“It’s not a medal,” I contested. “It’s a big silver disk. You’re supposed to make it into some shape when you emerge from the fire, as proof that you’re now, you know,” I used finger quotes, “’a real hood.’”
“So your family gathers around, and your mother throws you into a bonfire. I used to think our coming-of-age ceremony was brutal.”
I seated myself at the edge of the room, back against the wall. “What do slayers do?”
Caleb plopped down beside me. “It’s just your mom and dad, or some stand in if they’re no longer kicking. They put you into water – in my case, a swimming pool—and both throw a solarium at you.”
My eyebrows made way for my hairline. “A solarium?”
“Yeah, you know...” Caleb presented his hand, a Ping-Pong sized ball of light radiating over his upturned palm. “One of these guys. They’re called solaria. Oh, and also, there’s pizza. At least, there was at my ceremony. I don’t know if that’s standard practice, though.”
“And after being hit with a ball of sunlight?”
His fist closed, the little ball of light sinking into his skin. “Phenomenal cosmic powers.”
“That’s from Aladdin.”
“Still true.” After a few laughs, he continued. “After that, you get your final training. Kind of like an internship. You tag along with your parents when they go out to patrol. I think it’s a lot like you guys with the werewolves. Ninety-nine percent of vampires just want to live their lives in peace, occasionally getting together for a dinner party or a rave. We only deal with problem children.”
“Not so much raving or dinner parties in packlands. They do have really awesome barbeques, though.”
“I’d expect nothing less from meat eaters. Well...” He bounced to his feet with a vigor Tigger would envy. “Ready to try kicking my ass again? You almost got me to lose my balance this time.”
I pushed myself off the ground. “If I wanted you on your back, Helsing, you’d be on your back.”
“If you want me on my back, Kline, all you have to do is ask. I like when the woman’s on... Oohff. Wow, that was a good one. Give it to me again.”
I hadn’t waited for him to take up any protective gear when I’d punched him directly in the chest. Inga Rosenthorn had been right about one thing; Caleb was definitely a player, one of those guys whose flirt button was always flipped on. Once I accepted it, I kind of enjoyed it.
I was about to land another fist, this time to Caleb’s left shoulder, when my phone rang. With a raised finger, I asked for a break. Caleb took to boxing the air, keeping himself limber.
“Cody?”
“Hey there, red.”
The smile in his voice suggested good news. “My dad was willing to talk to you?”
“Shit, Geri. Your dad has never been a problem. Hell of a good guy, I think the world of him. How he ended up with the Red Dominatrix is the question.”
“Aaannddd?” My voice stretched out like taffy.
“And he got a hold of her. And she’s said yes.”
My squeal froze Caleb in place. He paused, mid-jab, and examined me for signs of injury or insanity. Waving a hand, I tried to tell him not to worry, but he came to stand by me anyways.
“That’s great news! Where?”
“Where do you think?” Cody asked. “Right here in Paradise.”
The man had gone from the bearer of good news to stupid in two seconds flat. “Are you insane? Whose stupid idea was that?”
“Your dad’s, and he wasn’t negotiable on it. He made it a condition of helping.”
The joy I felt moments ago curdled. “My mom’s going to find out. She’s going to find out, and she’ll make sure it doesn’t happen”
Cody reassured me. “Your clan will be too busy with fueurnacht. Your mother won’t have a clue; we’ve worked it out. Just make sure you’re here well before sunset so I can move the pack far enough away to avoid problems. You got lucky when you came here with Tobias during full moon. You have no idea how many commands I had to keep growling to keep the others from attacking you.”
I’d never considered that. The day I’d brought Tobias to Paradise, all I had been thinking of was him. I trusted in the alpha, who I assumed was still Cody’s dad, knowing me well enough to keep the others at bay. If it had been Bob Ryland and not his son, would the results have been different?
“Thank you, Cody. I really appreciate this.”
“No problem, red. You and Tobias just try not killing each other until you get here.”
“So once we get there, it’s okay?”
“Once a smart ass, always a smart ass.”
Caleb did his best not to look wild with curiosity when I got off the phone, but the excitement bubbling just below the surface drew him out.
“Must have been some good news.”
I nodded. “I’m taking my rites. I won’t be a nascent anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the needle seems unnecessary for someone like you.”
Igor may be old, and he may be an academic, but he still had a sense of humor. A goofy grin spread over his face. “I find analyzing samples is difficult if I eat them first. Besides, I don’t like causing people pain.”
“You drink from Hueys, don’t you? I’m sure that doesn’t tickle.”
“Hueys can be enthralled. They don’t feel a thing. You would feel something. You would feel something quite terrible.”
My free hand went to my neck, rubbing the spot where Donovan the Baby Vamp had attacked me several months before. “I know.”
He pressed a cotton ball to the red dot left as the needle pulled out of my vein, before laying a bandage atop to hold it in place. The vampire whisked away the vial holding my blood. Whether securing it from others, or taking it out of sight before I reconsidered, I couldn’t say. When he returned to the room, it was with a green lollipop the size of a quarter pinched in his fingers.
“A reward, for being such a good patient.”
