Closing her eyes, she took another deep breath, smoothed her hand over her skirt, and entered the living room.
If she hadn’t been so nervous, if the occasion hadn’t been so solemn, she would have laughed at the startled expressions on the faces of everyone present—and none more so than her father.
“Kiya.” He closed the distance between them, hesitated a moment, and then embraced her. “I knew you’d come to your senses and return home where you belong.”
She didn’t see any reason to tell him she wasn’t there to stay. That news could wait until later. “Where is she?”
Russell inclined his head toward the dining room.
With a nod, Kay went to pay her last respects to her mother.
The casket was white and expensive. A blanket of dark red roses covered the closed portion. Baskets of flowers and plants filled every corner of the room, overpowering the air with their fragrance.
Kay blinked back her tears as she gazed at her mother. How old and frail she looked, her face almost as pale as the white satin lining.
“I love you, Mom,” Kay murmured. “I’m so sorry for everything. Please forgive me for coming back here, but I had to see you. I had to say good-bye. I know that you’re happier wherever you are now, happier than you ever were here.”
She tensed as her aunt Greta came up behind her.
“I’m glad you came home, Kiya. Your father’s been worried about you.” She paused. “And Victor, too, of course.”
Kay dashed the tears from her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Victor. Not now.”
“All right.” Greta lowered her voice. “Are you sure it was wise to come home?”
Kay looked at her aunt, surprised by her words, but before she could respond, her father entered the room.
“It’s time,” he said quietly. “The pack is waiting for us at the cemetery.”
With a nod, Greta took Kay’s hand and led her out of the house and into the backseat of the waiting limo.
Moments later, her father, Brett, and Victor’s family joined them in the car.
The drive to the cemetery was silent, save for the sound of Greta’s weeping. Kay refused to cry in front of her father for reasons that weren’t altogether clear, even to herself.
There had been only a few funerals during Kay’s lifetime—one for a woman who had died in childbirth, another for a young boy who had drowned, the last for a baby girl that had lived only a few days. Kay had heard rumors that the baby had been horribly deformed.
The cemetery was located in a meadow ringed by tall cottonwood trees, which were considered sacred—not only by the Lakota, but by other tribes, as well. The Lakota always used a cottonwood tree for their Sun Dance pole. It was said by the old ones that it was from the shape of the cottonwood’s leaves that the People learned to make their tipis.
Most of the pack’s dead were entombed in the pack vault located several yards away. The graves of those who had been buried were located inside a fenced square of ground not far from the crypt. There were fourteen graves here. The date of the oldest was 1826.
Kay walked carefully between the headstones to the site of her mother’s grave. Burials were rare among werewolves; most were cremated. But her mother had requested a Christian burial, and though there was no church service, the minister from the Methodist church in Jackson had agreed to officiate at the graveside service.
Kay listened as the reverend spoke about the afterlife, then read from the Bible, his voice filled with conviction as he said, “‘I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’ Let us pray.”
Kay bowed her head, finding comfort in the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer.
“‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven …’”
After the prayer, the members of the pack came by, one by one, to offer their condolences to the family, until only Kay, her father, Greta, and Brett remained.
Kay’s tears came as, whispering, “Good-bye, Mom,” she laid a bright red rose on the top of the casket.
She flinched when her father put his arm around her.
“I know you’re still angry with me,” Russell said, “but we need to stick together now, more than ever.”
Kay nodded but said nothing.
“I realize that you and Victor have a lot to work out between you. I suggest that the two of you have a long talk after the pack runs tonight.”
She nodded again. After the pack ran tonight, she would never see any of them again.
Back in the compound, Kay went straight to her room and locked the door. She removed her shoes and hung the black dress in the closet. She would leave it behind when she left here, because she was never again going to wear it or anything else she had worn to the funeral.
Clad only in her underwear, she glanced around her room, which held little other than her bed, a chair, a desk, and a few stuffed animals left over from her childhood. Some of her things were still at Victor’s. Well, they could stay there. She didn’t want anything to remind her of him or of this place, either. She would never forget her mother, of course, but she was going to do her best to erase every other memory from her mind. Whatever happiness she had known here had been tainted by her father’s treachery and her mother’s death.
Standing at the window, she watched the sun set the sky on fire in blazing shades of crimson as it slipped behind the distant mountains. It would be dark soon. In spite of the sorrow that engulfed her, she felt a rush of excitement at the thought of running beneath the moon. Her skin tingled. Her heart beat faster. Even knowing it was impossible, she felt that she could change now, even though the moon had not yet taken command of the sky. What would it be like, to be able to change at will? To run wild and free in the meadows and mountains whenever she wished, the way the Alphas did?
Feeling suddenly fatigued by the day’s events, she stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes. She would rest for just a moment.
She woke to the sound of someone knocking on the door. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was.
“Kiya?” her aunt Greta called. “We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. Are you ready?”
Sitting up, Kay ran a hand through her hair. “I’ll be right down.”
She removed her bra and stepped out of her panties, her thoughts briefly turning to Gideon. Where had he spent the day? Was he nearby?