EPILOGUE

A month later, I came home to find origami hearts and birds all over the cabin and a delicious smell of burning meat in the air. I’d hoped my carnivorous appetites would wane with the moon, but these days I was ravenous for animal protein all the time. I guess I was a lapsed vegetarian now—one more change to add to my list.

I took off my hat and fluffed out my hair. I was surprised at the feel of my bare nape, and sometimes it felt as though I had removed a limb instead of just cutting off four feet of hair. Still, I was glad that Bruin had decided I didn’t actually need to spill blood to seal our pact. I guess Red had spilled enough for both of us.

Of course, it would have been nice if the tricky bastard had let me know he actually had one more life left in him. Especially since I nearly had a heart attack when he sat up and pulled the knife out of his chest.

But I don’t really hold it against Red. He’d possessed one last chance to gain a soul, and he had been willing to trade his very last life for it—the one he’d kept up his sleeve, as it were. So I couldn’t blame him for making sure that I wasn’t holding anything back.

And I think Red had really believed that he could keep me from sacrificing anything. He hadn’t looked happy when Bruin had insisted that I take the knife and complete the bargain.

I touched my shorn hair again. In any case, Marlene had done a fairly decent job of making the ragged ends look like a deliberate style. Red even claimed he liked it, saying he thought it made my eyes look bigger, and that the nape of my neck was his new favorite body part.

My mother said it would grow out and look better in a year or so.

I touched one of the origami hearts. “What’s this for?”

Red came up behind me to take my coat. “Let’s warm you up first. How is it outside?”

“Cold.” Four weeks after the manitous had plunged us into an unnatural summer, and I was so sick of winter I half wanted to ask if they could do it again. But then I thought of the paperwork involved.

Being town supervisor, as well as being a veterinarian, didn’t leave me a lot of free time. And that was what I had become: de facto mayor of Northside. It turned out that reviving Emmet had made me his boss, and then the town board had decided to make it official.

“How did the meeting go?” Red knelt down and pulled off my wet boots.

“Long. The council is still arguing over the zoning issue. But we have agreed to fund the Brownies’ Maypole festival, and there’s an agreement on the table that will protect the sacred ground on Old Scolder Mountain.”

“Bruin must be pleased.” He’d attended the session to ensure that the manitous’ interests would be represented.

“Bruin looked preoccupied, actually. I think it’s because Lilliana went back to the city last week.”

Red rubbed his palm along his jaw, considering. “Or maybe he’s just not supposed to be awake in the middle of February.”

“I guess you’re right, but….” I stopped, looked around at the origami decorations, and realized what they meant. “Crap. It’s Valentine’s Day, isn’t it? I bought you a card, but I haven’t had time to write in it yet.”

“I don’t care much for cards, anyhow,” said Red, his hands moving up my ankle and around my calf.

“How can I make it up to you?”

Red paused, his hands halfway to my thighs. “Now, there’s a question.”

“Mmm. Speaking of questions, where are the dogs?” Now that we had been adopted by four enormous wolfdogs, Red was getting more serious about building our canid dream house.

“I sent them out to play while I cooked the flank steak.” Red stood up and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

“How did you know I felt like meat tonight?”

“I’ve got a piece of your soul growing inside me, remember?”

I did remember, because when I spent too long away from Red, I felt a hollow ache in my chest. What was harder for me to bear in mind was that the same man who sometimes ticked me off by leaving the toilet seat up was actually Coyote, the most Liminal of the Liminal creatures, who had passed back and forth between worlds until he belonged to both and neither. As far as I could tell, Red had been honest about his family history. He’d had a rebellious mother who had left her clan, and he’d been taught by his grandfather in the ways of the Limmikin. Red just hadn’t mentioned that he’d had quite a few other lifetimes, or that Coyote was all about dying spectacularly and then being reborn. Red was hard to pin down on the subject, but it seemed that Coyote was always born to the Limmikin—they were his special children, his tribe. I wondered what would happen to them now; maybe some other trickster god would adopt them. But when I was with Red, I got caught up in the seductive normality of day-to-day life, and forgot about his mind-bendingly long and checkered past.

