Page 24 of Cursed by Death (Ruby Jane #1)

G inger and Hunter didn’t make me sit out in the car and wait very long for them.

What I wasn’t expecting was for Hunter to open the front passenger door so the wolf could jump up onto the seat. Ginger strapped the baby into the car seat and she and Hunter got into the back on either side of the baby.

“Umm, guys?” I muttered, at a loss for words. I cleared my throat and looked back over my shoulder into the backseat. “Why’s Rally in here? I have a feeling his bodyguards aren’t going to like him leaving all that much right now. I got the feeling they wanted to keep him close on hand so they could watch over him, for whatever reason.”

The wolf growled and I shot him a dirty look, a look that growl rightfully deserved. “Don’t you dare get pissed at me, buddy. I don’t think you need all those babysitters. I actually kind of think the whole thing is a little ridiculous, really. Shouldn’t you be able to take care of yourself? I mean, if you couldn’t take care of yourself then you wouldn’t have won all of those challenges and you wouldn’t be in charge anymore. I could see one or two guards because you are the Prince, but a whole crew of them seems like overkill to me.”

I didn’t even know why I was bothering to talk to him about this at the moment because it wasn’t like he was able to respond to me in his current… body or did I say form? Whatever. In his current wolf form.

I think I might have been uncomfortable with what had just happened in the farmhouse and so now I was talking a bunch of shit because I was nervous. Until that moment I hadn’t been aware that I’d had such a nervous habit.

“Do you expect him to respond?” Hunter asked me in a voice that shook with humor as I started up the car and reversed. “I’m sure when he’s back in his human form he’ll answer all of your questions. If he can remember them all.”

Hunter laughing at me and making fun of me really pissed me off, but I let it roll off my back because I knew he didn’t mean anything by it. I thought it might be what friends did, with the poking fun of, and all, but I didn’t really have friends so I had nothing to compare it to.

What the hell did I know?

Thomas had never joked or poked fun of me, not that I could remember. The only time I had friends before that had been the twins in foster care.

Just thinking about the two of them was enough to sour my mood and put a scowl on my face.

“Leave her be, Hunter,” Ginger said. “I think she’s really cute with him. Our Prince deserves someone who treats him like he’s not a monster. And, personally, I love that she’s not afraid of him when he’s a wolf. Most people probably would have screamed and fainted at being confronted by him in wolf form. She didn’t do either of those things.”

“I’m not most people,” I told her, not bothering to look back at her while I talked because I was driving. “But can we stop with all this talk of monsters, please? You guys aren’t monsters just because you’re not human. That’s absolute bullshit. You’re not evil and you’re certainly not monsters just because you can change shape. It’s your actions and your behavior that make a person evil. Unless, of course, you’re a demon. Demons are just plain evil. They might be capable of pretending not to be when they want but no amount of pretending can change their nature.”

My voice came out sounding bitter, even to my own ears.

Talking about demons made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe that I had been the one to bring it up and into the conversation. Talk of demons made me think of my father and I couldn’t help but wonder if their minds had gone down that same route as well.

A dark sedan pulled out onto the main road behind me and they weren’t even attempting to hide that they were following us. That answered my questions about the bodyguards. I guess they really weren’t about to leave Rally on his own with me. How horrible must it be to never be able to be alone.

I thought about it and realized he’d been alone with me the first time I’d gone to the farmhouse with him to get the Detective. So, what had changed that he now couldn’t be alone with me? Was it just me or was it something else?

I didn’t ask because Rally couldn’t answer me and I didn’t think Hunter or Ginger would know the answer to such a question. And I really didn’t want to hear what they’d guess as answers.

So, I asked another question that had been on my mind. Something the two of them should have no issues with answering. “How come Rally’s called Prince and not King? If he’s only a prince does that mean that the wolves have a king? I don’t know as much about shifters as I’d like to. You guys are better at hiding what you are than everyone else is, which is what helps you blend in amongst the normal humans so well. I know plenty about vampires and demons, because that’s what my grandmother had done the majority of her research on. But witches and shifters are an entire different story, because it’s harder to spot you guys in normie land.”

