How To Marry A Werewolf (Claw & Courtship, #1)(43)

“What are you doing, Channing? Cataloging?” Professor Lyall came into the room.

“Oh, it’s you. No, reorganizing.”

Lyall watched him for a moment. “You have plans for those now-empty shelves?”

“I do.” Channing was churlish. “I trust you don’t object, Beta?”

“Depends on the plans.”

Channing did not answer the unasked question. “Lyall, what do you want?”

“I understand you have sealed the deal with Miss Wigglesworth.”

“Faith. Yes. You’ve come to put me off?”

“Certainly not. Biffy approves. You know the rest of the pack all like her very much. Those who have met her, at least. I think she’ll fit in well here. And we will, of course, look after her should you run away.”

“You think that likely, do you?”

“The odds favor it.”

“You haven’t much faith in me.”

“Channing, I’ve known you for a hundred years, give or take a decade. You’ve never kept a woman for more than a few hours, let alone the span of a mortal lifetime. Frankly, I do not know what to expect. Up until this moment, you were nothing if not predictable in your loneliness.”

“She needs us rather badly.”

“Yes, I know. It does not have to be you who marries her.”

“Yes, it does.” Channing’s lip curled and he bared his teeth.

Lyall rolled his eyes at this display of possessiveness. “You’re sure you’re good enough for her?”

“Most assuredly not. But she seems to think so, and I want to try for her sake.”

Lyall gave a tight little sigh. “Channing, you must tell her about Odette.”

“I know.”

“And Isolde.”

“Don’t say that name.”

Lyall stood before him then, stopping him from pacing and fiddling with books and shelves.

Channing nearly walked right into him.

Lyall didn’t flinch – small, sandy-haired, self-effacing and urbane, infinitely powerful. A great deal stronger than Channing in every way. His enemy, his friend, his stabilization over the decades. There was so much time shared between them that they had become two thirds of a whole. Two thirds unchanging over the course of three Alphas now.

Channing remembered his howler training from when he’d first been metamorphosed. He thought on it often. The balance of the pack, the rule of three. Alpha for the head, evolving, shifting, holding too many tethers, burning brighter than the rest of the pack until he snuffed himself out in madness. Beta for the heart, beating a steady rhythm of care, love, resilience, ever steadfast. Gamma for the strength in arms, the warrior, the challenger, the weapon, to remind the pack of what they really were – hunters, trackers, fighters. To remind them to survive first.

Lyall stepped close, placed his hands to either side of Channing’s face, and breathed with him. Beta calm. Balance and focus. Lyall – my opposite in all things. What the Beta gives to the pack, the Gamma takes away. Challenge to support, fight to acceptance, peace for a time, until challenge comes again. The cycle of the wolf.

“Channing.” His Beta’s voice was mellow. “If she is in love with you, and I think she is – although you can’t have made it easy for her, poor little thing – then she deserves to know all of you.”

Channing could not deny this. Faith had spread herself raw and tenderized before him this very evening, cut herself open like fresh meat. He had craved her before he knew all her story, and now? Now he hungered for her, ravenous, and it was just possible he loved her a little. Even a lot. Which was truly terrifying.

“If you want to keep her for yourself – and I think you need to keep her – she has a right to know all of it.”



The next day, during early evening visiting hours, no one was surprised to see Mrs Iftercast, Miss Iftercast, and Miss Wigglesworth call upon the werewolves of Falmouth House. Or, to be precise, since the sun was not yet down, they were visiting the daylight support staff and clavigers of Falmouth House.

Everyone had heard the wildly romantic and mildly horrific story of the gallery the night before. More important, it was now understood and officially reported that Miss Wigglesworth had netted herself a werewolf. The fact that it was Major Channing was a surprise only to those who had not been watching his deranged courtship of her over the past few months.

Those who had, nodded wisely and said that while it might have looked peculiar from the outside, the major was an old-fashioned type, and perhaps it was a werewolf courting ritual of some seventy years gone. The very old (the howlers, the record-keepers, and the vampires) wondered about Major Channing’s first wife. But they did not say anything, because they were also old enough to know when to hold their tongues.

The fact that little Miss Wigglesworth brought her maid along with her to call at Falmouth House was thought a trifle odd. Suggestions were made that this was, most likely, an American custom. Others thought perhaps she intended to inspect the household and the running thereof, and that the maid would provide assistance in the matter of downstairs staff. Miss Wigglesworth would be the first proper wife to enter the London Pack since Lady Maccon. It was expected that she would take over the running of day-to-day concerns (or night-to-night, as it were). Of course, she would wish to visit during daylight hours if she wanted to meet the children and see the clavigers.