It was a struggle, but Gabriel managed to keep his voice even, his gaze steady when he responded. “Nice to see you too, Auntie Mo,” he said softly, landing another childish but satisfying blow with the use of her hated nickname. “Enjoy your prior engagement. And by the way, if you ever mention my mother again, I’ll tear your bloody throat out.”

Moriah’s mouth turned down into a grimace that changed her entire face into something hideous. Something, Gabriel thought, quite a bit closer to the truth. She looked like she wanted to bite him. God help him, he’d like to see her try.

“You’ll pay, soon enough, for that.” She straightened, turned on one dagger-sharp heel, and tapped angrily out the front door, nearly toppling two servers carrying large and laden trays as she charged through. Well, that had gone about as well as could be expected, Gabriel decided as he turned his attention to his cousin, sitting silently across from him. Moriah had never felt much need to hide her distaste for either him or Gideon … at least not when no one she considered important was around. And it was a trait she’d been very careful to cultivate in her only son.

Malachi MacInnes. Gabriel hadn’t seen him in close to a year, now that he thought of it. Been avoiding the Hunting Grounds, which he’d just chalked up to intense dislike of the rest of his family and, probably, disdain for the Pack in general. And no matter what, he probably hadn’t been too far off the mark with that. Trying to kill off your closest cousins indicated more than a bit of dislike, after all. And still, he looked about as he remembered him: a bit too thin, a bit too pale, and with a sort of hungry anger, more intense than he remembered, in his eyes. Eyes which were now fixed on him.

“Lovely woman, your mum,” Gabriel said, jerking his head toward the door which Moriah had just stormed through. “Don’t know why we don’t see more of one another.”

Malachi, however, didn’t appear to be in the mood for small talk. “What do you want, Gabriel? Whatever it is, I’d appreciate it if you’d just get it out and get going, since looking at you for too long is bound to ruin my appetite.”

“Still no sense of humor,” Gabriel sighed, enjoying his cousin’s irritation. “I thought I might grab a bite, actually, since I’m here. Food good, is it?”

“I don’t recall inviting you to lunch, Cousin.”

“Ah, come on, Malachi. I know you’re always happy for the company. So few others can tolerate it, after all. You should be grateful I arrived when I did, since you’ve been deprived of your mother’s sparkling company.”

Malachi rolled his gray eyes back into his head. “I doubt I would have been, if you hadn’t wandered in.”

Gabriel placed his hand against his heart in mock horror. “My God, man! You don’t mean you think I’ve run her off, do you?”

Malachi smiled, albeit thinly. “Still the clown, then, are you? Well, I suppose some things never change.” A waiter arrived with a small salad of field greens, placed it in front of him. Gabriel eyed it suspiciously.

“You haven’t gone veg, have you? Because that all looks a bit … green.”

“There’s more to life than meat, Gabriel. If you’d ever come out of the damned wilderness, you might discover a thing or two.” Malachi forked up a bit of the salad, which looked to be coated in a light vinaigrette, and placed it in his mouth, chewing contemplatively, never taking his eyes off his cousin. Gabriel, for his part, worked very hard at not pulling a face as he watched him eat. Apart from the occasional potato- or tomato-based product, he remained, as he had always been, deeply suspicious of anything overtly vegetable.

“Something for you, sir?” The server, polished in a crisp dress shirt and tie, regarded Gabriel with polite interest.

“Just a pint of Guinness for me, thanks. Not enough time for much but a meal in a glass today.” He caught the beginning of the server’s amused smirk before he turned away, which was a great deal better than the expression Malachi had on his face, with closed eyes and a pained frown.

“I have yet to comprehend,” he managed in a strained voice, “how on earth you manage to run a successful business. I would imagine the clientele must be a lot like you, which means it pleases me to no end that I haven’t been back in some time.”

“Mmm. You know, it might have made us curious, if we’d bothered to notice.”

Malachi opened his eyes, glared daggers at him. “What do you want, Gabriel?”

“Ah, well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Gabriel picked up the pint glass that was set quietly in front of him, leaned back in his chair, and took a long, restorative swallow. A meal in a glass, indeed, he thought as he held it up and studied it with a grin, realizing that he was generally his own best audience, but still … if you didn’t nurture your sense of humor, you’d end up a sour old witch like his aunt, or a bitter, violent mama’s boy like the one sitting at the table with him, to his way of thinking.

