In the circle of no shadows, the space of stars, and the press of Were around her and her mate, Silver felt as near to the Lady’s touch as she had ever been since her wild self was murdered. In the bright love of speaking the vows, she wished the Lady could turn Her face upon them all. She would hear Silver’s voice, even with Silver cut off from Her, she had to believe it. But Death was here, so solemn, and so she spoke to him as well as Dare and that was all they needed, the two of them. That, and Death’s blessing as he bowed his head while everyone shouted joy in human voices around them, as close to howling as could be managed with safety.
Then some spell of breathlessness and heightened sensation was broken, and Silver clutched Dare’s hands and did her best to anchor herself to a world with its usual complement of darkness clinging to the corners. Everyone fell upon the food in earnest, nothing like the nibbling they’d been doing before. It would have been traditional to hunt for their meal—as much as tradition could be said to apply to something adapted from the humans so they could acknowledge Were mates—but there were so many here. Any pack with hunting grounds near to concentrations of humans had trouble enough as it was with overhunting. So everyone would eat in human, and would run in wolf later.
Tradition translated apparently also meant Silver and Dare must collect no food for themselves. With a little chivvying from John and others, Silver seated herself beside her mate to reign in state as tidbits were set before them. Dare managed perhaps three bites before restlessness drove him to his feet. “There’s Susan, but do you see Laurence anywhere?”
“Not since you had to pull him outside,” Silver murmured. Which Dare had not yet had time to fill her in on, come to think of it. “What happened?”
Dare allowed himself a rumble of a frustrated growl, then smoothed out his voice. “It looks like fear’s making him hurt subordinates. I took the sub-alphaship away from him for now, so we can talk to him properly later. He must have taken Bryce’s place guarding that door. He could have guarded it from the inside during the ceremony, though. I suppose he’s sulking.” He turned in the direction of the door in question, weight poised to stride off in search of Laurence.
Silver knew if she asked, Dare would sit back down, hold himself there. But she didn’t see the need for it—they had returned to the part of alpha duties that meant projecting authority and whatever other necessary emotions, to be observed. She wanted time alone with him; time observed was not a loss. But she did lace her fingers with his and drag him down for a kiss before releasing him. “I’m not surprised he’s trying to avoid us for the moment. And everyone else, for that matter. But do what you must, then come back and eat.” She freed her hand to gesture a wide swath before herself. “I can’t manage this all myself.”
Dare pretended to turn away, then whirled back to capture her in a kiss of his own, a promise of chasing to come later in the night. They had only that touch, a relatively chaste pressure, and his hand on the side of her neck, heat of skin buffered by a few slippery locks of hair. But then again, she had every memory of their years together, the taste of him linking them into a chain of promise of far more intimate touch.
Dare rocked his weight back reluctantly. “You’re right, of course. Instead, I should stop avoiding people myself, and speak to my mother.” Over her shoulder, he nodded to someone, and when Silver turned to watch him go, he slipped over to his mother and pulled her aside for the private word he must have promised with the meeting of their gazes.
Watching them speak together, Silver was struck once more by how Dare’s mother and his daughter, Felicia, had the same tame self body shape, height in their legs. Dare’s mother looked to be asking him a series of worried questions, which he answered calmly. He seemed slightly exasperated, but not annoyed yet, so Silver judged there was no need for her to interfere.
She dropped a treat discreetly, near where Death lounged against her ankle, steady rise and fall of his flank shimmering the blackness of guard hairs. She didn’t see him move, but the treat disappeared.
“The interrogation begins, I see.” Dare’s father stepped up beside her, looking the same direction. When she indicated the seat on her opposite side from the one Dare would eventually reclaim, Dare’s father accepted immediately. He had the same dark hair as his son, but a squarer face. Of his two plates, one joined her accumulation, and he ate from the other without saying anything else. Silence stretched between them as she politely selected a nibble from what she’d just been given. Silver couldn’t decide if the silence was comfortable or not. She always got along with Dare’s parents when she met them, but Dare never seemed to particularly long for their presence, to make visits more than occasional.
