Page 82 of Wolf Bane
Mal huffed a laugh at that.“Yeah.It was all me doing the talking.You didn’t open your mouth once.”
The color on Waltrip’s cheeks deepened.“Oh?”I asked, wiggling my brows at them.“There were open mouths involved?”
“Shut up,” Waltrip muttered, reaching for the empty cup before realizing the coffee was still in the pot.“I’ll just…”
I barely managed not to laugh.Mal, his own cheeks a paler pink, shrugged when I gave him a questioning look.“I don’t know,” he murmured.“Maybe?It’s just nice to feel wanted.”
Ethan and Waltrip’s voices were joined by Cullen’s, all of them talking over one another and rising in volume by the second.“I guess nap time is over.”I sighed.Mal nodded, looking a little relieved I wasn’t going to pursue a line of questioning about him and Waltrip.
I’d let him think that for now… there’d be plenty of time later.
Hopefully.
* * *
We endedup in the kitchen.The first pot of coffee had been a debrief.Ethan hadn’t let go of my free hand once during the entire time.The second pot of coffee—decaf, but I wasn’t going to tell them that—was well under way when Cullen started asking questions.
He’d been sitting quietly, making notes on paper, while I relayed everything that happened over the past week.“Jesus, a week to the day,” I muttered, leaning my head on Ethan’s shoulder.
Waltrip sighed, closing his eyes.“Who knows how long before that while they were just testing things out.”
“When the clinic opened, Robards was one of my first patients,” I said after a moment.“He was so kind.He… he didn’t deserve what happened.No one deserves that.It was a horror show.”
“He has a son.Estranged, apparently.He’s coming from Gulf Shores to see to arrangements for Mr.Robards but not Eliza,” Cullen said.“I’m sure there’s some fascinating soap opera dynamics at play, but I wasn’t interested enough to dig into those.”
Which was Cullen-speak forit was determined the rift had nothing to do with our current situation.
I was learning to understand his snark and gave myself a small mental pat on the back for that.“What will happen to her?”
“She will live out her life on a property owned by the council.She will work under the council if we have need for her abilities—likely in one of the labs or perhaps in the capacity of an office clerk, something that requires little or no retraining.She won’t be returned to, ah, general population.She’s a danger not just to Garrow’s survivors but the rest of the community as well.Her life will be little different than if she hadn’t gone rogue like this save for the fact she will be under the watchful eye of the council until the day she dies.And when that happens, the council has a few burial plots on private land,” he said.“She’ll be interred at one of them.She will have a marker, should anyone choose to visit her.”
Ethan shifted a shade uncomfortably next to me.“Tell him the rest.”
Cullen raised a brow.“It’s not necessary.”
“If you want me to keep playing along, it’s very necessary.”
Waltrip hid his grin behind his coffee cup as Cullen glared at Ethan.Hm.Wasn’t expecting my man to push back.I gave Ethan’s thigh a squeeze before turning an expectant look to Cullen.
“She will be autopsied.She is from a were clan, one with a long history, even though she never manifested her abilities she is one of us.”
“So, you’re going to take her apart like a broken toy to find out why she never manifested?”Mal demanded, sickened.
“No.We’re going to perform an autopsy to determine cause of death, you strange little man.And she has rights within the were community.She is one of us and will be treated as one of us in death, though she was never allowed such things in life.”
“We keep us safe,” Cullen said flatly.“That includes protecting our dead.The older ways were more… convoluted.But we hold the spirit of those laws still.We won’t allow her body to be accessible to anyone who might have ideas about desecration forresearchpurposes.”
“But Mr.Robards?”
“His son is having him cremated.There will be nothing viable for Garrow or anyone else to desecrate, once he is ash.”
The way Cullen said that made me pretty sure he’d go to Gulf Shores and run the retort himself just to make sure the cremation happened.
“And Lugaru?”
Waltrip cleared his throat uncomfortably.“There’s no cure for the Wolf Bane, so right now it’s running its course.”
“Are… are Zero and the others?”Dead.Are they dead.But the words stuck in my throat.
