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1205 Words
“How can he be dead? What happened?”
The woman seemed to be in disbelief; all of them did, but for her it was on a different level. Tobias and her son were the only things giving her much status and now they were gone. She was already close to being thrown out of the main house by him before he left – if he had a child with another woman she would certainly have had to leave – now he was dead and everything was uncertain. She wasn’t really a Sawyer, she had no right to stay in the house according to Tobias’ draconian rules. But she was still in shock over the loss of her son, and she had been sleeping in his room since he died. She was scared that Sawyer would throw her out with no compassion or understanding, the way his father would have.
“Lynette… it’s too complicated for me to tell you like this. He died yesterday, and he left a lot of questions unanswered.”
“That’s your explanation for this?” Andrew stepped towards Sawyer again, then promptly stepped back when he was given a single stern look.
“I will give you a better explanation when he’s in the ground. We have a lot to sort out in the mean time.”
“We? You mean you and that woman?”
It was a woman that spoke this time, and Elizabeth thought that it was probably Cordelia – the way she said ‘that woman’ alone made her think that was the case. She sounded jealous, without being willing to openly admit it. She was only a little taller than Elizabeth, and her honey blonde hair and brown eyes made her think she could be Andrew’s sister at first – but something about his body language when he heard her immediate jealousy towards Elizabeth changed her mind. They weren’t siblings; he was enamoured by her.
“Yes, I do.”
“I can’t believe you have found a way past that embarrassing issue of yours so easily after three years of rejecting every woman who even came close to you. Was the human disappointing when you finally got to play with her?”
Her catty response told Elizabeth a number of things that Cordelia had probably not intended to reveal, and a number of other things that she could not possibly have known.
Sawyer had correctly guessed that they wouldn’t be able to tell Elizabeth was human while she was like this. It had worked; they had been introduced to the human who ruined his life and they had no idea she was any different to them.
She had inadvertently made it abundantly clear that she was still very sour at him rejecting her, and she had tried to embarrass him over it which meant she still thought that she was of a high enough status to backtalk him.
It also told Elizabeth that Tobias had told them everything, and that they had believed it, too. More importantly, he had not told anyone about what Gabrielle had revealed.
Elizabeth wanted badly to reveal to the bitchy woman that she was the human Sawyer had bonded with, but she kept quiet. She thought it was better to wait until he wanted to tell them.
“Cordelia, you are embarrassing yourself almost as much as your sister did when she thought she would be more appealing to me than the women I already have.”
Her sister: Elizabeth looked at Cordelia a little closer now and saw the resemblance. She may not have been related to Andrew, but she was certainly related to Gabrielle; interestingly, she hadn't questioned where Gabrielle was. None of them had - they were interested in what led to Tobias' death, but Gabrielle was collateral damage whatever the cause.
“Half-sister,” she corrected him tersely as if it was an insult, “my father wasn’t some middle of the pack nobody like hers, he was Beta to this pack and in any other pack he could have been Alpha.”
Sawyer may never have considered Cordelia his girlfriend, but he definitely knew her well enough to know what to say to wind her up.
She looked at Elizbeth, who didn’t look away or cower from her, then walked past Sawyer. He didn’t seem bothered by it, he had already guessed what she was going to do. She thought it was going to bother him but it wasn’t.
When she got to the stairs she simply breezed past Elizabeth, and at the top she turned around and called down.
“If you do want to explain what the hell happened to your father, I will be in my room.”
The small group dissipated, and Andrew sidestepped sheepishly around Sawyer to follow after Cordelia leaving Elizabeth and Sawyer alone in the entrance.
He came and sat down beside her on the steps again.
“What do you want to do now?”
“You ask that so casually.”
“How else am I supposed to ask it?”
“I don’t know… I just… I expected that to be way more of a big deal than it was.”
“Some of those people tried to kill me, Elizabeth. They never thought they would see me again, let alone with a wolf by my side. And Tobias… he was their Alpha for more than thirty years. They are all in shock. There was too much emotion for it to be safe to talk properly. They want to know what is happening and how things are going to change, but no one can answer that yet.”
“They also want to know why their Alpha is dead when he went out to do something fairly simple. Why didn’t you give them any answers?”
“It’s easier this way. There are customs and traditions when an Alpha dies; now isn’t the time to sit and talk things through.”
“Will Francesca and Selene be doing any of those things for Robin? Even though he wasn’t anymore?”
“I don’t even know if his old pack will let them bury him there.”
“What will they do then?”
“I don’t know, Elizabeth.”
“Do you think she’s going to be OK?”
“I don’t know. That’s a difficult question. I will try my best to make sure she’s happy again one day, I promise. She deserves to be happy.”
“Cordelia didn’t seem very happy to see you.”
“She never did. She was only ever interested in my status.”
“I don’t think that is true. She sounded jealous of me. Why be jealous of me when you aren’t even a member of this pack anymore unless it is more than that?”
“Why else would she be jealous then?”
“Because you are significantly more attractive than Andrew, and I am willing to bet you are also significantly better in bed. That and the whole,” she dragged her finger over her heart in the same place where Cordelia had scarred Sawyer, “y’know… fact that she thinks you broke her heart.”
“Hmm,” he made a disgruntled acknowledgement of what Elizabeth had said, then stood up, offering her his hand to help her up.”
“Should we move the body?”
“No, other people will be dealing with that already.”
“So… what do we do now?”
“Decide where we are spending the next couple of nights.”
“It’s not like there’s anywhere else near to here, we don’t have much of a choice.”
“I meant which room. There are quite a few of them to pick from.”
- Writer