I should turn down the treat; I didn’t want to come off seeming childish. But candy was candy.
“Thank you, I try.” I slid myself off the counter and the wrapper off the candy. “What is it you’re thinking to find, Igor?”
His eyes brightened. “I have no idea, and I can’t remember the last time I was this excited. The work I was able to do on your blood when you were...”
“A prisoner locked in your basement,” I completed when he could not.
He coughed away the awkward moment. “The machines I have at the university aren’t as good as the ones here at WWL. I’ve never been able to compare a hood profile before and after rites. I’m eager to see how, if at all they differ.”
“What about slayers?” I asked. “They have their own kind of rites, too.”
“Yes, well, I wasn’t interested in genetics at the time there were enough of them around to ask for the privilege.”
I let that rest in the air a moment before saying, “What about that sample I brought you from the guy upstairs. Have you gotten any results from him yet?’
Igor stared blankly at the wall. “What sample?”
Was he kidding? Did I have to endure one of the best kisses of my whole life for nothing? “The sample. The only sample I’ve collected from an executive locker room this month.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t know what I’m talking about? Igor, seriously, if you-”
My pointed, wagging finger stuck in the air as Igor grabbed my wrist. The weight of his years, the gravitas of his power bore down on me through his glare. “There was no sample, Geri. Do you understand what I’m saying? You never gave me anything.”
I understood the message, but I couldn’t comprehend the messenger. “If you say so, Igor. If you say so.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Old Bessie choked and coughed that last few miles, but she delivered Tobias and I safe enough, even i
f a little dizzy from the fumes. Half of me wondered if she’d be able to make the trip back to Chicago.
The other half of me was hoping I’d be in any kind of shape to make it. I’d spent my whole life anxious over taking the actual rites, I’d never paused to think with any detail what life would be like on the other side. Maybe because I didn’t want to envision my mother’s grip coming down on me any harder. Maybe because I didn’t want to imagine that I’d resist her.
Tobias tapped my shoulder, bringing me back to the moment. “You in there, Gerwalta?”
I pulled the key from the ignition I’d switched off a minute or so before. “Yeah, just nervous I guess.”
The werewolf’s jaw worked, grinding teeth.
“Okay, now what’s wrong with you?”
He chuffed. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone to go through something like this.”
“Unless you’re prepared to challenge Cody for alpha and assume control of the pack so you can be human during a full moon, I don’t see that happening,” I said. “I won’t be alone. Consuela will be there, making sure the ceremony goes through without any problems. When you come back in the morning, all this will be over, and I’ll be a righteous hood.”
“A righteous hood?” he asked, grinning. “Well, you’d be the first.”
“Not like righteous as in virtuous. It’s what we call a hood who’s gone through their rites. First you’re a nascent, then you’re righteous. Don’t the green hoods in England use that term?”
“If they ever spoke to us longer than to insult our mothers and bully our fathers, I’d let you know.”
Could my kind really be so cruel where he came from? Or was this just years of guided hate talking?
“Come on,” I said, getting out of the car. “We have enough time to eat something before Cody leads the pack into the Hiawatha. I could smell those ribs on the grill miles ago.”
“You eat all you want. I prefer wild game on full moons.”
“Great, more for me then.”
Cody threw open the front door and his arms. I stepped into his embrace, feeling like a fire wrapped inside a soggy blanket. The press of his chest against my cheek still sent desire spinning in me, but to push him away would cause more problems than it’d solve.
“This is it,” he said, rocking me gently. “Excited?”
I could have responded in so many ways, none of which were appropriate with a married man. Instead, I just sighed and thanked him for helping to set everything up.
“No problem.” Cody let me go before reaching a hand out to shake with Tobias. “Good job putting up with her. I know it’s not easy.”
“She placates me with dumplings,” Tobias declared flatly as he bypassed the alpha to drop my bag inside the door. “I’d like to head to my room and get a nap in before sunset. I’m stifled by the city. I need to run as much as I can tonight.”
“Room?” I asked, looking behind me. “What room? Where do you have a room?”
Cody picked up my duffel bag and heaved it over his shoulder. “You don’t need my permission to take a nap, Tobias. But you sure you don’t want to hang out, have a beer? Lisa’s kept a few of the burgers on the raw side for you, just flamed them enough to get a little dark on the outside.”
My mouth watered. Cody and his uncle had got me hooked on what they called “Wolf Sliders” a while ago.
Tobias tapped his belly. “I’m keeping room for rabbit. I give your Yooper woods this: the coneys are delicious.”
“Cody, honey?” Lisa slid open the glass door connecting to the backyard open. “I thought I sensed a hood, but hard to tell with... Oh, Geri. Hello.”
My head simultaneously threatened to explode and implode, and it wasn’t because of the cute way that Lisa wore her hair. Nor was it because she had just called the man I loved “honey.” It wasn’t even because a small part of me still blamed her for my losing him, even though I suspected she had as much choice in the matter as Cody had had.
It was because the tray of burgers she carried rested on a visible swell of her stomach, given to her by a man who a year ago had pledged to love me and only me forever.
