“Yeah,” Stella said, smiling. “Most champagne is.”
“You’ve had it?” the girl asked excitedly. “It’s like magic on your tongue!”
Just then, Jose shot up from the bench where we’d been sitting. “No,” he whispered, his eyes wide. “It cannot be.”
Alarick got to his feet, too, tensed as if ready for an attack.
“My mate,” Jose said, disbelief and awe mingling in his voice. “There’s my mate. She’s… Beautiful.”
“She’s a shifter,” Alarick said, surprise evident in his voice. We didn’t know enough about wolves to know if that was normal. If they could mate with a human, why not a shifter? After all, even the Lunessa pack’s alpha was mated to a shifter.
I scanned the group, not sure who Jose was talking about until he moved forward to meet them, taking a bowl of chips and a jar that looked like homemade salsa from a limping woman wearing jeans and a faded camo shirt. I was glad she had someone to call her beautiful, because I was pretty sure no one had ever called her that in her life. She had a long face and an overbite which when combined had the unfortunate effect of making her look like a goofy horse.
“Well,” I said as Jose introduced himself to the woman. “Two down, two to go.”
Alarick snagged my hand and pulled me up from the bench, sliding an arm around me and squeezing my slender body to his giant one. “I’m glad you didn’t say three again.”
Stella approached with the champagne-bearing girl, an arm around her shoulders. “This is my sister and co-queen, Astrid.”
“And these are all my boyfriends,” Astrid said, motioning to four guys who had trailed over behind her.
“Wow,” I said. “It must take a lot to satisfy a queen.”
“It does,” Astrid said, smiling with the pure happiness of a child.
“I’m Timberlyn, and this is Alarick, the only boyfriend I need,” I said, smiling to let her know I wasn’t making a criticism of her choices. What shifters did was none of my business.
“Are you joining the Three Valleys?” she asked.
“Oh, no, we’re just visiting. We got here today.”
“I know,” she said. “I saw you arrive. I told everyone you were coming.”
“You did?”
“I like to keep a lookout,” she said. “Since I’m a bird.”
“Ah,” I said, realization dawning. “You’re the raven we saw.”
“Yes!” she said, clapping her hands with excitement. “And you’re Cayenne’s sister.”
“What? No,” I said, my heart suddenly hammering.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “She said you were looking for your mother, and you’re a faerie witch with red hair, so I figured you were Sagely’s.”
“Who?” My head was spinning with what she’d said, how casually she dropped these little bombs.
“Sagely is a faerie witch in the First Valley,” she said. “She has, like, ten redheaded daughters or something.”
“Do you think it could be her?” Alarick murmured, his arm tightening around me.
“Why didn’t she say anything?” I asked incredulously. “We met Cayenne.”
“She doesn’t know,” Astrid said, snagging a handful of chips from a bowl on the picnic table and munching away. “She’s a witch, so she can’t smell what you are. You told her you were a wolf, and she believed you. You really shouldn’t lie.”
“Oh my god,” I said, sinking down onto a picnic bench, my whole body suddenly trembling. “That must be her. That must be my mother.”
Chapter Seventeen
I knew I shouldn’t be shocked to find my mother here. Mr. Ravenwood had told me she was here, and I’d followed my sixth sense or internal compass, or whatever it was called, to find her. Still, now it was real. My blustering, cheerful dad and my fussy, Stepford mother were not my parents at all. That, I could believe. Of course I loved them, but we’d never been close. I’d never quite fit.
But then there was Josie. God, it hurt just thinking about not being her sister. And Gramma. I was glad she could finally tell them she’d been right all along, that I had been different when I came back after disappearing for a day as a baby. I’d been different because I was a different child. But I was jealous just thinking about some other girl—the real Timberlyn—going to meet them. Bonding with Josie over vintage video games and helping her and Gramma bake the famous chocolate chip cookies. I’d never get to eat those cookies again.
I knew cookies were a ridiculous thing to be freaking out about, since I couldn’t eat human food anymore, anyway. But my mind couldn’t comprehend the whole loss, so that’s what it latched onto, irrational as it was.
“Let me know what you need,” Alarick said, sitting down beside me and putting a strong arm around me. I nodded, and he sat there silently, his steady, supportive presence never wavering as I reeled with emotion. After a while, I calmed down enough to join in as everyone loaded their plates and feasted, half of them sitting at the many picnic tables while the others stood around talking and eating from plates they held in their hands. I was relieved that the atmosphere was so informal, making it easy to just hold a plate and not eat anything. Adolf and Donovan, who had not found mates, stood with us and slowly stole all the food off my plate, anyway.
After a while, I spotted a head of bright red hair, and my heart lurched in my chest. I set my empty plate in one of the tubs for dirty dishes and started her way. When she turned, though, I saw that it was Cayenne.
“Hi,” I said, stopping in front of her. I would have liked to have this conversation in private, but she was surrounded by the
