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“They’re going to find out eventually anyway. Everyone will.”
“This might not be the best time,” Tyler said.
“Oh, let her speak,” Cedes interrupted. “If we could handle the truth, a table of big bad wolves certainly can. No offense intended.”
None of them seemed to notice. All the wolves were too busy waiting for me to continue. Clementine and Reggie appeared equally interested. My father, for his part, was busy emptying a saltshaker onto the tablecloth.
“You’ve all known for quite some time I’m not what I seem to be. I think that much is obvious.”
A few of them nodded, but no one interrupted.
“The fact of the matter is there’s a good reason you smell death on me, and it’s not because I work for the vampires.” I looked at the vampires seated near me. “And I don’t smell like wolf because I sleep with one.”
“Or two,” Clementine offered helpfully.
There really weren’t a lot of secrets about my personal life I’d managed to keep, were there? Only the big one.
“I am a vampire. And a werewolf.” Since both groups were represented at the table, a collective gasp shot through the room. A few people started to mumble amongst themselves, but no one got up to grab a pitchfork.
“That makes an awful lot of sense,” said one of the few female wolves at the table, a thirty-something named Elsie. “I mean, when you stop and think about it.”
The wolves around her nodded collectively.
“But you shifted,” said another. “After your bonding ceremony with Lucas in Louisiana, you shifted, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“But she never ran with us,” said Keith, reminding them I hadn’t been present for any of the big pack shifts out at Lucas’s country estate.
More murmurs spread through the group. The vampires remained silent, Clementine and Reggie watching me with new interest. “Does the council know?” Clementine asked.
“Sig knows. And Monica.” Monica was a vampire who held a legendary and deeply feared status among the vampires. She was old and was able to see the entire truth of a vampire’s past from only one drop of their blood. When Juan Carlos, the third member of the Tribunal, believed I was betraying vampire secrets to the werewolves, he’d forced me to see Monica to reveal if I could be trusted.
She knew what I was, but still told Juan Carlos I was true to the council. Because I was.
“If Monica and Sig vet her, it’s good enough for me,” Clementine said with a shrug.
Reggie didn’t appear convinced. He was looking at me like I was a complete stranger to him, which to be fair was sort of true. He’d only known me in the context of being his superior within the council, and now I’d dropped a bomb on him that upset the balance of everything he knew.
To a vampire, there were few things in the world lower than a werewolf. And I’d just told him that I—one of his Tribunal leaders—was half werewolf.
Several of the wolves were giving me similar looks, and for the exact same reason, only reversed.
I was surprised there wasn’t more of an outcry. For the most part everyone nodded or whispered amongst themselves, but nobody was suggesting they needed to band together and build a bonfire to throw me on top of.
Maybe, by already being accepted in a position of power on both sides, they were less inclined to question me. Perhaps I’d managed to do what I thought impossible, and I’d put myself in a place where my authority actually made people respect me enough not to care what I was. I’d long believed I needed to fly below the radar to avoid my secret getting out. Then I was thrust into unwelcomed leadership roles in both the vampire and werewolf communities. But maybe those roles were what kept the others from caring about my mixed blood.
Or maybe it didn’t matter to them, considering the situation we found ourselves in.
At any other time this would have been big news. But the state of the world beyond the hotel was one of such turmoil that my hybrid gossip didn’t have the punch it might have otherwise.
I, for one, was grateful. Now, when the news broke wide, several people would already know. I was hoping this would bode well for my appeal to the council, if we ever got that far.
“Did you know?” Bradley asked Lucas. This was a bold move, considering Lucas was the king, and asking him anything was bordering on questioning his authority. Werewolf alphas weren’t big on being questioned.
“Not when we first met, no.” He was staring right at me, even though he was addressing Bradley. “But I found out not long after.”
I sat down again, and Desmond took my hand under the table, offering a gentle squeeze of comfort and encouragement. It was nice to be able to touch him without wanting to pull away. I squeezed back.
