Epilogue

Several hours later, I found Beatrice outside in her courtyard as dawn was approaching. Everyone else had left, so only family remained. If this had been my first wedding, perhaps I'd have been long gone, but this was the third such event if you counted my bonding—which I did.

"Grandmother of mine," I said quietly, staring at a pig with the jacket. "Does that pig seem familiar?"

"I warned him." She took a delicate sip of the shiraz she was drinking. A bottle and empty glass sat on a pub table with a linen tablecloth. "Drink?"

"You warned the pig . . .?" I gestured toward the angry-looking pig as I accepted a glass of wine from her.

As she poured my drink, Beatrice gave me that look that said I was a little dim. Then her frown of irritation twisted into a cold grin of victory. "Piggy Iggy."

"Ignatius, the Hexen Master, is . . . a pig." I stared at him as he rolled in the water and muck that Beatrice's caterers had poured out into the garden. It was fascinating because I could see Iggy's intellect in the pig's expression, but he was still, in behavior, a pig.

"I invited him for a drink, during which I warned him that I was not going to tolerate affronts to my family," Beatrice said in a prim voice, as if centuries had faded from her. Her diction was less crisp as her emotion quarreled with her elocution. "A woman expects more from former paramours. Did I ask for eternity? Did I ask for fidelity?"

"No," I guessed.

"Precisely. I asked for simple respect, and yet he failed. He ought to have understood that making eyes at—"

"Making eyes," I echoed with a forcefully suppressed laugh.

Beatrice waved her hand and stared at me. "It was unseemly, Geneviève."

"To make eyes at me," I clarified, as a member of the catering team chased Iggy away from the door.

"Boorish. He was being boorish." Beatrice cracked a smile. "So . . . voila. He is a boar. It is a pun, you see? Your mother was telling me of puns."

"Mama Lauren knows you turned Iggy into a . . .pun-pig?" I asked carefully.

My centuries-old grandmother studied her nails as if she were a teenager caught in a lie. "Not precisely. If she weren't so ethical, I could tell her. I thought it was best not to mention before the wedding."

So, I did the only possible thing I could--I gave in to my laughter and pulled her into a hug. Then I whispered, "If you were around when I was a kid, I think Mama Lauren would've grounded us both."

When I pulled back from hugging her, she asked, "Piggy Iggy is better than a head in a box, yes? I did not kill him. He is a temporary pig."

She gestured with her glass before topping off both our drinks.

And I thought back to her holiday gift last year: a silver foil-wrapped box with bold blue ribbons. In the box was the severed head of a man who'd shot at me with the broach of a draugr who'd attacked me jabbed into the forehead of the dead man.

"Equally unexpected," I allowed.

Then the wickedest smile came over her. Fangs glinting, she said "We have a family tradition then . . ."

Quashing thoughts of what sort of gifts followed severed heads and pigs, I nodded. "We do, indeed. Perhaps the holiday season will be more interesting for it."

She lifted her glass to me. "To defeating our enemies with festive spirits!"

I lifted my glass to hers. "To family."

She smiled at me, and then she toasted Piggy Iggy with a malicious grin.

As I drained the glass, I couldn't decide whether Eli or I landed the most terrifying in-laws. Far King or Draugr Queen? Both were ferocious.

Either way, I felt certain of both the love and the strength we had at our sides. Whatever came next, we were not alone in facing it.