Page 78 of Wolfsbane

Tristan seemed confused and dubious, but well, I wasn’t planning to spend the rest of my life living in the same house as Tristan, thank goodness. So I just nodded as I picked up Daire’s porridge and handed it back to him. “Very well. We will go to where she is and get her. She will handle the witches. But for now, you have to eat.”

He seemed amused, but he agreed to eat, so I poked my head back into the kitchen. Aleks was scraping his own bowl, apparently having eaten in a hurry. He nodded to me as he set his bowl down, thanking Mama for cooking and then standing to leave. Cash was clearly concerned, but Aleks leaned down to kiss him on the head, murmuring reassurances that there wasn’t going to be any danger that, thank fuck, I could once again hear.

I almost shivered for the joy that ran through me at the reminder.

My wolf was home. I was of use to the pack again.

Aleks looked at the others, frowning a second, then shaking his head and taking his jacket off the hook by the door, as well as mine.

He didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised that I immediately put the jacket on Daire, just rolled his eyes at me. He did motion to Tristan though. “You need a coat?”

Tristan rushed in to get the coat that had been designated as his, and came back out a moment later with it, and also Drew. Aleks narrowed his eyes as though he would protest, but Drew rushed over to attach himself to my arm.

I just shrugged at Aleks. “He’s seen us this far. He’s family, and he wants to be there.”

Drew nodded, half hiding behind me, but watching for Aleks’s verdict. Somehow, the little raccoon had accepted a wolf as his alpha, and the rest of us as pack. Was that how raccoon shifters lived? I suspected it was more like family units, like plain wild raccoons.

Finally, Aleks just waved us all off, like we were the most frustrating thing ever.

The lot of us piled into the fancy dual-cab truck that had once been Grant’s, and Aleks looked over at Daire, who was practically on my lap in the back seat, finally eating his breakfast. “You’ll have to tell me where we’re going.”

So Daire did, leading us to a large, one-story brick building on the outskirts of Boise, shaped like a T. I worried about finding a person without interference in such a large building, let alone one that looked like a medical facility. They were generally laid out with the intention of keeping everything in sight, and were also usually brightly lit. Hard to hide in places like that.

But as it turned out, there was no concern about any of that. A tall, slender woman standing right outside the building grabbed Daire and Tristan’s attention right away.

“Ingeborg,” Tristan muttered with astonishment. Then he turned around from where he was right in front of us in the front seat, and stared at Daire. “How did you know?”

Daire flushed and swallowed hard. “I guessed . . . once I stopped trying to defend Mother in my own mind. Spells are broken when their caster dies.”

Tristan stared at him, his mouth falling open and the breath punching out of his chest as though Daire had literally hit him.

Before he managed to say a word, the woman opened the front door of the cab, right next to Tristan. He turned and stared at her, mouth opening and closing as she lifted a brow at him, unimpressed.

I liked her immediately.

Even more, when she peered across Tristan at Aleks and asked, “Shall I climb into the back, or . . . ”

Aleks scoffed and grabbed Tristan by the shirt, tugging him into the middle front seat. “Make room for Daire’s aunt, Tristan. You can be shocked later.”

Daire gave him an apologetic look, and I realized they were both dealing with the same thing, if on a slightly different timetable.

Realizing Daire’s mother had been a complete monster.

“You are Ermengarde’s sister?” I asked as the older woman climbed into the front seat next to Tristan and belted in, right in front of me.

She turned her whole body despite the seatbelt, and looked me over, including the way I was holding onto Daire. A tiny smile turned the corners of her lips, then she looked back up at me and shook her head. “Her aunt. So Daire’s great-aunt.” She turned her head and pinned Daire with a look. “She’s dead, I take it? In my lucid moments, I figured out that she’d cursed me.”

Daire cringed but nodded. “She is. I . . . I killed her. I didn’t know about the curse. I just guessed this morning.”

“Mostly because he doesn’t want to take responsibility for the coven,” Tristan added, frowning at Daire as though he thought either of them owed the witches a damn thing.

Ingeborg gave a snort at that. “And why the hell would he want to take responsibility for a coven that’s always treated him like an outsider?”

“He was supposed to be the witchwolf,” Tristan said, in a tone that said it was a denial.

Ingeborg’s dry look in response made him cringe away from her. “And how did that work out?”

“I mean, we’re kind of a witchwolf,” Daire said, mostly into his empty bowl.