by Devon Monk
To make my point, I very purposely turned my eyes away and down. Down to the ground. It was more than respect I was offering her. It was surrender.
They all knew it.
All the Wolfes moved a little. I was no werewolf, but it was clear they were shocked.
I waited, just breathing, breathing, breathing. Let them understand my regret. Let them choose my penance.
“Well, then.” Granny cleared her throat. “I understand my rights under your law, Delaney Reed. Always have. But now you need to understand my rights under Wolfe law.”
I looked up, but didn’t meet her gaze. It was a sign of respect. Of deference. “I’m listening.”
“I don’t care about locking you up for a demon playing you bad. Won’t do me or mine any good having the one Bridge to town out of order. But this affront can not go unanswered. You took something from me and mine. Now I take something from you and yours. You brought back that which you stole, and that makes me pause. Makes me notice you a way I don’t see you before.
“You are like your father, I always known that. But you are something else too. You held our heart in your hand. Only yours. That demon didn’t once touch it. Because you stood there, keeping it safe, so he didn’t soil it, didn’t change it.
“I don’t know if your papa woulda done the same. Maybe. Maybe not. But now I know the truth of you. Of your heart. That needs to be known to all of my kind, in clan or out.”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
“It gonna take a little pain, Delaney Reed, to settle this between us. You understand that, now, yes?”
“Hold on,” Jean said.
“No.” I put my hand on Jean’s leg and squeezed. She was worried, but I trusted Granny when she said it was only a little pain. I could give that for what I’d cost them. I could give that if it meant they would trust me to keep the law in Ordinary. “It’s okay.”
“Well, I need to know exactly what you’re going to do to my sister,” Jean said. “And if I don’t like it, it’s not happening. Understand?”
Granny flashed her teeth in a small, tight smile. “Yes, Little Reed. I understand you sisters bleed for each other. I said it was a little pain, and that’s truth. Giles?”
Giles was a big guy. A big wolf. Easily six four, shoulders meant for felling trees, hands the size of catchers’ mitts. It had always surprised me that he chose none of those kinds of big, physical jobs, but instead made his living as a tattoo artist.
He stepped forward from the wall to my left and walked across the wooden floor and a scatter of overlapping rugs far too silently for a man that big. He held a bag that looked like a physician’s house-call bag and a short, three-legged stool.
“You take from us, we take from you. A little blood,” Granny said.
“All right.” I sat up straighter and did my best to keep my gaze on her not on the hulk who put the stool down, sat, then placed the bag on the coffee table where the Heartwood had been.
He began unpacking things, laying them out on the table.
“This should have been done years ago,” Granny said. “But the past can’t be pulled back to us, so we just gonna do this now. You understand?” She tipped her head down a notch.
“Blood?” I guessed, since the pain was a given and she’d mentioned blood.
“Yes, that. A mark. That says you are one of our own. And we won’t be crossed. Never again.”
Nope. Still wasn’t getting it.
My confusion must have been obvious.
She tsked but didn’t look as stern. The twins were curled up beside her, Sam putting his head on her lap, Dean laying his head on her shoulder. They were both drowsy, eyes closing, lifting for a second, then closing again.
Her arms wrapped around both of them, pulling them close.
“We are marking you, Delaney Reed. Permanent.”
That’s when it all clicked.
I’d been expecting punishment, pain, and blood. A pound of flesh kind of thing. But that’s not what she had been saying at all.
She’d told me I’d done everything I could to protect the Heartwood of her clan. Now she was going to put her own protective mark on me. So it couldn’t happen again. So if it did happen again, they would know. She would know.
I wouldn’t be alone.
When a demon, or any other creature, tried to use me, use my soul, I wouldn’t be alone.
I’d have the entire Wolfe clan at my back.
“You don’t have to—” Suddenly my throat was tight. I had to take a deep breath so I didn’t accidentally sob.
“Hush yourself, Delaney Reed. I’ve made my decision. This is the price. You carry our mark. Now. Forever.” She nodded like the queen she was, and Giles gave me a wink.
He had finished unpacking. Now he placed his palms on his knees. “Where do you want the mark? It’s tradition for it to be on the arm or hand where it’s easily visible.”
“How big is it going to be?” Jean asked. “Colors or black only?”
I flashed her a thankful look. I hadn’t thought about any of that.
“It needs to be big enough that it can be seen by Wolfe eyes.”
I took off my sweater, baring my arms, considering.
Not my inner wrist over my pulse. That felt too personal, too near my heart. Any tattoo there would be so close to my veins, it would be like it touched my heart. Any tattoo there would be a statement of what makes me me.
This tattoo needed to be a sign that the Wolfes were my protectors, that I belonged to their clan. They didn’t hand out this mark easily.
It wasn’t a mark of shame, it was a mark of pride.
I wanted to honor that.
“Here.” I held out my left arm and pointed at the back of my wrist where a watch might sit, if I wore one.
It was the most obvious place I could carry it. Everyone would see it for the rest of my life.
