Sometimes it seemed the more my shoe collection expanded, the bigger the hole inside me became. Not smaller. But that didn’t stop the mindless acquisition. I could only take so much redecorating and I had to keep busy and on the move. Otherwise I would curl up in a defeated ball and cry. Screw that.
“Why Boston?” Faith reached out for her water but didn’t take a sip. Her brown eyes were inquisitive. “After you were exiled you could have gone anywhere in the whole world. Why Boston? Why so close to Mayflower? None of us ever acknowledged you were here. Didn’t that hurt?”
“Why Starbucks? Why wouldn’t you come to meet me at the condo?” I countered.
A small smile quirked the corner of her mouth and I was reminded of my mother. Lauren had the same smile when she thought something was funny. For Lauren, this specific smile made a rare appearance.
“I asked first, Stanzie.”
Faith had dubbed me Stanzie. She couldn’t wrap her tongue around Constance when she was little and somehow she’d come up with Stanzie. Soon everyone in the pack had called me that and it had stuck. I’d made sure of it because I’d never liked Constance. The name was too formal and old-fashioned.
My father, of course, had despised the nickname. He’d taken it as a personal insult because he’d chosen my name. Supposedly, there had been a girl named Constance on the Mayflower when it had arrived in Plymouth Harbor one cold November day in 1620. Constance had had a twin brother, a father and a mother. They, and another young couple aboard, had had an inside secret. They weren’t Others—they were Pack.
Paul had spun stories for me about this Mayflower Constance when I was a little girl—about her voyage and her family and what it was like to be in a pack in Colonial Massachusetts. Whenever I was bad, he would throw this Mayflower Constance in my face and tell me how she would never have cried like a baby or begged for such an expensive toy or talked back to her father the way I did. By the time I was seven, I hated the Mayflower Constance with a passion. She was the main reason I insisted on being called Stanzie. The Mayflower Constance would never have shortened her name and would have been horrified by anyone who’d tried to give her a nickname.
I played with my straw for a moment and Faith waited, her eyes thoughtful and wary.
“Every summer the mothers would take all of us kids to Faneuil Hall for a daytrip. We’d eat lunch at Quincy Market and walk through the stalls and vendors. We’d go outside and eat under the sun. Take walks to Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church. Go sprawl on blankets by the river. I’d fall asleep in Lauren’s lap.”
A reminiscent smile tugged at Faith’s mouth.
“Boston was always a magical place for me. Full of potential and mystery. Joy. Plus it was one place that I’d never shared with Grey and Elena, so there were no memories here with them.”
Faith’s smile faltered and she stared at the sweating bottle of water on the table for a moment.
“I’m pregnant,” she announced, but it didn’t seem as though she expected grins and congratulations. “So maybe this is all in my head. Paranoia caused by raging pregnant-woman hormones, but I don’t think so. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d come here deliberately to see you. If someone from Mayflower spied us together, I could always say I saw you sitting here on the corner and had to stop. But if I went to your condo, they’d know I sought you out deliberately.”
It was a two-hour drive from Willoughby, the small town where Mayflower made its home. Willoughby backed up to the Wendell State Forest where the pack ran. When the pack had first formed, it had been much closer to Boston but as the land had been built up and cities and towns founded, the pack had moved toward the state forest.
“What are you afraid of?” I leaned across the tiny table and put my hand on her arm. Her skin was slightly clammy with perspiration, but it was her pulse rate I wanted to feel. It raced.
“I don’t know,” she confessed in a low, confused voice. She began to pick at the label on the water bottle and tore small strips of paper away which she rolled into little balls with her thumb and forefinger then deposited on the table.
She stared straight into my eyes. “What did Councilor Allerton tell you?”
“Not much. He wanted you to tell me. I had the feeling he wasn’t quite sure himself what the problem was, only that he believed you needed help.”
“And that’s what the Great Council is for, right? Help?” Faith didn’t sound convinced.
“Among other things,” I agreed.
“Like tribunals?” Faith watched my reaction closely and I tried not to shudder. Nearly two months had passed since my tribunal had ended and I’d been cleared of all charges. Almost three years since the first tribunal when I’d also been cleared of all charges.
“That was a low blow,” she said before I could answer. “Sorry.”
“Why? You’re right. The Councils, both Regional and Great, are responsible for enforcing our laws which sometimes means punishment instead of help.”
“Well, the ones that are punished deserve it and it could be said the rest of us are helped by that, I suppose.”
I shrugged. This wasn’t getting us any closer to the real issue and we both knew it.
“So, I’m pregnant, right?” She wasn’t asking a question, but I nodded and sipped my iced chai. My throat was dry and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what was wrong with my birth pack. I had a suspicion I already knew and it was last goddamn thing I wanted to deal with. The conspiracy.
“I’m three months pregnant and I’ve been Alpha for seven months. Already the pack’s talking about who should be the next Alpha pair like the minute I give birth, I’m out and they’re in.” Faith’s chin jutted and her eyes sparked with indignation and something worse—humiliation.
“That would be weird. Alphas are usually Alpha for at least five years. More in small packs like Mayflower. If you’re right, you’d have a year at best. Who’s next in line?”
“That’s just it. It’s Rachel and Mark, or at least that’s how the rumor goes. And they were Alphas before me and Scott.” Faith sat straight in her chair and her voice vibrated with resentment.
“A second chance to have a baby? Rachel’s got to be in her late thirties by now.” I did the mental math and Faith bounced in her chair.
“That’s just it, Stanzie, she has children. Twins. They’re three. She’d be Alpha again for no reason except that she wouldn’t be me.”
“Alan...” I began. I referred to another young pack member and tried to calculate his age.
“He’s twenty-one. He’s not even bonded. Also, there’s no one near his age to bond with in the pack, so when he finds a bond mate, he’s going to leave and join her pack.”
I blinked. “He’s tenth generation. There’s got to be some push back on that idea.”
“No.” Her hair fell in her eyes with the force of her headshake. “It’s the other way around. He’s being encouraged.”
My mouth dropped open. This was definitely not standard operating procedure for Mayflower. It went against all tradition.
“That’s why I wanted you. I need you to investigate this because you know Mayflower. You understand how freaky proud we are of our heritage, our status as the third-oldest pack in America. Alan is from one of the oldest families we have. Everyone should be falling over themselves to find him a bond mate who wants to join us.”
I