Des scurried down the front hall, Nathan gliding along ahead of her. The manor hadn’t changed one bit. It was quite manly, baroque, and richly appointed. Wine-red carpeting ate the sounds of footsteps and voices alike. Wood-paneling and exposed brick infused the air with their own peculiar scents. Dim lighting, barely adequate for Human eyes, made the atmosphere seem both intimate and abyssal all at once. High, vaulted ceilings and entryways hinted at more rooms than Des had ever bothered to count, certainly more than she’d ever been in during her four year tenure here.
Des could remember the first time she saw the manor house from the outside, at the ripe, old age of fifteen. She’d thought nothing could be more intimidating than the tall, wide, fortress-like pile. Then she’d seen the inside. The house, as well as its owner, seemed to frown down on her from an unimaginable height, the weight of ages looming over her and finding her wanting.
She shook her head to clear the tired fog from it, and followed Nathan up the wide front staircase, Ruby moaning in her arms. She didn’t look good at all. Her eyes were already sunken into shadowed hollows, her light-brown face visibly flushed from the fever. Her waving hair was dripping wet and coming out of its scraped-back bun, and her clothing was sodden.
Not that Des looked too much better.
At the landing to the second floor, Des began to feel mildly awkward. It’d always been this way from the day she came to live at the manor. Her mother’s death was still a fresh, sharp ache in her chest. And Nathan always waiting for her to speak, holding his peace like he was a judge and she was some self-incriminating low-life.
Despite her discomfort, Des followed Nathan down a familiar stretch of corridor, holding her own peace as they trailed silently through the east wing. Before long, Nathan stopped at a door Des also remembered well.
“Your room is as you left it…but noticeably cleaner,” Nathan said, opening the door for her with a quiet sigh. One quick look was enough to see that was true, from the funky braided rugs, to the posters of bands she’d now disavow having ever liked.
Not that it mattered much to Des that her room had been kept as if waiting for her return.
“Uh, thanks.” She bit her lip and sighed, too. “Look, Nathan—”
“I take it George is dead?” Nathan cut her off, looking at Ruby. He frowned, looking vaguely perturbed for the first time in the eight years Des had known him. “You reek of his blood and of silver nitrate. And this one smells of his Death-right.”
Des hung her head for a moment then met Nathan’s eyes, straightening her posture and bearing up under his scrutiny and, no doubt, judgment. Nathan had been part of the Tribunal that had decided to entrust her with George’s life. He’d been one of the yea votes that had talked down the nays. At the time, that had floored Des, and even two-plus years later, still did.
“Yes. Whoever it was, sent a Hume assassin with a nitrate gun after him. Before he died, George swore me to her.”
“Another Geas.” Nathan nodded, then he snapped his dark eyes back to Des. “That would be his way. Did he say why he chose this particular Hume to be his heir-apparent?”
I think it may have been his idea of a joke, Des thought, but didn’t say. After all, Nathan hadn’t asked for her opinion. “He said she came to read to him, sometimes. And I’ve smelled her scent in his apartment more than once over the past year or so.” Shrugging, Des turned and entered her old room, not stopping till she was laying Ruby in her bed, on top of the patchwork coverlet Phil had made for her way back when.
After a few moments of not knowing what to do next, Des tugged the coverlet out from under Ruby, who’d curled into a fetal position, and threw it over her. Des would’ve tucked her in, too, if she’d known how. It was one of those things Des’s own mother had done for her, once upon a childhood. But unfortunately she’d never taught Des the how of it before she’d died. Of that and a great many other things.
She sensed Nathan lingering in the doorway behind her.
“There are those on the Council who’ll want your throat for this,” he said finally, and for once, he didn’t sound offhanded. He sounded grave. “George’s Geas tying you to this Human probably saved your life. For as long as she lives, anyway,” he added.
Looking at the moaning, limp, fevered girl in her bed, Des sighed again. “Fan-damn-tastic.”
“Did the assassin say who sent him before you dispatched him?”
Gritting her teeth, Des glanced at Nathan, catching a strange look on his saturnine face. As usual, she couldn’t read it. “It was either kill him or let him kill the girl. So he didn’t get to say a damn thing. Something else the Council can crucify me for.”
