“Yet,” I say, because a whole lot of shit has happened, but I haven’t forgotten my stalker. And won’t.
And it’s not until we’re halfway home, up Bellinger Lane with a view over the gleaming lights of Jacksonville, that what he said just then really hits.
Finally, the two of us are completely on the same page. He even admitted that I was right. Retroactively, he would still do it all this way.
We’re really, truly the partners I always dreamed we could be. The partners everyone told me no werewolf male would ever allow.
Of course we are,I think then, staring up at the moon that’s slightly more than a half, and always seems more potent when it’s visible in the day.Just in time for Vinca to rise up and fuck us over.
18.
Ty takes us back to the den and starts shaking shit up.
The bulk of his lieutenants are off on mapping missions, in new mating arrangements with the newly kingless packs, or focusing on our delivery commitments up and down the treacherous I-5 corridor. Though it is more a suggestion of a corridor these days.
What this means is that every other male in the pack—including some of our guests who stayed behind for pack-unity reasons when their actual packs left the gathering—has to step up and level up. After the wolf week we just had, every male in the pack is more than here for it. They all want to prove themselves worthy. They all want to make it clear that while all the packs might be one pack now,thispart of that one big pack is the best.
“I think they’re showing off for their high king,” I murmur to him as all the males in the den charge toward the stairs from the grand cavern to the hilltop after Ty makes an announcement that it’s time to get to work.
He doesn’t crack a smile—not when he’s in his commander-of-everything mode—but I can see the way his dark eyes gleam. “Damn right,” he rumbles at me. “We got shit to do and a death bitch to handle, among other things. Kissing my ass is the icing on that cake, babe.”
I get caught on theother thingspart, since there’s not much I can personally do about whatever shenanigans Vinca is planning. What Icando is keep up my vigilance where our traitor is concerned.
Once all the males in the pack have been summoned to the hill, filing past me where I pretend I’m not sniffing them to see if they smell wrong to me in some way—they don’t, sadly—Ty creates new teams. Patrols around the forests close to home as well as in the flooded mountains up by Crater Lake. Then he decides that he and Connor need to give them all a crash course in training maneuvers.
That lasts the rest of the day and well into the next.
When Ty heads off to coordinate the finer details of his Crater Lake patrols with the vampire king, I decide to take a page out of his book. It’s high time that I turn over the domestic side of den life into my mother’s capable claws. Officially.
“You’ve waited my whole life to whip this place into shape,” I say when I find her, quietly and efficiently analyzing the supply situation in the big den kitchen now that all the other packs aren’t ours to feed. “I mean the whole den, not just the kitchen.”
Johanna allows her lips to curve. “Longer than that.”
“You have my full support,” I tell her, and I mean this with every part of me. “I’ve never wanted this part of being Ty’s mate. I trust you.”
I do trust her, because I know her. She keeps things moving the way they should. She already knows all the undercurrents and dramas here. She also knows how to shape those things. Besides, she was always on Ty’s side, and now that I am too—and so publicly—there’s no tension between us.
The part of me that’s her daughter might find that tough, but Ty’s future queen is all for it.
And I don’t have it in me to play den mother. Especially not after a week with Deirdre and all the young fated ones and newer queens.
I duck out of the den and head over to Winter’s, keeping my awareness high since I know the wolves are preoccupied and we still don’t know who our traitor is—but I don’t scent anything worrying. Given that scenting hasn’t been as reliable as it should be—and not only because of Savi’s scent-scrubbing around the cottages, I think, remembering how I couldn’t scent my stalker either when Savi wasnowhere around—I also take note that I don’t stumble over any torn-up bodies.
I find Winter in the woods behind her house, which is absolutely not where she should be, and especially not alone. “You were there when they were discussing how bad the sacrifices are at the moment,” I say when I roll up to her without her glancing even once in my direction. The very opposite of safety-first behavior, andshecan’t shift into a wolf.
“Can confirm.” Winter is still not looking at me. She’s staring up at the trees around her, scowling.
“Do you think it’s coincidental that I wandered upon you out here in the woods?” I ask her, shoving my hands in the jacket I threw on because I wanted to feel cozy. The cold is turning Winter’s cheeks red, but it doesn’t bother me. “It’s not. I could scent you pretty much from the moment I stepped out of the den.” When she doesn’t respond to that the way I think she should, meaning at all, I bump her with my shoulder. “Winter. If I can track you, anyone can. Including people significantly less marvelous than I am.”
Winter waves a hand. “I think there are new and improved wards. Savi was here very late last night, muttering around the way she does.”
“You know she’s notmuttering, right? Those are spells.”
“Why doesn’t that make her a witch?” Winter looks at me then. “I feel like it’s been too long now and everyone assumes I know all the things they do, so I can’t ask. But I do wonder.”
“Witches are supposed to be in balance with nature, so they have to pay the price for any imbalances that come up with the magic they do.” I lean against the nearest tree and smell the smoke of woodburning stoves in the distance, spicing the cold air. “They’re more like wolves that way. In tune with the seasons, very concerned with the moon, and all of their magic is a conversation with the natural world. Sorcerers, on the other hand, are born magical and can manipulate the natural world, and everything else, to their own ends. It’s a completely different kind of magic system.” I consider. “A person can become a witch, but only sorcerers are sorcerers.”
Winter considers that. “Why is some magic genetic and other magic something you can get through a bite or a course of study or whatever?”
