“If the hat fits.”
Rue had never before seen Paw so quickly cowed.
Everyone was calming down. The vampires and drones beetled off to their nearby hive under Percy’s annoyed instructions. Although, no doubt, one or two remained in the shadows to observe. The pack stayed, assembling in a loose circle of lupine curiosity. They seemed particularly fascinated by Tasherit. With regal cat superiority, she took the attention as her due and ignored them.
A touch at the top of Rue’s head distracted her.
Quesnel had his hand buried there and was idly combing through her fur.
“You’re so soft.” He tugged a bit at her long silky ears and she flicked them at him.
He’d ridden her in the past. A fact she had carefully not told her parents; it seemed oddly intimate. But those had been necessarily hurried exploits. She had hoped to practise more, to give him some real training in wolfback riding. The twins were both skilled in the matter, and Quesnel had felt left out. But then he disappeared to Egypt.
“Get your greasy hands off my daughter,” yelled Lord Maccon.
The petting stopped.
Rue instantly missed it.
“What is going on here?” Uncle Rabiffano strode onto the croquet green.
He was so very stylishly pulled together; everyone around him immediately became aware of how disreputable they looked. Lady Maccon’s hands went to her hair, which was still up but full of flyaways. Lord Maccon reached self-consciously for his cravat knot. The other werewolves all looked guilty – cognisant of ruffled fur, scrapes, and the need to bathe.
Uncle Rabiffano’s elegant dancer’s stride ate up the distance until he came to a stop in front of Paw.
Lord Maccon tried to recover the conversational ground. “What are you doing here, Beta?”
Uncle Rabiffano shook his head in a short negation, eyebrows raised. “Delivering a hat to Baroness Tunstell, of course. The real question is, what are you” – one graceful hand took in the amassed pack – “all of you, doing here?”
Lady Maccon stepped in. “Biffy, darling, let me explain.”
Uncle Rabiffano glanced briefly at her. “Oh, I can guess what is going on. Not the particulars, but I know why this is happening.”
He turned his back on Rue’s mother, pointedly, and she winced.
Rue’s jaw dropped, and because she was a wolf, her tongue lolled out. No one, no one dismissed Lady Maccon. Certainly not Uncle Rabiffano. They were friends. Good friends, Rue had thought.
Uncle Rabiffano faced Lord Maccon, fighting stance now, not dancer’s. “You’ve trained me up. I’m not going to be any more ready. It’s time to let go.”
Paw looked sad and militant at the same time.
Uncle Rabiffano tossed back a lock of hair. He had been made werewolf shortly before Rue was born. She wasn’t familiar with the particulars – no one liked to talk about it – but there was some scandal surrounding his metamorphosis. But it still meant he must be at least forty years old. Yet, in that brief moment, he looked exceedingly young and frightened.
He confronted her Paw. Her mortal Paw, as if… what?
Rue struggled to understand. As if he intends to challenge for leadership.
Uncle Rabiffano took a breath to steady his tone, and spoke again – low and level, strong and clear. Stage training perhaps, or a singer? Rue didn’t know what his art had been. She didn’t know anything about Uncle Rabiffano before he became Uncle Rabiffano.
“I don’t want to fight you, Conall.”
First names. Equal footing.
Paw lifted his head. Anger slashed red across his cheeks.
What is going on? What is Uncle Rabiffano doing? It hummed as a litany through Rue’s brain.
“You promised I wouldn’t have to fight you.” Uncle Rabiffano’s words vibrated with both power and pleading. “You promised this would be a smooth transition. I don’t know if I’m ready. You don’t know. They don’t know. But that is irrelevant to the fact that you must let us go now. You can’t hold them any more. And you can’t stop me from wanting. I can feel the tethers fraying. It’s not only you who will go mad – it’s all of us. Don’t you see that? I’m compelled to stop it. I will fight you for it, because it’s no longer an option. It’s stupid, and it’s brutish, but it’s instinct. And you were the one who taught me to accept instinct.”
Perhaps it was because Rue held his shape, but Paw didn’t react in the way she thought he would. Uncle Rabiffano’s words were a direct attack that no normal Alpha would tolerate. But Paw remained standing quietly before him. Yes, he looked angry but he also looked abashed.
I don’t like this, wailed Rue to herself.
Sensing her distress, Quesnel’s hand returned to her head. He didn’t pet her this time, simply rested it there.
Paw didn’t notice. He was focused on Uncle Rabiffano.
Mother didn’t notice either. She was focused on Paw.
The pack sat, still as stone, waiting.
It was as though the world held its breath; even the sounds of London faded.
Then Uncle Rabiffano changed. Not to werewolf form, not completely. No, only his head shifted. Above his perfectly tied cravat and starched white collar, above the dapper grey suit with its smooth lapel, his sweet boyish face became a dark wolf’s head.
Anubis form. Rue had seen her father do it. But that means…
Quesnel’s gasp cut into the silence.
Only Alphas have Anubis form. Rue stared, riveted, dumbfounded. Anubis was for bite to breed; it was Alpha’s gift to go with the curse. It was rare even so. Paw had Anubis. And Lady Kingair. And, Rue thought, mind drifting in shock, three other Alphas in England that she knew of but not Uncle Rabiffano. He was Paw’s Beta. He was Beta by feeling too: calm and relaxed and easy-going. Always there to foil his Alpha, to balance the pack. Except, of course, that Uncle Rabiffano hadn’t been. Not really. He’d simply been in the background and then off to his hat shop.