Men of the Otherworld Read Free Page A

child, and it was a son, then it was a werewolf, and therefore had to come back to him. So whatever “pressure” he had to apply on Vincent to tell him where to find the girl… well, he was just obeying Pack Law.
    By the time he finished with Vincent, he was certain that when the man said he didn't know where the girl had gone, he was telling the truth. He did, however, have an emergency contact for her, from when she first took the job.
    Malcolm took the address—supposedly the girl's grandmother's— and arrived there just in time to find an old lady in the process of moving. He tracked the woman to her new apartment and saw the girl there. They'd moved only a few miles away, to a larger apartment. Obviously the girl had found a better job and invited Granny to move in. That explained why she'd been so eager to get him into her bed, having known it would be her last night at the bar, and her last chance with him.
    Malcolm made a note of the new address and returned to the Sorrentinos’ estate outside New York City. At the end of the weekend, he went home to his own family estate near Syracuse. The next month, when he visited his Pack brothers in NYC, he stopped by the girl's apartment. He saw her, but made no effort at contact. Finding out he'd tracked her there might give the girl a romantic thrill… or it might spook her.
    Maybe he was being overly optimistic, but when he saw her, something seemed… different. Dominic always said he could smell it when he'd knocked up a girl, even before she started to show. Malcolm had always figured Dominic was full of shit, but now he wondered.
    He stopped in again after the second and third month, just to make sure she hadn't shipped out. He was compiling a list of details in case she did—where she worked, where she shopped, places and people he could shake down for information if she moved again. But she didn't, and when he came by after the third month, he noticed she was wearing baggier clothing. Still too soon to hope—she might have only put on some weight—but hope he did. On his fourth visit, he was more convinced. By the fifth, he was certain. He was going to be a father.
    When the eighth month came, he found excuses to stay at the Sorrentino estate, and went by the girl's apartment almost daily. There was no need for him to be there when the baby came— most Pack werewolves waited a month or so after the arrival before claiming their sons. But Malcolm couldn't be so nonchalant, not when so much could still go wrong. There could be birth complications. Or it might be a girl. Or it might not be his again. So he hovered close and waited, and in the middle of the third week, his vigilance paid off. He was there when his child entered the world.
    Weeks ago he'd found a route up the fire escape and to a window that never quite closed. Normally, he'd just crouch on the fire escape, hidden in the darkness of night, where he could watch and listen. When he heard that first scream of labor, though, he wrenched open the window and squeezed through into the grandmother's bedroom.
    The scream, and the voices that answered with soothing reassurances, came from down the hall. He slipped to the doorway and looked out. Risky, but if the baby was on the way, intruders would be the last thing on anyone's mind.
    From the bedroom doorway, he could see into the living room, and the first thing he saw were the symbols covering the walls— the same black symbols from his “dream.” He inhaled sharply. So that hadn't been a dream; big deal. They were foreigners. Who knew what religion they followed, what gods they worshipped? Painting stuff on the walls and on their bodies, chanting and waving pendulums around, it was all no stranger than a Catholic Mass. No reason for his heart to be thudding like a cornered stag's.
    Another scream. Then the same two voices from his dream launching into the same chanting singsong. He moved into the hall and crept forward until he could see the living