SEVERAL MINUTES LATER, each of us with a paper plate laden with a hamburger, a monster pickle, and chips, we all sat elbow-to-elbow around Cody’s picnic table, when Consuela began to speak.
“Most bloodlines marry amongst their own,” she began. “Distant cousins, of course. We do not favor incest. Occasionally, as in the case of Pietro and Brünhild, a union from two different lines may occur. Geri’s lineage, therefore, is not solely as a red. She is also Pietro’s progeny. Almost always, the children of such unions cross their fires under the color of their mother’s line. It is possible, however, for a daughter such as Geri to be taken in by the Matron of her paternal line.”
“So instead of being a red hood, I’m going to be a yellow,” I said to Tobias, who seemed confused by the whole pitch. “But I’d still be righteous. I’d just be subject to Consuela’s orders instead of my mother’s.”
Tobias’s brow furrowed. “Like she’d be your alpha?”
“I would be her Matron, yes. And as her Matron, I’d expect her to live in my sanjak, and pledge loyalty to my line,” Consuela said. “When time comes for her to wed, she will take a Yellow as her spouse.”
Pietro cleared his throat and steepled his hands. “Consuela has agreed to defer her claim on Geri until she finishes college. My cousin controls a very large swath of land. Chicago is its northernmost tip, but she has hoods as far south as the Louisiana Bayou, and from Oklahoma to Alabama. Within that space, Geri may live where she likes.”
“As long as you come when summoned, and go where commanded, you may make your home wherever you decide,” Consuela added. “I am not like your mother. I do not demand that my hoods live breathing down a pack’s neck.”
Cody and Lisa exchanged glances. Natives to Paradise, they knew firsthand the truth of that insult.
“But Geri wants to live in the Upper Peninsula when she finishes school,” Tobias said. “She wants to be a school teacher, have a pet dog and make scones on weekends.”
My cheeks burned as I tried to melt into a pool while the others all shared confused expressions, having witnessed a werewolf prattle off my vision of domestic bliss.
Except for Consuela, who continued undeterred. “I don’t care if she bakes banana bread and has a parrot, but she will live in my sanjak. If Geri is determined to stay in her mother’s region, then she should have the Red Matron to conduct her rites.”
“It’s a reasonable request, Matron.” My back cracked as I put some steel in it, sitting up straighter. “I regret, however, that I have to ask one more thing.”
She crossed her arms as her left eyebrow took on the shape of a boomerang. “And that is?”
“Tobias and I are working together to investigate some vampire activity in the city. It’s possible that that will take me longer than the year of school I have left.”
“Investigation?” She said the word like she didn’t understand the meaning. “Just what are you investigating?”
My eyes went to Cody, then Tobias. For some reason, I felt like the decision of whether or not to share the details fell under their purview, not mine.
Surprisingly, it was Lisa who answered. “Two of Tobias’s native pack and my father-in-law have been killed off in the last year. Both Tobias’s mate and his brother’s bodies ended up in vampire hands.”
Consuela’s head whipped to the alpha seated at her left. “What happened to your dad?”
Put on the spot, my ex shifted in his seat. “We don’t know for sure. He disappeared one day when he went out fishing. Never came back.”
“And the Red Matron, she did not investigate this?” Consuela asked.
My father leaned in. “Brünhild felt that there was no evidence to suggest any foul play. ‘A Huey-styled death,’ she called it.”
More like she thought one fewer wolf in the world wasn’t a bad thing, I thought. To have said it out loud would have mocked Cody’s feelings however, and put my father in the role of defending my mother – a role in which he could give an Oscar-worthy performance and which wouldn’t advance the conversation at all. Instead, I said what was defensible.
“It’s best that my mother isn’t involved. If the evidence ends up leading back to Chicago, as the Red Matron, she’d have reason to subjugate your sanjak, Consuela. Her turning a blind eye to this keeps your region safe from her meddling.”
“Subjugate a sanjak?” Tobias asked. “One, what in the hell is a sanjak? And two, why would Geri’s mother be able to take over yours?”