“Mm. I’ll have Angus lead a cleaning crew to George’s apartment and yours.”
“And to the alley between the warehouses on Van Allen and 40th Avenues. There’s another assassin there. This one was a Loup.” Des paused. “I’m pretty sure she was sent as back-up in case the first assassin fucked up.”
Nathan hmmed. “Whoever sent them really went all out to end George’s line.”
Des nodded, and silence fell between them again, but it was loud. That silence tsked and took Des to task in Nathan’s off-hand tones.
His gaze was, as always, impenetrable—obsidian upon which to break oneself.
He looked at Ruby again with what Des could have sworn was genuine curiosity. He approached the bed.
“The other Alphas will be distressed, to say the least. Several of them had hopes of replacing George as Dyre.” He reached out to touch the already fading scar at the junction of Ruby’s neck and her left shoulder. Without thinking, Des interposed herself between them, slapping his hand away and growling low in her throat.
Nathan smiled his thin smile again and made no further attempt to examine Ruby’s scar.
“Very well,” he said simply, his voice rich with what was probably suppressed laughter. Of course, he was amused. After over a century of living and killing when the need arose, Des probably posed no real threat to him. In a contest between the two of them, despite her own prowess in a fight, Des knew she would likely die.
And it had nearly come to that, not so long ago. Sometimes, Des thought it might have been better if Nathan hadn’t spared her life that awful night. He looked at her. “Will this new Geas of yours allow Philomena to treat and monitor her through the Fever, or will you be assuming nursing duty as well as guard duty?”
Des blinked and rolled her shoulders to release the tension in them. It didn’t work. “Phil’s in town?”
Nathan cleared his throat and looked chagrined for a moment. “She is. She’s staying at the manor.”
“She’s staying here? Why? Are you or Jake sick, or something?” Rolling her stiff shoulders again and taking a covert whiff of Nathan, Des’s eyes suddenly widened.
Nathan didn’t smell of sickness. No, he smelled of flowers, bitter herbs, and something indefinably feminine, as well as his own musky scent, like iron and freshly-turned earth. He smelled of Phil, and of…sex.
Des crooked a disbelieving eyebrow, and Nathan smugly crooked it right back at her.
Ew, Des thought, shuddering. Then she put it aside for the moment. She had more pressing things to think about than Nathan’s sex life. And, if nothing else, it was a relief to know that of all the problems that plagued the Coulter family, physical illness was still not one of them.
“Yeah,” she said finally, forcing away mental pictures of her father and her surrogate mother rolling around like a couple of wild animals. “Phil can check her out. She’s…uh, she doesn’t look like she’s doing too well.”
“Mm,” Nathan agreed absently, frowning at Ruby once more. “The Council will have to be notified and convene before Full-Moon Waxing.”
Des groaned. “There’s gonna be a Contest, isn’t there?”
“Several, I should imagine.” Nathan looked at her. “Will you be ready to champion her by the Full?”
Des skinned her lips back from her teeth and clenched her fists. “I’m ready now.”
Nathan snorted, running a hand over his silvering dark hair. Des rarely saw him do that. He was probably worried about the Council having to convene. “Ready to fall down if you don’t sit down, child. Sit,” he commanded. Des immediately obeyed, perching on the edge of the bed, near Ruby’s right foot. Then, off Nathan’s indulgent, triumphant smile, she started to stand up again, but Nathan held out a hand, effectively halting her.
“Now, stay. Good girl,” he added when Des remained poised between sitting and standing. Then he crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels as if surveying his handiwork. Finally he turned and strode out of Des’s room, every inch the master of his den.
“Bite me, Nathan!” Des called childishly after him. That was all she could do besides sit. And stay.
On the bed behind her, Ruby began to toss a little, and mutter. After a few minutes of puzzling it out, Des finally began to make sense of them.
“Please, George…make it stop…”
Des furrowed her brow in concern and took Ruby’s clammy right hand, muttering to herself, “C’mon, Phil, hurry up.”
*
“It lives.”