Granny Wolfe stilled. Giles twisted the bulk of his huge body to the side to quirk his eyebrow at her.
“Yes,” she said. “This is good. This is good.”
Behind her, Jame grinned a little crookedly. He nodded, and I knew I had made the right choice.
“I’ll need you to move over a bit and put your hand on the arm rest.” Giles was all soft, easy-going, professional. “Ty, can I get some music in here?”
A shadow slipped away, then something between trap and country started playing over hidden speakers. A few Wolfes groaned softly, apparently not liking his musical tastes, but none of them left.
Jean took my other hand in hers, and started up a conversation with Giles and Jame and some of the other family members who settled on the floor to watch the event.
I heard them, but wasn’t really listening. There was something hypnotic about Giles’ motions. I couldn’t stop watching that needle trace a path against my skin, dip into the ink well, then trace over my skin again.
As Giles worked away at inking a black, stylized ocean wave that swirled and curved into the profile of a howling wolf, more Wolfes paced into the room, both in fur and skin.
Every line Giles inked made me a little more settled, a little more grounded. While the needle buzzed and buzzed, I felt each person in the family breathing, felt them tied closer to me, felt their emotions. Or at least the high points of what they were feeling. And the high points were satisfaction, happiness, pride.
They were proud to claim me. To keep me. To make me theirs in this way.
I was happy to carry their mark. Proud and humbled.
“That’s it.” Giles rubbed the cloth over the symbol one more time, then sat back and settled his gear. “Take one last look. I’m going to cover it.”
I blinked my eyes open. I’d been drifting. I shifted my arm to get a better look.
It was beautiful. An ocean wave coming out of the curve of a crescent moon, and in that wave, the wolf howling.
“It’s amazing. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Welcome to the family.”
He spread goo on it and topped that with clear wrap.
I couldn’t take my eyes off it, couldn’t believe it was there.
“Delaney Reed.”
I glanced at Granny.
“This is settled between us, you understand?”
The awareness of all the Wolfe emotions faded, replaced by one strong thought: peace.
I nodded. “Yes. This is settled between us.”
As soon as those words were out of my mouth, the clan stirred, stood, and oh-so-casually found a way to touch my shoulder, my arm, my hand as they left the room.
I was a part of them in a way I’d never been before, and I was in a little bit of awe about that.
It wasn’t until Jame had escorted Jean, laughing, and me, drifting, out the door, that a prickling fear hit me. What if them claiming me and being a family at my back put them at risk?
I turned around to ask Jame how long this protection would last, and if there was any way out of it. Before I said anything he shook his head.
“Nope. This is forever. Nothing changes that. If you need us, we’re there. Other than that, nothing changes from how it’s always been.”
“But…”
“No.” He opened the door of Jean’s truck for me.
“Just— I don’t remember seeing this symbol before.”
“You haven’t.” He gave me a little shove into the cab of the pickup. “You’re the first to ever wear it.”
Then he shut the door, gave me a wave, and walked away.
The Valkyrie was waiting.
Bertie’s office was a closed vault at the end of an impossibly long hallway. Even from this far away, I heard the clack-clack-clack of her hard gold nails drumming against her desk.
I gripped the jeweled Feather in my sweaty hand.
She knew we were here.
“Wait,” Jean pulled me to one side before we’d even gone halfway down the hall. “Your will.”
“What?”
“Have you updated it?”
I made a face at her and pulled away.
“I want those new T-shirts you bought from that fancy online store. And the dragon pig. Think of the dragon pig!”
“You suck,” I said with a smile.
I paused outside the closed office door, pulled my shoulders back, and knocked softly before opening up the door and walking onto the battlefield.
“I took your Feather.”
Bertie was perched behind the desk, dressed in a robin-egg blue power suit over a pale yellow blouse. Her hair was styled in tight curls, and her make-up was fresh and perfect.
The High Tea Tide was tomorrow morning, but it looked like she was already in full PR mode.
“I didn’t know I was stealing it. There was a demon involved. Avnas, Bathin’s uncle. He used your Feather, the Wolfes’ Heartwood, and Than’s sweat to cast a binding spell on me. But the binding spell was after I’d taken your Feather. So I committed the crime before I was bound to him, though he had me in some kind of thrall using the dings in my soul.”
She just sat there, her gaze shifting once from my face to over my shoulder where Jean stood waiting.
Jean took that as a prompt. “If you want to press charges, I’m here. This is like any other crime we’d process in Ordinary. We’ll follow the letter of the law. She’s admitted her guilt. It’s your right for restitution.”
Jean tucked her thumbs into her belt, waiting.
Bertie was silent, so I boiled it down to basics again.
“I took your Feather. I’m sorry.” I held up the Feather over my head like Thor’s hammer, and it sparkled and shone.
“I am aware,” she said briskly. “Sit down. You look ridiculous.”
Jean made a little face and dropped down into one of the chairs in front of the desk. I followed suit, carefully placing the Feather in the center of the desk first.