The solid mass of muscle behind me became the only thing keeping me from falling. Tobias managed the impossible, he held me up, while not touching me at all. It took me a moment to realized that what bolstered me was his compassion. I sensed it so acutely, it had a physical effect. Looking over my shoulder, the smallest of nods confirmed I wasn’t imagining things.
“On second thought,” Tobias said, circling around me and heading for the back yard, “who am I to turn down a seat at my alpha’s table?”
I tamped down my emotions – all of them like a classroom of toddlers screaming to be taken to the bathroom by the hand – and turned my eyes to the floor. I would not make this awkward for them. It wasn’t their fault. Neither one of these people had ever intentionally hurt me in any way.
“Just as long as you realize it’s only a picnic table,” Cody called after the wolf.
“Lisa.” My tongue wanted to employ a derogatory term that, nevertheless, was technically accurate for a female werewolf. “Thank you for agreeing to let me stay here.”
A smile fluttered across her face. “Of course, Geri. No bother at all.”
A silence that threatened to bloom uncontrollably between us broke when Lisa pivoted to the kitchen, setting down the tray of barely-cooked meat.
“You must be exhausted after that long drive. Maybe you’d like to rest up a bit? Or if you want to grab a burger and go sit out back with the others, I can bring you something cold to drink.”
“Others?” I turned to Cody, all thoughts of the little wolf the alpha’s mate carried set aside. “What others?”
Cody ducked around a corner and dropped my bag in the room that used to be his. Now that his father was gone, had he taken the master suite? Where was his mother staying?
“Your cousin Consuela got here earlier this morning,” he said. Almost as if reading my mind, he continued. “Don’t worry, we brought her up Farm Tuck Road. We didn’t drive her near the hood compound or through town at all. Your mom wouldn’t have sensed her.”
“Hoods don’t sense each other.” Why would we need to? We weren’t supposed to be a threat to others of our clan. “Who else is here? We agreed this should be done on a need-to-know basis.”
“And I’ve kept that in mind,” Cody assured me. “In the pack, it’s just me, Lisa, and Uncle Rick. Tobias, of course. And from your side of it, there’s Consuela, and...”
“Hola, mi bonita.”
My father hadn’t changed much in the year since I’d last set eyes on him. Hoods, as a rule, aged well, keeping limber and agile well into their sixties. My dad could pass for a man twenty years younger. Except in his eyes, where sadness had sacked away his youth. I wanted to believe it was because of my mother’s frequent indifference towards him. Divorce in hood families wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unheard of. How someone as sweet and compassionate as my father ended up with my mother to begin with had always thrown me for a loop. Why he stayed with her threw me for an Alpine mountain pass.
“Papa.” My voice cracked even as I chided myself. He sided with her. He tried to keep you from Cody. He would have disowned you the moment you two were wed. I put the cauldron of silver boiling in the pit of my stomach into my throat. “You’re here, so I assume Brünhild is only shortly behind.”
My father’s smile faded under my glare. “She thinks I’ve gone to visit Consuela. Please, cazadora...”
As my father stepped forward, and I fell back, Tobias put himself between us. Whether it was because he’d sensed my conflict through the connection we seemed to share, or through old-fashioned body language, I couldn’t say.
My dad’s voice took on an authoritarian tone. “Step aside. You have no right to keep me from my daughter.”
“The name’s Tobias, and I have pledged to protect this hood with my life,” he said in his rough English accent. “So
not only do I have the right, I have the duty.”
Looking over the werewolf’s shoulder, I caught my father eyeing Cody questioningly.
The alpha shrugged. “Come on, Pietro. I wasn’t going to let Geri go to the big city without anyone there to have her back.”
“You told me Kim was with her. Not some wolf I do not know, who isn’t even of this pack. If I had known...”
“If you had known, what, papa?” I cut in, pulling Tobias back to stand beside me. “Would you have followed your wife’s example? Intruded in pack politics and bullied them into submission? Invalidate all my choices, hoping I’ll give in and fall into the role of the obedient daughter who always does what father and her Matron say, even when it’s wrong?”
A second person came through the sliding door, suggesting there might be a whole village of people milling around in Cody’s back yard. The woman with auburn hair woven in a braided spindle atop her head and olive skin stepped into the living room wearing fatigues. A clash of commando style and the beauty of Latin goddess in her late thirties, Consuela Carlito de Reina presented a striking figure – especially in a room dominated by Yoopers and a token Englishman. The ice in her glare reminded me so much of my mother’s.
“Such disrespect, Gerwalta?” Consuela spotted Lisa, still holding the tray of burgers and waiting to the side of the room. She crossed, took the tray, and set it on the counter, before turning back to me. “Not a good start for us. Respect of elders is a high priority among the Amarillo. Do you not realize how much your father has risked to get me here today, for you? If your mother finds out he was involved, she could expel him from her clan.”
Tobias, still at my side, ran a hand through his hair. “The Amarillo? You mean, the yellow hoods? But Geri’s a red. Why is a yellow matron here?”
Consuela jumped in. “Perhaps if we sit, I can explain. Gerwalta and I must come to terms anyhow. Pietro?”
Consuela stepped to the side, inviting us into the backyard.
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.
Relinquished Hood Page 14