Page 11 of Triumph of the Wolf
Lorenzo looked back and forth between us and nodded again, as if our banter meant something. Or confirmed something? As long as he didn’t mind Duncan being here.
Trusting that the pack could handle the problem of the real estate agents, I pointed to the door. “Is Mom awake?”
“She is dozing off and on, but she does want to speak with you, so please wake her if she’s sleeping.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Duncan asked quietly. “Or stay out here?”
I hesitated, not sure whatMomwould want—or if she would manage to offend him with talk of him fathering offspring with me. It might be better to leave Duncan outside, but something told me I would need support.
I clasped his hand, and he nodded with understanding.
After taking a bracing breath, I led the way through the outer room and to the open door of Mom’s bedroom. I knocked lightly.
“We’re here, Mom.”
She lay on her bed, propped against the pillows, her eyes open but with bags under them. Her hair was brushed but hung limply around shoulders that seemed narrower and frailer each time I came up here. The lump returned to my throat.
“Yes, of course. I sensed that one before you turned into the driveway.” She pointed her chin at Duncan.
“He does have a blazing and somewhat obnoxious aura,” I said.
“Obnoxious,” Duncan said. “Really.”
“He’s full of old-world power,” I added.
“Yes, I’m aware.” Mom smiled as she noted our linked hands. “I approve of your decision to claim him as your mate.”
“We’re just holding hands, Mom. There hasn’t been any claiming.”
Not that it hadn’t been on my mind…
Mom looked toward Duncan. “The magic of the moon keeps my daughter fertile beyond the years when a human woman could healthily conceive, but she will not be so young forever.”
I flattened my free hand to my face. I’d been afraid this was what she wanted to talk about, or that it would somehow enter into the conversation.
Duncan’s mouth opened, but he didn’t seem to know what to say.
I squeezed his hand, hoping to convey that he didn’t have to say anything—or respond at all.
“This isn’t what you wanted to see me about, is it, Mom?” I hoped to sweep the conversation quickly past the fertility topic.
“No, but I long to see you with child—afull-blooded werewolfchild of his loins—before my passing.”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear, but that’s not what Duncan and I want. We’re still getting to know each other. And he hasn’t yet proven to himself that he’ll be a good father. The only kid in his life that he’s been working his charisma on wants to kill him.”
Mom’s brow furrowed. Duncan’s did too. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought that up.
“Younger werewolves are more driven by instincts and hormones.” Mother reached for the drawer in her bedside table. “They rarely spend a great deal of timegetting to knoweach other. You certainly did not with your first mate. I recall catching you naked and howling on the back porch shortly after you met the Cascade Crushers boy.”
My cheeks heated, and I avoided looking at Duncan but didn’t miss his murmur of, “I knew howling would be involved.”
“I am a werewolf,” I murmured back.
Mom sighed wistfully and withdrew her medallion from the drawer, then pushed it closed. It glowed softly, and I sensed the matching medallion on Duncan’s chest, though it was under his shirt, intensify its own aura.
“This is why I called you up here.” Mom waved for me to come closer. “I do not know how much longer I have.”
