Page 7

7

After inviting Lorenzo in, I went to the bedroom to grab a blanket. If he hadn’t driven down here, he wouldn’t have a vehicle—or a change of clothes. Wordlessly, he accepted the blanket and wrapped it halfway around himself before sitting on the couch.

Despite his proclamation that we needed to talk, Lorenzo took his time getting started. I sat in the nearest chair and thought about getting him something to drink, but he’d worried me, and I wanted whatever news he had to share.

Finally, he spoke. “Last night, your mother went on a hunt alone. She didn’t invite me along or even tell me that she was going, even though… I had asked her to do so. On the hunt, she battled a bear. Having been disturbed from its winter hibernation, it was particularly belligerent.”

He paused, a long pause that had me wringing my hands.

“Is Mom okay?” I asked.

A solo werewolf in his or her prime might handle a bear, but Mom was a long way from her prime. Unfortunately. My throat tightened. For so many years, she’d been so powerful, so indomitable. In the past, I never would have worried about her hunting alone. But now…

“She did survive the encounter. She received numerous wounds, however, and is now resting in bed.”

I sagged back in the chair, relieved she was alive, but Lorenzo didn’t appear to share my relief. He gazed pensively at the kitchen cabinets.

“I believe she only survived because I showed up in time to help. Even though she hadn’t told me she was going, when I went by for a visit and found her cabin empty, I had a hunch. If I hadn’t gone to see her and hadn’t been able to track her into the woods…”

“Why did she pick a fight with a cranky bear?” I asked. “Especially in her condition?”

“She would not answer me when I asked that same question, but I believe it was because of her condition.”

“What do you mean?”

Lorenzo swung his gaze back to mine. “She doesn’t want to die in bed.”

“Oh,” I said as the realization sank in. I wanted to shake my head in denial but didn’t. Right away, in my heart, I knew he was right. After a lifetime of being strong, Mom didn’t want to be weak. After surviving so many hunts and so many battles, she didn’t want to die of an illness.

“I was not sure who to seek out for help,” Lorenzo said. “The pack’s wise woman… can only treat her body, not her mind. When I left home tonight, I thought to hunt, but I could not focus on seeking out game. Eventually, my paws brought me here.”

Was that hope in his eyes when he looked at me?

“What can I do?” I wanted to help but doubted Mom would listen to me any more than to Lorenzo or anyone else in the pack.

“Talk to her. I’ve tried, and your half-siblings have tried, but… you’re her favorite.”

“That can’t be true. I left for years. Decades . ”

“You’re special to her. You were of his loins, the one she never stopped loving.” Lorenzo’s mouth twisted. With bitterness? Regret? It was hard to tell, but he seemed more accepting than angry. “I think when she wakes in the night and feels her mortality close… I don’t know. When I confronted her, she said I was silly, that she wants to see things resolved with the artifact thieves and you—she hopes you mate with the lone wolf and promise to have werewolf offspring. Then she can die in peace.”

I rubbed my face. Would I have to promise her that Duncan and I would get horizontal and make werewolf pups? At my age, I didn’t want that, and Duncan hadn’t given any indication that he wanted to stick around and father offspring. If anything, he’d been alarmed by Mom’s suggestion. After traveling his whole life, he probably couldn’t imagine settling down in one place.

“Talk to her,” Lorenzo urged again. “Please. I don’t know what you plan for your future, but even if you could only convince her not to do anything suicidal, I would appreciate it. I understand wanting to go out like a warrior, but surely she still has time. She’s not ready for…” He swallowed. “ I’m not ready for her to pass.”

“I know. I get it. I’m not either. I wish there was a way to heal her, that she would have listened to the human doctors and considered their treatment options.”

“She trusts magic, not human medicine. She is from the old days. The old ways .”

“I know that too.”

A thought came to me, and I returned to the bedroom, fishing in a drawer. As I stood above it, I felt the magic of the wolf case under the floor and paused to consider it.

The artifact inside it was not what I’d come for, but it had healed Duncan from what would have been a fatal sword wound. No, from the poison that had edged the sword. The artifact had great power, but nothing in the translation said anything about cancer or illness. The words carved into the case spoke of protecting against poison, venom, and werewolf bites. Maybe later, I could take it up to Mom’s cabin and wave a vial of poison over it to see if it would open and do anything for her. Just in case.