Bertie’s eyes tracked the Feather, but as soon as my plastic-wrapped wrist came into view, she finally tipped her hand.
“You went to the Wolfes’ first?”
She did not sound happy about that.
“Uh…yes?”
“I suppose you took something from them too, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head, curls jiggling.
“What was it? A claw? A bell? A little tuft of fur?”
“The Heartwood.”
She sat back in her chair, and her hands went to the edge of the desk, fingertips perched there like birds on a line.
“I see.” She dropped one of her hands and opened a drawer beside her. “And the Feather? Why did you steal it again? A demon, you said?”
“Avnas. He wants me to break a contract for him and thinks binding us together will make that happen.”
“And where is Avnas?”
“In jail. The strong one with the magic cell that even a demon can’t break out of.”
The corner of her lip quirked slightly. “You locked him away?”
“I sent the dragon to put him there and keep watch on him.”
Her eyes were sparkling, as if I were letting her in on a delightful little secret instead of just reporting on doing my job.
“He is the King’s Knight, you know.”
“I know. Bathin’s uncle, brother-in-law-ish to Xtelle. We’re keeping our demon scourge all in the family, apparently.”
“You are here to arrest your sister?” she asked Jean.
“I will if you want to press charges. She stole something from you.”
“Which could not have been stolen by any other living creature in Ordinary,” Bertie said.
“Wait,” I said. “You knew? All this time you knew I had your Feather?”
“Of course.”
I swallowed back the groan and managed a reasonable tone. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She blink, blink, blinked. “Tell you that you stole something from me? Why was I to assume you didn’t know what you’d done? I’m not your guidance counselor, Delaney.”
“But it was your property. Weren’t you…worried?”
“You are the only person in Ordinary who could have moved it. That speaks of the trust I have apparently misplaced in you.”
It was the nicest thing she’d ever said to me.
Jean snorted, then cleared her throat.
“Thank you?” I asked.
She ignored that. “Since you are both here.” She drew a folder out of the drawer and placed it on the desk. “I would like you to commit to the next six months of community events.”
Jean squeaked like she’d just been punched in the gut. I tried not to smile.
It had taken time, over a year, but it looked like the little cat and mouse game between Jean and Bertie—where Bertie volunteered her to work an event and Jean found a way to wiggle out of it—was over.
To no one’s surprise, the Valkyrie had won.
Bertie produced a pen and clicked it once.
“Oh, you first,” Jean said to me.
“Happy to.” I took the pen, more than willing to choose the events I wanted instead of the ones Jean left behind.
“So many choices.” I sighed dramatically.
“Wait.” Jean grabbed for the pen.
“Nope. No, I got this. This is good. Super good.”
“You’ve done so much more, and I should—” She made another swipe for the pen, but I turned my shoulder and chortled as I checked off the easiest events.
“That’s not— Delaney, I want—”
“And…done!” I pushed the folder her way and held up the pen.
She scowled and snatched it out of my hand.
“Swamp Cowgirl!” Jean glared at me.
“It’s the Wild Wild Wetland tour,” Bertie said. “Explaining the importance of our wetland habitat.”
“Yes, Jean,” I said. “Are you saying our wetland habitat isn’t important?”
“No. It’s important. Especially in the spring time. When the mosquitoes rise like b
lood-thirsty fog banks to feed upon my flesh.”
“There’s the rootin’-tootin’ spirit,” I said. “Saddle up for swamp fun!”
Jean scratched her cheek with her middle finger, flashed Bertie a totally fake smile, and filled out the form.
“Delaney,” Bertie said, “I have decided not to press charges at this time.”
“All right,” I said, waiting for her to follow up on that.
“However, I want you to show me your hand.”
Jean stopped writing and looked between us.
I extended my left hand—the one with the new tattoo—toward Bertie.
“Not that one. Your right.”
Oh, this couldn’t be good. I extended my right hand sideways in a sort of handshake position.
One minute Bertie was nodding encouragingly like a first-grade teacher who was impressed I’d remembered which limb had a hand at the end of it, and the next, she stabbed me in the base of my thumb.
“Ow!” I jerked back and shot up to my feet. “What the hell?” I tucked my hand into my chest pressing my left thumb over the cut.
Bertie pulled two tissues from the little flowery box next to her and wiped my blood off her tiny apple knife. “It’s just a scratch.”
I moved my thumb. The blood was still welling. “It is not just a scratch. This is going to scar.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I would hope so. How else would certain people understand that crossing you, means crossing me? Did you expect a tacky tattoo? You already have one of those.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. “What? Why? You know what? If you want people to know something, you could just tell them. Verbally. By using your words.”
“No, this is much more efficient. I can’t follow you around all day waiting for you to fall prey to the next nefarious person. I’m a very busy woman, Delaney. Which you’d know if you volunteered more for the community events that are vital to our town’s financial and social standing.”
“I— What social standing?”
“Boring has stepped up their outreach.”
I shook my head, having no idea what another town over a hundred miles away had to do with anything.
“They have acquired a…person of my acquaintance. A Valkyrie.”
