Lord Akeldama was a man who hid his real feelings, not with an absence of emotions but with an excess of false ones. However, Professor Lyal was pretty certain that there, lurking under the clipped civility, was real, deeply rooted, and undeniably justified anger.
Lord Akeldama took a seat, lounging back into it, for al the world as relaxed and untroubled as a man at his club. “So, I take it, Lord Maccon has gone after my dear Alexia?”
Lyal nodded.
“Then he knows?”
“That she is in grave danger and the potentate responsible? Yes.”
“Ah, was that Wal y’s game? No wonder he wanted me swarming out of London. No, I mean to ask, Dol y dear, if the estimable earl knows what kind of child he has sired.”
“No. But he has accepted that it is his. I think he always knew Lady Maccon would not play him false. He was just being ridiculous about it.”
“Normal y, I am al in favor of the ridiculous, but under such circumstances, you must understand, I believe it quite a pity he could not have come to that realization sooner.
Lady Maccon would never have lost the protection of the pack, and none of this would have happened.”
“You think not? Yet your kind tried to kil her on the way to Scotland when she was stil very much under Woolsey’s protection. Admittedly, that was done more discreetly and, I now believe, without the support of the hives. But they would al stil have wanted her dead the moment they knew of her condition. The interesting thing is that you, apparently, do not want her dead.”
“Alexia Maccon is my friend.”
“Are your friends so infrequent, my lord, that you betray the clearly unanimous wishes of your own kind?”
Lord Akeldama lost some slight element of his composure at that. “Listen to me careful y, Beta. I am a rove so that I might make my own decisions: who to love, who to watch, and, most importantly, what to wear.”
“So, Lord Akeldama, what is Lady Maccon’s child going to be?”
“No. You wil explain this first.” The vampire gestured at Biffy. “I am forced to swarm because my most precious little drone-y-poo is ruthlessly stolen from me—betrayed, as it turns out, by my own kind—only to return and find him stolen by your kind instead. I believe even Lord Maccon would acknowledge I am entitled to an explanation.”
Professor Lyal ful y agreed with him in this, so he told the vampire the whole truth, every detail of it.
“So it was death or the curse of a werewolf?”
Professor Lyal nodded. “It was something to see, my lord. No metamorphosis I have ever witnessed took so long, nor was conducted with so much gentleness. To do what Lord Maccon did and not savage the boy in the heat of the need for blood, it was extraordinary. There are not many werewolves who possess such self-control. Biffy was very lucky.”
“Lucky?” Lord Akeldama fairly spat the word, jumping to his feet. “Lucky! To be cursed by the moon into a slathering beast? You would have done better to let him die.
My poor boy.” Lord Akeldama was not a big man, certainly not by werewolf standards, but he moved so quickly that he was around Professor Lyal ’s desk, slim hands about the werewolf’s throat, faster than Lyal ’s eyes could fol ow. There was the anger Professor Lyal had been waiting for and, with it, a degree of pain and hurt he would never have expected from a vampire. Perhaps he had pushed a little harder than was strictly necessary. Lyal sat stil and passive under the choking hold. A vampire could probably rip a werewolf’s head clean off, but Lord Akeldama was not the kind of man to do such a thing, even in the heat of anger. He was too control ed by age and etiquette to make more than a show of it.
“Master, stop. Please. It was not their fault.”
Biffy sat up slightly on the couch, eyes fixed in horror at the sight before him.
Lord Akeldama immediately let go of Professor Lyal and dashed over to kneel by the young man’s side.
Biffy spoke in a jumble of words and guilt. “I should not have al owed myself to be captured. I was careless. I did not suspect the potentate of such extremes of action. I was not playing the game as you taught me. I did not think he would use me like that to get to you.”
“Ah, my little cherry blossom, we were al playing blind. This is not your fault.”
“Do you real y find me cursed and disgusting now?” Biffy’s voice was very smal .
Driven beyond his instincts, the vampire pul ed the newly made werewolf against him
—one predator consoling another, as unnatural as a snake attempting to comfort a house cat.
Biffy rested his dark head on Lord Akeldama’s shoulder. The vampire twisted his perfect lips together and looked up at the ceiling, blinked, and then looked away.
Through the fal of the vampire’s blond hair, Professor Lyal caught a glimpse of his face.
Ah, oh dear, he really did love him. The Beta pressed two fingers against his own eyes as though he might stopper up the tears in theirs. Curses.
Love, of al eccentricities among the supernatural set, was the most embarrassing and the least talked about or expected. But Lord Akeldama’s face, for al its icy beauty, was drawn with genuine loss into a kind of carved marble agony.
Professor Lyal was an immortal; he knew what it was to lose a loved one. He could not leave the room, not with so many important BUR documents scattered about, but he did turn away and put on a show of busily organizing stacks of paperwork, attempting to provide the two men some modicum of privacy.
He heard a rustle—Lord Akeldama sitting down upon the couch next to his former drone.
