“Go on.” I nudged Linus to get him moving again. “Have fun.”
With a precise nod, he set out for the van. The stiffness in his stride faded as he got close enough to see who sat behind the wheel, but I was clueless from this distance. Three steps away, the driver-side door swung open, and Mary Alice leapt out wearing black leggings and one of those tees with a tux appliqued on the front.
“Doodlebug.” She rushed him, arms open, and clamped on to him. “How’s my boy?”
“You came early.” Bending down, he returned her embrace. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
“Yeah, well.” She drew back, patted his cheek. “You only get married once, right?” She squinted at the gathering. “Plus, I figured you’d be tired of these losers by now.” She made a complicated hand signal that might have been a gang sign. “Atlanta for life, bitches.” Grasping his upper arm, she hauled him along. “Hurry, kid. This crowd looks mean, and I have no idea what I just said to them.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “I picked it up from watching Oslo talk to his friends.”
Oslo was an apprentice at the Mad Tatter’s original location in Atlanta. Mary Alice rarely left the city without him, since she required adult supervision. He had two chin hairs, so she felt he qualified. Mostly, she tolerated him because he was more interested in shenanigans than an adult-adult. It was a match made in… Well, it all depended on your perspective and if you could afford to donate bail money.
After shoving Linus into the front passenger seat, Mary Alice slid behind the wheel and revved the engine. She puttered away, going maybe twenty-five miles per hour, hands flashing goddess only knows over her shoulder.
“He does know those people, right?” Adelaide chewed on her bottom lip. “Boaz called her, so I figured he would know, but…who gets rescued from their bachelor party by a gang-sign-flinging granny with a tattoo shop logo on the side of her van?”
“They’re from the Mad Tatter. He worked with them in Atlanta. That’s where his franchise has its roots. Mary Alice keeps a chair in reserve for him in her shop, in fact. She won’t let anyone use his old station.”
“Aww. That’s sweet.”
“Sweet was Boaz thinking to call her.”
A warm glow I hesitated to label as hope warmed her cheeks. “How does he know her?”
“During the Siege, he helped coordinate between the sentinels and the artists. He must have gotten her information then in case of emergency.”
For the sake of the sentinels patrolling the bloody streets, Mary Alice had loaned us a few of her artists. Using Volkov’s blood, and Linus’s original design, they tattooed every sentinel and Elite we could locate, protecting the men and women from vampiric influence and saving countless lives.
“There were eight people crammed in the back.”
That got my attention. “Who else?”
“Oslo, Bo, Jean, Jean Too, Lao, DeShawn, and Ringo, plus a vampire we’re not supposed to mention.”
“Reardon is in that van?” He wasn’t supposed to leave Strophalos. Ever. He was a made vampire with no affiliations to any clan. Technically, that made him a rogue, but he considered himself neutral. The only way to maintain that neutrality, however, was to remain on the university grounds under Society protection.
“That sounds about right.” She studied me. “Boaz still did good, right? I don’t want to scratch his belly and tell him he’s a good boy if I should be popping him upside the head. It confuses his home training.”
“He did good.” I massaged my nape. “Reardon and Linus aren’t exactly friends, but they’re close.” I quit that to rub my arms. “Mostly he gives me the creeps. Vampires can have weird reactions to me, and his was pretty high on the scale.”
They could smell I was different, and they wanted a taste. Once they got a taste, they wanted a nice, long drink. Something told me my heart would give out before their thirst got quenched, so I wasn’t in any hurry to test the theory.
Adelaide touched her throat in a sympathetic gesture. “Are you ready to head out?”
“Sure.” I scanned the crowd for Lethe. “Come on. We’re leaving with or without you.”
Lethe jogged over after hugging her mom. Tisdale was peeling off from our group to return to her hotel with Ares. Neely had run away, pleading fashion exhaustion, and he took Cruz with him.
The girls piled back into Moby, and we left the rest of the guys standing around, wondering what to do now that the groom had ghosted on them. I had a pretty good idea of how their night would end, and it involved taking turns riding a certain mechadrabull now that Lethe was done hogging it.
With that happy thought, I leaned my head against the window and passed out cold.
Thirteen
The bed was warmer than it ought to have been. Hot even. Linus caused cool spots in the sheets, which were a blessing in the South Georgia heat. It was half the reason why he made an excellent pillow. I flung my arm out and hit…boobs.