Des started out of a half sleep she hadn’t even realized she was in, snorting and shaking her head. Then she winced at the ache of her tense shoulders and neck. That ache was making its way across her skull with no signs of stopping. “It wishes it didn’t. How’s it goin’, Phi—whoa! Is there something you wanna tell me?”
Philomena Simms stood leaning against the door post to Des’s room, smiling and barefoot…and pregnant. The prominent bulge of her belly was easily visible in the simple white nightgown she wore. Between the gown and the bright smile, she seemed to literally glow.
“Well,” she said, stepping into Des’s bedroom, fluffing her mid-length afro. “I let my hair grow out. Do you like?”
“You’re beautiful,” Des yawned, though she meant it. “You and Nathan? Seriously? How long’s this been going on?”
Phil shrugged, settling one hand on her stomach. “Almost two years, hon. Which you’d know if you bothered to keep in contact with the people who care about you.” She arched her graceful ebony brows and Des looked down at her hand. She still held Ruby’s.
“I’ve e-mailed you guys a couple of times,” she said guiltily, nostrils flaring as she scented Phil: bitter herbs, flowers, sex, and Nathan. And the primal, tidal, indefinable smell of pregnancy. “You could’ve told me.”
“Would you have wanted to find out about your father and I, not to mention your little brother and sister, via e-mail?”
“Well, no.” Des shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess not. You’re having twins?”
“Nothing gets by you, does it?”
Des shook her head. “This is so weird. I can’t even process it on top of everything else. Maybe an e-mail wouldn’t have been so bad.”
Making an exasperated little moue, Phil huffed. “I don’t believe in disclosing important personal information the same way robots try to sell me cheap Viagra and live porn. And since you absolutely refuse to get a cellphone—”
Des shook her head once, implacably. “Those things cause brain cancer.”
Phil rolled her eyes and crossed the room, suddenly brisk as business. “You need a brain to get brain cancer, dear. Now budge over and let me get a look at our new queen.”
Chastened, Des let go of Ruby’s hand and scooted down to the very foot of the bed. Phil gingerly lowered herself to the bed with a small sigh, then took the hand Des had been holding. Her other hand she held over Ruby’s mouth, then placed it gently on Ruby’s head.
Ruby moaned, but otherwise was still.
Phil sat like that for maybe a minute before withdrawing her hands and standing up. “The first thing that needs to happen is getting her out of these wet clothes and into something dry and warm,” she said with a brisk air that didn’t quite hide the worry in her voice and scent. She threw back the coverlet, and Ruby began to shiver immediately.
“Right.” Des stood up, only then realizing she hadn’t taken off her duffel. She placed it in the room’s only chair and shrugged off her jacket. Phil was already removing Ruby’s soaked sneakers and socks. Des bit her lip and pitched in.
“How long since she was bitten?”
“Um, maybe four hours?” Des sat on the bed and half-propped Ruby up, tugging on the shapeless black sweater she wore. A few seconds later it landed across the room with a sodden splat. A plain gray wife-beater soon followed it, leaving Ruby in a white cotton bra that hooked in the front. Des hesitated. “Uh—”
“That, too,” Phil said absently as she went to work on Ruby’s black corduroys, skinning them down Ruby’s legs. “She’ll be lucky if she’s not fighting off pneumonia as well as the Fever.”
Feeling another twinge of guilt, Des unhooked Ruby’s bra and tried to peel it off without looking over much. “It’s raining like a bitch out there, Phil. And I had to backtrack all over Creation just to confuse our scent-trail. And more cops were out tonight than usual, so I spent a lot of time crouching in alley-puddles with her, waiting for them to disappear.”
Phil hummed and made short work of Ruby’s blue granny panties by simply ripping them off her. “Nathan’s turned the heat up in this wing, so that should help her. I’ve also got my Feverfew tea brewing.”
“Yuck.” Des made a face. One of the few things she remembered from her own Fever was Phil’s cool, gentle hand on her head and the taste of Feverfew tea, like rancid mulch steeped in week-old rainwater. The former had been lovely, the latter vile.
From the looks of Ruby, however, she had a lot more on her plate than some nasty-tasting tea. Her breathing was labored and fast, her chest rising and falling noticeably as she shivered and shook. Beneath those frumpy clothes, Ruby was all dramatic curves: ample, rounded hips, full breasts, and solid, well-shaped limbs. Then Phil was whipping the coverlet back over Ruby and tucking her in tight. When she looked at Des, Des blushed, knowing she’d been caught staring.
