“Because his bringing me home was a gift for you. Not because he wants to be with me.”
“You’re determined to find problems with us.” Kage looked at me sadly. “If it’s Isaac or Zar, or you plain don’t fancy us, why not admit it? Don’t make this all about your human views of relationships.”
“Yes, personal views cloud my judgement, but I’m human. I’m sorry. Even sexual orientation is something I’m used to thinking of in fairly rigid terms. While you all don’t even think of it—either you’re into someone or you’re not. I admire that. I wish human society was so non-judgmental. But sometimes we aren’t. By the same token, you don’t even have a word for open relationships. To me … it’s something to think about. Not necessarily bad. Just … different.” I sighed. “Also, you’re right. I already admitted my real problem right now isn’t you or Jason. It’s me having to leave. I really appreciate your opening up and telling me how you feel. I guess it’s true we’ve never had any real alone time to talk about anything like—”
“Right place, right time—
“And I’ll do my best as far as teaching,” I plowed on. “On the other hand, if we can keep a little distance in—”
“What about this Moon?” Again.
I stopped, looking into his intense eyes. I was the first to drop my gaze.
When I didn’t answer, both hands withdrawn to my lap, Kage spoke briskly. “I have to do chores until escorting Jay. Dinner with us? Then we’ll get everyone together once Andrew and Isaac are home. Go to London tonight—or waiting for Friday night would be easier on the worm servants.”
“Time is of the essence,” I said quietly. “We may be there tonight and Friday and the weekend… Does Diana have the Blood Tome? And where are Max’s bones? I’d like to take time here and really scry and work through some images I haven’t dealt with.”
“Atarah has the book. Zar has the bones. Ask him yourself.”
“He’s at the workshop?”
“No.” Kage stood to put away his groceries from the sack on the floor. “He’s walking here right now.”
Chapter 6
Kage had heard Zar’s steps as he approached. I, however, was momentarily bewildered. I stood, leaving my salad box on the counter, and checked out the window. By then, Zar was already knocking.
“Cassia?” Voice uncertain, Zar sounded like he didn’t believe I could be here.
I opened the door. “Zar—”
“Moon.” He gasped, stepped to the threshold, and hugged me. “Merab told me—” Laughing. “What—? How did you get here? I thought you were in the States?” He moved back with a jerk, eyes wide. “What the bloody hell?” Zar had obviously seen the place in its previous condition.
Kage ignored him, putting away the rest of the cheese wheel.
“I got in late last night,” I told Zar. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to say hi this morning. I’ve been … meditating.”
“You cleaned this place? Moon, Sun, and stars…”
“Zar? As long as you’re here, Kage says you have Max’s bones? I’d like to get the bag from you if I can. And the book from Atarah.”
“Sure.” He was still looking around. “Blimey, this is a day of surprises. Did you sleep here?” Sudden added alarm.
“Come on. Thank you very much, Kage. I’ll see you two later.” I pushed Zar back out by his arm while Kage watched us go.
Out in afternoon sun, all Zar’s attention returned to me.
“How did you get here? I didn’t hear you. What are you doing? What happened?”
“I rescheduled my flight and got a cab from the train station—”
“You should have called. You could have stayed with us.” When he said “called” I knew he meant visit, not a phone call.
“I don’t even know where you live, Zar. As soon as I got here, I ran into Jason and he helped me.”
Zar’s deep brown eyes took on an almost comically sorrowful expression. “Next time, if you ever need anything… I’ll show you. I’ve got Max as guest of honor now, but you may take his place any time.”
I laughed at that. “Do I have salad in my teeth?” Shouldn’t have run out the door, but I couldn’t have spared a bathroom trip and left the two of them together.
“Not unless it’s hidden.” After giving my teeth only a quick squint, he kissed me as we walked, hand across my waist. Still in broad sight of the kitchen window we were walking away from.
