Page 39 of Haunted By the Shadow of Death

Evangeline jerked her gaze to me. “Verity? Kicks mentioned her?”

“Not much. Just that she’d passed away. I was curious what she was like.”

She nodded. “I don’t know if I’m the most objective person to answer this because she was more than a pack mate to me. She was like a sister. I’m afraid I might paint too rosy a picture, but it’s hard when the love runs deep.”

“It’s okay. Just speak your truth.” I was afraid to hear it, even though I’d asked. This had been someone Kicks chose, and probably not for convenience or to make a transition easier. He’d chosen her for her, and I couldn’t help but feel jealousy well up over a dead woman.

“She was like having a piece of sunshine in your life,” Evangeline said. “Even when you were having a bad day, she’d come around and know just the right joke or thing to say. It was impossible to be down around her. Didn’t matter what happened earlier. She’d brighten it up. She was a beautiful person, and it had nothing to do with how she looked, which isn’t to say she wasn’t pretty. She was, but that’s not what drew people to her.”

What had I expected to hear when I asked? That she had been a miserable troll? That wasn’t who Kicks would choose to spend his life with.

“How did she die? You shifters seem pretty hardy.”

“It was sudden. No one saw it coming.” She took a seat on a bench we were passing, sort of slumping as her eyes seemed to focus somewhere else. “Her and Kicks came down to my restaurant and had dinner with me two nights before she passed. We all laughed and had a great time. It was one of those nights you know you’ll always remember. At the time I hadn’t known it would be in a bittersweet way.

“At one point, when we were alone, she’d confided in me that her and Kicks were planning on starting a family. I got the impression that she might’ve preemptively started, if you know what I mean. I called her the next day to tell her she needed to come back soon. We’d had so much fun. She said she would but hung up pretty fast. She said she wanted to lie down because she was feeling a little under the weather. She was dead by that evening.”

“I’m so sorry.” I waited, hoping she’d say more but afraid to press.

“I’m not completely sure what happened, but I have a guess, not that I’ve ever gotten it confirmed or would even try, because I know that would just cause more pain.”

She took a few breaths that seemed too heavy for her slight frame.

Her gaze flickered to the ground and then me, as if she were debating something. “There’s a sickness that sets in with some shifters right after they get pregnant, like a day or so after the egg attaches to the womb, and it can kill them. We don’t know exactly why, but it’s hypothesized that the egg is incompatible with the mother. Pregnancy with shifters is different than with humans. A human female might miscarry, and shifters do miscarry, too. But sometimes the embryo, as small as it is, can kill the female shifter.”

“Is that common?”

“No. It’s not. It’s more likely with a strong gene pool.”

“By strong gene pool, you mean like an alpha?”

She nodded, knowing exactly what that was implying. “I wouldn’t worry. You’re human. The chance of your getting pregnant is almost zilch, and even if by some miracle you did, it wouldn’t likely be a shifter embryo.”

A picture was forming, and I wasn’t sure if it helped me as much as Evangeline thought it would. “How long ago did she die?”

“Ten years. He’s had his flings here and there, but nothing serious since then.”

“What about Bri? He had a thing with her. That didn’t head anywhere?” How could it not have? She was as nearly perfect a woman as I’d ever seen.

Evangeline was shaking her head before I finished. “He liked her, but that wasn’t going anywhere. He kept his distance, and not just geographically, if you get my meaning.”

Because he feared it had been partly his fault that Verity died. He hadn’t mated with me just because of convenience, as I’d imagined. It went deeper than I’d known. The pack had probably wondered when he’d take a new mate, and how many of the female shifters hoped it would be them? When he mated with me to give the pack a guide, it gave him an excuse to mate with a human. He wouldn’t have to worry about getting me pregnant when odds were I couldn’t carry a shifter baby. I’d thought he hadn’t cared that I was human. He’d wanted me because I was human. I was the easy way out, the safe way.

“Why do you look like that?” Evangeline asked.

“Like what?”

“Like I burned your toast.”

“Oh no, it’s just sad, is all.” On more levels than I’d speak of. “Come on, I don’t want to keep them waiting. They’re already going to be cranky enough when they see me.”

Chapter Sixteen

A couple of women were looking through the window as we approached, their mouths gaping open. I wasn’t sure if it was in shock or horror. Probably both. It was no more than I’d expected. They hadn’t liked me that much the first time I showed up to this tea, and that was before Zetti died.

“They’ll get past it,” Evangeline said with a halfhearted smile as we got to the stoop. She opened the door and then held it open for me with her boot propped on the bottom, going above and beyond to make sure we didn’t touch.

Evangeline, who sincerely liked me, was struggling to get over what happened. Why would people who hadn’t known me get past it? I’d ignored the warning signs of overstaying my welcome, and I wasn’t going to ignore them again. It was time to get serious about an exit plan.

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