“Des, honey, are you two…?” Phil lifted her eyebrows again, and her nostrils flared. She was scenting Des, who probably still smelled like the pretty brunette from earlier, as well as the million unsavory scents of Lenape Landing’s secret ways.
“What? No!” Des blushed even harder, scratching her arm just above the bend of her elbow. “I’ve barely even spoken to her. She was George’s friend. She used to come to read to him. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time when the shit went down.”
Phil’s keen, regal face softened as she looked at Ruby again. “Poor thing. She has no idea what’s in store for her. It’s a good thing she has you for a guardian,” she added quietly.
Des sighed, shaking her head again. “Yeah, because that worked out so well for George.”
“You did your best. And sometimes even our best isn’t enough. Some things are just fated.”
“Fated? You wanna know what I was doing when that assassin shot George? I was doing some Hume-chick I didn’t even know.” Des turned away from the bed and shoved her hands in her pockets, balling her fists till her nails bit into her palms. “I was getting laid while George was getting killed.”
This admission was greeted with silence. “You let the mission slip,” Phil said after a few beats. “It happens. But if you’re going to be any good to the new Dyre, you’ll need to stop blaming yourself and wallowing in pointless guilt. For the next few months at least, it’s got to be all about her.”
Des clenched her fists even harder, till skin broke and blood began to leak around her nails. The pain was negligible. It was nothing compared to the pain that George had felt, or the pain Ruby would be going through for the next few days, so why shouldn’t Des bleed? It wasn’t atonement, but it was as close as she’d likely ever—
“Stop that, Jennifer Desiderio,” Phil commanded. “Stop whatever it is that you’re thinking and doing that’s making you smell like blood and despair.”
Des loosened her fists and took her hands out of her pockets so she wasn’t tempted to clench them again. Her palms were indeed covered in half-moon punctures that began to close even as she watched, till no evidence of them remained but the drying blood on her palms and under her nails.
Disturbed for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, Des crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her bloody palms, and hung her head. “George’s death is on me. Another life ended because of something I did.”
Phil sighed again. “Sweetheart, there was no malice in you toward him, was there? You weren’t hoping he’d end up dead as a result of your actions, right?”
Des let tears well up behind her eyes, but she trapped them before they fell. “Intent doesn’t matter. What matters is the result. I caused his death just the same as if I’d shot him myself.”
Another weighty silence.
“Well,” Phil said softly. “Now that you’ve managed to take the weight of the entire Loup history of politics and murder on your shoulders, do you feel better? Do you feel more able to do your job as the blood-protector of the new Dyre? Because if you do, I’ll agree with you till the cows come home. But if you don’t, might I suggest you stop blaming yourself and start shouldering your new responsibility?”
Des closed her eyes and forced back more tears. She hadn’t cried when her mother died ten years ago. Crying wouldn’t have solved anything then, and it wouldn’t solve anything now. Neither would feeling sorry for herself. She’d been focusing on her own needs when she took home that pretty brunette at the cost of George’s life.
Thinking of Ruby—of the sobbing girl, the woman-Scent who’d tried to shield George with her own body, who’d done more to protect him when he’d needed it most than Des ever had—Des’s resolve hardened. She accepted her own culpability, shame, and guilt. Swallowed them whole and buried them deep down. Further down than her Loup, further down than the Incident. Buried it in the deepest, darkest well of her heart.
“You’re right,” she murmured, standing a little straighter. “Of course, you’re right.”
Phil settled her warm hands on Des’s shoulders, kneading and squeezing. “But before you can make it about her, it has to be about you forgiving yourself and letting it go. You made your mistake. Now learn from it. Don’t let yourself be distracted like that again. At least not while she’s still so vulnerable.”
“Yeah.” Des nodded tersely then shrugged Phil’s hands off her shoulders. Forgiveness wasn’t what she needed at the moment, and it was more than she could bear. More than she’d ever been able to bear.
