“You have no idea. ” Sarcasm seeped from every word.
“Oh, but I do. You are special for many reasons, more than you ca
n imagine yourself. You see, among our kind there is a tradition known as The Awakening. When a child reaches the cusp of adulthood, they are presented with a choice—continue to live a normal human life or accept the inheritance of our forefathers and join the pack. ”
“I don’t understa—” Then it clicked. “You mean you wait until they’re old enough to weigh the options, and then you bite them if they say yes?”
“If they accept, then they are initiated, yes. This is how the old families have done it for centuries. It’s how we carry on our legacy. It’s also how we’ve stayed so well hidden from the public. Keeping ourselves a secret is the most important rule we live by. ”
“If this is all so secret, why share it with me? I was never ‘Awakened’. ” I made little air quotes around the word. “Never initiated. I’m a freak by your standards, aren’t I?”
“Far from it. A born wolf is the thing of legend among our people. You would not be shunned, but revered. That is not, however, the reason I’ve brought you here. ”
“It’s not?” Why the hell was I here, then? I was gaining new respect for the werewolves, but the whole situation had me missing the political simplicity of the vampire world.
“I didn’t know until you told me you’d never been bitten that you were more special than I had first thought. I brought you here because of what happened on the street, and when you told me your name downstairs it confirmed something I suspected from the first moment we met. ”
Ah, here was my chance for some enlightenment about their earlier discussion. “You and Desmond said something about my last name being interesting. How it made sense. The last time I told a werewolf my name he got really uneasy about it, but never explained why. I’m starting to think there’s more to it than just a name, unless werewolves in general hate Bullitt. But I’m betting that’s not it. ”
“While there are better Steve McQueen movies, I’m partial to Papillon myself, it’s not the reason your name makes wolves uncomfortable. I mentioned that mine is not the only family with a royal legacy. ”
“Yes. ”
“In the East the wolves are ruled by my family, the Rains. In the West they are ruled by the Cavanaughs. The O’Shaughnessy family rules the North, and do you know who the kings and queens of the South are?”
“Obviously not. ” His little spiel was leaving me with a pretty good idea, though, and I didn’t like it.
“The royal family of the American South is the McQueens. ”
Chapter Nine
“What the hell are you saying?”
“You are royalty. Your grandfather… His name was Elmore McQueen, wasn’t it?”
Grandmere most often referred to her now-deceased husband as that awful man, or more colorful Creole phrases as I grew old enough to appreciate them, but his Christian name had been Elmore. I nodded to confirm his assumption.
“Then your mother must have been either Savannah or Mercy McQueen. ”
“Mercy. ” I cast my eyes downward. Her name brought bile to the back of my throat and the sting of tears to my eyes. In spite of the large fire, I now felt cold.
“Your mother must have met with a lot of difficulty for settling with a human man. ”
“My grandmere approved of it, and I don’t think Elmore really said much about it since he’d married a human girl himself. At least before he left her with three children to raise so he could bed down with a new bitch. ” I let my tears turn to a fog of rage. I needed to push the sadness away if I was going to be able to look at him. The insult had a different sting to wolves. If there was a werewolf equivalent to the c-word, bitch was it. Lucas flinched to hear me say it.
A long pause filled the room, broken only by the sound of a log settling in the fire. We stared at each other across the desk, and I ached to touch him so badly my fingers tingled, but I couldn’t understand why.
“Regardless of your grandfather’s second family and your mother’s abandonment, you are by blood and birthright a princess to the Southern line. It all became clear to me when I learned your name. ”
“What became clear? At the moment nothing is clear at all here. ” I waved a hand around my head to illustrate my continued confusion.
“Let me try to phrase this in a way that won’t frighten you. ”
“That’s probably not the best way to start. ”
At least he wasn’t speaking to me like I was a child anymore.
“The thing is, while we have genetic explanations to make things easier for us to understand, there is still something primal and magical about being a werewolf. I was Awakened when I was thirteen, and it was like having a light turned on. I was roused from a sensory-debilitating sleep that day, and I haven’t looked back since. I see and hear better, I taste things more purely, and my sense of smell…well, you know how our noses work. ”