So maybe all the adjectives was the way to go.
“This isn’t funny,” Kosuke insisted. His tone was offended at being ignored, but I honestly couldn’t have given a single fuck less what he wanted. Especially when he kept insisting on opening his mouth. “They aren’t going to come to this travesty, you know. They may act as though they accept this perversion, but they won’t come to a wedding between a mage and a wolf. It’s not natural.”
This shit—this shitwas why I hadn’t told Jax about my ghostly tagalong yet. He didn’t need to worry about racist ancestors on top of everything else.
I turned my chair and met his eye steadily. “Do you actually think I care if they come or not?”
He didn’t seem to have an answer for that, just opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, as though he was trying to force words out, and they wouldn’t come.
“Why do you even hate wolves so much? Are you just a mindless bigot, or is there an actual reason?”
“Do you want a donut?” Cheri asked, and when I turned to look at her, she seemed to be entirely serious. “The wolves here always provide them. Me? I’ve worked for every kind of supernatural creature that exists, planned weddings for all of them, and wolves usually have the best manners. Offering hospitality with no expectation in return, making sure I’m comfortable to my standards rather than theirs. Everything, honestly. And this pack? Even better than most. So there are donuts. Do you want one?”
“I would love one,” I agreed. “I like the?—”
Her tinkling laugh drifted through the air in answer before I’d even finished the sentence. “Oh honey. You think a fairy godmother doesn’t know what kind of pastries you like? I’mpartial to a French cruller too. Something about fried pâte à choux is absolutely transformative.”
She wandered out of the room, leaving a trail of floral perfume behind her, and more important, leaving me alone with Kosuke. It rarely happened, since I shared a room with Jax, and werewolves were hardly ever alone—especially right now, with the whole pack on high alert, since we were in danger from an outside pack until the fight between Jax and Grant finished.
Apparently, Grant would be well within his rights to take a year to come back to the fight, if he claimed his pack was “in mourning,” for the child trafficker who had tried to burn my family alive.
What kind of person would mourn someone like that, I didn’t know.
I took the opportunity to turn and face Kosuke. “Seriously. What is your problem with wolves? Like Cheri said, they’re great. They have excellent manners, they’re kind, they’re welcoming?—”
“Not the one my sister almost married,” he said, turning to look away from me, his lips set in a pout that... Did I look like that when I was annoyed? Like a five-year-old who wanted to stamp his foot, with a lip sticking out like a perch for birds?
Jeez.
I decided not to even question why the wolf his sister almost married was a bad guy. One wolf was nothing. A tiny hurdle, not a sticking point. “So you met one jerk, and you’ve decided that all wolves are jerks now?”
His brows drew together and he turned to look at me again. “You don’t want to know what he did?”
I leaned back in my chair and let my hands fall on my stomach. Soft. A listening sort of pose. “Do you need to tell me? If you say this one man was bad, I believe you.”
“I... why? You don’t listen when I say all wolves?—”
“You don’t know all wolves. And there’s almost nothing valid you can end that sentence with. Maybe only all wolves are wolves. Just look at the ones you’ve seen in the last month. You’ve met honest wolves, dishonest wolves, good wolves, bad wolves, smart wolves, Grant... wolves are like anyone. Like mages. They don’t all fit into one category.”
“They all defended him?—”
“All of them? Jax? Me?”
He scowled and crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to answer such an obvious point, so I reached up and took hold of the arms of my chair, pushing forward, meeting his eye steadily. “You can’t judge anyone like that. If I were going to judge all mages based on one person, it would be my cousin, Jiro, who murdered my parents and then tried to murder me. Do you think all mages are just like him? Greedy, grasping, power-hungry murderers?”
He shrank back at that, looking horrified, and also maybe a little intimidated. Intimidated by me?
I supposed if there was anything that pissed me off enough to be dangerous, it would have been Jiro.
“That would have been your other great-great-grandson, bee tee dubs. Your great-great-grandson is a monster who murdered his own father and uncle. Now, tell me it’s valid for you to judge all werewolves based on one sucky guy, but it’s not valid for me to judge all mages based on him.”
“Well said,” Cheri said from the door, carrying a cup and a plate with three donuts on it. “Except I doubt that a ghost who died that many years ago has ever heard ‘bee tee dubs’ as slang for ‘by the way’ before, let alone one who didn’t speak terribly much English.” She sauntered over and dropped into her chair, turning away from him and setting the plate between us. “Now then, I think he has lots to consider. Shall we go back to fonts?”
21
Jax
At eleven that morning, I had a meeting scheduled with Kent.
