“I’m fine. You want help?”
“No,” she said, making a shooing motion with her hands toward the table. “Sit and chat. I’ll get this.”
“She uses this fancy tea,” Arne whispered as we tucked into our soup. “Has it shipped in from the UK, and she won’t let me touch it.”
“Shifter,” Marian called out as she filled a red kettle. “I can hear you whispering.”
“Also shifter,” Arne said back to her. “I know you can.”
Marian rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“The soup is wonderful,” I said, blowing on another spoonful. The chicken was tender and moist, the broth almost obscenely buttery, the wild rice the perfect texture between chewy and soft.
“Thank you,” she said, adjusting the gas flame beneath the kettle, stray water droplets hissing in the heat. “It’s Arne’s grandmother’s recipe.”
“Your grandmother is a genius,” Connor said to him.
Arne accepted that with a nod. “How was the drive?”
“Good,” Connor said. “Weather was fine, cops were few, and the vampire only screamed once.”
“There was no screaming,” I said dryly. “He managed not to drop the bike, although there were a few close moments.”
“There were no close moments,” Connor said, giving me a sly smile that put a bloom of heat in my chest.
“How do you know each other?” I asked, looking between Arne and Connor.
“Marian’s one of Georgia’s kids,” Arne said. “Marian’s sister, Cassie, is the one whose kid is being initiated tomorrow. So they’re cousins of some variety.”
“And William is Cassie’s son,” Marian added.
“Big family,” I said, and Arne smiled.
“You’re telling me. It was like marrying into a small college. Probably not unlike Cadogan House.”
“Only different by degrees,” I agreed.
“Will we see you at the initiation?” Connor asked.
“Unfortunately not,” Marian said. “The girls have dance recitals tomorrow, and we promised them we’d both be there before the initiation was scheduled.”
“It looks like the girls are doing well,” Connor said.
“They’re adjusting,” Arne said. He glanced at me. “We used to live at the resort, but we left when the girls were younger. Decided they needed a different upbringing. Less violence, and more honesty.”
“Honesty?” I asked.
Arne looked at me. “The shifters in Grand Bay still pass as human.”
I lifted my brows. Supernaturals had been out of the closet for more than twenty years. “Why?”
“Partly habit, I think,” Marian said as the kettle began to whistle. She turned off the burner, poured water into a mug. “The clan’s been at the resort for decades, and they never had a reckoning, I suppose you’d say, with the community. They’ve been part of it for decades, and it’s a relatively close-knit relationship. They both root for the high school hockey team. Shifter kids go to school with humans—”
“Which screws up everyone’s sleep schedule,” Arne said.
“Totally,” Marian agreed. “They’re integrated, is what I’m saying, even if the humans don’t know it.”
“I don’t get why they’d go to all that trouble,” I said. “Is the community anti-Sup?”
“Not overtly,” Marian said. “There’s a vampire coven in the area, although they keep to themselves.”
“Ronan’s group,” I said.
Marian nodded. “You know him?”
I felt Connor’s curious stare. “Only that he keeps to himself. My father knows him, but not well. I didn’t think the coven was closeted.” Or nothing my father had said had given me that impression.
“They aren’t. But it’s a small group, and they live several miles outside town. In my experience,” Marian said, “humans simply don’t think much about them. More odd neighbors than Sups. Which, frankly, is pretty much how humans saw the resort—an odd community.”
Nodding, I savored the last bite of soup, licked the spoon clean.
“More?” Marian asked, walking over and claiming a spot at the table with her mug.
“No, thank you. That was perfect.” And I didn’t want to slosh on the next part of the ride.
“The shifters don’t admit that’s the reason, of course,” Arne said. “That they want to keep their standing among the humans. They say the issue is privacy. If humans don’t know they’re shifters, humans won’t watch them, obsess over their magic, try to use them for it.”
“It’s probably a little of both,” Connor said, and glanced at me. “About a third of the Pack still passes for humans.”
“So many,” I said quietly. So many unable to be honest. Tied by circumstances, or decisions, to pretending. It bothered me more than I would have thought, probably in part because I’d been able to be an “obvious” vampire. There’d been no need to hide—and it wouldn’t have even been possible, given my parents’ fame.
“They spend a lot of time trying to hide who they are,” Marian said quietly. “We didn’t want our girls growing up like that, having to worry about every little thing they did or said, whether that would spill the secret. So we left, found a new community, and have been completely up-front.”
Arne nodded. “It seemed to us that if any parents were going to worry about their kids being friends with shifters, it would be easier to be be honest. For the parents to make a conscious decision.”
“Worked for us growing up,” Connor said. I think he’d meant to include me. And while he was partially right—my childhood had been as “normal” as my parents could make it—humans had a very different relationship with vampires than with shifters. Shifters were intriguing; vampires were dangerous.
“It’s worked pretty well here. A few parents opted out, but the girls have a really nice group of friends.” Marian fished the tea bag out of her mug, set it aside. “We’re happy here. And if we need to be with the clan, the Pack, we can go to Grand Bay.”
“And Grand Bay?” Connor asked. “What are you hearing from there?”
Marian’s brows lifted. “You should know, since you’re headed that way, no?”