“If it’s your job to do the same to me, you need to work on your technique,” Silver said, and Dare’s father laughed. He pushed his plate away and actually turned to her.
“Everyone knows the Russians managed to poison the two of you a few months ago.” He tipped his chin to his wife. “She’s worried about lingering aftereffects. Me, I figure you both look fine, and if you’re not saying otherwise, you’re not going to admit to it because you get asked the question several more times. And no point me asking him anything in general.”
“If the aftereffects are mental, how would anyone tell with you?” Death commented. Silver imagined kicking him. Given the dreams that the Russian wolfsbane had given her and Dare, mental, not physical, effects were the problem. But she felt stronger for having conquered that dream, and Dare seemed to feel the same.
“You and your son seem to be getting along well enough,” Silver said. Inasmuch as she’d hardly seen them exchange more than two words so far. She kept her gaze on Dare and only gave her comment the slightest of a questioning lift. She was this man’s alpha, but she wasn’t asking as one.
Dare’s father snorted. “Give it long enough. We’ll start arguing. Cub always was opinionated.”
His father certainly was, Silver suspected. Dare had a temper, which he kept under a control forged well with practice, but she’d never have called him opinionated. But if father and son had never learned to listen to each other, she had no doubt that by now one would never sway the other on anything.
“Well, Lady keep you.” His plate now empty, Dare’s father got up to leave. His nod of farewell was respectful, but unapologetic. They’d spoken, and in so doing, she supposed he’d offered an endorsement of her presence in his son’s life as enthusiastic as he could personally manage. She acknowledged him with a nod of her own.
“Dare did not get his drive to be alpha from there, certainly,” she mused to Death beneath her breath. He would always hear her, and she didn’t wish to be obvious in speaking to what others could not see. Dare’s parents were mid-rankers, solidly so, and happy in it. His father had opinions, yes, but no wish to lead with them. Not that rank necessarily passed within families, but a similarity of personality could, and rank held a great portion of personality.
Death snorted. “Neither did you.”
The thought made her seek her father out, and she found him without trouble. In such a large group, Were still tended to knot by pack, or within distant families usually separated in different packs; he had neither, so he roamed here too. He did not seem troubled to do so, but Silver still beckoned him over.
He came with a grin, and even more food, sweets this time. He helped himself to Dare’s abandoned seat, waited with exaggerated expectation until she picked up a new morsel and smeared all her fingertips. He beamed as she licked them, and the corners of her mouth.
“I’m sure I’ll have to yield this place to your handsome husband soon enough, though.” Teasing danced in his eyes as he drew out the word “handsome,” and Silver punched him in the side. A laugh bubbled up, like when she’d been small and he’d swooped her up just when she’d sneaked up on her brother and planned to jump out at him. Laughing memories weren’t enough, but neither were they nothing. He loved her. She remembered that.
“Have enough to eat yourself? It wouldn’t feel right to share any of this, but you could wait until I get up and dive on the carcass.” Silver swept her good arm over the food once more, but she saw her father was looking at her bad one instead. Or more properly, looking while trying not to be caught looking. Seated, keeping it in her dress pocket set her elbow to an awkward angle, so she’d placed it across her lap.
She hesitated for a breath. Did she want to show him? She supposed she might as well get it out of the way. “How much do you know about what happened to me, then? When my brother died. You knew the right name.”
She closed her good hand around her bad wrist, and lifted it to set it on the palm her father held out. She twitched her fingers. Enough strength to keep something like her necklace chain from falling, but no more.
“You two are the Roanokes. There’s a lot of gossip about you.” Her father pressed his other hand down on top of hers, then turned it over to show the inside of her arm. Silver knew what he was looking for. Going that far made her grit her teeth a little, but she pushed up her sleeve to show where the snakes created by the liquid silver had reached upward from her elbow, yearning for her heart. Dare had slit them open, let the poison drain out, and now only the scars of their shed skins remained.
