I don’t think I’m the only one who feels Connor’s last words lingering.
Like the pool of blood on the snow at our feet and all around, they seem to stain everything.
21.
The cleanup is grim and quiet, with only the snow on the breeze as any kind of commentary.
I see more than one wolf spit at Connor’s corpse. I refrain, though it’s a battle. Ty is sitting on his haunches, growling slightly, making certain that every wolf in the pack knows what happened here.
Making sure the fate of the traitor is clear.
I make my way around the crowd to the pile of bodies Connor was busy chopping to pieces. More deer, I think, when I get closer. Possibly even horses. Many of the once-domesticated horses have gone a little wild now, out in the hills for years after their people died. Or were eaten.
Savi is standing next to the pile of awful and slick remains when I get there, frowning down at the mess of it as she mutters things beneath her breath.
Though I’m beginning to think that if any of her spells could help us, they would have already.
I do not voice this uncharitable thought.
Winter trudges up to us, wrapped in a parka, with Ariel close behind her. The vampire king’s cool gaze moves from the mound of sacrifices to Savi, then to the agitated wolves moving around the place where Connor’s body still lies. Paying tribute to Ty and making their contempt for the betrayer known.
Ariel takes in the sight of Savi, Winter, and me standing there and shakes his head. “Perhaps the three of you should endeavor to present less of a target? I’m not sure there’s any need for you to gather in one place. Not without appropriate safeguards. The goddess never has only one minion.”
“Yes,” Savi says, and it seems to me that I can hear cracks in the smoothness of her voice, which is not encouraging. “I often like to wander about a dark wood, helpless and alone. Thank you for reminding me that it’s not wise.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about, sorceress,” Ariel shoots back.
Ty is still in his huge wolf form. He makes no move to shift back. Instead, he howls.
The pack responds immediately, sounding close enough to thrilled that they have something todo. Though I suspect Ty did it just so he could watch his vampire and sorceress counterparts attempt to repress their unease as the pack leaps into action to do his bidding. They drag Connor’s body away. Others come over to handle the slaughtered remains as well.
“Merry Christmas,” I murmur to Winter, and then I shift too.
I can read that look in Ty’s still-flashing gaze, bright with the gold of wolves and battle, and I run with him back to the den.
The death of a wolf is always treated like a tragedy. McCaffrey was treated with respect, and I don’t have to like the man to agree that he deserved it. The death of a traitor, ofone of usturned against everything we are, leaves us all reeling.
They take Connor’s body up to the hilltop and begin building the funeral pyre. I stay with Ty, tending to his minor wounds in the grand cavern, where everyone can see both of us and assure themselves that we’re okay. That Ty, specifically, is fine. That Connor did not manage to do much of anything out there.
Eventually we all move up to the hilltop to keep our usual vigil next to the funeral pyre. The pack gathers as it always does while the fireclaims one of us, but notably without the howls of lamentation, stories, and songs that another werewolf death would require.
With any other werewolf death, those things would be natural.
It’s not until my mother seeks me out that I pay attention to what’s happening outside the tight inner circle of Ty and his trusted few. Far fewer than there were before tonight.
“You knew him as well as anyone.” I study Johanna in the flickering light. “You ran with him many times. And often went off with him around the fires.”
“I would have run with him no matter what,” my mother says flatly. “He was second to the king. For an extremely old-school male, he was shockingly interested in female pleasure. This is no small thing, daughter.” She holds her head high, and I suspect that she came over here to tell me these things openly. To make sure no one thought she was hiding them. “I never had any cause to regret sharing his bed, on a run or not. But I will tell you this. I do not think he ever fully integrated into the pack that Ty was building, for all the lip service he gave it.” She sighs. “Looking back at it now, I really think he went off the rails when you were born.”
“He was always so nice to me,” I mutter. “That should have been a clue. People either love me or hate me. They’re notniceto me. I’m too polarizing for that.”
I know it’s serious when my mother does not take the opportunity to lecture me about my big head or tell me I am only polarized in my own mind because I refuse to accept fate, or my place, or whatever else.
If you’d told me I would miss those little talks, I would have laughed. I never would have believed it.
She is very serious when she keeps talking. About Connor, not my ego. “Before you came along, I think he fooled himself into imagining that Ty would never come to the attention of fate. Seventy-five years on the throne and no hint of a mate? He wasn’t the only one who began to murmur that maybe the moon didn’t wish to involve herself because Ty wasn’t a real king.”
I roll my eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