“Look, I put some leftovers to warm in the oven for you. Why don’t you take a quick shower, get into some dry clothes, and get something to eat,” Phil said kindly. Des shook her head no, facing Phil again. She caught Phil’s look of concern and smiled wanly.
“Thanks, but I shouldn’t leave her.”
Phil rolled her eyes and made her sternest face, but it still didn’t hide the concern. “This is the safest place for her to be, right now. And in the fifteen minutes it’ll take for you to shower, dress, and bring a plate back up here, I promise you nothing bad will happen to her.”
“But—”
“You have my oath on it, Des.” Phil was already herding Des toward the door. “Trust me. You’re going to need to keep up your strength to defend her. Nathan’s already contacting the other Alphas so the Council can convene. He expects there to be no fewer than seven Contests.”
“Seven?!” Des sputtered and froze, and Phil took that opportunity to shove her out the door and close it. The lock engaged.
Holy fuck! He said several, not seven! The odds of me surviving not one, not two, not even three, but seven fights with seven Alphas or their champions are…fuck, astronomical!
She turned and was about to start pounding on the door, when it opened again and Phil shoved a pair of her old navy blue sweats into her hands.
“Oh, and by the time you’re done showering, the Feverfew should be ready, so be a love and bring up the kettle and a teacup. Thanks.” Then Phil closed the door and locked it again, leaving Des to lean against it and sag in complete exhaustion and something very like hopelessness.
At least for a few seconds, anyway. But hopelessness was a luxury Des couldn’t afford with Ruby’s life in the balance, not to mention her own.
Rolling her still tense shoulders again, Des turned left down the hallway, toward her bathroom.
*
Wiping the condensation off the bathroom mirror with her arm, Des took a good look at herself. Long, deceptively mild dark eyes watched her tiredly from a rather gamin face, fine-featured and square. Normally spiky blue-black hair clung damply to a high, clear brow and cheekbones that could cut glass.
It was the Coulter face, all angles and not-unattractive sharpness. In fact, but for her pale olive complexion and diminutive build, she saw a feminized version of Nathan Coulter in the mirror, complete with the poker face and obsidian eyes.
Des never had trouble meeting those eyes, even on her worst day, which this was definitely in the running for. She had no one and nothing to blame this death on but her own inattention. It couldn’t be explained away by the sly, slow sneak of rabidity—no two ways to look at the cause of George’s death.
Des’s reflection looked suddenly grim and as forgiving as stone.
You can’t make it right unless you know a trick for bringing Loups back from the dead. But you can get it right. There’s a new Dyre tossing and turning her way toward a life that she likely doesn’t want and can’t handle yet. It’s your job to guide her through and protect her till she comes into her own, the reflection whispered.
“But what if she doesn’t? What if she never does?” Des asked it. Her reflection didn’t respond, merely watched her with those long, unreadable eyes. It was too much like being stared down by Nathan, so Des finally looked away.
“If she doesn’t, then…well, I guess that means a lifetime of job security for me,” Des muttered wryly, a little nonplussed at the sense of freedom that accompanied the thought. The next few months of her life were going to be nothing but sleepless nights, days spent in training, and fighting for Ruby’s life and her own. Assuming she survived the Contests, the rest of her life would be spent guarding and protecting, fighting and killing.
Fighting and winning, for nothing less would do, the Loup within growled. Des let it growl, let it come forward in their shared body and headspace and grin. It had no qualms about a life spent fighting and killing. And if it could do it for a cause that would allow its Hume-half to live with herself, so much the better.
So they, Des and the Loup within, returned the wild, vulpine grin in the mirror.
“It’s not like I was planning on doing anything with the rest of my life, anyway,” Des said, and she whistled as she toweled herself dry.
*
On her way back to her room, piled-high plate in one hand, teapot and teacup in the other, Des stopped at Nathan’s office. The door was ajar, but she knocked with the teapot anyway. “It’s me.”
“Come in, Jennifer,” was the immediate, rankling response. And she did, biting her tongue against any less than diplomatic words. She nudged the heavy door a bit wider with her bare toes and slipped in.
