Linus armed himself, listened while Midas outlined the perimeter, then drew short-range telepathy sigils on himself and his team so they could communicate without alerting the others.
“We’ve got this in the bag,” Hood said into their minds. “Move out.”
The three of them crept through the trees, silent as wraiths. Only Linus’s bare feet, which slowed him down, saved him from taking a paintball to the chest. Instead it winged his arm and splattered on the tree trunk behind him.
Heart pounding in anticipation of the hunt, he gathered shadows around him and blended into the night.
* * *
“We’re here,” Lethe sang as she pulled onto the shoulder of the road. “Just smell that country air.”
I smelled something, all right. Cow patties. Lots and lots of cow patties.
The rich aroma of livestock that hit me when I stepped out of the SUV gave me a bad feeling about this. Three gwyllgi could do a lot of damage to a herd if they shifted. I couldn’t figure out what mass slaughter had to do with bachelorette anything, so maybe I was wrong.
“We’re splitting into teams. You will be on your team for the duration. Do not lose sight of your team.” Lethe waited until everyone shouted agreement. “Grier, Hadley, Marit, and I are red team. Mom, Neely, Ares, and Adelaide, you’re blue team.”
The gwyllgi in our midst perked when they noticed all the tiny dots in the distance, a herd of dozing dairy cows. No, wait. They were too small for that. The scale wasn’t wrong because the cattle were off in the distance. It was wrong because they weren’t cows at all. They were goats. We must be in Springfield, about forty minutes north of Savannah. The caterer told me she was sourcing the goat cheese for our wedding from a farm there. Lethe must have made a mental note of it.
“What are we doing here?” I counted sixteen goats. “I thought we were going cow tipping.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Lethe scoffed. “Seriously, Grier. Use your imagination.”
Clearly mine had limits. “Can you even tip a goat?”
“What’s with you and tipping?” Lethe brushed past me. “Does this look like a restaurant to you?”
“Yes,” Ares said, speaking for the first time. “It kind of does.”
Ignoring her, Lethe climbed in the pasture. The rest of the girls followed her, and I brought up the rear.
There were a few cows here and there. Maybe one per dozen goats. The goats were all colors, shapes, and sizes. I debated tucking one of the tiny ones under my shirt. I could always mail the farmer a check later, right? The only thing that stopped me was recalling the sheer number of predators who lived next door, whose control might not be as absolute as Hood’s and Lethe’s.
“Here’s the deal.” She kept her voice low as we stalked deeper into the field. “The farmer has twenty-one pet fainting goats. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find them and spook them into falling over. Document your victories, people. Pics or it didn’t happen. We’ll compare results in an hour. The team with the most faints wins.”
Once the other team dispersed, I edged closer to Lethe. “Scaring fainting goats, huh? You’re right. It’s not like tipping cows. At all.”
“Be smug later.” She zeroed in on a pudgy gray goat with a mouthful of grass. “Play to win now.”
Before I could ask if causing the goats to faint hurt them, Lethe had shifted. She didn’t charge the goat or chase it. She put herself upwind of it, waited a second for it to notice her, then chuffed when its muscles locked as tight as a drum, and it fell sideways, its legs stiff as boards.
Lethe gave me a look, and I took out my phone to capture the image.
“I’m not sure how I feel about this,” I admitted as I absorbed the scope of how much havoc our crew was causing the pasture full of animals.
“Hmm.” Lethe, back on two legs, waited with the goat until it got back on its feet. “Maybe you have to be gwyllgi to fully appreciate it?”
That she thought of me as pack, as gwyllgi, meant the world to me. For her sake, I would go terrify some goats. I would just have to ask the goddess, and maybe the goats, for forgiveness later.
* * *
The winning team earned a round of beers pulled from a cooler full of ice and hidden under a bush to deter poaching from the gwyllgi on patrol. Linus wasn’t a fan of beer. He preferred bourbon. Oddly enough, it was a taste he had developed thanks to Maud’s drinking habits. He was in the minority, however, and so he accepted the ice-cold bottle and drank deep. His pajamas were plastered to him with a combination of paint and sweat, and mud caked his feet. The frosty drink was heaven.
