Chapter Eighteen

"I'm still not sure about this. I do have my own apartment, you know."

"I'm not taking no for an answer." Gray grabbed Layla's hand and drew her behind him through the gilded doors into the lobby of his apartment building.

"Welcome home, sir." The concierge, Joachin, greeted them both from behind his antique oak desk.

Gray changed direction, drawing Layla behind him like a balloon in a high wind. "Joachin, this is Layla. She's my mate, and I want her to be happy. I expect you to respect her wishes exactly as you would mine. Anything she wants is hers, no matter what it might be."

Layla blushed beautifully, waving away Joachin's exuberant good wishes with an adorable modesty. On his own behalf, Gray was proud and happy, and he intended to show her off to every single person he met for at least the next fifty years.

They would plan a quiet ceremony as quickly as it could be arranged, but nobody would be permitted to think that she was less important to him just because they hadn't yet observed the formalities.

The direction of Gray's thoughts led him back to his father, and his jaw clenched. Better to face that hurdle as soon as possible. He would not have it hanging over them.

"Just remember why you're doing this." Layla squeezed his hand. "You deserve to have a life too, Gray. It's your turn to be happy, and I'm here to see that it happens."

She was right. No point in delaying the confrontation by even another minute.

"Will you be okay here until I come back?" Gray didn't expect his conversation with his father to be a scene he would want Layla to have any part in. "Joachin can send up anything you can't find. I want you to feel at home here, my love."

"What could possibly go wrong while I'm here? I think I'll take a bath." She smiled, and ran her fingers along his jaw. "If you hurry back you might be in time to join me."

Gray left her with promises that he would send her some bubbles, and that he would hurry home. After he spoke to his father he would find the most expensive bottle of champagne in the city, and they would toast their future with rose petals.

But first he would take care of the present. It was past time for a conversation with Lord Alheta.

Gray felt like a stranger as he walked into the Alheta Building and summoned the executive elevator to take him to his parents' floor. Had he really risked Layla just to be locked into a cage of duty and obligation? That choice seemed nonsensical to him now. What had he been thinking?

The hunter green, deep pile carpet under his feet, the gold plating on the elevator's call button, and Patrick, whose responsibility fifty hours a week was to press the button so that exalted Alheta fingers didn't have to put themselves to the trouble ‒ pointless nonsense, all of it.

This was what the werewolves wanted to take from them in taking the mines, and for Gray's part they were welcome to it. He would much prefer to have their moss-carpeted clearing in the rainforest, with Layla in his lap. His body tightened at the thought.

"So you finally limped home, did you?" This time it was Lord Alheta who waited for Gray in the entrance hall, his arms folded and his face set.

"Sir." Gray nodded in a show of forced civility. He would fulfil every one of his obligations, right up until the moment that he did not.

"Typical of you to have your fun while the world falls down around our ears. Rapasse is livid, and only the promise of a huge society wedding will convince him to go ahead with our plans. We'll be paying, of course." Lord Alheta's mouth twisted.

"I believe you met my mate, Layla." Gray refused to let his father's unfair accusation rock him from his rails. "She certainly remembers meeting you."

Lord Alheta hissed a breath in through his teeth. "I believe I recall her; coarse girl, very plain. You dodged a bullet with that one, my boy."

"And she speaks so highly of you. Is Mama in the library?" Gray sauntered past his father, allowing a little of his anger to show. This was the day when he took his life back from the Clan and the Corporation, and not even the old man's rudeness could ruin it for him.

The scene mirrored that of the week before, with his parents seated behind the heavy desk and Gray's chair pulled in front of it as though he was a badly-behaved schoolboy. No matter; a week had changed his life so much that he was practically unrecognisable from the man who agreed to marry a stranger on the basis of an unfounded accusation.

"I'm glad you're both here. I wanted to speak with the two of you together." Gray yanked the initiative from them. "I want you to know that some things are going to change."

He ignored his father's splutters and turned to face his mother. "Mama, you'll be happy to know that I've found my mate. You don't need to matchmake any more, and you don't need to worry about my living all alone. You're going to love Layla, I'm sure of it."

His voice hardened on his final words, leaving no doubt that it was more than a friendly suggestion.

"And Papa," Gray turned to his father while his mother twittered her surprise at his forcefulness, "I'm sure that by now you've heard the good news from the mines."

"Gray, enough of this idiocy." Lord Alheta's voice held a warning.

"I agree, sir, I've had quite enough." Gray's voice hardened, and he finally allowed his anger to slip from its tether. "What you did at Carnaval was unacceptable. By trying to manipulate me you humiliated the Rapasse daughter, something I'm quite sure the man himself won't overlook."

Lord Alheta's noncommittal mutter suggested that Gray had struck close to the mark.

"But, more important, you hurt Layla. And that, sir, is something I won't accept. I give you fair warning, I won't put up with it again."

"You don't get to speak to me that way, boy." Lord Alheta thundered to his feet. "I'm your Clan Lord, and I will be treated with respect."

"You are Clan Lord," Gray agreed, wrong-footing the older man, "and it's time we both remembered it. You need to carry your own responsibilities, because I don't intend to continue as your whipping boy. I'll advise you if you need it, but from this point it's going to be all or nothing for me.

"I wanted to walk away, but Layla talked me out of it. We're about to go to war with the werewolves, and if my instincts are right we're soon to ally with the Chirunhas. I suggest that the first thing you do is to shake your council into shape."

Gray rather enjoyed his father's silently flapping jaws as he sauntered from the room.

Outside, the wet New York spring had edged over the line to summer, so much so that even the permanent fall of rain had stopped. Gray chose to drive himself home; his route took him past a wine dealer who was bound to have something perfect that would complement rose petals.

He tried the apartment on his cellphone, but Layla didn't answer. Most likely she was still in her bath. The thought put a spring into his step. Joachin would find him some rose petals.

It struck Gray as passingly odd that no doorman leaped forward to welcome him into his apartment building. When he stepped into the lobby the smell of copper hit him, thick and too familiar to his hunter's nose. The bottle of champagne he had swung so jauntily slipped ignored through nerveless fingers.

Joachin dangled lifeless across his desk, eyes open and left arm reaching towards the foyer's double doors. He seemed surprised, as though he hadn't expected death to call on him this day. The rhythmic drip of blood onto the tiles echoed in Gray's ears, hammering a spike of panic deep into his gut.

Layla.

He took the elevator because changing to his falcon shape would take too long. He should have been home with her. The floors clicked past so slowly, taunting him. He tried his cellphone again; nothing.

When the chime finally rang to signal their arrival, he burst from the elevator, running now, his breath one long, wordless prayer to anybody who would listen.

Please. I'll give anything, pay anything that's asked of me so long as Layla's curled up waiting for me, all warm and fuzzy from her bath. Anything, please.

His apartment door swung drunkenly on broken hinges. The bath was empty, and he couldn't find Layla anywhere. All that waited inside for him was the acrid stink of wolf.

The End

Can Gray find Layla before the werewolves give in to their bloodlust?

What will Layla's father do with this man who won his daughter, only to lose her to their people's most dangerous enemy?

Find out in the next episode of the "Heart Of The Hawk" Series of short stories.

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