Rhys
I could only put so much energy towards thoughts of Barnett dying by my hand. Not that it wasn't a pleasant idea. After all, he was a nuisance at best and a threat to Calla at worst. He'd made a huge mistake coming to my building after I'd taken him down—literally—back in the woods. My warning to him could not have been clearer: stay away from Apex and stay away from Calla. Instead of retreating, however, he'd ignored my command and I wanted him to pay dearly for it.
Calla had been clear with him as well. If he abided by her wishes, we'd never have to see his face again. That was that, then, right? If I kept dwelling on him, what good would it do? After he left with Simone, Calla didn't bring him up again. We seethed about him silently, behind our well-guarded psychic barriers.
There were other things to turn our attention to. Apex, in the days before the first full moon attack, had held a Meet Your Heroes event for the public every six months. During the event, different werewolves would speak at a nearby convention center, telling an engaged and predominantly human audience about their exploits on behalf of the citizenry, taking down the bad guys and keeping humans from harm's way. This conference had proven enormously popular over the years. I'd participated in them many times, going on panels to answer questions ranging from what it feels like to transform to how I took down the head of Sury's biggest drug cartel to when I was finally going to find my mate.
Aamon, unsurprisingly, was one of the convention's most popular speakers, and as luck would have it, one was scheduled for this weekend. My pleas to cancel the event in light of our precarious situation had fallen on deaf ears.
"It will be a security nightmare," I told Calla.
"I agree," she replied. "We still need this to happen."
"Aamon's going to fuck this up."
"Is that any different than usual?" She asked as she touched up her makeup using the pink compact mirror she kept in the left hand drawer of her desk.
"This is a bad idea, Calla."
"It's going to work," she said, her jaw set. This was Calla in her no-nonsense decision-making role and there was no stopping her. "Do you know why it's going to work?"
"Because it has to?"
"Yes, Rhys." She set her mirror down and peered at me, her clear green eyes wide and intent. "It has to. But beyond that, it's going to succeed because I'm putting you in charge of it."
"Me? Why do I have to do it?" Ugh. Conference organization was my least favorite task. My brain began to spit out excuses to get me out of it. "We have event planners already working on it."
"You'll coordinate with them. You'll be present the whole time." She tilted her head and spoke to me like she realized this was a chore and got satisfaction from making me do it. "We've already shortened it to a day so it shouldn't ruin your entire weekend. You will make sure security is doing their job to keep both shifters and humans safe, and you will make sure Aamon is doing his job as well. After all, this won't be the last time we put him out in the spotlight for his adoring fans to view."
Even though I didn't want to, I could pretty much do all of that except for the last part. "Aamon can't be controlled." I told her. I flashed on an image of a dark wolf, drool dangling from its jaw, eyes red and enraged. A werewolf wilding. Was that what my brother had become? Were all his antics and careless behavior a sign that I hadn't been reading correctly? Were we letting a murderer get up on stage in front of a group of unsuspecting, vulnerable humans?
"Try your best," she said, her face softening a bit. So she did understand the impossible task she was asking of me.
No, not asking. Telling. Ordering.
My heart beat a bit faster. In the bedroom, I did the ordering. Here, where the roles were reversed, I had the choice to throw her off and disregard what I'd been told to do or to comply so that I would please her.
I took a moment to think it through. She waited.
"Fine," I said. "But you owe me one."
"I owe you one what?"
My mind conjured up lots of things but mainly me ordering her to orchestrate not a convention but a scene, with me giving her step-by-step directions for her to meticulously follow, starting with the unbuttoning of her blouse and ending with her bending over in front of me as I entered her from behind.
"Believe me, you'll know what it is when it's time to collect."
***
The next day, I oversaw preparations for Saturday's convention, speaking with our event planners and approving the final list of panels. Calla and I would participate in the morning panel, which focused on how the relations between our packs had changed during our time working together. In the afternoon, a group of mid-ranking Apex shifters would discuss how they coordinated as a team, running together during full moons. Several of my cousins were on this panel. Often, they had no kill orders during a transformation, and would instead demonstrate feats of strength and endurance, such as leaping from building to building, or psychic abilities, like being able to communicate movement with connected pack members who were out of sight but not out of mind. Many of these shifters had their own fan bases and social media presence. Their inhuman abilities made them the source of awe and admiration.