“You can’t go through life decapitating that which annoys you,” Cruz said, voice scratchy. He touched the splatter of bright paint coating his throat from where he dove to avoid a headshot. “You get that, right?”
“It’s worked well for him so far,” Hood pointed out. “He’s rich, girls seem to think he’s handsome, and he’s marrying the woman of his dreams.”
“Most of that is genetics.” Corbin winked at him. “The last one is pure luck.”
Luck, or the result of meddling mothers who felt they’d known what was best for their children.
The marriage contract between Grier and him had always set his stomach roiling, but she had been the one to rediscover it in Maud’s library, and she had been the one to enforce it.
That Grier had chosen him, contract or not, that she loved him… He didn’t understand why or how, but he was determined to do his best to ensure she never changed her mind.
Oscar drifted over to Corbin and slumped against his shoulder. Maintaining his corporeality for this long was difficult for him, carrying and loading a weapon was even harder. It required intense focus that drained him for hours afterward, sometimes even days. For Oscar to attend the wedding, he had to be put to bed now and given time to recover.
“Go on.” Corbin gave him a push, and like a slow-motion balloon, Oscar drifted toward the house. “I promise I’ll catch you up on what you miss.”
“Okay.” He yawned. “See ya.”
“Now that the kid’s gone, the real fun begins.” Hood rubbed his hands together. “Let’s do this.”
Using the tail of his shirt, Linus wiped the sweat from his eyes. “What did you have in mind?”
“There’s a club in town—”
Midas cut in, his bright eyes laughing at Linus. “A strip club?”
“Have you met your sister?” Hood searched the bushes to his left and then to his right, checking to make sure his mate wasn’t about to ambush him. “No, it’s not a strip club.”
Discontented grumbles rose from the single guys, but Linus was relieved to have that staple of traditional bachelor parties off the table. He could appreciate a beautiful woman, and he could appreciate a beautiful naked woman, but he would prefer both of those to be Grier.
“Just get in the SUV.” Hood sounded disgusted as he herded them toward the driveway. “I borrowed Princess Sparkle to haul your worthless asses around for the night.”
“You brought that thing?” Corbin twisted up his lip, exposing fang. “It’s Pepto Pink.”
“Get over it,” Hood barked. “It’s my baby’s favorite color.”
Cruz picked fuzzy green burrs off his pajama top. “Lethe or Eva?”
“We don’t call her Eva-Diva for nothing.”
“You couldn’t have waited until she turned sixteen and bought her this?” Corbin recoiled from the idea of riding in it. “It’s not too late to reclaim your manhood and buy a nice black, blue, or red one.”
Gwyllgi burned through alcohol too fast for it to affect them, so Hood was stone-cold sober when he answered. “That baby’s life is hard enough as it is.” Only among friends would he ever admit it. “We took her car shopping with us after Grier brought home Moby. Eva begged us to buy Moby a little sister, but she wished it came in pink sparkles. So, yeah. I paid extra. Yeah, I got it customized. And you know what? My baby loves it. So you can line up a
nd take turns kissing my hairy ass if you’ve got a problem with that.”
No one breathed another word of complaint as they piled into Princess Sparkle.
* * *
Our team won. No surprise there. Lethe was fiercely competitive, and even more so where her mother was concerned. They tagged several of the same goats and got into a knock-down, drag-out brawl over who got credit for them. While they rolled in the grass, snarling and snapping, Adelaide and Hadley compared the time stamps to award points where they were due.
“This would be so much hotter if, say, Jack and Linus were the ones rolling around in the muck.”
A snort of laughter escaped me. “Don’t give Lethe any ideas, Marit.”
Jack was Marit’s gwyllgi boyfriend. At twice her height and three times her width, he was a brick wall of a man with the heart of a pianist.
