Page 87 of The Wolf Queen’s Curse

Julius leaps up, grabbing for her. “Ann—”

She doubles over and throws up … right onto Rufus’s lap.

THIRTY

Ann doesn’t get a chance to tell Rufus anything, because after she throws up on him, she passes out, and then we’re all scrambling to both help Rufus clean himself and get Ann out of the pub, and I’m grateful she’s unconscious because she really wouldn’t appreciate the catcalls and comments from the patrons.

Once on the street, Rufus and Julius carry her, one arm over each of their shoulders, while Bishop walks with me.

“She’s never drunk before,” I say, feeling the need to explain. “She’s had a very difficult and long day, and of course she’s still grieving from the deaths at Trevelyan. She wanted to drink, and I did counsel restraint but…” I shrug. “I’m her younger cousin.”

“It’s fine,” Julius says. “I’ll give her something tomorrow for the pain, and if we can rouse her, we should get her to drink tea or water. That will help.”

“What did she want to tell me?” Rufus peers over his shoulder at me. “I keep thinking I must have done something wrong, but the Annie I knew wouldn’t have needed to drink before telling me off.”

I shrug, not able to bring myself to lie when he’s looking so bewildered and concerned.

“I must have done something,” he says.

“Maybe don’t tease her about her dresses,” I say finally. “She lost everything at Trevelyan. We all did.”

“Oh.” He curses under his breath. “I should have thought of that. I just … I got carried away. It’s just so good to see her. But I need to remember she isn’t a little girl anymore. Obviously.”

A few steps in silence, then he says, “So she stayed at Trevelyan? With the Pack?”

“Yes,” Bishop says.

More silence. “I overheard you and Annie talking about a William earlier. I’m guessing he died in the massacre?” Rufus pauses and then pounds his thigh with one fist. “Fucking hell. I never thought of that. Was he her mate?”

“No.”

“But she’d have a mate by now. Obviously she’d have had no shortage of suitors.”

He glances over at her as he says this, as if she’s a great beauty who’d have been fighting off the wolves. Ann is a handsome woman, though living at Trevelyan she seems to have styled herself to ward off any suitors—dressing plainly, wearing her flame-red hair tightly pulled back, and emitting a clear stay-away aura.

At Bishop and Julius’s pause, Rufus looks over. “I’m saying she’s a grown woman, not the girl I remember. I presume she has someone.”

“No,” Julius says. “There was no one in the Pack.”

“Outside it, then? Like her mother? Of course, every wolf wanted to wed the Alpha’s daughter, but she didn’t pick any of them to father her child. Went and found herself a man.” He grins. “At least temporarily. But if Ann didn’t have anyone in the Pack, she must have had a lover, maybe in the nearby town…?”

“Rufus?” Julius says. “Enough. Please.”

“I’m only trying to understand the situation. So I don’t jam my big foot into my mouth again.”

“If Ann wants to talk to you about her life, she will,” Julius says. “Until then, I don’t know what she was like as a child, but as an adult, she is a very private person.”

“She wasn’t much different as a child.”

“Good. Then you know how to deal with her.”

“Tease her mercilessly until she tells me what’s bothering her?”

Julius sighs.

“Fine,” Rufus says. “I won’t do that. Yet.”

We’ve found no sign of any werewolves in Cardiff. That isn’t unexpected. At last count, the Cambrian Pack had about sixteen wolves, which makes it a small one. We’d only come across a scent if one was in town on business, but according to Ann, they don’t have “business” in the way the other Packs do.