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!
Three
“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.”
Eddie Batley groaned and tossed