Werewolf Wedding(41)

“You’re insane,” the woman said flatly. She had told me her name, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember it. My entire being was shaky, like I wasn’t quite sure where I belonged – this world or a different one. Along with the equilibrium problem, my memory came and went. Sometimes I remembered things just as I always had, but other times I could hardly recall my own name, or where I lived. Although I guess that didn’t much matter since Dane had taken me to the place he called home, which was little more than a shanty outside of town.

“You’re a lunatic, and you’re going to kill this poor girl and drag us all down with you. All for what? To placate your nonsensical need for fighting and battle and blood?”

“No, mother,” Dane hissed the word, which made me hate him more. I dropped the guacamole-covered chip in his lap. With how clumsy I’d become it could pass for an accident, but... well, sad to say that’s what had become of my ability to rebel. “It has nothing to do with that. Well,” he paused for a second. “Okay, there is a bit of that. But why can’t you see what dad believed I was capable of doing? We used to be kings of the world, us lycans. And now we hide in the shadows, sulking around at night and happy that no one knows we exist because it avoids trouble.”

“It’s peace, Dane,” she said. “When lycans were kings there wasn’t a day that went by without some overly brave human hunting one of us down and using the skin for a cloak. There wasn’t a week that passed without a clan war either almost starting or actually erupting.”

The smile across my awful mate’s face told me that he was well aware of all that.

“That’s the way it was supposed to be,” he said. “Dad knew that. He trusted me.”

“No, he didn’t!” she got up in his face the way only a mother can. One hand was wrapped in an apron emblazoned with wolf paw prints that were all signed with grandchildren’s names, and the other was stuck right in the center of her enormous stepson’s chest. “Do you somehow not remember why you left? Is it possible you’re that insane?”

Dane stood up, looming over the old woman, but she didn’t back away a single centimeter. I want to be like her when I grow up. She stared right back at his face, her eyes burning with anger, but her voice calm and soft. “Then tell me,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

There it is, I thought. The chink in this idiot’s armor.

Dane tightened his jaws until his head was trembling. He clenched his white-knuckled fists, and his entire body shook with rage. He looked like a water balloon filled past the point where it can hold the water, ready to explode. But instead of popping, he drove his hands down to his sides and grunted like a kid throwing a tantrum.

“Right,” she said, as he backed down. “You remember. You remember him telling you that even though you were his first son, and he thought you probably could start another clan war, that he’d rather the entire pack wither to nothing? That all sound familiar.”

“Dad was an idiot,” Dane growled. “He didn’t understand either. He had no honor, no pride. He’s just like my spineless brother.”

That got him a slap across the face hard enough to turn his massive head. On his face was an absolutely priceless look of surprise and horror. “You will not talk that way about the alpha of this pack in my house.”

Damn, I thought, scooping up another wad of guacamole on a chip. For a moment I just stood there, holding the chip outstretched, and then I decided to once again exert my will by eating it. That’s... good God that’s good guac.

“He lost the challenge,” Dane said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “The only reason you call him alpha is that he’s your son. He’s nothing to anyone who matters.”

“Oh, and who is that? You mean that gaggle of old drunks led by your uncle Norton who acts like your own personal army of simple-minded thugs? That’s very frightening, Dane. I’m sure the real alpha, the one who didn’t have to trick sweet Delilah here into wanting to be his mate, is shaking in his boots.”

Every time she jabbed at his pride, or insulted his authority, Dane got more unhinged. At first I noticed beads of sweat on his upper arms and then that the hair on the back of his head was wet with moisture. The fact that his entire head was red wasn’t lost on me either, no matter how fragile my mental state may have been.

She was advancing then, gray curls bouncing with every jab of her fingertip. Dane was backing away, though he was gnashing his teeth and breathing really heavily to cover that he was being intimidated by a woman about a third his size.

“You,” she continued, backing him into the counter where the enchiladas were cooling, “you’re the one with no honor, no pride. What you take for dignity is just arrogance, just hubris. What you think is the honor of being a member of this pack is just a game.”

She took another step further. “You know what the difference between you and one of my four year old grandcubs who likes to play army is?”

A look of self-satisfaction came over Dane’s face, and he had just opened his mouth when she said, “Nothing, except they’re too young to know better.”

“God damn that was a burn,” I heard myself say, in the instant before I realized I was saying it. Immediately I clapped my hand over my mouth and hoped for a brief second that maybe I’d just had one of my confused spells and hadn’t actually said that.