I shook my head. Doesnt smell like faeand they have all retreated to the reservation, anyway.
There are other things out there besides werewolves and fae? asked Willis.
I got to my feet and dusted the dirt off my jeans before I answered him. What do you think? I asked.
He frowned unhappily.
I nodded. Thats what I think, too. Ive never come across whatever did this. But judging from the tracks and the amount of meat he ate in a very short timewhatever this is, it is bigger than any werewolf Ive been around. That means more than three hundred pounds.
On the way over, you just explained to me that you didnt think it was a good thing to tell people that there were other things out there besides werewolves and fae, Tony commented.
I waved my hand toward the crowd of police officers
by the copse of trees. If something is out there doing this, then I think that its too late to worry about what is safe for the public to believe in. This I dont know what this is. Finding out and stopping it is more important to public safety than trying to not make them paranoid.
Willis shook his head and looked at Tony. The brass is going to want this to be werewolves. He turned to me. Fair warning. They are going to want to talk to your husband. Probably not for a few days, until the initial lab reports get back to us, but soon.
Is this really a conversation for dinner?
Christy interrupted me in the middle of explaining what Id been doing this afternoon. There was an odd pause because by interrupting me, shed made it clear that she felt comfortable correcting me. If wed both been werewolves, Id have been forced to make her back downand then her supporters would have stepped in to defend her.
That I wasnt a werewolf gave me some leeway of behavior, but not much.
We were eating formally again, as we had been since Christy had moved in. Four werewolves, Adam, Jesse, Christy, and I meant eight people, which was, to give her credit, too many people for the kitchen table. Eating in the dining room with Christy cooking meant bouquets cut and arranged from the garden, good china, and cloth napkins folded into cute hatlike things or flowers.
The tablecloth tonight had been hurriedly purchased (Jesse had been sent out to the store earlier) because Christys favorite tablecloth, unearthed from the linen closet, had a stain on itdiscovered just as I came in from work. She hadnt looked at me, but the sad note in her voice had Auriele glaring at me and a few reproachful looks from everyone else, including Jesse. The other tablecloths were dirty, and there was no way we could eat at a table without a tablecloth.
I had not said a number of thingsone of which was, if it was such a favorite of hers, then why hadnt she taken it with her? Another unsaid comment was that if Id known her grandmother had given it to her on her wedding day, I would have ripped it into shreds and used a paper tablecloth before Id put it on the table for last Thanksgiving. Instead of saying anything, Id ignored the whole dramatic show and gone upstairs to change my clothes from work, leaving Adam to listen to Christy try to decide if there was any way to salvage her grandmothers tablecloth.
It had taken a pep talk with the mirror to get myself out of the bedroom and downstairs to eat with everyone else. Dinner had been served, the pack gossiped over, then Darryl asked me about the kill site the police had taken me to. Id briefed Adam over the phone, but there hadnt been time to really hash the matter out.
I mean, Mercy, Christy said, as if she hadnt noticed the rise in tension when she interrupted me, why dont we hold off talk of dead bodies until after people are done with the food? I spent too long making this for it to go to waste.
For tonights dinner, Christy had made lasagna (from scratch, including the noodles), and Id been shuffling it around on my plate because knowing that shed made the food made me not want to eat it. That it was pretty and smelled good wasnt as much of an incentive to consuming it as Id have thought it would be.
Its okay, Mom, said Jesse with forced cheer, trying to defuse the situation. Dinner is kind of when everything gets ironed out. Sometimes its hard to get everyone in the same room afterward.
Ben, one of the four werewolf guards for the night, ate a big bite, swallowed, and said in a prissierthanusual version of his British accent, Mercy, when you say it gnawed on the bones, was it trying to get at the marrow or just cleaning its teeth?
Ben, snarled Auriele. Didnt you hear Christy?
Six months ago, Ben would have backed down. Auriele outranked him, both as Darryls mate and as herself. But hed changed, grown stronger, so he just ate another bite and raised an eyebrow at me. Silentbut not very subservient.
Playing, I think, I said to attract Aurieles ire. She wouldnt attack meand in her usual mode of Christys protector, she might do something to Ben. Id decided the best way to deal with Christys interruption was to ignore her. The bones werent cracked, just chewed on. At least on the body I got close to. No cracking means no marrow. And if it was just trying to clean its teeth, it would have chewed harder.