“You’re right. I should keep those ideas to myself.” Her eyes went dreamy. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Please keep my fiancé out of your fantasies.”
Gazing off into the distance, she sighed. “Too late.”
When the alphas finished asserting their dominance, they both shifted in a burst of laughter that made the rest of us nervous. Whatever had set them off appeared to be resolved, though.
“Do you want to hear who won?” I cocked an eyebrow at her. “After all that?”
“Nope.” She grabbed the keys out of her pocket and jingled them. “We won. I always win.”
“Not always,” her mother said smugly enough that Lethe had to swallow a growl.
A booming gunshot rang out, and I ducked on reflex. “What in the…?”
Another blast, this one closer, had the girls backing away slowly.
Speeding over the hills, heading straight for us, a bulky four-wheeler growled under the strain. A young man drove, headlights flashing, while a short woman stood behind him, sighting her shotgun for another blast.
“Get off my land,” she boomed at us. “Leave my goats alone.”
“I called the cops, you dirty thieves,” the man added. “They’re on the way.”
Bride or not, I got trampled in the rush back to Moby. I still had a foot hanging out the door when Lethe gunned the engine and whipped us around for the drive back to Savannah.
“Ladies and gent,” she hollered, “reach beneath your seats. There’s a second bottle. Chug it.”
Patting around the carpeted indention beneath me, I made sure there weren’t more hidden bottles. “When did you have time to restock?”
“I’m a woman of infinite mysteries.” She flipped her short hair. “Okay, red team is ahead. No surprise there.” A grumble from the back caused her face to flush. “Stuff it, Mother. If you can’t play nice, I will drop your geriatric butt off at Woolworth House and leave you there to play pinochle with the ghost boy.”
In the odd way of dominant gwyllgi, Tisdale settled into blissful happiness at having been put in her place by a fellow alpha.
The more I knew about gwyllgi, the less I understood them.
“What’s next?” Hadley dared the question. “Do we need to change first?”
“Nope.” Lethe turned smug. “You’ll all fit right in as is, my little bumpkins.”
“You’re taking us to that new bar, the country one.” Adelaide caught on first. “There’s a mechanical bull, right?”
“You people don’t like surprises, do you?” Lethe threw up her hands, which took them off the wheel and forced me to swallow my heart where it stuck in my throat. “Yes, yes. There’s a bull. Same teams. The team with the best rides wins.”
“What do we win?” her mother asked. “Or are we competing for bragging rights only?”
“Please.” She scoffed. “Like it’s worth bragging that my team beat you bunch of losers.”
“I didn’t know you were into themes,” I said before Tisdale got mad enough to climb into the front seat and take a bite out of her daughter. “What are you calling it? Gone Country?”
“Themes are lame, but you’re a sucker for them, and this is your night. I figured you would appreciate the novelty.”
“Aww.” I rested my head on her shoulder. “You get me.”
“Don’t flatter me. You’re not hard to figure out. Keeping you alive? That’s the hard part.”
It’s not like she was wrong, but still. Rude.
Determined to help her keep her winning streak alive, I began reading blogs with tips on how to stay seated on mechanical bulls. The words swam together, and I couldn’t remember how much wine I had drunk or how another bottle got in my hand. Pretty sure I drained mine from under the seat already, so where…?
“Where are the boys tonight?”
The yellow lines on the road were squiggling, so I wasn’t brave enough to risk turning my head, but I was pretty sure Tisdale was the one doing the asking.
“They wouldn’t say,” Hadley answered. “Guess they don’t want us to worry.”
“Would you?” Tisdale asked, the question pointed. “Worry?”
The tips of my ears burned hot as I realized I was eavesdropping on a private conversation.
Whatever Hadley said, I made sure I didn’t hear it. I wanted my conscience clean.
Taking another swig of my drink, I engaged with Lethe, who was listening so hard it was a miracle she hadn’t abandoned the wheel to climb in the back. “Do you think goats would make good pets?”
The SUV swerved a bit. “What?”
“Goats.”