For a moment, I thought how much of a distance there must be between the pack Tobias was born into and its hood clan. Then, I recalled how the Paradise clan had been ignorant of most of the hood ways of governance before I had become Cody’s girl and a fountain of information.
Maybe Bobby Ryland had other reasons for tolerating my non-traditional relationship with his son. Then again, it was possible the green hoods in England simply called their territory something else. Hoods didn’t lack diversity in our own way; certainly, the hoods of the Steppe and those in Africa didn’t use words like feuernacht and mein kind. I was still thrown by the fact that my Central European ancestors adopted an Ottoman term like sanjak into our lexicon as it was.
“A sanjak,” Consuela said, “is the geographic territory a Matron controls. The hoods in the Balkans adopted it about five hundred years ago when the Ottomans took control of their lands. As a yellow matron, only three things can take control of my sanjak away. Death, the eldest matron of my bloodline – but she lives in Spain and they say is fruitier than banana – or the eldest matron of the Red Blood Line. Brünhild Kline could become a dictator in our world if she wanted to. Rumors are, she’s considering it.”
Both Consuela and I looked to my father, but on this subject, he remained mute, staring straight ahead, mouth tight, jaw clenched. I, however, had suspicions. It wasn’t my mother’s desire or ability to seize control I debated. The problem lay in how to get the wolves in the annexed regions to accept it. A dictator was only as strong as her strongmen.
A hood who could sense wolves up to a mile away and act as a beacon, drawing them helplessly as moths to flame? My mother had been waiting on me. She had been waiting for me to take rites so she could have my power. A wolf’s greatest strength wasn’t his ability to fight, it was his ability to choose to fight. What I could do would undermine that. I’d draw them to the battlefield, lead them to slaughter.
“I’m prepared to accept your terms, Consuela, if you can accept mine.”
The corner of the yellow matron’s mouth ticked up. “You have a deal, Miss Kline. Now eat. You will need your energy.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
In a closet just a few miles away, hung a tunic of leather, lace, and red ribbon, custom-tailored to my body, with matching leather gauntlets and quiver. It had been a present from my mother on my sixteenth birthday, the hope being that I would wear it a week later in a sacrificial fire. She hadn’t known then that I was three months into dating the son of the Paradise Pack alpha, or that coming to know the wolves through informal visits to the packlands had me questioning everything I’ve ever been told about their character and worth. I’d used the excuse of needing more training before taking on duties, so that I wouldn’t let her down. Then I used the excuse of attending the local community college, with my father’s aid in convincing her it was worthwhile.
Today, I had no more excuses. I would walk the fire under the full moon wearing a pair of worn jeans and a purple t-shirt. On the other side, I’d conjure my hood for the first time. Only, instead of red, I’d wear yellow. It shouldn’t make a difference.
So why was I feeling like a traitor?
“Out with it, then.” Tobias found me at the edge of the woods, staring blankly into the forest beyond.
“Out with what?”
He grimaced in frustration. “I don’t know why it is that we have this connection, but it’s made me into a damned Geri-gauge. I feel whatever’s in here—” He reached out, tapping two fingers on my s
ternum, then to my bottom lip. “—no matter what this claims. Out with it. I have to go in a few minutes.”
Fine. He wanted to know, I’d tell the wolf who lost his mate to vampires my petty problems.
“I guess I had more wrapped up in being a red than I realized. Now tell me how stupid that is, especially since I had decided not to take my rites at all.”
“It’s not stupid.”
Wide-eyed, I turned on him. “It’s not?”
He shook his head. “Your bloodline is more than what color your hood will be. It’s your clan. It’s your family. And sometimes...” He pivoted to a squeal in the distance where Cody and Lisa kissed, near where my father and Consuela had built the pyre to be set ablaze after sunset. “...you don’t realize how much that means to you until it’s taken away.”
