The driver nodded and drove off.
The wind blew Tryst’s scatter of hair across his face. Brushing it away, he trudged over the packed, icy snow that glossed the courtyard before the massive castle, eager to see the inside of this fascinating place.
“Wulfsiege.” He loved the name. It conjured images of medieval werewolf warriors defending their homes and family against ancient marauders.
His father had been born in the eighteenth century, but he’d never regaled Tryst with tales of his past. Tryst figured his dad hadn’t seen armored combat, though the man had certainly experienced defiance and struggle thanks to his mixed heritage of werewolf and vampire.
He paused, inhaling a breath of courage. Yes, it was required. For the haunting taunts of outsider lived in his brain. A slur used too often against him when he was younger and even, on occasion, now. Could he do this?
“Of course I can,” he whispered. But a defensive clench of his fist was unavoidable. He never let down his guard.
A weird rumble, almost like thunder, alerted him. He cast a glance to the strange white sky that looked solid, as if he could take a bite out of it. “Couldn’t be. Not in February.”
Instinct prickled the hairs along his arms under the layers of sweater and ski coat Tryst wore. He cast a glance along the sharp wall of snow not five hundred yards from the castle grounds. Tryst tilted his head, wondering what he was looking for and sensing he should see it. But he did not, so he brushed it off as nerves. Never before had he entered a pack compound—or castle—and he wasn’t certain how they’d accept this outsider.
Once through the doors, the castle opened to a vast space that resembled more a streamlined airport lobby than a medieval stronghold. While the interior limestone walls had been retained, the three-story space was all glass, steel railings, and an escalator even glided up to the second level. Not very sporting for a werewolf to take an escalator, he mused.
Tryst exhaled. So far, so good.
To his left, a wall of windows looked over an open-air stadium that featured bleacher seating set up against the castle exterior, and looked out over a snowy field marked with flags and a judges’ stand. A person didn’t need a seat in the open-air stadium to get a good view of the action; they could stand and look out the window.
Damn, he wished this had been the competition year.
A pair of males wandered near the glass wall, heading toward the hallway that led north and he knew by their familiar scent they were wolves. They lifted their heads, sensing him, and eyed him curiously.
Here it comes.
Tryst gave a friendly wave but lowered his eyes. His father had told him a little about pack hierarchy, and it wasn’t wise for an unaligned wolf to hold eye contact with a pack wolf unless he wanted to eat his own teeth for breakfast. Hell, Tryst hadn’t needed a coaching session to know that one was truth. Some things he just needed to learn through experience, and he had a wealth of experience under his belt.
The wolves approached him, bruisers with wide shoulders and hands clenched in fists. Heads lifted as they looked him over, their sweaters stretched across ample delts and biceps. While Tryst was tall and broad, and had a tendency to always be the largest man in the room, he judged the two to be close in size to him.
He offered his hand to shake but they stared at it. “Trystan Hawkes,” he said. “With a special delivery for the principal.”
They exchanged looks and one asked, “What pack are you with?”
“Paris,” Tryst answered easily. He didn’t say pack because he wasn’t going to lie. He waited to see how long it would take before they figured out he was not official.
“Paris pussies,” one of them muttered, and smirked.
“Wait here,” the other said. “We’ll get Rick.”
They strode off, keeping a keen eye over their shoulders as they did so.
The adrenaline racing through Tryst’s body crashed and he exhaled, his tight muscles relaxing. He’d passed that test.
“All werewolves here,” he muttered after the wolves must have decided he wasn’t a threat, and assumed their path north. He’d never been around many of his kind in any particular instance.
Admittedly, he’d led a sheltered life. Growing up in Paris, and homeschooled by one of his father’s good friends, Tryst hadn’t begun to associate with other werewolves until his teen years when he’d go out at night in search of them. Learning the ways of packs had been an eye-opener, sometimes an eye bruiser. Though he had never been part of a pack, he was considered an omega wolf, like it or not. And most pack wolves did not like him because he was the son of a half-breed vampire/werewolf. Son of a longtooth was his least favorite slang term used against him. Outsider, being the most bruising and mentally damaging. But he’d stood his ground against the pack wolves and had managed to gain their friendship, if not a leery trust. From a few, at the least.
The lure of pack life stirred his wanting heart now. It wasn’t that he’d not felt loved growing up—he had—but what he really wanted was to fit in, to be with his own breed and to know that kind of family. He’d missed something by growing up with vampires.
“Monsieur? Can I help you?”
As a suited young man who smelled like wolf, but who looked like GQ, approached him, Tryst explained, “I’m the courier from Hawkes Associates to see Principal Connor.” His gaze darted quickly from the man’s narrow shoulders to his polished leather shoes. “Are you Rick?”
“Yes.” The man checked the iPad he held nestled against his forearm and then nodded. “That’s Lexi’s arrangement. Wait here. I’ll get someone who can help you.”
“No problem.” Tryst saluted the man, who hurried off. “Real tight operation they’ve got around here.” And not as imposing as he’d expected.
He started toward the north hall, the chain from his wrist to his case shushing across the titanium shell. He sensed a cafeteria close by for he smelled roasted meat. The crackers and peanuts on the airplane hadn’t done much for his aggressive hunger. Hell, he was a big man; he needed fuel. All the time.
“Hawkes Associates?” a woman called after him.
Tryst swung around and sighted in a gorgeous, petite bit of darkness and light. Heeled white leather boots that rode to her thighs clicked on the stone floor as she strode purposefully toward him. A long white winter coat, pristine as fresh powder, swayed out about her knees. Her slicked-back black hair contrasted sharply with the coat, and the black, wraparound sunglasses flashed blue chromic lenses. She worked the winter Matrix look nicely.
Stopping before him, she hooked a white-gloved hand at her hip, which revealed she wore all white leather clothing underneath. The pose also exposed the white grip of a pistol she sported at her hip, but Tryst immediately knew it was a flare gun because he always packed one on any skiing venture.
Interesting. Matrix chick was sexy and deadly, in a safety kind of way. He nodded appreciatively. And a wolf, to boot? He could smell her wild pheromones enhanced with a burst of citrus, and his wolf howled inside at the prospect of standing so close to a gorgeous female