“They’re tasty and provide both meat and cheese. How many animals can say that?”
“You missed the part where I said pet.” I set my drink in the cupholder. “Not dinner.”
“They’re cute, I guess?” She kept darting frantic glances at the rearview mirror as she tried to pick up gossip. “You can’t seriously be thinking about buying one.”
“Would one be enough?”
“Goats are like potato chips. You can’t stop with just one.”
“I’m going to pretend you mean it would need a friend and not that one goat isn’t very filling.”
“You do that.”
“The question is…” I paused to check on the Hadley/Tisdale situation, “…would the pack eat them?”
“Duh.”
“What if I kept both edible and nonedible goats?”
“Are you telling me you, the mushiest-hearted person I know, would split her goats down the middle—metaphorically—and put one in a pen to slaughter and one in a pen to milk?”
Thanks to the wine—how had it gotten in my hand again anyway?—it was easy to squeeze out a few tears.
“Don’t cry, you sap.” She elbowed me. “I was kidding. We wouldn’t eat the goats. Happy?”
Wiping my cheeks dry with my fingers, I sniffled. “Do you mean it?”
Her lips screwed up tight. “Yes?”
“Liar.”
“What is she lying about this time?” Tisdale leaned forward. “She should have been a writer. The stories she told when she was a pup…”
* * *
The bar reminded Linus of an airplane hangar down to the galvanized steel panels covering its walls and its high dome ceiling. They must have bought it for the location then renovated it. No one would build a bar to these specifications. It would cost a fortune to heat and cool this place.
A karaoke stage, dwarfed by the size of the building, stood empty at one end. The main attraction, the padded arena with a mechanical bull, filled the other. A long bar stretched across the back wall, its glossy top beaten and chipped but kept clean and polished by the older barkeep who took his time filling orders. Linus retreated there to await his next turn.
With his shuffling gait, his worn flannel shirt, and starched jeans over scuffed boots, the barkeep could have walked off the set of a western film.
As the groom, Linus had enjoyed the dubious honor of the first bull ride. Once was enough to convince him to hang up his spurs for good. He hadn’t broken a sweat beating the timer, but his tailbone wasn’
t going to thank him anytime soon. The machine was calibrated to humans, and he wasn’t that. Not even a little. The gwyllgi, with their superior reflexes, smashed his record with ease. The last time he saw Hood, he was riding the bull backwards with his hands tucked under his arms.
Not exactly inconspicuous, but they were here to party, and the premises were warded against humans after midnight.
As he watched the spectacle from the bar, he sipped from a glass of bourbon served on the rocks. The heat racing down his throat warmed him from the inside out, for a little while. An insistent prickle down his spine had him reaching for Cletus, and the wraith materialized beside him, fingers clacking.
The wraith’s eagerness made him wary. “What do you know that I don’t?”
Cletus extended his arm, one bony finger pointing toward the entrance.
A familiar blonde strolled in, her arm hooked through Adelaide’s, her shadow alive on the wall behind her though she hadn’t taken another step.
Midas, who was taking his turn on the bull, whipped his head toward the door. The loss of concentration got him flung onto the mats, and he landed hard on his shoulder. As he leveraged into a seated position, chagrin on his face, Hadley cracked up and Adelaide slapped her thigh.
Hands cupped around her mouth, Hadley yelled, “I’ve seen drunk sorority girls last longer.”
The guys chorused ooh, and the challenge was on. The Whitaker sisters versus the gwyllgi.
“I’m here.” Lethe swaggered in, arms raised over her head. “The party can begin.” It took her less than a second to notice it had started without her, thanks to Hadley and Adelaide, and for a glare to narrow her eyes. Striding across the open space, she met Hood halfway. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Eyes hot, he pressed his nose to hers, his mouth almost brushing hers. “I told you I was bringing the guys here.”
“You did, and then I said it sounded like fun and called dibs.” Jerking back, she tapped the button on her shirt. “I’m the matron of honor. I do what I want.”
How to Kiss an Undead Bride Page 13