We were more than scary creatures or even vigilantes to our human fans. We were superheroes, at least to those who didn't live in fear of or loath us.
After that panel came our headliner: Aamon. He would go up on stage with Stacy Lonigan, the woman who believed Aamon had saved her from the anti-werewolf attacker at the bookstore. As much as that was bullshit, I'd spoken to her myself and she seemed completely convinced.
"Aamon saved me," she'd told me when I spoke to her on the phone two days before the convention. "There may be a bad apple in your pack, but he's not the one. If I can help convince people of the fact that you are by and large good people, then I'm willing to take the risk."
The risk she spoke of, and which I'd felt obligated to warn her about, was the protest that was expected to take place on the streets outside the convention center. Stacy had received hate mail as soon as her participation had been made public. The threat to her wellbeing was regrettably real.
"I'm not scared," she told me. "Aamon will be there. He won't let anything happen to me."
Delusional. This poor woman. But she wasn't the only one willing to flock to my brother's side. The convention sold out two days after tickets went on sale. And that brought me to my next task in event prep: security.
I walked with Hammel, the head of Apex security, through the convention center as he detailed how many shifters he'd have posted by each entry and what they would do to ensure no one brought in a weapon to the event.
"Everyone will go through a security check, which will include walking through a metal detector," he told me. Hammel was a no-nonsense, stocky guy who'd been loyal to the family and especially to my father, for several decades. If anyone was going to have our backs during this dumb event, it would be him. Still, I found myself second guessing each of his safety measures.
"Any one of the attendees could be from an anti-shifter terrorist group. They may not need a weapon to pull off some sort of attack."
"We'll be ready," he assured me. "I have a whole team running background checks on everyone registered to attend. If we turn up anything suspicious, we'll let you know."
I nodded, feeling slightly better. A lot was riding on this weekend's success. And not just because we desperately needed a PR boost. Calla was counting on me. If anything went wrong, it would be another thing to add to her list of reasons to hate me.
After I'd met with Hammel and completed my walkthrough, there was one more task that needed doing, and it was the one I dreaded most: trying to talk sense into Aamon.
I showed up on Aamon's doorstep at eight o'clock on Friday night, hoping for a brief discussion that would clear up some of my misgivings before Saturday's event.
"You pick the shittiest times to want to talk," he told me as he let me into his condo. Aamon's home featured high end finishes reminiscent of the lobby of Apex Headquarters. And no wonder: he'd hired the same design firm. They'd given him heated floors in the bathroom, European oak parquetry throughout the entryway, living room and kitchen, and white marble countertops. No expenses spared. And then, he'd taken this luxury and added to it the most tasteless thing I could imagine. On the wall over the fireplace in his living room, hung a six-foot tall black and white photo of himself completely naked.
I'd seen it before, but it still made me roll my eyes whenever I entered his space. "Do women actually like that you have a photo of yourself up in the most conspicuous place in your home?"
"Why wouldn't they?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "They look at that and then they can't wait to have a taste of what's on offer. He stretched and preened, and I wondered for the millionth time how the two of us could have been raised by the same parents but come out so differently.
Calla's take on my inflated ego crossed my mind then, challenging my assumption that I was different from Aamon, but I batted it away. I wasn't like him. I couldn't be like him. I was the Alpha and that meant being the responsible one while Aamon got to fuck around and rarely actually find out.
"I'm sure you have plans for later tonight," I said to him, "so I'll be brief. Tomorrow is very important, and I need you to not fuck it up."
"Damn, Rhys, you know how to bring the mood down. Who says I'm going to fuck anything up? I shine when it comes to conventions. You know that."
"It's different right now. The stakes are higher. Plus, it's not just about us. Calla is involved."
I shut my mouth, regretting that I'd brought her name into the conversation. Aamon couldn't know that I cared how tomorrow went for her sake as much as for our own.
"Are you saying Calla will be disappointed in me if I...I don't know, say something out of line or accidentally kill someone?"