“I notice you haven’t asked about Gideon.”

Malachi raised a brow sharply. “Shocking, since the crown prince and I are such close friends.”

“Ah, but you see, what I want pertains to him.” Gabriel set down the glass, propped his elbows on the table, and folded his hands before him. And his cousin’s demeanor remained cool, indifferent … but still, there it was, just a hint, the faintest whiff, of uneasiness. “Strangely enough, I don’t really like it when people try to kill my brother.”

Malachi snorted, began to fork through his salad again, although this time he did little more than toy with it. “Puzzling, that, as he is a bit of an ass. But I’m afraid you still haven’t mentioned what you want from me. I’m not terribly interested in some paranoid fantasy, so if this is all, I’m going to hope that you have some small shred of dignity that’ll make you leave before I have you removed.”

“Fortunately for you, that tactic hasn’t worked on Gideon thus far.”

Malachi’s lips peeled back in a snarl. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Pleased it had been this easy to get a rise out of his cousin, Gabriel switched tracks quickly, sighing and shaking his head gently back and forth. He’d see more, he figured, if he could keep him off balance. “Tsk, tsk, Cousin. Shame on you for listening to your deluded mum. Do you really think that if you just sweep us all away that planting your sorry ass on the Stone will make you more than the pathetic, grasping little beast you are? Not that you’d ever get to it, in any case. The Pack will never have you.” He leaned forward, eyes filled with an angry, unnatural light. Well, he thought. Perhaps he wasn’t going to be quite as even-tempered about this as he’d thought. “And neither will we.”

Malachi’s pallid skin flushed with anger, and his voice, when he spoke, shook slightly with the effort to keep it down, keep up the outward appearance of a normal conversation.

“If someone, somehow, managed to get rid of the bloody ruling MacInneses, that wouldn’t be for you to decide, now, would it? But, sadly for you, you’re wasting all that hot air you carry about with you. If someone’s trying to kill your irritating brother, you’d best look elsewhere for the source. And as for the Lia Fαil … I don’t think a damned one of you has any idea where it even came from, much less what it can do. Now if you’ll excuse me,” he snapped, shoving away from the table and standing, eyes flashing, “I’d best get back to work before you manage to ruin any more of my day.” He tossed a few bills on the table for his mostly uneaten salad and strode off, leaving Gabriel to sip at his beer and watch him go.

Normally, he would have been congratulating himself on managing to run off two of his least favorite family members in under fifteen minutes. But something was off, and badly. He’d felt all that nervous tension coiled about Moriah and Malachi, noted too that their tempers, though infamous, had gone from having only a short fuse to practically none. And most importantly, through all of the smoke and anger pouring in his direction, he’d smelled fear. Now, though he and Gideon would have a definitive answer as to who was behind this little coup attempt, Gabriel was left to wonder if, in getting that answer, he’d done more harm than good. He still had no proof, but he’d doubtless just added some desperation to the mix. It might make them sloppy, he reasoned. Then again, it might just make them faster, more deadly.

He needed to call Gideon. He needed to head back to Iargail to have a chat with his father as well.

And damn that bloody snowstorm Gideon had gotten himself stuck in, because the three of them really needed to take a united stand on this. But for now, he was going to have to concentrate on actions instead of what-ifs, and see what he would see. He set the empty glass aside, placed large, calloused hands over his eyes, and rubbed, his only concession to the weariness and worry that was hovering at the back of his mind.

And he decided that after this, he was due for a damned vacation himself.

t t t

Malachi slammed into his office in a rage. How dare he? How dare he? To walk into his life, disturb and unsettle him in front of people, influential people, people who would talk.

Bastard.

He should have gone for Gabriel and his insufferable, smug mouth, his embarrassing lack of anything even resembling class, first. Should have known that Jonas’s incompetence the other night would set off the alarm. Should have known that it would point, because Gideon was the initial target, right in his direction. Stupid, hissed his mother’s voice, always the first to berate him in his mind when he made a misstep, when what he did threatened to dishonor the one branch of the family that was still fit to guard, to lead. To rule.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” he muttered, not even realizing he spoke aloud as he moved quickly through the opulent office he knew he didn’t deserve, to the locked desk drawer that contained his only hope of salvation. “I’ll make it better … I’ll make it right.”