Darknight(52)

“Where are we going, anyway?” he inquired. “We’re about to run out of town.”

“Turn left up there,” I said. “At the sign that says ‘residents only.’”

He followed my directions, and soon we were twisting up the back alleyway that led to my house. It was icy and treacherous, and he slowed to let the four-wheel drive take over. I’d actually only come in this way once or twice, since I didn’t have my own car yet and therefore hadn’t needed to park in the garage. But I figured it was probably safer, since Paradise Lane was narrow, and the FJ would stick out like a sore thumb if we parked it in front of the house.

Not that it probably mattered, since the people who monitored the wards already knew a Wilcox was in McAllister territory.

We’d just pulled into the garage and were climbing out of the Cruiser when I heard Boyd Willis’s voice. “Hold it right there, Wilcox.”

At once I stepped forward. “Boyd, it’s me.”

The look of astonishment that passed over Boyd’s craggy features would have been amusing under different circumstances. He wasn’t exactly the most expressive of men. “Angela?”

From around the corner of the garage stepped Margot Emory and Henry Lynch. The welcoming committee — in other words, the clan’s strongest witch and warlock. Both of them stopped dead when they saw me, although I noticed Margot’s eyes tracking toward Connor and then back toward me.

He had stilled as well, standing quiet, waiting, his hands at his sides. Obviously he didn’t want to do anything that would provoke a response. I could tell he was waiting for me to take the lead here. After all, we were now in my territory.

I shut the car door. “I think we should all go inside,” I said.



* * *



Although I’d only been gone a few days, the house felt alien to me. Maybe that was just because I hadn’t had a lot of time to get used to it before I was taken to Flagstaff, but somehow I thought it was more than that. Being out of Jerome, living with Connor, had shown me just how circumscribed my life was before this past week.

No one said much of anything as I opened the door and led everyone inside. The dining room, with its large table, seemed the logical place to go. Besides, there I could sit at the head of the table, act like the prima, even though inwardly I could feel myself jittery and nervous, wondering whether they would listen to me, wondering what I would do if they didn’t.

I shot Connor as reassuring a glance as I could and nodded toward the chair to my right as I sat down. The slightest head tilt in return as he acknowledged my silent request. He pulled out the chair and took his seat. After a hesitation, during which Margot, Henry, and Boyd exchanged their own silent and unreadable looks, they all sat down in the empty chairs on my left, facing Connor but not looking at him.

After a long, heavy pause in which I was sure everyone could hear my heart battering away in my breast, I said, “This must look a little…strange.”

Margot was the first to reply. She folded her pale, slender hands on the tabletop, glanced at Connor for the briefest of seconds, then tilted her elegant head back toward me. “That’s something of an understatement, but yes, it does seem rather odd that you’d bring a Wilcox here.”

“He’s here with me because” —I drew in a deep breath— “it turns out he’s my consort.”

“Impossible!” Boyd burst out.

A quelling look from Margot, and he subsided somewhat. He was here because of his strength in spells of protection, of defense, but still she was the only one of the clan elders present, and he had to defer to her authority. Where the other two elders were, I didn’t know. Gathering the clan against the possible Wilcox threat?

She shifted in her chair, the first time I could recall ever seeing her make a movement that was anything less than completely self-assured. “You’ll forgive us for being…disbelieving.”

“Well, I didn’t want to believe it at first, either.”

Beside me, Connor’s mouth twitched in what might have been the beginnings of a grin, as if he were thinking that had to be the understatement of the year. Luckily, he got it under control before anyone else noticed. Boyd’s, Margot’s, and Henry’s attention was focused all on me. Maybe they were hoping that if they didn’t acknowledge Connor’s presence, he’d just disappear or something.

It didn’t work that way, though. I leaned forward, saying, “He’s the one I’ve been dreaming of all these years. I don’t understand exactly what’s going on, either, why my consort would turn out to be a Wilcox, but it’s something you’re all just going to have to deal with.” The three of them gazed at me, stony-faced, and I added impatiently, “Just look at his eyes. You all know I’ve been dreaming of a man with green eyes. None of the candidates you found for me had eyes like that. But Connor does.”