"Hi, Merit."
I smiled at him. "It's about time you got here. Any news about the e-mail?"
"Yeah," he said, casting a worried glance inside the House. "But not here. Too many ears."
His answer didn't bode well, but I took the hint. "I appreciate your coming over here.
And spending your evening sourcing an e-mail."
"That's why they call me the Champ."
I chuckled and moved aside to let him in the House. "Since when do they call you the Champ?"
He paused in the foyer as I closed the door behind us, and gave me a grin. "Remember how you and I are dating?"
"Right," I solemnly said. "How's that going, by the way?" I pointed the way toward Ethan's office and he fell in step beside me, surveying the House and the scattering of vampires.
"Well, they do call me the Champ. I mean, my work is suffering, though."
"Is it now?"
We reached the closed office door, and Jeff ran a hand through his hair. Nerves, I imagined, but he looked at me, laughed it off.
"Yeah, you tend to be a little... distracting. You know, with the hands. And always calling me, texting me." He looked over at me, and while he smiled, fear tightened his eyes, marked the air with an astringent tang.
"When we go in there, I'm your Sentinel, too."
This time he smiled, and I think a little of the tension went out of his shoulders.
"And you know what?" I asked him, clasping the doorknob.
He ran a hand through his hair again. "What?"
"You're my most favorite shifter."
Jeff rolled his eyes. "Not that I'm denying my manly appeal, but I'm the only shifter you know."
"Actually, Jeff, that's kind of our problem." I opened the door, and in we went.
Chapter Twenty
THE RUNT OF THE LITTER
Although the rest of the vamps were still seated around the conference table, Luc had moved closer to the door and was leaning against the back of a leather chair when we walked in. I appreciated the move. This way, we could both escort Jeff to the table, give him protection from two sides. While Catcher had once assured me that Jeff could take care of himself, and having seen the depth of Nick's fury, I didn't doubt the shifter had it in him. But at twenty-one, he was younger, by far, than everyone else in the room, and the member of a group that wasn't high on the vamps' list of favorites right now. Even if there wasn't much of a risk that we'd have to break out the weaponry, this ensured that the Masters kept their manners.
"Thank you for agreeing to speak with us," Ethan said, standing and extending a hand as we moved to the table. "Especially on such short notice."
"No problem," Jeff lightly said, taking his hand. "Glad I can help, I guess." He sat down in an empty chair; I took the seat beside him.
Ethan smiled and turned back to the rest of the table. "I believe you know everyone here, but we'll do the introductions for form." He made the intros and the vampires responded graciously, probably because I gave everybody the evil eye, a warning against snarking back to our House guest.
Introductions complete, Jeff looked at Ethan, then me. "So, what do you want to know?"
"As you know," I began, "we're looking into a threat against Jamie Breckenridge that was supposedly made by Cadogan vampires. But we haven't been able to find anyone - any vampires - with a grudge against Jamie." I paused. "We believe that the Breckenridges are shifters."
"Oh," Jeff said, surprise in his expression. "Okay."
"What we're trying to figure out," I continued, "is whether another shifter might have a grudge against the family."
Jeff frowned. "I'm not following."
"Jamie's always been a little aimless, wouldn't you say, Merit?" Ethan asked.
I nodded. "I think that's fair."
"However, it seems the Breckenridge family is now circling around him. No one else, as far as I'm aware, knows that the Breckenridges are shifter in origin. The theory we're working from is that maybe they're circling for a reason. Maybe Jamie's weak, has some sort of magical problem. And maybe some members of the Pack want to do something about that."
Jeff shook his head. "I still don't - " Then he stopped, mouth falling open, shock and dismay and, worst of all, hurt, in his expression. He sat back in his chair, as if deflated by the question. "Wow."
The room went silent, gazes dropping guiltily to the table, the vamps unable to make eye contact.
A minute or two passed in silence. I wanted to reach out a hand, to touch him, both to comfort him and to reassure myself, but the move seemed patronizing. Instead, I looked up, caught Ethan's eye, that line of worry between his brows.
"No offense, but this is why shifters don't like vampires," Jeff quietly said, drawing our eyes back to him. "The rumor, the speculation. That you would actually ask me that to my face - do you kill off members of your Pack? That's insulting."
He looked at me. "I know you're new and maybe you don't know better," he said, then looked at Ethan and the rest of the vampires, "but the rest of you have been around.Surely you do."
None of them, to their credit, offered their ignorance as an excuse.
"Now," Jeff continued, sitting forward in the chair and putting his elbows on the table,
"the fact that we don't exterminate members" - he gave us all a pointed look, suggesting he knew exactly which supernatural species did, and given the sword belted at my side, I thought he had a pretty good point - "doesn't mean we don't have intra-Pack struggles.
Just because Jamie won't actually be taken out doesn't mean he wouldn't be bullied by stronger Pack members, that folks wouldn't use his weakness, whatever it is, against him or his family."
"Blackmail?" I asked.
"Or extortion. It's happened before. 'Give me what I want, and I'll ensure your kid's protected,' that kind of thing. Pack members who are already pretty far down in the ranks try to make themselves feel better. Part of where you stand is, well, you know, immutable. Every shifter has a primary form. The animal they change into. Shifters are born that way. The form a shifter takes, that doesn't change. You're born to it, and that affects your rank in the pack. But part of it is muscle, strength. And that strength determines what you do with your rank - do you sit back, let the Pack make decisions?
Or do you try to have a role, try to influence Gabriel? The thing about blackmail, about the bullying, is that Pack members don't report that kind of thing to him."