Memories of the conversation we’d had in the diner resurfaced. It seemed like forever ago, when Tobias explained to me the events that led to him coming to Chicago. Along the way, he’d not only lost his mate, he’d lost his pack. The alpha turned him out, exiling him. Misty recollections blew away when Rick Ryland, naked as the day he was born, called from across the clearing.
“Pack, get your asses over here. Time to take off.”
In another twenty minutes or so, the sun would set. Taking the wolf wouldn’t be an option for them at that point; the full moon’s dominance of the sky would force them through it. Leaving early would allow them to drive deep enough into the forest to give us a sufficient buffer. A werewolf under the light of a full moon could be more animal than human, and a hood in the heart of their packlands could trigger their defensive instincts.
Tobias put a hand on my shoulder, locking our gazes. “You’re still going to be you on the other side of that fire, and you will still be my friend. You got that?”
“So we’re friends now?”
The wind whooshed from my chest as he pulled me into his arms, wrapping me in a blanket of warmth both physical and emotional. “You’re my only friend anymore, Geri.”
He let me go, giving me a little, playful push as he turned away. “You tell anyone in the pack I said that, and we’re going full fairytale reenactment, though.”
“Meaning what? You’ll huff and puff and blow my house down?”
I felt a blush in my cheeks as he simultaneously walked away and began to strip off his clothes. “That, or I’ll lure you into my bed until you get close enough to eat.”
The pyre wasn’t necessary. I was about to burn to ash on the spot.
LOGS CRACKLED, FALLING in on themselves as the embers beneath pulled them down into the heart of the flame. In the distance, the yips, yowls, and howls of the pack reached out across the distance, dancing on the breeze coming off the lake, weaving moist fingers up the hills. To my left, my father sat on a sawed-off log, doing everything in his power not to look at me.
I sighed as I adjusted the second-hand gauntlets Consuela had given me. “Just say it. You know it’s eating you up.”
Credit to the man for dropping the front as soon as I called him on it. “Are you seeing him?”
“No.”
“But you’re living together. I heard Cody say so.”
Sometimes in the eyes of a parent, one plus one equaled thirty. “For convenience, and only temporarily. My roommate went home for the summer. Tobias stays in her room, I stay in mine. We’re friends, nothing more.”
“You used to say that about Cody.”
“And now, I can say it again.” I dropped my hands and turned towards my father. “There’s nothing romantic going on between Tobias and me, and there never will be. His mate is dead, and I’m part of the reason why.”
Thrice, he blinked his confusion. “Were you hunting her?”
“No, and I should have been. If I’d hunted her, I’d have saved her. I didn’t want to be a hood. I refused to get involved.”
He mauled that over as held his chin. “So you feel like you owe him something.”
“You could say that.”
“I hope, mi bonita, that you do not feel you owe him your life.”
“We are ready to begin!”
Consuela’s proclamation brought my father and me to attention. The fire burned steadily, rebellious licks of orange and blue flame leaping from the pyre. It seemed small in my eyes, the top barely coming up to my navel. My mother’s fires on feuernacht put out smoke trails that could be seen three miles off shore.
“Your mother always keeps one hood turned toward the packlands on a full moon,” my father explained when I asked. “If we build the flame too high, the smoke could alert the lookout.”
“The size of the fire is not important,” Consuela cut in as she took a small, black satchel from a duffel bag she’d dragged out to the fire. “What matters is the size of the heart of hood for whom it burns. Gerwalta, how is your Spanish?”
“Barely passable,” I coughed out. “Why?”
She stood and turned toward me. “Because I am not a red. Reds conduct their rites in Old Germanic. The Amarillos use either Spanish or Arabic. I thought of the two, you might know Spanish better.”
“She knows Spanish,” my father intervened, hitting the ground with his ever-present walking stick for emphasis. “I made certain to raise her knowing enough. She cannot speak with fluency, but she will be able to understand what you say.”
Had he foreseen that one day it might be necessary for me to take this path? That I’d abandon the House of Red? If so, why hadn’t he ever told me?