“Isn’t there anything you can do to help it heal?” Her father traced a scar with his fingertip.
Silver flexed her working shoulder muscles to pull her hand out of his grip. She didn’t have any leverage, but he let it go immediately anyway. “No, I enjoy having it be this way,” she snapped.
“There is something you can do. You know that.” Death slipped beneath her dangling hand. She imagined his fur must have tickled her fingertips, but such light sensation was below the threshold of what her bad hand could manage.
“The Russians…” Silver pressed her lips together. Her father had no particular need to know any of this, but perhaps she had a need to tell someone. Everyone else who knew had discovered it along with her, and had never needed to be told. “The Russians cut out silver scars, and the body heals unblemished. But I do not heal properly. I see differently. That is not something that can be cut out. Perhaps it would not even work on my arm. It is too great a risk for an unknown benefit. Do not imagine that I have not considered it.” She didn’t realize that she’d used her alpha tone on the last until her father dropped his head and his wild self tucked its tail.
Silver sighed, tucked her bad hand away, and put her good on top of her father’s when he lifted his head again. “If you are so desperate for painful details, speak to my mate. I don’t want to go over them again.”
“Of course.” Her father held still beneath her touch for a beat, then pulled his hand away and stood. “I think now it is perhaps time for the hunt, however.”
Dare was striding for her with purpose, so Silver judged that her father was correct, and rose to meet her mate. The hunt would be the part of the wedding Dare would most enjoy if he allowed himself to, she judged, more than speaking vows in the sight of the gods in whom he did not believe. As for herself, she’d make it enjoyable by sheer force of will, even if being trapped on two legs made her slow and awkward in comparison to everyone’s wild selves.
Dare smelled smug when she reached him, as if he’d remembered that he knew something she didn’t. She shot him a glance, but he looked completely innocent as he laced his fingers with hers and called everyone to order, then tugged her outside. She checked Death next, but he whuffed dismissively at her, and trotted off. Something sweet, then, not trouble. Silver smiled, and lifted her face to the sunlight slanting down between the trees as they waited for everyone to take their places.
Guards first, in human, to watch the perimeter and make sure no humans happened on to them, as had been previously planned. Silver noted a few guards in wolf as well, likely added in case of Russian interference. It would have been easier to cover their home pack’s hunting lands, owned by them in human terms, but they were too small for this many Were.
The remaining Were began to undress, laughter and chatter bright. Unhurried, they drifted into two groups, men on Dare’s side, women on hers. In a wedding hunt, she and Dare would hunt each other, and everyone else would try to keep them apart. Until the guests finally took pity on the couple and released them to find a little privacy, firmly enforced until the next morning. Silver wanted to run already, thinking of it, and bounced on her toes instead. Dare grinned openly, dropped her hand, and retreated to a bit of a distance, though that didn’t stop the smell of his desire from reaching her.
It was only as the groups grew more and more distinct that Silver noticed. The women weren’t undressing, or shifting. More and more wolves surrounded Dare as he shrugged out of his clothes and switched to his wild self, standing tall and steely gray and beautiful. But the women around Silver stayed in human, even as they moved to ring her in, keep her from her mate. Silver frowned, composing her question, when Susan slipped in among the Were and strode to stand in front of Silver, grinning more than anyone.
“Why—?” Silver said, but she already knew, it was already bubbling up inside her into laughter with the rainbow edges the daylight stars had had.
“Well, we’re the ones who are making sure you can’t get to your husband, aren’t we? Wouldn’t be a fair contest if we weren’t on two legs too.” Susan embraced Silver, which of course was simply a ploy to give the men time to chivvy Dare away, into a run.
Silver released the rainbow-edged laughter and wiggled free to dodge through her pack members, after her mate.