Leaving it in the heat duct, I withdrew the magical talisman that Duncan and I had found in the river the first time we’d hunted together. I’d since put it on a new chain so one could wear it around one’s neck.

Known as a longevity talisman, it lacked the power of the other artifact, but it supposedly helped with pain—arthritis and the like—and promoted long life. I’d rubbed it and called to its magic a couple of times, and it had seemed to make the wounds I’d received in battle less grievous than they should have been. Maybe it would make Mom feel a little better.

I returned to the living room. “I’ll come up to see her when I get a chance, but give her this in the meantime.”

“A witch’s talisman?” Lorenzo must have encountered such items before. “I believe the wise wolf has similar enchanted items that she’s tried on your mother.”

“Well, this one is a gift from me, so it’ll obviously be more effective.”

He smiled faintly. “Perhaps it will do something. She did receive a few wounds in the bear battle, wounds that would have once healed quickly but are lingering.” He flexed his hand, then waved to his neck. The locations of the injuries she’d received? “Her body and her magic are not as strong as they once were. I wish I could lend her my strength.”

“So do I. Here. Give her this too.” I grabbed one of the sea-salt-and-bacon-bits dark-chocolate bars from my kitchen stash. “This has to help.”

When he accepted it, his smile widened. “I would think so. And also you visiting.”

“I will.” I dreaded showing up, only to have Mom ask about Duncan and offspring, but if my presence could help her in any way, I felt obligated to go.

“Thank you.” Lorenzo inclined his head toward me, draped the blanket over the back of the couch, and headed for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. “I almost forgot.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“One of your half-siblings was leading a hunt up north, in the currently unclaimed territory between Skagit and Whatcom counties. He thought he sensed a powerful werewolf, one he’d met briefly once before.”

My eyebrows climbed higher. Did he mean…?

“Duncan was his name, yes?” Lorenzo asked. “The one you brought, the one with old-world blood.”

“Yeah. Was this recently?”

Like since Duncan had gone missing?

“The night before last,” Lorenzo said.

“Was it near a town? Specifically near a perfume factory that could double as a dungeon capable of holding a powerful werewolf?”

Judging by Lorenzo’s confused expression, he hadn’t heard much of that story. Radomir and Abrams might not be holding Duncan in a perfume factory again, but their lair wouldn’t be in the middle of interesting wolf hunting grounds, surely.

“It wasn’t near a town. They sensed him in the foothills of the mountains.” Lorenzo waved toward the northeast and the Cascade range.

“That’s unexpected.”

Lorenzo spread a hand, then opened the door. “I’ll let your mother know you’ll visit soon.”

“Okay.”

As soon as he left, I dialed Jasmine’s number as I again perused the list of addresses she’d sent.

“Everything okay?” she asked as a greeting .

“Lorenzo stopped by. He’s worried about my mom.”

“Oh, yeah. The bear thing?”

“Word gets around.”

“There are no secrets in a werewolf pack.”

“Deming,” I murmured, plugging the town for one of the addresses in on my map app. “That’s in Whatcom County, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, near Bellingham.”

There wasn’t a “street view” option for the address, and Google didn’t pop up so much as a Zillow listing for it. Unlike the previous evil-overlord-perfumery lair, this place didn’t have a business associated with it, at least not anything publicly listed.

“I need to take a road trip,” I said.

“Tomorrow?” Jasmine asked.

Tomorrow was Saturday, so I could more easily slip away from the apartment complex. “Yes.”

“Do you want company?”

I hesitated, not wanting to get my little niece in trouble, but she’d been helpful when I’d faced off against Augustus and my other cousins. Besides, she was the line to her father, geek werewolf researcher. I might need him to dig further into this place.

“Sure,” I said. “Bring gas money.”

“It’s not that far to Deming.”

“I know. I was joking.” Sort of. I had money budgeted for gas for the month, but the new uncertainty about my job and future prospects made me want to conserve even more than usual.

“How about I bring provisions?”

“Deal.”