“Okay, I’m glad to see you also, but—”
“I forgot. I thought—but no.” He was breathless. “I was afraid I’d never see you again, Cassia. You’re Moon glow on the first leaves of spring. You’re the rainbow that appears in sea foam on lonely beaches right before Sun sets. And I forgot. In two and a half days … trying to hold onto your face, your scent… I don’t even have a photograph. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and still it’s not the same. There’s no way a memory or a poem or song or a million paintings can capture the truth of the first spring Moon glow or the span of the saltwater rainbow. When you were gone, the leaves fell, Sun set, color faded, waves dried. Memories … they’re never enough. Not like having you here.”
Zar spoke as fast as a roller coaster, walking to another row of homes before he stopped outside a blue one. “I haven’t slept a night since you left. And Jed’s in trouble again. Did they tell you? He went out when you were about to go to the airport, early yesterday morning before dawn, and sat in the willow trees where he’s been digging and he sang. He wouldn’t stop. We’re not allowed to sing in fur. You have to stay in skin if you want to do that. Got in all kinds of trouble and now he’s on lockdown even though he was supposed to have guard rotation all weekend.”
“I’m sorry. I should—”
“Does everyone else know and we were the last to hear? Are we going back to London to find the vampires? We should go with fur. It was horrible the night before. We could all only think about you and it was raining and that city’s a disgrace—it’s obscene. But when we were there with you… You gave us focus. Or perhaps it was you being the calming force because you could manage the city better. Isaac gets around. He lived in Edinburgh. But it’s not the same without you. Then leaving … no one said a thing. All wet and miserable. There was your ghost with us that no one mentioned.”
“Zar—”
“Isaac’s hardly said a word. Jed never said anything anyway, but he just stayed in fur, didn’t do work, until he sang and Zacharias came down on his nose personally. It’s bad when Zacharias gets involved. I tried to stop Jed and he only fought me. He was fighting everyone who tried to stop him, then taking off. Everyone was up by then and they caught him with a bolas. It’s a horrible thing to be hit in the paws with a bolas. Like a trip wire and ball and chain all at once. So he wasn’t talking anyway. But Isaac’s been in a bad way too. And Andrew lost his job. Doesn’t even care. Isaac wanted him along for London, but we couldn’t find him. He’s in trouble about that because we’re not supposed to go off alone now, but he took his bike and left.
“Kage and Jason went with us to London and they’ve been savage. Something each night, but I heard them early last night in particular, after twilight, with the rain coming down. It was about you. I could only catch part of what they said. I know Jason thinks he can just fill that space. Like humans keep pets. That’s what Kage was shouting at him that he was acting like. Like Kage’s pet left and he’d just get another one and then he’d be happy again. Kage needed time like the rest of us, like Andrew going off and Jed singing and me lying awake all night and writing. I’ve written all your songs. I’ve never written songs so fast. I’m sure they’re appalling, but I couldn’t stop, trying not to forget every detail, to make a word photograph.
“So Kage wanted space, some time, like a death, a minute with the ghost. I heard him cursing Jason, telling him to go home to his mum and Kage didn’t want to see him again until he said so. ‘If ever.’ I thought they were done. It was sharp ice, the stuff Kage said. Real vile about Jason
being glad you were gone and driving you away. Bunch of rot. I know Jason’s a dark star—I’m no pal of either of them. But he didn’t do anything to you, did he? He was chuffed in Cornwall when you looked after him. Seemed he’d follow you anywhere for that. Kage was just saying it because Jason kept being in his face about being there for him like the new pet. Moon, he picked bad timing. I hadn’t realized Kage was so attached. He acts like he’s above it all, doesn’t he? Like Jed. Could be Jason didn’t know either. I saw Jason out like usual this morning to meet Peter at the bikes so I guess they’re sorted. Or you sorted them. Maybe the only thing that could have.”
“I never—”
“I’ve been in the shop all day, thinking about it and how … lost we are. Thinking we’ve got to keep going. We couldn’t crack up because of one loss and throw this away. We have to keep pressing on. Find that vampire, take the bones, find these killers. No more deaths. No more goodbyes. And I was thinking what can we do, what do we need? All day with the leather, stitching and thinking. I kept coming back to you. What we needed was you: your silver and heart and magic. And that was the one thing we didn’t have anymore.”