"I think she'd be more upset about that second one, but yeah. She would not be happy."
He paused. "I suppose I owe her that much."
I didn't want to think about why he owed her anything, so I didn't press him. He was already being way more accommodating than I'd imagined.
"You want a beer?" he asked.
"Sure, why not."
I sat on his couch, averting my eyes from his gigantic nude member, and waited for him to return, a beer in each hand. He offered me mine and clanked his bottle against it. "Cheers, brother."
I took a sip, wanting so badly for this to feel like a normal exchange between two brothers. Just hanging out drinking beer together. Nothing more.
My brain refused to comply. Aamon had accused Calla of murder and the threat his accusation posed had not gone away. Not to mention all the other acts I believed him capable of.
If there was any time to clear the air, it was now.
"I have to tell you something," I said.
Aamon kicked back, putting his feet up on his couch. "Go for it. But I gotta warn you right now, this convo can't last longer than one beer. You're not the last person, or the most interesting one I'm entertaining here tonight, if you catch my drift."
"Yeah, it's caught. Don't worry, I'll clear out of here before your booty call arrives." I took a moment to clear my throat. "You told me that during the full moon Trevor Daniels was attacked, you were with Liam all night."
He moved his head from side to side like he was contemplating how to respond. "Well...I may have exaggerated a little bit. I mean, it was most of the night."
"Most of the night isn't good enough. You don't have an alibi."
"What do you mean?" he said, alarmed enough to sit up again. "I was nowhere near Crown territory that night."
"I'm not talking about that right now. I'm talking about the time before then. Like, right before moonrise."
"What does that matter?"
"It just does."
"No, brother. It just doesn't." He drained the rest of his beer. "You may be the Alpha, but that doesn't mean I have to share every move I make with you. I have my own life, Rhys."
"Does your own life include luring human women to Apex?" Shit, I should not have said that.
"Luring? Why would I—what's this about?"
I put my half-finished beer down on Aamon's coffee table. If Aamon had done what I think he did, I needed to know before I stuck him up on that stage tomorrow.
"I received information that a human woman was lured to our headquarters that night. She was supposed to be meeting up with a high-ranking Apex werewolf, presumably for sex."
"So what? It's against the rules but a lot of us have bedded humans. That high-ranking shifter was probably one of our cousins. What, is she complaining that she didn't have a good time, because I find that hard to believe."
"She isn't saying anything, because she disappeared that night."
Aamon's expression froze.
"You know anything about that, Aamon? Where were you before moonrise?"
"You think I did something?"
"I think you have a violent side."
"I'm a werewolf. Of course, I have a violent side. That doesn't mean I'd...kidnap? Kill? Just what is it exactly that you're accusing me of?"
"I'm not accusing you. I'm just trying to get to the truth." For Calla. I was keeping Vicki's name and Calla's involvement out of it, but of course, if Aamon was guilty of this, he already knew all of this.
If he wasn't clueless, he was a better actor than I gave him credit for. "I don't know anything about this, I swear to you, Rhys. Jesus, it's not like I was actually alone anyways. And I was with a human if you must know. A human woman. But it's a woman who is still very much alive and well, not missing or dead."
Unlike Zara...
"Who is it, then?"
Aamon knocked his head against the back of the couch a few times. "You can't tell Father. You know what he's like. He'd have a fit."
"I'm not going to tell him anything. I just need to know."
"It's not like it's even a big deal. But she's an employee, so...that's like an extra no-no."
"Who is it, Aamon?"
Before Aamon could answer me, his doorbell rang and a wide, mischievous smile spread across his face. "Looks like my alibi for that night just showed up for round two, so why don't you go see for yourself?"
Getting up off the couch I traversed the living room and came to the front door, peering through the peephole before opening it.
Well, I'll be damned. I opened the door to find Tonya, the receptionist who I'd slept with months ago. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but she kept her composure.
"I suppose you know why I'm here," she said, batting her long lashes at me. "Are you planning on joining us?"
"Hard pass," I said. "Please tell me you aren't going to try to sleep with our eighteen-year-old brother next."