He walked softly across the room and handed it to Alexia. “I have the rest as well, from 1845 on. He left them to me on purpose. I wasn’t keeping them intentionally away from you.”
Alexia could think of nothing whatsoever to say. The silence stretched until finally she asked, “The ones from after he abandoned my mother?”
“And from when you were born.” The Beta’s face was a study in impassivity. “But this one was his last. I like to keep it with me. A reminder.” A whisper of a smile crossed that deadpan face, the kind of smile one sees at funerals. “He didn’t have an opportunity to finish it.”
Alexia flipped the journal open, glancing over the scribbled text within. The little book was barely half full. Lines jumped out at her, details of a love affair that had altered everyone involved. Only as she read did the full scope of the ramifications come into focus. It was rather like being broadsided by a Christmas ham.
Winter 1848—for a while he walked with a limp but would not tell me why,
said one entry. Another, from the following spring, read:
There is talk of a theater trip on the morrow. He will not be permitted to attend, of that I am convinced. Yet we both pretended he would accompany me and that we should laugh together at the follies of society.
For all the tight control of the penmanship, Alexia could read the tension and the fear behind her father’s words. As the entries progressed, some of his sentences turned her stomach with their brutal honesty.
The bruises are on his face now and so deep sometimes I wonder if they will ever heal, even with all his supernatural abilities.
She looked up at Lyall, attempting to appreciate all the implications. Trying to see bruises almost twenty-five years gone. From the stillness in his face, she supposed they might be there—well hidden, but there.
“Read the last entry,” he suggested gently. “Go on.”
June 23, 1850
It is full moon tonight. He is not going to come. Tonight all his wounds will be self-inflicted. Time was once, he would spend such nights with me. Now there is no surety left for any of them except in his presence. He is holding his whole world together by merely enduring. He has asked me to wait. Yet I do not have the patience of an immortal, and I will do anything to stop his suffering. Anything. In the end it comes to one thing. I hunt. It is what I am best at. I am better at hunting than I am at loving.
Alexia closed the book. Her face was wet. “You’re the one he’s writing about. The one who was maltreated.”
Professor Lyall said nothing. He didn’t need to respond. Alexia was not asking a question.
She looked away from him, finding the brocade of a nearby curtain quite fascinating. “The previous Alpha really was insane.”
Channing strode over to Professor Lyall and placed a hand on his arm. No more sympathy than that. It seemed sufficient. “Randolph didn’t even tell Sandy the worst of it.”
Professor Lyall said softly, “He was so old. Things go fuzzy with Alphas when they get old.”
“Yes, but he—”
Lyall looked up. “Unnecessary, Channing. Lady Maccon is still a lady. Remember your manners.”
Alexia turned the small slim volume over in her hand—the end of her father’s life. “What really happened to him, at the last?”
“He went after our Alpha.” Professor Lyall removed his spectacles as though to clean them, but then seemed to forget he had done so. The glasses dangled from his fingers, glinting in the gas lamplight.
Channing seemed to feel further explanation was necessary. “He was good, your father, very good. He’d been trained by the Templars for one purpose and one purpose only—to hunt down and kill supernatural creatures. But even he couldn’t take on an Alpha. Even an insane, sadistic bastard like Lord Woolsey was still an Alpha with a pack at his back.”
Professor Lyall put his spectacles down on a side table and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “I told him not to, of course. Such a waste. But he was always one to pick and choose listening to me. Sandy was too much an Alpha himself.”
Alexia thought for the first time that Professor Lyall and Lord Akeldama shared some mannerisms. They were both good at hiding their emotions. To a certain extent, this was to be expected in vampires, but in werewolves?.?.?.?Lyall’s reserve was practically flawless. Then she wondered if his very quiet stillness were not like that of a child climbing into hot water, afraid that every little movement would only make things hotter and more painful.
Professor Lyall said, “Your father’s death taught me one thing. That something needed to be done about our Alpha. That if I had to bring down another pack to do it, so be it. At the time, there were only two wolves in England capable of killing Lord Woolsey. The dewan and—”
Alexia filled in the rest of his sentence. “Conall Maccon, Lord Kingair. So it wasn’t simply a change of leadership you were after; it was self-preservation.”
One corner of Lyall’s mouth quirked upward. “It was revenge. Never forget, my lady, I’m still a werewolf. It took me nearly four years to plan. I’ll admit that’s a vampire’s style. But it worked.”
“You loved my father, didn’t you, Professor?”
“He was not a very good man.”
A pause. Alexia thumbed through the little journal. It was worn about the edges from countless readings and rereadings.
Professor Lyall let out a little sigh. “Do you know how old I am, my lady?”