wolf in the wee hours. Running in town is nice when there’s no people. And it’s dead as hags at three in the morning. Have a great shift, Sue.”
He’s ambling for the door when he casually calls over. “Hey?”
Slipping my phone, which I’d peeked at for last messages—none—back into my pocket, I ask, “Yeah?”
“Did the bloke you divorced have the last name of Bennet?”
I frown. “Yeah. Why?”
“Eh. No reason.”
With that, Finn leaves.
***
The week passes by blessedly easy, with Deek taking Maggie to the park faithfully every day (he simply goes as a wolf now, and stays in wolf form for the duration of the trip) and Charlotte and Ginny’s time being swallowed up by school and academic activities. Every night, I come home to a sink that has no dishes piled in it. The floors have been mopped. On Wednesday morning when I trot down to the basement to start a load of laundry, I find it’s already been done, and not only that, everything’s stone dry in the quiet dryer.
Someone did the laundry yesterday and didn’t say a thing.
The smoothness of it all makes the weekend feel like it comes up fast. On Saturday morning, Ginny is a ball of nerves as we load into the car. I drive, since it would be cruel to stuff Deek into the backseat with two girls and a car seat. So by default, he lands in the passenger seat beside me, giving me directions to the Pack dens.
It turns out the long, long driveway to the Pack headquarters is just past the tree-lined driveway that leads to the Pack church.
I was, of course, half expecting these dens to be caves. My imagination ran with all sorts of questions about what a werewolf headquarters might look like.
I was way off.
A rambling two-story stone house, old but well kept, fills our view when we drive around a curve. The stone is a mix of white, greys, and dark reds, and the roof has clearly been updated: it’s an unusual evergreen-shaded metal.
The house is humongous.
“That’s the place,” Deek says, and his voice holds a dreamy sort of relief. Like just seeing home makes him unbelievably happy.
He’s been like this all morning; his excitement to see home actually went a long way toward easing Ginny’s nerves about visiting here at all.
We pull up in front of the manor, where I idle in the circular gravel driveway, seeing no other cars. “Can I park here?” I glance around, trying not to gawk. In the middle of the driveway’s circle, where I’d expect a stately fountain to match the grandeur of the house, there looks to be a low-sided circular pool formed by massive round river-smooth rocks. There’s a bronze otter statue at the edge of it, with a wooden sign propped against the animal which reads “Madra Uisce Lochán,” and beneath that, “Water Dog Pond.”
“Yep. Everyone usually parks in the back in the garages, but you can stay right here. No one will care,” Deek assures me.
“I’m coming in with Deek,” Maggie announces as we all stare up at the rough stone exterior of the house. I note that the window trim is evergreen-colored to match the roof. It looks nice.
“We’re all going in,” I murmur, and from the rearview mirror, I watch Ginny, who is in the middle seat, relax another fraction.
“The Tíódéls are here,” Deek murmurs thoughtfully, inhaling at his still-cracked open window. “I bet all of them have come to see Ginny.”
“Tíó...?” she asks. “What are…”
Deek seems unworried as he unbuckles and exits the car. He leans back in to say, “Tíódéls. They're the highest-ranking wolves in the territory, and they act as enforcers over the rest of us, settling disputes and keeping the peace. They’ll want to have a staredown with you since you’re new to the Pack, but it’s only for ceremony’s sake.”
When I glance into the backseat, Ginny is tense again, eyes like saucers, hands clutching themselves in her lap, and Charlotte is almost the same.
Maggie is oblivious, working the fastenings on her car seat. “Deek, wait for me! I want to see the werewolves!”
At the sound of her distinctively loud voice, dark shapes rise up on the covered porch of the—
mansion
—house.
Alarmed, I tense—but then one of the forms makes a “WHARF!” noise and blasts off the porch like a dock diving dog, wagging its tail wildly and making a beeline for Deek.
Deek crouches and catches the creature as it launches itself into his arms, licking his face and wriggling wildly.