“Normie land,” Hunter said as he snickered. “No one in this car lives in normie land.”

“You’re a mechanic,” I said dryly. “And Ginger’s a… mother.” I almost said housewife but wasn’t sure if that had been true for her before her husband had died. It made me realize just how much I didn’t really know about Ginger.

“Rally is our Prince but he can’t be our King,” Ginger told me. “We already have a king.”

Well, I guess that explained that. “If you have a king then why wasn’t he there tonight, too?” I had more questions now than I had started off with. I hated when that happened.

“There’s a different prince or princess for each territory,” Hunter explained to me. “It’s the same for different animals. But there’s only one king or king for each animal. The wolves have a king. Rally is our Prince and we answer to him because we’ve sworn ourselves to him and we live in his territory. But we all answer to our king, even our Prince.”

Hmm…

That was interesting news. I wanted to know how many princes and princesses the wolves had around the world. And I thought that maybe I’d like to meet this king, just for curiosity’s sake. Though, if I was being honest with myself here, I really didn’t need to be meeting anymore males or the supernatural variety at the moment.

I thought about my Detective.

Okay, so maybe no more of the male variety of any kind. Supernatural or human didn’t seem to make much of a difference to me.

“Do any of these other high ranking people have mates that aren’t shifters?” I asked them. I wasn’t so sure I wanted an answer to this question. Part of me felt like I was agreeing that I was Rally's mate just by asking the damn question.

I wasn’t admitting that or anything of the like. I was simply too curious not to ask.

Sure, that’s what I would tell myself. Until I could no longer deny what I feared was staring me right in the face.

“Yes,” Hunter said in a very gentle voice that let me know he saw right through me. “Our king is actually mated and married to a witch. Trust me, you being human isn’t actually a big deal. You heard Rally tonight, plenty of our people have mates that aren’t members of the shifter community.”

I didn’t like that he was able to see right through me like that but I suppose I was being more than a little obvious.

“And you mate for life, right?” that wasn’t going to work for me. I had no desire to be tied to one man for the rest of my life.

“Yes,” Hunter said, answering me. “But you are not a shifter, Rally is. Just because he’s only going to want you doesn’t mean he’s all that you’re going to want.”

Did everyone know that I had a thing for my Detective? My cheeks heated in embarrassment and I was glad it was dark in the car.

Then I thought of Ginger with her dead husband and my eyes shot to the rearview mirror so I could see her. She was awfully young for her mate to be dead. That made the whole thing out to be even more tragic, which hadn’t seemed possible before.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said quietly into the dark car. “But it doesn’t exactly work like that. When my husband died my ties holding me to him were completely severed. If I’m lucky enough I could open myself up to looking for another mate. But I’d have to be open to it and I’m not. Not yet, maybe not ever. Probably not ever.”

Well, the good news was if I died on Rally he’d be able to find himself another mate. That thought should have been disturbing to me but oddly enough I felt nothing but relief.

I didn’t look at the wolf sitting in the passenger seat because I knew he’d be able to see right through me. I knew he wasn’t blind and he’d have to have questions when it came to me and the Detective and I was just waiting for him to voice them aloud. I was dreading having that conversation with him because I felt Rally and I could potentially have something special and I still didn’t want to just tie myself to one man for the rest of my life.

Was he going to make me choose? If he did he was going to lose me because I wasn’t about to do ultimatums and I wasn’t about to be forced into something.

The rest of the car ride back to my house was quiet but not uncomfortable. I had a feeling we were all thinking about the conversation we’d just had.

I wondered if Ginger and Hunter could possibly be mates. Hunter was an absolute sweetheart and he was so good with the baby. He was good to Ginger, too.

I had to try and not play matchmaker with my new friends because I didn’t think either of them would appreciate it. I had a problem though where I wanted everyone that I cared about to be happy. And I was just insane enough to think that I could help them find their happiness by meddling in their lives.

The sedan with the guards followed us all the way to my house. They didn’t come inside and I didn’t offer an invitation to them.

Hunter, Ginger, and the baby left after giving me hugs and saying goodbye.

And then it was just me and the wolf. I had no idea what to do with him.