Deceived By the Others by Jess Haines

be. At my absent nod, she whisked off, deftly weaving between the tables to refill the coffee mugs for George and his girl, then for the geek in the corner. Everything was quiet except for the muted whispers of the lovers, and as I tasted the coffee, bitter from sitting on the burner too long, I pondered what to do about all the problems that had cropped up.
    Someone was behind it all. Someone was whispering bad things in the ears of the pack, stirring them up, pissing them off. Somebody didn’t want me here or was angry at Chaz, and was willing to do some bad things to drive us away. Why?
    As convenient as it would be to blame Alec Royce, I didn’t think my being bound by blood to him for a whopping twelve days was enough to piss off the Sunstrikers. They knew I had a connection to him after that deal with the Dominari Focus, and that I had saved the vamp as well as Were packs in New York City from enslavement by a crazy sorcerer. Shouldn’t that be enough to balance out the ugliness of being bound for a few measly days?
    Granted, I’d never fully work him out of my system after what had happened. You could say the same of Max Carlyle. If the guy was in close enough proximity, he could call me back to his side. I didn’t think Royce would tolerate Max’s coming back to New York for any reason, and if the police caught wind of his return, his butt would fry in the sun in no time. He’d tried to pin the mass murders he’d committed on Royce, and while it had been proven conclusively that Max was the one responsible, it had still tarnished Royce’s relatively good name. There were questions of his involvement and, now and again, mine as well. Could it be that someone was upset about the murders and was trying to turn everyone against me?
    No. No, the “flavor” of the pranks of the last few days seemed too personal. It wasn’t just an attempt to turn Others against me for something as nebulous as my possible involvement in the massacres of a month ago. Actually, it probably wasn’t even because I had some kind of connection to Royce. Whatever it might be, it had something to do with my relationship with Chaz.
    You don’t burn someone’s clothes and shoes unless you’ve got a special beef. The rumors and handwritten notes didn’t seem like the handiwork of the same person. You don’t leap from weird, somewhat childish notes to violence on this scale without some serious provocation, and I wasn’t sure that Chaz or I could’ve managed to piss somebody off this badly in so short a period. For that matter, was it me or Chaz they were targeting? Both? Did that mean that the same person was mad at us for different reasons, or that two different people were simultaneously taking out their frustrations on one or both of us?
    I closed my eyes and leaned back in the chair, concentrating on piecing together what was going on with the clues I had. Sara would be laughing her ass off at me right now. Sitting around drinking coffee, hiding inside when I should be hunting down the root of the problem and confronting it. Whatever. I’d take care of the problem on my own time. Aside from which, I doubted whoever it was would be raising his or her hand and conveniently saying, “Oh yes, that was me!” when I started asking around to scare up some clues.
    “Here you go, sweetie. You just call me over if you need anything else.”
    I cracked an eye open as Mrs. Cassidy set the plate down. Just looking at the mile-high stack of blueberry pancakes dripping with butter was enough to give me heart palpitations.
    “Thank you,” I said with a grateful smile, tugging the cloth napkin out from under my silverware and putting it across my lap. She settled a dish with extra butter and a trencher of warm syrup down in front of me, giving me a light, friendly pat on the shoulder. I dug in, giving a blissful moan of pleasure at the first bite. The soft, fluffy pancakes were fantastic, practically melting on my tongue.
    I stuffed myself,