Chapter Four

Duke

On the day of the funeral, I gave myself the job of keeping Teddy upright. Syre followed me around through the process of getting dressed and while Teddy and I choked down some toast and orange juice. Neither of us had much of an appetite that morning. It almost felt like a betrayal to eat good food while Lotus was dead.

Syre rubbed circles on my back and on Teddy's back sometimes too when the sobbing came back. The fog of grief settled over us all and we walked around patting and hugging each other as if that's how we'd make it through. Dad had slept on the balcony the night before. I had plans to go up and help him get dressed, but once again my carrier beat me to it. It was probably for the best. Sequin and Daliah were glued to each other, but neither glanced in Teddy's direction if they could help it.

"They don't know how to handle me," Teddy sniffed in the garden, when the three of us went out for fresh air. "Hell, I don't know how to handle me right now."

"You're doing fine," Syre said before I could speak.

He lost his bio sire recently enough that I knew this wasn't easy for him. I patted his back, but Syre shook his head. We'd revisit his pain later when the loss of Lotus wasn't so fresh and raw. Grief carved itself onto skin, tattooing us with hollow spaces that nothing filled up.

Clarence Moonscale, the leader of the Moonscale Flight, had given special permission for a funeral pyre to be built on the property. Usually, one had to go to a specially assigned location for such things, but there was no way Grandpa Cromwell and his cane would make the walk across that field and no one was going to ask him to.

Hammering pounded into all our brains as we got ready and tried to squeeze all our pieces into suits and dresses. Zoey and Daliah did up Lotus's makeup and hair. Xander, Zoey, and their girlfriend, whose name I couldn't remember, arrived before the sun that morning. Zoey's wails tore through the house over and over. Only once she was with Lotus, preparing her to be seen one last time did she fall silent.

When they were finished, everyone already gathered at the house filed into the study that was set up to be the viewing room. Teddy sobbed and I slipped my arm under his to keep him upright and kissed his temple. There his mother was all laid out in her pretty yellow dress with her yellow, blonde hair fanned out around her head. Someone, probably her mother, fanned out flowers all around her as if she'd simply fallen asleep in the garden.

Daliah stood beside her mother, stroking her hair. Big, sloppy tears ran down her cheeks. Zoey sat on Xander's lap nearby holding her girlfriend's hand. He was humming a Grim Howler's song, but through the fog I couldn't place which one it was. Xander was here. Jonah Dad was here. Was Uncle Micah coming?

"Their plane just landed," Jonah appeared at my shoulder and kissed my cheek.

Sequin leaned against the wall closet to where Lotus was laid out. His were glazed over as if being present took too much energy that he didn't have. Grandpa Cromwell sat in a chair near him and reached over to pat his hand every few seconds.

None of us were okay. It didn't matter how much she wanted us to be okay. None of us were okay that day.

"Are we allowed to go closer?" Teddy asked

"As close as you want," I nodded.

We crossed the room and stood by her side. Someone had dragged in a slab that looked like an altar. Teddy stroked her hand before taking it in his. He whispered something I couldn't make out, but that was okay. He wasn't talking to me. He was trying to mutter out the last words he might ever say to his mother.

The study doors swung open and everyone turned to look. There was Dad all dressed up in his blue wedding robes. Dad and Lotus didn't have the big wedding their families wanted right away, but eventually they gave in and let them have their party. Now, Dad was decked out in the robes he wore for their wedding ceremony. My inner beast fell over inside his inner sanctum and my knees buckled under me. Something about him in those ceremonial robes striding across the room to stand next to his dead mate was too much.

Teddy went down with me, hugging me close as grief tried to rip out my chest too. We cried together, with Jonah and Syre squatted down trying to soothe us. Nothing could soothe us now. We were too far gone, and I didn't have a clue how long it would take us to find our way back to normal, if you ever could after something like this.

Grandpa Cromwell shouted for the staff to move one of the sofas near Lotus. Then Jonah and Syre pulled us to our feet so that we could sit down there. Dad sat down on the arm, facing away from us and stroking Lotus's hair. How had life come to this? How could she be okay at the picnic and dead now? How could she have been okay on the phone last week but dead now? How did a whole fucking person die and disappear? Who the fuck made us and plopped us down in a system so fucking cruel that it could only end in heart break?

Zoey handed me a velvet bag and I almost pushed it away thinking she was trying to feed me. She'd trimmed Lotus's hair before we came in. She clipped locks for everyone. Teddy shoved his inside his suit pocket and held his fist over the spot where it sat. Then he sobbed again, and it was contagious. How could she be gone? How could she not be here?

The guests who weren't family or close friends were sent outside early. Everyone whispered their goodbyes to her. I tried hard not to listen in. I couldn't hold any more turmoil inside me. I stood by Teddy as he said goodbye. I didn't have any words. She was my fourth parent even if I hadn't seen her as often as I would've liked. How did you say goodbye to someone like that? How had my siblings managed when she was their carrier?

"Thank you, Mama Lotus," I whispered. "I love you." They were the only words I had.

Eventually, we all headed for the field except for Dad and Grandpa Cromwell. Clarence had arranged for a team of alphas to carry out the whole slab of stone with her on it but her mate and father wouldn't hear of a band of strangers carrying her to the funeral pyre. I didn't blame them. It should be someone she knew and loved.