“You’re human. You don’t have the healing powers these folks do. Now you’re coming with me and I won’t hear another word about it.”
“Is it bad?” I asked.
“Let’s just say I probably won’t be able to turn down the stitches for myself. And my cleavage is going to look a little different from now on.” She shrugged as if to say what can you do.
Desmond trailed behind her and said, “I promise to love your cleavage no matter what.”
“That’s why I married you.”
“Secret?” I asked before she was out the door.
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to be okay?”
She beamed at me. “It’ll take more than a homicidal once-dead werewolf to bring me down, babe.”
As she vanished behind a curtain, a dark voice in the back of my head said, Well that’s disappointing.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Three weeks later
“What about GLOW?” Wilder called from the living room.
“What’s that one about again?”
“Female wrestlers in the eighties.”
I grimaced as I joined him on the couch, precariously balancing two glasses of wine and a freshly delivered five-meat pizza. “Not sure I’m in the mood for suplexes and high-waisted leotards.”
He continued to scan through the Netflix menu options. “There’s a new season of that British murder show you like.”
“Oh my god, yes.”
“You’re twisted. You and your sister almost get killed, and you still can’t get enough of these creepy-ass murder mystery shows.”
“In fairness to me, these shows are all about humans doing terrible things to each other. It’s kind of refreshing.” I sipped my wine and snuggled against him, draping a blanket over my legs.
Three nights earlier we’d set up a little Christmas tree in the window—a big holiday first for us as a couple—and the lights twinkled bright and merry in the dark room. Sure it was only the first week of December, but I challenged anyone to tell me that was too soon.
Things had, as much as possible, returned to normal since Wilder and I had gotten back from New York. Secret had stayed behind, and was working with Desmond to ensure everything was status quo with the pack.
The wolves who had survived the assault all had to be dealt with, and that was its own messy part of an already dark and twisted story. Detective Perry had a convenient scapegoat to wrap up what had happened with Deerling in Franklinton. He could now pin the whole thing on a rogue werewolf pack, which wasn’t great publicity, but was also better than trying to explain to humans that the dead might periodically rise from their graves if a powerful witch was having a bad day.
Santiago had come through his ordeal with Deerling no worse for the wear, but he had seemed much less enthusiastic to speak to me after we got him back to New Orleans. The new coldness and distance suited me just fine, because I didn’t particularly want him to know about all the new things I’d learned to do in New York.
Lucas, the lone remaining wight I’d brought back, had healed beautifully from the injuries he’s sustained during the fight in New York, and it appeared that he wasn’t going to simply fade from being now that I had my head on straight.
I’d brought him back to life and he was here to stay.
At least for as long as I was alive, which I intended to be a good long time.
I thought about what Santiago had told me about necromancers, and how for every hour they animated a body they lost an hour of their own lives. I’d asked Santiago about it when he came back, but he didn’t know if the same thing applied here.
Our situation was unusual, to say the least.
If I was giving up a day of my life for every day Lucas was able to live again, though, that was a worthwhile sacrifice in my books.