“My dearest boy, of course I do not find you disgusting—although, we must real y have a serious discussion about this beard of yours. That was only a little turn of phrase, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. You see, I did so look forward to the possibility of having you by my side as one of us. Joined to the old fang-and-swil club and al that.”
A sniff from Biffy.
“If anything, this is my fault. I should have kept a better watch. I should not have fal en for his tricks or sent you in against him. I should not have al owed your disappearance to cause me to panic and swarm. I ought to have recognized the signs of a game in play against me and mine. But who would have believed my own kind—another vampire, another rove—would steal from me? Me! My sweet citron, I did not see the pattern. I did not see how desperate he was. I forgot that sometimes the information I carry in my own head is more valuable than the daily wonders you lovely boys unearth for me.”
At which point, when Professor Lyal real y felt things couldn’t possibly get any worse, a bang came on the office door, which then opened without his bidding.
“What—?”
It was Professor Lyal ’s turn to look up at the ceiling in an excess of emotion.
“Her most Royal Majesty, Queen Victoria, to see Lord Maccon.”
Queen Victoria marched through the door and spoke to Professor Lyal without breaking stride. “He is not here, is he? Wretched man.”
“Your Majesty!” Professor Lyal hurried from behind his desk and performed his lowest and best bow.
The Queen of England, a deceptively squat and brown personage, swept the room with an autocratic eye as though Lord Maccon, sizable specimen that he was, might manage to hide in a corner somewhere or under the rug. What her eye rested upon was the tableau of a tear-stained Biffy, clearly nak*d under his blanket, caught up in the arms of a peer of the realm.
“What is this? Sentiment! Who is that there? Lord Akeldama? Real y, this wil not do at al . Compose yourself this instant.”
Lord Akeldama lifted his head from where it rested, cheek pressed against Biffy’s, and narrowed his eyes at the queen. He gently let his former drone go, stood, and bowed, exactly as deeply as he ought and not one jot more.
Biffy, for his part, was at a loss. He could not get up without exposing some part of himself, and he could not perform the appropriate obedience from a supine position. He looked with desperate eyes at the queen.
Professor Lyal came to his rescue. “You wil have to forgive, uh,” he floundered, for he had never learned Biffy’s real name, “our young friend here. He has had a bit of a trying night.”
“So we have been given to understand. Is this, then, the drone in question?” The queen raised a quizzing glass and examined Biffy through it. “The dewan has said you were kidnapped, young man, and by our very own potentate. These are grave charges, indeed. Are they true?”
Biffy, mouth slightly open in awe, managed only a mute nod.
The queen’s face expressed both relief and chagrin in equal measure. “Wel , at least Lord Maccon hasn’t bungled that.” She turned her sharp eye on Lord Akeldama.
The vampire, with a studied, casual air, fixed the cuffs of his shirtsleeves so they lay perfectly underneath his jacket. He did not meet her gaze.
“Would you say, Lord Akeldama, that death was an appropriate punishment for the theft of another vampire’s drone?” she inquired casual y.
“I would say it is a bit extreme, Your Majesty, but in the heat of the moment, I am given to understand, accidents wil happen. It was not intentional.”
Professor Lyal couldn’t believe his ears. Was Lord Akeldama defending Lord Maccon?
“Very well . No charges wil be brought against the earl.”
Lord Akeldama started. “I did not say… that is, he also metamorphosed Biffy.”
“Yes, yes. Excel ent, another werewolf is always welcome.” The queen bestowed a beneficent smile on the stil -bemused Biffy.
“But he is mine!”
The queen frowned at the vampire’s tone. “We hardly see the need for such fuss, Lord Akeldama. You have plenty more just like him, do you not?”
Lord Akeldama stood for a moment, stunned, just long enough for the queen to continue on with her conversation, entirely ignoring his bemusement.
“We must suppose Lord Maccon has gone in pursuit of his wife?” A nod from Professor Lyal . “Good, good. We are reinstating her as muhjah, of course, in absentia.
We were acting under the potentate’s advice when we dismissed her, and now we see he must have been furthering his own hidden agenda. For centuries, Walsingham has advised the Crown unerringly. What could have driven such a man to such lengths?”
Al around her, silence descended.
“That, gentlemen, was not a rhetorical question.”
Professor Lyal cleared his throat. “I believe it may have to do with Lady Maccon’s forthcoming child.”
“Yes?”
Professor Lyal turned and looked pointedly at Lord Akeldama.
Fol owing his lead, the Queen of England did the same.
No one would ever accuse Lord Akeldama of fidgeting, but under such direct scrutiny, he did appear slightly flustered.
“Wel , Lord Akeldama? You do know, don’t you? Otherwise none of this would have happened.”
“You must understand, Your Majesty, that vampire records go back to Roman times, and there is mention of only one similar child.”
“Go on.”
“And, of course, in this case she was the child of a soul-sucker and a vampire—not a werewolf.”
Professor Lyal chewed his lip. How could the howlers not have known of this? They were the keepers of history; they were supposed to know about everything.