Part 18 (1/2)

But I held my tongue, waiting till the Were scooted out the door, leaving his sandwich behind. That showed how wary he was.

And he should be. Bran had a lot to answer for.

But as I turned my full focus on him I noticed what I'd missed before. He looked drained, the kind of weight-of-the-world-on-your-shoulders spent, with strain bracketing his killer-blue eyes.

This was not the Bran I knew. The take the world on and then some, king of his universe, mover and shaker. This was a man fighting on one too many fronts and bracing himself.

What had he been doing? Where had he gone?

Even his tone sounded different, less in-your-face and more give-it-your-best shot as he picked at the sandwich before looking me in the eye. ”Well, Alex, I'm here now. You want a piece of me? Take it.”

CHAPTER 37.

Jeb lifted the cool washcloth to his head while sitting on the edge of the bathtub in Philippe's black and white tiled bathroom. His cuts had mostly healed now, one of the boons of being a s.h.i.+fter, but the gash along his head had bled for a good long while.

”Feeling better?” Pdraig said from the doorway.

Jeb nodded though he wanted to growl, what do you think? His son had attacked him. Van, his firstborn, lunged at Jeb as if his father was a pesky coyote needing to be taken down.

And Van had d.a.m.n near done just that. Jeb couldn't seriously fight back, not without harming his boy.

He'd seen the crazed, vacant look in Van's eyes. If he didn't know his son, his scent, the markings of his wolf, Jeb would have said that hadn't been Van. But it was. While at the same time it wasn't.

Raising his head to eye Pdraig who'd dragged Jeb's wolf form away after one of the a.s.sailants had tasered him, he knew he owed the young man. ”Thank you. For what you did back there.”

The Irishman ran a hand through his ruffled hair. ”It was close. Another few minutes and the feukeu would have collected you before I could.”

”Feukeu?”

Pdraig cantered one shoulder. ”Police.”

Jeb nodded then wished he hadn't. His head felt like it had in his old rodeo days, after he'd been tossed from a bronc and landed hard.

”Do you know why your son was there?” Pdraig asked.

”No idea.”

Jeb hadn't mentioned that Alex had been there, too, but he was going to find out why. He knew who the man was who tackled her. Bran, the dress designer and the man who was supposed to have been brought before the Council less than an hour ago for suspected involvement in a scheme to drug preternaturals against their will. But the meeting had been put off now.

The charges against this Bran were serious, with two of the Council members already agitating for a death penalty based on the man's cousin's involvement in using a similar drug against humans. If the Council had a full body, and hadn't been dealing with the ramifications of a reported s.h.i.+fter attack against humans in broad daylight, the designer might not have been given another forty-eight hours to prove he was not involved in the drug issue.

None of the Council members knew Jeb and Pdraig had been present at the park. Not yet at least. Nor did they know that the s.h.i.+fter who had broken the basic tenet of the last three hundred years; don't show, don't tell and never, under any reason, reveal yourself to a human had been Jeb's son.

The last time the Council had a.s.sembled in a full quorum, and even with Philippe's calm guidance, the chamber had been crowded with several Weres agitating for representation on the Council. They'd always been angry that s.h.i.+fters were represented with a Council seat but not Weres.

Jeb had been willing to listen to their complaints, which held some legitimacy. Wei Pei, the s.h.i.+fter who stood for both s.h.i.+fters and Were interests was older, the oldest of the members now that Philippe was gone. And the Chinese man was sometimes lax in his enforcement of balance among his const.i.tuents. He tended to favor s.h.i.+fter needs over Were needs, but not enough to bring the other Council members into the agitation between the two species. Until now. Especially with this s.h.i.+fter exposure.

Now finding out why Van had acted as he did took precedence. The Weres held long grudges, and short of abdication of Wei, or allowing a pure-bred Were on the board, they would never be appeased by the elimination of one s.h.i.+fter as a punishment. The Weres could easily feel the s.h.i.+fters deserved to be removed from the board and Weres allowed species representation. As if that would solve what was behind Van's actions.

And even then Jeb knew the Weres would find something else to be unhappy about.

The truth was they really were angry at the whole Council for not giving them what they really wanted-freedom to reveal themselves to the humans-as a more superior and dangerous race.

But that wasn't going to happen. Not and risk all the other preternatural beings.

Pdraig cleared his throat as if searching for the right words. ”If the Council finds that your son was the s.h.i.+fter responsible for the incident today, then you'll have to excuse yourself from trying his case.”

Jeb glanced up at the Irishman, wondering if Pdraig was being obtuse or politically sensitive. ”If that knowledge is revealed, the Council itself will be destabilized with Philippe being gone, Wei Pei's position compromised as having failed his species, both of them- ”

”Why both?”

”The Weres currently feel underrepresented. If they receive what they want, which is a solid position on the Council, replacing or in addition to the s.h.i.+fter's position, then the s.h.i.+fters will feel that the Council and Wei Pei in particular used the actions of one s.h.i.+fter to discredit the whole race.”

Paraig nodded as Jeb continued. ”If the Weres are given a seat over the s.h.i.+fters, there will be even more open animosity.”

”And Wei Pei cannot be removed unless he dies.”

”Correct. Discrediting Wei Pei publically by having him abdicate his position will mean he, and thus the s.h.i.+fters will lose credibility.”

”Which will anger the s.h.i.+fters.”

”And if Philippe's seat is given to a Were, meaning both Weres and s.h.i.+fters are represented, then the other beings, including druids who would lose their seat, will be up in arms.”

”Right ol' mess isn't it,” Pdraig stroked his chin as if finally seeing the whole picture. ”So what do we do?”

Jeb stood up, feeling the morning's change into s.h.i.+fter form and back, in the stiffness of his muscles now. ”We have forty-eight hours to find a way to downplay the event in the park to the human population.”

”You mean the whole ”It was a rabid dog” story?”

Jeb nodded. ”For the time being, yes. We need to discover why Van s.h.i.+fted in the first place, who those individuals with him were, and why Van didn't stop his attack the moment he discovered I was there.”

”You think he knew you?” Pdraig's tone was diffident.

”Of course he did.” That's the part that had Jeb worried the most. That and Alex's involvement.

”What if there's another incident?” Pdraig asked eying Jeb.

”We have to make sure there isn't one.”

”Because even humans are not likely to believe there are two rabid dogs the size of overgrown wolves running through the streets of Paris.”