I half expect a dismissive scoff. A curt command to get into the car. Instead, Koen studies me at length, his eyes opaque. “If I weren’t Alpha,” he asks, eventually. “And you weren’t sick. What then, Serena?”
“What if Earth was modeled after a giant parsley leaf? What if Humans pissed moondust? What if— ”
His fingers trap my chin. Tilt my head back, hitching my breath. Once again, I have no choice but to meet his eyes. “What then, Serena?”
I can’t bring myself to say, I think we both know, but he hears it anyway, because his nod is there, barely perceptible. This time, when the pressure swells behind my eyes, I let the tears flow. I feel them splash down on my collarbones. Dampen the tips of my hair.
“Anything that’s going to happen to you,” he promises, voice honest and pitched low in the swish of the breeze, “is going to be over my dead body.”
I laugh softly, because . . . what else can I do? I follow him with my eyes as he opens the passenger door for me. Since this is an opportunity, one of few I have left, instead of sliding inside I wrap my arms around his torso, fisting the flannel at his hip. My face presses into his side. I inhale the scent of him, wondering if anything else this good has ever existed, and ask, “Can I say something really, really selfish?”
I feel his assent. I think he might want to know everything that’s in my head. I think he could shake every thought I’ve ever had out of my skull, rummage through them for years, and still not be bored.
I think that in a parsley-shaped world, he and I would have had some fun.
“If today was my last day, I’d be happy to have spent it with you.”
Koen cups the back of my head. I lean into the soft press of his lips against my brow. He says nothing, barely breathes, but his hands don’t let go of me for a long, long time.
CHAPTER 22
He easily resigned himself to a lifetime without her, but . . .
Simply put, he is unwilling to contemplate a universe in which she no longer exists.
THAT NIGHT KOEN HAS A PACK MEETING AT THE CABIN.
I get out of the shower, quickly put on leggings and one of his shirts (which I sniff for over a minute, with inappropriate enthusiasm). I’m about to move to the living room and not mind my own business, when my phone lights up with a call. From someone who usually prefers a string of twelve multi-paragraph texts over a one-minute chat.
“What’s up, Bleetch?” I ask, terrified that Koen might have gone behind my back and told Misery about my situation.
I will stab him, I vow. I will chop him into pieces and sell him at a wet market. For pennies.
“Not much.” A beat. “First question: Are you alone?”
“You mean, existentially, or . . .”
“Is there someone around you?”
“No. Why?”
“Second question: Are you in the right headspace to receive information that could possibly hurt you?”
My heart drops. “Misery, if— ”
“No, I’m serious. I talked to Lowe about the Northwest, and it’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“Bad bad. Like . . . Our lives, bad.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. I feel way less special, knowing that there’s all this trauma waffling about.”
I sit on the edge of the mattress. “Is this about the cult I might be related to?”
“Koen told you about it?” She sounds surprised. “Lowe said he probably wouldn’t.”
“Some of it. Yesterday something weird happened.” Understatement of the week. Prepare the wall plaque. “A guy came at me and started yelling thesaurus prophecies.”
“Hang on, I thought they killed the cult twenty years ago?”
“They thought so, too. Surprise.”
A long pause. “Cool.”
“Yeah.” I sink back into the pillows. “Very.”
“Serena, are we bad people?”
“Um . . . Morally? Spiritually? Fiscally? Because I did your taxes every year and exploited every single loophole in the medieval castle that is our financial system, but— ”
“I’m just saying that we must, to some degree, have done something to deserve the shit coming our way.”
“Well.” I rub my palm against my belly, wondering if the cramps I’m experiencing are a fun new addition to my symptoms dance card. “We did pretend you were overtaken by bloodlust that time Mr. Barca got a paper cut.”
“And made him piss himself. You know what? Maybe it was worth it.”
“Still, I don’t know that our lives necessarily needed a cult plotline.”
“Agreed. Wanna hang up and spend the rest of the day buddy watching that Human show about the MILFs?”
“Yeah, actually.”
“Tough shit. I’m giving you the cult deets whether you want them or not. What do you know already?”
I take a deep breath. “That Constantine was like, the Were equivalent of Rasputin.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
History was never her strong suit. “Do you know what his ideas were?” I ask. “What he promised his followers?”
“How do you know he promised something?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of a cult? I’m your leader. You do what I tell you, and I’ll give you eternal life, unlimited wealth, rebirth in a world where everything tastes like pineapples— ”
“What about, ‘And I’ll turn you into a Were’?”
I sit up in a quick, fluid movement I did not think my abs were capable of. “Are you for real?”
“Yup. It was some deranged shit. The cult ran several generations deep. The original founder was one of those cuckoo bananas Were supremacist guys who thought that the other species should dedicate their lives to massaging his feet. Weres should control the means of production, that kind of stuff.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Totally. Roscoe, the former Alpha of the Southwest, was a bit like that. His wife, Emery, is Koen’s aunt. And I’m sure in some East Coast packs they won’t let you graduate first grade if you can’t spell at least ten Vampyre slurs. The world’s full of assholes, and the dung beetles love it. Sadly, the original founder of the cult was just a little too batty for everyone’s taste. He was originally from the Southwest, but they politely asked him to leave. Lowe used the word ‘exiled.’ I’m not sure whether he was being melodramatic or if that’s a thing among Weres.”
“Why did they kick him out?”
“Ruining the vibes? Unclear. But the dude took his family and friends and made himself comfortable at the border between the Southwest, the Northwest, and the most rural parts of Human territory. Kept themselves busy by writing their scriptures on the inside of cereal boxes. It started as a small settlement, less than twenty Weres. Packs monitored them, even interacted, but nothing significant happened for decades. Until his daughter, or his son’s daughter— Lowe tried to draw me a diagram but got stuck— went to a trading meeting with the Northwest and met her mate.”
“Constantine?”
“Nope, some guy named Jochem. Originally, the couple were going to live together in Jochem’s huddle. But, big surprise, Jochem decided that the cult made some valid points and that the other species should, in fact, show their soft underbelly and let the Weres feast on them. They moved in with the cult. Even brought some friends. And had a few kids.”