The frayed cuff of her flannel shirt against the delicate inside of her wrist.
Let’s face it, he thought, trying to tease himself so the aching throb inside him would diminish a little.If anyone’s going to bite me, I’m glad it’s her.
So much for his efforts: the aching throb stayed exactly the same.
Well, he was here. Doing the bite at Lydia’s house had felt a lot less weird and impersonal than doing it at the law office, so she had given him the address. And let him sleep on it, which he thought was pretty heroic of her, considering what she stood to lose if he got second thoughts. He had shown up a few minutes early to drive home that he hadn’t.
Time to prove it. He raised his hand and knocked on the door.
Lydia opened it a few seconds later. Both the flannel shirt and the Henley had changed colors since yesterday, but otherwise her outfit was exactly the same.
Case found it bizarrely comforting. He couldn’t have lived a life full of new sights and new people if he hadn’t always had a few things to hold on to, a few touchstones that were always thesame. Suddenly the familiarity of Lydia’s wardrobe seemed as vital to him as the constellations.
“I’m—I’m here,” Case said unnecessarily. She could see that much for herself.
“Hi,” Lydia said, thankfully just as awkward. “I’m glad you didn’t change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
Her lips flexed in a fleeting little smile that instantly engraved itself in his memory. “Come in? My grandmother—myalpha—wants to meet you before we do this.”
Case came in, noting how she’d corrected herself mid-sentence. He figured that meant that this wasn’t about her family wanting to meet the man she was going to marry, then; it was about a current alpha wanting to vet a future one. That notion was more alien to him, but he guessed it should be some comfort that he’d be out of his element in both scenarios.
Lydia sat him down on the velour sofa and went to go get her grandmother.
He knew he couldn’t really judge this based on about half-a-day’s acquaintance, but Lydia’s house didn’t suit her. It didn’t have the same lived-in, comfortable, classic feel as her clothes, and there were no signs of her taste anywhere that he could see: no books, no movies, no art. The den was as antiseptic as a hospital waiting room. The only hint of personality came from the fact that it would’ve been anoldwaiting room, since all the décor and color palettes felt like they’d been picked out decades ago.
Oh.
Itwasn’ther house, was it? She lived here, but she didn’t have any real ownership of the place. It was her grandmother’s.
Now that he wasn’t fruitlessly looking for signs of Lydia, he could see that the room wasn’t as impersonal as he had firstthought. It was just tightly controlled. It was the front room of a woman who was an alpha first and a person second.
You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions here, Case scolded himself.For all you know, once you get past the room where she talks to strangers, it’s all black velvet paintings of Elvis and chocolate fountains and books of French architectural theory and generally all the personality anybody could possibly want. You can’t judge a person off their living room, especially not when she’s a werewolf mayor.
He stood up as Ruth Willmore came into the room. It was completely unplanned: she was, apparently, the kind of person who made you pop up like a jack-in-the-box to make sure you showed your respect.
She was small and wizened, with dry, wispy white hair. Her complexion was lighter than Lydia’s, but by now her skin was more sallow than pale.
Case had spent a few months as a landscaper, and one of the businesses his company had covered was an assisted living facility. Some of the residents liked to soak up the sun, and Case had made friends with them—and then lost them, one after the other. He knew what it looked like when someone was close to the end. He had a fresh appreciation for Lydia’s sense of urgency now.
“Sit down,” Ruth said in a raspy, reedy voice that nonetheless had an iron core of strength in it. “I’m going to.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lydia’s quick smile quirk again. He probably wasn’t the only person she’d seen immediately pull out the “ma’am” around her grandmother.
He was a little afraid that Lydia would keep hanging back, deferring to her alpha so completely that she disappeared into the wallpaper, but to his surprise and relief, she came over and sat down beside him on the couch. They made a united front.Ruth raised her eyebrows a little at that, but then she nodded, accepting it.
She fixed her bright black eyes on Case. “So you want to be a wolf.”
He suspected this was a test. He knew there were people who apparently longed to turn into vampires; maybe it was the same with werewolves and other shifters. Maybe they always sort of wondered if humans wanted them or just wanted an upgrade.
“I’m fine with being a wolf,” Case said. “But before yesterday, I didn’t even know werewolves existed, so it’s not like I was desperate to turn into one.”
“He’s not using us to become a shifter,” Lydia said, which pretty much confirmed what he’d been thinking. “I asked him, not the other way around.”
“Why did she ask you?” Ruth said to Case.