“Zar, please—”
“Then Merab was in and she asked if I knew you were here at Kage and Jason’s. It didn’t make sense. But I had to get over there, find out. And, Moon, here you are … rainbow … Moon glow… And you’re not like any of the songs or memory images or scents or metaphors… You’re so much more. And I thought … I’d never see you again…”
As he was at long last talking himself out, facing me in front of a long flowerbed and a bright blue door, gazing into my eyes, I put my arms around him. I pressed my fingers into his wavy black hair, my other hand at his back—Zar’s face in my hair, inhaling deeply, arms tight—and held onto him for a long, long time.
Chapter 7
Zar lived with his mother and brother in a double-wide, painted inside and out in various shades of blue, from deep indigo to off-white. The place smelled of leather, fading summer wisteria that climbed an outside corner of the home, its scent drifting in through open windows, and slightly of an animal aroma that I’d thought at first in Kage’s Jeep was wet dog. Now I knew better.
Zar, still breathless and flushed, introduced me to his mother, Keziah, inside. She sat at the kitchen table in afternoon sunlight, slipping beads onto the fringe of a leather purse with what looked like the smallest crochet hook I’d ever seen. She was probably a leatherworker herself and now did finishing touches for them.
“Mum—Cassia. She’s come back. She didn’t go home to the States.” Zar stepped over to kiss his mother’s cheek as she looked up and smiled.
Much older than I’d expected, her hair was white, long and smooth, not wavy and curly like her songs, hands very thin on her work, although her face was only gently lined. Her left eye was closed, perhaps missing, with scar tissue over the lid and back along the left side of her face.
She set down her work to offer her left hand, turning her head to see me properly with her good eye.
“Cassia… The witch? A privilege.” Her voice was incredibly soft, making me want to bend over to be closer. Like listening to cobwebs.
I pressed her cool, silky hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you also.”
“I saw you at the council meeting, when they first brought you,” she went on. “I’m sorry about Jed. Your introduction to the pack was handled poorly.”
“It’s all right.” I smiled. “Anyway, Kage was the ringleader of the kidnapping scheme. Your sons have been invaluable in this investigation. I hope we can all keep working together.”
“You will have to speak with Zacharias if you mean Jed to go out with you now. He’s on lockdown again.”
“Maybe not right this minute anyway. But I will do that if it comes to it. Would they lift it if I asked them to?”
“They will grant a wolf out on lockdown under special circumstances and under supervision of a silver willing to assume full responsibility.”
I nodded. “Hopefully we won’t need to ask. Thanks for the warning, though.”
Zar led me to the second bedroom down the hall, in pursuit of Max’s bones, which he told his mother we were after. Informing her of what we were doing struck me as so juvenile it made me uncomfortable. It reminded me that—I was pretty sure—her son had lost his virginity to me a mere few nights ago, though only pretty sure because we’d never discussed it.
While the rest of the place was soft blues, tidy and bright, clearly the matriarch’s domain, Zar’s bedroom was gloomy with the blinds down, rattling slightly in the breeze through the open window.
I expected a lot of leather. Instead, this was relegated to one desk and shelf where he did apparently have take-home work and small or personal projects. What the room was actually full of were books: old books, new books, self-published spiral-bounds compiled by the pack, glossy coffee table books from major publishers, paperbacks, hardcovers, one entire floor-to-ceiling shelf of books on music—composing, songwriting, theory and history—and more.
Another shelf was all from the magical world. Lore and history, accounts by his own kind and books that I recognized, published by witches and magi in our small community, on topics like history, herb lore, and studying the faie—called elementals, nature’s spirits, or kindred depending on who you asked.
