I had, until now, existed on the razor-thin edge of two worlds, part of both and accepted by neither. I didn’t know how to switch from feeling unwanted to being considered among the ruling class
.
“I’d say penny for your thoughts, but I think I’d have to offer you more than a million to get everything that just went through your head. ” Lucas was leaning across the table with a tentative smile on his lips, waiting for me to come back down to earth.
“Sorry. ” I was embarrassed to have been caught so lost in thought.
“Where’d you just go?”
“I was thinking about my grandmere. ” I waited for the confusion that accompanied my French nickname for her, which was something she had insisted upon from her Louisiana upbringing and also something to set her apart from my grandfather’s Irish heritage.
“Is she…?” he hesitated.
“Oh! No. She’s alive and well in Southern Manitoba, probably bitching to herself about the late melt and what it will mean for her peas. ” I grinned to myself, picturing her in rubber boots and rolled-up overalls, stomping around in the knee-deep snow and thinking of what type of spell she could use to speed up the melt.
Manitoban winters dragged on for longer than six months at a time, but once they were gone spring was a barely noticeable blip before summer swept in hot and humid. I missed it sometimes.
“She isn’t like us, though?”
No one is like me, I couldn’t help but think. “No, she’s not a werewolf. She’s a pretty tough witch, though. ” I didn’t want to make it seem like she was a helpless old lady. Far from it. Now in her early sixties, she was more active than ever and showed no signs of slowing down.
“And she raised you alone?” He was a little surprised by it. Werewolves, from what I understood, were fans of the it takes a village approach to raising children. I’d told him yesterday my grandmere raised me, but I guess he’d assumed she had help.
“Because of, uh…” I tried to think of something that wasn’t a lie but wouldn’t tell him more than he needed to know, “…the in-utero trauma that caused my lycanthropy to activate early?” Okay, so I failed to mention that said trauma was my newborn vampire father force-feeding his tainted blood to my mother and turning me into a freakazoid hybrid. Not a lie, really, more of an omission. “My mother was young, only seventeen, and my father was…dead. ” Again, not a lie, just a twist on the truth. “She didn’t know how to take care of a baby that wasn’t just a baby. She probably couldn’t have taken care of me if I had been normal. She left me with my grandmother and never looked back. ” All of that was one hundred percent truth.
Lucas’s face was stony. Even Dominick and Desmond at their own table looked more solemn than they had before. To me this was history. It was like telling someone about Brutus betraying Caesar. Or about the collapse of the Roman Empire. History wasn’t personal, it was just facts about the past. So, in spite of the fact that this history was mine, it no longer moved me.
Lucas took my hand, and with his other he touched the side of my face with a soft stroke of his fingers. His hand was hot against my skin, which didn’t surprise me given the raised core temperature of all wolves. “You will never lack for a family again,” he promised.
Sadly, I didn’t think it was a promise he could keep.
Chapter Eighteen
The Chameleon Lounge was more than just a restaurant. While the main floor served as an upscale dining experience, the upper level, buffered by soundproof walls and floors, was a dance club.
Lucas guided me up a staircase at the back of the restaurant with our two D-named bodyguards following close behind us. At dinner, Lucas had mentioned Desmond would be keeping an eye on me, but he made it sound like the normal thing for a wolf-lieutenant to do for a displaced princess. I didn’t pry further, but it seemed like Lucas was assigning me a bodyguard I didn’t need or want.
When we reached the club it wasn’t at all what I expected. The walls were decorated with sophisticated red-and-black damask wallpaper, and every flat surface looked like polished black marble, from the dance floor to the bar to the individual tables.
All the lights were dimmed and covered by beaded black shades. Both the bar and the DJ booth were on raised platforms, while all the booths were sunk into the floor so they had to be stepped down into.
I wondered if the marble floors posed any risk to dancing patrons, but the question was answered when a man grabbed his date’s hand and spun her around three times as if she were a top. She stopped on a dime, dipped backwards and then into his arms again. Weres had enough natural grace to not fear a floor like this.
Genevieve knew how to create a unique and dynamic environment for her customers. As soon as I thought of her I remembered a question dinner had forced out of my mind.
Instead of asking Lucas, I dropped back to fall into step with Desmond. I figured since he’d known about Melvin the wereferret, he’d probably know about Genevieve as well.
“Desmond?” The taste of lime filled my mouth, and I had to swallow it before I could think of speaking again.
“Miss McQueen. ” His formality jarred me. I wondered if his coldness had something to do with his orders, if by being aloof he felt he was better equipped to protect Lucas and me. But Dominick didn’t seem to have any problem being nice to me. Perhaps when this night was over, Desmond and I would have a little chat about what exactly his issue with me was.
I carried on with the question I’d been about to ask. “What is Genevieve? I know she’s not a wolf, and she’s definitely feline, but I can’t quite pin her down. ”
A laugh punctuated the air behind us. “Ah, and here I thought the idea was that curiosity killed the cat. What, I wonder, did it do to the big bad wolf?” Genevieve was a few feet away, leaning against the bar with a glass of champagne in her hand. Of course it would be champagne, and I was willing to bet it was Cristal. Nothing but the best for our hostess. “You are concerned about what kind of cat I am?”
She sashayed over to us on her towering heels. With that added height and the fact I was in flats, she stood much taller than I and stared down at me with a lecherous smile that suited her quite well. Lucas had disappeared into the crowd with Dominick, leaving me alone in Desmond’s company.
“I was just wondering. Not concerned. You don’t smell like any other were feline I’ve encountered. ”