Consuela gave a slow nod as she pulled out a silver disc from a black sack tied to her belt. I presented my hand eagerly, my palm itchy, wanting the silver. The metal had always called to me, but I never could speak to it as the righteous could. A thrill shot through me when I realized that soon, that would no longer be the case.
When she resumed in Spanish, my brain became consumed with rendering the words back to English. My father’s foresight turned out to be useful.
“You have seen this before with the red ceremony, and our way is similar. The most important thing is accepting the fire. You must not hesitate. If you do, it will recognize the nature that rebels within you. Do you understand?”
I’d never heard that was possible. Then again, reds weren’t known to hesitate when claiming their birthright.
“I do.” The cold metal in my hand warmed and vibrated, as though it too had agreed to the accord. “Don’t we need more people here to do this?”
Consuela shook her head. “Only the matron and the nasciente are necessary. The clan’s presence is only for social reasons. It’s a family event, no?”
I side-eyed my father, who puffed his chest out. With an inhale, and a slow exhale, Pietro Kline awakened his powers. A roll of smoke from the fire wafted his way, smoldering over his shoulders and down his back, until it stilled and solidified, brightening into the mustard yellow cloak of his native clan. His silver bracelets shone like liquid mercury around his wrist, the metal ready to obey his command.
“I represent the family.”
So he did, if by no other virtue than he was the only one here. If I had more time, and if I could trust no one else would have found out, Markus’s presence would have been welcomed. My heart ached thinking about my cousin, and how I’d no longer be part of his clan. Hell, after my mother found out I’d become a yellow, she’d probably disown me. I’d be lucky if my dad was still able to take phone calls from me on the other side of this.
Turning back, I saw that Consuela too had summoned her hood. Like the Red Matron, her power covered her face in a half mask, as the silver running in her veins turned her eyes into shining disks in the night.
“Steady yourself, child. This is the worst part.”
The bottom of my stomach leaked into my ankles. “What do you mean the worst —”
Complete silence. The fire burning before me did not crack. The wind around us made no whistle. My father, stationed on the south pole of the fire, moved his lips, invoking the chant that would trigger wha
tever supernatural power fed the magic. Phrase after phrase he uttered, but my ears perceived nothing. Even my own voice in my head went mute.
Then, the medallion in my grasp began to hum.
No, not the medallion. It was the fire. Discordant voices whispered, competing for my attention. Go away. At last, you are here! You are not worthy. We’ve waited for you for so long. Come inside the flames.
I focused on the last one, trying to pull it out from the web of sound weaving itself into my brain. Flames contorted in my vision, becoming fiery fingers coaxing me. It wanted me. The fire wanted me. But not nearly as much as I wanted it.
Consuela’s hand folded over my shoulder. I nodded with vigor, signaling her that I was ready. I’d burn, and gladly. I’d be her clan; I’d serve my matron. I yearned for the pyre. With a push, I fell forward, the flames licking my skin, my vision turning blood red. Bleeding skies and howling winds consumed my senses. Swaddled in flame, I threw back my head and bellowed. Every part of my anatomy tingled, as though I’d been muted all my life before now, and suddenly, the volume had been pushed to the max.
Then, pain. Coldness. Separation. Despair.
With a hard jerk, my body folded backward, sending the silver in my hand flying. Panic raised its flag beside me, looking wildly left and right, seeking out the reason that where I expected heat, I found only ice. When the air exploded from my lungs, the reason for my discombobulation became clear. It stood five-foot-seven, had glowing silver eyes, and whisked through the air like a giant crimson raven.
“Put me down!” I belted, hitting my mother in the chest.
Brünhild cradled me as though I was no more than the babe she’d born twenty-one years ago. “You don’t really want that, do you, daughter mine? We are at least twenty feet off the ground.”
Consuela let loose a torrent of Spanish curses that could shame a bordello. “Brünhild, how dare you!”
My pleas brought only my mother’s jest, Consuela’s cursed triggered her ire. As quickly as we’d taken to flight, we floated down, landing between the yellow matron and the fire.
Relinquished Hood (Red Hood Chronicles Book 2) Page 15