His eyes narrowed. “No one bothered you, did they?”
“It’s not like that, Sinclair.” I sighed and sat down across from him. “This is a weird place. I’m not sure I like it. And this whole Council thing is making me nervous. I miss our house. I miss Tina and Laura and Marc. I just want to go home.”
“At last,” he said, “we are of one mind. Perhaps it will help you to think of the funeral as part of the cost of returning to Minnesota.”
“Or perhaps I’ll think of it as the werewolf version of Tailhook.”
“Either way,” he said, glancing at his watch, “we had best get moving. Soonest done, soonest home.”
“Dammit. No time for a quickie?”
He smiled at me and shook his head, but I could tell he hated to do it.
“Not even a quickie quickie?”
“Stop that, vile temptress. Now let’s be off; people are waiting for us.”
Hmph. I’d always thought that whole “jump in and get it over with” thing wasn’t always the way to go.
But damned if I was going to cower in a room that wasn’t mine, in a house where nobody knew me and nobody cared to. No, I’d go to Antonia’s funeral and hold my head up, and if the fuzzy lollipop brigade didn’t like it, nuts to them.
Chapter 22
I knocked, then poked my head into Jessica’s room to see how BabyJon was doing. Jessica, resigned, was walking back and forth with him while he alternated crying with spitting up on her shoulder.
“And once again, I can’t thank you enough.”
“And once again, I need to buy a new shirt.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the baby. “Have fun at the funeral, anyway. Should be a piece of cake, right?”
“It’s a joke, that’s what it is.” I held out my arms and she gladly surrendered him to me. BabyJon hushed at once, except for the occasional hiccup.
“I wouldn’t say that around here if I were you,” she warned, scraping at the fusty left shoulder of her blouse.
“It’s the truth, though.”
“Come on, Bets. It’s hard for them. These guys—from what I’ve seen, they’re a tight bunch. It’s probably like losing a niece, or a sister, or—”
“Bullshit. The Pack didn’t like Antonia, remember? They were glad when she left.”
Jess snapped her fingers. “Jeez, you’re right! I’d forgotten all about that. It creeped them out that she couldn’t change, but could tell the future. They needed her, but they were all sorta scared of her, too.”
I nodded. Antonia had gotten abysmally drunk (do you have any idea how much booze a werewolf has to drink before feeling it?) one night a few months back. She’d told us the whole story.
How hardly any of them spoke to her.
How frightened they were of her: Would she withhold her predictions? If she saw something bad in a Pack member’s future, would she spill it? Or keep it to herself?
Worst of all, she’d told us how the Pack had been relieved when they’d found out she wasn’t coming back. They hadn’t missed her at all, or even worried about her.
No. They’d been relieved.
And now they expected me to face the music. The whole thing pissed me off.
Jessica was shaking her head. “Glad I’m not in your shoes, Bets. Although they are pretty nice,” she added, peeking at my pumps.
“They can do whatever they want with me,” I muttered. “But if they fuck with my shoes I’m going to kill them all in a variety of horrible ways.”
“Gosh.” I kissed BabyJon on his sweet head. “I feel safer already.”
Chapter 23
Wyndham Manor, I had been told, was not only werewolf HQ and the seat of their power, it was also home to dozens of Pack members. And it had obviously been built to accommodate crowds, because the service was held in a room the size of a warehouse and nobody was crowded. I was guessing, when there wasn’t a coffin involved, it was a ballroom.
Michael had spoken briefly, and then a minister (a werewolf Presbyterian minister!) had spoken, and then people started filing past the coffin, no doubt paying their respects.
I had noticed right away that they’d switched Antonia to a much nicer coffin. It shone like polished jet and was just as black. An enormous spray of white calla lilies nearly covered the entire top. I wonder what they’d done with the old one—the one Derik had destroyed. Then I decided a) it was a morbid thought and b) none of my business.
At least Jessica was missing this. This was actually fine by me—if I knew where she was, I wouldn’t worry about her.
BabyJon was snuggled against my shoulder, thumb popped into his mouth, gazing around with bright-?eyed interest. I tried to pretend he wasn’t drooling on the lapel of my Ann Taylor.
Weirdly, it had been Sinclair’s idea for me to bring him. It was the first time Sinclair had suggested we bring BabyJon anywhere, so on top of being sad for Antonia, and scared for us, I was suspicious of my husband’s motives.
I didn’t move when people started getting up. I had already paid my respects. I had wept over her, called her Pack, and told them the unthinkable, had flown her home. It was more than I’d done for my own father.
“Hello. It’s Betsy, right?”
I looked up and almost gasped. One of the most striking women I had ever seen in my life was standing in front of me, with a pregnant belly out to here.
“Uh, yeah.” I shifted BabyJon and held out a hand, which she shook briskly. “Betsy Taylor.”
“The infamous queen of the dead.” But her blue eyes were kind, and she was smiling. Her hair was a rich auburn cloud around her shoulders. “I’m Sara, Derik’s wife.”
“Undead,” I corrected, “and yeah, that’s me. Was Antonia a friend of yours? I s’pose she must have been; she and your husband were kind of tight, or so I heard. I’m very sorry about what happened to her.”
“Thank you.” Sara eased herself into the chair beside me and massaged the small of her back. “But she wasn’t my friend. I couldn’t stand spending time with her.”
I stared. And stared. And stared some more, feeling equal parts admiration and horror. Sara had a pair, that was for sure, to speak ill of the dead in this of all places. But she was telling the truth, which I admired tremendously.
“She was kind of a grump,” I admitted. “You’re, um, not a werewolf. Are you?”
“No, no.”
“So Jeannie’s not the only human who, ah, runs with the Pack?”
“No indeed. Although I’m not technically human,” she said.
“Oh.”
“I’m the reincarnation of the sorceress Morgan Le Fay.”
Oh. Great. A crazy woman—a crazy pregnant woman—was sitting less than two feet away. My, what an interesting week this was turning out to be!
Sara laughed, accurately reading my expression. “Never mind, you don’t have to believe it, just like I don’t have to convince you. Although I should warn you, if you try to hurt me, the chances are excellent that something awful will happen to you.”
“I just met you. Why would I want to hurt you?”