The faie were shy magical beings which accounted for any number of myths and legends among the mundane world, from ferries to unicorns. I had never seen one in person, though they’d visited Nana. There were ways to summon and communicate with them if they decided you were a friend. I’d never had the knack.
Still more of his books were novels and comic books in super hero, epic fantasy, and sci-fi genres. No wonder he was a bit confused as to what humans were really like if he’d had little personal contact, believed the rumors his aunt had told him, and also read these. Stacked on top of one shelf, having run out of room, were several mass market paperback romances. He’d surely not read them yet or he might have had some better ideas about women. Probably meaning to for his research, though.
His musical instruments hung on the wall in their protective cases. There were notebooks, pens, pencils, sheet music, and a flute scattered on the low platform bed and desk. The only real mess in the room, though, were overflow stacks of books sitting on the floor against the full shelves, sometimes a couple feet high.
Zar rushed to snatch up notebooks and other bed litter and move it all to the desk, straightening the quilted bedspread as he did.
“Have a seat. Oberleutnant Walkenhorst is right here. Care for a drink? We don’t have coffee … but I could get some from Merab.”
“Nothing, thank you.” I sat on the corner of the bed. The bedspread was navy, which made me uneasy. All bed linens should be a light color lest one not be able to see a spider on there. “I’m not staying long. And I know you need to get back to work. Maybe you could help me get the Blood Tome, though?”
Zar pulled out a chair on the wood floor and dragged Max’s duffel bag from below his desk. I would have found it disconcerting to have Max in the bedroom with me. Zar smiled fondly at the black bag, resting it on the chair.
“He’s been over three countries and around London with us. A real pal is Max.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I told him we’d get him back to his friend. I think he was pleased. He wanted to know what it was all about.” Zar smiled at me as well. “Digging him up and bunging him in a bag? Pretty rotten thing to do. I told him how it was and he settled down.”
“You are the most sentimental person I’ve ever known.”
“Sorry.”
“I didn’t mean that like a criticism. I’m just … surprised. As a human, even a caster, I suppose I was raised with certain prejudices about ‘werewolves.’ Their fanciful plans for lifetimes of breakfasts in bed and concern to soothe nerves of hundred-year-old corpses never came up. I admire your compassion.”
His smile returned in a slow spre
ad like sunlight creeping into a room. “You remember our breakfast plans…”
“Oh, don’t worry. That conversation is burned in my brain for life.”
“Was I too pushy?”
“Not at all. ‘Crazed’ is the word you’re looking for.”
“I still want to bring you breakfast in bed. But only if that’s what you want.” He stared at me with that intense, yet almost glazed look he tended to get whenever he looked at me too long when we were alone. “I want to make you happy, Cass. I can’t believe you’re here. You were sent by Moon—Moon’s blessing to our pack, to me.”
I started to tell him he was overrating me. I may be occasionally able to pull out some powerful magic, but that didn’t make me a saint, or savior, or heroine. I was just a witch who was pretty sure I could help these people I loved if I hurried.
I stopped. Instead, I said, as he walked forward, “I’m the one blessed, Zar.”
He kissed me, bending over to my seat on the low bed, fingers of his right hand twined in mine, left hand reaching to stroke my face. He felt like quiet spaces in meditation groves, like moonlight on waterfalls and watching a sunset. And he felt like we were just down the hall from his mom, sneaking around after school.
I turned to kiss his palm and he buried his nose in my hair. His lips caressed my ear, his tongue and kisses traced my jaw. His hand tasted of leather and salt as I licked the hint of sweat from his palm.
When he moved down to my neck, I pressed my fingers to his lips and pushed him back while he kissed them.
“Zar? You know I’m only here for…?” I spoke in a whisper without meaning to. And could not finish.
He watched my eyes above my hand, still close. His hair had fallen around his face as he’d leaned in. I started to reach to push it back. Again, I stopped myself. Only looking back to his unlined face, those deep brown eyes fixed on mine. He wasn’t square-jawed like his brother, but apparently took after his mother’s more willowy makeup.
Moonlight Heart: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 4) Page 5