I squint at the boarded-up windows but, of course, don’t see anything. “She walks everywhere. Always has.”
Ty looks incredulous. “How is that safe?”
I think about that night I know thatsomethingnearly got me. That someone wasright there. “I don’t think anyone thinks it’s safe. It also hasn’t been a topic of conversation. She’s not a human.” I shrug apologetically at Winter. “She doesn’t smell like a snack.”
“Besides,” Winter says, not looking as taken aback by thesnackcomment as I think she would have been even a month ago, “she’s our friend. She lives here. She should be as protected as we are.”
“Did you ask her to come in?” I glare at him.
He glares back. “No, I fucking did not. I told her to get her pointy-eared ass inside her cottage before I had to clean up her entrails, and she took off running. Which, hate to say, would only make a predator with less self-control than I have chase her to the ground.”
Winter and I gaze at him with what I think are twin looks of dismay.
Ty folds his arms over his chest. “What?”
“I think she’s lonely,” Winter suggests.
“Everybody’s fucking lonely,” Ty retorts. “Not everybody prances around in the dark, begging something to eat them like an asshole.”
“Briar isn’t an asshole, she’s just a little awkward.” I shake my head at him. “I’m surprised you even recognized her. Have you ever actuallymether?Talkedto her?”
I don’t share that hanging out with Briar is pretty new on my end too.
“You probably terrified her,” Winter says, frowning. “I don’t think I’d like it if a giant werewolf reared up out of the dark woods and started barking at me.”
“A fae is a fae is a fae,” Ty says in that stubborn voice of his that is a lot like hishigh kingvoice, now that I’m thinking about it. “Note that I’m sayingfae, notdefenseless kitten. There was no rearing and no barking. I told her what was up and she took off. The end. Why are we still talking about this?”
“Maybe we have to approach this differently,” I say after a moment. “Maybe we need to get us all in one room.”
“Us all who?” Ty growls.
“She lives here,” I tell him, patiently. A little too patiently, even, and his eyes narrow on cue. “She’s one of us whether you approve of her or not.”
“Do you like sugary cereal?” Winter asks, then laughs at Ty’s expression. “I just thought maybe you two could bond over that if you do.”
“Christmas dinner,” I blurt out.
Both Ty and Winter frown at me.
The more I think about it, though, the more I like it. “We should invite her to Christmas dinner. That’s a thing, right? Savi and me too. And you and Ariel,” I assure Ty when he looks like he’s about to object. “We can have a littlefound family time. The holiday version. Like people do when they all share spaces and lives, like it or not.”
No one breaks into cheers after this suggestion, though I think it’s genius. The more friends Briar has, the better, as far as warding off Vinca goes. And it sure won’t hurt her to have friends who are also the three great powers in this valley. I have to think that’s likely to keep the death goddess from messing with her—or at least make it harder for Vinca to try.
“In this holiday version am I ...cooking?” Winter asks skeptically. “Like in the sense of adinner partyin which I prepare and serve food to guests?”
“I could cook,” I tell her. “I cook all the time. It’s actually a life skill? But you’ve made it clear that you think my cooking is not actually cooking.”
“If your meat is rawafteryou cook it, you didn’t cook it, Maddox. By definition.”
“I like a feast,” Ty says after a moment. “And it wouldn’t hurt any to have a sit-down with the vampire and the sorceress that’s not based on an immediate crisis, for a change.”
That had also occurred to me, thanks to wolf week. Sure, wolves fight a lot. But first there’s a lot of attempts to bond better—especially among the males who call each otherbrother. None of which would hurt here in the Rogue Valley.
“I like this in theory,” Winter says, frowning, though the way she says it makes me wonder if she has some thoughts about the relationshipbetween our big powers here. “It’s the part where I prepare a whole Christmas dinner that I’m having trouble getting my head around.”
“Your boy can get you whatever you want,” Ty tells her, probably just so he can be a dick and call Ariel, immortal vampire who was once an actual Spartan,your boy. “Or what’s the point of being a vampire king?”
“Something to keep in mind is that none of us will know what a Christmas dinner is supposed to look like,” I tell her. “You’re talking two werewolves, a vampire, a sorceress, and a dark fae. Not your extended human family, gathering to grade you on how well you made your grandmother’s pie.”
