She leaned against me but didn’t laugh at my comment like I would’ve liked. “I get now why you were a lone wolf for so long. I knew you must have had a good reason, but I never expected your father’s former Elders to be so cruel. I can’t believe they would abandon one of their own to fend for himself. You were just a little boy.”
“What do you expect from pack weres? They’re all a bunch of stuck-up ass**les.”
She released me then and regarded me carefully. “Then why join them now after all these years, especially now that demon lords are targeting the weres for annihilation?”
I reached for my sandwich again. Confessions of a werewolf obviously worked up an appetite. I took a huge chunk out of my sandwich and spoke while I chewed. “This isn’t about me, or my grudge toward my dad’s Elders. It’s about you.”
Celia frowned. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. Celia, you’re my real pack—you, Dan, your sisters. I had to join the weres to help take down the Tribe. I’m not letting them get away with what they did to you and your family.”
Celia’s lips parted. “You joined Aric’s pack because of us?”
“Why else would I have signed up for this Den shit? Because let me tell you, that ex-lover of yours is a ballbusting hard-ass. You wouldn’t believe the crap he expects me to do.”
She watched me closely, I guess waiting for me to say more. I didn’t, though, and took another beer out the fridge. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
I gave her a stiff nod in response. Hell, Celia would risk her life for me. The least I could do is return the favor. She slipped back to the other side of the counter and resumed eating. “You’re not going to end up alone, kid.” She swallowed hard at my revelation but then took another bite. “We’re going to get married.”
That made her smile. “Are we?”
“Totally.” I kept munching and popped open a new bag of Doritos. “It’ll be an open marriage, of course.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Of course.”
“Oh hell yeah. Dan’s eventually going to marry—probably some fugly chick at the rate he’s going.” I shuddered. “They’ll go on to make fugly-ass babies and where will that leave me? Shit, you know I don’t cook. And someone has to clean.”
“Mmm. Cook and clean, too. You really know how to woo a gal.”
My grin widened. Ceel was a hell of an audience for all my bullshit. “I’ll come home—after a hard night of bartending or banging some hot broad—and you’ll be waiting with my breakfast, dressed in an apron and stilettos.” I thought about it. “Unless your figure starts to go. Then it might have to be a naughty nurse outfit—just to cover some of that sagging shit up. It’s the perfect arrangement. What do you say?”
“Oh, hot damn and golly, Bren, who could resist such a generous offer?”
I would have believed her if she hadn’t nailed me in the head with an apple from the fruit bowl. I caught it on the rebound and took a bite. “Thanks, Ceel.”
We finished our sandwiches while continuing to rip into each other, had a couple more, and washed them down with a blackberry pie. “Do you want me to pick you up, or do you just want me to meet you at the club?”
Celia licked the last trace of blackberry goodness off her top lip. “You still want to go out? After what we just went through outside?”
I grinned. “A bet’s a bet. Besides, you can’t let a bunch of spooks ruin your good time.”
“I guess.” Celia stiffened before her head whipped toward the sliding glass doors leading out to her deck. She rushed to the doors. I followed, my wolf sensing something stirring outside. “Oh . . . my God.”
I slung an arm around her shoulders when I saw what had her lids peeling back. Wisps and shimmering veils of silver and white lifted from where we’d pimp-slapped La Llorona back to hell, and from where the shreds of screeching fabric had met their end. One by one, thirty, forty, maybe fifty ghosts swirled their way into the sky. “Huh. Well, will you look at that?”
She slowly turned her head to face me. “There’s an army of ghosts taking off to the moon in my backyard, and this is seriously all you have to say?”
“Relax, Ceel, this is a good thing. It means we shattered whatever nasty magic trapped La Llorona’s victims in her dress and compelled them to want to devour our blood and guts. Given how long she’s been prowling the earth, it probably took some time for her power to fully dissolve.” I pointed upward. “Her victims are free now and have a one-way ticket up to the pearly gates, babe. So, we going out?”