Page 86 of The Lunatics

She frowned at me. “If that were true, we’d slaughter everything we came across. Don’t be speciesist. You’re better than that. Sure, the virus messes with us, but eventually you get killed or you get over it. The point is, when logic and bargaining failed and it was clear the MacKenzie wolves were going to expose us, I did what I had to.”

“What you had to? You killed an entire pack!”

She held up a perfectly manicured finger. “Um…packis a loose term here. There weren’t many of you left at that point. You’d nearly done my job for me. Trust me, those still alive werenotdecent wolves. They were violent and vicious and traitorous, some of the most ruthless creatures I’ve ever come across.” She leaned forward in her seat. “And at my age, I’ve seen some shit. I spared those few adults able to see reason. I left every child under the age of sixteen alive. Then I found homes for you with loving, caring people like the Fitzpatricks. You are so much better off for being raised by them.”

“You think I should be happy you killed my parents?”

She sat back and frowned. “I didn’t kill your parents. They died in the infighting not long after you were born.”

It felt like the world tilted on its axis. My name was Layla Fitzpatrick. My favorite color was purple. I hated asparagus. I was a MacKenzie Valley wolf. This vampire had killed my parents. Those were the facts. They were part of who I was. Truths I held to be absolute. And here she was, telling me I was wrong. What next? I’d find out I actually preferred the color red? That asparagus was a delectable, underrated vegetable that didn’t tinge my piss with a scent that made me sneeze?

“Who told you I killed them?” she asked me.

It took me a minute to process her question. Shock and fearhad turned my mind into a slow, sluggish thing. Had anyone told me that she’d killed them? Or had I just assumed she had? Was there a memory of it somewhere, hidden in my subconscious? One that was so terrible my mind withheld it from me, even while the knowledge of what she’d done remained? I… I didn’t know.

She must have plucked the truth from my thoughts, because she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and grinned. “You know what they say about what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of—”

“I know the saying,” I snapped. “Sorry,” I added, clamping down on my anger. Provoking her would be beyond stupid.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I understand. That night isn’t something I like to think of, either. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like killing people.”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“What? I’ve been alive for a very,verylong time. No one understands the value of life more than me.” Her expression turned contemplative. “Well, maybe the elves do. Unlike the fae, they seem to abhor murder.” She fixed her gaze back on me. “I did what I had to do that night. Before someone else could. I doubt another of my kind would have spared so many. And a fae certainly wouldn’t have.”

Did she want me to thank her?

She shook her head. “No.”

“What are you doing here now?” I managed.

“I heard about the mating ritual going sideways, and that in the process, one of my wolves was bonded.”

One ofherwolves? There was a strange possessiveness to the way she said it that freaked me out.

She shifted in her seat, looking slightly… embarrassed. “Sorry. It’s true I’ve become quite protective over you all. I didn’t go through all that trouble of keeping you alive and finding goodhomes for you just to have to kill you if you turned out no better than your parents. Over the years, I’ve kept tabs on you all.”

Images of her watching over me sprang into my mind. Of her standing on top of a cliff while I hunted down a deer below. Of her dressed in casual clothes, wearing dark sunglasses, sitting in a coffee shop in Amherst, watching me walk past. If Michael was able to null himself out of preternatural existence, there was no reason to believe that a creature as old and powerful as she was couldn’t do it, too. I’d been foolish to take him at his word.

Something she said struck me then. “Have you had to kill more of us?”

She grimaced. “Yes. Most of the time, I’ve been able to step in before the situation became irreversible. But a few of the older children had spent too long in a fully feral pack and remained mostly wild even in the face of intense psychotherapy and heavy deprogramming.”

“Any others besides them?”

“One or two.”

My mind wanted to fill in the blanks. Did they snap? Turn lunatic because their power overwhelmed them? Get bonded, like me, only for their mate to expose some contraband secret about our abilities?

She shook her head. “Nothing like that. Some people are just born bad.” She smiled then. “Don’t worry, you’re not one of them.”

This was the strangest conversation I’d ever had.

She chuckled like she’d caught that thought. It was a beautiful sound. Glamour hid her true form from me. Did it change her voice as well? I began to wonder if any of this was real. She seemed so… normal. Personable even. Was all this just to lull me into a false sense of security, so that when she eventually turned on me, it would only be to drink down my terror like she would my blood?

Her laughter cut off. “I’ll have you know I was the best singer in my village when I was a human.That’swhy my voice is soenticingly melodic.” She preened a little and sent me a look. “Want me to sing something?”

“This conversation is already beyond bizarre. If you start singing at me right now, my head might explode.”