There was never a choice between the two options Atticus posed. Not for the werewolf, at least.
Veti's eyes widened almost as far as her jaw dropped, her stupefied glance leaping from the map to Atticus almost as quickly as her emotions vacillated between self-recrimination, unbridled gratitude and spitting fury.
She should have found this, this map. It was her
job, research, uncovering and recovering the ancient and the long-lost but she'd given up hope - too soon it seemed. Far too soon. She should have known. It wasn't pride or arrogance that informed her, for all her relative youth, there were precious few - beyond perhaps the demigod Muninn - who could match her mental abilities or the depth of her esoteric knowledge.
She should have searched far and wide for the way to bring Thad back, instead of wallowing helplessly in rivers of despair, regret and sorrow...
Gratitude. God have mercy, but the wave of gratitude that washed over her for the incubus damn near made her weak in the knees. She loved Atticus, she did. No, not like Siya loved Atticus - oh
hell no. Veti might have ninety-nine
thousand problems, but at least screwing her boss had never been one of them. Still she was sure, for all Atticus' silence nigh on a year now, that he was at least fond of her too - in his own way, yes.
Which made that silence, punctuated only by the arrival of Siya's flowers weeks ago, all the more baffling. And then suddenly infuriating. Atticus knew damn well what her skill set was, her absolute and abiding interest in the subject at hand -
why the hell didn't he say something!? Did he think she was too close to the subject matter, to be the consummate professional she truly was?
Or worse yet, too
broken?
That thought made Veti bristle inside, red-faced and embarrassed and only just bringing her torrential thoughts back to self-recrimination all over again -
And then the giant spoke from behind his ancient human mask, his words to her ears as thick and heavy as layers of sediment laid over millenia on a lake bottom.
Heh. Fine. Fury it would be then. Thanks for the target.
"Tangible reason?" Veti snarled, sapphire eyes turned a golden amber - rarely a good sign. "The
fuck Henry, has Bain & Hoyle taken such a nose dive in the past year, we're defaulting on contracts? What's happened there big guy, didn't you get
paid?"
Veti gave a good damn whether this complete stranger wanted to help find Max...
Thad... and bring him back to the realm of the living. The giant didn't know Thad, didn't know her - and she didn't know him either. No investment there at all. Fair enough, no hard feelings, even if Thad
did give his life to save this entire damned world, Veiled and 'natural.' In truth, the werewolf harbored a small, secret hope no one at all would step up to go after him but her, no matter how unlikely that wish might be. If Thad didn't come back, Veti knew well she wouldn't either, a year and a day be damned. And if she lost another one of the few people she loved before her very eyes, her tiny pack sliced smaller still...
She'd go mad. She just
knew it.
Veti stood to her full, naturally-impressive height, her sweatshirt hood pushed back, crimson hair falling about her shoulders like rivulets of spilled blood. She rubbed at her temples with an angry hiss of her breath, wiping away all the horrible, unthinkable sights her imagination conjured from her mind's eye with an impatient swiftness.
Fuck him. She didn't need some reluctant giant to find Thad. But Reginald Hoyle wasn't
just their boss. He was a
damn good man, and if she didn't have the slimmest, precious glimmer of hope of seeing her lover's face again this side of breath and beating heart, she'd have been at the elder wolf's side in an instant. Maybe she was overreacting, deliberately misunderstanding the giant's reticence to help. But the werewolf was stretched as thin as too little butter over too much toast, and in no mood to deal with ancient, greedy, disinclined and unhelpful pains in her occasionally red-furred ass.
"Or do you mean tangible as in, oh... Say, Yap islander currency, a few rai to fiddle with in your pockets? Oh! Or maybe you're just looking for a mountain of your very own to hump? Tangible
companionship? Heh, I'm sure Henry can write it into your next contract. He's pretty damned amazing like that."
She let the map pass to whoever might look at it next, knowing damn well it'd come back to her eventually. "You know where I'm going, Atticus," she said easily, surprising even herself with how steady her voice actually sounded. Still, Veti was unable to bring herself to look anymore around this enormous group, to see anymore reluctance or indecision or - worse still - pity. "Mr. Hoyle is a good man. The
best. But I think he'd understand... This. And you know I'll join you, just as soon as Max comes home."
There. Confidently said. Not if.
When. That was really the only option anymore.
