“My money’s on fantasy,” Case said, finding where they’d left off last night. “Levi’s daughter keeps talking about unicorns. I know he thinks it’s just her imagination, but I’m not so sure. She’s nine, that’s a little old for invisible unicorn friends.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure the author’s great at writing kids. Maybe he didn’t know that. I think it’s one of those ‘college professor has sad affairs’ books.” She frowned. “He teaches geography, though. I think they’re usually English professors in those books.”
“Well, maybe we’ll find out in a minute.” He cleared his throat. “‘Levi flipped through the atlas, looking for the right map—as if he could somehow place himself on it once he found it, as if it would make everything clear. He would be one more landmark, firmly located amidst the rivers and the elevation shadings. But before he could find himself in the book’s pages, he noticed a smear of glittery gold ink on his fingertips. Susie had written ‘here be marvels’ in the margins of almost every page.’”
“In unicorn blood!” Lydia exclaimed.
“Dark,” Case said. “‘He couldn’t think how to tell her that there were no marvels, not in the real world described by these maps. He had known that since 1963, when his twin brother killed their parents.’ Wait,what?”
Lydia let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-strangled laugh. “There’s anevil twinnow?”
“That’s so clumsy, too! Why would you write it like that? What the hell—wait, Lydia, look!”
Wendy, the clerk who had helped them fill out their marriage license, stood in the middle of the street, frantically waving her arms at them.
Lydia braked hard, and Case didn’t need his wolf nose to help him catch the strong smell of burning rubber.
He knew what she was so afraid of, and he just had to hope she was wrong. Surely Lydia’s grandmother hadn’t died in the short time they had been away. Someone would have called them if things had gotten that bad, even if it had been sudden.
Wendy lurched towards them, but Lydia was frozen in fear now. Case had to reach past her to roll her window down so Wendy could talk to them. Having someone actually help her out for a second seemed to give Lydia what she needed to pull herself together.
“Wendy, what is it?” There was a sharp note of panic in Lydia’s voice, but it was under control. “Is it Ruth?”
Wendy hadn’t caught her breath yet, but she shook her head emphatically, sending her hair tie flying into the street.
“Okay.” Lydia was steadier now. “If it’s not Ruth, it can wait. Take a minute.”
Wendy curled her fingers around the edge of the window, hanging on to it for dear life while she panted. She was as flushed as if she’d run all the way from the courthouse.
“It’s Reeve,” she said finally, in between still-ragged gulps of air.
A hard, cold jolt went through Case, and he felt his lips wrinkle back in an unconscious snarl as his wolf prepared for a bloody showdown at hearing the name.
In any other company, that kind of reflexive, animalistic reaction would have raised some eyebrows. But Lydia was doing the exact same thing, and Wendy, if anything, looked pleased to see that they were both spoiling for a fight. It meant that heralphas—or soon-to-be alphas, anyway—were at the top of their game.
“What about Reeve?” Case said, not bothering to stifle the growl that came along with the name.
“He’s gone!”
*
There was no way Lydia was going to risk getting this wrong. It was too important.
She’d probably heard Wendy wrong because panic still had the blood pounding in her ears. She couldn’t let wishful thinking take over.
“What?”
“Reeve’s gone,” Wendy said.
Lydia traded incredulous, hopeful glances with Case.
He said, “When you say ‘gone,’ do you mean ...whatdo you mean?”
Lydia’s mind was working overdrive now, and it instantly presented her with a bunch of possibilities before a still-breathless Wendy could answer.
Maybe finding out about Case had churned Reeve up into a frothing rage, and he’d zoomed around town, furious and reckless, and gotten into an impromptu drag race with a cop. Maybe he was suddenly looking at ten years in prison, ten years where she wouldn’t have to worry about him at all.
Maybe he’d picked a fight in a human bar, and the same asshole who had brained Case with a bottle had wound up sucker-punching him and putting him in the hospital. If he could be out of commission until after Ruth’s funeral, until after she and Case had taken control of the pack, he wouldn’t be legally able to challenge them.