I nuzzled Red’s neck. He smelled delicious, clean and woodsy, with a faint, musky tang. “New aftershave?”

“Uh-uh. You smell pretty good yourself.” He trailed his fingers over the moonstone choker. Red was looking in my eyes, a knowing, masculine smile curving his lips. And all of a sudden, I felt a rush of arousal so strong Red broke out into a broad grin.

“You look a little too smug, Buster.”

“I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty smug.”

“You know, this isn’t exactly natural. I’m not in heat anymore.”

“I guess I’m getting domesticated,” Red said, grasping my wrists and pulling me closer. “Dogs do it all year long, don’t they?”

“You don’t feel domesticated. But the dog part sounds about right.” Ever since that day in the cavern, Red had revealed a more confident, mischievous side. Maybe it was because I knew his big secret. Or maybe it was because of the marks branded into my arm, and his, that marked us and linked us more closely than we had ever been before. I couldn’t read his mind, thank God. But I did know what he was feeling, and vice versa.

It had given us both permission to play with more of an edge. “Listen, Redneck, I haven’t even had a glass of wine yet.” I twisted my wrists free of his grasp. “Besides, I don’t think I’m really ready yet.” I walked over to the wine cabinet and pulled out a bottle of merlot.

Red pounced on me, taking me down to the ground, his arms stopping me from hitting the floor. “You smell ready.”

“Get off me or I’ll bite you.”

“Bite me.”

We thrashed around, rolling on the floor, until Red had me pinned again, my wrists held over my head. “Now, where to begin …” He bent his head to my right breast, nipping me through the fabric of my blouse.

“Oh, Red,” I said, suddenly on the verge of tears. Red smiled, his body lean and hard against mine, his calloused hand soft as he reached under my skirt to cup my abdomen. I didn’t look pregnant yet, I just looked like I’d been eating too many doughnuts, but neither of us cared. We were going to have a baby, and even the fact that Magda was pregnant as well didn’t bother me. The only thing that did niggle at the back of my mind was my desperate promise to the Grey sisters the night when reality got a little porous over Northside. But there were so many things to worry about when you were pregnant. I was just relieved that I wasn’t whelping a litter.

I tugged at Red’s hair to stop him from kissing my belly. “Hey. Coyote. You have any idea how much I love you?”

“I was hoping for a demonstration.”

“What about the steaks?”

“Darlin’, I put those in the warmer the minute you walked in the door.”

My phone rang, and Red stiffened against me, so I bit his chin to get his attention. As he kissed me with real concentration, the message machine clicked on and Marlene began nattering on in her nasal voice about some kind of building variance. I ignored it. A little while later, while Red was kissing his way down my belly, the phone rang again, this time my mother, wanting to know about whether we’d come any closer to deciding on a venue for the wedding.

We got into a laughing fit, but recovered. The third time the phone rang, Red threw my phone against the wall.

In nature, coyotes are among the most adaptable of animals. They can live in mated pairs like foxes, hunting mice and voles, although when they yip and howl, they can throw their voices and fool you into thinking there are many more of them. But when conditions are right, coyotes can live like wolves, forming large packs and taking down big game.

They are opportunists and con artists, and are notoriously difficult to destroy. In the old Native American myths, Coyote died a thousand ignominious deaths, only to rise again. But despite his reputation as a trickster, I knew that Red had made his choice. He had only one life left to live. And that one would be with me.

For my part, I had made my peace with loving Red, and with the knowledge that I might not have chosen him if I’d never become a lycanthrope. If I’d been human and living in Manhattan, I might not even have gone out on a first date with him.

Which would have been a shame, because I would have missed out on the kind of man you wait a lifetime to find. But then, humans work at such a disadvantage when it comes to selecting their mates. They get distracted by clothing and hair texture and skin color, by age and accent and, most of all, by the enchantment of words and the illusions they can conjure.

Red and I had a more fundamental connection, and once a month, we were reminded that love, like territory, needs to be maintained. There’s a lot to be said for being human, but if you want true loyalty and undying passion, let a wolf be your guide.