Page 69 of Taken By Raider Kings
It poured allthrough the minister’s graveside address, stopping just in time for the casket to be lowered.The sun broke through, and golden light poured over the cemetery.
She sat in the passenger’s seat, her fingers twisting together, and watched as a blue coffin descended inch by inch.The window was down just a little; she could strain acute hearing, but she also suspected themajirwould tell her what was being said.
If she asked.
The little purse lay in her lap.When her fingers weren’t locked against each other, pulled tight, they ran over the absurd colored rhinestones, the big fake plastic jewels.
Oh, Lucy.
There were mourners—Battle-Ax Margo, her blue hair piled just as high and proud as ever under a black plastic bonnet, and everyone else from the office.Classmates.Quite a few of the latter, actually.Some were even crying.Margo dabbed at her eyes every so often with a starched, snowy hanky.
And off to one side, in his grubby tan mackintosh, was Detective Andreeson.
I’m free.Such a strange thought.Shadows moved liquid through the van’s interior; Zach had parked out of easy sight, in the shade of a huge cedar.
She watched intently, wishing she still needed glasses.When she used to look over the top of the lenses, the world was reduced to comforting blur.Now it was painfully sharp, evergreen and gold in-focus, silver speckles of frozen rain dewing blade-edged grass.
Even themajirwere in focus,swirling unhurried around the van.
“You all right?”Zach asked again.
“Fine,” she said, again.Quietly.“I’m watching my own funeral.”After all, I missed Lucy’s.
“Are you sure about this?”
She glanced at the driver’s seat.He held the steering wheel loosely, looking at the side mirror, checking around the van.It would be stupid to be seen here, but she’d wanted to come.
His hair fell over his eyes, that soft wave she could touch anytime she wanted—or the white streak, strands little coarser than the rest.Each time she did he would lean in, as if he liked it.
As if he couldn’t get enough.He would let out a little sigh, and sometimes close his eyes.Which meant she had to touch his cheek, too, trace his jawbone, and marvel at the complete and utter trust, the vulnerable openness.
Which usually lead to him leaning in and kissing her.It was nice, and he was very slow.Deliberate.Very patient.
She liked that about him.The more she was with them, the more she found to like.Julia’s fierce loyalty and Eric’s steadiness, Brenn’s sweetness.
But most of all, she liked Zach.
“I’m sure,” she reassured him.“They’ve already reported me as dead.Why show up and have to answer questions?”And I was so close to my degree, too.
“You could go back to school.We’d tell whatever lies we had to, Sophie.”
“Better just to start over with no lies.”Or, at least, very few.She still wasn’t used to the implicit assumption of “us against the world,” but traveling werewolves probably had a lot of reasons to feel that way.
Not werewolves.Carcajou.
And she was their shaman.She was beginning to learn what that meant.The next thing was singing Zach’s brother into rest, a type of private funeral.When she was ready to handle it.
“You might feel differently when we?—”
“I started over once before, Zach.I can do it again.”There’s a whole lot I didn’t know I could do.
But I can.
Detective Andreeson stared at the grave.Some of the mourners hugged one another.Margo blew her nose, and the sun slid heavy grey cloud, the first serious winter storm threatening.
The coffin touched bottom.A slight movement went through the graveside assembly.
“That cop is going to be trouble.”Zach’s tone held a touch of a growl.It might have scared her, before.