Whatever she intended to say died on her lips as she realized the man sitting with his feet up on Nathan’s baroque, antique desk wasn’t Nathan Coulter at all. This man was much too tall, his wavy, russet-brown hair was much too long, and he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts. On his feet were a pair of black socks and broken-in sandals. In fact, the only thing he had in common with Nathan Coulter was the same low, oiled-smoke voice and slightly scratchy timbre.
“Well, fucking shit,” Des breathed, grinning and nearly dropping plate and tea implements, other worries forgotten as her heart leapt in her chest. All she could do for several moments was stand and stare.
“Hmm, I’ve been called worse. But usually not by my own sister,” Jacob Coulter said amiably, swinging his feet down from Nathan’s desk and standing. He looked Des over for a moment, then that mischievous grin turned into a warm, slightly daffy smile. “Long time, no see, Jenny-Benny.”
Des was agog. How many years had it been since she’d seen Jake in person? Three, at least. Jake stepped around the desk and crossed the room to take plate and tea things away from her. She almost let him, then remembered Ruby and smiled apologetically, holding them away from him. “No, I can’t stay, I’ve got—”
“Yeah, Pop told me,” Jake said, the mirth in his light hazel eyes dimming. “I’m sorry, Des.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” Des’s own smile slipped away. “But hey, I get a second chance to screw it all up. Nathan told you that part, right?”
Jake’s plain, every-man face fell. “Yeah. He told me you’re sworn to the new Dyre. That George passed his Death-right to a Hume.”
“Correct and correct, hermano!”
“Shit. Triple shit.” Jake pinched the bridge of his nose and tipped his head back, as if trying to prevent a nosebleed. “God, how’re you gonna handle this?”
Des shrugged irritably. “The same way I handle everything. Go in with guns a-blazin’. Kill ’em all and let ’em run with the Moon.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “I meant how’re you gonna handle giving our new Dyre the Talk?”
Des shrugged again. “I’ll just tell her. And if she doesn’t believe me, I’ll show her.” She flashed a bit of fang to Jake who rolled his eyes once more.
“Subtlety is not your strong-suit, Li’l Sis,” he said, chuckling. “Has it even occurred to you that going Loup right in front of her so soon might make matters worse? Okay, I can see that it hasn’t,” he added dryly when Des blinked blankly up at him. He stooped a bit, put an arm around her shoulders and led her to the door.
“Lemme tell you what I’d do and have done in your position…” he began sagely.
This time, Des was the one to roll her eyes. But Jake caught her at it and tugged on her still-damp hair. She elbowed him hard, and he let it slide till they got to the staircase. Then, with truly impressive speed, barely breaking the flow of his words, he gave her a wet-willy.
Des squawked and nearly dropped plate, pot, and cup, and Jake laughed, darting ahead of her, taking the stairs three at a time.
“I will murder you in your sleep, Jacob Callum Coulter!” she called after him, suppressed laughter in her own voice as he disappeared around the turn that would take him to the east wing. “Bloody murder!”
“Good thing I sleep with both eyes open, Jenny-Benny!”
For those few moments, anyway, it was good to be home.
*
By the time Des got back to her room with a pork chop smothered in apple sauce hanging out of her mouth, Jake and Phil were already deep in conversation.
“…never seen the Fever come on so fast,” Phil was saying, shaking her head. She was sitting at Ruby’s side, holding her hand the way Des had. Biting down on the chop hard enough that the bone splintered and apple sauce ran down her chin, Des ignored her Loup’s quiet, possessive growl and kicked the door gently shut behind her. The room was noticeably warmer than she’d left it.
“…was one of the most powerful Dyres we’ve ever had in recorded history. Maybe that’s got something to do with it.” Jake’s changeable face was now worried and unhappy. He leaned forward in the room’s only chair, large hands dangling helplessly between his knobby, hairy knees. “And if she was sick or compromised before he bit her…”
“I’d thought of that, but from what I can tell, she was healthy when George bit her,” Phil said, seeming just as helpless. With a glance at Jake, Des crossed the room and placed the teapot and cup on her night table, then folded into a full lotus at Phil’s feet with her plate. “Her breathing is so congested, though, on top of the Fever,” Phil said. “Maybe she’s asthmatic.”
