“She really has,” Connor put in. “Although I’m hoping after today the two of us can get out to do some hiking or something. If she keeps feeding me the way she has, I’m going to need some way to work it off.”
“Better buy me some snowshoes first,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. Something about Marie seemed to set me on edge. Maybe it was just that I did clearly remember her from that hideous night when Damon had tried to make me his consort, and couldn’t forgive her for the role she’d played. Or maybe it was the faint hint of disapproval that seemed to emanate from her, although I couldn’t figure out why. After all, she hadn’t seemed all that upset at the time when it turned out I was Connor’s match and not Damon’s.
Well, this probably wasn’t the place to attempt to figure it out. I’d try to pick Connor’s brain on the subject later, when we were safely home and away from here.
Home. Funny how I already thought of the apartment as my home, when I’d only spent a few days there. But somehow I knew that wherever Connor was, that was home.
“The snow melts pretty quickly on the lower elevations,” he said. “And it’s supposed to warm up through New Year’s. So I don’t think you need to worry about snowshoes.”
“Hiking boots, then.”
“Not a problem. We’ve got two hiking stores in walking distance.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. What I found more interesting was the way Marie seemed to watch our interchange, as if she were carefully studying our interactions. What, was she surprised by the way Connor and I got along? Didn’t she know that was how it worked with a prima and her consort, that our bond made us more than mere mates, made us lovers who were intertwined on every level, body, mind, and soul?
Maybe she didn’t. After all, things were done very differently here in Wilcox territory….
But of course she made no comment, offering another of her Mona Lisa smiles before saying, “There are quite a few diversions here in and around Flagstaff, Angela. I hope you and Connor have fun exploring them.” Her gaze drifted away from us. “But it looks as if Taryn is waving me over. You two enjoy yourselves.” She moved off into the crowd.
So many questions filled my mind, I didn’t know where to start. But I had one thing uppermost in my brain. “I’ll take that glass of wine now, Connor.”
* * *
After a few gulps of some local wine — a red blend from Arizona Stronghold — I was feeling a little more in control of myself. So far no one had tried to hex me straight back to Jerome, or turned me into a frog. Then again, why would they? In their eyes, I was one of them now. I’d bonded with Connor, brother of the primus. Now we were all just one big happy family.
Well, more or less.
More introductions, more smiling at attractive dark-haired people whose faces I wasn’t sure I’d be able to recall the next day. Okay, maybe their faces — I was always fairly good at that sort of thing. But names? As Lucas had advised me, I didn’t even try.
We ate and drank, and then drank some more. I felt as if I were in a sort of dream, as if all the introductions were happening to someone else, someplace else. I couldn’t be in Damon Wilcox’s house, chatting with his relations, talking about the weather and the food in downtown Flagstaff (not that I was an expert, except for the tapas Connor and I had shared my first night here), and talking about my aunt’s cooking and providing tips on making tamales as if doing so was the most natural thing in the world.
Through all this, I wondered where the man himself actually was. I hadn’t seen anything of him since we’d entered the house. Was he avoiding Connor and me, not wanting to see the two of us together, not wanting to look at the prize he’d had taken from him?
No, that was ridiculous; I shouldn’t flatter myself. The place was huge, after all; laughter and chatter echoed from the open area on the second floor, which looked like a game room of sorts, and there were many other rooms down on the ground floor that I hadn’t even seen yet. Connor seemed to understand that I was more comfortable staying here in the family room, close to the food and the wine. Everyone flowed in and out of the space anyway, since they needed to refill their own glasses and plates.
We’d been there for a little more than an hour when Connor leaned down and murmured in my ear, “I need to go to the bathroom. Will you be okay here for a minute or two?”
My first reaction was to say no, I wouldn’t, but that would be childish. Setting aside the off-putting undercurrent in Marie’s reaction to me, everyone else had been very friendly. Maybe too friendly, because of course it didn’t take much for me to start wondering just why they were being so nice. I’d worry about that later, though. I was certainly in no imminent danger, except maybe from indigestion after eating my way through everything from chili cornbread to Swedish meatballs.