Two
Rachael had known
that, had been expecting that, so it wasn’t the shock Michael had
feared.
She remembered the
incident well, and the memorial afterward, on the occasion where
they’d had the chance to meet the queen and her consort. Rachael
hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse, or much chance to hear the
trial—Wyndham Manor had been crawling with thousands of her
kind—but regardless of what little she saw, she still found Betsy
Taylor silly beyond belief.
No one had especially
liked the late Antonia Wolfton (except Derik, Michael’s best
friend), but they’d all been angry that a werewolf had died on a
vampire’s watch. And what the hell kind of a name for a monarch was
Betsy?
“I need someone
smart, someone I can trust, who can take care of herself—they don’t
have any cranberry bogs out there for you to fall in—”
“Ha, ha, O Rotund
Pack Leader.”
“Back off, I’ve only
gained a couple pounds since Lara started all that ruckus. Do you
know how many boys have been following her home? She’s in goddamned
elementary school and the boys are already trotting after her! I’m
gonna have to start beating them off with sticks!”
“The terrible trials
of our magnificently round Pack leader.”
“That’s all sheathed
in sculpted muscle, Rache.” He patted his (to be fair, reasonably
flat) stomach. In fact, Rachael was pleased to see evidence that he
was able to relax enough to indulge now and then. Before his
mating, before his cubs came, he had the lean look of a man always
too close to a bad mistake. Jeannie and the children had changed
all that.
It occurred to her,
again, that he had changed in other ways. Usually when she saw him,
there were dozens of others around, usually the cousins and their
kin. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been alone with
him. So things she normally never thought of were not only
occurring to her, she was thinking of them again and again. Things
that had changed . . . and things that never changed.
His looks, for
instance. In addition to the change in his coloring, there had been
changes to his very nature . . . external and out. He’d been narrow
and lean until adulthood, all gawky elbows and long legs. Maturity
had helped him grow into a powerful body. He might have relaxed
enough to dodge workouts, but he could still put his fist through
the trunk of a tree, could still squeeze a rock into
gravel.
His eyes, though . .
.
His eyes had always
been a savage gold, rare and striking even among their kind. From
the moment he pulled her from the bog, she knew this boy would be
the greatest Pack leader in the history of the lupi viri. And no matter what had happened to the
Pack since then, no matter the deaths and births and matings and
Challenges, his eyes had never
changed.
No, Michael Wyndham
was in the right place, the right Pack, and she knew it, and nearly
everyone else did, too.
Oh, sure, there were
scuffles now and again, mostly in the early years. Jeannie Wyndham,
mother of Lara, the future Pack leader, was involved with at least
one. That had been humbling for all of
them. A human coming to Michael’s
rescue and saving them all with time left over to bitch about how
chilly the manor got in the darker corners . . . ah, the shame of
it . . .
Now, years later, as
an adult male in his prime (to be fair, the males tended to be
bigger and stronger with no effort on their part, though she
disliked distinctions by gender), his no-longer-black,
no-longer-long, now-shoulder-length dark gold hair had a ripple of
a wave through it, and when he stepped into sunshine, it often
looked to her as though he was blessed by the sun god; their Pack
leader was dazzling, which was annoying.
He had no idea. At
all. No idea that to her, to the Pack, he really did seem as
something of a living god. And that was annoying, too. She could
hear herself thinking such nonsense and wanted to roll her eyes.
Unfortunately, knowing it was a cliché (and a silly one, too) did
not make it untrue.
He snarled at her,
showing a lot of teeth, but it was more show than substance, he was
still trying to articulate what he needed from her. Her! One of his
least fiery, passionate, ferocious Pack members. One who never
married, one who kept to herself, had never left the state of
Massachusetts except for one ill-fated trip to New York City. One
who didn’t seek people out.
Come to think of it,
she would go because Michael knew all her flaws, knew she disliked
fights and intrigues, knew she was more sapiens than any other Pack member, knew she was
happy at spreadsheets. She would go because Michael knew all those things about her . . . and loved and
valued her not despite her odd habits, but because of
them.
Her father and
Michael’s father had been brothers born a generation apart. Her
father loved to read, loved to figure things out, loved to learn,
loved to teach.
Michael’s father
loved to fight.
So here they were,
two branches of the same tree, but for all they had in common,
there were many differences, too.
“Listen: I don’t
think they mean trouble for us. Specifically, I don’t think Queen
Betsy does. I don’t know what her consort wants . . . that fucker’s
harder to read than my own dad was.”
Yow. Not a lightly
made comparison. Her uncle had been famous for sitting quietly one
moment with a cub in his lap, then exploding into a fight to the
death after tossing said cub to a bystander.
Her irritation at the
rude uprooting of her business and personal life—
What personal life, you silly bitch?
That’s enough out of you, inner voice who sounds like
Mother.
—began to fade, and
interest began to take its place. The interest wasn’t necessary,
but it was a bonus she was grateful for. Because the two people in
this room knew she would leave at once for Minnesota, despite the
dreadful seven-month winters.
Of course she would
go; there had never been a doubt. If it meant her death, fine. If
it meant permanent banishment from her homeland followed by death,
as it had for Antonia, fine. If it meant tedious meetings and bad
food and shrill vampires and dreadful weather and frostbite and a
thousand tornadoes (they had all sorts of them in Minnesota,
right?) and having to eat lutefisk and lefse so as to blend in, and
to march through the monument to consumerism that was (drum roll,
please, or maybe a cow bell?) THE MALL OF AMERICA . . . so be
it.
But she was a family
member first, a werewolf second, and an accountant third. Aw, nuts.
If her mom was still alive, she would have given Rachael a smack.
Mother had always thought her only daughter’s priorities should be
different.
But! Mother was
(probably) dead. So Rachael’s priorities were her own.
And it suited her
fine.
She would go. He was
family; more, she loved him like a brother and was bound, not only
by their blood, but by her heart, to do as he asked.
But it would never do
for Michael to know too much of that, so she fumed and scowled and
insulted him and let herself be placated and pretended this thing
was a terrible inconvenience.
Oh, wait. It
was.
Dammit!