We came to a padded bench set in the shallow nook.
“Let’s sit here a minute,” Mahon said.
I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to punch something.
“Please,” Mahon said.
Fine. I sat. He sat on the other end. Barabas leaned against the wall next to me.
“I was born before the Shift,” Mahon said. “For me, magic changed everything. Martha is my second wife. I buried my first and I buried our children. I have no love for ‘normal’ people. To me, I’m normal. I’m a shapeshifter, but I’m human. Things that I endured were done to me by ‘normal’ humans, and they did them because they never tried to understand me and mine, and even if they did, they couldn’t. I didn’t belong with them and they sure as hell didn’t belong with me or my family. There was no common ground between us.”
Why was he telling me this? I already felt like I’d been through a gauntlet. I didn’t need extra punches.
“You’ll never be a shapeshifter,” Mahon said. “If you live with us for a hundred years, a newborn werebear will be more of a shapeshifter than you are.”
Barabas looked at him. “Enough. That back there was plenty. She doesn’t need any more shit today.”
“Let me finish,” Mahon said, his voice calm. “You’ll never fully understand what it’s like and we’ll never fully understand you. But it doesn’t matter. You’re Pack.”
I blinked. I must’ve misheard.
“Why take their abuse?” Mahon asked. “I know it goes against your nature.”
“Because it’s not about me. It’s about the panacea, our people, and a pregnant woman. I can make them eat their words, but it will derail everything. They’re counting on me blowing my gasket, and playing to their expectations helps them and hurts us. I would rather win big at the end than win small right now.”
“And that’s why no matter what happens, you will always be Pack. Because you have that loyalty and restraint.” Mahon raised his hands, as if holding an invisible ball. “The Pack is bigger than all of us. It’s an institution. A thing built on self-sacrifice. We’re a violent breed. To exist in peace, we have to sacrifice that violence. We have to praise control and discipline, and it starts at the top. Having an alpha who is a loose cannon is worse than having no alpha at all. The world is falling around us in pieces and will be for some time. It’s all about stability now, about giving people a safe place, a reassuring routine, so they don’t feel frightened and so they don’t feel the need to resort to violence, because if we go down that road, we’ll either self-destruct or be exterminated. That’s why we build so many safeguards. In time, I’d like to see things change. I’d like the challenges to go away. We lose too many good people to those. But it will come with time, a long time, perhaps years, perhaps generations, and it will start at the top. We lead by example.”
I never knew that about him.
Mahon faced me. “You and us, we have things in common. You know what it’s like to not be ‘normal,’ except in this case you’re the odd one out. You may respect our ways, but you don’t have to try to be something you are not. Some people will take longer to adjust, but in time, you will be accepted just as you are. Not ‘human,’ not whatever, but Kate. Unique and different, but not separate. Kate is just Kate and you belong with us. That’s all that matters.”
I was the badass Consort and he was the grim Pack’s executioner. Hugging him in the hallways would be entirely inappropriate.
“Thank you for your help,” I said.
“Anytime,” Mahon said.
Barabas spun toward the stairs. Lorelei circled the landing and kept going up the stairs, her dark green dress with a diaphanous skirt flaring as she walked.
Barabas inhaled. “Is that . . . ?”
“Now isn’t the time,” Mahon said.
Oh no, now was the perfect time. She was walking upstairs, and unless Curran waited for her in her room, he would be alone and available for a little chat.
“Where would Curran be now?” I asked.
“It’s lunch,” Barabas said. “In the great hall.”
Good. It was about time I talked to him.
By the time we reached the great hall, common sense had kicked in. Marching in there and punching Curran, as satisfying as it might be, wouldn’t accomplish much except make me look like a jealous idiot who couldn’t control herself. I wouldn’t give him and the other packs the satisfaction.
I halted at the door. “Why don’t the two of you go in. I’ll be right behind you.”
Mahon went on. Barabas lingered for a long moment.
“I just need a minute to myself.”
“Kate . . . I’m the last person to give love advice. I find calm, grounded guys, because I know I’m high-strung and I need someone to steady me, and then I get bored and act out until they leave me. I know I’m doing it, but I keep repeating the same mistake over and over, like a moron, because I keep hoping it will be different with this guy, because he is different. But it’s always the same, because I don’t change. People don’t suddenly change, Kate. You understand?” He leaned forward and looked into my face. “Just . . . take longer than a minute. So there are no regrets later.”
He went into the great hall.
People sat at the tables, eating, drinking, talking. Tension vibrated in me. I was a hair away from violence. I imagined walking in there and stabbing Curran with a fork. Barabas was right. I needed more than a minute. I needed to splash some water on my face.
Across from me a short hallway led to the side. If I took it, it should lead me to one of the two bathrooms. I stepped into the hallway. A door stood ajar on my right side, leading into a small room where a set of dark wooden stairs climbed up.
Maybe it was the way to the minstrel’s gallery.
I climbed the stairs. If there were any snipers up there, I wanted to meet them for a friendly conversation. If not, I could look at the dining hall unnoticed.
The stairs ended. I passed through a doorway in the stone wall and found myself in the minstrel’s gallery in the great hall. Score. Something went right today.
The great hall had no windows, the only illumination coming from the electric lights or, right now, with magic up, from the feylanterns shaped like faux torches. It could’ve been midmorning or midnight—the outside light made no difference. The gallery lay soaked in gloom, the dark wooden beams almost black. I walked the length of it. Two doors, one at the far wall and the other at a midway point, interrupted the stone wall. Aside from that, nothing. Empty.
I leaned down on the wooden rail. Below me the great hall stretched, brightly lit and loud with people. The windows in the castle hallways must’ve been opened to vent the air heated with human breath and still-warm food, and a draft flowed from below, bringing with it a hint of spices and stirring the long blue-and-silver banners on the wall to the left of me. From this point I was probably nearly invisible to those beneath me.
I hadn’t realized how high the gallery was. Leaping over the rail was out of the question. My bones would snap from the impact.
Curran strode through the door into the hall. He walked to the head table, where Barabas sat on the side next to Mahon, and asked Barabas something. Barabas spread his arms in response. Curran’s face snapped into a familiar unreadable mask. He sat back in his place in the middle.
A moment later Lorelei floated up. She wore tight jeans and an off-the-shoulder, nearly sheer blue peasant blouse. Her hair streamed over her shoulders. Her face looked flawless. How the hell did she have time to change and get here so fast?