“Who…?” I shot upright. “What?”
“When,” Lethe mumbled. “Where, how…?”
“Why are you in my bed?” I gulped at the moonlight slanting across the hardwood. “What day is it?”
“I carried your unconscious butt up here, so show a little respect.” She twisted onto her side, facing me, and she was working on a smile. “It’s your wedding day—night—whatever.”
Head swimming, I flopped back in bed. “Oh.”
“Oh, no. You woke me up. There’s no going back now.”
I pulled a slow groan all the way up from my toes.
“No groaning.” She rolled out of bed. “No frowning. No pouting. No grumping.”
“What’s left?”
“Smiling, laughing, all that rainbow and sunshine stuff. Or, in your case, stars and moonlight stuff?”
A thin crack snaking across the ceiling held my absolute attention as I traced it from end to end. “What if—?”
“You’re not allowed to mention Volkov.” She palmed my shoulders and shook me silly. “Forget him. Focus on you. Hood and I will monitor the situation. Half the pack is on wedding detail, and sentinels will be in position as well. Your only responsibilities are looking fabulous, saying I do, and enjoying yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go shower. I’ll have breakfast ready when you come down.”
“Hold on.” Pushing upright, I swung my legs over the side of the mattress. “Didn’t Neely say I needed next-day hair for styling?”
“He did,” she allowed, “but that was before we got goat poop, cigarette smoke, and engine grease in it.”
She bolted down the stairs before I could point out as MOH, this was all her fault. All of it. Well, except the vampire. One might argue that if Linus and I hadn’t been attempting to sneak off together, she wouldn’t have been an issue, but I was getting married today, and one better not argue with me if one expected any cake.
The floorboards groaned beneath me in an urgent nudge while I stretched out the kinks in my back.
“I’m going, I’m going.”
The water came on in the shower, and steam billowed out into the bedroom. I stripped off my clothes, which were from last night, and I had to agree with Lethe. They smelled pretty horrible. I tossed them in the hamper, figuring I could donate the country-inspired threads, but pulled up short at a familiar squeaky noise.
The windows had fogged, and an invisible finger was writing a painstaking message.
I love you.
Tears, the first of many guaranteed today, flooded my eyes, and I leaned against the nearest wall.
“I love you too…” I had to wet my throat to get out the rest, “…Mom.”
The old house shuddered in what promised to be a sob, and sure enough, the walls bowed inward, and the planks rippled. Shouts rang out downstairs, and I heard the sound of running water. She had cut on all the faucets, and what poured out were the closest thing Woolly had to tears.
Getting her heightened emotions under control, she flicked her curtains to usher me into the shower.
Thanks to Neely’s insistence I learn to love waxing, I didn’t have anything to shave. I used a co-wash on my hair in the hopes of getting it clean but not too clean. And even though I wasn’t supposed to anymore, I used Linus’s body wash.
What can I say? During the times when he was gone, I used it as a coping mechanism. Along the way, it morphed into a spectacularly bad habit Neely expected me to break now that Linus was home for good.
Once I was squeaky clean, I wrapped my hair and torso in towels then followed the tantalizing aroma of bacon downstairs.
Marit whistled at me from her spot at the counter. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and nakey?”
All my bits were covered, and my stomach was growling like a rabid gwyllgi. “What’s the point of putting on clothes I’ll only have to take off again?”
“I can’t argue with that logic.” Lethe pranced around in her boyshort undies and a bralette. “The best thing about shifting is no clothes.”
“Wargs can’t keep their clothes when they go furry. They take them off or bust out of them.” I watched her operate all four burners on the stove to keep the pans full of bacon popping. “How do gwyllgi keep theirs?”
“Hello?” She twirled the spatula, flinging grease. “We’re the best of both worlds. We got most of the fae gwyllgi bennies without the drawbacks, like belonging to Faerie.” Spatula over her heart, she bowed her head. “There’s no bacon in Faerie. Who can live like that?”
“Heathens.” Hadley walked in sucking on a square of chocolate from my secret stash.
Make that a not-so-secret stash since everyone apparently knew where to find my hoard.
Adelaide glanced between us. “Vegans?”
“There’s a difference?” Hadley threw a truffle she just finished unwrapping at Adelaide, who caught it in her mouth. “Wow.” She eyed Adelaide with newfound respect. “I’m impressed.”