All eyes turned to me. I hadn’t meant to speak; this meeting wasn’t for me. But as an Ombudsman, as Connor’s girlfriend, as a person who had friends in the Pack, I needed to know what might come next. It was my nature.
“Vampires,” Derek said good-naturedly. “Always like to plan.”
“She is her parents’ child,” Gabriel said with a smile. He took a seat at the worn table, kicked up his feet, crossed his booted ankles. “It may be, Elisa, that these fools return to Memphis and learn to make better use of their time. Maybe they’ll rile up the Pack, and if the Pack wants changes, we’ll do what needs to be done.”
He shifted his gaze to Connor, and his magic shifted along with it. No longer merely the magic of the Pack’s Apex predator, but of a father. “It’s my intention to pass the coronet to the next generation. And I don’t intend to let them interrupt that process.”
The coronet was the Pack’s crown; it had been placed on Connor’s head as an infant when he’d been initiated into the Pack.
“To the prince,” Eli said, and raised a glass.
“To the prince,”came the echoing response, and with it a warm curl of magic that wound around the room, gathering us in. Goose bumps lifted on my arms as each shifter joined their magic to the group, to the whole.
This was Pack. Not just the name or the building or the individual components, but the members unified together in common purpose: holding the Pack.
A hand took mine. I looked over, found Connor’s gaze on me, as if gauging my reaction to the moment and the power. Did he think I’d be overwhelmed by the magic? Smothered by it?
I nodded at him, squeezed his hand, knowing this was our future.
***
The neon sign above the door of the entirely unimpressive and low-slung building made no sense: It was a hot dog jumping out of a taco. It was a strange sign for a restaurant called Taco Hole. But it was a supernatural sanctuary, and it had some of the best food I’d ever tasted. And some of the hottest, to boot.
I walked inside the slightly dingy space, where all manner of supernaturals sipped margaritas or enjoyed enchiladas, including the nonpracticing sorceress at a scarred four-top. Lulu had already ordered, and the table bore her drink, two bowls of chips, and several bottles of Taco Hole’s famous hot sauce.
“Thanks for waiting for me,” I said dryly, taking a seat.
“I sent that text half an hour ago.”
“I was half an hour away and knee deep in shifter nonsense.”
“Are they still at Pack HQ?”
“They” were Connor and Alexei, whom she’d also invited to dinner. “They are. And they’ll probably be a while.”
She hadn’t talked to me about what she and Alexei were to each other—not that I wanted the sordid details—and I wasn’t sure she knew. I just wanted her happy, and I was pretty sure he did, too.
The waitress came over, her skin faintly green and iridescent. She looked down at me. “Yeah?”
“Special,” I said, not even bothering to see what that might have been. “Burn me up.”
“Drink?”
Vampires didn’t usually frequent the Taco Hole, so I doubted they had bottled blood. Lulu was drinking something that looked like a sunset—brilliant layers of red and orange and pale pink—so I gestured toward it. “One of those.”
The waitress nodded and walked away again.
I snagged a chip, munched. “Pass the extra hot, please.” She did, and I poured it onto the chip, bit in. I felt the burn immediately. And reveled in it.
“I’m surprised you invited Alexei,” I said.
She swirled her drink with a straw. “Like I’d have a choice. Connor would bring him anyway.”
I made a noncommittal sound. “Are we here for a particular reason, or just dinner?”
“Just dinner. Food. Drinks. No magic.”
“No Pack interlopers?”