Page 20 of The SnowFang Storm

I wheezed, unable to breathe. My own family was dead or hated me or both. I was already bringing bad news to Sterling’s family, and here he was, digging the grave deeper with some tacky plastic tiki cups! He could at least find some glassware. “You already warned me this won’t be pretty!”

“Then we might as well be hydrated. Come on.”

Having no other real choice in it, I followed him out onto the stone patio that overlooked the ocean, where Garrett and Cerys waited for us.

Garrett wasn’t tall, middling height or so, and everything about him was broad: shoulders, face, chest, hands. Dark hair powdered with white, a beard that hadn’t been shaven in a few days, wearing a faded salmon-pink tee-shirt with small holes where the collar had started to separate, and rumpled, worn cargo shorts. Barefoot. Somewhere around fifty, clearly extremely fit, with a ready smile and affable.

Until he wasn’t.

Garrett was an alligator drifting along in warm, shallow waters, sunning himself in the afternoon while birds chirped and flies droned, an apex predator calmly waiting for a zebra or unattended child to wander too close and—SNAP!

Death roll, chomp-chomp, yum-yum.

“What is this I hear about the woman having no pearls? I raised you better than that,” Garrett demanded of Sterling, gesturing angrily to me with a broad hand while I tried not to faint from mortification.

“They don’t make Billionaire Wife Starter Kits.” Sterling threw the bottle of beer at Garrett.

Garrett caught it in his left hand. “You read minds.”

“You’re predictable. Nice cups, by the way. They’re new. Where did you get these monstrosities?”

“Your mother found them at the newest horror show tourist trap, of course. Not as glorious as the rainbow umbrella ones.” Garrett flicked the bottle cap off with his thumb.

Cerys Mortcombe was, hands down, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, up to and including celebrity photo-manipulated mashups.

She was slightly taller than Garrett, although her long limbs and proportions made her seem much taller, elegant, gorgeous. Long hair the color of dark loam, bright, vivid green eyes. She wasn’t pale like Sterling, though, she had a slightly olive tone to her complexion. She was late thirties, early forties, and had the same elegant reserve of her son.

She was like a gorgeous ice statue that was melting in front of me and couldn’t possibly be real or permanent.

“So what brings you down here in such haste?” Garrett asked, reminding me of a gator who had seen something interesting towards shore and had given a flick of his tail to head in that general direction.

As Sterling explained the situation we were in, I didn’t need a crystal ball to see how badly the night was going to end. And Sterling had omitted the details about his own past or Jerron’s accusations.

“And it didn’t occur to you Demetrius would want something?” Garrett asked once Sterling had finished. Him letting Sterling talk was more about giving Sterling an ample length of rope to hang himself, not Garrett prepared to be reasonable. The Mortcombe patriarch smelled distinctly pissed off, and Cerys smelled like a vat of acid. She was pissed. Like reach-across-the-table and murder her own son levels of angry.

Although she’d probably start with me.

“SnowFang has nothing to give him, so we believed he was doing it for the pleasure of growling at another powerful Alpha.” Sterling did not rise to his father’s anger.

Cerys rolled her eyes and shook her head like Sterling was an utter fool. Garrett said, “This is your problem, Sterling. You figure it out and never come to me for help again.”

“I’m not looking for help. This threat was made against you.”

Garrett brushed it off. “The line of people wanting my head mounted on their wall extends around the corner. Threats don’t impress me. I’m less impressed you got yourself mixed up in this.”

“I couldn’t have avoided it,” Sterling said.

Cerys set her drink down with a click. “You know better than to get mixed up with pedigreed wolves.”

“I couldn’t walk away. I saw her picture, and I knew.” Sterling’s voice started to sharpen and his forearms tensed as he gripped the arms of the deck chair.

“You knew. Off one picture. I wasn’t even sure after spending a few weeks with your biological father. Neither of us was ‘sure.’”

“You weren’t sure. We are sure.”

“How old are you? Fifteen, trying to tell me no, Mom, this one is different, you don’t understand? It’s not different, and I do understand. You get the scent of a willing she-wolf in your snout and you convince yourself of all kinds of things.” She gave me a burning look that dissolved some of my major organs.

Garrett tapped the table with the flat of his palm. “I’m sorry you two ended up in this spot. It’s a raw deal. But you need to uninvolve your mother and me.”

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