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“Stephen's pelt,” he explained. “Return it to Cal and book your plane ticket.”
He waited for me to grab the bag, but I left it in place. “Are you going inside?”
“Are you?” he countered.
“Might, now that you’re here,” I declared, wondering what he’d do to stop me.
“Now that I’m here, you’re going to march that pelt to Mrs. Finn. She visited the station the day after your attack. Scared my secretary out of her skin, she was so angry. Had to buy my entire office supper to apologize.”
I paused. “Packs are family, right?”
“For the most part.”
“And the pack protects the pack first and foremost.”
“Above all else.” Amber eyes curious, he moved me aside and shut the truck door. “Why're you asking?”
“I took a call from a hunter who worked with my grandmother. He seems to think the necromancer wants my sister.”
Frowning at Zakar’s door, Caelan offered his hand. I accepted, and together we took a stroll down the street. “According to you, she’s already in his realm,” he said.
“Actually, there’s a chance she’s on our side of the dirt.” It was important not to get my hopes up, but I couldn’t stave off the excitement.
“How do you figure?”
We slowed our meandering to allow a couple of college-age students to pass. They headed further down the road toward a local bar advertising a rooftop party. Once they’d passed out of earshot, I spoke.
“A friend of my grandmother's described how he brought Rhetta to a shaman after Gramps mauled her. The shaman saved her, which means Rhetta, if she’s alive, is a werewolf. And who do Gram and I move in beside? Just a pack big on adoptions, which could mean I’m a blood relation to the pack.” My stomach ached with anger, resentment, and happiness.
Though his hand in mine remained, Caelan pulled himself away to better regard me. “If Cal knows you’re technically family, that explains her aggressive protection of you.”
With my free hand I swirled the last few pearls in my drink. “I grew up thinking my sister was dead, wishing I still had her, and there we were playing in the same forest, me in the sun and her under the moon.”
“So your grandmother kept you hidden from humans, the Otherworld Society, and your sister. She also kept your sister hidden from humans, you, and the Otherworld Society except a select few.”
“She’d need to live with werewolves to learn how to be one, so someone had to know,” I said. “There’s a lot I have to ask him about. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t Rhetta, though.”
“Good.” We’d nearly reached the bar. I trashed my drink. The music thumped loud and upbeat. From here, Zakar’s end of the street seemed draped in quiet gloom. “Who was the hunter?”
“Ronan Delevant. Don’t quote me on this, but I get the sense she may have squashed the monogamy bug early on in life.”
Caelan spun me easy to the music, then with a tug I was against him, his arm was around my shoulders and we were walking back up the street. “So you're trusting the word of a former lover?”
“If he can get the name of the shaman, I don't care if she married him on the side.”
“Why haven't you asked him already?”
“Finding out Rhetta might be alive is enough for one night,” I admitted. “I’m scared to believe him, then find out she’s not. He gave me the general address for my parents' graves. A cemetery in upstate New York. If I go, I'll know for sure whether Rhetta's with them.”
“Might could be a trap.” He waved to the truck. “Take the pelt and talk to Mrs. Finn. If you sister passed through the pack, she'll know.”
“I could've had my sister,” I said, stopping to watch a plane’s course through the growing starlight.
“You’ve always had your sister,” Caelan replied, letting me go. “Go find her. I’ll be paying you a visit in the morning.”
“Not yet,” I said, nodding at the black door.
“You ain’t invited.”