“Won’t be, after the Fever,” Des noted around her mouthful of sweet and salty goodness. She put the pork chop down and licked her fingers clean before going for the T-bone steak next to it. After a moment’s thought, she swished it in the applesauce covering the pork chop and worried a big piece off the bone, making hungry, happy little growls.
It was only when she noticed the silence had dragged on for most of a minute that she looked up at her brother and stepmother. They were both watching her with mixtures of exasperation, sympathy, and fondness. “What?” she asked, licking the applesauce and meat-juice off her chin with one long swipe of her tongue.
Jake smiled wryly. “Your table manners used to be much better.”
“Get me a table, and I’ll show you some manners.” Des grinned widely, knowing bits of meat were caught in her teeth. Jake mock shuddered and leaned back in the chair, crossing one long, lean leg over the other.
“Des, sweetie,” Phil began slowly as if trying to find the right words. “There’s a substantial chance she won’t survive the Fever. Whether or not she has asthma, the Fever itself is hitting her like a wrecking ball. Not only is it escalating quickly, it’s a higher Fever than any I’ve ever dealt with.”
“She’ll survive,” Des said confidently, without stopping to think about the strength of her conviction. She didn’t need to think about it. If George had thought Ruby fit to be Dyre, strong enough and tough enough to lead the Packs, then she was strong enough to come through the Fever. And Des told Phil and Jake as much.
The two of them exchanged a look then focused on Des again.
“We know she must be tough stuff if George picked her, kiddo, but that has nothing to do with how she handles the Fever. It hits each Hume and Loup differently.” Jake held out those huge hands of his as if to forestall any protests. “The Fever isn’t just a fever, Des. It’s a Human body being changed on a cellular level, one cell at a time.” He glanced at Phil, who nodded, then went on. “As all the old cells are consumed by the new, the Human in question suffers immensely. Sometimes the stress of that can kill them. Sometimes their hearts just give out under the strain.”
Des snorted, and nearly hocked meat up into her sinuses as a result. “It’s not that bad, right? I came through mine fine. If I can do it, she can do it, right? Right?” Des looked from Jake to Phil, then back again.
Phil reached down to run her fingers through Des’s hair. “But that’s different, hon. You were born a Loup. Getting the Fever for the Garoul-born is a consequence of puberty. It’s about as deadly as the Chicken Pox, with proper care. It’s different for a Hume who’s been bitten. They’re generally adults, for one thing, and not as resilient as adolescents. And, like Jake said, these changes are happening on a cellular level. For the Garoul-born, their bodies are bred to handle that change as an eventuality. For Humes, their bodies are bred to fight the change every step of the way. So in a sense, the stronger the Hume, the less likely they are to survive the changes wrought by the Fever. Their bodies will fight it and fight it till they’re all used up.”
Des dropped the T-bone, which was literally just a bone, now, clean of meat and gristle, back on the plate, appetite forgotten for the moment, and frowned. “So you’re saying that if Ruby was some scrawny, sickly weakling—”
“—she’d be more likely to survive this.” Jake nodded solemnly. “Though the risk of death is still pretty high. If the Hume is sickly enough, the Fever’ll kill them, anyway. It’s a fine line, one that most Humes who get bitten don’t walk.”
Closing her eyes tight, Des stretched as Phil scritched and scratched her scalp comfortingly. “What kinda odds are we looking at, Phil? Straight-deal me.”
Phil sighed. “I’d say there’s a less than one in five chance that she’ll make it through the next twenty-four hours, let alone the next two days.”
“Fuck.”
“Triple fuck,” Jake agreed, leaning forward again, peering deeply into one of Des’s psychedelic throw rugs as if it had answers or reassurances.
For a moment, Des felt a spiraling sense of despair she wasn’t about to give in to. She shook her head and gritted her teeth. She was not about to lose another Dyre. Dislodging Phil’s fingers, Des looked up at the older woman, steeling herself against the compassion in those perceptive eyes. “She’ll survive.”
“Honey—”
“She’ll survive,” Des said again, putting her unfinished dinner aside. The heavy curtains at each window were drawn, but she could feel moonset in her bones and knew false dawn wasn’t far off. “Just tell me what I have to do to make that happen, and it’ll get done.”