Tears fill Flora’s eyes now, but she plunges onward in my stead. Speaking the words I dare not. I look down at my hands as tears fall from my chin to my shirt. I am embarrassed, ashamed, even, but I cannot help it.
“She was on her way home, passing through the Red Zone, when she was attacked. Edmond carried her to safety.”
The room falls into stunned silence.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. The words sound pathetic, but I say them anyway. “I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know what reaction to expect. I certainly don’t anticipate it when Anita stands and approaches me, opening her arms. I can only stand and accept her embrace. I can only hold her as she sobs into my shoulder.
“Of course he helped you,” Anita says as she pulls back and looks at me, tucking a lock of my blond hair behind my ear. “That was my Edmond. He would never turn his back on someone in trouble… Tell me, dear. Tell me what happened.”
Flora opens her mouth to speak for me, but I tell her with a look that I will speak now.
On the way here, we stopped in Center City and picked up a potion from Madame DéLa Rosa.
My lips are free to tell Anita Jackson exactly what had happened to her son…
But if I do, the Coven will know.
I look at Anita, and the words exit my mouth before I can reconsider. I don’t regret speaking them. Not right at this moment. At this moment, all I can see is Anita Jackson’s eyes, the same deep brown as had been her son’s.
I tell her about what happened as gently and truthfully as I can manage. It feels as though I am finally regurgitating something foul that I’ve eaten, spilling some poison I’d swallowed, setting myself free from one cage only to fly straight into another.
To my astonishment, when I am done, Anita thanks me.
I’ve never felt more unworthy of gratitude in my life.
Anita Jackson takes her leave not too long after, ushered out of the room by two younger female wolves who share her facial features. Family, no doubt.
“Those motherfuckers, man,” says another wolf as soon as the door is closed behind Anita Jackson and she has receded up the stairs. The wolf sits with her arms folded over her chest, and I realize she is the one who had been speaking to the crowd at the Market earlier today. She looks to Akim and Harper. “When will it stop?”
“When we burn it all to the ground and rebuild it from the ashes,” says the vampire. “I’ve seen enough human history to know that… And, even so, it will regrow again in a new way eventually. This is simply its latest vessel.”
There are nods of agreement. I wonder how old this self-contained vamp had to be, both to have seemingly gained control of his morality and physical composure, and to have witnessed the self-destructive nature of humans in its various formations over the years.
He doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.
He looks directly at me. I sit up a little straighter, forcing myself not to flinch under his scarlet gaze. “Mira Meadows, would you be willing to testify?” he asks.
Testify. Fuck me.
How can I refuse? I can’t. I just can’t.
I nod. “Yes,” I say.
“What about talking to the media?” Akim Algernon asks.
Not flinching under his stare is just as hard as not shriveling under that of the vamp.
I am silent. It feels as though the invisible lump in my throat has bloated to the size of a grapefruit. I know what the future alpha of the Philadelphia Wolf Pack is asking me; he wants to know if I am ready for the world to know where I stand, and possibly what I am, for the sake of defending the honor of a fallen wolf.
A fallen wolf who saved my life, and paid with his own.
I look at Akim Algernon and Harper Beauregard—the two most famous supes our city has to offer by no choice of their own—and they look back at me.
I draw a slow breath. “There’s nothing that can make what happened to Edmond right,” I say, “but I’m willing to do whatever I can to make sure there’s some sort of justice.”
“Are you sure the Coven will approve?” Akim asks.
“We’re positive they won’t,” answers Flora.
Silence follows for a few beats.
“There will be targets on your backs,” Harper says.
Flora and I exchange a look.
“We know.”
Harper Beauregard smirks. “Might as well welcome you into the Pack. It’ll almost be as if you are wolves.”
Milo catches up to us as we are leaving.
The bar is still buzzing with patrons, the night still relatively young, the harbor glittering beyond the edge of the dock, but I am exhausted. I only want to go home and sleep for the next hundred years or so.
Flora wanders off a little to give us some space, and I don’t know if I’m grateful for this or not.
“That was brave,” Milo says, and pauses. “Can I give you a hug?”
For a moment, I can only blink at him.
Then, I nod.
He opens his arms to me, and I realize how much I needed this only as he enfolds me between them.
He is so warm and solid. So real.
I take a deep breath, both to keep my eyes from tearing up, and to get a lungful of him. Milo squeezes me a little tighter.
Then he lets me go.
I swallow hard.
“Thank you,” he says. “We want you to know the Pack will look after you. We’ll stand by you, and your family, if need be. We understand how dangerous this is for you.”
I don’t know what to say, so I nod.
“Also, um,” he begins, and clears his throat. “Do you want to put my number in your phone? In case you need to call me.” His dark gaze holds mine now. “For anything.”
I hand over
