, but the truth was, she loved Michael Wyndham and would do what he asked, no matter how annoying or time-consuming or stupid or dangerous or irritating or inconvenient.

Her earliest memory was of falling through the ice of a cranberry bog not even two miles from where they were having this annoying conversation. It would have been her last memory, but her tall cousin leaned down with his yellow eyes blazing and, with a mittened hand that held hers so hard he broke two of her fingers, yanked her from the awful cold water and the dreadful freezing sucking mud.

She scowled, hoping to cover her out-of-character sentimental journey. She would do as he asked but had no interest in making the asking part easier for him.

He saw her look and again held up placating hands. “Aw, Rache, give me a break. Can’t help it that the Wyndhams have never missed a meal. It’s my fault they went into lumber at the exact right time in the exact right part of the country? You remember Aunt Forcia?”

Rachael made a determined effort not to giggle. Must . . . remain . . . unmoved . . . Must exude . . . hatred . . .

Aunt Forcia had loved sheep. Loooooved them. During full moons, she’d pull down as many as she could and just gorge. Then she’d pass out on the side lawn for a week or so. The cousins had all thought it was hilarious. (The sheep, less so, but it was a werewolf-gobble-sheep world. At least it was in Cape Cod.)

“You know perfectly well you’ll inherit a chunk of our illgotten gains in another generation or so. You’d have it now, even!” At her eye roll, he continued. “Your mom asked me to keep most of it in a trust for you until—”

She knew the parameters of the will and waved that away. Being wealthy was complex and annoying, caused too many questions, and created too much paperwork. She supported herself very well as a CPA. Let the money remain in trust for another decade; she truly did not care. Perhaps if she had cubs someday she would change her mind, but it wasn’t likely: changing her mind, or having cubs.

“Look, even if you weren’t a blood relative, we wouldn’t let your house crumble into ruin, no matter where you were in the world doing your duty for the family, and no matter how long it took.”

“My duty for the family.” She said it in a flat tone. She, like her cousin standing before her, was a werewolf: lupi viri (strictly translated